Even After My Death
Chapter 292 - 209: Director Chen: Pray, Quickly Get Another Trending Topic

Chapter 292: Chapter 209: Director Chen: Pray, Quickly Get Another Trending Topic

At this instant, Zhang Lang’s admiration for Jiang Ning almost solidified into something tangible!

He couldn’t wait to learn from Jiang Ning herself about her current whereabouts, eager to rush over to help, when he heard Jiang Ning’s voice, "I am now in Q City, the criminal has already been captured by the local police."

"...Q City?" Zhang Lang was surprised for a moment, then quickly recovered and asked, "Then you’re okay?"

Jiang Ning is amazing, wherever she goes she bumps into KPI!

"I’m fine," Jiang Ning went straight to the point, "I just made an anonymous report, but I have some clues about this criminal, and I’d like to provide them to you. Please forward them to the Q City police."

Jiang Ning had just seen that the two girls who had been brought to the hotel by the agent seemed to be of age; otherwise, the agent wouldn’t have sacrificed himself so nobly to let Chen Jia leave and stayed in the room himself.

For the sake of speeding up the police response, Jiang Ning deliberately mentioned the words "drug use."

Actually, neither Chen Jia nor the agent had touched anything of that nature. Now that all four were taken away by the police, at most they would charge Chen Jia with the act of soliciting prostitution.

In the long list of victims provided by the System, the crimes committed by the two were obviously not so simple.

Jiang Ning didn’t directly give the list to the police just now because she temporarily couldn’t explain where this list had come from.

Given this, it was better to hand it over to Zhang Lang.

The two had been in contact a few times before, and Jiang Ning had a vague feeling that Zhang Lang might have some misunderstandings about her. Just like the previous incidents of capturing criminals, not only would Zhang Lang not probe her thoroughly, but he would also cover for her.

"Sure, you can send the evidence over, and I’ll get in touch with the colleagues there," Zhang Lang readily agreed.

"Good," Jiang Ning instructed the System in her mind to transfer the list to her phone while reminding Zhang Lang, "This list was obtained by chance, just like before, I hope my name won’t be mentioned."

"Understood, understood!" Zhang Lang immediately got the hint, "Provided anonymously by the public, to serve the people!"

Jiang Ning nodded in satisfaction, feeling that her intuition was indeed correct—Zhang Lang was quite amenable.

After the System transferred the file to Jiang Ning’s phone, Jiang Ning opened it to check for any errors before forwarding it to Zhang Lang’s WeChat.

At this time, Qi Xingzhou, who had been crouched in front of the washstand washing his hands, finally came out. Jiang Ning looked at his dripping wet hands, his originally fair and slender hands were now red and almost rubbed raw!

Yet Qi Xingzhou seemed oblivious to the pain. He looked at his hands and frowned, his expression profoundly dissatisfied, "So dirty."

"Where is it dirty?" Jiang Ning came over, held his hand to have a closer look, and commented, "It’s not dirty at all, it’s handsome and impressive. You knocked that bad guy down, and he couldn’t even get up, just like a toad."

Flushed with praise, Qi Xingzhou’s expression eased, and the stickiness and discomfort from hitting someone dissipated in an instant with Jiang Ning’s brief words.

As Jiang Ning held his hand, she used only the pads of her three fingers to gently elevate his wrist. The area of skin contact between them wasn’t large; Qi Xingzhou’s gaze drooped, his thick eyelashes casting a faint shadow over his eyelids.

He focused on the spot where their skin touched, feeling the cool touch from Jiang Ning’s fingertips on his wrist.

Qi Xingzhou felt elated, his mind filled with only one thought: he wanted more of Jiang Ning’s touch, to be closer to her.

But Jiang Ning soon withdrew her hand.

Not only did she pull her hand back, but she also checked out of the hotel and took Qi Xingzhou away from the establishment.

Meanwhile, on the other side.

After ending the call with Jiang Ning, Zhang Lang curiously opened the file she had sent, realizing it was indeed a list.

Zhang Lang zoomed in on the list with curiosity, and upon recognizing what type of list it was by the top two lines of writing, he slammed his hand down hard on the desk!

This is outrageous!

In this day and age, there were still such scum!

Zhang Lang already had a certain understanding and confidence in Jiang Ning’s abilities due to her previous swift and decisive actions in capturing criminals, so he did not doubt the authenticity of the list.

That’s why he felt so angry!

Several girls on the list were only thirteen or fourteen years old, at an age that needed care, when they understood nothing!

These social scumbags, their existence is a waste of fresh air!

Let him see... Hmm? Chen Jia?

Zhang Lang frowned; this name, why did it seem so familiar?

After thinking for a while and not coming up with who it could be, Zhang Lang gave up and called his colleagues in Q City to inquire whether they had caught a criminal named Chen Jia.

Q City covered an area of thousands of square kilometers, with a population close to ten million. Not to mention the surrounding towns and countryside, just the urban areas were home to several public security bureaus and police stations.

Through internal communication, Zhang Lang quickly learned that the Q City Public Security indeed captured two men and two women in an illicit relationship at a hotel in the afternoon—Chen Jia and his agent—thanks to an anonymous tip provided by the public.

Colleagues in Q City connected with Zhang Lang and couldn’t help saying, "Where did you get this information? We just brought the people back and haven’t had the chance to interrogate them yet, and your call followed right on the heels of their arrest."

"Someone just anonymously provided me with a list, so I wanted to ask." Zhang Lang inquired, "What are these two charged with?"

"What else could it be? Two men and two women staying in one room, it’s nothing but that sort of thing."

"The entertainment industry is really messy. A big star messing around with men and women in a room, and the agent keeping watch in the living room. When the scandal breaks out, the big star runs away, and the agent is left to take the fall. Tell me, isn’t that something?"

"These young girls are also dizzy with infatuation, chasing after a star and ending up in his bed. No matter how pretty, can that be eaten? They’re young, and if something really happens, in the end, they’re the only ones who get hurt."

The words of the Q City colleague hit Zhang Lang like a hammer blow to the head.

He knew!

No wonder he found the name Chen Jia familiar. Wasn’t this the male celebrity who had risen to fame in the entertainment industry in the past two years?

No wonder so many girls had fallen prey to him; no wonder no one had reported to the police since the incident occurred!

Many things that he couldn’t make sense of suddenly became clear.

Zhang Lang’s expression turned grave as he spoke into the phone, "This might not be an ordinary solicitation incident. I’ve received an anonymous tip-off list regarding Chen Jia that you need to verify."

Upon hearing this, his colleague in Q City became equally serious, "Send it over, and we’ll investigate on our end."

Zhang Lang: "Okay."

Then, Zhang Lang immediately forwarded the file that Jiang Ning had just sent him.

The colleagues in Q City received it without a hitch.

Chen Jia and his agent were sitting separately in the interrogation room, waiting for the police to question them. At this moment, Chen Jia was filled with thoughts of the overwhelming impact that the exposure of his solicitation could have on his career should the media get wind of it.

At this point, Chen Jia was unaware that some of his other misdeeds had been completely uncovered by the System. He assumed this was just a normal incident of a man soliciting prostitutes and that, at most, he’d face an administrative fine and detention without further consequences.

Little did he know, he might never again have the chance to walk out of prison in his lifetime.

...

Meanwhile, after making the call to Hao Manman, Director Chen made calls to the other actors who attended the offline event that afternoon, asking everyone to clarify and speak well of the incident in front of the media, given that they were all eyewitnesses on the scene.

He tried to call Chen Jia, but there was no answer. Director Chen didn’t think much of it at the time. After hanging up, he continued to call the other actors. After finishing those calls, seeing that Chen Jia still hadn’t returned his call, he decided to call Chen Jia’s agent, only to discover that no one answered there either!

Director Chen furrowed his brows.

The assistant director, sitting beside him, noticed his sudden pause in making calls and asked, "All done?"

"Not yet," Director Chen replied, "For some reason, there’s no answer from either Chen Jia or his agent."

"Isn’t that normal? Just call them later." The assistant director, browsing on his smartphone, suddenly said, "The first call you made was to Hao Manman, right? She still hasn’t made a statement; what’s she playing at?"

On hearing this, Director Chen couldn’t help but open Mengbo to see Hao Manman’s page.

His very first call had been to Hao Manman and now, more than ten minutes had passed, yet Hao Manman still hadn’t issued a statement?

As for the incident during this afternoon’s commercial event, it was unexpected that the stray dog appeared, but Hao Manman was not entirely blameless.

If it weren’t for her falling to the ground, but instead holding on to the item the stray dog brought to her, it would have been a perfect offline promotion.

Instead, because of Hao Manman’s own fault, the entire crew had to take the blame on her behalf.

Why did he call Hao Manman first? It was to get her to clarify the situation as quickly as possible.

The sooner Hao Manman stood up to clarify, the sooner they could reverse the crew’s negative impression in the minds of the netizens.

If they allowed the incident’s popularity to keep fermenting, the box office for his new drama might start to plummet in a straight line from tonight on!

"What the hell is Hao Manman doing? Not clarifying for so long? Does her company’s team need that long to draft a statement?"

Director Chen was utterly baffled.

Spreading rumors is as easy as opening one’s mouth, but quashing them takes a lot of legwork.

Watching the ranking of the afternoon’s incident climb on the trending searches, Director Chen secretly prayed for another, more explosive entertainment news to emerge at this moment, something that could help divert attention away from them.

Although he genuinely wished to leverage the event of Dahuang bringing gifts to trend on social media that afternoon, the trending searches he wanted were not of the sort happening now!

He hoped other celebrities in the entertainment circle would break some news and come to the rescue of his new drama!

Director Chen prayed most devoutly for this.