Card Room (Rebirth)

Chapter 278: Drawing Cards

As the murderer, Qiao Xuening took the initiative to plead guilty during the interrogation and 9 of Hearts finally ended. Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou had collected all the information and the time to solve the case was very short. This time, they undoubtedly got a perfect clearance score of S for this secret room.

The alibi that Qiao Xuening made was almost impeccable. Fortunately, it was a modern secret room this time. The fingerprint identification gave Yu Hanjiang great help. Otherwise, it would be really difficult to tell which one was the real Qiao Xuening and which was the fake.

Everyone returned to their personal space again. A of Hearts smiled at them. “Congratulations for once again getting a perfect clearance score of S. Please collect your rewards.”

The first reward after a perfect clearance was the plot card. The plot card would play the entire process of the case from a god’s perspective and some details that hadn’t been clarified would be shown. Yu Hanjiang took the plot card and opened it. A big screen appeared in front of everyone and started playing the plot.

In the Liang Ting case, it was as everyone expected. Jin Xiaoyue took advantage of the timing to get the takeout to put the poison into Liang Ting’s thermos. It was the Lin Yiyan case that creeped everyone out. This plot card started from Lin Yiyan’s university era.

In their second year, Lin Yiyan and Qi Ming went to participate in an interview for the online drama. In fact, the director at the time liked Qiao Xuening while the agent Qi Ming liked Lin Yiyan.

In order to get this opportunity to play the heroine, Lin Yiyan hooked up with the Starlight Entertainment member who was in charge of this project and would later become her agent, Qi Ming. Meanwhile, Qiao Xuening hooked up with the director who was old enough to be her father.

In the same hotel…

The director hugged Qiao Xuening and promised her with a smile, “Xiao Qiu, don’t worry. This role must be yours.”

Qi Ming put his arms around Lin Yiyan and said the same thing. “In my heart, you are the most suitable candidate to be the female lead. Our company is the investor and I am in charge of this project. I can ask the director to make you the female lead.”

Lin Yiyan blushed and squeezed Qi Ming’s hand. “Brother Ming, I’m not with you just for a role. I really like a mature and stable man like you. You are my ideal boyfriend. I just want to be with you all the time.”

Ye Qi couldn’t help being stunned when he saw this. “This Lin Yiyan is really too good at acting!”

Qi Ming was coaxed by her gentle words. The next day, he went to the company to find Shao Qingge and said, “Chief Shao, among the girls I saw during the audition, there is one called Lin Yiyan who has an outstanding appearance and her temperament is in line with the role. She is determined and her acting skills are good. I think it is better to set her to play the female lead.”

Shao Qingge said, “This project is your responsibility. You decide.”

Everyone saw Chief Shao appear in the plot movie and glanced sideways at him. Shao Qingge touched his forehead. “This is a friendly cameo but A of Hearts didn’t give me a performance fee!”

Ye Qi complained. “The root of everything is this web drama in their second year. Before this, the two of them hadn’t acted in a drama. This is also the first time they participated in an interview. In order to get the role, both of them slept with someone. However, Lin Yiyan was better at finding the right person and her acting was very good. Qi Ming was moved by her ‘true’ feelings.”

Relatively speaking, Qiao Xuening wasn’t as sweet as Lin Yiyan. The final result was predictable. The investor was the boss and sometimes the director couldn’t do anything. The financial backer wanted Lin Yiyan to play the leading role. How could the director object? As a result, Qiao Xuening’s plan fell through and Lin Yiyan successfully became the female lead.

At that time, Qiao Xuening hadn’t known about it. She thought the investor had found a big star to act as the female lead and could only admit that she was unlucky. Unexpectedly, once the main roles were announced, the female lead column stated ‘Lin Yiyan’ and she understood everything.

For a long time after that, Lin Yiyan relied on the help of the ace agent Qi Ming to become well-known in the entertainment circle. Meanwhile, Qiao Xuening didn’t give up after the first interview. She continued to look for other opportunities while playing some supporting roles to accumulate acting experience.

A few years later, Lin Yiyan and Qiao Xuening met again at a class gathering. Qiao Xuening showed a good performance and gave Lin Yiyan an expensive, limited edition bag that she bought after saving for two years. She pretended to be a good friend while giving the bag and spoke a lot of compliments. She recalled the simple times when they were classmates and went to the library together.

Lin Yiyan was very comfortable with her flattery and thought that having a friend in the entertainment circle was good. Most importantly, she could support Qiao Xuening and make Qiao Xuening feel grateful to her. This feeling of ‘helping a friend to the top’ really satisfied Lin Yiyan’s personality.

Qi Ming handed her some scripts after screening them. Anything that conflicted with her schedule or that she didn’t like was kindly thrown to Qiao Xuening. Then she spoke a few good words in front of the director.

Qiao Xuening received some good roles. The experience accumulated in the past few years hadn’t been wasted and she gradually became popular. She knew in her heart that Lin Yiyan wasn’t the pure woman she showed on the surface but Qiao Xuening was willing to cooperate with Lin Yiyan to pretend to be sisters.

The two of them often interacted on Weibo and in interviews, they gave a unified statement that the other person was a good friend from their university days. In any case, this was beneficial to the popularity of them both. Many fans of Lin Yiyan would follow Qiao Xuening’s drama while Qiao Xuening’s fans would also follow Lin Yiyan. This was a win-win cooperation.

However, things quickly turned around.

One year, Qiao Xuening’s luck was very good. First, she acted in a TV series that went viral. Following that, Lin Yiyan received an invitation from two crews at the same time. Due to the schedule conflict, she could only choose one. She chose a large-scale sci-fi movie directed by an ace director with many famous stars participating. She threw the other script to Qiao Xuening like before.

Qiao Xuening naturally thanked her on WeChat and gave her a bottle of limited edition perfume.

Everyone thought that Lin Yiyan’s big movie would explode. After all, the movie had many big names and a lot of money was spent on early publicity. Posters were plastered all over the subway station and the momentum was powerful.

Meanwhile, Qiao Xuening’s small romance movie had little investment. The male lead was still a rookie and the director wasn’t very famous. Qiao Xuening didn’t care. She had starred in a hot TV series and just wanted to be familiar with the movie industry, even if the pay was low.

The schedules of the two movies overlapped with each other and they were even released on the same day!

Qiao Xuening politely helped Lin Yiyan publicize her movie. The two people reposted each other’s new movies on Weibo and it seemed they really were sisters. Fans were happily saying that the goddesses were good friends and they would go to both movies.

On the first day of the movie’s release, the box office of the sci-fi movie starring Lin Yiyan was 10 times higher than Qiao Xuening’s small and fresh romance movie. Qiao Xuening sent Lin Yiyan a congratulatory message on WeChat: [Xiao Yan, it’s great. It is estimated that the box office will easily exceed three billion yuan!]

Lin Yiyan was very happy but pretended to be modest. [Not necessarily. The box office of the first day can guarantee it. It depends on the box office in the next few days. Your movie is good. The box office might be lower but the rating is very high.]

Qiao Xuening sent a smile emoji. [How can I compare with Xiao Yan? My popularity is still much worse.]

Lin Yiyan also sent a smile. [Your popularity is rising very quickly. Don’t worry, you will catch fire soon.]

The two of them played their roles and complimented each other on WeChat for a while.

Xiao Lou and the others were watching from a god’s perspective and could clearly see that both of them had sneers on their faces when sending the messages.

The next day, the sci-fi movie starring Lin Yiyan was evaluated as a failure and the score dropped from 9 to below 7. Countless audiences who watched the movie went to the major movie forums to complain. “It is a big production but the special effects are too bad”

”The money went to paying the actors and the script was a mess!”

”The story isn’t clear. I watched it for a few stars that featured in it, but I regretted it. The best bad movie of the year.”

As for the romance movie starring Qiao Xuening, the ratings kept rising and many viewers started to spontaneously promote it in their friends circle. “It is too touching. Qiao Xuening’s crying scene was really well performed.”

”I can’t help thinking of my own first love.”

“I went to see it with my boyfriend and cried in the movie theatre!”

“This movie is really refreshing amidst all the bad movies at the end of the year!”

Due to the promotion of countless netizens, the next day, the box office of the small romance movie started to pick up and the proportion of screens allocated was increased. Meanwhile, the box office of the large sci-fi movie stagnated and even showed a downward trend.

Lin Yiyan and Qiao Xuening paid attention to the box office of the movies they starred in with different thoughts.

Three days later, the box office of the romance movie surpassed the science fiction movie for the first time. Seven days later, the romance movie starring Qiao Xuening became the strongest dark horse of the year. It jumped to number one in the box office and broke the two billion mark while heading towards three billion. Lin Yiyan’s big production movie was so messed up that it couldn’t exceed one billion in a week.

Lin Yiyan didn’t speak on WeChat and pretended to be dead on Weibo. Qiao Xuening was amused in her heart and didn’t speak. The two sisters with a deep affection couldn’t act any longer.

The most shocking thing to Lin Yiyan was that Qiao Xuening was nominated for ‘Best Actress’ with this small investment, small production movie. She was actually invited to attend the annual movie festival awards ceremony!

In the past, Qiao Xuening could only flatter her from behind, give her gifts and beg her to introduce resources. Now Qiao Xuening entered the movie industry for the first time and her performance was far inferior to Lin Yiyan’s. Yet she could win the ‘Best Actress’ trophy? How did this work?

Lin Yiyan couldn’t stand Qiao Xuening overtaking her.

She went to check Qiao Xuening’s background and soon found that Qiao Xuening had a relationship with Xu Kai after graduating high school. Therefore, she contacted Xu Kai privately and negotiated a deal with him. She sold a house and handed three million yuan in cash to Xu Kai, who only needed to expose Qiao Xuening’s nude photos online and ruin her reputation.

Xu Kai was an unscrupulous man. He naturally agreed when he saw money and gave a scumbag performance. Qiao Xuening fell from the altar in an instant. Her nude photos were spread all over the Internet and she became a joke.

She didn’t think it was done by Lin Yiyan and indeed had a nervous breakdown, going to the hospital. During her recuperation in the hospital, her mentality gradually distorted as she watched her private photos being spread all over the Internet and the comments of wretched men.

This incident hit her hard. Later, she asked someone to investigate and found that Xu Kai’s cousin Zhang Xiaoyu owed a gambling debt. She gave Zhang Xiaoyu a sum of money and asked him to question his cousin about it.

Soon, Zhang Xiaoyu gave her the result. “My cousin leaked it after he became drunk. It was Lin Yiyan who gave him the money.”

Lin Yiyan! Qiao Xuening read the name in the text message and gritted her teeth while wishing to chew off the opponent’s flesh.

During the six months of rest in the hospital, she thought every day about what she should do in the future. At that time, a plastic surgeon called Qin Mu comforted her and gave her the courage to continue. The young doctor had watched many of her works and was a small fan. Doctor Qin came to see her every day, telling her to put down her past, forget the photos and start again…

Gradually, the two people developed feelings.

People who fell in love sometimes became irrational. The young doctor was confused by Qiao Xuening and didn’t discourage her when she proposed the plastic surgery plan. Instead, he helped her and became her accomplice.

He hadn’t known that Qiao Xuening would kill people. He just thought that Qiao Xuening was using a stand-in to stabilize her mind. She would let the stand-in help with acting while gradually returning to the entertainment circle.

Two years after the nude photos incident, Qiao Xuening came back with a new attitude.

Two years was enough to change a person, let alone when such a big thing had happened. The Qiao Xuening who came back didn’t talk much, was polite to everyone and behaved cautiously. Though there were some differences compared to the past, fans attributed it to her learning to be low-key.

No one thought that Qiao Xuening was actually someone else. Her name was Yu Xia and she had Qiao Xuening’s face.

During the next period of time, Qiao Xuening asked her stand-in to shoot most of the scenes while she prepared her murder plan. She inquired and learned about Lin Yiyan’s residence in Yuehu Villas.

On November 11th, Qiao Xuening dressed up in disguise and drove into the Yuehu Villas area. She also had a house here. It was just that the house was in the name of her secret boyfriend, the plastic surgeon Qin Mu.

Dr Qin was on a business trip that day and Qiao Xuening had the keys to her boyfriend’s house. She drove her boyfriend’s car into the community in a straightforward manner and observed the community every day. She moved late at night to destroy the camera in front of Lin Yiyan’s house.

Then on November 16th, she arranged for the stand-in to go to the variety show and told the stand-in, “For my next jobs and the new drama, you will play for me. I will take a month to relax. Don’t forget that my leg is injured. If necessary, pretend that your leg hurts.”

Yu Xia didn’t doubt it and replied, “I know.”

Qiao Xuening waited for an opportunity. On the evening of the 16th, she opened the lock of Lin Yiyan’s house and sneaked inside. She used the large freezer in the kitchen to make ice cubes. It was because she knew Lin Yiyan was seldom at home and never entered the kitchen. This house was just a place for Lin Yiyan and her lover to meet in private. She wanted to find a chance to act and it just so happened that Lin Yiyan came back that night.

Qiao Xuening was hiding in the kitchen of Lin Yiyan’s house when she heard the sound of the car driving into the villa. She watched the action in the car through the kitchen window and calmly took out the knife she prepared.

The living room was dark when Lin Yiyan walked into the house. She didn’t know there was actually a person hidden behind the sofa.

She turned on the light and was about to go back to the bedroom to rest. As a result, the agent Qi Ming knocked on the door and came in. The two of them had an argument and broke up. At 3:30 in the morning, Qi Ming left angrily. Lin Yiyan turned and headed to the third floor. She removed her makeup in the bedroom, put on pyjamas and walked into the bathroom.

She was standing in front of the mirror, arranging her hair while preparing to take a shower. As a result, the door behind her was pushed open and a face appeared in the mirror. It was Qiao Xuening with a strange smile on her face. Lin Yiyan turned around in horror only for a sharp knife to stab her in the chest.

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