Chapter 317
Chapter 317
I questioned the video only because I wanted to remain cautious.
The footage was certainly genuine, but it did not show Lin Yin personally pushing Lin Jinhua from the building.
Yet when I thought carefully, at what point after Lin Jinhua’s death could Lin Yin have acted as she did in the video?
After discovering his corpse, we briefly left it and entered the hotel. If Lin Yin found the body during that interval, she would have broken down immediately, cried aloud, and remained beside him.
She would not have behaved as the video showed.
If she acted that way only after driving us away, the situation made even less sense.
With those two possibilities excluded, only one remained. The Lin Yin in the video had discovered Lin Jinhua’s corpse before we did.
But under those circumstances, she should still have broken down on the spot.
When none of those possibilities held, the truth became obvious.
The person who pushed Lin Jinhua from the building… truly was Lin Yin!
Then I recalled Seventh Master’s earlier confusion. Given Lin Yin’s character, how could she act so swiftly and decisively? Her biological father had been dead for less than a day, yet she had already issued an obituary and deliberately suppressed public discussion.
Unless these measures were not improvised, but planned in advance!
Lin Yin truly did it.
Was this still the Lin Yin we knew?
She could not bear to harm outsiders like us. Could she really strike so viciously against her own father?
Even Song Xiaotian was stunned. He murmured, “That woman… could even murder her own father. Why?”
No ordinary person could understand such an unforgivable act.
I looked at the tall man. “Du Yunting instructed you to tell us the truth. Why would he do that?”
The tall man smiled. “Who was Lin Jinhua? He sent a local tyrant like Jiang Dahai, a man entrenched in Lincheng for decades, straight to prison. Who could bear the blame for the death of someone like him?”
“It’s better to be safe than sorry. If someone with an agenda uses Lin Jinhua’s death in the future and the investigation eventually leads to us, it will cause enormous trouble.”
The tall man appeared entirely sincere. He claimed they wanted nothing more than to prove their own and Du Yunting’s innocence and prevent future trouble.
He continued, “To establish our innocence, we also uncovered something else. Lin Yin’s younger brother, Lin Xiaohua, suddenly became ill and entered the hospital several days ago. There is something suspicious about that too.”
“We reviewed Lin Xiaohua’s recent medical records and had a specialist analyze them. His illness may already be incurable, but the Lin family is wealthy and has provided the most expensive specialized medicines. Those drugs could extend his life by several years and keep his immune function as stable as possible.”
“Yet his latest medical records show that his immune function plummeted dramatically.”
At this point, Seventh Master frowned. “Someone switched Lin Xiaohua’s medicine?”
The tall man nodded. “We have no proof, but we believe someone did. Only Lin Jinhua, Lin Yin, and the housekeeper lived in the Lin residence. Lin Jinhua obviously wouldn’t switch the medicine, and the housekeeper had no reason to harm Lin Xiaohua. That leaves only Lin Yin.”
Lin Yin…
Lin Yin again…
When I went to her house that day to brew medicine for Seventh Master, she had even asked me about Life Extension. I thought she could not bear to see her younger brother die.
As it turned out, she had wanted to harm him!
So the whole thing had been an act. And she had not just been acting for us; she had been acting for Lin Jinhua too!
We had been on the first level, Lin Jinhua on the second, Du Yunting on the third, and Lin Yin on the goddamn tenth!
“Lin Jinhua died in the early hours of this morning. This afternoon, Lin Yin made a great show of visiting her younger brother, Lin Xiaohua, at the hospital.”
The tall, thin man continued, “There were plenty of reporters at the scene. She cried her eyes out, as if she was afraid people might not realize how close she and Lin Xiaohua were.”
Seventh Master sighed. “She truly is a gifted actress. She put on a show for the public and for the old guard in the company, winning their goodwill first. Lin Xiaohua does not have long to live anyway. After learning of his father’s death, he may die even sooner. In the end, every last asset belonging to the Lin family will fall into Lin Yin’s hands.”
“Who could have imagined it? Who could have imagined?”
Who could have imagined things would end this way?
Who could have imagined that the most genuine side of the innocent, kindhearted Lin Yin would be so terrifying?
In truth, we were the innocent ones.
The tall, thin man said, “We’ve delivered the message and told you the truth. In any case, Lin Yin is nowhere near as simple as you imagined. How could a girl born into a family like that possibly be some naive little fool?”
“We need to run for our lives now. Lincheng is no longer Lin Jinhua’s territory. It belongs to Lin Yin. If we don’t leave soon, that woman might decide to silence us.”
With that, the tall, thin man and his companion prepared to leave.
They had only just risen when they seemed to remember something else.
“Oh, right. President Du asked us to pass on a few words as well. He said…”
“You’re all a bunch of fucking idiots! You actually let a woman play you!”
The two men took off running the moment they finished.
“Fuck you!”
Song Xiaotian jumped to his feet to chase them, but the restaurant was crowded, and in the end he could not be bothered to go after them.
We had only eaten half our meal, but none of us had any appetite left.
Who would have thought the ultimate winner in this entire affair would be Lin Yin?
She had fooled us, fooled Lin Jinhua, and very nearly screwed over Du Yunting too.
A girl who appeared so innocent and kindhearted had been scheming on a level none of us could fathom.
What stunned us was not that she was a woman, nor even that she was ruthless enough to murder her own father. It was the harmless, kind, and innocent face she had shown us from beginning to end.
Beneath that face, the truth was patricide and fratricide. The contrast was so extreme that it was almost impossible to believe she had done any of it.
Especially last night. The way she had gone hysterical, the sheer emotion in that performance, had not betrayed a single flaw. Every one of us had ended up feeling guilty toward her.
That woman…
What a talent.
What a goddamn talent!
“Back at the Lin residence, I always thought she cared deeply about her family. I thought she had a soft heart, and that she only asked me those questions because she couldn’t bear to let Lin Xiaohua die.”
I shook my head, feeling utterly defeated. “I even gave her that whole lecture, telling her what was right and what was wrong. But she never wanted Lin Xiaohua to survive in the first place.”
“Everything I told her was actually helping her justify her own actions and ease her guilt.”
I never imagined things would turn out this way!