With things having come to this point, how could Rebecca not realize that she had been exposed, with absolutely no chance of turning the tables?
“Let her get up,” Chu Susu said. “You’ve already put the cuffs on her anyway.”
Chu Qingyang did as instructed, though her expression remained unsightly—after all, no cop could be happy when facing a criminal.
Rebecca’s throat was a bit hoarse as she slowly said, “I’ve been misled by you from the very start. Han Xuan wasn’t here at all.”
She was an extremely intelligent person, her mind turning at lightning speed. Many things clicked into place with just a thought.
“Yeah,” Chu Susu didn’t deny it. “Who told you Han Xuan was definitely at my place?”
Rebecca paused, her eyes suddenly reddening. Clearly, some particularly significant realization had hit her.
“When did you start suspecting me?”
“That would be during the business trip, of course.”
That time, Chu Susu and Rebecca had gone together to Jiang City for a local media conference, to experience new tourism concepts, and they had nearly bumped into Han Yao while “seeing a ghost” in the venue.
A storm delayed their flight, and before heading back to the Imperial Capital, Rebecca had proactively invited her out for drinks.
At the time, Chu Susu was already paranoid about the Hunter’s existence. Her home already had pet cameras, but just to be safe during the trip, she’d bought an extra standalone one that recorded everything that happened while she slept.
She hadn’t expected an unexpected discovery.
Chu Susu sighed with a complicated mood. Not long ago, she’d still been playing around with Feng Zhilan, but now she was forced to confront Rebecca in this way.
“Do you know what I recorded in Jiang City? I saw you get up in the middle of the night and rummage through my bag.”
That scene was still fresh in Chu Susu’s memory from back then. She never would have imagined that her superior, who had always taken such good care of her, would do something like that.
Rebecca held a high position with a high salary; she had no reason to steal from a subordinate. There had to be some other purpose.
“You took the keys and access card from my bag back then and spent a long time checking something on the computer,” Chu Susu said. “I didn’t know what you were up to, but I knew it had to be connected to my home somehow.”
So later, she’d quietly dug deeper on her own and indeed uncovered plenty of interesting findings.
“You and the Hunter have been collaborating for quite a while.”
The first incident was when Rebecca had just joined the company. She’d given Chu Susu two tickets to an art exhibition and hinted that she could bring Han Xuan along.
In fact, she had done exactly that, but unfortunately, it was at that very exhibition that Han Xuan was targeted by the Hunter.
At the same time, her ex-girlfriend Xia Zilu had appeared at that art exhibition. She’d thrown a mispositioned photo of Han Xuan and Han Yao in a car at Chu Susu, trying to drive a wedge between them.
“I never knew how Xia Zilu found out about my whereabouts,” Chu Susu said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, her gaze utterly cold. “Now I get it.”
Back then, she didn’t know about the Hunter’s existence, so even though it felt off, she hadn’t thought much of it.
It wasn’t until she started suspecting Rebecca that Chu Susu had made the unprecedented move of contacting Xia Zilu again—of course, through Li Le’er.
Xia Zilu had gotten over her foolish phase by then and, under her parents’ guidance, had long stopped pestering Chu Susu.
Loose-lipped as she was, she’d easily spilled to Li Le’er that she’d received an anonymous email telling her this was Chu Susu’s new girlfriend and that they were going to the exhibition together—which had ignited her rage and sent her to confront them.
“And the IP of that email just happened to be from our company. What a coincidence, right?”
The second incident was the hired thug attack on her former colleague Jack—who had of course been fired by the company by now and was idling at home.
“Jack and I never got along, but it was strictly professional. The fact that he dared to go after me was suspicious in itself.”
Chu Susu spoke slowly: “Jack’s just a guy trying to make ends meet for his family, and he’s a bit of a coward when trouble comes up. How could someone like that casually commit a crime?”
Unless there was some motive forcing him to take the risk.
“Not long ago, I went to see him.”
Jack had already been detained as a criminal suspect, and his family hadn’t applied for bail.
When Chu Susu visited, Jack was utterly startled.
In just over a month, he’d endured plenty of torment and self-recrimination, leaving him haggard and gaunt. Seeing the victim in person naturally terrified him.
“Don’t be scared,” Chu Susu said, somewhat puzzled. “I just want to ask you one question. Why exactly did you want to kill me?”
The two of them were separated by a glass partition—close in distance, yet as far apart as mountains and seas.
After a long while, Jack let out a pained howl.
“I never wanted to kill anyone, never wanted to harm you. I just—I just wanted to make sure you couldn’t do that client presentation! That way, I’d be the one presenting, and I’d get the promotion!”
His face twisted in grief, on the verge of sobbing.
Watching his reaction, Chu Susu calmly said, “You know, in the end, the one who got promoted was Xiao You.”
From the circumstances back then, she and Jack had indeed been the top contenders for the position.
But Jack was already on the brink of prison, and Chu Susu had taken time off for a concussion, unable to follow up, so naturally the spot had gone to someone else.
Neither of them got what they wanted.
The difference was, Chu Susu still had plenty of opportunities waiting for her after returning, while Jack had ended his own future with his own hands—utterly ironic.
It all came down to a single thought.
Hearing this, Jack was stunned. Only after a long time did he lower his head, covering his face with his hands as he sobbed quietly.
“I really regret it,” his voice trembled. “If only I hadn’t overheard that call from Rebecca, then I wouldn’t have…”
“Rebecca’s call?”
“I overheard her outside the office saying my abilities were mediocre and that without some standout performance, promotion was hopeless. Then later she told me I could be your backup for the presentation, and if anything unexpected happened to you, I could step in…”
“So that’s why I hired someone to beat you up,” Jack wept uncontrollably. “I admit I was jealous of all the work opportunities you got, but I really just wanted to do that presentation. I never meant to kill…”
It was a very long line, and the clueless fish had nibbled bit by bit until hooked.
…
After recounting all this, Chu Susu felt parched. She got a glass of water and came back to continue.
“I have to say, when all these things happened, I never suspected you at all.”
“Xia Zilu was always like that; I just thought she was stalking me. Jack was the attacker, so even if he pointed fingers at you, people would just think he was biting at straws. Besides, you were only tempting him anyway.”
“After piecing all this together, I could confirm you were trying to get to Han Xuan through me. But the clues were too scattered; I still had no idea what your real goal was.”
“Luckily, that’s when I ran into someone whose arrival cleared up all my doubts.”
