"How ridiculous! I, the eldest daughter of the Zhuang family, would be peddling pirated CDs? Are the cops at the station brain-dead? If they want to arrest someone, at least come up with a half-decent excuse. This is infuriating!"
Zhuang Ruotong stomped around the cell in a rage, while Qiqi sat cross-legged nearby, forcing a bitter smile, feeling her heart sink to the bottom.
"How could it be such a coincidence? You were intercepted the moment you stepped out? Clearly, you're not selling pirated CDs, so why pin that charge on you? Could someone have ratted us out?" Qiqi asked.
She sensed there was more to this than met the eye.
Zhuang Ruotong also sat down cross-legged, a look of confusion in her eyes: "Impossible. That day, the whole covert filming thing—only you and I knew about it. How could anyone else have gotten wind of it?"
Qiqi suddenly recalled something and asked, "You haven't leaked any of those recordings before, have you?"
Zhuang Ruotong shook her head: "Of course not. After we left the Empire Financial Tower that day, you called and told me not to expose anything yet, so I listened to you. As much as I wanted to help my dad, Qin Chen's mom was in Mrs. Zhou's hands, so I had to follow your lead and help you solve your problem first. I would never do anything to betray you. Besides, I know Zhou Yi is your friend, and to avoid dragging the Zhou Group into the Xia Liu mess, I didn't plan on exposing Mrs. Zhou's connection to Xia Liu either."
Qiqi nodded with a smile—indeed, Zhuang Ruotong wouldn't betray her; she was never that kind of person. Plus, she'd thought things through fairly well.
"I know it wasn't you. But doesn't it seem too coincidental that you were stopped halfway? And that day, when I went to MD Group to find Zhou Yi, I ran into a bunch of reporters. From what they said, it sounded like someone had already tipped off the media, claiming the Zhou and Xia families were involved, which is why they came to interview Zhou Yi."
"Huh? Could someone else have secretly filmed Xia Liu on the same day, trying to take him down too?" Zhuang Ruotong's eyes widened.
"It's possible," Qiqi nodded. "But your arrest today is almost certainly because someone sold you out."
Zhuang Ruotong shook her head: "That day, only a few trusted people from my dad's company knew I was going to the Empire Financial Tower, because I snuck in with them during the auction. But they only knew I was there, not that I was planning to film anything. There's no way they'd betray me. Besides, what would they gain from it? If they pissed me off, wouldn't they risk losing their jobs? My dad pays them well, and they've been with him for years—they'd never sell me out."
Qiqi ran her fingers through her hair, equally baffled—could Zhuang Ruotong really be that unlucky, getting caught with a few burned CDs in her LV bag and mistaken for a pirate disc peddler? Even a three-year-old wouldn't buy that story. Clearly, someone was pulling the strings behind the scenes.
And whoever leaked that information to the media that day deliberately tied the Zhou Group and Xia Group together, planting bad ideas in the reporters' minds. That person's goal was obviously to bring down both the Zhou and Xia families—they must be an enemy of both houses, right?
Thinking of this, Qiqi immediately recalled the black-clad figures at the Lu family garden and that photo. Those men had tried to use Zhou Zhibi's hand to kill her—was the aim to frame the Zhou family? If so, then the mastermind behind it all was likely also an enemy of the Zhou family.