After Encountering My Deceased Wife, I Became the Male Lead's Love Rival - Chapter 19

Chapter 19: Rescuing

On the other side, a staff member led the four participants into different changing rooms, then took the opportunity to lock Ling Qiu’s door from the outside.

Director Chang had recently cleared out ten staff members and hired fourteen new ones, but what he didn’t know was that half of them were Cang Jinyao’s people. The corridor’s cameras had already been hacked, and the cameramen following the guests were waiting outside; no one would notice what was happening inside the changing rooms.

Cang Jinyu, who was currently changing, had no idea that the hidden door behind her dressing mirror had been pushed open. As she lowered her head to button her shirt, Cang Jinyao, holding a wooden club, struck her hard across the head!

Cang Jinyu felt a burst of sharp pain. A warm liquid flowed down her forehead, blurring her vision with a wash of blood-red.

“Whoosh!” Behind her, the sound of the club breaking the air rang out again, and Cang Jinyu plunged into darkness.

After hitting Cang Jinyu twice to knock her out, Cang Jinyao kicked the woman on the floor. Seeing no reaction, she snorted and kicked her twice more. Had it not been for the wrong time and place, she truly wanted to kill this woman!

Cang Jinyao looked at her blood relative with sinister eyes. She truly couldn’t understand: as an older sister, why couldn’t Cang Jinyu help her? Writing a song for one person is writing; why couldn’t she just write her songs too? Weren’t they siblings? If Cang Jinyu hadn’t rejected her back then and had simply written songs for her, she wouldn’t have turned out like this!

And then there was that time she had kindly found a powerful suitor for Cang Jinyu and sent them to a hotel room. But her “dear sister” had quietly instructed her manager to ruin that date. Cang Jinyao stepped around the blood on the floor and spat disdainfully at Cang Jinyu. If you don’t treat me like a sister, you deserve to be beaten, you deserve to die!

Cang Jinyao sneered as she cleaned up the scene, returning to her own room to change leisurely. With her people present, they would claim Cang Jinyu had accidentally hit her head. She would even frame her as having “gone stupid” or suffering from persecutory delusions.

Besides, once the affair between Lin Mingcheng and Best Actress Ling those “unfortunate lovers” was a done deal, Cang Jinyu wouldn’t dare speak up anyway. Otherwise, “pulling up the radish would bring out the mud”; a full investigation would make the loss of Ling Qiu’s innocence public knowledge. As Ling Qiu’s devoted fan, Cang Jinyu wouldn’t dare ruin her master’s reputation.

Cang Jinyao hummed a tune happily, unaware that the person lying in a pool of blood had just twitched a finger…

Compared to Cang Jinyu’s total lack of defense, Ling Qiu was much more vigilant. During the period when she was suppressed by half the industry, she had seen every low-handed trick in the book.

After entering the room, she first checked for hidden cameras, then inspected the mirror. Some mirrors look normal but are actually two-way mirrors with eyes watching from behind. Ling Qiu spent over ten minutes meticulously checking every corner, even the clothes provided for her.

Sure enough, she felt something wrong behind the full-length dressing mirror. The mirror was firmly fixed to the wall, but the hidden door was one-way it could only be opened from the other side.

Ling Qiu’s expression was grim, but she didn’t make a sound. She moved toward the door, trying to escape. To her horror, the door was locked.

Calm down, calm down… Ling Qiu, you have to be calm…

Frozen with fear, she comforted herself while quickly wrapping a piece of clothing around her hand to smash the mirror. she gripped a sharp shard as a weapon. The locked door meant the people outside were confident; shouting for help now would only make things worse. She hid beside the hidden door, waiting to strike whoever came through.

Ling Qiu gritted her teeth, a trace of ruthlessness flashing in her eyes.

“Knock, knock, knock…” Unexpectedly, the person behind the hidden door knocked politely.

Lin Mingcheng’s gentle, worried voice came through: “Hello? Is someone in there? Are you alright?”

Since Ling Qiu was the first to enter the changing area, she wasn’t sure if Lin Mingcheng knew she was in this specific room. But hearing it was him, her grip on the glass shard tightened. A man and a woman alone no matter who was on the other side, they couldn’t be trusted.

Getting no response, Lin Mingcheng seemed more worried. He knocked harder and asked again: “Is someone there? Do you need help?” It appeared he didn’t know it was her.

Ling Qiu breathed a sigh of relief. She retreated quietly to the window, trying to push it. Since it was the first floor, if all else failed, she would smash the window to leave. But Lin Mingcheng’s knocking grew faster and harder; Ling Qiu could see plaster falling from the door set into the wall. It was on the verge of collapsing.

She finally spoke: “It’s me. I accidentally broke the mirror, I’m fine.”

Hearing her response, Lin Mingcheng, holding a rope in his hand, let out a low, excited pant. He then masked his excitement and greed, his tone as gentle and considerate as ever: “The mirror broke? Then let’s swap rooms. You come here to change, and I’ll stay in your room. I’ve already finished changing anyway.”

Ling Qiu’s heart skipped a beat. For some reason, she had a terrible premonition.

Failing to get a response, Lin Mingcheng’s patience ran out. He suddenly kicked the door with force and roared: “Where are you?! Speak!”

The sudden, massive noise made Ling Qiu’s body tremble. She gripped the glass tighter, recalling the reports from a couple of years ago about “Best Actor Lin’s Bipolar Disorder” and “Beating an Assistant into the Hospital.” Those articles had been deleted almost as soon as they appeared, and the assistant had even clarified the matter, letting the issue pass.

Perhaps those reports were true.

Ling Qiu gritted her teeth, wrapped her head and hands in her clothes, and prepared to throw herself at the window. The person who locked her in was clearly prepared; there wasn’t even a chair in the room to break the window. Only a single wardrobe stood there, gaping open like a mouth swallowing the air around her, leaving her panicked and gasping.

The sound of her body hitting the window acted like a signal. Lin Mingcheng broke the door down in a rage, his eyes burning with fury and malice. He lunged into the room and, ignoring her struggles, forcibly tied her up.

He covered Ling Qiu’s screams with his hand, binding her limbs while panting heavily: “Ling-ling, don’t blame me. You forced me. If you hadn’t called off the wedding, we wouldn’t be here.”

He threw the struggling woman onto the bed and looked at her tear-filled eyes with obsession. “Ling-ling, you should have been my woman long ago. Today, let us complete this beautiful ceremony…”

“Mmph! Mmph!” The gagged Ling Qiu struggled in terror. She felt absolute despair as Lin Mingcheng touched her collar.

Don’t touch me! Get away!

Her hysterical screams were reduced to silent sobs and hallucinations. She imagined the staff finding her, her manager appearing, Director Chang, Cang Jinyu… anyone, just save her!

She even saw Fang Ziyue’s face, imagining her running in, throwing Lin Mingcheng to the floor, and stomping on that disgusting place.

Lin Mingcheng’s scream jolted Ling Qiu out of her daze. Her sobbing turned into a startled hiccup. Her almond eyes, blurred with tears, widened as she saw the suddenly appearing Fang Ziyue.

Like a beam of light in the darkness bright and safe. It wasn’t a hallucination… thank god, it wasn’t a hallucination.

With a grim face and eyes brewing a storm, Fang Ziyue unleashed all her brutality on Lin Mingcheng. The “Best Actor” was beaten beyond recognition; he fainted, was woken by the pain, then kicked back into unconsciousness.

But because Ling Qiu was there, Fang Ziyue didn’t deliver a fatal blow. She stepped on Lin Mingcheng’s face, knocking him out again, before picking Ling Qiu up to leave. The terrified woman huddled in her arms, trembling slightly, her sobs carrying a fearful vibrato.

Fang Ziyue felt as if her heart were being squeezed hard aching and bitter. She covered Ling Qiu’s head with a clean jacket, providing her with a safe, warm little space. Through the fabric, she gently patted Ling Qiu’s back, whispering: “It’s okay now. It’s over. Don’t be afraid, I’m here.”

In reality, Ling Qiu wasn’t that fragile. She just hadn’t recovered from the terror and disgust; she was currently shivering, and like a small animal, she instinctively curled into Fang Ziyue’s embrace, leaning on her for warmth and security.

Outside the open door, Director Chang quietly poked half his body in and signaled to the woman who was radiating a low, unapproachable pressure. Fang Ziyue’s eyes flickered and she nodded.

Ling Qiu, her vision blocked, didn’t see that after they left, many beautiful actresses flooded into the room some of whom were juniors she once admired who had quit the industry after “accidents.” Fang Ziyue held her wife and avoided them, not letting them see Ling Qiu, nor letting Ling Qiu hear Lin Mingcheng’s screams and pleas for mercy.

“Why is it you? What are you doing?! Stay back! Stay back!” Lin Mingcheng scrambled to hide from the women he had once toyed with. That trembling appearance was exactly how those people had looked when he persecuted them.

No escape, only terror and despair. But this… was only the beginning.

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