Chapter 79 p2
“I’ve been setting up this trap for so long. A few million is just pocket change,” the dark-haired girl sneered. “This is my first pot of gold.”
She had a big plan and needed as much startup capital as possible.
“Hasn’t the money been transferred yet?” the girl asked, sizing up her hostage critically. “Do I have to send a hand and a foot over for your family to know what efficiency is?”
The man shook his head frantically, struggling to move closer to the phone.
She dialed the number and tore the tape from the man’s mouth.
“Is the money ready?” he said eagerly. “Send it over now! Send as much as you have!”
The man was breathing heavily. The dark-haired girl looked down at her phone. After a long time, a smile appeared on her face.
“It seems it’s not enough for what you want?” the blond woman asked in a low voice.
“That’s right,” she said. The girl picked up the gasoline can in the corner.
Meeting the man’s terrified gaze, she poured the gasoline on him.
After pouring two full cans of gasoline, the dark-haired girl finally stopped. She took out a box of matches from her pocket and threw it to her sister.
“If the ransom isn’t paid in half an hour, light it,” she said, and then hung up the phone in the man’s desperate expression.
“I was lying,” the girl smiled sweetly. “Even if it’s paid, I’ll still light it.”
She stretched. “I’m a little tired. I’m going out for a walk. Sister, you watch him.”
“I’ll light it when I get your message. This place is very remote. No one will come.”
The dark-haired girl’s figure disappeared at the door. The sister she had left in the room proactively locked the window and broke the key, to prevent the man from jumping out the window to escape in the fire.
“Light it when I get the message,” the blond woman repeated her sister’s order. She walked to the door and looked down at the winding staircase.
This was her escape route. She just had to leave after the fire started and go find her slacking sister.
The woman waited patiently. A quarter of an hour later, she received a cute cat-giving-an-OK emoji.
The money had been received. There was no need for the hostage to live.
The blond woman struck a match and threw it at the man who was soaked in gasoline.
The tongue of fire licked the gasoline, and a half-man-high flame immediately rose.
The heat rushed to her face. The blond woman was about to turn and go downstairs.
“The person inside, listen up! You’re surrounded!”
A voice from a megaphone came from the staircase. The wailing police cars flashed red and blue, a dazzling light. “Surrender immediately, or we have the right to shoot you on sight!”
The sound of hurried footsteps climbing the stairs echoed. The blond woman slammed the door shut, her heart pounding.
The door was tightly closed. The sea of fire behind her was roaring.
A wave of dizziness hit her.
“The window… damn it! I locked it!”
The hostage on the ground was rolling and wailing. The fire grew bigger with his rolling. The air was so thin it was hard to breathe.
Staying in the room was a dead end.
Escaping was walking right into a trap.
Both forward and backward were dead ends.
BANG, BANG, BANG! The sound of the police banging on the door came from outside. “Open the door! Do you want to be burned alive?”
The police used “you” instead of “you all” to address the kidnapper, because they thought the kidnapper was acting alone.
From luring the victim online to extorting him, the police profiler had said it was all the work of the same person.
Of course. Everything was the younger sister’s plan. It was the dark-haired girl who was in control. The woman had just been following her sister, watching her commit crimes, and occasionally doing some chores as instructed.
Amidst the sound of the police banging on the door, the blond woman suddenly remembered something.
The girl had always been wearing a pair of snow-white gloves. It was a gift she had given her younger sister. Her sister never took them off.
The woman had been very moved by this. But she belatedly realized that her younger sister had never left a single fingerprint.
And what about her?
The blond woman looked around the room. Her fingerprints were everywhere.
The hostage was about to be burned to death. Even if he was rescued, he would be a cripple, unable to speak.
In the kidnapping case, only she had left a trace. Even the receiving account was handled by her. And she had personally set the fire and had been arrested on the spot by the police in the sea of fire.
Just arson and murder was a capital offense.
And where was her slacking younger sister now?
“I… was used?” the blond woman murmured to herself.
Used…
Abandoned!!!
Hatred grew in the blond woman’s eyes, reflected in the flickering flames.
Slowly, the flame went out.
It became an empty, dead silence.
She stood in the middle of the burning room, numbly waiting for her fate.
If she was burned to death, then so be it. If she was arrested by the police, she might confess about her sister, about that demon.
“I was willing to die for you. Why did you have to abandon me?” she said in a low voice.
…
“Because that’s what a villain is,” Director Ochi said. “Very cold, very ruthless. Use and discard.”
“And that’s why the humanity she occasionally reveals is all the more precious.”
The fire in the shot looked fierce, but it was actually a mechanism of the props team. The actor playing the hostage had already left the room. The one rolling on the ground was a dummy.
“To emphasize the realism, the props team really did light a fire,” Director Ochi said. “But it was a controllable fire. That’s Sharon. If I let her suffer during filming, I wouldn’t be able to survive in the industry.”
Furuya stared at the screen. “She’s sweating… is that also acting?”
No, Vermouth was really hot.
She had been in the entertainment industry for many years and naturally knew how to film a fire scene.
Director Ochi was a director who excessively pursued realism. He disliked actors using stunt doubles and used real things whenever possible. So it was within Vermouth’s expectations that a real fire would be set in the room.
Sweat soaked her blond hair. The air was getting thin, and it was becoming difficult to breathe.
The famous actress clicked her tongue in her heart. She naturally wouldn’t care about the actor playing the police officer outside the door. She was about to open the door and leave. At worst, they would just reshoot.
She hadn’t even touched the doorknob when the heat from the metal surface almost burned her skin.
“Where are the props team?” Furuya turned his head and asked. “Is the fire in the room really controllable?”
After a commotion, the head of the props team rushed over. “Of course it’s controllable! I checked the props several times.”
Furuya scanned him up and down, his gaze stopping on the protruding belt at the prop master’s waist.
“You just went to the bathroom,” the blond Public Security officer said with certainty. “Who was controlling the mechanism then?”
The head of the props team, whose slacking had been exposed, was instantly flustered. He stammered for a long time, “The… the intern.”
Director Ochi let out a scream. “What?!”
It was over! It was all over!
“Quick- quick, put out the fire!” Director Ochi was about to explode. “No, wait! Isn’t this scene not over yet?”
It wasn’t over, because this scene was not the end.
Using a drone and a fixed camera had put the director’s team at a distance from the filming location. The commotion there hadn’t reached the actors.
An’an stood on the rooftop of the building next door. She looked up at the raging fire in the residential building.
“There’s black smoke, and the walls are also burned… how much did it cost? The director is really generous,” the dark-haired girl said in amazement.
She tossed the grappling hook in her hand. A new toy, the same model as Kaitou Kid’s, endorsed by the world-class, top-tier, heart-stealing great thief.
Aiming at the balcony railing of the residential building, she shot the grappling hook.
An’an was not wearing a wire. She disliked this kind of restrictive protective device. It would affect her performance.
The grappling hook caught the railing. The dark-haired girl leaped from the rooftop.
Crash!
The locked window shattered. A heat wave and crimson flames burned in the wind. Vermouth couldn’t help but close her eyes.
“Come here!”
A commanding tone. The dark-haired girl, her hair flying against the backdrop of the flames, was by no means an angel who had come to save her.
That was the demon who had abandoned her and had now come back to find her.
A series of explosions sounded from behind. Vermouth grabbed the hand that was extended to her.
Fair, slender, yet it had pulled her up with a single hand.
The grappling hook supported the weight of two people, creaking under the strain. An’an didn’t even frown. She pulled Vermouth up with her right hand and held the blond woman in one arm.
As expected of Sharon. Her body management is top-notch. She’s so light. It saves a lot of effort. —Miss An, a pig butcher who had worked at a slaughterhouse and was skilled at subduing an adult wild boar with one hand, thought with relief.
The grappling hook swung down and landed steadily on the balcony of the building next door. An’an recited her lines according to the script. “What are you panicking for? Who said I would leave you behind?”
“You didn’t betray me. Not bad,” the villain said cheerfully. The fire had been her cruel test. She announced that her sister had passed.
As a reward and also as a comfort, the dark-haired girl brushed away her sweat-soaked blond hair and left a light kiss on the woman’s forehead.
Just like her sister had done for her on those nights at the orphanage.
Perfect. An’an thought in her heart. The director should be calling “cut” now. Her one-take record was still going strong.
The girl did not wait for the director’s “cut.” She waited for the fire alarm.
An’an: “Eh?”
What’s wrong? Is it time for Suspect An to make an appearance again?
The bewildered girl was grabbed by the shoulder by a rushing Furuya, who checked her from head to toe to see if she had been burned.
“Thank goodness. You just got a little soot on you,” Furuya said, relieved, and wiped An’an’s face with a wet towel.
The girl, who was being rubbed like a cat washing its face, protested.
The fire truck was spraying the residential building with a hose. The air was filled with mist. An’an, who had learned of the props team’s mistake from Furuya, had a sudden realization. “So that’s what it was. When I rushed in, my hair was almost on fire. I was still thinking that Director Ochi was really willing to spend money, probably a lot of it.”
He had indeed spent a lot of money. The compensation alone would cost a fortune.
The blond Public Security officer lectured her with a straight face. “You knew something was wrong, and you still continued to recite your lines and act?”
An’an: Because I’m a professional.
Accidents happen on set. She was almost used to it. It wasn’t a big problem.
“Did you get the shot of escaping the fire?” the very professional An’an asked. “Do we need to reshoot anything?”
“No need,” Furuya said with conviction.
He had seen that forehead kiss on the screen, and had gritted his teeth.
His girlfriend didn’t even get that kind of treatment. No. He was going to discuss it with An’an tonight. He would add this to the list.
“Sharon, are you okay?” Vermouth’s agent said in a panic. “To think such a mistake could happen! It’s too much! I’ll contact my connections right away and definitely ruin Director Ochi’s movie!”
“No need,” Vermouth said, raising her hand. “Don’t do anything extra. Let the movie be released normally. I can also cooperate with the promotion.”
The agent was stunned. “Sharon?”
The blond woman didn’t explain to her agent. She patted the dust from her clothes and walked towards An’an.
A fragrant breeze blew by. The girl fell into a soft embrace. Vermouth hugged her from behind, just like her sister in the movie.
“Thank you, sweetie.”
Ignoring Bourbon’s murderous gaze, Vermouth kissed An’an’s cheek. “I will remember everything that happened today.”
“You’re welcome?” the dark-haired girl tilted her head and said with confusion. “It was just acting.”
Vermouth’s red lips curved. “Not for me.”
“Bourbon and I are from the same organization. If you don’t understand what that means, I suggest you break up with him immediately and find a new boyfriend,” she whispered in An’an’s ear. “Or come and find me. I have plenty of resources to make you happy.”
“Remember my words, little cutie,” Vermouth said, letting go of An’an and saying cheerfully, “When the movie is a box office hit, we’ll see each other again at the celebration party.”
The blond woman walked away gracefully. An’an pondered her riddle-like words and asked her boyfriend, whose face had turned black.
“Is she trying to stir up trouble for you?”