Unsurprisingly, one of the actresses who tried to have Lily Ling murdered was none other than Yvonne Yang. At least that was what Lily told me, and I believed her.
Her agent, Arnold Ang, set to investigate by hiring the private detectors he had connections to. Of course, I provided the cash. Fortunately, by now I had enough money in the bank to make such dumb purchases. Of course I wasn't going to be like those spendthrift CEOs in those trashy novels who threw away large amounts of money over every little thing. Honestly, the authors had no idea how businesses worked. You simply could just buy stocks or shares for fun or hire armies of men in black and investigators just because you were rich. The overbearing CEOs in these stories apparently did it for the women they loved, but if you tried that in reality, you would just go bankrupt.
Such reckless spending was…quite frankly, stupid as hell.
"It'll take a few days for the investigators to do their work and find the evidence they need," Arnold told me. As it turned out, he was a nice guy, but a bit of a metrosexual. He wore fancy, almost feminine clothing and had his longish hair styled and gelled. He winked at me. "So you're Lily's husband. I always wanted to meet you."
"…huh? Husband? No, we aren't married yet."
"No way! That won't do! You're supposed to be a CEO! That means a contract marriage!"
"Why a contract marriage?" Lily sighed and shook her head. "I did consider that, but in the end I thought it was highly impractical and unrealistic, so I tore up the contract. It's silly. Only CEO story characters do shit like that."
"It's also highly immature," I muttered. "What sort of adult would ever agree to such a marriage? Oh, and that 'you are not allowed to fall in love with me' clause. What…? Just how absurdly narcissistic can one be?"
"Not to mention the 'divorce after one year or three years' cliché." Lily rolled her eyes. "Not that it will matter, because this being a CEO story, the couple will end up separating from anywhere between three to five years, with one of them returning with children after that number of years. Oh, and it wouldn't be a CEO story without amnesia or some other cliché nonsense. I swear, after a while, all the CEO stories just blend together because they literally copy each other."
"At least your husband isn't abusive and your relationship isn't toxic," Arnold said with a shrug. "That makes you a lot more realistic and healthier than all those couples in CEO stories."
"Like I said, I'm not her husband…"
"Not yet," Arnold said mischievously. "I don't see why you would spend a good sum of money helping her with this."
"For justice," I replied simply. "If those actresses are really plotting murder, don't you think it will be best if we have them locked up before they can continue to hurt innocent people?"
"True." Arnold nodded.
"By the way, one of them is Yvonne Yang, right? Who are the other two?"
I remembered Yvonne Yang. She was the murderess who plotted the death of Lily Bai. Even though neither Lily Ling nor I forgave Lily Bai for trying to possess her body and take over her life, we also couldn't allow Yvonne Yang to get away scot-free. The both of us agreed that we should at least help Lily Bai take revenge.
Not that we owed Lily Bai anything, but I couldn't stomach the idea of a murderess killing somebody and then getting away with it. If we left her be, she would undoubtedly continue her atrocities and murder other actresses as well. Especially now that Lily Ling was also an actress. In fact, she already suffered at the hands of Yvonne Yang, if her word was to be believed.
"Oh, you already know one of them." Lily scowled. "My dear stepsister, Linda."
"What?" My jaw dropped. "Linda Ling is an actress as well? Since when?"
"I have no idea. Apparently she had been an actress for a few years now. She only received a few bit parts and minor roles here and there, nothing special. That's why I didn't hear her mention it, she was too embarrassed to admit that her career hadn't taken off."
"Right."
I was trying to wrap my head around the revelations. This was getting messier and messier. From what I originally knew, Linda was trying to steal the position of heiress from Lily so that she could inherit the Ling Corporation in her place. She succeeded in stripping Lily from her position as the manager of Ling Electronics, but apparently the position went to her boyfriend (who happened to be Lily's ex-boyfriend). The two of them, in true CEO drama fashion, had been scheming against Lily for a long time now. What the fuck?
I didn't know what to say. This was just getting stupid. If everything was going to proceed like a CEO drama, then I bet I knew what was going to happen next. We could even use this to our advantage and anticipate our opponents' next move.
"Linda happened to have a minor role in the drama series I'm shooting in. Let's just say…her acting skills are not very good, and so she was only offered a small supporting role without many lines."
"Uh huh." I nodded, already predicting what happened next. "And when you got the second female lead role, she got jealous of you. Instead of improving her acting skills and learning from you, she decided to blame you for stealing the second female lead role from her, accused you of seducing the director and scriptwriter, and then plotted your demise along with Yvonne Yang."
"Whoa?! How did you know?!"
Lily raised a hand to her mouth, astonished. Arnold also gawked at me.
"Are you sure you didn't have spies implanted in the studio, Mr. Shen?"
"No. I'm just guessing."
"Well, it's 100% accurate! How did you guess?!"
"Honestly?" I scoffed. "Because it's literally the plot of every CEO novel ever. The clichéd stepsister character. She's basically a clone of every stepsister villainess in every CEO novel."
"Damn, you're right." Arnold buried his face in his palm. "Why didn't I think of that? This is really following the standard template of a CEO novel."
"Well, anyway, who's the third actress?"
"Claudia Chan." Lily shook her head. "Another actress with a small role. She has been in the industry for a while, just like Linda, and she saw me as the person who stole her role. No doubt, she had also been egged on by Linda."
"No wonder." I sighed and shook my head. "All right, gather the evidence you need. Let me know if you need anything else."
"Thank you." Lily bowed. "You really helped us out."
"You should be thanking him in a more intimate manner," Arnold advised with a smile. Lily nodded before giving me a hug and a kiss on my cheek. I shrank back shyly, feeling that this public display of affection was a little much.
"By the way, what happened to Victoria Lai? I thought you hired her as your agent. No disrespect to Arnold here, of course."
"I fired her after you exorcized Lily Bai from my body. She was too…controlling for my tastes. I couldn't work well with her. Arnold's methods are more palatable."
"Not to mention, Victoria Lai is now Yvonne Yang's agent." Arnold dropped his voice to a whisper. "And we suspect they are colluding with each other."
"That's right," Lily said with a nod. "It is entirely possible that Victoria Lai had a hand in the murder of Lily Bai."
Whoa…this was getting more and more complicated. I was glad I wasn't conducting the investigation in person. Detective work was not my specialty. But we still had to be careful all the same. I took a deep breath and nodded.
"All right. We'll find the evidence and bring them to court. We'll get justice for all the actresses they harmed."
"Yeah!" Lily cheered. Then she sobered up. "By the way, there's a meeting I've to attend in Howard Hotel. If you don't mind…I'll need you to accompany me as an escort."
"Howard Hotel? Meeting?"
"Yeah, we are meeting with a famous director."
"That's right." Arnold beamed and threw an arm over Lily's shoulders. "I managed to pull some strings and connect our dear Lily here to the famous directory Royston Tan. He's planning to shoot a new movie here in G City! So I recommended Lily for the leading role in his new film."
"Wow…I hope you get the part." I nodded eagerly.
"Me too." Lily threw Arnold's arm off her shoulders and folded her arms. "But Director Wong is an eccentric person. I don't know if he'll like me. I'm still new to the industry…I don't have much experience, especially when compared to the veterans…"
"You might not have been in the entertainment industry long, but your skills are the real deal!" Arnold argued. "I can guarantee that Director Wong will be impressed by your performance!"
"Yeah! I think so too!"
"As much as I appreciate the encouragement," Lily said as she stared at me. "You haven't actually seen me act, so where are you getting the confidence from?"
"Based on what I know of you, as a person. We've been acquainted for a while now, and I know how competent and talented you are."
"I can't believe you're saying that with a straight face." Lily sighed and buried her face in her palm. Then she straightened up. "Anyway, we'll be going to Howard Hotel tomorrow. Please keep your schedule free then."
"I will." I wasn't very fond of attending formal events, but I decided to do Lily a favor. Something about this spelled trouble, especially since I had read too many CEO stories to know that some drama would crop up. Either Lily would get attacked by lecherous men or at least one of the three bitches would show up and scheme something (drug her, humiliate her or plot to get her raped).
Better safe than sorry.