Chapter 167: The Police Report
“Uncle Wu, you are too modest. I’ve read so many books analyzing Dream of the Red Chamber, and yours is undoubtedly the best,” Xu Youyou said.
Professor Wu had been feeling despondent, but now, with the new project that Xu Youyou had introduced, he felt a faint sense of finding a new support system.
Seeing that he agreed, Xu Youyou relaxed in her heart. Comforting a grieving elderly person wasn’t something she was good at.
Before leaving, Professor Wu thanked Xu Youyou again. Unable to hold back, he said, “Miss Xu, you have such a straightforward personality. If my daughter were still alive, you two would definitely have become great friends.”
Xu Youyou felt a pang in her heart. From both Professor Wu and the police, she had heard that Mrs. Wu Mingzhu was beautiful, free-spirited, good at her job, and loved sports. She was an outstanding person. It was just a shame that she had encountered the wrong people.
Xu Youyou handed Professor Wu a complete copy of Dream of the Red Chamber. He looked at it briefly and couldn’t help but stare, saying, “This… this is the full version? How did you get it?”
Xu Youyou smiled and said, “It was a coincidence, but I can’t disclose how I obtained it just yet. Please keep it confidential, Uncle Wu.”
Professor Wu immediately agreed, promising not to tell anyone.
Not long after the murder case was concluded, with the police report being released, almost everyone in the social circle learned that the Gu family had purchased a haunted house from the murderer at a high price. The Gu family quickly became the laughingstock of the community.
Gu Xueying hadn’t left the house for several days, and the starry-eyed young heir to the Xingdian Group, who had been courting her enthusiastically, had stopped paying attention to her in recent days.
Instead, her cousin with white hair and Lu Shaoyan came to the Gu household to comfort her.
“Xueying, who hasn’t made mistakes? It was just a momentary lapse of judgment. Don’t take it to heart,” Lu Shaoyan tried to console her.
Gu Xueying forced a smile and said, “Brother Lu, thank you for comforting me. I’m just worried about my mom. She hasn’t wanted to go out these past few days, and I hardly see her smile anymore.”
Lu Shaoyan replied, “What’s wrong with Aunt? For families like ours, this kind of money isn’t much.”
Gu Xueying couldn’t respond to this. The Gu family had gone through several misfortunes. If it weren’t for the large cash flow, their business might have been in trouble. But no matter how much cash they had, the constant wastefulness was unbearable.
She had already mentally ruled out Lu Shaoyan from her list of potential partners. However, due to business dealings between the Gu family and the Lu family recently, and at her father’s request, she had to remain patient and appear gentle, even though she was growing increasingly impatient.
“Sis Xue, don’t be sad. Before Third Cousin went abroad, he told me repeatedly to take good care of you. If he knew you were being framed, he’d definitely make sure that bad person pays!” The cousin with white hair waved his fists as he spoke.
Upon hearing Gu Yujie’s name, Gu Xueying had a fleeting moment of distraction. Gu Yujie always said nice things, but whenever she needed him, he was always overseas.
Although she knew he had gone abroad for his teacher’s art exhibition and to deal with matters involving the Gu family’s new backer, she couldn’t help but feel resentful.
Meanwhile, Lu Shaoyan, upon hearing this, immediately became alert. “Who framed Xueying? Is there something I don’t know about?”
The white-haired cousin answered, “It’s that Xu Youyou! She’s really annoying. I heard the murderer saying he wanted to give her a thank-you fee for helping to raise the price! If it wasn’t for her meddling, how could Aunt and Xueying have paid such an inflated price for the villa?”
Lu Shaoyan visibly became angry. “When we first met, I thought that Xu Youyou wasn’t a good person. I didn’t expect her to secretly bully Xueying like this behind my back! I won’t let her get away with this!”
Gu Xueying’s eyes reddened slightly as she said, “Sis has been through some hardships and harbors resentment against us. I can’t blame her for that.”
Lu Shaoyan’s understanding of the Gu family’s mess mainly came from the Lu family banquet. His understanding still remained that Gu Xueying and Xu Youyou were fraternal twins.
“Losing a child is something the Gu family would never want to happen. To hold this grudge over such a small matter, it’s ridiculous! The house was raised by nearly a hundred million yuan! That’s too much! There’s no sense of the bigger picture!” Lu Shaoyan protested on behalf of Gu Xueying.
The white-haired cousin kept agreeing. “I wouldn’t even recognize her as my cousin! I don’t know what my aunt and uncle were thinking, trying to make relatives with someone like her!”
Gu Xueying noticed her cousin was going off-topic and quickly asked, “You said you saw it with your own eyes? Did you see the murderer giving money to my sister?”
The cousin responded, “The murderer asked her for a bank card number. I was going to listen in, but her bodyguard found me and kicked me out, so I didn’t hear anything else.”
Gu Xueying’s eyes suddenly reddened. “For a small amount of money, does she not know how heartbroken Mom and Dad must be? If she needs money, she could just ask the family. How could she do something so treacherous?”
She said this as if she was already sure that Xu Youyou had taken the murderer’s money.
Lu Shaoyan suddenly said, “She’s colluding with the murderer! We can report it to the police and accuse her of fraud!”
Gu Xueying immediately said, “Sis was just confused for a moment. How could we involve the police? She’s a young girl. If she gets detained, it’ll be so embarrassing if it gets out.”
Lu Shaoyan, thinking about how Xu Youyou had once taken billions from him, felt a strange sense of satisfaction. However, he pretended to be sympathetic to Gu Xueying, saying, “Xueying, you’re just too kind. You’ve been bullied and yet you don’t even fight back.”
Gu Xueying replied, “After all, she is my sister and my parents’ daughter. We are family.”
The white-haired cousin snorted. “When she was doing all of this, did she treat you like family? She’s full of bad intentions! She should be locked up in the police station to learn a lesson!”
Gu Xueying showed an expression of hesitation.
Lu Shaoyan immediately advised, “If you steal needles when you’re young, you’ll steal gold when you grow up. She’s already an adult, and she refuses to listen to Uncle Gu and Aunt Gu. If we keep indulging her, who knows what kind of foolish things she’ll do next? Reporting her to the police now is for her own good.”
Gu Xueying seemed to be persuaded by his words and slowly lowered her head. “I… I just want what’s best for my sister…”
When Xu Youyou received the call from the police station, she was at the housing authority handling the villa transfer.
“Okay, I understand. I’ll come right over,” Xu Youyou said, hanging up the phone. After finishing the transfer procedures, she called Xu Fang to drive her to the police station.
“Miss Xu, don’t worry. We’re just conducting a routine inquiry. As long as you can prove there’s no financial relationship between you and Huang Jiaming, this matter won’t involve you.”
The officer handling the fraud case was a familiar face to Xu Youyou, as he was also the one investigating the murder case.
Xu Youyou nodded gently. “Don’t worry, I’ve had some entanglements with the Gu family. It’s not surprising that they would try something like this against me.”
She knew exactly who she needed to settle accounts with.
