Chapter 92

Chapter 92

Although Ye Mingzhao was touched by Chu Hengyi's sincerity and had decided to temporarily let the Zhou family off the hook, not planning to tamper with the safety wire, he still underestimated just how stupid and hateful Mrs. Zhou could be.

Chu Hengyi also didn’t expect that despite his obvious and strict precautions on the set, Mrs. Zhou would still dare to bribe the crew members to tamper with Ye Mingzhao’s safety wire.

However, this guy wasn’t as foolish and gullible as Mrs. Zhou had thought. After being approached by Mrs. Zhou’s assistant, he didn’t outright refuse but instead spilled the beans to Ye Mingzhao about Mrs. Zhou’s scheme: “…They promised me 500,000 yuan after the deed was done. I didn’t want to get involved, but I was afraid that if I refused, they might find someone less reliable. If they did, Mr. Ye would definitely be in trouble.”

The stunt coordinator Mrs. Zhou’s assistant went after, a guy named Zhang, was responsible for designing fight scenes and some scene scheduling in the crew, also serving as an assistant director, so everyone called him Director Zhang.

Director Zhang wasn’t an employee of Starjoy Media but a team member brought in by the highly paid martial arts director hired by the crew. Thanks to his top-notch skills, attention to detail, and years of experience, he had been in charge of Ye Mingzhao’s wire scenes. That’s probably why Mrs. Zhou’s assistant zeroed in on him.

The deal was for a total of one million yuan, with 500,000 in cash upfront and another 500,000 after the deed was done. A measly million yuan for Ye Mingzhao’s life—even the people involved couldn’t help but shake their heads at how cheap that was.

“Is my life really only worth a million?” Ye Mingzhao turned to Chu Hengyi and complained, “Is the Zhou family really out of money?”

Chu Hengyi brushed off Ye Mingzhao’s comment, his expression grim as he turned to Director Zhang. “How did you respond?”

Faced with such a big deal, Director Zhang didn’t jump at it right away, but he didn’t refuse either. He saw this as an opportunity to gain favor with Ye Mingzhao—he had been worried about not having a chance to curry favor with the influential, and now such a big opportunity had fallen into his lap.

Director Zhang wasn’t afraid of the dangers of high-wire stunts; he was more concerned about not being able to seize this opportunity. “Here’s my plan. Like the old saying goes, ‘You can’t watch your back every single day.’ If Mr. Ye’s on board, I’ll take their offer right away. Once they give me the 500,000, I’ll pretend to tamper with the wire on set, and then Mr. Chu can catch me red-handed. We’ll have them dead to rights…”

At that point, they would naturally call the police, who would follow the trail to find the mastermind behind the plot to harm Ye Mingzhao and bring them to justice.

That’s right! Director Zhang didn’t even know who was behind the plot to harm Ye Mingzhao (he didn’t recognize Mrs. Zhou’s assistant), nor did he know the backstory of why they wanted to harm Ye Mingzhao. Yet, he’d already mapped out the whole plan in his head.

With a clear beginning, middle, and end, the whole thing was packed with twists and turns, so much so that anyone who saw it would say that the stunt coordinator also had the heart of a filmmaker!

Even this cutthroat ambition to climb over others had the makings of a true villain!

Ye Mingzhao admired someone so sharp and cunning and liked working with people who were this clever. “Director Zhang, you’ve really thought this through. What do you want from me?”

“It’s my privilege to serve Mr. Ye,” Director Zhang smiled humbly at Ye Mingzhao, but no one present dared to overlook the cunning ruthlessness beneath his humble exterior.

Chu Hengyi gave Director Zhang a weird look, then glanced at Ye Mingzhao, clearly holding back.

Ye Mingzhao smiled at Chu Hengyi. “What is it?”

Chu Hengyi glanced at Director Zhang again but ultimately shook his head and said nothing.

Three days later, Chu Hengyi caught Director Zhang in the act, slicing the wire with a small knife, bringing the crew members to apprehend him on the spot.

With witnesses and hard evidence on hand, the crew wasted no time calling the cops. Director Zhang, taken to the police station for questioning, confessed readily, spilling the entire story from start to finish.

Based on the clues provided by Director Zhang, the police found Mrs. Zhou’s assistant. However, they didn’t expect that Mrs. Zhou’s assistant would be so loyal to the Zhou family, taking full responsibility for the entire incident and claiming it was all his own doing: “Young Master Yueze is my good friend and has been very kind to me. I couldn’t stand seeing Ye Mingzhao, who caused him to go to prison, so I wanted to teach him a lesson.”

Mrs. Zhou’s assistant confessed that he had bribed someone in the *Mandarin Duck Buckle* crew to cut Ye Mingzhao’s wire, intending only to break his arms or legs, not to kill him. At most, it was an attempted assault.

—Since Director Zhang was caught red-handed by Chu Hengyi while cutting the wire, Ye Mingzhao was unharmed. Additionally, the Zhou family hired the best lawyer specializing in such cases to defend Mrs. Zhou’s assistant. Even if sentenced to a few years, it was highly likely to be probation or served outside prison.

But if he dared to implicate Mrs. Zhou during police questioning, his fate would be far worse than simply taking the blame.

This was something everyone understood. Mrs. Zhou, of course, felt secure.

Unfortunately, the Zhou couple never imagined that Ye Mingzhao’s design of this scenario wasn’t to send Mrs. Zhou to prison but to find an excuse to completely eradicate the Zhou family.

“Mrs. Zhou is an empty-headed fool, not worth worrying about. The real threat is Zhou Heting himself. But even if Zhou Heting is a venomous snake, as long as his fangs are removed, he’s no longer a threat.”

In Ye Mingzhao’s view, Zhou Heting had two fangs: one was the wealth and power of the Zhou family, and the other was Zhou Heting’s cunning and methods.

The former has already been stripped away by Ye Mingzhao through a series of maneuvers. Having lost the behemoth that is the Zhou family's empire, even if the Zhou family still has some capital left, it is merely a dying camel. Ye Mingzhao is more concerned that Zhou Heting might use this diminished state to attract opportunistic predators, taking advantage of the Ye family's lack of vigilance to bite off a significant chunk of their resources.

So, he deliberately made those comments during a media interview, luring Mrs. Zhou into bribing the production staff to harm him. However, his true target was not Mrs. Zhou herself, but her assistant—who, on the surface, serves as Mrs. Zhou's assistant, but in reality, is the henchman who helps Zhou Heting handle dirty work.

As a housewife with no connections, Mrs. Zhou has no way to hire someone to harm others. If she wants to seek revenge on Ye Mingzhao and avenge her husband, Zhou Yueze, she can only rely on Zhou Heting's subordinates.

Since the assistant is so loyal to the Zhou family, willing to shoulder the blame to protect Mrs. Zhou's innocence and confessed so readily, Ye Mingzhao doesn't believe this is the only instance of hiring someone to harm others that the assistant has been involved in.

"Since Zhou Heting could think of using Hua Rui's kidnapping to curry favor with the Ye family for personal gain over twenty years ago, do you think he’s been completely clean and refrained from any shady dealings for the past two decades?"

As the saying goes, people tend to rely on the paths that led to their success, repeating the steps that brought them success. Zhou Heting is likely no exception. Therefore, he must have lackeys around him who help him handle dirty work. These people are Zhou Heting's fangs. Once these fangs are removed, Zhou Heting, the poisonous snake, will no longer be a threat.

So, their next step is to use this assistant as a starting point, following the clues to dig deeper and expose more evidence of wrongdoing by Zhou Heting.

Zhou Heting probably never expected that Ye Mingzhao's real target was him. By the time he realizes he has walked into the trap, it’ll be too late.