Chapter 91 The Boundary Between Lies and Truth

The story told by Ren Jing is a sad one.

Childhood sweethearts, innocent and carefree, should have been the epitome of Ren Jing and Liu Mingze's relationship, with everything proceeding smoothly and without incident.

They grew up together in a theatrical troupe, and later escaped together to make their way in the capital.

We came to Shuangji Theater together.

“I believed him. I wrote all sorts of scripts with all my might, not to promote our Shuangji's leading actor, but to promote him.” Ren Jing knelt on the ground and sighed.

“We had already secretly pledged our lives to each other and planned to get married at the end of this year. For this, I saved up all my money for a long time before we finally bought a small courtyard house together in Da'anfang in the south. Although it’s remote, at least we finally have a home.” She chuckled softly.

Ren Jing looked up at the sunlight outside the window, her smile serene and beautiful.

In the eyes of his colleagues at the theater, Liu Mingze was always someone who refused to be mediocre.

From the moment he first entered the theater, his drive was displayed without reservation in everyone's eyes.

Some praised him as a promising young talent, some laughed at him for wasting his time, and others mocked him as nothing more than an actor.

Putting aside the complicated emotional entanglements, he is indeed a capable and powerful person.

“He works very hard.” Ren Jing smiled, her eyes full of admiration for him. “Whether it’s acting or life, he works very hard. If he hasn’t achieved anything significant yet, I can only think of one thing that might be wrong…”

She paused for a moment, looked at Li Jin who was listening quietly to her, and gave a bitter smile: "The only thing I can think of is talent."

Liu Mingze has no talent.

He studied desperately. While others would get up to practice their skills at the crack of dawn, he would get up before the rooster crowed in the middle of the night to practice his singing.

What others can remember after being taught once by their master, he needs to spend days or even months to comprehend.

It was as if fate had played a cruel joke on him, giving him extraordinary fighting ability but not even a trace of talent.

“He was sold by my father because he had no talent.” Ren Jing laughed. “Our family also ran a theater, and my father was the owner of the theater and also his teacher when he was a child.”

“My father always disapproved of him pursuing the path of a female lead in Peking Opera, always saying that he had no talent and wasn’t cut out for it. But Liu Mingze was stubborn and refused to give up no matter what.”

As she said this, the expression on her face softened considerably.

It was as if the light diffused through the air had traversed ten years.

She was in the audience area, and he was on the stage.

The small drum sounds, the operatic singing begins, but the technique is lost.

What she saw was his childhood, with his lips pursed, being hit by the cane, and swallowing his tears.

What you see is that stubborn face that refuses to admit defeat, that spirit that breaks through everything and never gives up until the goal is achieved, and that indomitable soul.

“That’s when I started writing scripts,” she laughed. “I wanted to write down his struggles and turn them into stories. When he becomes famous in the future, I hope that these plays tailored for him can give him wings to fly.”

"He worked hard day after day for years, but with little success. Later, my father felt that keeping him was useless, and since he didn't want to do grocery shopping, he decided to sell him."

Ren Jing's smile faded. She lowered her head, stared at the stone slabs on the ground, and remained silent for a long time before continuing, "I ran away with him."

“Ah…” When she looked up again, her eyes were already brimming with tears. “He started to change from that time on.”

"The hardworking man I knew suddenly disappeared. He started thinking of all sorts of ways to get things done, like giving gifts and taking shortcuts..." She took a deep breath, her softness replaced by helplessness.

She couldn't understand why he would choose to take the unorthodox path when he could clearly catch up with others' talent through hard work.

“If he is the kind of person who understands human relationships and has some social skills, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him,” she sneered. “He used a lot of methods. It took us more than two years and we went from one theater to another before we finally got to the capital.”

“I’ve already gained some fame for my plays, but he still has nothing.”

“Those in his hometown who are less talented than him have already become pillars of the stage, but he still has nothing.”

Ren Jing became increasingly agitated. She raised her hand to wipe away the tears on her cheeks, her voice rising eight octaves: "I! I feel like I've been fed to dogs these past few years!"

Her voice echoed throughout the theater, striking the eardrums of everyone present.

Li Jin, standing before me, waved her fan repeatedly, her face expressionless.

How should Li Jin evaluate the woman in front of him? He found it difficult to make a judgment. If he had not obtained all the information from Shen Wen, he would probably have felt sorry for her after hearing her victim-like words.

But the more you know the whole story, the more you find it despicable.

Utterly despicable.

"Is the story finished?" Li Jin looked down at her face and spoke coldly.

Like a sharp icicle, it pierced Ren Jing's heart.

She paused.

Li Jin showed no mercy, coldly saying, "Now that you've finished telling your story, tell me what really happened that night."

He snapped his fan shut, stood up, took a few steps forward, and half-squatted in front of Ren Jing. With an unprecedentedly cold tone, he froze Ren Jing's seemingly pitiful soul with just a few words: "Miss Ren, you are a scholar, you must have heard the saying 'Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated.'"

Li Jin held his fan in his hand and tapped it twice, tapping on Ren Jing's increasingly frightened expression: "Have you ever heard of a shadow within the Six Doors? In the hands of this shadow, there is all the information about everyone in the world?"

After he finished speaking, he smiled slightly, appearing exceptionally kind and approachable.

The scene before her eyes instantly pulled Jin Shu, who was deeply immersed in the story and lost in thought, back to reality.

She stood beside the octagonal chair, staring blankly for a long while. Then, she turned slightly to the side, glanced at Zhou Zheng, and asked in a low voice, "This... is it all fake?"

"It's half true, half false," Zhou Zheng said. "Liu Mingze wasn't sold out; she tricked him into coming out..."

He was tricked out by Ren Jing using despicable means.

"No!" Ren Jing suddenly shouted, "It wasn't a lie! I did it for his own good! If he marries my sister, his acting career will be over! What's wrong with me doing it for his own good?!"

Jin Shu was truly shocked to see her break down and roar in anger.

"What a fine excuse, 'for his own good'." Li Jin stood up.

"To prevent him from marrying your sister, you lied and said your sister had run away. While you two were chasing after her, the robbers you hired at great expense kidnapped you both and transported you to Tangzhou, right?"

He narrowed his eyes slightly, looking her down at her: "For two years in Tangzhou, Liu Mingze treated you like a younger sister. Besides acting in the opera troupe, he also traveled around saving money for his journey home. And you..."

Li Jin's voice grew increasingly contemptuous: "And in order to trap him, you lured Liu Mingze to sign up for Shuangji Theater with a high price. You and the manager agreed on the price difference, and you subsidized it with your own monthly salary."

"It's a pity that despite all your scheming, you never dreamed that Liu Mingze would actually meet his true love in the capital."

He raised his chin slightly, glancing at Ren Jing's increasingly terrified face: "And Liu Mingze never expected that when he was happily trying to introduce his 'sister' to Miss Liu, you would secretly switch the pot with one filled with arsenic."

After speaking, Ren Jing's lips trembled, her eyes widened in anger, and she stared intently at Li Jin.

"You investigated me?!"