After the men left, Jiang Lijin couldn't be bothered to dwell on the intentions behind Tianyan and Tianque's visit.
Grumbling under his breath, Tinia closed the elevator doors, turned, and hurried over to the sofa. He clung to her affectionately, resting his chin on her shoulder and rubbing against it.
"Sister, those two paupers were such a buzzkill. I'm going to have the chef prepare lunch right now. Let's get something delicious to wash away the bad luck."
His nuzzling completely melted away Jiang Lijin's temper. She reached back to ruffle his golden hair, then waved her hand. "Go on."
Satisfied, Tinia hummed a tune as he headed to the outer room to contact the catering department. Chiron also got up and went to the bar, leaving her alone by the floor-to-ceiling windows to enjoy the sea breeze.
Jiang Lijin's mind was racing, calculating how to completely crush Felwin.
The laws of the interstellar era were incredibly biased when it came to gender protection. Because high-ranking females were extremely scarce, even if a female committed a heinous crime, she would almost never face the death penalty.
In the original owner's memories, there had been a few extreme cases where a high-ranking female murdered over a dozen low-ranking males, and the final verdict was nothing more than the deprivation of some political rights, followed by forced relocation to a fringe galaxy to continue a matched life. For a female, life imprisonment was already the absolute maximum punishment.
With Felwin's current status as an S-rank female, even if Arden's death was traced back to her, she would at most lose a few years of freedom. She would be sent to a special sanatorium, waited on hand and foot every day.
As long as she wasn't dead, this female would always find a chance to make a comeback.
Relying on conventional legal means to crush Felwin simply wouldn't work.
But in the current situation, it was a fight to the death between her and Felwin.
Arden was caught red-handed buying drugs, and then inexplicably died in a locked room. If he had communicated with Felwin before his death and mentioned bumping into Jiang Lijin at the black market, Felwin would definitely blame her for the forum leaks. That female was now backed into a corner and completely unhinged. She could kill her own S-rank lover without batting an eye, let alone a thorn in her side like Jiang Lijin.
Jiang Lijin didn't want to cause trouble, but with a knife at her throat, she couldn't just stick her neck out and wait to die.
Felwin had to die!
But she had to find a way to make Felwin disappear forever without implicating herself in the slightest.
She irritably scrolled through her optical computer, constantly refreshing the Star Network forum page. The screen was filled with sympathy for Felwin and curses aimed at Arden. The one-sided public opinion was nauseating.
Just as she was about to turn off her optical computer, the page jumped, and a new post was bumped to the top.
There was no IP address and no avatar. The poster's ID was a string of random numbers.
The title was long and extremely familiar: The Truth and Statement Regarding the Banned Substance Incident.
This title was word-for-word identical to the statement Felwin had used a few days ago to shift the blame onto Arden. The mockery was off the charts.
Jiang Lijin clicked on the post.
The main post had no long-winded nonsense, only a few high-definition scans and an audio clip.
The first image was the original copy of Felwin's genetic test report from when she turned eighteen. It was in black and white, with the steel seal of the Imperial Gene Bank stamped in the bottom right corner.
The various indicator data were clearly visible, all of them perfectly ordinary values. In the rank column, it clearly stated: B-rank.
The second image was a transaction record of Felwin purchasing a special drug to drastically boost mental power on the black market. It also came with a communication recording from an encrypted channel.
Jiang Lijin clicked on the audio.
"How long does the drug's effect last? I'm going to the capital star next month for the matching audit, and I must ensure the instruments don't detect any problems." It was Felwin's voice.
The seller replied, "As long as you take it on time, an S-rank rating is guaranteed. But you know the side effects yourself, so don't come crying to me later."
The third image was an internal system operation log from the black market.
It detailed how, on a certain day of a certain month in a certain year, a hacker infiltrated the periphery of the Imperial Gene Bank and exploited a code vulnerability in the underlying architecture to completely wipe out all historical records under Felwin's name regarding her B-rank status.
Jiang Lijin's breathing unconsciously slowed down.
These things were ironclad evidence that could directly bury Felwin into the center of the earth.
The post had been up for less than a minute, and the view count was only in the single digits. But as long as it fermented for a few hours, the Star Network would absolutely crash.
Felwin's painstakingly crafted S-rank persona and innocent victim image would be smashed to pieces in the face of these images.
Not only that, Arden's death was originally classified as suicide out of fear of punishment. But with this transaction record, it proved that Felwin was the mastermind behind the drug purchase, and Arden was at most a lackey...
Although the agents of the Imperial Security Bureau were slow, they were definitely not fools. Following this clue, the fishy circumstances in Arden's "locked room" wouldn't stand up to scrutiny at all.
Jiang Lijin stared at the screen, her breathing slow.
Previously, Felwin had dared to righteously tell the Security Bureau to investigate in her Star Network video because she relied on the fact that her records had long been wiped.
However, being able to tamper with the underlying data and still preserve the original records so completely afterward... across the entire interstellar space, there was no one else capable of this besides the core layer of the black market.
Tianyan's parting words echoed in her mind: I'll give you an even bigger gift.
Case closed!
The first anonymous post exposing the banned drugs was Tianyan's doing, and now this post that directly hammered Felwin into the ground was also his handiwork!
Jiang Lijin gripped her optical computer, recalling those twins. One was a smiling tiger, the other a cold stoic, claiming to run a rundown antique shop in a fringe galaxy.
What kind of antique shop owner could access the black market's core data? What kind of antique shop owner could ignore the Yunlan Group's top-tier security system and break into a penthouse suite in the middle of the night?
Steady footsteps reached her ears, interrupting her thoughts.
Chiron walked over carrying two cups of freshly brewed hot tea. He pushed one cup toward Jiang Lijin, pulled out the chair opposite her, and sat down.
Jiang Lijin turned her optical computer screen toward him. "Look at this."
Chiron looked down, his gaze sweeping over the images and audio on the screen. His reading speed was incredibly fast. A few seconds later, he looked up, his gray eyes showing no emotion.
He raised his eyes to look at Jiang Lijin, but his words didn't land on Felwin; instead, they pointed directly at the two men who had just left.
"It seems those two 'antique shop owners' from earlier have quite the background."
Jiang Lijin tapped her fingers lightly on the tabletop, a cold, sharp smirk curving her lips. "He said this was a meeting gift for me."
Chiron wasn't surprised. He had long noticed the incongruity of those two. Two 3S-rank males holed up in a lawless area like the Shattered Star Belt was the biggest red flag in itself.
"This gift is very timely," Chiron commented. "With Felwin's disguise torn away, the Security Bureau's arrest warrant will be issued in half an hour at the latest. But... according to the Empire's past conventions, even if she is now proven to be just a B-rank female, as long as she hasn't caused mass casualties, it will be very difficult to sentence her to death, or even life imprisonment."
Jiang Lijin picked up the hot tea in front of her and took a gentle sip, concealing the murderous intent in her eyes. She had, of course, thought of this as well.
"This woman is truly harder to kill than a cockroach in a sewer," she sneered coldly.
But the moment she set down her teacup, she suddenly realized an extremely sensitive issue.
She looked up, her gaze colliding straight into Chiron's bottomless gray eyes. Why would Chiron cut straight to the heart of the matter, deliberately pointing out the fact that Felwin would not die?
Had he seen through her murderous intent toward Felwin? Or... had he also developed an urge to kill Felwin?
