Chapter 263: It’s All a Script

Chapter 263: Chapter 263: It’s All a Script

"Right! He’s the one who went too far! If he hadn’t been so ruthless, I wouldn’t have thought of planting a bug."

The more the assistant spoke, the more self-righteous his expression became.

At a nod from Heath Hale, the assistant explained the whole story of why he had planted the bug.

"Arthur Yates goes through assistants quickly. But before, the company assigned them directly, so he couldn’t pull much and had to restrain himself.

But once he cemented his position as a top outdoor adventure streamer, the company started giving him some face and agreed to let him pick his own assistant. That’s how I got hired.

Everything was fine at first. But slowly, I started taking on more and more work. From wiping his ass after he used the toilet to setting him up with girls, I was in charge of everything. For his streams, I was even the one who’d scout out the locations first to ensure they’d make for good content, and then we’d finalize them."

As he spoke about his responsibilities, the assistant’s face was etched with exhaustion.

To put it nicely, he was a personal assistant. To put it bluntly, Arthur Yates didn’t even see him as a human being.

It was all manageable at first. The assistant figured he was earning a high salary, so doing a little extra wasn’t a big deal.

But everything changed six months ago.

After Arthur Yates discovered the joys of siccing online mobs on people, he began to turn his demonic claws on those around him.

During his streams, he would occasionally use a veiled tone to talk about how irresponsible his assistant was, or how he was supposedly stealing his money, jewelry, and watches to sell them.

Viewers watching the stream would urge him to call the police, but Arthur Yates would always shut them down with, "He’s still young, I want to give him a chance. He wasn’t like this before."

Not only did this earn him a good reputation, but it also goaded his uninformed but self-righteous viewers into cyberbullying the assistant.

Then, during one stream, Arthur Yates ’oh-so-casually’ humiliated his assistant in front of hundreds of thousands of people, all for a bit of content.

Sometimes, under the pretext of ’relaxing,’ Arthur Yates would make his assistant and his friends play Fight the Landlord with him.

But the assistant was always the one who lost, and he would be forced to perform all sorts of ridiculous stunts, all of which Arthur Yates recorded and posted online.

The assistant wanted to fight back, wanted to quit, but he was blocked by the contract clauses his agent pointed out.

It was only then that the assistant discovered another clause in the contract: he was required to cooperate fully with Arthur Yates’s streams, no matter what he was asked to do. He could not refuse or resist. The penalty for violation was one million yuan in compensation to the company.

Quitting early was also not an option. The company was worried the assistant might leak trade secrets, so if he insisted on leaving, he would have to pay another one million yuan in compensation.

The weight of two million yuan came crashing down on him. The assistant, who was just an intern, was left reeling. He didn’t know what to do, so he could only hold his nose and carry on.

After discovering how easy the assistant was to bully, Arthur Yates set his sights on his salary.

He constantly docked the assistant’s pay for all sorts of absurd reasons. For a full six months, the assistant didn’t get a single cent; he even had to pay out of his own pocket.

"So last week, I planted a bug in Arthur Yates’s house, hoping to overhear something I could use as leverage to get out of this company and get back the money I’m owed." The assistant’s face was filled with resentment.

And it was precisely this act that successfully recorded the conversation where Arthur Yates conspired with his friend.

Heath Hale took out his phone and played the audio file the assistant had mentioned.

The voices of Arthur Yates and another man filled the interrogation room.

Arthur Yates: "That guy’s been staking out my place downstairs again. It’s driving me crazy."

Mysterious Man: "The brother of that girl? Just call the cops."

Arthur Yates: "Call the cops my ass. If they really investigated, it would be my problem. No, I have to find a way to get him thrown in jail.

Otherwise, I’m stuck here day after day. I can’t stream, and I’m just losing followers!"

Mysterious Man: "In that case, I have an idea. Tonight, I’ll pretend to be a fan and get you to start a stream. Then, in the middle of the night, you just pack your things and leave.

The next day, I’ll pretend to be a kidnapper, abduct you, and then shut off the stream. That’ll get you the attention you want.

When the police ’rescue’ you, you’ll have the buzz, the heat, the attention—everything. We might even be able to pin it on Aidan Osborne and solve that problem for good!"

As soon as the mysterious man finished speaking, Arthur Yates’s heavy, excited breathing could be heard.

About ten seconds later, Arthur Yates’s voice was heard, agreeing to the plan.

Zoe Sawyer and the others already knew everything that happened after that.

The reason Aidan Osborne’s video appeared so opportunely was because the assistant felt he was an innocent victim caught in the crossfire.

He couldn’t bear to see him get framed, so he had secretly tipped off Aidan Osborne.

"To go this far just for views." After hearing the whole thing, Zoe Sawyer couldn’t help but gasp.

Heath Hale put his phone away and said in a weary tone, "Evan Keller has already sent people to search Arthur Yates’s house. Liam has also checked the audio file. It’s real—no signs of tampering."

Heath Hale and Evan Keller wouldn’t have believed the assistant’s story outright, even with evidence.

But when they questioned Arthur Yates’s agent, his evasive attitude and guilty eyes said it all.

Under Heath Hale’s stern warning and persistent questioning, the agent finally admitted that everything the assistant had said was true.

Arthur Yates’s scheme had been approved by him and the company.

And of course, they weren’t just going to let Arthur Yates go out there alone. To prevent any accidents, they had also prepared a backup plan.

They had a rookie streamer and his crew head in that direction, ready to show up under the guise of filming B-roll right after the police "rescued" Arthur Yates.

They would film Arthur’s rescue, which could then be used to drum up a wave of sympathy and attention.

"This is a complete waste of police resources!" Sean Hughes slammed his hand on the table in anger.

Just then, the officers in charge of that jurisdiction arrived at the initial location. After checking and finding no one there, they led their team deeper into the area to continue the search.

"Coach Hale, take a look." An officer next to Sean Hughes noticed something on the surveillance feed and quickly directed their attention to the computer screen.

Everyone followed his gaze and saw the man reappear, dragging Arthur Yates behind him like a dead dog.

The man threw Arthur Yates onto the ground, glanced around, and finally took a phone out of his pocket. He fiddled with it for a moment, then pointed it at Arthur’s face.

"Arthur Yates’s account is live again!"

Officer Lee, who was closely monitoring Arthur Yates’s account, quickly spoke up, drawing the attention of Zoe Sawyer and the others.

The Arthur Yates who reappeared in the livestream looked absolutely miserable.

None of his exposed skin was unscathed. There was a long scratch on his face, and his limbs hung limply, looking powerless. His clothes were covered in footprints; it was obvious he’d taken a serious beating.

"Is this really part of the script?"