Chapter 345: The Scare Came First

Chapter 345: Chapter 278: The Scare Came First

“AHHHHHH!”

Song Fuling had already left with someone to get the necklace repaired. When Wang Xi heard the screams, she turned and caught a glimpse of what was happening, then grabbed a nearby crew member and started screaming with them.

In an instant, screams erupted one after another on set!

A flock of plump sparrows, fattened up for the winter, took fright at the commotion and flew off with a flutter, making the atmosphere all the more fitting.

Ever since she’d fished up the necklace, Pei Jin had pulled up a folding chair next to the cameraman, curious to see what other surprises she had in store.

But instead of another surprise, he got a nasty shock!

“Holy shit!”

Pei Jin shot up from his chair!

He was surprisingly brave. After the initial shock, his first instinct wasn’t to back away. Instead, he moved to Ni Bingyan’s side, blocking her view of the lake and comforting her in a low voice.

“Don’t be scared! This is practically the ultimate achievement for an angler. You can’t say you’ve truly lived the life if this doesn’t happen to you at least once. At least you’ve got a whole crowd of people here with you. It’s way better than if you were alone.”

His words immediately painted a vivid picture in Ni Bingyan’s mind.

‘How will I ever be able to go fishing by myself again?’

‘I’ll have to find some other way to get some peace and quiet.’

But as morbid as his words were, they were surprisingly effective. He did have a point, after all.

Ni Bingyan forced herself to calm down. “Let’s back away, secure the scene, and call the police!”

No matter where you are, that was the correct procedure when encountering a potential crime scene.

“The station isn’t far. I just called them, and they said they’re on their way.”

The assistant director was meticulous. He usually kept a low profile, but he really came through in a crisis.

A case like this would put any police force on high alert. If they said they were coming right away, they wouldn’t dawdle.

Ni Bingyan breathed a sigh of relief. Waving a hand to show she needed a break, she shuffled over to Duanmu Li.

She sat down with a sigh, a sudden wave of exhaustion washing over her.

Ni Bingyan asked listlessly, “Should we call Sister Wei?”

Having never experienced anything like this before, Ni Bingyan’s first thought was of her experienced agent, Wei Shuojie.

Duanmu Li understood what she meant and sighed as well.

‘Even Sister Wei has probably never dealt with something like this, has she?’

‘What normal actress likes to fish, especially wild fishing where you can hook literally anything?’

‘If you aren’t strong enough, a fish could pull you right into the water.’

But as an assistant, she understood one thing: sometimes, your boss doesn’t want to hear the harsh truth.

Duanmu Li thought for a long moment before shaking her head.

“There’s no need. The cameras have been rolling the whole time. Even if it is a criminal case, we can easily be cleared of suspicion. You were just unlucky enough to stumble upon it.”

She had starred in *Soul Ferryman* before, so logically, she shouldn’t have been this scared of a corpse. But acting was all make-believe. This was real, and she had stumbled upon it completely unprepared.

It was like seeing a squishy little bug; normally, no one would be scared. But if you see half of one in an apple you’ve just bitten into, the effect is completely different!

Besides, acting and reality were two different things, a distinction she had always been careful to maintain.

Ni Bingyan was truly shaken; her mind had gone blank for a moment.

Hearing what Duanmu Li said, she immediately came to her senses.

There were no outsiders here, so the PR pressure wasn’t huge. Sister Wei was far away back home and couldn’t possibly come handle things in person. Plus, Ni Bingyan wasn’t without help right now. Contacting Sister Wei would only make her worry for no reason; it was better to wait until the situation was resolved before telling her.

“Sigh. We’re just trying to film a show, and it’s one accident after another. How did my dream of a thrilling adventure turn into a horror trip? I just wanted to catch a rainbow trout and admire its beautiful iridescence in the sunset. Why is that so hard?”

Honestly, she just wanted to live a quiet life. She really didn’t want this much excitement!

Seeing that she was still muttering about her fish, Duanmu Li was once again left speechless.

‘Is this the famous dedication of an angler?’

‘Most people who went through something like this would be afraid to go near water for a long time. But not her. She’s still dead set on fishing.’

“This park is in the city and always has a lot of visitors, so it’s normal for there to be junk in the lake. It could also be the weather; maybe there aren’t many fish.”

Duanmu Li held back the second part of her thought.

‘Hooking junk on three consecutive casts is some seriously bad luck, though.’

Knowing that Duanmu Li was just trying to find an excuse to comfort her, Ni Bingyan still couldn’t help but follow that train of thought.

‘What she said wasn’t entirely without reason, was it?’

‘An unfamiliar place, strange fish, and it’s winter, so the water temperature isn’t very high. It takes time to get familiar with a new spot before you can start catching things.’

Once she started down this path, Ni Bingyan couldn’t help but think further:

“Sister Li, don’t you think a park this busy, with people coming and going, wouldn’t be a very good place to dump a body?”

‘Shouldn’t you find a deserted place to do something evil?’

To run into something with such incredibly low odds… her luck was just the worst.

This thought even gave her the courage to glance at the… thing in the water again, trying to determine if it might just be a silicone mannequin.

After all, these kinds of false alarms had happened more than once, both at home and abroad.

‘What if she was lucky, and this was all just a false alarm?’

Unfortunately, her hopes were dashed.

If a silicone mannequin was made to look like that, it probably wouldn’t sell. And if some master craftsman had made it for their own amusement, they would surely cherish it, not casually toss it into the park’s lake—even if the lake was quite large.

Once her imagination was sparked, it was hard to rein it in, and Ni Bingyan’s thoughts began to spiral…

“You never know. This part of the water is pretty deep. What if it was an accidental drowning, or a suicide? It’s also possible the body was dumped somewhere else and washed over here. This isn’t some stagnant pond! We need to look at this from all angles.”

As the two of them were whispering, they saw some reckless fool already joking around, trembling and rolling his eyes back in his head.

“Give me back my necklace… Give me back my necklace…”

The assistant was a recent graduate—young and a natural prankster. It wasn’t at all surprising to see him pulling a stunt like this.

“Holy shit! What the hell is wrong with you?”

A terrified companion grabbed him by the neck and shook him hard.

Hearing this, Ni Bingyan was initially speechless, thinking how inappropriate the joke was. But then, a thought suddenly struck her—

What if that necklace really belonged to the person in the water? It could be a crucial piece of evidence. If they took it to be repaired, any forensic traces might be destroyed in the process!

Better late than never. Ni Bingyan immediately called Song Fuling and told her to bring the necklace back.

Song Fuling was still in the car, happily making dinner plans with her best friend. She was stunned when she got the call. “You can fish *that* out of the lake? Are you serious?! How is that even possible?!”

The gold-plated glass necklace was already beyond her wildest imagination, but now hearing this, she was simply at a loss.

“It’s true. Why would I lie to you? Can you hear the sirens? The police are here.”

“I’m coming back right now.”

Song Fuling sighed.

She had been hoping the story would have a romantic follow-up, not this kind of turn.

“Don’t panic. The necklace doesn’t necessarily belong to the victim. The weather’s cold, so the body is decomposing slowly. The medical examiner just made a preliminary assessment and has already identified the person’s gender.”

Despite what Ni Bingyan said, Song Fuling still felt a creepy tingling in the hand that was holding the necklace.