Chapter 354: Chapter 344: The Truth

"Hello everyone, I have a recording I’d like you all to hear."

All eyes focused on Tang Mo as she pulled a recording pen from her bag.

It was a recording of her conversation with Zhang Siyang from the night Qi Jiaming had been following them.

’Qi Jiaming really has his good points after all,’ Tang Mo thought. For instance, the recording she now held in her hand was exceptionally well-made.

It was perfectly clear, capturing everything from beginning to end without any fuzziness. All the proof was here: the truth about Zhang Siyang stealing Qiao Jin’s painting, and the evidence that Zhang Siyang had set a trap to try and kill her.

If Tang Mo hadn’t known Qi Jiaming had recorded this by accident, she would have thought he’d done it specifically for this occasion.

The recording wasn’t long, but those brief three minutes were enough to explain everything.

After the recording finished playing, the crowd fell into a brief silence.

No one had expected that behind a deliberate case of plagiarism, they had all become Zhang Siyang’s accomplices.

Even though it was unintentional, they had still caused Qiao Jin a great deal of harm.

Every single one of them owed Qiao Jin an apology.

"Qiao Jin, I’m going to kill you!!"

Just as everyone was steeped in immense guilt toward Qiao Jin, a voice suddenly shouted from the edge of the crowd.

The sound was especially jarring in the middle of the silence. Everyone turned to look.

"It’s Zhang Siyang!"

Zhang Siyang, who hadn’t been seen for days, appeared looking disheveled and filthy. Her expression was twisted with rage as she continued to scream.

As one of the central figures in the recent events, Zhang Siyang’s appearance naturally became the focus of everyone’s attention.

If it hadn’t been for this scheming woman, they wouldn’t have wrongly misunderstood Qiao Jin.

People’s attitudes toward a person or an event can change in an instant. The crowd’s gazes toward Zhang Siyang immediately turned hostile.

She hadn’t just simply plagiarized a painting. She had exploited everyone’s pure pursuit of art and, even worse, had maliciously tried to kill an innocent fellow student.

Zhang Siyang had spent days without food or water, surviving on small puddles in the pit, before she finally, painstakingly, managed to climb out.

She had spent those days planning. The moment she got out, she was going to confront Qiao Jin in front of everyone and demand to know why she had tried to harm her.

’At that point, the painting and all that won’t matter anymore,’ she had thought. ’What’s important is that Qiao Jin will be branded a murderer. Her life will be over.’

But...

’I’m the victim here, so why is everyone looking at me like that?’

’What went wrong? No, something is definitely wrong here.’

Seeing everyone’s reaction, Zhang Siyang’s furious momentum quickly deflated by half. She wasn’t an idiot; she could feel that the atmosphere was off.

She looked at the faces glaring at her, one after another. It was the same look they had given Qiao Jin before, only even more frightening.

Zhang Siyang looked at the rows of paintings. Her own, which she had finished long ago, had been put on display by someone.

And the painting next to it...

After all, she had spent quite some time with Qiao Jin in order to get close to her. Zhang Siyang only needed a single glance to know who had painted the one beside hers.

"Qiao Jin, you dare to steal my painting!"

Zhang Siyang did have a few tricks up her sleeve. Seeing her painting look so dull next to Qiao Jin’s, she quickly grasped the situation and decided to strike first.

"That painting is yours?" Tang Mo asked, feeling no anger toward this brainless woman, only a sort of calm curiosity.

"Of course it is!"

Zhang Siyang pointed to the painting titled *Light*. Anyone with eyes could see it was part of the same series as her previous work, *Dark*.

"But I haven’t even said which painting is mine," Qiao Jin countered. "How did you know to accuse me of stealing your painting?"

The thing was, when Zhang Siyang arrived, everyone had already finished judging the paintings and had moved on to listening to the recording.

Judging from her reaction just now, she hadn’t even heard the recording. So how could she have known who painted what?

"You... You’re still trying to argue."

Zhang Siyang was in a full-blown panic. Humiliated and furious, she couldn’t come up with any logical excuse.

"Why did you try to harm me? You pushed me into that trap! If I hadn’t fought for my life to climb out, I’d be dead! You’re so young, yet so vicious. So it was all to steal my painting!"

Zhang Siyang quickly found her own line of reasoning. ’Yes, that’s right. Tang Mo tried to harm me. She did it for this painting.’

"I harmed you?"

"Who else could it be? I haven’t been at the base for days! I haven’t eaten a single bite of food! Isn’t the state I’m in proof enough? Everyone can prove I wasn’t here these past few days. If you didn’t harm me, why wouldn’t I have come back for meals? Would I starve myself to death?"

Zhang Siyang spoke with such conviction that she started to believe her own words, as if they were the absolute truth.

Zhang Siyang looked up at everyone, expecting them to back her up and prove she hadn’t been at the base.

But... why were their expressions so terrifying?

Their eyes were filled with disgust, as if they were looking at a piece of trash.

What Zhang Siyang didn’t know yet was that to the students who had already heard the recording, her every action looked like a clown’s performance—laughable and grotesque.

"What’s wrong? Don’t you believe me? Everything I’m saying is true! Qiao Jin is a thief!"

Receiving no response, Zhang Siyang completely lost her composure. She grabbed the girl she had been closest with, shaking her arm forcefully, desperate for validation.

But the girl shook her off with revulsion, as if she had been touched by something filthy.

"Zhang Siyang, the conversation from that night when you tried to lure me into the trap, including the part where you admitted to deliberately getting close to me to steal my painting—it’s all recorded right here."

Qiao Jin held up the recording pen, dealing Zhang Siyang the final blow.

"Impossible... Impossible! How could you have a recording pen? You’re the one who pushed me! It was you..."

Her composure completely shattered, Zhang Siyang mumbled, her legs growing so weak she could barely stand.

"Qi Jiaming was there that day! He can be my witness! It was you who pushed me!"

When Zhang Siyang fell into the deep pit, she hadn’t heard what Qi Jiaming and Qiao Jin had said to each other. She only remembered hearing Qi Jiaming’s voice.

Thinking she had a witness, Zhang Siyang felt like a fish returned to water, able to breathe again.

"Right! Qi Jiaming! Qi Jiaming, come out here!"

Zhang Siyang quickly spotted Qi Jiaming in the crowd, who was just watching the show.

"You tell them! Tell them, wasn’t it Qiao Jin who pushed me down there that day?"

Zhang Siyang looked at Qi Jiaming as if he were her last hope. ’He saw everything,’ she thought. ’He must have seen everything.’

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