Main Story Chapter 12-08: Savage Game (蛮荒游戏) | Light and Night 光与夜之恋

Before reading this chapter, please read the previous chapter here.

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No matter how many ridiculous matters have happened around me, life still goes on.

The next seasonal designs for Pristine are basically set, but there are still many unfinished preparation works for the release show next month. Being immersed within, there's almost no time for me to think about the matters of investigation.

I get to meet Sariel every other day to discuss about brand-related matters. He looked very tired, still coughing very often as usual, it's just as if he hasn't recovered from that flu for a long time.

But every time I asked if he wanted to take some rest, he would always refuse it, it's as if he won't make it if he can't seize every moment of time.

You: It feels like he's been hiding something...

Just when I was lost in thoughts, a hot cup of milk tea landed by my hand.

Li Manman: Cafeteria's milk tea on buy-one-free-one, so this cup is yours!

You: Thank you Manman~

Mao Ge: Manman, you're biased, you didn't even bring a cup for me.

Li Manman: Do you even need me to bring you one? Hasn't a certain colleague from group B bringing one for you already?

Hao Shuai: Right? We saw Jiang Lai handing you the milk tea at the stairs. It's caramel flavored, half sugar, doesn't matter if you drink it or not. Y/N you didn't see it, Mao Ge looked like a little wife, looking all shy.

Mao Ge: I did that out of politeness! Who said I was shy?! Shoo shoo shoo! I was originally planning to share a huge gossip to you guys, I suddenly don't feel like telling it anymore.

Hao Shuai: You're such a mood killer, gossips are to be shared, it's bad for your heart to keep it to youself.

Li Manman: Tell us, tell us!

Mao Ge: Did you hear that there was a troublemaker here today?

Li Manman: No, I've been working throughout the entire morning.

Mao Ge: There's an unkempt woman came to our Warson building this morning, and knelt on the floor with a thud. She yelled loudly with tears in these words: "It's you all who have hurt my daughter!"

Mao Ge: In a twinkling, HR and a few security guards immediately ran towards there. Just when they helped the woman up, she have instead pointed at them and said, "you are all wearing clothes from Warson, all of you will start burning too!"

Hao Shuai: Ridiculous. Your gossips now are getting increasingly ridiculous.

Mao Ge: Tsk, don't interrupt. What's interesting lies behind this. That woman took out a photo, saying that her daughter died from a fire in an art gallery. Her life wasn't rescued even after she's sent to the First People's Hospital. It's because she wore a dress from Pristine! The skirt started burning on its own!

You: ... ?!

Art gallery? First People's Hospital??? Now that I counted the days, the fire seemed to have happened two weeks ago!

Li Manman: Clothes burning on its own? How can this be possible?!

Mao Ge: Everyone there were shocked, but it feels sorry to see her being so hysteric. They wanted to calm her by inviting her to the office, but she ended up making a police report! She have been crying and yelling for the next half an hour, saying that she only have this daughter, and she wanted our company to compensate for her life. She even said we have colluded with the media, so this matter has been suppressed. It took the police great efforts to bring her away. I secretly took a short recording, I'll show you.

The unkempt woman had snot and tears all over, she had been shouting "Xiao Zhen, it's mommy's fault, mommy shouldn't have bought that dress for you"...

You: Xiao Zhen... This name is so familiar.

Mao Ge: I've asked around, her daughter's name is Tian Zhen.

I started to recall everything happened on that day. The mess all over the place in the gallery, the injured Charlie, the girl in life danger, the dreadfully long rescue, and the accidental death in the end--

Tian Zhen! I finally recalled it. I have indeed heard those two syllables from that doctor.

You: But why did I remember that the doctor said she's an orphan...?

Li Manman: It's pitiful, it must've been painful to lose a family member, she probably acted this way from the impact.

From the small screen, the woman stood up, crying and complaining to the bystanders, and most people have made a recording in their phones.

I felt a little nervous for unknown reasons, and subconsciously dialed Charlie's number.

You: Hello, let me ask you something. Is Tian Zhen the girl that have passed away in that fire last time?

Charlie: Yes.

There was not even a pause for half a second from the other end of the phone.

You: Then is she an orphan?

Charlie: Yeah.

The conflicting situation made me speechless. It can't be a coincidence, could it?

Charlie: What's wrong? Are you okay?

But the same name, the same location, and the same place, even dying to the same reason, how could there be something of such coincidence?

You: I... There's something that I can't think through, it's all fine now. Thank you.

After hanging up, I've decided to search for what happened that day, but the same results happened again. There was not a single news report, only a few scattering online posts of the fire in the gallery.

A familiar suddenly entered my sight, but what accompanies it is a surprising title-- Revealing the truth behind the fire! Pristine's ready-to-wear causes ignition.

You: ... Causes ignition?

This isn't an article, but a video. The main character of the video is a somewhat popular freelance influencer, known publicly from revealing a factory with ill business practices.

In the video, he stood at Warson's entrance, and explained in an intense tone.

Influencer: As everyone knows, in this season, the sub line Pristine from Warson is using recyclable materials as its selling point, and they have released a series of ready-to-wear clothings. Then does everyone knows what the recyclable material that Pristine uses actually is?

The camera moved towards a table by the side, there are a few clothings from Pristine, and some chemicals that even I am not too familiar with them.

Influencer: It's this cerium sulfide. It is one of the lanthanide metal with the highest abundance. 

He speaks as he picked up a metal bar and breaks it open.

Influencer: See this? I'm now holding a bar of cerium. As long as it is slightly rubbed against metal, it will produce sparks. To make clothes with such dangerous material, allowing oblivious consumers to fall in danger, and causing numerous fire incidents. Today, I will expose Warson Group's secrets right here!

He listed out the time of happening of the recent fires, and pointed out that the victims of fire are all wearing clothes of the same brand Pristine.

You: How can this be possible?!

I'm unable to suppress the flames of rage in me. Before I can finish watching it, I closed the video right away.

It's too far-fetched. As the member of the design group, I am very clear that the material used for Pristine's previous season is paper fiber. There was no cerium sulfide used on clothes, it's only used as a paint on a separate accessory.

Moreover, cerium sulfide is far different from cerium. Cerium sulfide isn't any dangerous material, and it can even be said that it's a common ingredient.

I took a glance at the posting time. It's one hour ago, so the number of views, shares and comments are very little, there are even a few that voiced out their doubts to the video's creator.

You: To gain attention from fire victims, it's really--

Mao Ge: What video is it? That you're gritting so much.

You: Someone said our clothings have serious quality issues, and it's even related to the few fire incidents. Look!

I raised my phone to Mao Ge.

Hao Shuai: Is it the cerium sulfide video? I saw it too! What exactly is going on?

Mao Ge: Turns out it isn't about what happened in the morning! Also, why is the number of shares this high?!

You: Wasn't it merely a few just now?!

I took my phone back. The moment I lowered my head to look at it, my head felt dizzy.

Within a few minutes, the comments and share exceed thousands, with countless comments of insult and doubt entered my eyes, they are all densely packed.

Comment 1: I took the Pristine cloth at home to give it a try, it'll really ignite after a few rubs! Thank goodness I didn't wear it after wearing it!

Comment 2: Don't Warson have too much bad ingredients already? It's almost becoming outdated as a luxury product, well didn't it come back to life only because of fake news.

Comment 3: Well isn't that just murder for money?!

Comment 4: Can anyone tell me who the designer of this cloth is?!

Mao Ge: This person is definitely making rumors! I'm so angry!

It only took over ten minutes for the number of shares to exceed ten thousand. Countless related articles appeared under the video, and the number of views from each article are all scarily high.

A notification sound is heard from Miss Zheng Lin's phone. She took a glance, made a quick reply, then turned towards us.

Zheng Lin: The company is now making a response. Everyone, please don't panic for now. The discussion on the internet is indeed very terrible, but we can't make ourselves panic. Continue to focus on your work, leave this matter to the company.

The comments on the website continues to refresh, just like the tides. There are some voices of rational queries, but very quickly drowned by fear, mocking and ridicules.

Even though Miss Zheng Lin sounded gentle and calm enough, I still can't feel settling at all.

You: Sariel...

This is the brand that he brought up with his own hands. Did he see these malicious comments?

He shouldn't be related to a matter that came without prove, but he has an indivisible relationship with the brand...

Li Manman: Oh heavens, why are they starting to scold the director?!

Manman's voice sounded with rage. She showed us her phone screen.

Li Manman: Consumers requested for him to come forward to explain about it?!

Mao Ge: They are already organizing petition to boycott Warson and Sariel consisting of 10k signatures! There's already over thousands of reposts!

You: Can I see it?

Our office buddies have all gathered in a circle. I can't see the small screen clearly, only to hear my own voice tremble.

Li Manman: The post originally still had discussions about Pristine's ingredients that causes ignition. Someone mentioned if Sariel was being undutiful as the director, and the situation blown up to an uncontrollable extent.

"Sariel sells seconds at best quality prices, is corrupted, and uses the worst ingredients and hence caused fires."

"Insiders exposes that Sariel has always been showing bad temper frequently at work, his capabilities are ordinary, only enjoying the fame and fortune with the characteristic as a young prideful designer, and it's no different from the mere act of an industry creating a God-like figure."

"I'm also from the same industry. Sariel knows nothing about design at all, there are several ready-to-wear works coming from plagiarism."

My blood have all surged up to my mind, it feels just like I'm being stabbed with needles, even my eyes are burning.

You: It's impossible for Sariel to do something like this! If it is said that Sariel knows nothing about designing, then there's nobody in this world that knows what design is!

Zheng Lin: Y/N, calm down, as long as the matter of the material is clarified, rumors like this will be debunked.

Mao Ge: Right? So any anonymous can call themselves someone from the industry now? Also this is the complete opposite isn't it? Director Qi's level is recognized throughout the world, just how many brands have been copying him every year?

I nodded as I suppressed my emotions. A bad premonition have instead growing stronger in my mind, that my fingers scrolled down uncontrollably.

Li Manman: ... Wha- What's this?

The voice by my ear became lower. I nervously looked at the images that looked extremely similar on the screen.

The same simple outline that flows smoothly, the azure wave elements, and the morning glory embroidery that adds the magical final touch.

One of them is the ready-to-wear clothes from Pristine. The introduction writes "Pristine, Design by Sariel".

And the other is a yellowed design draft, with charcoal pen outlining a blurred word and year number, "Vesi, 1908".

The person replied writes--

"As an admirer of the brand Vesi, I have requested this unpublished design draft on an auction with a huge sum of money. I don't know when Sariel touched it, but his action is clearly an unsightly plagiarism."

The post received tens of thousands of likes, and it got boosted up to the top of the community post rankings.

I looked up to see everyone's expressions that are filled with shock and doubt.

Mao Ge widened his mouth, but he did not say a thing. I returned the phone to Manman.

You: Thank you.

Taking the documents and proposal book on my table, I left the office right away.

I thought of visiting the First People's Hospital, but Tian Zhen has already passed away, so there's no proof. There's no way for the hospital to provide her information to a stranger like me. There's no way for me to trouble Charlie to get those information for me.

My footsteps gotten quicker and quicker. Although it's not the appointed time with Sariel, but there's only a single place I can go now.

You: He's not in...

Sariel's office is locked. The curtains from the inside are probably open, the bright sunlight filled the entire narrow slit from the door.

There's a small ray of light reflecting from the plant beside the door, brightening a ray of white light.

You: What is this...

I focused my gaze to look towards the tiny little drawing on it.

You: Little bird?

Is it drawn with a chalk? It's a somewhat rough image of a bird, happily looking up, as if it's showing a silly smile.

I recalled something, and moved the pot a little away in disbelief. A key suddenly appeared before me.

You: Oh you... If I don't admit myself being the clumsy bird, I won't be able to find it isn't it?

The teeth of the key stabbed into my palm. It's a little cold, but I can't feel any calmer compared to other moments.

The gaze of surprise and doubts pained me. I only hope for Sariel to not see the same expression for even a second.