The response crackled back, "Affirmative. But sir, there are a lot of them. The story’s already broken online."
Already? Her grandmother had been dead for less than three hours. How was the story already out?
The automatic doors slid open, and Shuyin was hit by an explosion of light and sound that made her physically recoil.
Dozens of reporters and paparazzi sward the entrance, packed behind tal barriers that looked barely capable of holding them back.
Their caras clicked and flashed like a swarm of chanical insects, the sound overlapping into a continuous buzzing roar.
Video caras on shoulders, microphones on poles, phones held high to capture every angle. This was such a sensational mont and scene... Who expected this...
It was barely past eight in the morning, but sohow they were all here, already waiting.
Soone had definitely tipped them off. Soone had made sure they would be here to record everything.
"There she is!"
"That’s her! That’s Lin Shuyin!"
"The one who killed her grandmother!"
"Look at her! Still in her nightgown!"
The shouts ca from all directions, building on each other until they beca a deafening wave of accusation.
"Lin Shuyin! Did you do it for the inheritance?"
"How much money did you get?"
"Look this way! How does it feel to be a murderer?"
"Were you angry that she loved other family mbers more?"
"Is it true your wedding was cancelled? Did you bla your grandmother?"
"Did you watch her die?"
"Smile for the cara, killer!"
Microphones on long poles were thrust toward her face from every direction.
Cara lenses pushed as close as the police barriers would allow, so actually making contact with the officers holding her.
The flashes were blinding, disorienting, coming so fast and from so many directions that Shuyin couldn’t see where she was going.
She tried to keep her head down, tried to hide her face, but rough hands grabbed her chin and forced her head up.
"Keep your head up," Inspector Wang ordered coldly. "Don’t make this harder than it needs to be."
So the caras captured everything. Every devastating detail.
Her tear-streaked face, still pale and swollen from crying. Her disheveled hair, wild and tangled, uncombed since yesterday.
Her expensive silk nightgown, the one she’d been wearing when she got the call from Zeyan, the one she’d cried in, been sick in, held her dying grandmother in, now wrinkled and stained and completely inappropriate for being out in public.
The handcuffs were binding her wrists behind her back, the tal cutting into her skin. Her bare feet, dirty from the hospital floors, stepped onto the cold pavent.
She was the perfect picture of a fallen angel. Beautiful, broken, wealthy, and guilty.
"Miss Lin! Turn this way!"
"Did you plan this for weeks?"
"Sources say you had a violent argunt with her!"
"Was the fifty million yuan worth it?"
"Did you poison her slowly? Did you enjoy watching her suffer?"
"Your family says they’re shocked! They say they never suspected you could do sothing like this!"
That last one made Shuyin’s head snap up. "What? What did you say?"
The reporter, a young woman with sharp eyes and a microphone, pressed forward eagerly. "Your family released a statent an hour ago! They say they’re devastated and had no idea you were capable of such a cri! They’re cooperating fully with the police investigation!"
"No!" Shuyin scread, suddenly finding her voice. "No, that’s a lie! They did this! They set up! They killed her and they’re framing !"
The crowd erupted in response to her outburst, caras flashing even more frantically.
"She’s blaming her family!"
"The denial continues!"
"Classic narcissist behavior!"
"She’s claiming she was frad!"
The officers pulled her forward more roughly now, forcing her toward the waiting police van.
The crowd pressed against the barriers, so of them actually pushing past security to get closer.
"You’re a monster!" soone scread from the crowd.
"Murderer!"
"You killed your own grandmother!"
"I hope you rot in prison!"
As they shoved her toward the van, one reporter managed to break through the police line. His cara was practically in her face, so close she could sll his coffee breath.
"Tell us the truth, Miss Lin," he said with a horrible eagerness. "Did you kill her?"
The van door was yanked open. Inspector Wang pushed her head down and shoved her inside, where she collapsed onto the hard bench seat.
The door slamd shut, muffling the chaos outside to a dull roar.
But through the windows, Shuyin could still see them. Still see the caras pressed against the glass. Still see the faces, reporters, strangers, people who had already decided she was guilty.
So of them were smiling. Actually smiling, as if this was entertainnt. As if her destroyed life was a show put on for their amusent.
As the van pulled away from the hospital, Shuyin caught a glimpse of soone’s phone screen pressed against the window.
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