Entertainment: A song that brought his deceased wife back to life.

The computer screen in the study went black.

The line of blood-red English text disappeared into the darkness.

Xu Qing's fingers rested on the wall switch, and he didn't move for a second.

From the living room came the sound of Luo Qianyu slurping noodles.

She was still humming a song.

He was humming "The Wind Rises," the song that was performed on stage today. The tune was off by half a descending note, and the ending note was drawn out for a long time. He was obviously in such a good mood that he was flying high.

Xu Qing took out her phone and sent a WeChat message to Ma Dongteng.

[The computer in the study was hacked, and threatening software was remotely implanted. Keep an eye on the IP trace; it's highly likely a stepping stone. Also, the Siren fabricated evidence—they're going to go all out.]

Ma Dongteng's reply came in just eleven seconds.

Damn, these bastards are serious.

Xu Qing put his phone on silent and put it back in his pocket.

He walked out of the study, closing the door behind him, his expression as casual as if he were just going downstairs to throw out the trash.

Luo Qianyu sat cross-legged on the sofa, having finished her noodle soup, and was happily writing on a piece of paper.

Xu Qing leaned over and glanced at it.

The note had a drawing of a person making a peace sign, and next to it, scrawled in crooked eyebrow pencil, were the words: "Today's score—97.4 points! A landslide victory! Adam is second! I'm totally blown away!"

At the end, a row of five-pointed stars and a glowing heart were drawn.

Xu Qing looked at it for three seconds.

Then he turned the note over, wrote two words in pencil, and pushed it back.

"childish."

Luo Qianyu's eyes widened, and she was about to speak when she suddenly remembered the silencing order. Her face turned red from holding it in, and she lowered her head and frantically typed.

"You're the childish one! Your whole family is childish! Hehehe!"

Xu Qing snatched the note, folded it twice, and stuffed it into his shirt pocket: "Go to sleep."

Luo Qianyu pointed to the empty bowl, then to the kitchen, indicating that she would wash it herself.

Xu Qing took the bowl directly, and as she passed by, she casually patted the top of her head with very light force.

Luo Qianyu tilted her head, feeling that something was off about this man today.

But after the game, as her adrenaline subsided, a wave of drowsiness washed over her. She rolled herself up in a blanket and fell asleep the moment her eyelids closed.

After washing the dishes, Xu Qing looked at the "caterpillar" on the sofa, bent down and carried her, blanket and all, into the bedroom, tucking her in.

Luo Qianyu groaned softly in her half-awake state, her voice muffled and unclear.

Xu Qing watched her quietly by the bedside for a while, then turned and went into the study, locking the door behind him.

The lights were off.

In the boundless darkness, the phone screen lit up, and push notifications exploded.

The BBC Asia Pacific channel has launched a report on this topic.

The headline is piercingly poignant: "The tragedy of the Berlin Humboldt Laboratory: The death of a 19-year-old girl and Chinese musician Xu Qing's 'Siren' project."

The main text is 12,000 words long, and it begins with an exclusive interview with the deceased's mother, Margaret Weber.

In the video, a middle-aged woman with gray hair is holding a portrait of a deceased man; the paint on the frame is worn away.

Her voice trembled: "He said the experiment was safe and assured Lily there was no risk. He lied!"

"To achieve his insane data, he forced a severely depressed girl to undergo excessive hearing tests!"

The camera zooms in, revealing a yellowed suicide note shoved onto the screen.

"In her suicide note, Lily wrote that Xu Qing personally told her, 'Just one more set, and the data will be enough.'"

There's a water stain at the end of the cursive English text; I don't know if it's a tear from back then or a prop from later.

"My daughter died in the lab, but Xu Qing just packed his bags and went back to China to become a big star."

Margaret's voice choked with emotion, "He never even said sorry."

The screen went black, followed by a noisy "internal recording".

Amidst the noise, a young male voice, strikingly similar to Xu Qing's, coldly spoke: "Keep increasing the pressure. The fifth set of data isn't enough. I know she's crying, but there's no time to stop."

The BBC premiered at 4 a.m.

Reuters and The Guardian followed suit.

Domestic reposting accounts began distributing in batches at 5:30 PM.

At 6:07, the Weibo server crashed for eleven seconds due to the surge in traffic.

After the recovery, the top five trending topics all collapsed.

First place – #Xu Qing confirmed to be a murderer#

Second place – #Lily's suicide note revealed#

Third place – #The Truth About the Siren Experiment#

Fourth place – #XuQingGetOutOfIAmASinger#

Fifth place — #Mingyue Qingfeng's hypocritical persona collapses#

Yesterday, netizens were still calling for "gods," but today they changed their usernames and turned against the authorities, with the comment section in complete chaos.

"Using money from Chinese people to whitewash their image? It turns out that behind every act of charity lies a loss of life!"

"Poor Luo Qianyu, she ended up with a murderer because of her relationship."

"Why didn't they call the police and arrest him? They even let him perform on stage? The Chinese entertainment industry is finished!"

Xu Qing sat in the darkness, scrolling through these negative comments one by one.

He didn't even frown.

It's not calmness.

He knew this routine like the back of his hand.

Seven years ago, on the night he returned home from Berlin, this is how these people buried him alive.

The only difference was that he was all alone back then.

Now, in the bedroom just a wall away, sleeps a silly girl who can't even cry out loud, with tape wrapped around her arm.

Xu Qing placed her phone face down on the table, her fingers tightening inch by inch until her knuckles cracked.

He closed his eyes, and a face appeared in his mind.

Nineteen-year-old Lily has blonde hair, gray eyes, and a small tiger tooth when she smiles.

Lily is indeed dead.

But he definitely didn't kill him.

The real culprit is currently sitting in his penthouse office in Manhattan, smoking an expensive cigar and watching this spectacle unfold around the world.

Xu Qing suddenly opened his eyes, a chilling aura settling in them.

He never cultivated good deeds in his life, only loved killing and arson!

Do these capitalists really think Xu Qing is some kind of pushover?

He picked up his phone and sent a message to Ma Dongteng.

I need 48 hours.

Ma Dongteng replied instantly.

What do you want?

[All idle computing power in Tencent's headquarters server room.]

Here you go. Anything else?

Xu Qing's eyes were cold as he typed the last line and pressed send.

[Check Margaret Weber's bank statements for the past three months. If I'm not mistaken, DeepSea Capital has transferred money to her.]