“So, did your people save my friend?”
Elena sat down on the chair as she looked at the few photos that the other party had sent to her mobile phone. Her thin lips twitched, but no one knew what was on her mind.
“What do you want?”
Henry waved his hand, and the waiter immediately served the appetizers.
He answered casually, “I just wanted to help. Must I do it for something in return?”
“Mr. Henry, do you think that I would believe that you do not have any motive for helping us?”
If he had only wanted to help, why would he send the photo to her? Henry smiled but did not say anything.
While they waited for the waiter to deliver their food, he raised a glass at her. “How about a drink?”
“Sorry, I don’t drink with strangers.” Elena turned him down.
“We are not strangers.” That was their third meeting.
“To me, you are no different than a stranger.”
Apart from a meal and the fact that they knew each other’s name, they had no other interaction between them.
Elena only knew that he was Eldest Young Master Williams’s friend. Even though she subconsciously believed that Eldest Young Master Williams’s friends would never harm her, she refused to be close to any of them. However, Henry did not seem to care about her indifference and alienation.
As he picked up the chopsticks, he said, “Don’t you want to try it? The dishes here are very famous. I can guarantee that they will suit your taste.”
Elena did not refuse his offer. She picked up her chopsticks and started to eat. At first glance, she knew that they were all expensive dishes. Why should she let them go to waste since she was there already? She was also a food enthusiast. Besides, it was a free meal. Henry continued to drink by himself, but he would occasionally look at her face. The girl was enjoying the food. Unfortunately, she did not treat him the same way.
“I heard that someone had paid a lot of money for Aryan’s hand,” he suddenly said.
Elena was so shocked that her chopsticks almost fell onto the ground.
“This is just a campus-level competition between students. Why would they do that?” She was furious.
Henry was Eldest Young Master Williams’s friend, and he was someone with high social status.
He would not lie to her just to pull her leg. If that was the case, then those gangster boys were not a threat at all. The real danger had yet to come.
“The grand prize for this competition was for the studio to establish an animation company with Glorious Entertainment. If things go well, it might become the top animation company in Bentson within three years.”
It was a lucrative reward. Which studio would not want that? Unfortunately, they were not qualified to fight for it as it was a campus-level competition. If the prize was tempting enough for the teams out there in the market, would the students not be crazier about it? Jiang University and Ning University had gathered most of the children from the upper-class families in the entire Bentson. Those were the people with enough money to do anything they wanted, even to hire a group of gangsters for their dirty jobs.
“Even if they were to destroy Aryan’s hand, they would not be able to win anyway. There would be no benefit for them if they were to crush us.”
Elena’s heart pounded abruptly. Perhaps those people would qualify for the first place if her team were not in the competition? If that were the case, then it would be easy to narrow their list of suspects. They would not need to resort to such tactics if they could not win the competition. Many of the teams had support from their prominent family backgrounds. The MarshMarsh family had Nina’s back, Golden Summit Group was definitely behind Flora, and as for the three other hottest teams…
“The other teams might also be facing similar threats, but they could protect themselves.”
Henry’s words were not easy to swallow, but he was right.
“Our team is not famous, and not many people knew about us yet, why would they…”
“A God-like artist; did your own people leak this information?”
“God-like artist?” Elena froze. She checked her phone immediately after he signaled her to look at the phone.
She did not expect to see Aryan in a post that was trending. It was a video of him painting, and it was posted onto the school’s forum site. There was nothing wrong with the post itself. In the original rules for the finals, the team had to gain votes from the public. No one knew about their studio, so Lois did some publicity, and that post was one of them.
The post claimed that their studio had a god-like artist, and it was uploaded with a video of Aryan doing his sketches. It seemed like the video was taken discreetly, and his face was not even in the video. They could only see his hand and the progress of the artwork on the computer screen. Due to the time stamp on the computer, one could tell that it was not a time-lapse video. The video was also shot at different angles, so it was impossible to edit it with a fast forward mode.
The hand in the video moved quickly and with precision across the drawing board. The revision rate of the lines drawn was less than one percent. He only needed to correct one line out of a hundred lines that he had drawn. The lines were perfect, and it flowed into one after another like they were joined together. It was done at an astonishing speed, and yet the quality was still impeccable!
Many of the commenters were impressed. Some doubted the authenticity of the video, but some netizens negated the doubts and confirmed that the video had not been edited. That was the hand of a god-like artist! Their group had risen to fame because of the said god-like artist. It looked like they were the dark horse to win the competition.
Many of the commenters predicted that the god-like artist would bag the grand prize of the competition. Of course, everyone had initially thought that Nina’s team would win, but things could change. Elena’s studio was the factor of uncertainty. As she pondered about it, Elena could feel the chills that shot through the blood in her body. Many people would want to get rid of such an outstanding painter, would they not? Elena did not blame Lois; she had done it to help the team gain popularity. However, Aryan’s skills had been exposed to the public because of the video. He was in grave danger.
“So, the incident this morning was not an accident, but an intentional attack?”
Elena looked at Henry. Her fingers gripped the embroidered tablecloth tightly.
“Perhaps.” Henry glanced at her whitened knuckles and asked, “Shall I check?”
Even though Elena looked as calm as usual, she was obviously agitated as she grasped the tablecloth with her fingers so tightly.
“What do you want?” Most people would want something in return, and Henry was no exception to that theory.
Henry was not her friend. If he were willing to assist them in the investigation, he probably would not do it for free. Henry smiled. The girl was very clever, indeed. He did not complain as it was easy to work with smart people.
“You don’t have class in the afternoon.” He picked up the glass again, and the scarlet liquor swayed gently in the glass. “Spend it with me.”
“No way!” Elena refused him outright.
Even though Aryan was in great danger, she could not do such a shameless thing. Henry was startled momentarily, and then he immediately knew why she reacted like that.
“Did you think that I want your body?”
Elena glared at him cautiously. Then he burst out laughing.
“You are Michael’s fiancée. I wouldn’t touch his woman, no matter how hungry I am for one.”
Elena was still wary about him.
Then she said, “Then what exactly do you want? You tried all ways to get close to me.”
Henry thought about it for a while, and then he put down the glass. He stared at her as he said, “I just want to know why Big Brother likes you so much.”