Chapter 168. An Unexpected Visitor at the Museum. (2/3)

She continued with her explanation, “If they knew the name of the song, I’d question them further. However, if they knew my real singer name from the very beginning, I crossed them off the list.” Well, that was natural. If I’d known her real name as a singer, her little gamble would have failed miserably. There was a big chance I’d seen through her deceit after our meeting and verified her name; sadly, I hadn’t. She’d gambled on the small chance I hadn’t and won big.

“So, how did you narrow down your list, Ms. Angel of Death? There’s no way you would check every single man in the city, right? There must be a demographic you narrowed it down to.” I decided to ask.

“Well… I knew the person I was looking for was younger. Despite how you tried to disguise your voice, I could easily tell you were trying to hide your age with my ears. As a singer, I have a very good ear for such things and I can pick up on the most minute nuances in a person’s speech and sounds they make.”

“I had both an approximate age and gender to work with. The gender was pretty obvious, so females were eliminated right away. I knew you had to be a younger male. My target demographic was men between the ages of 18-25. I found it impossible to be anyone younger than that partially because of your height and because I couldn’t imagine a middle schooler or high schooler being able to do what you did.”

“Thus, I targeted places people that age range would go in this city. Such as malls, out-of-the-way restaurants and bars, universities, etc. I felt someone like you would probably keep to yourself though. You had a unique air of solitude. Based on the condition you set, it was obvious you wanted nothing to do with me. You didn’t seem the type who wanted to be under the limelight. You would want somewhere with peace and quiet. You said it yourself, a celebrity like me committing suicide in his city would disrupt your peace. With all that said, I had a bit of an understanding of your personality.”

“The last thing I had to go off of was your eye color. Though it was dark and I couldn’t make it out well, I could at least tell you had a darker eye color. If it was a bright eye color, I would have been able to see it much easier even with how dark it was at the time. So I figured you had brown to dark brown eyes, but it’s surprising how dark they really are.”

“Black eyes don’t truly exist, but I feel like I can only describe yours as such. But… that’s beside the point, as far as I was concerned, people with lighter eye colors like blue were off my list.”

“How is it? Is there anything wrong with my reasoning?”

“Well, it’s sound enough. I do seem to fit the bill being caught in such a situation and given my reaction. Now the real question is, why are you here? Are you reneging on the agreement we made? Did you not swear on your life to never return to this city in the future if I could truly accomplish what I said I would.”

“Women are quite cunning creatures, you know? We lie all the time. And as the name Ange Delamort isn’t really mine, being a fake name I gave you back then, it’s only natural I don’t have to abide by it. My exact words were, ‘I, Ange Delamort, swear on my life to never return to this city in the future if you can truly accomplish what you say.’ I’m not Ange Delamort who swore that to you.”

“What an awful woman. Deceiving her benefactor in such a fashion.”

“Do you know why I’m here?”

“No, was it to profess your undying love for me? Sorry, I’ve got three women already.”

“Oh? Three women? Aren’t you quite terrible?”

“Yes, I am, so can you please leave me alone?”

“Well… if you don’t know why I’m really here I guess that’s better for me.”

“So that’s not why you’re here?”

“No, not at all.”

She walked around the couch beside my bag and looked me in the eye seriously.

“What?”

Out of nowhere, she pushed me down onto the couch, grabbed my right hand with her left hand, and placed it on her chest. She took a burst of pictures with her phone using her right hand. Before I could react, she rolled off the couch with me and put herself into a position where I was on top of her. The pictures stopped.

“These are already being automatically uploaded to a secure server.”

“Why are you doing this?” It’s not like I wasn’t already aware of why. But I still had to ask.

“Why? Shouldn’t it be pretty obvious? You know my secret. You managed to achieve the result of destroying my ex effortlessly. The videos on that dark web site were taken down by the police before the public saw them. They even retrieved my ex’s hard drive with all the original videos, however, the video of me, in particular, was the only one that was different.”

“You cloned the drive then wiped it by setting every bit to zero. You then randomized all the bits on the drive. Once you did that, you transferred all the files back onto it, all except for the original video with me. You put an edited version of it back on, rather than the uncensored original one.”

“The police couldn’t locate the original file or recover it which is what leads me to believe this was the process you went about things. At least, this is the process I slowly pieced together after reading up online and casually inquiring with a few people. I don’t fully understand everything, but I at least get the general idea.”

What the hell? She wasn’t as dumb as I thought. At the very least, she came up with a plausible solution.

“However, in spite of the police taking measures to prevent any leaks, the videos all leaked anyway. All of them, including my own which you edited further. Instead of simple blurs on mine, you made black bars to ensure my own identity wouldn’t be revealed. My voice was scrambled in a fashion no one would be able to tell it was me or recover the original audio. My exes hard drive was confiscated, so it was obvious someone else other than him leaked everything.”

“You have the ability to do all of this, and you’re thus a threat to my existence, the career I spent my entire life building up. You surely have the original video still, and you could leak it at any moment to put a giant stain on my life. I could be thrown into a downward spiral should the original uncensored video ever be leaked.”

“Even if you said you deleted the video and no longer have it, there’s no way I can simply take your word at face value either. You’re too fearsome an existence in my eyes, Mr. Devil. But it seems you’re also rather careless in unexpected ways. You even let yourself get caught in this sort of position. Now, the two of us have dirt on each other. If you reveal my secrets, I will be sure to drag you down with me by claiming you used the video to later blackmail me into doing these sorts of things. The damage to you will be far worse than the damage to me.”

“I see. So that’s what all this is about.” Of course, I was already long aware of what type of woman she truly was. As I said before, she was vicious. The fact that she’d been willing to use suicide to corner her ex the way she had to drag him into his grave with her was proof of that. I hadn’t ever been foolish enough to assume she would go and chase after me out of something like love.

The true reason she’d burst through the door to chase after me that night wasn’t something like love or gratefulness. Her franticness was to find the person who knew all her deepest darkest secrets. The ugliness in her heart. That person was a threat to her career, her life as a celebrity.

That was another major reason the condition I set was for her to leave this city and never return. To forget everything about me and this place. To put her past behind her and move on with her life.

However, she couldn’t do that. The threat was like a looming knife constantly at her back. She couldn’t forget I existed and knew everything.

I’d underestimated her. But… I was still safe even with this.

The three women I loved would also be safe with the precautions I took in the beginning. She wouldn’t be able to touch them.

As for why, because I’d predicted her intent the moment I saw her here. Yes, the video I just recorded caught everything from beginning to end.

“Now that you have your dirt, do you mind getting off me?”

“Sure. I can finally be assured.” She stood up and moved to the side.

“Assured? Huh?” I said as I stood up and sat down on the couch. 

“Do you think I’m pathetic?”

“Not at all. I just think you’re an idiot is all. I really did delete the video. I have no interest in rape videos or celebrities. Such matters are too troublesome for me to care for. I simply want a peaceful life. That is all.”

“As I said, I’ll never be able to blindly trust your words.”

“Certainly. I can understand that. So now that you’ve got what you wanted, do you mind taking your leave?”

“Sure.” She walked past the couch and headed to the exit.