Chapter 196 - 196: The Murderer

"You're her good friends, aren't you? Your friend is dead! Why don't you tweet to mourn for her? Why aren't you sad at all?"

"Nicole regards you as a good friend. Oh, god! She's so unlucky."

"Her last meal was with you. You didn't poison the food, did you?"

***

Sophia felt confused. She didn't use this account very often. The last time she tweeted was because of the requirement from the Super Quiz officials because they wanted to promote the show. She didn't usually tweet unless for some special reasons.

What did it matter if she tweets or not? She was sorry for Nicole's death, but she and Nicole were not really friends. Did she have to pretend that she was heartbroken on the Internet?

She looked through the microblogs and soon noticed that several marketing accounts with tens of millions of followers were guiding public opinion. They posted articles on the Internet. In the article, they listed the proof of the "friendship" between Sophia and Nicole, accusing Sophia of not tweeting to mourn.

Sophia was upset, but she knew that it was useless to refute them. She didn't know who planned it and maliciously discredited her.

She was annoyed when Albert came with the phone. "Sophia, I saw someone trashing you online. I have a friend who works in the microblogging company. Shall I ask him to delete them?"

He was trying to have someone delete them, but there were a lot of comments on the Internet. Obviously, many people have read them. If they deleted these articles, things would get worse.

Sophia shook her head, "It's too late. If we delete the articles now, people will think I'm trying to hide something. They will make more rumors about me."

Albert had thought of these. That was why he came. He continued, "One of my friends is running the microblog marketing accounts. How about I ask him to write some articles to clear things? I think it will be better this way."

Sophia knew Albert was powerful. He could make all the comments disappear, and there would be no bad word about her online. But she didn't want to do that. Suppressing public opinion by force would only make people misunderstand her intention.

"No, thanks," Sophia said, "I'll explain it myself."

Albert didn't understand it, "What do you want to say?"

Sophia picked up her phone, several input words, and showed it to Albert.

"The best way to pay tribute to the dead was to find out the murderer and give her justice. I'm not used to tweeting, but it doesn't mean I don't care. The dead are gone. All I can do for her is to find out the truth. I did meet her before she died, so I will actively assist the police in their investigation @Plain Police Station."

After she posted the message, many people retweeted it.

"She wanted to help with the investigation?!"

"She was a smart girl. With her help, the murderer may soon be found."

"Looking forward to it! Please find out the truth for Nicole. She shouldn't die unclearly."

"We want the truth!"

***

Albert gave the phone back to Sophia and said, "Do what you should do. Tell me if there's any difficulty."

Sophia smiled, "Yeah."

Just when Albert returned home, his phone rang. 

He answered it, "Who did it?"

Ryan's voice came from the phone, "Yes, it's Well, the president of Hurricane Entertainment. Ada is his mistress. He made rumors about Sophia because of her. He has done things like this once, and I deleted his account, but I didn't expect him to do that again. He really doesn't know how to learn a lesson." 

Albert was silent for a moment, "The Hurricane Entertainment... Make it disappear."

Ryan said, "I'm doing it, Pearson."

After being punched by Albert, Ryan finally came to understand that Albert loved being called Pearson was only for Sophia.

The Hurricane Entertainment dared to rumor about the girl his boss loved. He could just close it without a second thought. His boss would never blame him.

Sophia's message attracted wide attention, and the Plain Police Station contacted her the next day.

The one who contacted her was Christopher. He said on the phone, "We've met, Sophia. I didn't know you're a celebrity."

He didn't usually read the blog and didn't know Sophia. In fact, Sophia was quite popular on the Internet and had more than six million fans. However, not many people knew her in real life. Occasionally, several fans could recognize her. After all, six million were still very little compared with the population of the whole country.

Sophia had been the audience of the Super Quiz, which made her get popular online. Although the audience rating of this program was very high, it was only five percent. She was just a viewer, people forgot her easily, and few remembered her.

In reality, most people were familiar with stars because of the TV shows, but web celebrities were not so well known.

Sophia smiled, "Not really… I don't know why I have so many fans."

Christopher was a serious man. He didn't like to make polite remarks. After a brief opening, he got to the point.

"Here is the thing. You claimed on the Internet that you want to help with the investigation. We can understand you. But the case is not complicated, and we've known the killer," Christopher said, "It's just that the killer is on the run. We haven't caught him yet. When the case is solved, we'll make public the result of the investigation."

Sophia was not surprised about that. When she heard from Nicole's assistant that Nicole was strangled, she knew there would be a clue, and the murderer would be found out through the fingerprints.

"Who's the killer? Can you tell me?" She asked.

She wasn't curious about the case. It was just that there were so many suspects in this case that she hadn't figured them out yet.

Christopher hesitated, "Well, you're one of the people who related to this case, I can tell you, but… you can't tell anyone before we release the results, can you?".

"Yeah."

Christopher then said, "The murderer named Joseph, Nicole's ex-boyfriend.. On the night of the incident, he went to Nicole's house.