Sophia Shaw hurried into the office, where two police officers were sitting.

"Hello." One of them stood up and shook her hand. "I’m Captain Warren of the Municipal Criminal Investigation Division."

Old Master Sloan’s case involved a foreign national, and with Lead Aerospace being a key domestic enterprise, the criminal investigation team took it very seriously. They went to the scene last night immediately after receiving the report.

"Captain Warren, hello. What did the investigation find?" Sophia Shaw asked urgently.

Captain Warren’s expression grew slightly grave. "We conducted a very thorough investigation of the scene and found no signs of sabotage."

"Could he have just lost his footing and fallen?"

"Impossible!"

Sophia Shaw knew very well what kind of person Old Master Sloan was.

He had experienced countless crises in his life and had long been able to control his emotions.

He wouldn’t just lose his footing, no matter how dire the situation.

Although Captain Warren agreed with Sophia Shaw’s analysis, the fact that there were no traces at the scene was indisputable.

"Then again, it’s possible Old Master Sloan had a sudden dizzy spell or some other health issue as he was coming down the stairs."

After all, Old Master Sloan was over fifty, and his health was starting to decline.

"The best thing would be to get his account of what happened."

Sophia Shaw shook her head. "My mentor... he hasn’t woken up yet."

"That complicates things."

Sophia Shaw took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and tried hard to recall everything that happened last night.

At the time, there weren’t many people on the launch platform, only her and Old Master Sloan.

And she hadn’t noticed anything unusual when they went up the stairs.

"Captain Warren, is it possible that someone used a chemical to make the stairs slippery, and by the time we went to check, the chemical had evaporated?"

The young officer with Captain Warren was a mystery enthusiast who had read his fair share of books on the topic.

Captain Warren said, "That’s certainly a possibility. Substances like dry ice or anhydrous ethanol can rapidly form a film of condensation on a surface, making it slippery."

"But these chemicals share a common property: they evaporate extremely quickly. To harm someone this way, you’d have to precisely calculate when the victim would be coming down the stairs and apply it just a few minutes beforehand for it to work."

The officer scratched his head. "Who could time that so precisely? Even if you could, they were in the middle of a rocket launch. You can’t just be climbing up and down. There would be no opportunity to pull it off."

This was the kind of thing you only read about in detective novels.

Sophia Shaw saw Officer Warren off.

Jacobs watched the two disappear into the elevator and asked in disappointment, "Boss, are we just going to let Old Master Sloan’s case go?"

Sophia Shaw shook her head.

She didn’t know.

"I don’t think Seraphina Vaughn’s kidnapping last night was so simple. Someone with ulterior motives must have used her to upset Old Master Sloan, causing his blood pressure to spike and making him get dizzy and fall."

Jacobs was fuming.

"Damn it, we can’t find any evidence! Otherwise, I’d tear them limb from limb!"

As for Seraphina Vaughn, Samuel Goldman had alerted the police last night.

After some effort, the police found her in a dilapidated house and arrested a few desperados.

According to their statements, they were all recently released convicts who couldn’t find work and were just loitering.

They’d overheard someone outside a bar say that Seraphina Vaughn’s family was rich. Seeing that she was alone, they got the idea and spontaneously decided to kidnap her.

It all seemed so seamless, yet everything also felt as if it were being pulled by a fine thread—a series of coincidences that were just a little too perfect.

"Oh, right. A lot of media outlets have been calling to request an interview. Should I get back to them?"

The moment Sophia Shaw’s true identity was revealed, the world went into a frenzy.

The phones at Lead Aerospace’s public relations department were ringing off the hook.

"Ignore them for now."

With her mentor’s life hanging in the balance, she was in no mood to deal with such trivialities.

Jacobs completely understood how Sophia Shaw felt.

"Boss, you can go wherever you want. The other engineers and I will keep an eye on things here."

Sophia Shaw went back to the hospital.

Leah Evans and Yancy Shaw had also come.

Old Master Sloan was Sophia’s mentor, so it was only right for Yancy Shaw to come pay his respects.

The three of them met in the hallway.

Yancy Shaw and Leah Evans had already seen him, and Leah Evans’s eyes were red and swollen.

Old Master Sloan had been perfectly fine, and now he was suddenly like this—unable to move or speak. Leah Evans was heartbroken.

Yancy Shaw was sad as well, of course, but he still walked over to comfort Sophia. "I already spoke with the doctor. He said that as long as the patient has strong willpower, there shouldn’t be a problem with him waking up."

"Your mentor has been through so much in his life. He absolutely won’t be defeated by an injury like this. You have to have faith in him!"

"Okay." Sophia Shaw nodded slightly. Only in front of Yancy Shaw did she let her guard down and seem like a child again.

Her voice trembled.

Yancy Shaw’s heart ached for her as he patted her on the shoulder.

Across the circular corridor from them, Yvonne Sherman and Chad Jennings hurried past, supporting Joanna Sherman.

Yvonne Sherman was on the phone as she walked. "It’s a madhouse out there. Those reporters are buzzing around like flies, it’s driving me crazy. I’ve already gotten Joanna into the hospital. Go get her admitted to a room, and tell the doctors to make her condition sound serious. Just say she’s unconscious!"

Leah Evans, who despised the Shermans, wasn’t about to let an opportunity like this slip by.

She rounded the corner and walked toward the trio. "Well, well, if it isn’t the one who claimed she’d build the world’s greatest rocket? Shamelessly spouting all that nonsense in front of everyone, saying you were going to end my Faye’s legend. What are you doing here in the hospital, playing sick?"

Those words were truly harsh.

Bringing up Joanna Sherman’s speech at the launch tower last night was a precise and humiliating blow.

It made Joanna Sherman’s face go pale with fury.

But Leah Evans didn’t care if she was pale or not, and continued with her vicious words, "Unconscious, you say? In my opinion, you might as well just drop dead!"

Chad Jennings, embarrassed and angry, yelled, "What are you saying? What gives you the right to say that? How can someone so young have such a vicious tongue! Yancy Shaw, aren’t you going to rein her in?"

Yancy Shaw, who hated Chad Jennings enough to want to skin him alive, certainly had no kind words for him. "Rein her in? For scum worse than pigs or dogs, I think Lily was being too polite."

Chad Jennings: "..."

Yvonne Sherman was furious too, her gaze turning frigid, but she knew this wasn’t the time or place to start a fight. "Ignore them," she said. "Let’s go!"

"Go where?" Leah Evans blocked their path. "You people are always shouting from the rooftops that Faye isn’t as good as Joanna Sherman, running my Faye’s name through the mud and completely trashing her reputation."

"You should at least apologize before you leave."

"We’re not asking for much. You can start by taking back everything you said!"

No one cared if they wanted to praise Joanna Sherman. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

But they had to drag Sophia Shaw through the mud just to praise Joanna Sherman, and Leah Evans had had enough of it. She was dead set on getting justice.

"If you dare not apologize, I’ll tell everyone right now that you’re faking an illness in the hospital!"

After all, the whole world wanted to interview Sophia Shaw right now; it would be incredibly easy to get the word out.

"Sophia Shaw, what is wrong with you? How can you conspire with an outsider to bully your own sister like this?" Chad Jennings didn’t dare to take on Leah Evans, so he turned his fury on Sophia Shaw.

Sophia Shaw gave him a cold look. "My mother only had one child. I don’t have a sister."

"Every piece of riff-raff wants to claim a connection to our Faye. The audacity!" Leah Evans’s tongue was lethally sharp.

Chad Jennings was furious. "You have the same father, that makes you sisters! Do I need to spell it out for you?"

"My dad died a long time ago!"

Chad Jennings: "..."