Free Web NovelChapter 206: Chapter 188: An Ending for the History Books
Ha, he was right.
When the plot revealed that the client was in line to inherit a fortune, Sir Turt slapped his thigh in excitement.
As expected, that unknown new author couldn’t come up with anything original.
The client was the killer. Then he’d pretend to be wrongly accused and hire a lawyer to defend him.
The lawyer would see through the lies and expose the client’s guilt, hidden beneath a facade of innocence.
The main plot would just be the lawyer’s process of uncovering the truth.
It would follow the usual plot twists: facing hardship, hitting rock bottom, seeing a glimmer of hope, the darkest hour, and the final victory.
That’s how all those mystery plays are written.
At the end, they’d give the protagonist a stage to reveal the truth, with everyone listening as he lays out his reasoning.
Then everyone would be shocked. ’So that’s what happened! I can’t believe he managed to solve such a twisted and bizarre case!’
The culprit would be filled with remorse and confess. Then some sad music would play, and the culprit might get a chance to explain their tragic circumstances to make the character seem more fleshed out.
The curtain would fall amidst the praise of the supporting cast—a cliché, happily-ever-after ending.
If you’ve seen enough plays, no plot is ever truly new.
He had won.
He’d found another angle to use when belittling *Prosecution Witness*.
He could write an article about how shallow the play’s mystery was, and how he, with his superior intellect, had seen the ending from the very first act.
A mystery play is just a little guessing game between the author and the audience. The author sets a puzzle, and the audience tries to solve it.
If the creator manages to hide the solution until the very end, surprising the entire audience while still making perfect sense, then the creator wins and earns a standing ovation.
But if the audience figures it out ahead of time, it means the audience has won, and the author simply isn’t very good.
After all, a huge part of the viewing experience for a mystery comes from the surprise of an unexpected solution to the puzzle.
The moment it’s guessed is the moment the fun is lost.
That’s why spoilers are the greatest enemy of this genre.
And for a plot of this caliber, they had the nerve to make people sign a Contract forbidding spoilers before the show.
Sir Turt was still hung up on that.
’As if anyone couldn’t figure it out!’
The news broke, and the client was taken away by the guards. As the primary suspect in the murder of the noblewoman, he would be held in custody until his trial.
Then, the client’s wife arrived at the firm. She was surprisingly calm, not at all like someone whose husband had just been taken into custody.
’She must be here to provide a false testimony.’
Sir Turt felt he had completely grasped the play’s story.
The wife and the client had colluded on a false testimony to clear his name.
The protagonist’s first breakthrough in uncovering the truth would be the wife.
’Too easy.’
For the first time since the play began, he could finally relax. His opponent was nothing to be afraid of. With a work like this, the reviews would be poor even if he didn’t orchestrate a campaign of negative feedback.
"Ha, they botched it again!"
He clapped excitedly. He’d been saying it all along: this bunch of actors only switched jobs because they couldn’t cut it at the Drama Guild. If they had any real talent, wouldn’t he have hired them?
Just look at this actress! She’s here to give false testimony, but she’s acting as if the case has nothing to do with her. Is she supposed to have zero feelings for her husband?
How dare they let someone with such terrible acting skills perform on stage.
Sir Turt immediately signaled his secretary to start another round of jeering.
The secretary hesitated. ’Jeering now, before we’ve seen how things will play out? What if it backfires on us again, just like before?’
But the Chairman didn’t care. An opportunity this good didn’t come along every day. The last time was just a minor miscalculation; this time, there would be no mistake.
Unable to stop his boss, the secretary had no choice but to orchestrate the jeering once more.
While inwardly cursing the Chairman for an idiot.
’When he realizes he’s wrong again, he’ll just put the blame on me.’
’It’ll be all, "Why didn’t you try to stop me?" or "An outstanding employee knows to correct their superior’s mistakes."’
’In the end, the subordinate is always the one to blame.’
This round of jeering was noticeably less intense than the last. The shouts were sparse and scattered. Someone had clearly taken the money without doing the work.
Last time, some clueless audience members had even joined in the heckling. This time, everyone had wised up. This play wasn’t so simple; you couldn’t rush to judgment.
"No acting skills!"
"Stone-faced!"
"What kind of fake couple is this?!"
The few shouts failed to make any waves in the theater. Instead, security personnel located the hecklers and warned that if they disturbed the audience again, they would be thrown out.
And the plot twist arrived swiftly.
"He is not my husband," the wife said in a cold voice. "I only married him under false pretenses to escape the war zone."
The audience let out a low gasp, as if afraid to break the atmosphere in the theater.
This was just too thrilling.
You’d never see a plot point like this in those heroic epics.
This sort of thing usually only happened in stories about the Deities.
Aunts with nephews, sisters with brothers, turning into various animals to create Demigods all over the place.
These kinds of tales, which usually only appeared in the bawdy late-night jokes of Minstrels, were commonplace when told about the Deities.
Those who knew called it mythology; those who didn’t would mistake it for some kind of smut.
But the stories of the Deities, no matter how absurd, always felt distant from the lives of Ordinary people.
So for a mortal female character to show up who had not only committed marriage fraud but also had two husbands—that was truly groundbreaking for the audience.
The moral crusaders might decry it as an affront to decency, but who cared?
The audience loved this kind of thrilling drama.
Of course, not everyone liked it.
"Sob... My ex-wife was just like that. I thought she loved me, but she took half of everything I owned."
