A real killer playing a villain; the guy surnamed Zhen in Detective, run!

The warehouse was dark.

The sound of three people's footsteps came from outside the iron gate.

Lu Yuan shifted his body twenty centimeters to the left, his back silently pressed against the side of the wooden crate, minimizing his exposed frontal area. He picked up the gun from his knee with his right hand, his thumb rubbing the left side of the gun barrel—that spot, if it were the real thing, would be the safety pin.

The entire sequence of movements took less than a second.

The iron gate was pushed open.

Three beams of flashlight swept in, leaving three swaying spots of light on the ground.

Lu Yuan's gaze swept straight over the hands, waists, and ankles of the three newcomers. They were unarmed and unsteady.

The first man had a higher left shoulder than right, indicating he had never received any combat training. The second man was breathing rapidly, his heart rate was too fast, and he was in a state of tension. The third man had the lightest footwork, but the slight bend in his knees revealed his power generation habits; he was an office worker and posed no threat.

None of them pose a threat.

He Rihuo opened his mouth as he walked into the warehouse.

He's a top-tier variety show personality in China, a veteran guest on "Who's the Murderer," and known for his unwavering courage. He's taken on all sorts of terrifying escape rooms and heart-wrenching scenes of tough guys shedding tears.

But at this moment, the lines he had prepared were stuck in his throat, and he couldn't utter a single word.

The NPC in the corner was giving him a strange look.

He had seen that kind of ferocity on screen a million times—the fierce brows, the angry eyes, the bared teeth.

This person's eyes were calm.

It's like looking at an object. Judging whether there's a threat or whether it's worth taking action, unlike how you normally look at a person.

He Rihuo had only experienced this kind of gaze on one occasion last year when he visited a detention center to experience life there. Across the bulletproof glass sat a habitual offender who had been selling heroin for twelve years. That man sized him up with that same look in his eyes.

Sweat poured down his back in an instant.

Wang Yao, standing next to her, gasped and instinctively took a half-step back, her heel landing on the foot of the third guest, Qiao Chen.

Qiao Chen didn't cry out in pain. He was completely captivated by that gaze.

There was a four-second silence in the warehouse.

In variety show recordings, a four-second silence is considered an accident-level incident.

"Click!"

The director's voice boomed through the walkie-talkie: "Hey, you NPC! Your line is 'Who sent you?'! Are you just standing there scaring people?"

The lights came on.

The studio was instantly illuminated by spotlights, track cameras, and softboxes, instantly transforming the previously eerie underground transaction scene back into the atmosphere of a film studio. Seven or eight cameramen peeked out from behind their equipment, their expressions somewhat subtle.

"Damn it." Lu Yuan cursed himself under his breath.

He lost control again. The entire sequence of movements was completely subconscious; the skills he had honed in the syndicate for thirty-two years in his previous life were etched deeper than his muscles. Before his brain could even signal a halt, his body had already completed the action.

This is really bad.

He'd been reborn into this world for three months, and he really didn't want to continue living the life he'd lived in his previous life. He just wanted to be a normal person in the sunlight. He'd do bit parts, eat boxed lunches, queue up for his transportation allowance, and chat with other extras about everyday life.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, he did a great job.

But there's always that one percent of a moment when the instincts from your past life will seep out from the very marrow of your bones.

"Oh. Sorry, I was daydreaming."

He bent down and pulled a stainless steel thermos from behind the wooden box, unscrewed the lid, and took a sip.

The aroma of goji berries wafted out.

He Rihuo: "..."

Wang Yao: "..."

Qiao Chen: "..."

The three people looked at each other in bewilderment.

Was that overwhelming sense of oppression you felt just now caused by your mind wandering?

Behind the monitor, the director rubbed his temples.

This extra was temporarily transferred from the group of extras. His resume read, "Lu Yuan, 24 years old, no experience." The reason for choosing him was simple: he's good-looking. He's 1.85 meters tall, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, and his face is a natural focal point when he's right in front of the camera.

Extras, they only say three lines and then leave the stage, what acting skills do they need?

But those four seconds just now...

He turned his head and glanced at the two people beside him.

On his left is his close friend in the industry, Su Qinghan, a rising female director in China, who hasn't moved an inch from her chair. On his right is the program's security consultant, Jiang Yan, a policewoman from the municipal public security bureau and captain of the criminal investigation team.

Su Qinghan stared at the monitor replaying the footage, her coffee cup hovering in the air, forgetting to drink it and forgetting to put it down.

Jiang Yan placed her right hand on her waist, where a standard-issue pistol was tucked.

"Captain Jiang?" The director was startled by her action.

Jiang Yan snapped out of her daze and slowly lowered her hand. Her fingertips were trembling.

As a criminal investigation team leader, Jiang Yan has seen too many people who treat killing as an instinct and danger as something they breathe.

Lu Yuan's movements on the monitor demonstrated his counter-surveillance awareness, his precise identification of blind spots and noise sources, and his immediate assessment of all potential threats upon entering the space—windows, pipes, and the position of personnel's hands. This was textbook-level CQB indoor tactical movement.

It's even more fluent than the textbook.

Staring at his retreating figure, Jiang Yan walked to a corner and took out her phone: "Xiao Liu, help me check an ID number. It's Lu Yuan, from the Hengdian extras database. Yes, I need to find out everything about him."

The director, ignoring the warning, slammed his hand on the table and gave the order: "One more take! Lu Yuan, right? Don't overact, be natural!"

The lights went out again.

He Rihuo took a deep breath and slapped his face twice. Just an extra, why be so scared? Embarrassing.

The iron gate opened again. The three men went back into the warehouse.

This time, the young man in the corner stood properly at the edge of the circle, casually holding the prop gun in his hand, his posture very relaxed.

He spoke up: "Who sent you?"

His tone was flat and listless, as if he was just going through the motions.

But He Rihuo still noticed it.

When this man stood there, his center of gravity was always on the balls of his feet. He could move at any moment. His right hand, holding the gun, was steady, the muzzle naturally pointing towards the ground. But if he raised his wrist, the distance from that angle to He Rihuo's chest would be no more than 0.3 seconds.

He Rihuo was unsure why he had noticed these things.

But the body is more honest than the brain.

I'm sweating again.

He forced himself to continue, "I...we're here to buy things."

The voice trembled slightly.

According to this episode's script, the guests need to extract information from the NPC bandits in this trading warehouse to obtain crucial clues about the deceased. Lu Yuan has a total of six lines, each no more than ten characters, making it the simplest NPC task.

But in the next five minutes, the atmosphere on set became extremely strange.

The three guests avoided making much eye contact with Lu Yuan throughout the performance. He Rihuo, a veteran of many seasons who had never forgotten his lines, stumbled twice during this performance.

After Wang Yao obtained the crucial clue, she should have pressed for more information, but when she met Lu Yuan's eyes, she said "okay, thank you" a second later and turned to leave.

Qiao Chen's performance was the most outrageous. He was supposed to have an impromptu gun-grabbing scene where, according to the program's design, he had to snatch the prop gun from an NPC and then interrogate them.