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

"Cut. Perfect, all done!" Su Qinghan's voice was filled with exhaustion.

Half a second after the command is issued.

That financial behemoth that could plunge the entire studio into an ice cave has burst open and is now deflated. Lu Yuan deftly pulled down his suit collar, folded it in both hands, and handed it to the production assistant who ran over.

"Sister, please hang it up quickly. This fabric gets wet with sweat and that's it. I've been trying to keep my pores from getting oily, so the dry cleaning fee can't possibly be charged to me." He was very distressed.

In less than five minutes, Lu Yuan put his tattered sweatpants back on, the ones with pilling at the knees, and headed towards the exit, carrying half a thin, cold fried dough stick.

He passed by Zhao Xiujie, whose face was ashen.

"Excuse me," he said politely.

When Zhao Xiujie returned to the hotel, he flew into a rage. His chubby assistant trembled as he pushed the call sheet and script for tomorrow in front of him.

"Brother Xiu Jie, tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, the whole crew will have its first script reading, hosted by Director Su."

Zhao Xiujie held the notice and scanned it for two seconds.

"Will Lu Yuan be there tomorrow?"

"Director Su will definitely include the second male lead in the script."

Zhao Xiujie tossed the notice back onto the table and leaned back.

Having debuted four years ago, his acting skills are recognized within the industry. Preparing for a script reading is his forte. He's seen plenty of promising newcomers who arrive on set with a great face, only to be unable to deliver their lines, ultimately leaving him to carry the show.

What's more, this time it's a minor role in a vertical store that doesn't have any serious works.

......

The hotel's top-floor executive conference room. A long oval conference table was covered with a beige linen cloth, and a dozen or so people sat on either side.

The creative team behind "Black Gold" boasts impressive credentials: screenwriter Song Yun has won three industry awards, and several middle-aged actors have delivered outstanding performances in financial crime dramas. The air was thick with the scent of more than three kinds of high-end perfumes; the chairs were held upright, and even drinking water was done with an air of superiority.

At exactly 2 PM, Lu Yuan entered.

He wore sportswear, old canvas shoes, a thermos with peeling paint, and an orange cat with a mini splint on its hind leg and its head sticking out from the crook of its elbow.

The meeting room was silent for about ten seconds.

I really don't know how to react. Screenwriter Song Yun adjusted her glasses, and her assistant whispered two words to another assistant at the door, then swallowed the rest of her sentence.

Lu Yuan found his name tag, sat down, put his thermos on the table, and placed Lao Liu on his lap.

Zhao Xiujie sat in the first chair next to the main seat, with three thick professional books stacked in front of him: "Microeconomics" and "International Hedge Fund Game Models," and at the bottom was an original English version of "Derivatives Pricing Theory."

He held his coffee, glanced at Lu Yuan, then looked away and said something to his assistant:

"The reading session is for discussing the play, not for walking the cat."

The young actors around him lowered their heads, and no one responded.

Chen Tong sat to the side, twirling a pen between two fingers, neither offering any support nor expressing any opinion. He had personally witnessed Lu Yuan's scene at the freight yard and admitted that the aura he exuded was genuine. However, a main villain in a financial crime drama, without solid knowledge as a foundation, would eventually be exposed in front of a group of seasoned veterans.

Su Qinghan sat to the side of the screenwriter, the script turned to the first scene. She didn't say anything, but just glanced at Lu Yuan.

In the corner, Jiang Yan's chair was by the window, her work ID was turned upside down, a miniature earphone was plugged into one ear, her notebook was open, and the pen cap was bitten next to her teeth.

The reading session has officially begun.

When the screenwriter was explaining the character's background, Zhao Xiujie spoke up. He leaned back in his chair, his knuckles lightly tapping the table:

"The core logic of Shen Yibai lies in his control over offshore trusts." He pointed to the cover of the book on game theory models.

"The combination of CDO tiers and SPV entity nesting forms the backbone of his funding structure. To play this kind of role, you have to truly understand how this system works; otherwise, the lines will sound empty to anyone in the industry."

As he spoke, his gaze drifted away from the spine of the book and glanced in Lu Yuan's direction.

"Of course, not everyone needs to understand it. Memorizing the lines accurately and making the right expressions is enough to complete the task."

All eyes turned to Lu Yuan. Chen Tong paused for a moment while twirling her pen, then resumed. Su Qinghan frowned slightly, about to speak.

Lu Yuan took a hard-boiled egg out of his pocket, tapped it on the edge of the table, and began to peel it, his movements very focused.

Zhao Xiujie thought he was avoiding the topic, and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly.

"The SPV architecture you were talking about earlier," Lu Yuan pushed the eggshell towards the edge of the paper cup next to him, "is it a version from ten years ago?"

Song Yun paused for a moment.

Lu Yuan took a bite of the boiled egg, drank some goji berry water, and screwed the lid on the cup.

"This Cayman-Virgin Islands money laundering scheme has three fatal flaws. First, if the buffer period for the second-level nesting isn't offset by a grey list, international anti-money laundering organizations' AI scans can trigger an alert within three seconds."

"Second, the flow of funds between the SPV entity and the two jurisdictions—if even one node uses the reporting currency, the true beneficiary of the entire chain is directly exposed. Third—"

He put the thermos back on the table, finally looked up, and said, "The third loophole involves a liquidation clause. I'll give you the clause number, and Professor Song can check it later: the 2021 revision of FATF Recommendation 16, paragraph 4, subsection 3."

He stopped and finished the remaining half of the egg.

"With this kind of structure, even the foot massage parlors used by underground banks no longer need to operate."

The meeting room was completely silent.

Song Yun wrote down the string of numbers, and his hand speed increased significantly halfway through, as if he were chasing something.

Chen Tong stopped writing. He stared at Lu Yuan, his gaze fixed on him with an almost uncontrollable awe.

He's a seasoned veteran in the financial world. He recognized those clause numbers and understood the operational logic, but this is a semi-public gray area of ​​the United International Clearing House. Very few legitimate financial professionals know this detail.

Not to mention a stagehand extra earning 200 yuan a day.

Are top-tier tycoons hiding in the lower echelons of society? Is this some kind of extremely sophisticated cover identity?

He put the pen on the table and stopped turning it.

In the corner, Jiang Yan's pen cap fell off her jaw.

She picked it up and turned to a new page in the notebook.

The thing Lu Yuan just casually mentioned was the transnational money laundering case that the Municipal Economic Investigation Brigade and Interpol had been investigating for three years. The core of the case was the gray area in the enforcement of this clause.

This information is not fully expressed in even publicly available documents in China, and it is only mentioned briefly in two sentences in internal training materials.

She circled the string of numbers in her notebook, three times.

With his expertise overshadowed, Zhao Xiujie's expression darkened.