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

Zhao Xiujie sat for forty minutes.

The smell of serum mingled with the glint of broken glass, and the floor was a mess. The chubby assistant squatted by the door, too afraid to go in or out.

"It's Lao Jin on the phone." Zhao Xiujie reached out his hand.

The chubby assistant handed the phone in. Old Jin was the action director and deputy coordinator for the film crew, a seasoned veteran in the industry, doing whatever anyone paid him, and had been in this business for twenty years.

The call lasted less than three minutes.

Zhao Xiujie hung up the phone and tossed it back to his chubby assistant.

"Have Lao Jin rearrange tomorrow's schedule."

"How should we arrange them?"

"Scrap it up. The more fragmented the better. We'll cram an outdoor scene for him at 6 PM, let it sit out until 11 PM, then bring it back into the studio. We'll do an action scene at 3 PM, and a late-night reshoot at 1 AM."

The chubby assistant opened his mouth: "This... a person can't handle it."

"It's better if he can't take it anymore." Zhao Xiujie leaned back in his seat and pulled down his eye mask. "I want him to break down and get out of here. How long can someone who hasn't slept for forty hours straight hold out in front of the camera?"

The chubby assistant swallowed the rest of his sentence.

This tactic is called "enduring the eagle." It's not uncommon in the industry to use it. Big announcements suppress small announcements, veterans target newcomers, grinding people down to dust, and finally, with a legitimate reason, kicking them out for poor performance.

It is reasonable and legal, but there is no evidence to support it.

---

The next morning at 5:40.

Lin Yue stared at the revised notice in his hand, his fingernails picking at the edges of the paper until they were rough.

06:00 Outdoor chase scene at the dock.

11:00 View of the Financial Summit inside the shed.

15:00 Standoff occurs inside the shed.

01:00 Nighttime reshoot of the extended confrontation scene between the male lead and the second male lead in the office.

The four scenes are spread over twenty-two hours, leaving no time for sleep, but enough to slowly shatter one's spirit.

She rushed into Lao Jin's office, where he was in charge.

Who approved this scheduling?

Old Jin, in his fifties, with a shiny bald head, was pouring instant coffee into his mouth. He didn't even lift his eyelids: "Teacher Zhao's schedule has been moved up, so this is the only way to adjust it."

"This isn't a mediation! This is murder!"

"Director Lin, there's no use getting angry with me. It's clearly stated in Teacher Zhao's contract that the filming schedule is arranged primarily based on the male lead's availability. It's all in black and white, and the production company has stamped it."

Lin Yue stood there gritting his teeth for a while, then turned and left.

She went to find Su Qinghan. Su Qinghan looked at the notice, didn't say anything, and flipped the paper over and over again.

"The notice itself is not in violation of any regulations. Zhao Xiujie's schedule contract does indeed have priority."

"Director Su!"

"Go and inform Lu Yuan first." Su Qinghan handed the paper back. "If he can't hold on, I'll figure something out."

Lin Yue, seething with resentment, went downstairs and knocked on the door of room 630.

Lu Yuan sat cross-legged on the bed, squeezing a tube of cat nutritional paste into the yogurt lid with his left hand, while pressing down on Lao Liu's head, which kept nudging him to snatch the food, with his right hand.

"Lu Yuan, the notice has been changed..."

Lin Yue read the schedule aloud. By the time he got to the 1 a.m. show, his voice was already weak, followed by a long string of apologies and words of comfort.

Lu Yuan took the notice and scanned it.

"Director Lin."

"you say."

"With this non-stop work schedule, is the production crew providing four meals a day?"

Lin Yue's repertoire of comforting words has crashed.

Lu Yuan folded the notice, put it in his pocket, and casually unscrewed his thermos and took a sip.

"By the way, Director Lin, could you give me an extra serving of cat treats for supper? If not, you can deduct it from my meal payment."

---

Six o'clock in the morning. A factory on the outskirts of the city.

Light peeked through the corrugated iron roof of the abandoned workshop. Lu Yuan, wrapped in the character's black overcoat, stood at the marked point, having rehearsed his lines twice.

Su Qinghan called out "Stop" from behind the monitor.

At 7:58, Lu Yuan walked out of the workshop.

The next match is in three hours.

Zhao Xiujie's van was parked on the east side of the site, with the heater set to 26 degrees Celsius. Freshly ground coffee and a sandwich were placed on the passenger seat. The blackout curtains were drawn, and a silhouette with legs crossed could be seen through the gaps.

He is waiting.

After that amateur sat on set for three hours, his energy was wasted, and his concentration crumbled little by little in the boredom and cold.

However, the visuals were completely different from what was expected.

Lu Yuan found a hard plastic box containing wire equipment. He took out his windbreaker from his bag, spread it on, lay down on his back, and placed his hands on his abdomen. Lao Liu jumped up and stomped on it twice, then curled up in a ball on his chest.

ten seconds.

When the stagehand, Lao Zhou, passed by, he stopped and took a look.

Lu Yuan closed his eyes, and the frequency of his chest rising and falling had dropped to a very low level of uniformity.

Fell asleep.

Old Zhou took another closer look. He was truly asleep.

The chubby assistant received a phone call and ran out with a walkie-talkie.

He instructed two workers to move a set of iron scaffolding next to Lu Yuan and dismantle it.

Iron pipes collided with iron pipes, clanging and clattering.

With the walkie-talkie volume turned up to the maximum, the chubby assistant yelled at the lighting crew, "The reflector for the center position is angled wrong! Re-set it! Adjust the boom lift! Quickly!"

120 decibels.

At this noise level, normal sleep would be forcibly interrupted.

Lu Yuan's breathing remained unchanged.

The sixth cat lay on his chest, its front paws resting on his collarbone, snoring along with him. The purring of the man and the cat created a harmony, forming two completely parallel worlds with the surrounding metallic roar.

The chubby assistant stood there, his expression shifting from smugness to bewilderment, and finally to despair.

"Brother Jie, it's no use. This guy... I suspect he's deaf."

A muffled thud came from inside the van—the sound of a fist slamming into the leather seat.

10:50.

The script supervisor ran over and called out, "Teacher Lu, we'll be moving around in ten minutes."

Lu Yuan opened his eyes, and it took him less than a second and a half to go from lying down to standing up. He stretched, and his mental state was no different from someone who had slept for eight hours.

"Here you are." He unscrewed the thermos, took a swig, shoved Lao Liu into his arms, and swayed toward the dressing room.

As the makeup artist touched up his foundation, she muttered, "Your skin condition... can you teach me how to fix it?"

The scene at 11 o'clock was filmed in one take.

The action scene at 3 PM was filmed in one take.

During the break between the two scenes, Lu Yuan continued to sleep.

At noon, he lay down on the wire weights in the shed, which were lined with soundproofing cotton. Crunching? Yes. He folded his windbreaker into thirds and placed it under his waist, falling asleep in two and a half minutes.

In the afternoon, he squatted in the shade next to the generator. The diesel engine sputtered and shook so much that the ground vibrated. He leaned against the tire, closed his eyes, and lost consciousness after three breaths.

By evening, the entire crew knew.

The new second male lead can fall asleep on any flat surface and in any noisy environment. Iron plates, stone steps, forklift hoods—as long as his back is flat, he'll go blank for three to five seconds.

A makeup assistant covered him with a military overcoat, and when she turned around, she found a cat on the overcoat, and the cat was sleeping.

"I learned it from him," she told her colleague.