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

Zhao Xiujie shifted his posture in the chair, a drop of water from his iced Americano still clinging to the corner of his mouth.

Lu Yuan sighed.

He pulled the sixth child out of his collar, put him in the cardboard box, and then crumpled up his down jacket and placed it underneath. He screwed the lid on the thermos cup and placed it next to the cardboard box.

stand up.

In the corner, Jiang Yan's right hand was already on the safety latch of the holster on her lower back.

Of everyone present, only she had seen the true effect of Lu Yuan's equipment.

These stuntmen have no idea what they're getting close to.

Old Jin gestured to the martial arts group. A bald, burly man stepped onto the mat. He had a thick neck, round arms, and calluses on his hands.

"Our group's A-Dong is the provincial Sanda champion." Old Jin stepped back to the edge of the mat, arms crossed. "Teacher Lu, just give it a try, and stop when you've made a mistake."

A-Dong stretched his neck and swayed his shoulders from side to side.

He glanced at Lu Yuan. Handsome, yes, but with thin arms and legs.

Ah Dong made a move.

A straight kick. The right leg springs out, the heel as a blade, aimed straight at the abdomen.

The speed and power far exceeded the limits of what's depicted in filming. If that kick had landed, an ordinary person would have been crushed on the spot.

Zhao Xiujie picked up his iced Americano, ready to watch something funny.

Lu Yuan did not back down.

His left foot slid forward in a very small arc, and his body axis shifted by about three degrees.

Ah Dong's kick missed the hem of his T-shirt.

The landing point of that half-step slide was precisely positioned at the dead end of A Dong's kicking kinetic chain. A Dong's leg was kicked out, the force was released, but the fraction of a second of buffer space needed to retract and defend was blocked.

What happened next was something no one in the rehearsal room saw clearly.

All that could be seen in A Dong's vision was the young man's right hand, his index and middle fingers joined together, the fingertips touching the outer wall of his carotid artery.

Two fingers were placed next to the most vulnerable blood vessel in his neck.

I could only feel the transfer of body temperature on my skin.

At that moment, Ah Dong's brain went into overdrive with the highest level of survival alert. He simultaneously sensed Lu Yuan's left knee hovering at an extremely tricky angle, just three centimeters directly below his groin.

Two fatal points. Locked down simultaneously.

Ah Dong's 180-pound body was rooted to the spot. His outstretched fist froze in mid-air, unable to be retracted. His entire body was convulsing violently.

The adrenaline surged his heart rate to over 180, and he dared not make any movement, for even the slightest displacement could trigger the lethality of those two points of contact.

Cold sweat trickled down his temples.

No one spoke in the rehearsal room.

Old Jin's towel slipped off his shoulder, but he didn't catch it.

Zhao Xiujie's iced Americano glass tilted, spilling ice water onto his trouser leg without him noticing.

Su Qinghan stood up from the chair.

Lu Yuan withdrew his hand, relaxed, and stood up straight. His entire aura receded from his bones.

He patted A-Dong on the shoulder.

"Look, if you can finish them off in one move at this distance, why waste your energy on three punches?"

A Dong's legs were still shaking. He took two steps back, turned to look at Lao Jin, and his eyes said: He couldn't fight.

The six stuntmen standing by the mat didn't take a step forward.

Old Jin opened his mouth twice. His gaze towards Lu Yuan shifted from shock to awe.

Fifty-three years. He had seen the most skilled martial arts choreographers, the top stunt doubles, and retired national Sanda champions. None of them could do what he just did.

The choice of every contact point, the control of every millimeter of distance, the precise positioning of every timing window—this isn't something learned through practice; it's forged in real combat. A thousand times? Ten thousand times?

Old Jin dared not think any further.

"Mr. Lu... Mr. Lu." His form of address changed naturally. "How do you think we should revise this action scene?"

Zhao Xiujie's iced Americano was completely spilled.

He sat in the chair, looking at Lu Yuan, who was surrounded by stuntmen in the center of the rehearsal room, listening to the voices of "Master Lu" pouring into his ears one after another.

He lost again. Every time he thought he had found a way to crush his opponent, he was crushed in return. His lines, his presence, his professional knowledge, his physical fitness, and now even his action scenes are all blocked.

What is the upper limit of this person's potential?

Zhao Xiujie gripped the empty cup, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.

Su Qinghan had already stood at the edge of the mat. Her eyes were shining.

Lu Yuan's actions just now, from contact to subduing, lasted no more than 0.8 seconds. Minimalist. Cold. Without any unnecessary kinetic energy output.

Every inch of force was precisely directed to the lethal point.

That's right.

Shen Yibai is a top predator in the financial world; his violence shouldn't be the kind of street thug-style punches and kicks. It should be a scalpel. Clean, quick, a single, fatal blow, then adjusting his cufflinks to attend the next dinner party.

"Old Jin," Su Qinghan said.

"All the previous choreography is scrapped." Her voice was steady, but her speech was twice as fast as usual. "This action scene will be redesigned according to his method. I want that kind of—"

She paused for a moment, searching for a word in her mind.

"The elegance of the slaughterhouse."

Old Jin glanced at Lu Yuan, then at Su Qinghan.

"Alright."

Old Jin rearranges his routines very quickly.

He completely scrapped the original fancy setup and built a new plan based on Lu Yuan's ideas: three movements, two contact points, and one finish. Utterly clean.

The six members of the stunt team huddled around the mat, memorizing the movements, calling him "Master Lu" more frequently than they would their own fathers.

Inside the van, Zhao Xiujie peered out through a crack just a finger's width. A dozen or so people sat around Lu Yuan on cushions.

Zhao Xiujie's fingernails dug into the leather of the seat armrest.

The dialogue? We lost. The presence? We lost. The physical strength and tactics? We lost. Now even the stuntmen have fallen.

He pulled the blackout curtain up. The carriage darkened.

"Come in."

The chubby assistant opened the car door, bent down, and climbed into the back seat.

Zhao Xiujie didn't look at him. His voice squeezed out from the shadows of the back seat: "In our next scene together, I want him to completely embarrass himself in front of the entire crew and in front of Su Qinghan."

The chubby assistant opened his mouth.

"Why did you lose it?"

Zhao Xiujie pulled over the call sheet. The afternoon's scene, scene seven, shot two, the plot was simple: Chu Tianxing handed Shen Yibai a glass of water, using the polite gesture to probe his words.

The script clearly states that Lu Yuan should take the water glass, take a sip, put it down, and then deliver his lines.

Zhao Xiujie pointed his finger at the three words "take a sip".

"Go and change the water that the props team prepared."

The chubby assistant shrank his neck back a bit.

"Change it to what?"

"Boiling water"

There was a two-second silence in the carriage. The chubby assistant's lips moved, but he swallowed the rest of his words. Zhao Xiujie's eyes pierced through the shadows, causing the assistant's back to hunch automatically.

"The cup is the kind with double insulation. He can't feel its temperature when he holds it. One sip, and his lips are raw, his lines are ruined, and he makes a fool of himself on the spot. Ideally, he should scream in pain in public, and then we'd film it."

The chubby assistant's Adam's apple bobbed.

"Brother Jie, what if...it turns out to be true—"

"What are you investigating? Dozens of people from the props team come and go, who remembers which pot spilled the water?" Zhao Xiujie leaned back in his chair. "Stop dawdling, get it done."