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

2:15 PM.

In the logistics area, the chubby assistant glanced around. The corridor was empty. He picked up the thermos that the props team had placed there beforehand, unscrewed the cap, and poured the warm water inside into the sink.

Align the water dispenser spout with the cup opening. Press the hot water button.

The outer layer of the cup is double-walled vacuum insulation; when you place your palm on it, you only feel a slight warmth.

He carried the cup back to the prop table and placed it in its original position.

Booth No. 5, all the lights are on.

Su Qinghan, holding a megaphone, announced: "All departments, take your positions! Scene 7, Shot 2!"

Lu Yuan put Lao Liu into the cardboard box and added an extra layer of thermal underwear.

The light shone down from above, casting a sharp shadow on the table. Lu Yuan rested his chin on his hand, waiting for the computer to boot up.

Zhao Xiujie stood at the entrance of the venue.

He changed into a different suit. The top button of his shirt was fastened, and the collar was neatly trimmed. He took two deep breaths and stretched his facial muscles.

On the prop table, the double-walled thermos was brought over by the stagehand and placed next to the marker on Zhao Xiujie's entrance route.

The chubby assistant huddled in a dark corner of the room, his phone propped up on his lap, the camera pointed at the center of the room.

"log--"

"Scene 7, Shot 2, A—Action!"

Hit the board.

Zhao Xiujie walked into the light zone, keeping a steady pace. He walked to the prop table and naturally picked up the thermos cup with his right hand.

He walked toward his desk.

The line is spoken: "Mr. Shen, don't be so angry."

He stood in front of the table and handed the cup to Lu Yuan.

"Have a drink of water to calm your nerves."

A faint smile played at the corners of her lips. Her wrist moved slightly forward.

Lu Yuan leaned back in his chair, his eyelids half-open.

He lifted his right hand off the table and reached for the cup.

The fingertip was less than a centimeter from the cup wall.

Lu Yuan's pupils contracted slightly.

There is a lens effect in the air above the rim of the glass. The refraction of light as it passes through the water vapor causes a very slight distortion in the image at the rim of the glass.

At the same time, a surge of heat radiation reached the skin of his fingertips. The temperature gradient was misdirected. The heat diffusion of warm water is a uniform, diffused field, while the heat radiation above the cup was concentrated in a columnar shape, and the liquid surface temperature was much higher than that of the cup wall.

Lu Yuan's hands didn't stop.

His fingertips touched the cup.

The five fingers did not come together to grasp. The index and middle fingers cut diagonally upwards from the outer edge of the bottom of the cup, with the fingertips touching the base of the thumb and forefinger of Zhao Xiujie's hand, and gently pushed it forward using the momentum of the other's forward movement.

The force was extremely small, and its direction was precisely aimed at the gap between Zhao Xiujie's thumb and forefinger, where his grip was weakest.

The cup slipped from my hand.

What happened next was incomprehensible to everyone present, not even one of the hundred-plus people there.

The cup flew forward in an arc that defied everyone's expectations. Due to the combined effect of the inertia from being released and the rotational torque exerted by Lu Yuan's actions, the cup flipped forward more than half a circle.

The entire cup of water was splashed directly in front of Zhao Xiujie, targeting his groin.

"Whoosh—"

The hot water soaked through the fabric of the suit trousers.

No one had ever heard such a sound in their life.

A top male celebrity with millions of fans let out a scream that could blow the roof off. The sound engineer's in-ear monitors exploded, crackling twice and burning out one of the channels.

Zhao Xiujie sprang to his feet. He slapped his groin with both hands; the fabric, soaked with boiling water, clung to his skin, and the more he slapped, the more painful it became. His knees bent and straightened repeatedly, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on and then released and stepped on again.

Then start jumping.

Jump from camera position A to camera position B. Jump back to the prop table from camera position B. The passing light fixture is knocked over.

"Aaaaaaahh ...

The entire site was petrified.

The photographer clung to the camera and took a half-step back.

The sixth child poked his head out of the cardboard box, pricked up his ears and looked for three seconds before pulling back inside.

Lu Yuan sprang up from the leather chair.

His villainous aura vanished instantly, and he reverted to his timid and cowardly low-level extra persona. He ran over to help Zhao Xiujie up.

"Teacher Zhao!! I'm so sorry, so sorry, so sorry!" He waved his hands wildly in the air, spinning around in a panic. "This cup was too slippery, I couldn't catch it! Why did you pour me such hot water? It must be at least 100 degrees Celsius!!"

Two medical staff rushed over. A stretcher was lifted, and ice packs were applied. Zhao Xiujie lay face down on the stretcher, his face buried in the pillow, still convulsing.

He pulled his face out from under the pillow, pointed at Lu Yuan, his voice hoarse and broken: "It was him, he deliberately splashed it! Call the police!"

Su Qinghan walked to the center of the field. Her high heels shattered the water stains on the ground.

"All signals cut off."

"Turn to HD camera original footage. One take. I want to see the playback."

---

Seventeen people were gathered in front of the monitor.

Slow down. 0.5x speed.

In the scene, Zhao Xiujie hands over a cup. Lu Yuan reaches out. Their fingers intertwine on the rim of the cup.

Just as Lu Yuan's fingers seemed about to catch it, the cup slipped from his grasp.

The water splashes forward. The direction depends on the axis of rotation of the cup when it leaves the hand, and the axis of rotation depends on the direction of force applied by the hand that last touched it—Zhao Xiujie's hand.

From beginning to end, Lu Yuan's fingers never completed a full grip.

He was a victim. A victim who was handed boiling water, reached out to catch it, but failed to do so.

After watching the replay, Su Qinghan turned her head.

"Who poured the water?"

The props team leader's face turned pale. The stagehands started checking the entry and exit records for the back area. The chubby assistant was no longer in the studio; he had run off five minutes ago.

As Zhao Xiujie was carried out of the shed on a stretcher, he passed by Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan squatted down next to the cardboard box, patted Lao Liu's head, and looked up at him.

His expression was very innocent.

Very sincere.

I am very concerned.

Zhao Xiujie's eyes twitched. He seemed to want to say something, his lips moved twice, but in the end, nothing came out. The stretcher turned the corner and disappeared at the end of the corridor.

---

As night fell, Jiang Yan copied the footage from the scene and imported it into the editing console.

She adjusted the playback speed to 120 frames per second.

First time. The cup slipped from my hand. It slid down naturally.

The second time. The cup slipped from my hand and slid down naturally.

The third time.

The third time, she stared at the tip of Lu Yuan's index finger.

In frames 47 and 48, the flexion angle of the first joint of the index finger deflected by 0.3 degrees between these two frames. Direction: upward, forward, with a counterclockwise component.

The axis of rotation of the cup coincides precisely with the direction of the force applied in this component.

Without that 0.3 degrees, the cup would fall straight down. The water would spill onto the floor. No one would get hurt.

0.3 degrees.

The water was diverted from the ground and landed on Zhao Xiujie's crotch.

Jiang Yan turned off the screen.

The monitoring room went dark. Only the blue indicator lights of the equipment in standby mode remained.

She leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling.

She has confirmed that Zhao Xiujie put boiling water in the water cup to harm people. Checking the surveillance footage and the water dispenser usage records, the chain of evidence shouldn't be difficult to piece together.

But what Lu Yuan did—

She closed her eyes.

"In a completely unreplicable physical chaotic system, the landing point and spread area of ​​a liquid splash can be precisely controlled by a fingertip adjustment of no more than 0.3 degrees."

She opened her eyes and wrote the last line in her notebook. Her hand didn't tremble, but the ink was much heavier than usual, leaving dents on the paper.

"If he wanted to kill someone."

The pen tip paused.

"Forensic doctors only write: accident."