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

It's exactly 2 o'clock.

"Attention all departments—Scene 42, Shot 1!"

Raise the clapperboard.

Cameras A, B, and a handheld follow-focus camera C all simultaneously lit up with red lights.

Xu Changlin opened his eyes.

"Scene 42, Shot 1, A—Action!"

Hit the board.

The iron door to the interrogation room was pushed open from the outside, and Xu Changlin walked in with a real gust of cold air, his strides large and his pace rapid, the hem of his old jacket billowing in the air currents.

He took three steps to the table, placed his hands on the iron surface, leaned forward, and his knuckles cracked.

"Shen Yibai".

The vocal cords are stretched to a special frequency band, deep but with extremely strong penetrating power, like a knife tip cutting through glass.

"The offshore accounts in the Leman Islands, the nested structure of the fourth-level SPV of Hotan Commercial Exchange, and the return flow path of every related transaction of Hengyu Asset Management over the past three years—it's all here."

He pulled a stack of documents from the inside pocket of his jacket and slammed them on the table.

"Your people have all been turned over. Zhang Weiming signed a plea agreement last night. Your supposedly impenetrable financial firewall? Sorry—it's riddled with holes."

The pace of speech quickened. Each burst of information left the other person no room to process it, as rapid as a machine gun volley. The subtle twitching of the brow bone, in sync with the emphasis of the lines, condensed thirty years of acting experience into the movements of the facial muscles.

The stagehand holding the microphone boom began to tremble.

The heavy, oppressive force released by Xu Changlin weighed down on everyone, disrupting even their breathing.

Lin Yue's palms were completely wet. She glanced at Lao Jin, whose Adam's apple bobbed.

Yesterday's rehearsal was a test; Xu Changlin held back.

Today feels like a mountain is pressing down on us.

On the monitor, a close-up of Lu Yuan's face filled the entire screen.

Xu Changlin poured all his energy into that face; his lines, his aura, his body language—every single one was overwhelming.

If any other actor were sitting in that chair, they would most likely be sweating, blinking more frequently, and unconsciously clenching their fingers.

Lu Yuan's eyelids didn't twitch.

As Xu Changlin finished speaking, the table continued to vibrate.

Lu Yuan moved, raising his right hand from the armrest, his index and middle fingers joined together, pinching the button on the cuff of his left suit sleeve, turning it half a turn, and fastening it.

The movements are very slow.

Then he spoke.

"Reporter Chu, before you barged in, did anyone teach you—"

The voice lacked power. It contained no anger. It was flat, like the surface of water.

"Should I knock first?"

Xu Changlin's breath hitched.

Lu Yuan's voice was precisely embedded in the gap of that beat, like a key being inserted into a lock.

Xu Changlin instantly realized he had been intercepted. The physiological window for shifting his breathing had been thoroughly understood by the person opposite him, and the dialogue had hit the metronome's Achilles' heel perfectly.

A small force can deflect a great weight. All the weight that came crashing down was gently redirected and deflected.

Su Qinghan sprang up from her chair. Leaning forward, she braced her hands on the edge of the table, her nose almost touching the monitor.

Dozens of people in the shed gasped at the same time, their voices merging together like a punctured tire.

Xu Changlin's offensive was not only countered.

After being caught, the control of the rhythm shifted imperceptibly in that instant.

In the corner, Jiang Yan clenched the surveying book tightly in her hand.

She looked at Lu Yuan's face on the monitor, the face of someone who would actually use her life as a bargaining chip.

She had seen too many people trying to appear calm in the interrogation room. The slight tremors in their eyes, the changes in the frequency of their carotid pulse, the skin color shift caused by the contraction of capillaries in their fingertips—no matter how well someone disguises themselves, their physiological indicators will betray them.

Counter-reconnaissance silence.

Jiang Yan drew a line on the notebook.

Xu Changlin's competitive spirit was ignited.

In 28 years, he has faced off against his best rivals: Chen Qiming, Fang Zhongxin, and Liang Henian. Each of them is a seasoned actor who has been tempered and refined through countless trials.

No one could counter his breath in the first round of combat.

Xu Changlin's career path has been moved up.

He reached out and grabbed the neck of the table lamp, twisting his wrist sharply.

Clang! The lamp head slammed onto the table, the metal lampshade bounced up and then fell back down, and the bright light from the incandescent bulb shone directly into Lu Yuan's eyes.

The distance was less than forty centimeters.

"Thirty-seven lives." Xu Changlin's voice was low to the back of his throat, and the vibration from the resonance in his chest made the edges of the documents on the iron table tremble.

"The data deleted from the server room on the third basement floor of Hengyu Building, behind every string of code is a living person."

He pressed his palm against the lampshade and pushed it forward, the beam of light hitting Lu Yuan's face.

"You're sitting here, trying to lecture me about rules?"

The bright light shone on Lu Yuan's iris.

Lu Yuan's pupils contracted only slightly before locking.

Slowly, she raised her eyelids and looked at Xu Changlin, meeting the beam of white light.

There was nothing in his eyes.

"Reporter Chu."

The tone was even softer than the previous sentence. So soft that the sound engineer had to push the gain up two notches.

"That pile of papers you're holding, will it keep me sitting here for ten or twenty years?"

There was a pause.

"Guess if I care?"

The last three words were barely vibrated by the vocal cords; they were uttered by the airflow pushing against the lips.

But everyone in the shed heard it clearly.

Xu Changlin felt a chill run down his spine. His body told him: the person opposite him was telling the truth.

The weight that only a person who has truly let go of life and death can possess.

The two men collided above the interrogation table.

There was no breathing in the shed. Old Liu rolled over on the equipment box, his paw hitting the metal with a "clink," but no one heard it.

"Click—Pass!"

Su Qinghan's voice cracked.

The walkie-talkie flew out of her hand, but Lin Yue caught it in mid-air. She didn't care anymore; she braced herself on the table with both hands, staring at the playback on the monitor, her eyes red.

Applause erupted in the studio.

Old Jin slapped his thigh with his palm, making a dull thud. Several young men from the lighting crew followed suit, as did the stagehands, the camera assistant, and even Sister Jiao from logistics stood at the door, enthusiastically cheering.

Xu Changlin's muscles, which had been tense for ten minutes, completely relaxed.

He let out a long breath, leaned back, looked up at the ceiling, and laughed.

He walked around the table and slapped Lu Yuan on the shoulder.

"happy!"

"It's been years, years since I've felt this good! Brother—" He shook Lu Yuan's shoulder vigorously, the fifty-two-year-old man as excited as a young man who had just finished a boxing match.

Lu Yuan was swayed forward twice by the slap. Shen Yibai left, leaving behind a young man who was grinning from ear to ear after being slapped by the movie star.

"It was all thanks to Teacher Xu." He rubbed his shoulder, which had been patted so hard. "If you didn't use that much force, I wouldn't be able to keep up."

Xu Changlin glared at him, tapped his finger twice in the air, and opened and closed his mouth.

After a long pause, he squeezed out a sentence through gritted teeth: "Stop being so modest with me."

Lu Yuan smiled, strolled back to the equipment box, where Lao Liu was snoring on his back. He reached out and rubbed the cat's belly.

"Are you hungry? I'll get you something good when we get back."

Two meters behind the equipment box, Jiang Yan leaned against the wall.

"The target's ability to suppress pupillary light reflex during extreme psychological confrontation exceeds the known human physiological baseline."