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

That evening. The monitoring room.

Jiang Yan imported the footage from the high-speed camera into the editing console.

The high-speed camera on set uses a machine that operates at 1,000 frames per second, originally intended for shooting slow-motion action scenes. Although filming didn't start today, the high-speed camera at position A was put into standby recording mode in order to test the lighting parameters.

She dragged the timeline to two seconds before the iron block fell.

Slow down 10 times, slow down 100 times.

Jiang Yan stopped breathing.

In the lower left corner of the screen, Lu Yuan's body is leaning forward. The action of his left foot pushing off the ground is slowed down and broken down into a continuous sequence of muscle contractions.

My toes touched something.

A nut was kicked up from the ground.

She switched to a fixed camera position at another angle, tracking the nut's trajectory. A parabola. Rising, rotating, flying into the gaps in the steel frame structure.

The nut struck the weld protrusion on the edge of the iron block.

The trajectory of the iron block deviated.

Just enough!

Jiang Yan turned off the screen and began to write.

"The target completed a high-difficulty ballistic calculation and unconventional power micro-management within 0.3 seconds, using his own fall as cover to kick out a nut weighing about 150 grams with his toe, correcting the trajectory of the 60-kilogram weight."

The pen tip paused for a moment.

The screenshot from the surveillance footage is still on the desktop. The young man sitting on the floor, heartbroken over the wasted goji berry water, is holding a ruffled orange cat in his arms.

---

At 9:12 PM, in Lu Yuan's standard room, Lao Liu was squatting on the pillow, watching Lu Yuan open a can of cat food.

There was a knock on the door, and Lu Yuan walked over barefoot.

Xu Changlin, alone, was carrying two large boxes of imported cat food in his left hand. Lu Yuan had seen the brand on the shelves of the pet store before; it was the kind of brand that you would just glance at the price tag and walk away from.

He had a bottle of liquor tucked under his right armpit—a bottle of Moutai.

The two stared at each other for a while.

Xu Changlin didn't mention what happened during the day, didn't say thank you, and didn't say anything at all.

He held up the bottle of wine under his arm.

"Brother, you don't like this tea. How about you have one with me?"

Lu Yuan glanced at the Moutai.

He then looked down at the two boxes of cat food in Xu Changlin's left hand.

The sixth cat jumped off the pillow, darted to the door, circled the cat food box twice, nudged the corner of the box with its head, and began to wheeze.

Lu Yuan stepped aside.

"Enter."

Xu Changlin stepped over the threshold.

Lu Yuan took two disposable paper cups from the bedside table.

The aroma of soy sauce filled the eight-square-meter standard room.

The two clinked their cups together. The paper cups were too soft, and the clinking produced a dull thud.

Old Liu lay between two boxes of cat food, his front paws wrapped around the boxes, his eyes squinting, enjoying the pinnacle of cat life.

The heating pipes continued to hum in the corner.

They drank about half a bottle of Moutai, and the two of them leaned against the headboard. Lao Liu lay across the middle, his four legs in the air, his belly being scratched so hard that it made a deafening snoring sound.

Xu Changlin downed the last sip of his drink in the paper cup and smacked his lips.

"Drinking straight isn't satisfying." He screwed the bottle cap on and looked around. "Let's go find a place to get some snacks to go with the drinks."

Lu Yuan glanced at his phone. 10:03. "Okay. What do you want to eat?"

"There's a Japanese restaurant across the street from the hotel; their sashimi platter is pretty good."

"Too expensive."

Lu Yuan had already rolled out of bed, put on his canvas shoes, and said, "Come with me."

The alleyways in urban villages are narrower at night than during the day.

The residential buildings on both sides squeezed the sky into a line, underwear and bed sheets hung on the iron bars of the security windows, and the overhead power lines were denser than a spider web.

The road beneath his feet was made of cement slabs from the 1990s, with grass growing in the cracks. When he walked through a puddle, Xu Changlin's leather shoes slipped.

Lu Yuan walked ahead, saying, "Watch the road, there's a pothole ahead."

Xu Changlin lowered his head and walked around a dark hole where a sewer cover was missing.

The air was filled with the fumes of cooking, the dampness of the sewers, and the salty aroma of cured meat drying on a balcony. The alley turned two corners, and then it brightened up ahead.

A 200-watt incandescent light bulb, attached to a bamboo pole extending from the wall with wire, illuminated a patch of oil-stained cement floor. Four tin tables and a dozen red plastic stools, half of the stool legs propped up with beer bottle caps or folded cardboard.

The barbecue grill was set up by the roadside, oil sizzling on the wire mesh, and the charcoal fire reflected on the shirtless owner's face.

Lu Yuan stepped into the lighted area. "Old Hu, is there any room left?"

The boss poked his head out from behind the smoke, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"Yuanzi! I haven't seen you for a few days. Come in and sit in your usual spot."

"Twenty skewers of beef tendon, and a plate of wide rice noodles."

Thirty plus ten equals forty.

Xu Changlin stood by the table, his haute couture jacket reflecting the light under the incandescent bulb.

At the table on the left, four migrant workers in dusty overalls were playing a drinking game, chanting, "Five heads—" "Eight horses—". On the right, two young men in slippers were scrolling through their phones, and six empty beer bottles sat on the table.

The three-time Golden Horse Award winner, worth over 100 million yuan, standing in this place looks like an oil painting pasted on the tiled wall of a public toilet.

Lu Yuan looked up. "Sit down."

Xu Changlin tugged at his trouser crease and sat down. The plastic stool tilted slightly to the right. He looked down and saw that the cardboard under his right leg had shifted.

He bent down, stuffed the cardboard back in, patted it down, and it was stable.

Lu Yuan took two disposable plastic cups out of the disinfection cabinet, and Moutai took out of the inside pocket of his down jacket.

As the cap was unscrewed, the aroma of soy sauce and the smoky flavor of barbecue collided, creating a harmonious blend.

Lu Yuan poured the wine into a plastic cup and pushed it in front of Xu Changlin.

A bottle of Feitian Moutai, costing over two thousand yuan, is packaged in a disposable cup.

The grilled skewers arrived, skewered on metal and arranged on an enamel plate, with cumin and chili powder sprinkled unevenly.

Lu Yuan pulled out a skewer and took a bite, chewing it twice with his cheeks.

"Hmm, the timing is right today."

He gnawed away loudly, his elbows resting on the greasy metal tabletop, his entire weight leaning back into the plastic chair.

Xu Changlin glanced at him, took off his jacket, and draped it over the back of the chair. He picked up the disposable chopsticks on the table and, imitating the actions of the migrant workers at the next table, rinsed the chopsticks twice with boiling water in a cup.

I picked up a piece of wide rice noodle, put it in my mouth, and as I chewed, my shoulders slumped.

He didn't even notice it himself.

When the third glass of wine was poured, Xu Changlin used his chopsticks to give one of the last two pieces of meat tendon on the plate to Lu Yuan.

"You know how close that iron block was to falling by a second today?"

"I was standing in that spot, and when I looked up and saw that thing coming straight at my head, I couldn't move my feet. The wires were tangled around me."

He took a sip of his drink. "After 28 years in the industry, this is the first time I've felt like I might die on set."

Lu Yuan spat the peanut shells onto the table and wiped his mouth with a tissue.

"Luckily survived."

Xu Changlin waited for five or six seconds, but heard nothing more. The person on the other end had already started peeling a peanut.

The 120-pound iron block nearly hit him on the head from two meters away. Lu Yuan's emotions when recalling this incident were similar to when he recalled spilling goji berry water.

Xu Changlin put down the cup and didn't ask any further questions.