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

Municipal Public Security Bureau Criminal Investigation Detachment.

Jiang Yan crossed her arms over her chest, staring intently at the case files on the computer screen.

Name: Lu Yuan. Age: 24.

Background: Born in an orphanage, worked as a low-level extra in Hengdian World Studios for three years. No criminal record, no social security payment record, not even a traffic violation warning for running a red light.

It's too clean. Absolutely unbelievably clean.

Xiao Liu walked over with a teacup, yawning, "Captain Jiang, we checked three times over. We even found out what brand of ballpoint pen he used in junior high."

"He's just a purebred, unlucky, penniless bastard. If you're really worried, I can check if he stole someone else's little red flower in kindergarten. Were you hallucinating from exhaustion during yesterday's recording?"

"Extras?" Jiang Yan slammed her fingers on the table, making a crisp thud. "Have you ever seen an extra enter an abandoned warehouse and first check for high-angle firing positions, then check blind spots for surveillance, and finally assess the lethality of all personnel?"

"Have you ever seen an extra shuffling and dealing cards with such speed and precision that it surpasses the visual capture limits of a normal person?"

The images from the surveillance footage lingered in my mind.

Tactical maneuvering and the instinct to control the situation. These are not things you can suddenly grasp by spending a few years as an extra on a film set. Even veterans from special forces will never possess that kind of languid ease and composure that comes from walking on the edge of a knife.

This guy is a seasoned veteran with countless lives on his hands; he's extremely dangerous.

The more perfect the file, the darker the background; this is the standard tactic for whitewashing counter-surveillance data.

"I'm going to change my clothes." Jiang Yan grabbed her coat from the back of the chair. "Today I'm going to find out his background myself."

Four o'clock in the afternoon. Shudian urban village.

The building layout is a mess, with haphazardly strung electrical wires cutting the sky into a tattered spiderweb, and the air is thick with the musty smell of sewers.

Jiang Yan changed into a faded, old denim jacket, a baseball cap that covered most of her face, and a miniature eavesdropping camera disguised as a black button fastened to her chest. Avoiding the tenants' view, she deftly climbed the rusty fire escape ladder to the roof of the five-story bungalow.

It overlooks Lu Yuan's dilapidated partitioned room perfectly.

He set up a high-powered telescope and fine-tuned the focus. Passing through several clotheslines laden with underwear and withered potted plants, the lens pointed directly at Lu Yuan's uncurtained room.

Jiang Yan calmed her heart rate and rested her right hand on the tactical walkie-talkie.

The target has been identified.

In the footage, a man resembling a top assassin from a transnational crime syndicate, a legendary figure in the world of gamblers, is sitting cross-legged on a tattered straw mat, wearing a pair of faded floral shorts and a worn-out T-shirt.

He was holding a rusty utility knife, intently working on a cardboard box that had been used to store instant noodles.

A small calico orange cat with splints on its hind legs was lying next to it.

Lu Yuan opened an archway in the cardboard box, then pulled out one of his tattered thermal underwear to place underneath before moving the kitten inside.

The sixth one meowed.

Lu Yuan poked the cat's head with a finger, filled an empty yogurt lid with tap water, and pushed it to the door of the cardboard box.

Behind the telescope, Jiang Yan rolled her eyes in utter exasperation.

A killing machine, hiding here like a cat's nest? Is this some kind of special signal transmission ritual by an assassination organization?

Five minutes later, Lu Yuan, wearing blue flip-flops and a shampoo-white canvas bag slung across his shoulder, pushed open the door and went downstairs.

Jiang Yan was on edge.

This slovenly attire is definitely a smokescreen. At dusk, positioned in a blind spot where day and night meet, it's clearly a rendezvous.

She braced herself against the low wall, which was about half a person's height, and silently flipped down, maintaining a safe tracking distance of thirty meters before disappearing into the shadows of the alley.

After leaving the urban village, we crossed two side roads and plunged into the crowded and noisy old street.

The smell of fish mixed with the stench of rotten vegetables hit me.

Hongqi Farmers Market. During the evening rush hour, it's packed with people, with elderly folks pushing their carts and weaving through the crowd.

Jiang Yan blended into the crowd, casually picked up an eggplant and held it in her hand, her peripheral vision like radar locking onto her target. In such a complex terrain with numerous entrances and exits, this was a perfect way to avoid being tracked.

Lu Yuan walked up to a fresh vegetable stall.

"Auntie, how much is this spinach?"

"Two yuan and fifty cents a piece!" The stall owner, an older woman, waved her palm-leaf fan, leaving afterimages.

Lu Yuan picked up a handful of spinach and pulled out two leaves with limp edges: "How about one yuan and fifty cents? These leaves are all wilted. If you leave them overnight, no one will even look at them tomorrow."

"Young man, you're too ruthless! The minimum is two yuan!"

Lu Yuan tossed the vegetables onto the stall, said nothing more, and turned to leave.

He took less than three steps.

"Hey, come back! Here, take it! One dollar and fifty cents, consider it a favor from this old lady!"

Lu Yuan didn't even falter; he turned around smoothly, took out his phone to scan the QR code, and while the payment was being announced via voice, he also asked the old lady for a scallion, and leisurely walked away with the spinach in his hand.

The older woman behind her was so angry that she fanned herself with a palm leaf fan.

Jiang Yan, hiding in the dry goods stall next door, gritted her teeth.

A top-tier actor.

To reinforce the image of a poor extra struggling to survive, he even portrayed these trivial street squabbles with remarkable realism. If I hadn't witnessed that terrifying sense of oppression on set, I would have been completely fooled today.

At 6:10, the seafood section was packed with people.

Lu Yuan stood in front of the fish stall, pointing to the unwanted fish scraps and rotten shrimp on the ground, preparing to make some nutritious food for Lao Liu.

In the midst of the crowd, a gaunt young man with dyed yellow hair brushed against Lu Yuan.

A regular at this market. Nicknamed "Loach," he specifically targets unsuspecting out-of-town tourists and naive youngsters. Two fingers had already slipped into Lu Yuan's loose sweatpants pocket, clamping down on the broken phone with its screen shattered into a spiderweb pattern.

Two seconds later, he got what he wanted and left.

The target's attention was entirely focused on arguing with the vendor about whether the fish innards should be given as one yuan or one yuan and twenty cents.

The accident happened without any warning.

There was a pool of bloody foam on the ground from the killing of fish.

Lu Yuan's weight was on the balls of his feet, but he slipped without warning.

The left foot moved diagonally backward by half a foot's width. Just ten centimeters.

Those ten centimeters, like a precise scalpel, severed the loach's center of gravity as it leaned forward to steal. This half-step, aided by the slippery ground, perfectly blocked the blind spot of the blond-haired man's forward-leaning kinetic energy.

"Bang!"

Like a puppet with its strings cut, the loach lost all control and landed face down on the granite steps.

Two front teeth were broken, and blood mixed with the fishy water on the ground flowed everywhere.

A gasp went up from the crowd.

Lu Yuan turned around abruptly, his face full of innocence, and quickly bent down to pull the thief off the ground: "Hey bro, are you alright? This ground is so slippery, why were you walking so fast? Quick, quick, can those teeth still be put back in place?"

While shouting, they pulled and dragged the thief out of the dirty water.

The loach was convulsing in pain, staring at Lu Yuan as if it had encountered a demon in broad daylight. That trip was perfectly timed, the angle was tricky, and the timing was impeccable—how could it have lost its balance and fallen flat on its face!