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

The lines burst out between the brief moments of hand-to-hand combat.

"Did you win, Reporter Chu—" Lu Yuan's back slammed against the wall, and Xu Changlin's forearm pressed against his throat.

He didn't break free, his eyes fixed on Xu Changlin. "What did you win?"

Xu Changlin was breathing heavily, and beads of sweat dripped from his chin onto Lu Yuan's collar.

"A pile of papers, a string of numbers, and a few cowards who signed them."

Lu Yuan leaned his head back against the wall, no longer resisting.

"And I've lived enough."

Seventh minute.

Lu Yuan's body slid down the wall.

Xu Changlin loosened his grip and took a step back. The gun barrel dropped.

Lu Yuan sat on the ground, leaning against the wall with his legs stretched out.

He raised his eyes. His gaze went over Xu Changlin's shoulder, over the line of law enforcement officers, over the broken French windows of the trading hall, and out. There was nothing outside. A gray sky.

When that gaze fell on the monitor screen, Su Qinghan stopped breathing.

She's made many films and seen countless actors portray death. Exaggerated, restrained, explosive, subtle. They're all acting.

Lu Yuan wasn't; he was reminiscing.

Of the more than one hundred people present, none knew what he was recalling. The moon over Zagreb, the gunshot wound behind the supporting pillar, the water stain on the ceiling that looked like a bird. A man named Joker, amidst the broken glass and smoke of a foreign land, sat on the ground, staring at the ceiling, waiting to die.

That calm, as if one had given up breathing, seeped out from the screen and permeated the entire set.

The production crew forgot to adjust the reflector. The sound engineer's hand hovered over the slider, afraid to move. Old Jin's mouth was slightly open, his jaw muscles clenched.

Eighth minute. Last second.

Lu Yuan's lips twitched slightly, and he seemed relieved.

"Click—!"

When Su Qinghan's voice squeezed out from behind the monitor, she was startled.

Filming wrapped.

He died for two seconds on set, and then the roof was blown off by applause.

The young men in the lighting crew whistled. The stagehands clapped and wiped their eyes. Sister Jiao rushed out of the support area with a rice scoop in hand, her hands covered in rice grains, also taking pictures.

Xu Changlin let out a long breath and bent down to reach out his hand.

The moment Lu Yuan was pulled up, Shen Yibai was gone, reverting to his role as an extra. He cracked his elbows and grinned.

"Teacher Xu, that last elbow strike was a bit too forceful; it hit a bone here."

Xu Changlin laughed heartily and slapped him again.

Old Liu huddled in the corner on top of the cabinet, his fur standing on end. The sounds of breaking furniture and colliding bodies during those eight minutes had terrified him.

Lu Yuan scooped the cat out and put it in his arms.

"Were you scared? It's okay, we're done for the day. Come on, let's go back and open the cans."

The sixth brother buried his head in his armpit and refused to come out.

Su Qinghan sat behind the monitor, her hands still resting on the edge of the table. The screen was frozen on the last frame of the playback: Lu Yuan sat on the floor against the wall, his gaze looking through the lens into the void.

She took a screenshot of that frame and saved it in a separate folder.

......

The stagehand pushed in a three-tiered cake cart to wrap up the filming, and the aroma of cream spread through the draft into every corner of the abandoned trading hall.

The entire set was still immersed in the lingering glow of filming wrapping up. Su Qinghan hadn't even looked up from the monitor playback when Xu Changlin sat by the wall, his gaze fixed on the distance.

Lu Yuan deftly grabbed a cake knife from the dining table, cut off a piece, and stuffed it directly into his mouth.

I grabbed two disposable paper plates and packed one for myself.

"It's Lao Liu's share," he explained to the stagehand next to him.

He trotted over to the equipment box. Old Six squatted on top of the box, his front paws dangling in the air, and nudged his nose twice towards the cake.

"Enough for today."

The youngest guy in the lighting crew came over carrying a cake, but stopped halfway there.

He glanced at the still-on display on the monitor: Lu Yuan sat against the wall, his gaze passing through the lens and looking into the void.

Then he looked at what was in front of him: Lu Yuan was squatting on the ground, scraping up the cream that had leaked from the edge of the paper plate with his index finger and putting it into his mouth.

The young man, carrying the cake, turned around and left. He needed to digest it.

---

The wrap party was held at a nearby Cantonese restaurant, and we booked the entire second floor.

As soon as the main course was served, producer Chen Tong began to tour the set with a glass of red wine, followed by his assistant carrying a stack of red envelopes.

When she reached Lu Yuan, Chen Tong paused for a moment before handing over the envelope.

"Lu Yuan, you've worked hard."

Lu Yuan put down his chopsticks, dug his fingernails into the seal, and tore it open. Inside was cash. He pulled it out, pressed one end down with his thumb, and quickly flicked the other end with his index finger.

"One thousand, two thousand, three thousand..."

After counting them one by one, 6666, I'm rich! Lu Yuan looked up at Chen Tong and gave her a very sincere smile, his eyes shining.

"Mr. Chen, thank you! Please contact me again if you need any work in the future."

Chen Tong's lips twitched. In his twenty years of producing films, he had given red envelopes to at least two or three hundred actors. No one had ever counted money in front of him with their mouth watering.

"...No problem."

Chen Tong turned and left. Her figure moved two steps faster than when she came.

......

As the banquet drew to a close, the dishes and cups were left in disarray.

Lu Yuan was pondering whether to pack up the untouched half-eaten sea bass on the table to take back as a treat for Lao Liu when a shadow loomed over him.

Xu Changlin stood in front of him and took out a business card from the inside pocket of his shirt.

Black background, gold lettering, and a size narrower than a regular business card. It contains only a name and a phone number.

No title, no company, no position.

In the Chinese entertainment industry, no more than twenty of these cards have been issued.

Xiao Zhong was standing three meters away, unaware that his napkin had fallen from his hand. Lao Jin had a shrimp shell in his mouth for a long time without spitting it out.

Xu Changlin stuffed the business card into the fuzzy pocket on the chest of Lu Yuan's windbreaker and pressed it with his finger.

"After you return to Beijing, don't hide, come find me for a drink."

The entire table fell silent. The table next to them also fell silent. The three-time Golden Horse Award-winning actor personally handed his personal business card to an ordinary person who was counting red envelopes after filming a movie.

Lu Yuan glanced down at the pocket on his chest. The gold trim of a business card peeked out from among the pom-poms.

"Teacher Xu, if you're treating, just make sure everyone's full. I won't go to places that are too expensive; I need to save money on cat food for Lao Liu."

Xu Changlin couldn't hold back his smile any longer, and finally let out a short, sharp breath from his nose.

"Alright, you little brat."