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

Lu Yuan's ears picked up a faint motor sound coming from sixty meters above the ground—a drone.

Four hundred meters ahead is the vegetable market.

Lu Yuan quickened his pace, walked past the mother pushing the stroller, and turned into the north gate of the vegetable market.

Tuesday mornings at the farmers' market are a jungle of people. Vendors, customers, and workers carrying goods—drone algorithms can't extract the trajectory of a single target from it all.

He plunged in headfirst.

The fishmonger was splashing water onto his stainless steel workbench, the water surface forming a temporary reflector under the fluorescent lights. As Lu Yuan passed by, he glanced at the reflection out of the corner of his eye—seven meters behind him, a man in a baseball cap quickly followed him into the north gate.

The market aisle was less than two meters wide, with stacked vegetable crates and hanging meat chops on both sides. Lu Yuan made three sudden changes of direction between the stalls, each turn coinciding with a visual obstruction at the corner of the aisle, ensuring that his pursuers always saw an empty alley when they turned the corner.

The two baseball caps sped forward along the original path, only to find themselves in a dead end when they reached the end.

They glanced at each other's baseball caps and tote bags.

"Are you the target?"

"You are the one who should be asking questions! When did you change your clothes?"

The two stood facing each other for three seconds, then each took out their phones and showed their work group chat history.

While confirming the identities of his teammates, Mr. Liu, the butcher, peeked out from behind the counter, looked at the two suspicious-looking people, and then at the black object peeking out of their eco-friendly bags.

"What do you do?"

"No—Big brother, we—"

"You stole the meat, didn't you?"

Master Liu pulled a boning knife from under the cutting board, climbed over the counter, and chased after him.

When Lu Yuan turned back for the second time, he used the dense crowd queuing in front of the meat stall to switch his clothing style.

He zipped up his windbreaker all the way, pulled the hood down, and pulled a crumpled black plastic bag out of his pocket with his right hand. He shook it open and held it in his hand, instantly transforming from a "young man in a windbreaker" into an "unremarkable passerby carrying a bag of groceries."

The sixth brother in the pocket was not happy about being jostled around, and a paw stuck out from the zipper gap and patted his waist.

"Bear with it, it'll be over soon."

Outside the south gate of the vegetable market, a No. 135 bus is pulling into the station.

When Lu Yuan emerged from the south gate, the air valve on the car door had just begun to release air. He slid to the rear door, skirting the blind spot of the last window, and got in the car sideways the instant the door panel was fully open.

Swipe your card. One dollar and fifty cents.

The bus started moving, taking him and Lao Liu away into the morning traffic.

One stop, three minutes. Get off at the back door of the supermarket.

Seven fifty-eight.

---

The voice coming from the walkie-talkie made Lao Du's blood pressure soar to 170.

"Number 3 is being chased like a meat thief!" "Numbers 5 and 7 have been tracking each other for twenty minutes!" "Drone detected no target, repeat, no target detected!"

Old Poison slammed the walkie-talkie onto the dashboard.

He's been in the industry for ten years and has worked with no fewer than two hundred celebrities. He's even broken into the bodyguard teams of international superstars and political figures.

An extra drinking goji berries from a thermos.

Faced with his impenetrable defenses of six surveillance positions, three monitoring vehicles, and a drone, they vanished in broad daylight.

"Evacuate everyone."

---

Eight o'clock in the morning, in the supermarket's refrigerated section.

Lu Yuan cut in from the left flank of the group of middle-aged women, using a low center of gravity to slide sideways through the gap between two shopping carts, and precisely with his right hand, he took the last two boxes of 50% off eggs from the third-tier refrigerated shelf.

Cashier. Scan the code. Nine yuan and three jiao multiplied by two, that's eighteen yuan and six jiao.

perfect.

He carried the plastic bag out of the supermarket's back door and sat down on a section of the curb.

The sixth brother poked his head out of his pocket and yawned.

Lu Yuan took out his phone and opened today's spending records.

Eggs: 18.6 yuan.

Scroll up.

Bus: 1.5 yuan.

To avoid that damned drone, he was forced to jump onto a No. 228 bus. He rode for one stop and got off from the back door. One dollar and fifty cents, gone.

Walking to the supermarket costs nothing.

These paparazzi made him spend an extra dollar and fifty cents.

Lu Yuan patted the sixth brother's head.

"From now on, we need to be more low-key."

The sixth brother licked his nose.

"These people are too expensive."

......

The premiere of "Black Gold" at the city center grand theater.

Two walls of flashbulbs lined both sides of the red carpet, the sound of camera shutters like a torrential downpour hitting a tin shed. The screams from the fans mingled with the shouts from the media, the sound waves capable of pushing eardrums into the brain.

Lu Yuan entered through the side passage.

He was wearing a dark gray suit today, which Su Qinghan had the stylist deliver to his rented apartment in advance. The cut was perfect, and the fabric was of good quality.

A hostess handed Lu Yuan an A4 sheet of paper at the entrance—a publicity schedule with timelines and seating arrangements for all media interactions. Lu Yuan held it in his right hand and a thermos in his left.

The main creative team gathered on stage, with Xu Changlin standing on the far left, his suit jacket buttoned up to the top, his posture ramrod straight.

Su Qinghan stood in the center, wearing a black haute couture gown with an extremely minimalist cut. The shoulder line cut straight down from above her collarbone, and the waistline was crisp and clean. Her fair skin shimmered like porcelain under the stage lights. Her hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, revealing her entire face.

With all the media cameras pointed at her, her facial expressions were impeccable—her chin was slightly tucked in, and her gaze was straight ahead.

Lu Yuan, carrying a thermos, slipped to stand behind her.

Su Qinghan glanced over out of the corner of her eye.

Her jawline went from taut to relaxed, and the tendon between her shoulder blades, which had been twisted all the way, also relaxed.

In the shadow of the columns on the left side of the inner field.

Jiang Yan was dressed casually, her earpiece extending from her collar to her left ear. Her security guard was tucked into the inside pocket of her coat; her role today was that of a specially appointed security consultant.

The media interaction session has entered its fortieth minute.

On stage, Su Qinghan answered questions about the film's creative concept, casting controversies, and post-production color grading philosophy. Every answer was cold, firm, and precise, leaving no room for reporters to distort the truth.

Fan interaction area in the audience.

In the front row on the right, a man wearing a baseball cap and a black mask hadn't changed his posture for the past twenty minutes.

His hands were tucked into the pockets of his large coat, his body leaning forward, his weight on the balls of his feet. The pupils of his eyes, peeking out from under the brim of his hat, were wide open.

Jiang Yan glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

But with hundreds of fans in the premiere's fan section, a mix of excitement, agitation, and nervousness, dilated pupils don't necessarily constitute an independent warning signal in such a setting.

She noted the location and then turned her gaze back to Lu Yuan.

"The final segment is a group photo of the creative team. Please, everyone—"

Before the host could finish speaking, Su Qinghan had already turned around, ready to lead her team off the stage. She took her first step in her high heels.

A baseball cap popped out from between the crowd.

"You cold-blooded woman! I will avenge my brother Xiujie—!"