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

Human joys and sorrows are not synchronized.

At 11:00 AM, the third wave of organized attacks by anti-fans and marketing accounts began in the Weibo supertopic.

This group of people stopped dwelling on tired tropes like "beating people" and "bringing their own investment to the production team," and instead tacitly changed their focus to a different track—ruthlessly criticizing Lu Yuan's acting skills.

"His expression was completely blank the whole time; it was pure luck."

This sentence was cut into more than a dozen variations and stuffed into short comments on various platforms, attempting to nail Lu Yuan to the pillar of shame from a professional and technical perspective.

"An amateur who has never received any systematic training managed to stand there in a daze for eight minutes, which is essentially due to Su Qinghan's camera language frantically covering up the situation."

"Equating dullness with coldness, and expressionlessness with depth, is the biggest joke in Chinese-language cinema this year!"

The usernames used to post the messages were incredibly varied. Some claimed to be visiting professors at the Central Academy of Drama, others to assistant directors of film crews, and still others to be seasoned agents with twenty years of experience in the industry.

The wording is meticulous, full of allusions, and every sentence is meant to brainwash passersby: This person is unworthy.

The hype had barely started forty minutes. The paid trolls hadn't even had a chance to establish themselves in the comments section.

A nuclear bomb fell from the sky.

"The sharp-tongued Lao Xu".

He's the absolute pinnacle of film criticism in China. This old man has been famous for thirty years, criticizing countless terrible films while praising very few.

His WeChat official account pushed out an article right on time that afternoon. The title had eleven characters:

Reshaping Chinese-Language Crime Films: Lu Yuan's "Zero-Degree Performance"

The full text is eleven thousand words.

The first three thousand words are a review of film history, from Bresson's "model theory" to Dreyer's philosophy of close-up facial expressions, and it goes through all the schools of thought since the 20th century that have tried to eliminate the traces of acting.

The fourth thousandth character: The main course is served.

Old Xu, in a frenzied manner, sliced ​​through Lu Yuan's eight-minute interrogation footage frame by frame. He then directly used facial muscle movement coding systems from criminal psychology papers for a comparative analysis that was like a game-changer.

Zero micro-twitches in the orbicularis oculi muscle, stability of pupil contraction, degree of relaxation of neck muscles, respiratory rate...

He labeled each physiological indicator with a time code and a reference threshold.

In the conclusion, Lao Xu wrote the following:

"Lu Yuan's gaze at 6 minutes and 11 seconds wasn't directed at anything outside the camera's view. He was looking at himself."

"A person who has seen through the boundaries of life and death looks back at all the traces of their past life. In their eyes are compassion, mockery, and even more so, relief."

"This is not a performance; the performance techniques available on the market simply cannot reach this level! It is an almost religious farewell to existence itself."

"In my 34 years in the industry, this is the first time I've seen an actor act using their autonomic nervous system!"

Once this article was published, those carefully crafted "technical criticisms" were like elementary school students' essays being circled in red by their doctoral supervisors in front of Lao Xu—not a single one could survive more than three rounds.

The sentiment in the comments section shifted dramatically within half an hour.

The number of likes on the attack post was stuck at three digits. Meanwhile, Lao Xu's articles saw their readership skyrocket with each refresh.

But what truly caused an uproar online was the last paragraph of the article.

Old Xu posted behind-the-scenes footage from "Black Gold"—the scene where Lu Yuan unscrews his thermos and slowly counts the goji berries.

"Many people laughed when they saw this behind-the-scenes footage. But I didn't laugh; I was just shocked."

"Master actors all share a common fatal occupational hazard: the psychological toxicity of their roles can backfire on them. Daniel Day-Lewis saw a psychiatrist for three months after filming 'Gangs of New York'; Heath Ledger even trapped himself completely in the abyss of the Joker."

"From a behavioral psychology perspective, Lu Yuan's act of counting goji berries is an extremely clever, subconscious 'anchoring' maneuver!"

"He borrowed the most subtle and down-to-earth sensory details from the everyday life of ordinary people to gradually pull his consciousness back from the bottomless abyss of the character. Six goji berries, a breath of hot air—every action was an anchor he threw back to the world!"

"This 24-year-old single-handedly completed the deep personality dissociation and safe recovery of the character without the intervention of any professional medical team."

"It's not that he lacks skill, it's just that his skill has reached a level beyond the comprehension of ordinary people like you!"

Weibo followers: 3.47 million. And still growing rapidly.

The comments section has become completely unified in its style, showing a trend of spreading like wildfire.

"Holy crap, I'm bowing down to this master!"

"Lu Shen has gone berserk! This is practically establishing his own sect!"

"Zero-degree performance, absolutely brilliant!"

……

An old residential area in the south of the city, third floor.

Lu Yuan nestled in the tattered sofa, his phone lying horizontally in his hand, his thumb idly swiping down the screen.

He read every single word of Lao Xu's 10,000-word article.

My gaze slowly shifted and landed on the old thermos cup on the coffee table, a piece of paint chipped off.

Lu Yuan stroked his chin and muttered, "Back then... I was really afraid of spilling the goji berries."

The sixth brother licked his paws at his feet, too lazy to even roll his eyes.

"Buzz—" My phone vibrated; it was a text message notification from the bank.

Lu Yuan clicked on it, his gaze instantly fixing on the string of numbers.

The zeros after the amount received were neatly lined up in a column. He held his breath and counted twice to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

It was a special bonus sent by Su Qinghan on behalf of the production company.

Six figures!

What zero-degree performance, what psychotoxicity, what high-dimensional anchor point...

Everything else pales in comparison to this string of numbers!

Lu Yuan suddenly sprang up from the sofa, scooped up the sixth brother who was still licking his paws, and lifted him directly above his head.

"Sixth Brother! We've struck it rich!"

Old Liu's four legs were kicking wildly in mid-air, his head tilted to the side, his expression full of clear stupidity.

Lu Yuan turned and walked to the kitchen, pulling open the bottommost hidden compartment.

Inside lay a black foil box, which Xiao Zhong had sent three weeks ago on behalf of Xu Changlin. It contained genuine imported black caviar cat food.

Lu Yuan lingered in front of this hidden compartment no less than ten times, each time wanting to reach out, but ultimately hesitantly pulled his hand back.

But today, he stopped pretending.

Pull the tab and a burst of top-quality seafood flavor wafts out.

Lao Liu started the catapult launch from three meters away, and with a kick of his hind leg, he kicked a dent into the old sofa cushion.

Lu Yuan generously pushed the canned food next to the cat's bowl, exclaiming with magnanimity, "Eat up! Eat as much as you want today!"

Without saying a word, the sixth brother plunged his entire head into the bowl, his tail standing upright like an antenna in ecstasy.