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

Shen Yiming was the first to react, pulling his phone out of his pocket and handing it to the paparazzi. Meng Ying followed suit. Da Yan hesitated for a moment before handing it over as well. Zhou Xiaolu muttered, "I haven't finished posting on WeChat Moments yet," when the paparazzi snatched her phone away.

He Rihuo's phone had been switched off long ago. He hadn't touched it since he got in the car. His attention was entirely on the back seat, staring at the back of Lu Yuan's head through the gap between the seats.

Lu Yuan was woken up by the electronic noise and yawned.

The staff member had already shoved the storage bag in front of him, and Lu Yuan threw his phone into it.

"Can I hold my thermos myself?"

The staff member looked at the chipped, broken cup and nodded.

Lu Yuan pulled out an eye mask from his storage bag. It was fully enclosed, with a sponge sealing strip at the nose, and its light-blocking ability was extremely high. He weighed it in his hand. "This thing is more advanced than my sleep mask."

He put it on. He crossed his hands and placed them on either side of the thermos on his thighs, then sank into the seat.

Three seconds later, she fell asleep again!

Inside the broadcast van, director Xiao Zhao turned to look at Yan Ji, his mouth agape.

Yan Ji ignored him. He placed his hand on the walkie-talkie and pressed the call button with his thumb.

"Old Zhou."

"Three hundred meters ahead, turn right and take South Third Auxiliary Road."

Driver Zhou paused for two seconds, then said, "Mr. Yan, that road isn't finished; it's full of potholes—"

"I know."

As soon as the steering wheel was turned, the right front wheel of the van hit the first pothole.

With a thud, the car lurched to a halt, and the shock absorbers groaned. Then the left rear wheel sank in as well, and the entire vehicle began to heave violently and erratically, like a small boat plunging into turbulent waves.

Dense, arrhythmic, high-frequency vibrations shooting from the chassis straight up the spine; coupled with complete deprivation of vision.

When the brain loses its visual anchor, its spatial judgment system collapses instantly, creating a violent conflict between the inner ear's vestibular system and somatosensory feedback. The result is—fear. A primal, animalistic, and irrational fear.

The effect is immediate.

Meng Ying screamed, her shoulders hunching to her ears, and she covered her head with her arms. Shen Yiming grabbed the roof handle, the outline of his knuckles protruding from under his skin.

Da Yan's knee slammed into the back of the front seat, causing him to wince in pain. Zhou Xiaolu cursed, only to be abruptly cut in two by the next bump.

He Rihuo didn't make a sound. He closed his eyes and moved his lips very quickly, reciting the Heart Sutra from beginning to end in his mind again and again.

Inside the broadcast van, Yan Ji's gaze jumped from one screen to another, finally settling on the split screen in the lower right corner.

Lu Yuan!

Yan Ji's hand slid off the control panel.

The washboard road had been shaking for forty seconds. The intensity of the shaking was enough to throw an unbelted person from their seat.

However, Lu Yuan on the screen had his upper body fixed in space by an invisible bearing, and his spine and abdominal muscles were making continuous micro-adjustments with an amplitude that was almost invisible to the naked eye—with each rise and fall of the car body, his core precisely provided an equal and opposite compensation.

The broken thermos stood between his legs, the lid off, and the goji berry water was clearly visible in the lens.

Xiao Zhao leaned over and glanced at the screen, then turned to look at Yan Ji, his mouth agape.

Yan Ji grinded his teeth and grabbed the walkie-talkie.

"Old Zhou! That right-angle bend before the finish line—don't slow down, give me a sudden brake and a drift!"

The engine speed suddenly increased.

Old Zhou floored the accelerator, the car's speed surging from forty to seventy. The washboard road, amplified by the speed, transformed into a frenzied vibrating screen. Before Meng Ying's second scream could even finish, the car lurched sharply to the left—

The steering wheel was rotated almost a full circle.

At the same time, the brakes were applied and the car was stopped.

The rear wheels broke the traction limit, and the entire van swung sideways across the gravel ground with the front wheels as the axis.

Meng Ying's seatbelt buckle made a crisp sound; the retaining spring was worn out, the metal was fatigued, and the locking tongue popped out of the buckle seat.

The seatbelt came undone, and her body was lifted off the seat by centrifugal force, flying towards the metal back of the seat in front of her. She screamed in pain, her head hitting the stainless steel frame of the seat back.

At the same second, the cameraman crouching in the aisle slipped, his knee hit the floor, and the shoulder-mounted broadcast-grade camera slipped from his hands.

The fuselage, along with the sunshade, external microphone stand, and counterweight, weighed over twelve kilograms. This lump of iron roared out along the inertial trajectory of the car's drift, heading straight for He Rihuo's head.

Inside the broadcast van, the three directors stood up at the same time, knocking their chairs to the ground.

Old Fang covered his mouth with his hand. Yan Ji sprang up from his seat, all color draining from his face.

Finished!

This is no longer a matter of creating a good show; this is an accident!

Jiang Yan, sitting in the corner of the control room, suddenly gripped the armrest and leaned forward—

In that instant when everyone's hearts were pounding, Lu Yuan moved!

The eye mask was still stuck tightly to his face, covering him completely.

With his left hand, he tore through the air with his five fingers, like a folding knife, and precisely grabbed the collar of Meng Ying's dress. He flipped his wrist back, using the momentum of her flight to create a very short deceleration, and then pulled her back with all his might.

Meng Ying was made to return to her seat.

With his right hand extended upwards, fingers spread, he aimed to meet the trajectory of the camera's parabolic arc.

The metal handle was enveloped in his palm, and the twelve kilograms of inertia slammed into his hand, causing the muscles of his entire arm, from the forearm to the deltoid, to contract and release the force in sequence.

"Bang!" The van's four wheels locked, leaving four deep black skid marks on the gravel ground. The car came to a stop!

The only sound in the carriage was panting.

Meng Ying slumped in her seat, her hands gripping the broken end of the seatbelt strap tightly. Da Yan and Zhou Xiaolu were huddled together, it was unclear whose arm was pressing down on whose leg. Shen Yiming's sparkling water bottle rolled to his feet, spilling half of the water.

He Rihuo was the first to pull off the blindfold. His hands trembled, and it took him two tries to pull it off.

Ten centimeters above his head, a camera powerful enough to fracture the back of his skull hung there!

Lu Yuan's right hand gripped the metal boom on the top of the aircraft, his arm outstretched and motionless. The twelve kilograms of weight between the man's slender fingers felt like a cat being lifted by the scruff of its neck.

He Rihuo's pupils shrank to the size of pinpoints.

Everyone in the car heard him gasp.

The cameraman slumped in the aisle, legs wide open, his pants ripped at the knee. He looked up at his equipment being used as a boom by someone's arm, his mouth agape, forgetting to swallow.

Lu Yuan handed over the camera. "The red light is still on, the machine isn't broken."

The cameraman mechanically reached out his hand, and twelve kilograms of weight pressed down on his chest, only then did he realize that his arm was trembling.

Lu Yuan withdrew his hand and touched the thermos on his thigh with his left hand. He straightened the lid, twisted it half a turn, and brought it to his nose to smell it.

"Luckily, the goji berries didn't spill."