Although the excuse for running away from home was a bit far-fetched, there was one thing Ye Zhou didn’t lie about.
The filming of the crew was going very smoothly, and the cooperation between the various departments was also very tacit. In addition, they had already finished shooting most of the other scenes before Zhu Ning arrived. As a result, the filming progressed very quickly. They just needed to finish shooting the remaining scenes after Zhu Ning joined the crew and retake some shots. They were almost ready to wrap up filming.
They were currently in the final countdown stage before wrapping up. Apart from those first few days when he had just run away from home, Ye Zhou had been as busy as a spinning top in the days that followed, working non-stop day after day. During this month, there were times when Ye Zhou was so busy that he didn’t even have time to eat, let alone go out to eat something tasty.
It was worth mentioning that Ye Zhou finally got some updates about the police report he filed a month ago. That afternoon, after Ye Zhou finished shooting a scene, he received a call from the police. It was the young police officer who had taken his statement that day. The other party said they had finally found some clues and asked Ye Zhou to come to the police station if he had time.
Upon hearing this news, Ye Zhou looked at the time. He simply gave the day off to the staff who had been busy with him for a whole month and went to the police station himself.
Boss Jiang originally intended to accompany him, but considering that the boss had been quite busy with the company recently, often tied up in meetings all day, Ye Zhou declined. Although Jiang Tingyuan didn’t go in person, he sent one of his bodyguards to go with Ye Zhou. Ye Zhou felt it was unnecessary but didn’t reject the boss’s kindness in the end.
The road from the set to the city bureau was quite far, taking over an hour by car. By the time Ye Zhou arrived, it was already past five o’clock in the afternoon, just in time to catch the officer before he got off work. The police officer who greeted him was the same young man from that day. The two greeted each other and then got straight to the point.
The young man handed the information gathered over the past month to Ye Zhou and said, “We checked all of Hu Jun’s bank accounts recently and found no suspicious money transfers.”
“But we discovered that Hu Jun’s mother’s account suddenly received a 50,000 yuan remittance on the 6th of last month.” As he spoke, the officer pointed to a figure in the information, “This one.”
“With a time gap of half a month, on the 21st, she received another 150,000 yuan remittance. Both remittances were from an overseas anonymous account. We haven’t identified the other party yet.”
“However…” At this point, the police officer changed his tone, “Coincidentally, the day after Hu Jun was arrested, his mother’s account received a third remittance.”
“In addition, we extracted Hu Jun’s fingerprints from the fruit knife and the set’s surveillance equipment.”
“With conclusive evidence, Hu Jun finally confessed yesterday afternoon that he had taken money to tamper with the wire, but he refused to admit he had any intention to kill.”
Upon hearing this, Ye Zhou sneered coldly, “His job was specifically to rig the wires for actors. How could he not know how serious the consequences would be if something went wrong with the wires.”
Speaking of this matter, the police officer was also a little helpless. “Hu Jun himself said that his original intention of tampering with the wires was not to harm anyone. He just wanted the crew to stop working and had no intention of harming anyone.”
Just then, the bodyguard who had been standing silently next to him suddenly bent down and whispered in Ye Zhou’s ear, “The Boss told me to tell you that you can directly contact Jingzhe’s Legal Department if necessary.”
Ye Zhou was stunned for a moment upon hearing this. This… boss was simply amazing!
While sighing at this, he waved to the police officer, “It’s fine. You’ve already helped me a lot. As for Hu Jun’s nonsense, let him save it for the judge in court.”
The police officer obviously didn’t expect Ye Zhou to not only not get angry, but to be so understanding towards them. His favorable impression of him suddenly rose and kept rising.
“Although we don’t have complete information on the first two remittances, thanks to discovering the third one in time, we’ve made some progress and identified the remitter.” The officer immediately continued.
As he spoke, the officer pulled out a document from the thick stack of files and handed it to Ye Zhou, asking, “Does this person look familiar to you?”
It was an A4 printed photo that seemed to be taken from bank surveillance footage, looking somewhat blurry. The person was wearing a peaked cap, obscuring half his face.
Ye Zhou shook his head in confusion, “This…can’t make out anything?”
The officer was also stunned for a moment, then patted his own head, “Oops, wrong one. Please wait a moment. ” He then started flipping through the pile of documents again.
After a while, a brand new A4 sheet was handed to Ye Zhou.
The officer explained, “This is a simulated portrait we made based on his physical features. Take a look, do you recognize this person?”
Looking at the portrait, Ye Zhou was certain he didn’t know the man, yet he felt a strange sense of familiarity.
After thinking it over for a long time, he finally shook his head slowly, “Sorry, he looks a bit familiar, but I don’t think I know him.”
“It’s fine. With the fierce competition and complex environment in your circle, it’s normal not to know him.” Not surprised by this result, the officer reassuringly patted Ye Zhou on the shoulder.
“The person is still overseas, but we’ve sent people there already. I believe it won’t be long before we have results.”
Just then, as if recalling something, Ye Zhou asked, “What’s this person’s name?”
The police officer was taken aback for a moment before answering, “Zou Rong.”
…
After Ye Zhou came out of the police station, the bodyguard noticed his mood was a bit off. Once in the car, he kept his head down, uncharacteristically silent.
After calling out to him two or three times with no response, the bodyguard finally couldn’t resist sending a short video to his boss.
About five minutes later, the quiet car was suddenly filled with the vibration of a phone ringing.
Ye Zhou picked up the call somewhat sluggishly, his mind blank as he subconsciously mumbled, “Hello?” and then fell silent again.
“What happened?” Jiang Tingyuan almost immediately sensed something was wrong, cutting to the chase directly.
After a brief silence, Ye Zhou finally began to speak slowly, “Jiang-ge, can you do me a favor?”
“Tell me.” Jiang Tingyuan was as concise as always.
But just those two short words made Ye Zhou feel exceptionally reassured.
“Help me look into someone named… Zou Rong.” When mentioning this name, Ye Zhou’s voice held some hesitation.
He couldn’t predict whether his guess was actually right or not. If wrong, it would just be a false alarm. But if right, then there would really be trouble.
Ye Zhou was actually quite afraid that Boss Jiang would suddenly ask why right now, because he currently had no idea how to explain it. Fortunately, Jiang Tingyuan didn’t ask anything.
“Got it.” Jiang Tingyuan jotted down the name and continued asking, “Anything else?”
Ye Zhou blanked out and subconsciously shook his head, “Nothing else.”
After he answered like this, Boss Jiang, on the other end of the phone, suddenly fell silent, not saying anything.
Neither spoke again. For a moment, it seemed the only sounds on the phone were their shallow breathing, nothing else.
After some unknown amount of time passed, Ye Zhou finally heard Jiang Tingyuan call his name.
“Ye Zhou.”
“No matter what, leave it to me, don’t worry.”
Along with these words, Ye Zhou’s heartbeat suddenly accelerated.
For a long time after the call ended, he could clearly hear the intense pounding of his own heart.
In a daze, Ye Zhou returned to the hotel and flopped onto the bed, burying himself in the blankets. His appearance resembled a startled ostrich, only able to tuck its head into its feathers, unwilling to face anything outside.
The difference was, the ostrich didn’t dare face danger, but Ye Zhou…who knew what he didn’t dare face.
…
Early the next morning, Ye Zhou was woken up by his ringing phone. It was the assistant director calling, sounding a bit anxious.
“Director Ye, someone leaked the photos online of our crew reporting to the police. It’s already trending, and the popularity is still rising!”
Hearing the assistant director say this, Ye Zhou didn’t actually feel very surprised. On the contrary, he felt like a weight had finally been lifted off his heart.
This was more like it. What was bound to happen would happen eventually. If it was delayed for too long, the situation could be even worse than expected.
The phone call with the assistant director lasted for several minutes. After hanging up, Ye Zhou opened his computer, hair still fluffy from sleeping all night.
When he logged into Weibo, the trending topic was just surging up. Ye Zhou clicked in to take a look. Upon seeing the contents, he was caught between laughter and tears.
It could be said that other than the images being real, the rest was pure nonsense, truly demonstrating that saying “Start with one picture, make up the rest” to the extreme.
Weiwei is studying in seclusion: Please decode! //@I eat grape peels-: Is that director who I think it is? //@Did you wear a mask when going out today?:[Eating melons][Eating melons] //@Showbiz Prophet v: According to reliable sources, something happened again on a certain director’s set. This time the entire crew was surrounded by the police. [Picture][Picture][Picture]
The three attached images showed Ye Zhou hearing the police siren and going with the crew to welcome them outside. Although the faces were blurred, finding clues from the details wasn’t difficult.
Indeed, just looking at the photos made it seem real and convincing. If Ye Zhou hadn’t been at the scene himself, he might have almost believed this nonsense!
Opening the post, the comments below were like a guessing competition, throwing out all kinds of conjectures about the director’s name, crew name, what had happened, and more. It was dizzying to read.
Occupying the top hot comment spot was an ID called ‘Jiang Tiantian SoSweet’.
Jiang Tiantian SoSweet: My BFF works in this crew. According to her, the director wanted to save money, so he switched to low-quality wire equipment, which almost killed someone during filming.
Nearly all the replies under this hot comment were condemning the director as scum.
Ye Zhou was so angry he nearly laughed. Putting aside everything else, their ability to twist black into white was truly impressive, couldn’t deny that!
But what really irritated Ye Zhou wasn’t this. It was noticing people already trying to direct the conversation, insinuating the director must have backers supporting him.
Netizens had already mostly uncovered the director’s identity. He had been trending before, had a bad reputation, and was currently shooting a film; all conditions pointed to Ye Zhou.
And who was behind Ye Zhou? Of course, Boss Jiang!
If they were just insulting him, whatever, Ye Zhou had seen bigger scenes in his past life. This little skirmish didn’t even register in his eyes.
But judging by this momentum, their goal wasn’t just himself, they were determined to drag the decent and upstanding(?) Boss Jiang down too.
Who was Jiang Tingyuan? He was the gold master Ye Zhou was covering for! Aside from being a bit of a coward when fundraising in his past life, other times, the great Ye Zhou was never afraid!
Ye Zhou immediately logged into several prepared sock puppet accounts and started typing furiously, fingers blurring over the keyboard.
Seamlessly switching between accounts, he fought the water armies solo with no less vigor than an army of thousands, forcibly turning the few accounts into a formidable battlefront. The more he fought, the more spirited he became.
Clearly, the trolls didn’t expect him to be so strong, with sharp angles of attack and scathing words. His use of emojis and text expressions was exquisite. He didn’t even use a single curse word in the whole process.
This left the trolls being cursed out unable to even find anything to report. Instead, some who lost rationality under his barrage began cursing and verbally abusing. Ye Zhou calmly reported these most rabid accounts while continuing to battle with his sock puppets. His smooth, integrated actions were extremely practiced.
The trolls with combat abilities inferior to a lone goose ultimately still couldn’t withstand Ye Zhou’s high-level carpet bombing. Cursing all the way, they fled the battlefield.
Seeing them retreat, Ye Zhou first changed the names of his sock puppet accounts, then unhurriedly destroyed the evidence and logged off the accounts.
After thinking for a while, Ye Zhou entered the official website of the protagonist’s company in the browser, successfully found the contact information of the protagonist on the Internet, and sent a text message to it.
On the other side, Cheng Ran, who was supervising on set, heard his phone vibrate. Taking it out for a glance, in just that one look, the relaxed expression on his face instantly vanished, replaced by tension.
“Zou Rong is your half-brother, right?”
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Please consider supporting the author directly.
You can also follow me on Ko-fi to get the latest updates on my translation progress and new projects. I appreciate your love and feedback.
