After discussing the upcoming arrangements with Feng Zhengyang, Dong Zeng's mood finally improved somewhat.
Walking out of the room, he happened to see his assistant approaching from down the corridor.
He immediately waved his hand, signaling for the assistant to come over.
The assistant paused for a moment, then walked over with his head lowered. "Director Dong."
"What are you doing here?"
Dong Zeng stared suspiciously at the person before him, his expression quite unpleasant.
"I, I was—"
"Xiao Chai, did you get my things?"
Tong Junhui approached from the end of the corridor behind Dong Zeng.
Seeing Dong Zeng, he showed confusion, then spoke somewhat apologetically. "Sorry, Director Dong, my assistant suddenly developed acute stomach problems, so I asked Xiao Chai to help me buy some medicine. I didn't mean to deliberately command your people or delay your work."
"Stomach problems? Serious? Why wasn't he sent to the hospital?" Dong Zeng coldly stared at Tong Junhui.
"Just an old issue." Tong Junhui smiled helplessly. "Normally some medicine would fix it, but this guy lost his medicine while running errands yesterday, and I really couldn't go buy it myself, so I asked Xiao Chai to help."
"An assistant with stomach problems?"
Dong Zeng questioned Tong Junhui.
Tong Junhui showed a troubled expression, without any trace of guilt. "Yes, but since I don't have an agent right now, I can only rely on him to handle my work matters. I didn't expect his stomach to be this sensitive either."
Dong Zeng twitched the corner of his mouth and glanced sideways at Assistant Xiao Chai. "Aren't you going to give him the medicine?"
Only then did Xiao Chai carefully hand the medicine bag to Tong Junhui.
"Very good, Xiao Tong, you can go ahead now. I need to speak with my assistant privately."
"Okay."
Tong Junhui took the medicine, lowered his eyes, and silently turned to leave.
...
The undercurrents between the "Silent Search" production team and "Law of the Jungle" were still unknown to Xiao He.
On the same day "Law of the Jungle" was officially announced, Xiao He received the complete script from the "No Bait" production team.
Hmm, and it was the confidential version too. Ning Jiaqi specifically called Xiao He to instruct him not to reveal the script in his possession to anyone else, because his was the only complete version in the entire production team.
Xiao He: ...
Alright, alright, Director Ning, you're playing it this way?
Creating a completely fabricated audition version script before auditions, and after joining the production, giving only him the "real" script—so he also had to become a deceiver like Shu Yuxiu, tricking the other actors?
—Yes, after studying the final script, Xiao He finally understood what this story was really about.
The so-called Dragon Pride Heaven protagonist was just an illusion, the so-called chance encounters with benefactors leading to instant success were also illusions—all of this was nothing but Shu Yuxiu's lies!
He was a complete and utter fraud!
Shu Yuxiu did indeed work at an auto repair shop and was indeed just an ordinary mechanic, but all his achievements along the way, even the support from benefactors, were obtained through deception!
Why was he always able to perfectly win others' favor? Why was he always able to gain help from benefactors?
Because all of this was the enormous web of lies spun by this madman Shu Yuxiu!
Take for example the wife Shu Yuxiu eventually married.
They met during a trip. Shu Yuxiu's extraordinary charm and knowledge of various extreme sports made the young Qi Xinyue fall head over heels. Combined with the physiological heart-pounding excitement inherent in extreme sports creating a suspension bridge effect, Qi Xinyue brought Shu Yuxiu home to meet her parents after just three months of dating and quickly moved toward marriage.
But what Qi Xinyue never knew was that Shu Yuxiu had already targeted her long before, knowing she was an avid travel enthusiast and extreme sports lover. So he designed a comprehensive emotional scam trap specifically for her, even starting to learn and master these skills a year in advance, diligently scouting locations and memorizing routes, repeatedly constructing and perfecting his plan in his mind.
—No one could escape such a completely personalized emotional deception scheme.
When Shu Yuxiu appeared before Qi Xinyue, he was exactly her ideal type.
Even though Qi Xinyue was well-traveled and had met many people, she still couldn't escape Shu Yuxiu's love trap.
And it wasn't just Qi Xinyue either—there were many others.
Like Zhu Penglin who always believed Shu Yuxiu was a rich second-generation race car driver, Zhu's parents who thought Shu Yuxiu was Zhu Penglin's good friend, Qi Xinyue's father who believed Shu Yuxiu was a junior from the Zhu family...
This Shu Yuxiu character truly utilized the resources around him to the extreme, spinning lies effortlessly and packaging himself flawlessly.
He observed wealthy lifestyles with meticulous detail, even working at various high-end restaurants and self-studying at libraries. Whether discussing red wine, cigars, or even stocks, he could speak knowledgeably and handle conversations with ease. Then, leveraging one resource connection, he would boldly approach and test other contacts and resources, integrating them to find the most suitable persona and rhetoric while avoiding exposure risks.
And once he had used them up, or found himself in dangerous situations, Shu Yuxiu wouldn't hesitate to eliminate these people, making them permanently silent, then climbing upward by stepping on their deaths.
For Shu Yuxiu, these people were nothing but tools for him to exploit!
To be honest, after reading about these hidden "truths" behind Shu Yuxiu, even Xiao He couldn't help but want to shed a sympathetic tear for him.
Look at you, with such perseverance, what couldn't you have accomplished? Why did you have to become an emotional scammer?!
And Shu Yuxiu was truly pure evil—no hidden revenge motives, just pure craving for benefits, coupled with jealousy and disgust toward the wealthy.
Even by the later stages, Xiao He felt that Shu Yuxiu himself was actually somewhat pathological.
As Shu Yuxiu's closest partner sharing his bed, Qi Xinyue had actually discovered after marriage that Shu Yuxiu had lied about many things, and that he was only with her for her family's power and influence. But Qi Xinyue had genuinely fallen in love with Shu Yuxiu. Blind love clouded her judgment, making her believe that Shu Yuxiu might still change. She thought that as long as Shu Yuxiu was willing to confess to her father with her and live properly with her afterward, she would accept the fact that he had deliberately approached and married her.
Qi Xinyue had already taken a step back, eagerly anticipating Shu Yuxiu's change of heart.
Yet what Shu Yuxiu was thinking about was how to conceal the truth, how to maintain his lies...
He never once considered confessing to his wife's family and continuing his life with Qi Xinyue.
Even though at that point, he had already become his father-in-law's trusted confidant, and Qi Xinyue was completely devoted to him—even if everything exploded, with his father-in-law's capabilities, he could have protected him unscathed.
Yet in the end, he still chose to kill Qi Xinyue, making her, like those before who had sincerely cared for him and treated him well, permanently silent.
So in a way, wasn't Shu Yuxiu also trapped in the lies he himself had woven, unable to extricate himself?