Assistant: "It should have been done just now."
"Because just a few minutes ago, I saw him on the set..."
The assistant discovered Sheng Yegui by accident.
Normally, when Qiao Yuan was filming, her task was to buy water or deliver coats to the actors when they were taking a break. But this time, because of a mistake made by one of the actors, their filming time was longer than before.
When the assistant found that she had finished her water, she was about to go to the lounge to get some. But just as she was about to leave the set, a figure appeared in front of her and asked her where she was going.
The other person was wearing a mask, with the brim of his hat pulled down, and a staff member tag hanging on his chest, but the nervous eyes and the voice made her feel somewhat familiar.
The person in front of her also noticed something from her daze, and immediately took off half of his mask.
Even though the other person quickly put his mask back on, the assistant could see clearly and quickly realized that the person in front of him was Sheng Yegui.
Although he often ate the food cooked by Sheng Yegui, this was the first time he faced him directly on the set. The assistant looked surprised: "Why are you here..."
Sheng Yegui: "Let me check the situation."
After learning from the hot search that Qiao Yuan had an accident during filming, he sent a message to Qiao Yuan while rushing over. After arriving, in order not to attract too much attention, Sheng Ye exchanged clothes with one of the staff members and hid in the crowd.
As members of Qiao Yuan's team, he knew Sister Jiang and the assistant, so he noticed them when the assistant left in a hurry and thought something had happened.
When talking to the assistant beside Qiao Yuan, he deliberately slowed down his tone and repeated his question.
The assistant was no longer nervous after hearing Sheng Yegui's tone. While answering, he was thinking about whether Qiao Yuan and Sister Jiang knew that Sheng Yegui was here and how long he had stayed here.
After hearing the assistant's answer and knowing it was not a big deal, Sheng Yegui finally felt relieved. He followed the assistant to fetch water, asked some questions about Qiao Yuan, and then watched from the side.
The assistant wanted to tell Sister Jiang about this, but Sister Jiang's attention was all on Qiao Yuan.
It was not until someone not far away shouted that he was hungry that Sheng Yegui realized that he had come in too hasty and had not had time to cook. Annoyance was revealed between his brows, and he felt that he had not even done a good job of supporting Qiao Yuan.
The assistant also noticed Sheng Yegui's guilt, as if she had done something wrong before. Her intuition told her that it might be because of the cooking problem, so she subconsciously comforted her: "It's okay, we can eat the crew's boxed lunch or order takeout."
Sheng Yegui seemed to be enlightened: "May I ask what are the nearest restaurants?"
Even Sheng Guiye didn't usually order takeout by himself, so there was no way he had a takeout APP on his phone. After hearing what Sheng Guiye said, the assistant subconsciously took out his phone to check.
The place where they were filming was originally in a residential area, so there were quite a few restaurants nearby. Sheng Yegui asked if he could borrow his assistant's phone temporarily, and only after getting the other party's permission did he start to choose from these restaurants.
The assistant originally thought that Sheng Yegui wanted to choose a suitable restaurant to order takeout, but unexpectedly, after Sheng Yegui selected a restaurant, he said that he would be back as soon as he finished cooking.
Assistant: "Okay...wait, cooking?!"
Sheng Yegui just used her phone to look up restaurants. It turned out that he wanted to borrow the restaurant to cook?!
The assistant originally thought that he had guessed wrong, until Sheng Yegui came back in a few minutes with a few lunch boxes in his hands. Only then did the assistant realize that his guess was correct.
Because they were borrowing something that already existed in the restaurant, the lunch box was also taken from the restaurant. After handing the lunch box to the assistant, Sheng Yegui left quickly, without even giving the assistant a chance to save the situation.
The assistant still felt a little dazed until he went to find Qiao Yuan and Sister Jiang with the lunch box.
Sister Jiang originally thought that Sheng Yegui was just getting used to it after many relationships and didn't have much sincerity in him, but now she is not so sure.
She subconsciously looked at Qiao Yuan and found that Qiao Yuan had already sent a message of thanks to Sheng Yegui, and then turned to open the lunch box as if she was familiar with it.
Sister Jiang looked at Qiao Yuan. She wanted to ask him how he felt about Sheng Yegui. But she had been on the set for so long that she was hungry. After smelling the familiar aroma, her greed was completely aroused, and she forgot what she wanted to say.
After dinner, Sister Jiang finally remembered what she wanted to say, but she remembered it as something else: "Our company will have an internal party tomorrow night. Everyone else will attend. I think it would be better for you to attend as well..."
"It just so happens that you don't have many scenes to shoot tomorrow, so you can leave early."
Qiao Yuan had no objection. After all, she obeyed most of Sister Jiang's arrangements.
The matter was quickly finalized.
The next day, Qiao Yuan finished filming his scenes at around three or four in the afternoon, and then drove towards the company in Sister Jiang's car.
While sitting in the car, Qiao Yuan was still reviewing what happened in the morning and afternoon in his mind.
Logically speaking, her luck today should be worse than yesterday, but strangely, she did not encounter any danger today like before.
Could it be that Gu Yan has made a breakthrough?
However, as soon as this thought came to Qiao Yuan's mind, she interrupted it herself. After all, before finding the wandering ghost, her and Gu Yan's luck would still be affected.
And if Gu Yan has already found You Gui, You Gui will take action even if he doesn't send a message.
Although Qiao Yuan was not going to be the first person to find the wandering ghost, he had more or less paid attention to the people around him in the past few days. According to the other party, it had already infiltrated their lives.
However, Qiao Yuan has come into contact with quite a few people recently, and Yougui's disguise is indeed good, so she hasn't found any suspicious targets for the time being, and she's afraid the same is true for Gu Yan.
As the car suddenly stopped, Qiao Yuan's thoughts were quickly pulled away from his thinking.
She originally thought that something had happened to the car again, so she quickly became alert. Fortunately, after looking out the window, Qiao Yuan also realized that the company had arrived.
Although it was an internal party of the company, it was particularly grand because the agency that Qiao Yuan belonged to was well-known in the industry.
The company specially rented a banquet hall as the venue and carefully arranged round tables and a stage, and there were also performances by the company's singers and boy and girl groups.
Qiao Yuan arrived early, so he went to the lounge arranged by the company to rest.
Qiao Yuan changed into the red velvet dress that Sister Jiang had prepared in advance. It looked neither too serious nor too dignified.
After Sister Jiang and the assistant didn't see any problem, Qiao Yuan quickly sat down with the two of them.
The three of them were playing with their phones, and the atmosphere was harmonious for a while.
But this atmosphere did not last long and was broken after a while.
Crack, crack—
It sounded like a doorknob being pressed hard multiple times.
Qiao Yuan turned his head and looked in the direction of the sound, and sure enough, the door handle was turning around.
Someone is opening the door.
Because the door of the lounge was locked and could not be opened from the outside, the other party's rough pushes naturally could not open the door. The man also realized this and quickly turned to knocking hard: "Open the door!"
"Open the door and let me in!"
Qiao Yuan recognized the voice as familiar; it was a male singer from the same company as her, named Zhou Ning.
However, she and Zhou Ning were not familiar with each other. After all, they focused on different areas, so she had only seen him on trending searches. She knew that his voice was somewhat similar to Song Yanchi's, and his music style was similar, so she had been trained by the company as the future Song Yanchi.
Just as Qiao Yuan was about to stand up and tell the other party that they had come to the wrong place, Sister Jiang had already stood up and walked towards the door, opened the door and said, "Mr. Zhou, this is Miss Qiao Yuan's lounge."
The person standing
More importantly, there was a layer of cold sweat on the other person's forehead.
Even though Sister Jiang had opened the door and was standing at the door, he seemed to have not reacted, with his hands raised in the air, still maintaining the posture of wanting to knock on the door again. His eyes fell on Sister Jiang, and it took him nearly a minute to finally understand what Sister Jiang said, but he did not say anything, and turned around and walked in another direction.
After Zhou Ning left, Sister Jiang closed the door. The moment she turned around to face the inside of the room, her brows were slightly furrowed. "Strange, Zhou Ning was quite polite before, why is he silent now?"
Sister Jiang often went to the company for work, and she had met Zhou Ning a few times when he came back to the company to record songs. She had seen all kinds of stars, and the company had countless artists, and the reason why Zhou Ning was remembered by her was because he was very polite.
Even if it's just superficial work, the other person will call her "Sister Jiang" affectionately when they see her.
The assistant who was originally immersed in the phone has raised her head. She also witnessed the scene just now. Zhou Ning's strange look was seen by her. After making sure that Zhou Ning had left, the assistant spoke cautiously: "Mr. Zhou looks so bad, is it because he didn't sleep well?"
Recalling Zhou Ning's expression, Sister Jiang's tone was somewhat hesitant: "Maybe."
Zhou Ning's appearance was just a small episode for the three people present, and was soon forgotten by them.
More important things are coming soon——
The company's internal party is about to begin.
Qiao Yuan quickly walked towards the banquet hall.
The entire hotel they were in had been booked by the company, so along the way, apart from the hotel staff, the people Qiao Yuan met were basically people from the same company.
Although Qiao Yuan had no impression of some of the people, he still greeted them along the way until he finally arrived at the banquet venue.
When we arrived at the door of the banquet hall, the staff standing at the door were responsible for keeping everyone's mobile phones.
There were already quite a few people sitting around the round tables in the banquet venue. Although the artists were wearing clothes of different colors, they were all dressed up brightly and beautifully.
Qiao Yuan, Sister Jiang and the assistant quickly sat down separately.
Before this, although Qiao Yuan was well-known, she usually sat in the back row, as there were many people in the same company who were more famous than her. However, Qiao Yuan has been very popular recently, so she was assigned a seat in the first row.
The other three people sitting at the same table with her were all well-known seniors who had been in the company for a long time.
Qiao Yuan had greeted the seniors before, but they basically ignored him. But this time, before Qiao Yuan even said anything, he saw the seniors' smiling faces, and some of them even stood up and greeted him.
Qiao Yuan had seen the people in the entertainment industry changing their attitudes according to the situation, so he was not too surprised. He greeted a few people as usual and then sat down leisurely.
After that, the topic of conversation among the people at the table revolved around Qiao Yuan, starting with concerned inquiries about whether he was injured when he almost fell down before, and then shifting to Qiao Yuan's recent resources.
Qiao Yuan answered without revealing anything.
One of the actresses even pretended to be intimate and took Qiao Yuan's arm, as if they were close friends for many years. He lowered his voice and whispered to her: "I contacted you on WeChat before and wanted to invite you out for a gathering. Why didn't you reply to me?"
"If you are not busy these days, you must come out and play with me..."
Qiao Yuan also recalled that the other party claimed to be chatting with her on WeChat. In fact, after the matter between her and Sheng Yegui became a hot topic, the actress sent a message to inquire.
Qiao Yuan: "I'm sorry, I was really confused at that time, so I didn't have time to reply to many people's messages."
What she said was true. At that time, quite a few people did send her messages, but she only replied to a few of them.
The actress said, "So that's how it is," and then the topic took a turn and finally came to her real purpose: "I really envy you for being so familiar with Mr. Sheng."
She paused, then lowered her voice and began to ask Qiao Yuan about Sheng Guiye in various ways.
"ah--"
A sudden scream was heard in the venue, interrupting the actress' words.
The actress was obviously very dissatisfied with this. She turned her head while muttering what happened. Qiao Yuan and others were also attracted by the sound and turned their heads subconsciously.
The sound came from the table next to them.
The round table not far away was in chaos. A female singer was pointing at the person on the ground and stammered, "You...your ears."
Qiao Yuan quickly saw the man's face, it was Zhou Ning whom he had just met.
The female singer had just entered the venue and originally wanted to ask Zhou Ning about the song, but she didn't expect to find him like this when she turned around.
Zhou Ning was wearing a black suit and sitting at the table. His face was still pale, his eyes were dark, and his body was sweating as if he was weak. After hearing the woman's words, he took a few seconds to react and said angrily: "What are you talking about..."
Just because of the female singer's words, everyone's attention was focused on his ears, and they were able to see the scene in front of them clearly.
At this time, there was indeed liquid flowing out of Zhou Ning's two ears.
Although he was sitting some distance away from Zhou Ning, Qiao Yuan still realized that the bright red liquid looked like blood.
It looked like Zhou Ning's ears were bleeding.
The others also looked surprised. Although some of them had not yet realized that it was blood, they were still shocked by the scene in front of them.
Zhou Ning didn't know whether he noticed something was wrong from the shocked looks everyone gave him, or from the sticky feeling of the blood flowing down his neck, and he subconsciously raised his hand to touch his ear. When he saw the blood on his hand, Zhou Ning's pupils shrank sharply, and his lips trembled subconsciously.
Zhou Ning's manager, who was sitting at another table, also reacted and rushed forward: "Why is it bleeding?!"
Zhou Ning was quickly taken away by his agent, and the riot finally stopped temporarily.
Although Zhou Ning left, the scene just now was still deeply imprinted in the minds of many people present.
The female star who had just been talking to Qiao Yuan looked puzzled: "Why is his ear bleeding?"
Although she really wanted to continue the previous topic with Qiao Yuan, Zhou Ning's incident was so unexpected that it attracted her attention and made her forget what Yuan wanted to say for a moment.
"Maybe he's been too busy lately and got sick from exhaustion. I heard he has a new album coming out soon." Someone at the table said, "But it's strange that his ears were bleeding but he didn't even feel any pain."
However, as soon as the other party finished speaking, a male star immediately said, "Tsk, I was wondering if his attitude was weird today. It turns out he has a problem with his ears."
This male star was proud of his status as a senior, and he also had a glorious past, so he always spoke directly: "We just met in the corridor, he bumped into me without looking at the road, and he didn't even apologize..."
As the male star spoke, he became angrier and angrier, and his mind subconsciously recalled the scene at that time.
He was walking forward while turning around and chatting with his agent, but he didn't expect that he would feel a strong force coming at him after only a few steps. He staggered and his face was aching slightly.
The other person was taller than him, so the male star subconsciously looked up and found that it was Zhou Ning.
The male star was about to scold the other party to remember to look at the road when walking, but he had just said two words when Zhou Ning turned around. The juniors that the male star met before were all very polite, and he remembered that Zhou Ning was one of them. Because of this, Zhou Ning's sudden reaction made him stunned.
By the time he realized what was happening, Zhou Ning was already in the corridor. Even though he called her name, Zhou Ning didn't turn around.
He was still brooding over it just now, but now that he saw Zhou Ning's ears bleeding, he suddenly realized something -
This is not his problem, but Zhou Ning's problem.
Hearing the male star's words, Qiao Yuan also recalled what happened when Zhou Ning knocked on the lounge. From just now until now, Zhou Ning did look nervous, but I don't know if it was because of work pressure.
Apparently Qiao Yuan was not the only one thinking about this, because she heard someone at the table say, "But if you are really tired, will your ears bleed?"
Another person continued: "It's possible. After all, everyone's physique is different. But what he did just now really scared me."
…
Voices could also be heard from other tables, almost all of them discussing matters related to Zhou Ning.
However, the discussion did not last long, because Zhou Ning and his agent soon appeared at the door.
Zhou Ning is back again.
Except for a few people, most people were not used to complaining about their colleagues in person, so they subconsciously shut their mouths after Zhou Ning appeared.
Zhou Ning's ear had not been bandaged, but it had stopped bleeding. After he sat back down, the people who were discussing him changed their expressions and asked him in a friendly manner why he didn't rest:
"Why didn't you see a doctor?"
"What on earth caused the bleeding just now?"
"I'm glad you're okay. I was really worried to death just now."
Zhou Ning turned a deaf ear to all these words, whether true or false, and walked directly to the table and sat down. However, everyone had already witnessed that Zhou Ning had a problem with his ears, so they were not too surprised by Zhou Ning's reaction.
The artists gradually arrived, and as the host of the evening entered the venue, everyone sensed that the party was about to begin, and the atmosphere in the venue quickly fell into silence.
Everyone 's gaze, which was originally on Zhou Ning, also followed the host to the stage.
The crystal chandelier above reflected bright lights. The host came on stage and, after saying a few words, indicated that the banquet had officially begun.
The boss and several senior executives also came forward and gave speeches one by one.
Although many people at the scene smiled and applauded, not many listened.
Qiao Yuan also had an approving smile on his face and nodded from time to time as if he was listening, but in his heart he was already thinking about the mission.
At this moment, her arm was suddenly touched lightly. Qiao Yuan came to her senses and found that it was the actress sitting next to her.
The other party was staring in one direction, looking hesitant: "You, you look at Zhou Ning..."
Although the discussion about Zhou Ning was suspended due to the appearance of the host, she still felt very strange about Zhou Ning's sudden bleeding from his ear, and her eyes kept falling on him.
After returning to his seat, Zhou Ning was still silent. Just when the actress wanted to look away, she noticed that Zhou Ning was frowning and his clothes were also abnormal.
The actress knew the brand of the suit Zhou Ning was wearing. She had worked with the dress brand under Zhou Ning before, so she knew the fabric was good. However, the fabric seemed to be soaked in water, and there were large patches of smudges on it.
...What's going on?
Is Zhou Ning sweating?
On the one hand, the actress thought with disgust in her heart, but on the other hand, she felt that the amount of sweat the other person was sweating was horrifying.
The person sitting next to Zhou Ning seemed to realize something and leaned over to ask a few questions in a low voice. However, Zhou Ning looked very impatient, so the person asking the question quickly stopped talking, looked embarrassed, and seemed to no longer pay attention to Zhou Ning.
The real reason why the actress called Qiao Yuan was because Zhou Ning suddenly looked up.
The actress didn't know if it was her illusion, but she found that Zhou Ning's eyes, no, to be more precise, Zhou Ning's entire eyeballs were smaller than before, so that she could see the empty dark eye sockets on both sides instead of the whites of the eyes.
The actress's mind went blank for a moment, and she only came back to her senses when Zhou Ning suddenly lowered his head.
Was she seeing things? After all, how could a person's eyeball suddenly shrink?
This matter is shocking no matter how you think about it.
Even though she thought so in her heart, the actress still had a lingering doubt in her heart.
Everyone else's attention was on the stage, and they didn't seem to notice what was happening here, so the actress could only turn to Qiao Yuan, who was closest to her, to ask him to see if there was anything strange about Zhou Ning.
The executive was still standing on the stage holding a microphone and speaking passionately. Using the sound of the microphone covering the entire venue, the actress whispered to Qiao Yuan to look into Zhou Ning's eyes.
However, Qiao Yuan still remembered that she was sitting in the first row, so she did not turn her head immediately, but looked out of the corner of her eye.
Zhou Ning kept his head down and showed no sign of looking up, but his suit looked like it had been washed.
Is Zhou Ning sick?
Qiao Yuan realized that this was not a normal amount of sweating, and when he was about to continue observing, the lights in the banquet hall suddenly went out.
The entire banquet hall was plunged into darkness in an instant.
After a brief silence, someone's doubtful voice soon rang out -
"Why did the light suddenly break? It's so dark, I can't see anything."
"Wait, let me use my phone to take a look..."
"The phone was taken away long ago. "
"It must be out of battery. There's no sound from the microphone."
"Those who are close to the door, go and call the staff."
…
Qiao Yuan also felt that it was more like a power outage. She was close to the stage, so she could hear the executive who was holding the microphone, shouting at everyone to go call the staff because he had no power.
It was just because the banquet hall was too big, and everyone seemed to have gotten used to ignoring the voices of the boss and management, so his voice didn't carry very far. But fortunately, someone thought the same as him and took action early.
There was the sound of tables and chairs being moved, indicating that someone was walking towards the door, apparently to call for staff.
Qiao Yuan wondered in his mind whether the sudden power outage at the party was a sign of bad luck.
But she thought about it again and felt that something was wrong. After all, if this was the case, it was similar to the first day when coffee was poured on her. To be more precise, it even felt like a blessing in disguise, which was in stark contrast to yesterday when she almost fell down.
And most importantly, the power outage did not affect her. After all, Qiao Yuan had no interest in listening to the executives' speeches. Now that the other party stopped speaking, Qiao Yuan actually felt relieved.
Could there be other dangers in the darkness?
After realizing this, Qiao Yuan became alert instantly, looking around subconsciously, calculating possible dangers in his mind.
She was not sitting under the crystal chandelier, so the possibility of the crystal chandelier suddenly falling off could be ruled out; the tables in the banquet hall were also round and had no corners, so it seemed that the tables could not have caused any injuries.
Everyone around her sat quietly in their seats, not moving around, so no one jumped on her...
Where exactly is the danger?
Now the banquet hall was without electricity and had no windows, so Qiao Yuan could not see anything in front of him. After realizing this, Qiao Yuan quickly gave up looking around and instead pricked up his ears, concentrating on listening to the sounds around him.
After the brief panic caused by the power outage, everyone quickly calmed down. The voices in Qiao Yuan's ears turned into laughter and chatter. Some people even joked that they had never encountered this before and it was a rare experience. Someone even deliberately changed his voice and suggested that the party could end early. After being reminded by someone nearby that there was an infrared surveillance camera in the banquet hall, that voice never sounded again.
But this did not last long. The person who walked to the door suddenly said that he could not open the door, so he called other helpers and tried hard to open the door in front of him.
And with the sudden sound of an explosion, the originally calm atmosphere was instantly disturbed again.
"What exploded?"
"I thought I had misheard, but it turns out everyone heard it."
"Is anyone injured?"
"I don't know what happened today. There was a power outage and an explosion..."
"Is the door open?"
"It hasn't been opened yet. It seems to be locked."
"Then let's see if we can get some staff over here. Really, where are all the staff?"
The complaints had only lasted a few seconds when the light above his head suddenly came on.
Because they had been trapped in the dark atmosphere for too long, when the lights came on, many people's first reaction was to subconsciously close their eyes, trying to avoid the glaring sight.