A few days later, Carlo Berland Island.
It was already late at night on the island, but on one side of the forest road, a faint, fiery red light glowed, as if something was burning fiercely.
A sports car lay overturned by the roadside, its blazing red headlights illuminating the area.
Zhu Penglin's head was covered in blood, and his body was firmly pinned under the car seat. He painfully groaned as he struggled to stretch out his hand, trying to reach the phone that had fallen onto the floor of the passenger seat.
His fingers missed the phone on the ground several times. Finally, as the sports car shifted, the phone slid out through the car window and disappeared into the pitch-black jungle, vanishing without a trace.
Zhu Penglin was utterly despaired.
"Help! Help—!"
He shouted at the top of his lungs, trying to get the other rich second-generation heirs participating in the racing competition to notice him. Yet, in the profound darkness of the night, no one answered his pleas for help.
With hope for rescue gone, and almost all his strength flowing away along with the blood from his body, Zhu Penglin could only lean weakly against the car, his gaze vacant as he stared out the window.
"What... what exactly happened—"
Shu Yuxiu wasn't here today, so Zhu Penglin naturally wouldn't have participated in the race. He had already told these people in advance that he was just out for a drive today, not to race. He never expected those people to suddenly start questioning the authenticity of his driving skills, even openly mocking him, suspecting that the person driving before wasn't him at all.
Zhu Penglin was someone who cared deeply about face. Otherwise, he wouldn't have come up with the idea of having Shu Yuxiu substitute for him in races. Now, provoked by these people, his head grew hot in an instant, and he decided to compete personally.
However, Zhu Penglin had a good plan. Halfway through, he would deliberately find an excuse to leave the mountain, claiming there was an emergency at home. After all, with Shu Yuxiu around in the future, the face he lost today could always be regained. It was just a bit of embarrassment for today...
But he never, ever expected that just as Zhu Penglin reached the intersection of the mountain loop road and the downhill road, preparing to slow down and turn around to descend, his sports car suddenly lost control, and the brakes failed.
Panic-stricken, Zhu Penglin, along with the car, rushed out of the intersection and crashed into the woods nearby.
Coincidentally, the location of this car accident was such that if that group of rich second-generation heirs were racing normally along the mountain loop, they wouldn't discover it.
Only when they finished the race and descended the mountain together would they possibly notice the traces of the accident by the roadside and thus find Zhu Penglin in the woods.
But this bunch of people usually had nothing better to do. They came out to race precisely to kill time and seek thrills. Generally, they wouldn't leave until four or five in the morning.
By the time they discovered Zhu Penglin then, his body would probably already be stiff.
Sure enough, until the very end, Zhu Penglin never waited for anyone to find him.
His breathing gradually began to weaken.
At the last moment before all consciousness faded, Zhu Penglin seemed to hear some movement coming from behind him.
Summoning strength from who knows where, he made one final sound, though it was as faint as the chirp of an insect—
"Hel—p—"
However, the sound of those footsteps abruptly stopped.
The entire forest fell silent once more.
Zhu Penglin struggled to keep his eyes open, but his breath still ceased.
—Until death, he never received rescue.
But what Zhu Penglin didn't know was that not far behind his overturned sports car, a familiar figure stood quietly there.
Shu Yuxiu raised his wrist, looked at the time on his watch, glanced up at the night sky, and finally slowly lowered his arm, using his sleeve to cover the watch.
No one knew exactly how long he had been standing here.
He stood there calmly like this, using the moving hands of his watch to measure the "time of death" of his good brother, like the God of Death from hell silently counting down the final moments of a dying man.
Finally, only when there was no more sound from inside the car did he turn around and disappear back into the woods.
—No one knew of his presence, not even at Zhu Penglin's final moment of death.
-
"Cut—"
With Director Ning's voice, the previously somewhat deathly still set regained its vitality. Crew members seemed to appear out of nowhere, walking into the center of the "car accident" to pull the actor playing Zhu Penglin out of the sports car.
"Phew."
Zhu Huiwen, covered in blood, took a deep breath. He took the towel handed by the Young Assistant to wipe the "blood" from his face while rubbing his arms. "The nights on this island are really cold, huh? I suddenly felt a chill all over my body while filming just now. It felt terrifying."
The Young Assistant's expression was odd.
If Zhu Huiwen knew that Xiao He had also been on set just now, staring coldly at him for over ten or twenty minutes, then he might understand why he felt cold earlier.
With Xiao He's gaze fixed on you, who wouldn't shiver!
If not for the filming, they would have suspected Xiao He was the real God of Death, standing at the scene of the accident waiting to reap the soul of the deceased.
"What's wrong? Is there something strange on my face?"
Zhu Huiwen looked at the Young Assistant, his face full of confusion.
"No, nothing."
The Young Assistant quickly waved her hands. "Congratulations on wrapping up, Teacher Zhu."
"Congratulations on wrapping up."
Xu Fuxue also walked over with a smile and handed Zhu Huiwen a large red envelope. "You worked hard tonight. Go back and rest first, after all, you still have to catch the flight tomorrow morning."
"Okay."
Zhu Huiwen agreed on the surface, but he was muttering to himself internally.
What's the deal with every actor who wraps up being rushed off the island so quickly?
It must be said that Zhu Huiwen was actually the most "fortunate" one, because he didn't know any of the plot details before he was already sent off the island.
As for the other actors who were "directly killed" or "indirectly killed" by Shu Yuxiu, they only realized it later while filming. But before they could say anything, they were already put on a plane.
Among them, Qi Xinyue, the character in "No Bait" who was the first to discover Shu Yuxiu was a fraud yet still watched herself fall into a deadly situation, was undoubtedly the one whose performer, Ding Wanyu, was the earliest to suspect the plot.
However, although Ding Wanyu had vaguely sensed something different about the plot due to the filming during this period, when it came time to act out "Qi Xinyue discovering Shu Yuxiu had a problem," she herself cried just as miserably as Qi Xinyue.
Even after Director Ning called "Cut," she still couldn't control herself, silently wiping away tears on set for a long time. Xiao He didn't even dare to go comfort her.
This made Xiao He feel even more guilty than "Shu Yuxiu."
After all, based on the plot filmed earlier, their two characters were really like a young couple in their honeymoon phase, with no concealment or deception, as beautiful as a fairy tale.
Now that the fantasy and beauty were completely shattered, Ding Wanyu, who had immersed herself in Qi Xinyue's emotions, truly couldn't control her feelings.
Fortunately, she was also an experienced actress. After silently working through those negative emotions in her heart, she didn't lose her rationality, nor did she intertwine Qi Xinyue's complex emotions with her own, developing resentment or disgust towards Xiao He.
She completed all the scenes that belonged to her very well.
It was just that on the day of her official wrap, when Ding Wanyu was preparing to take the helicopter and leave the island, she called Xiao He aside by himself.
Xiao He scratched his head, looking at the woman in front of him, feeling somewhat awkward for a moment.