Brother Dao Took the Entertainment Industry by Storm, Fans Beg Me Not to Kill Anymore-Chapter 465: "Watch out for Shu Yuxiu."
The lights overhead in the screening room brightened again, and the people sitting below woke as if from a dream.
Tiger Brother forcefully blinked his slightly sore eyes, rubbed his arms that were prickling with goosebumps, and finally let out a long breath.
What he had expected to be a feel-good story instead turned into a life-and-death tragic romance, then he thought it would be a balanced clash of good and evil, and in the end evil did not triumph over good, but only when the finale unveiled the whole truth did he realize it was a feel-good story after all.
Shu Yuxiu was a con man — the secretary had warned about it right at the start of the plot.
"Watch out for Shu Yuxiu."
He was a fraud, a man capable of playing everyone like puppets in his palm.
Yet as the audience followed the investigation team deeper into their inquiry, people gradually forgot that warning, assumed Shu Yuxiu had been caught and victory was secured, and then wandered off following the investigation team's line of thought.
Not until long after Shu Yuxiu's "death" did they, like Officer Zhang in the film, suddenly realize the truth.
They had been deceived from the very beginning!
The contacts each side thought they had were fake from the start!
Shu Yuxiu duped both sides, bribed the secretary to act as the intermediary to Qi Baishan with the police, and had the secretary use his position to introduce Qi Baishan to the fake "Officer Zhang" posing as the investigation team, while the secretary fed Qi Baishan fabricated "police investigation updates" anytime, leading Qi Baishan to lose faith in the police and ultimately push him to take extreme private revenge and commit murder to vent his anger.
Meanwhile, the real investigation team and Officer Zhang on their side were constantly misled by fake intelligence handed over by the secretary, shifting their focus to digging into Shu Yuxiu's past, turning attention from the homicide case of his wife to those earlier incidents he was suspected of being involved in, thereby giving Shu Yuxiu ample time to move his assets and prepare to flee.
The most ridiculous part was that everyone truly went off-track in the end; no one continued to care about the original wife's murder case — the very case that was Shu Yuxiu's biggest flaw and the origin of Qi Baishan's suspicion!
Now no one knew whether the past incidents Shu Yuxiu spoke of were carefully woven lies.
What he said in the interrogation room, and the "truth" the viewers saw on the screen, which parts were real and which were fake?
Or were they all deliberate misleading illusions created by Shu Yuxiu, and everything people had encountered before was nothing but his lies?
Was Officer Zhang's reconstruction of Shu Yuxiu's "modus operandi" in the interrogation room actually the truth?
Did Zhu Zhipeng and his parents, and those Shu Yuxiu had contact with back then... did their "accidental deaths" have anything to do with Shu Yuxiu?
So many years of "accidents," despite the investigation team's efforts, yielded no evidence tying Shu Yuxiu to the crimes — was it because Shu Yuxiu had cleaned up too thoroughly, or because those things never happened and the accidents were indeed accidents?
After watching the earth-shattering twist in the finale, the string in Tiger Brother's head snapped completely, just like Officer Zhang's did!
Somehow, the man's restrained and arrogant face reappeared before his eyes, politely smiling at the camera.
"I never lie."
"Only that you all like to believe what you want to believe."
"For example now, what I say, would you like to believe it?"
He sat dazed in his seat for a long time, even wearing the same foolish, infatuated smile as Officer Zhang.
No Bait, no bait, willing fish take the hook.
What Shu Yuxiu said in the interrogation room was nothing but a form of psychological suggestion.
There was clearly no bait on the hook, yet no one believed it.
After all, how could there be a hook without bait?
How could Shu Yuxiu's words possibly be true?
How could those deaths be unrelated to him?
— When everyone, holding suspicion toward Shu Yuxiu, went to verify those past incidents one by one, they had already bitten the hook like foolish fish.
But by the time they found out, it was too late.
Only the goosebumps continuing to prickle across his skin silently showed Tiger Brother's terror and the storm in his mind.
This ending was far more legendary than he had imagined!
No need to explain Shu Yuxiu's final whereabouts, no need to leave the protagonist's life or death in suspense, and no need to worry whether the "villain protagonist" winning could pass muster, because on the surface Shu Yuxiu's death had become a settled fact!
Even though by the end many people had guessed the final answer, it could no longer be proven.
What remained for everyone was only a corpse that could not speak!
Is that really Shu Yuxiu's strength?
Does Shu Yuxiu even truly exist?
Which parts of the case in this story are real and which are fabricated?
Tiger Brother completely lost any interest in watching the next films, trembling as he opened the ticket purchasing screen on his phone.
What he didn't notice was that even though the movie was over and there were no extra scenes, many of the viewers around him sat frozen in their seats, lost in their own thoughts, unable to snap out of it for a long time.
Only when Tiger Brother desperately discovered that all today's No Bait screenings at this theater were sold out did he involuntarily curse.
"Damn!"
The tickets? Not a single one left?
I have to watch it again!
There were so many details he hadn't seen clearly yet!
Did Shu Yuxiu really kill those people?
Hurry up! Give me a ticket for the next screening!
Tiger Brother finally felt tormented; he had a maddening itch in his chest and mind that wouldn't let him sleep without an answer.
As Tiger Brother spoke, curses from other audience members started to spread around.
"Damn it, where are the tickets? How is there not a single one today?"
"Standing room! I strongly demand standing room! I don't ask much, let me squat on the steps and watch!"
"I feel like we missed an important detail in front, I have to watch it again to confirm!"
"What should I do? I urgently need a second viewing!"
"No, how could everyone click so fast! Damn it!"
Tiger Brother sat stunned, listening to the uproar, feeling like a piece of his soul had been permanently left inside No Bait.
Damn it, how is he supposed to deal with the shitty movies coming next?!
Don't blame Tiger Brother for swearing; based on his observations of this May Day season, the only movie with any real promise was No Bait.
As for the quality of the other films... emmm, it was indeed a little worrying.
From his years of moviegoing experience, the best parts are basically all packed into the trailers.
Now that he had eaten the feast in the first film of the morning, and the rest would be shit to swallow, what could he do?
Tiger Brother clenched the stack of tickets in his hand, wanting to cry but with no tears.
Damn it! If I had known they'd put the good stuff last!
How am I supposed to get through today!
-
On the other side, Xiao He was also in the screening room, having just finished watching the entire film.
It was almost funny: because of Ding Wanyu's affair, Xiao He had missed No Bait's premiere, and he hadn't found an opportunity to see the subsequent audience screenings, being busy with various events and social obligations.
So only now did Xiao He finally have time to watch his own work in full.
To be honest, when he saw the plot, Xiao He was somewhat shocked.
He had not known about the final twist ending at all; the script he received did not contain this segment. Director Ning did not use any of the four versions he knew, but rather a newly edited version.
So only at this final moment did he finally learn the full storyline of No Bait.
Xiao He watched the closing credits roll and felt both amused and helpless.
So the one who sank to the bottom of the sea in the end wasn't actually him?
Good grief, the corpse I played turned out to be a "stand-in."
That's Director Ning's dark humor, then.
After shooting around and around, the lead actor himself didn't even know the plot would end like this.
However... this storyline was indeed more interesting than the four versions he had known.
Normally, a plot that overturns everything before it could easily anger audiences, like setting up a mystery then telling you it was all a dream, but given No Bait's story and Shu Yuxiu's characterization, viewers didn't resent it.
On the contrary, when the final twist came, many felt satisfied.
It seemed... Shu Yuxiu was meant to be like this.
