Amid the urgent whistle sounds, the scene was quickly controlled by police.

Shen Qianzhan felt dizzy and disoriented, her vision filled with overlapping shadows she couldn’t see clearly.

She closed her eyes, recovering from the splitting headache and nausea brought on by stress, then looked up at Ji Qinghe: “How did you get back here?” And so timely at that.

“I was worried about you.”

On the way to the airport, Ji Qinghe had casually asked about the arrangements for Old Chen’s family. When Su Zan replied that everything was going smoothly, he immediately sensed something abnormal.

Shen Qianzhan had been restless all day, worrying that the other party’s family members would take advantage and cause trouble. From her description of Old Chen’s family, the eldest uncle was a brutish man who was good at using violence to solve problems.

If he intended to negotiate with the crew for compensation, he definitely wouldn’t have such an accommodating attitude. Of course, there was also the possibility he was lowering Su Zan and Shen Qianzhan’s guard to confront them face-to-face. But Ji Qinghe had felt a strong sense of unease at the time. Not feeling comfortable leaving Shen Qianzhan to face this alone, he had called a car to turn around halfway, letting Su Zan continue to the airport to pick up the arrivals.

“Good thing I came.” His tone was flat when he said this – flat like a drop of water falling into the deep ocean, yet Shen Qianzhan heard a tremor in it, as if she had glimpsed a deep-sea storm brewing in the ocean depths.

“Besides your neck, where else are you hurt?” He looked down at the large red area on Shen Qianzhan’s neck, his palm gently exploring along the bright red marks: “Here? Or here?”

His touch was light. The burning injury had gone numb beyond feeling. She distinguished the position of his palm and pulled his pinky finger to rest on her shoulder blade: “Just to here.”

Chen Yan’s blow earlier had been blocked midway, losing much of its force when it landed. Though Shen Qianzhan felt pain, it was still within her tolerance level.

Ji Qinghe carefully protected her neck, feeling and pressing to confirm the approximate location and extent of the wound before finally breathing slightly easier.

When he arrived, he had only seen Chen Yan swinging down with his club, thinking Shen Qianzhan had been hit in the back of the head. When blocking Chen Yan’s blow, he had deliberately used a clever technique to strike Chen Yan’s wrist bone hard, dislocating the joint.

If the scene hadn’t been quickly cleared, making further moves inconvenient, Chen Yan’s injuries wouldn’t have been limited to just a dislocated wrist.

He glanced coldly at Chen Yan, who was being held face-down on the floor by police after being disarmed, his face pale and contorted in pain from his wrist. Ji Qinghe’s gaze was icy and chilling.

——

After the scene was controlled, police set up barrier tape, dispersed onlookers, and stationed two officers outside the barrier to prevent entry and exit, protecting the scene from damage.

Chen Yan holding clubs and gathering a crowd to cause trouble was an undeniable fact.

After investigating the basic information of Chen Yan’s group, police routinely asked Shen Qianzhan about what happened.

Shen Qianzhan had recently filed a report, so the responding officers still had an impression of her. Seeing she was also injured, they first asked with concern about her condition: “Are you seriously hurt?”

“It’s nothing serious.”

The ambulance arrived slightly later than the police cars. Nurses were loading the bleeding crew assistant injured in the melee onto a stretcher to transport out.

Shen Qianzhan looked at this orderly chaos of the “crime scene” and smiled bitterly while pressing her forehead.

She first cooperated with police by briefly describing what happened, then proactively offered: “This room was separately rented by the crew to house the ancient clock. To protect the clock’s safety, we specifically installed surveillance. I can provide the surveillance footage to police as evidence.”

After Old Chen’s accidental death, the original room housing the ancient clock had been cleaned and sealed by the hotel, temporarily closed to outsiders. This room was newly rented by Shen Qianzhan from the hotel manager. Fortunately, she hadn’t cut corners and had all the surveillance reinstalled. Otherwise today’s incident would be hard to explain clearly, and being unable to defend against others making a big deal of it would be most deadly.

After recording her statement, police took away the surveillance footage files, temporarily detained Chen Yan and others, and instructed Shen Qianzhan to go to the hospital for examination before submitting injury assessment reports for all wounded to the public security bureau.

Other related personnel, including several crew assistants who had fought back, were all taken away for further investigation.

Having reached this point, the turmoil could no longer be contained.

Even staying in this room, she could imagine the scene of cameras and reporters creating a bloodbath outside the hotel.

Having Qiao Xin detain Jiang Mengxin was no longer useful. Without her, there were thousands of other reporters drawn by the news.

Within half an hour, news about the “Time” crew’s accidental worker death and family members causing trouble would spread across major social platforms, discussed by millions of netizens.

She had originally guarded against this so strictly to keep things quiet and minimize the incident’s harm. But despite all precautions, she hadn’t considered they would use the simplest, most brutal approach to completely destroy all her arrangements.

Now the crew was in a difficult situation. If the crisis PR wasn’t handled properly, “Time” could be severely damaged and never recover.

Her head was splitting. She bit her lip hard and rapidly considered response strategies.

She first instructed the crew director to send both ancient clocks to Beijing as soon as possible. As for the location, while she was considering where would be safe, Ji Qinghe took her phone and gave the address of Time Hall: “Contact Meng Wanzhou, take down this phone number.”

After giving the digits and confirming they were recorded, Ji Qinghe hung up and handed the phone back to her: “I’ll take you to the hospital first. We can discuss anything else in the car.”

Shen Qianzhan still had to go to the police station later to continue cooperating with the investigation. Time was extremely limited: “I still need to contact Qiandeng’s PR department.”

Ji Qinghe pursed his lips, his voice suppressed: “You can make calls in the car too.”

Seeing she wanted to argue, he wrapped one arm around her waist and supported her legs with the other, lifting her without argument: “Let Qiao Xin handle the cleanup here. I’ve already notified Su Zan – he’ll be here soon.”

Ignoring everyone else, he carried her straight through the crowd of onlookers in the corridor toward the back parking lot: “Qiandeng’s PR department – not to criticize, but they’re completely scattered.”

This assessment seemed emotional, spoken with particular weight and harshness.

Shen Qianzhan didn’t respond.

She looked at Ji Qinghe for a long moment, then said quietly: “Someone’s targeting me. They’re plotting against ‘Time.'”

From the moment Jiang Mengxin appeared, from when Su Zan sent Jiang Mengxin’s impressive resume, from when Chen Yan caught her off guard with organized, premeditated action – she knew she’d been set up.

She didn’t know who was plotting against her, but it had to be one of just a few people.

Precisely because she suspected this was a conspiracy, she felt chilled and pressed for time.

She was willing to assume the worst about their schemes.

Chen Yan was just a manipulated pawn, his role being to expose the crew member’s accidental death that Shen Qianzhan had kept tightly covered. Her normal procedural aftermath handling would be twisted by the masterminds into a substantive case.

What would follow would be attacks and boycotts from an uninformed public against the crew.

Such blows would drag the crew and actors’ reputations to rock bottom. The ensuing negative effects would be endless, potentially causing the production to collapse midway if severe enough.

Ji Qinghe carried her into the passenger seat and fastened her seatbelt.

His gaze moved down to find her hand and grip it in his palm.

Shen Qianzhan’s hand was cold as if just retrieved from an icehouse. He squeezed it firmly and said in a low voice: “What I said before still stands.”

Ji Qinghe had been returning to Beijing, dressed formally in a full suit when he left.

Now, slightly leaning down to look at her, Shen Qianzhan noticed that his previously immaculately tied necktie had somehow been loosened, hanging lazily on his shirt.

His Adam’s apple rolled gently as he pressed his voice and spoke slowly: “You accepted my pursuit.”

“As long as you’re willing, all of Bu Zhong Sui’s resources can be at your disposal.”

——

Learning what happened on the road, Su Zan nearly smashed his phone in rage.

Burning with fury all the way, he rushed back to the hotel.

Before reaching the entrance, he could see from afar the media reporters blocking the hotel entrance completely – layer upon layer forming an impenetrable circle.

His expression darkened further as he had the driver change routes to enter the open parking lot through the hotel’s back entrance.

Even at the rarely frequented back entrance, quite a few opportunistic reporters were waiting there. Su Zan didn’t show himself, having the driver remove the “Time Crew” pass from the dashboard before driving directly in.

Unable to leave, Qiao Xin specifically had the crew director wait at the door for Su Zan in case he acted impulsively and did something irrational.

The old Su Zan might indeed have burned down an entire forest in his fury. But the current Su Zan, even if he still wanted to tear, fry, and stew his opponents on the road, wouldn’t let himself stay hot-headed and make irreparable stupid mistakes.

What Shen Qianzhan had said to him recently had quite an impact. What made Su Zan feel even more embarrassed was her line about “even your parents haven’t apologized and made amends for you everywhere like this.”

Her exhaustion and departure finally made Su Zan start reflecting on how unreliable he had been in the past.

Once someone looks back, they discover how many shameful things they’ve done in their life. This blow was almost destructively devastating for Su Zan.

He seemed to awaken overnight from deep sleep – not quite a rebirth, but more like a resurrection, becoming much more reliable.

After returning to the hotel, Su Zan first supervised the crew transferring the ancient clock to Beijing.

The crew’s Wuxi filming had already wrapped completely yesterday, delayed only because of Old Chen’s accidental death.

He instructed the crew to pack and load filming equipment and props according to the original plan. After leaving the crew director to supervise on site, he immediately called together all group leaders for a meeting, ordering all crew members not to move around freely and strictly forbidding private interviews with reporters.

After handling this, he sat alone in his room for a moment, then proactively called Su Lanyi.

——

More than an hour had passed since the incident.

Though there were many explosive voices online, due to capital suppression, the scope of the explosion remained under control.

Su Lanyi in Beijing was currently overwhelmed.

When she received Su Zan’s call, she had just finished a tirade, her voice hoarse with deep fatigue: “What is it?”

Su Zan was silent for several seconds before saying: “I want to confirm something with you.”

Su Lanyi didn’t respond, waiting for him to continue.

Su Zan asked: “After the ‘Spring River’ crew fighting was reported by New Entertainment Express, how was it resolved to get the reporter to apologize?”

Su Lanyi laughed coldly with annoyance, mocking: “Has Shen Qianzhan run out of ideas or lost the ability to solve problems, sending you to ask me for solutions?”

Su Zan tugged at the corner of his mouth, keeping his tone flat: “The legal department sent a notice requiring an apology and post deletion within seven days or face lawsuit – was it like that?”

“No.” Su Lanyi irritably tucked her long hair behind her ear, her tone unfriendly: “Qiandeng gave PR money and let Xiao Sheng handle it himself.”

“Besides, they reported facts. Send threatening letters to let them expose and mock us again?” Su Lanyi laughed once, transferring her anger: “If Bu Zhong Sui’s PR department wasn’t suppressing hot searches, this crew incident would have been known across the entire internet. Tell Shen Qianzhan to stop playing dead with me – use whatever methods she has. If she wants to destroy Qiandeng before leaving, I won’t let her get away with it.”

After speaking, Su Lanyi directly hung up. That extremely angry hang-up sound was like the final wind before glass shattered.

Su Zan’s fingers holding the phone gradually stiffened. For a long while, he stared blankly at the disconnected call record.

The latest record was Su Lanyi, his biological sister.

The previous one was Shen Qianzhan, the best friend who had accompanied him through all these years.

Shen Qianzhan’s calm voice mixed with the hospital’s calling system seemed to still echo in his ears.

She had said: “Su Zan, you can ask Su Lanyi whether last time’s apology from reporter Jiang Mengxin was Qiandeng’s work or Xiao Sheng’s own. If it’s the former, then your sister is targeting me. If it’s the latter, congratulations – you don’t have to choose or give me up.”

Shen Qianzhan suspected someone was stabbing her in the back.

Jiang Mengxin’s arrival was suspicious, as if she knew all the inside information and was just waiting for Chen Yan to bring people to cause trouble so she could get first-hand photos from the scene. Unfortunately, she underestimated Shen Qianzhan’s caution and Qiao Xin’s persistence, being trapped in the eighth-floor meeting room until Qiao Xin had to leave for scene cleanup.

Coincidentally, the first press release suppressed by Bu Zhong Sui’s PR department came from New Entertainment Express.

The target was too obvious for Shen Qianzhan to ignore even if she wanted to.

Investigating further, there was Jiang Mengxin’s recent dispute with “Spring River.” She suspected Xiao Sheng had reached some agreement with her, making Jiang Mengxin willing to go easy on him then, issuing a painless apology statement.

Su Lanyi’s answer exactly confirmed this from the side.

——

Shen Qianzhan received Su Zan’s text just after applying medicine.

The wound on her back had rapidly swollen into a large red area. After applying medicine, not only did it not stop hurting, but it felt like her entire back was on fire – burning and numb.

Smelling the unpleasant medicinal ointment on herself, she wrinkled her nose and looked at Su Zan’s WeChat.

The content was just one name – Xiao Sheng.

Really no surprise at all.

She turned off the screen and looked up at Ji Qinghe, who was listening to the doctor’s instructions.

Sensing her gaze, he glanced at her sideways and asked distractedly: “Does it hurt?”

The doctor looked at both of them with a knowing, ambiguous smile: “You’ve asked that more than ten times now – I’ve heard at least five or six myself.”

“Don’t worry too much about external injuries. Watch for any pulling sensation in the neck when you get back.” He entered the medication names into the system without looking up: “It’ll hurt more when you wake up tomorrow. Remember to massage her with medicinal oil every night until the bruising fades.”

“Oh, right.” The doctor looked at Shen Qianzhan and instructed: “Get good rest recently.”

After speaking, he looked at Ji Qinghe again and added the second half of the sentence: “Strenuous activity is not recommended.”