mijobooks Chapter 99 Data is the Only Truth
Chapter 99 Data is the Only Truth
Liang Qinian's voice, crackling with electricity, hissed in the Santana's interior.
Chen Yan gripped the car door handle.
Where are they?
"...Disappeared. The mute man is in this area, he's gone missing."
Chen Yan looked out the window at the telephone poles rushing past and the blurry light and shadows.
"try to find."
He only said one word.
"Even if we have to turn every inch of Tianjin upside down, we'll find this person."
Wu Gang stepped on the gas, the wheels rolled through the puddles, and the front of the car plunged into the deeper darkness.
Chen Yan hung up the phone.
Ring ring—
Another phone rang; it was Su Wan.
Chen Yan answered the call.
"explain."
"The first batch of data for Beijing is out."
Su Wan's voice trembled slightly, accompanied by the rustling sound of papers turning in the background.
"read."
"The fifteen core cinemas under the New Film Union have an occupancy rate of 92% for morning screenings."
"The noon screenings accounted for 40% of the total screenings, and the occupancy rate was... 105%."
Chen Yan's gaze remained fixed ahead, his tone flat.
"105%? Including extra seats?"
"Yes. The cinema manager added plastic benches in the aisle and increased the price of each ticket by five dollars, and the audience lined up to buy them."
Su Wan paused for a moment on the other end.
"Wanda hasn't finished compiling the statistics yet, but the feedback is the same. They've already cancelled two of the three theaters originally allocated to director He Ping's 'Spring Returns,' and replaced them all with 'Thunder.'"
Wu Gang shifted his shoulders in the driver's seat, his eyes still fixed on the road ahead.
"Old Chen, is there enough copying space?"
Chen Yan looked at the windshield wipers swinging back and forth on the windshield.
"If it's not enough, have the factory print more overnight. General Manager Lin is overseeing it; she's even more anxious than we are."
……
BJ.
New Film Union Distribution Center.
The printer had been humming non-stop since eight o'clock in the morning.
Long, light green report sheets were piled up on the ground like a small mountain.
Lin Shufen stood by the window, holding a stack of still-warm papers that she had just torn from the fax machine.
"Mr. Lin, this is Manager Zhou's phone number from Huaxing Cinema!"
The assistant handed the receiver to me.
Lin Shufen snatched it away.
"Old Zhou, didn't I give you 15% of the screenings?"
"Sister Lin, it's not enough! It's really not enough!"
The background noise from the male voice on the receiver was chaotic, filled with shouts from the crowd and arguments at the ticket booth: "The entrance is packed with students and workers, all specifically requesting to see Chen Yan's film! He Ping's movie, they only sold three tickets this morning, not even covering the air conditioning costs!"
"I've moved 'Spring Returns' to the smallest screening room, freeing up Hall One. Hurry up and get me a replacement copy; my film reel is practically smoking!"
Lin Shufen slammed the fax paper on the table.
"The copy is already on its way. Old Zhou, let me make this clear: if the occupancy rate is below 90%, I will take back the screening rights at any time."
"Ninety? Come and take a look! The steps are packed with people! This isn't a movie screening, it's robbery!"
The phone hangs up.
Lin Shufen looked at Su Wan sitting to the side.
Where is Chen Yanren?
"He went to Tianjin. He said he has an old score to settle there."
Su Wan organized the reports at hand without even looking up.
"Mr. Lin, a PR person from a sportswear brand just called. They want Ms. Qingqiu to be their spokesperson. They're offering 500,000 yuan for a year."
Lin Shufen lit a cigarette.
"What did Chen Yan say?"
He said that Lin Qingqiu's current label is "stubbornness in the ruins." A 500,000 dollar GG would ruin the value of this poster.
Su Wan closed the folder and pushed it in front of Lin Shufen. "He sent Miss Qingqiu to participate in a public service presentation on 'Caring for Disabled Athletes.' The location is a vocational school in Chaoyang District."
Lin Shufen exhaled a puff of smoke and looked out the window at the hazy sky.
"Giving up 500,000 yuan to give presentations at schools? Chen Yan's brain isn't filled with brains, it's filled with ice."
……
At this moment, in the auditorium of a vocational school in Beijing.
There was no red carpet, no flashbulbs.
Lin Qingqiu was wearing the faded gray coarse cloth shirt from the movie, paired with simple jeans.
She sat on the edge of the podium, without a microphone, and her ankle was wrapped in a white bandage.
Several hundred students in blue school uniforms sat in the audience, most of them holding black-and-white promotional leaflets for "Thunder".
"Sister Lin, did you really do that action in the movie yourself?"
A short-haired girl stood up and asked, her voice choked with emotion.
Lin Qingqiu slowly stood up, supporting herself on the edge of the podium.
She didn't answer. In front of everyone, she raised her left leg and slowly pressed it against the edge of the podium.
She meticulously broke down the incredibly powerful stretching motion from the movie.
The veins on the side of her neck were prominent, and fine beads of sweat appeared on her forehead.
The auditorium was completely silent.
A reporter, mingling among the students, hid in a corner and kept pressing the shutter.
"I'm not acting."
Lin Qingqiu lowered her legs, her voice hoarse, "I am alive."
"Director Chen told me that if I didn't step on it properly, I would die on camera."
"Is this art?"
A student asked.
Lin Qingqiu sat back down at the edge of the table, looking at her ankle wrapped in bandages.
"That's fate."
Half an hour later, this behind-the-scenes video, titled "This is the real Lin Qingqiu," was posted on the school's BBS by several college students present, and quickly spread across the entire internet.
……
The entrance to a cinema near China Film Group.
A man wearing a dark trench coat, black sunglasses, and a wide-brimmed hat crossed the street.
He kept his head down, his collar turned up, obscuring most of his face.
He avoided the dense crowd at the main entrance and went around to the automatic ticket machine on the side, but the machine had a sign that said "Service Suspended".
He could only approach the counter.
The young girl behind the counter was busy tearing up tickets.
"Two copies of 'Thunder,' the most recent one."
The man's voice was very low.
"Sold out, all the tickets for today are gone. Only three left at 1 AM, first row corner seats, want them?"
The little girl didn't even look up.
The man stood in front of the counter and pressed his palm on the counter surface.
"What about 'Spring Returns'?"
"Spring Returns? A film by director He Ping."
The little girl finally looked up and pointed to the electronic screen above her. "There are still more than half empty seats in Hall 5. Which one would you like to see?"
The man fell silent.
He looked at the huge black and white poster on the wall depicting Lin Qingqiu in tears.
The poster's background is a somber black, with only a single tear highlighted brightly, like a knife.
"Give me two copies of 'Thunder' at 1 a.m.
The man took a hundred-yuan bill out of his pocket and placed it on the counter.
He took the ticket stub, turned around to leave, but bumped into several reporters with cameras at the cinema exit.
"Have you heard? The article that He Ping and the others co-authored is getting a lot of flak right now. The BBS is full of people posting pictures of their ticket stubs, saying that these old guys are killing the future of Chinese cinema."
"Let's go, let's go to the Beijing Film Academy. I heard those old professors are going to hold another seminar, let's go and pick out a few examples."
The reporters quickly ran towards the interview vehicle parked by the roadside.
The man in the trench coat stood on the steps, the wind blowing up the corner of his coat and revealing a badge pinned to the pocket of his suit jacket.
That's the logo of the China Film Directors Association.
He raised his hand and pressed the brim of his hat down a little.
Behind the sunglasses, a pair of bloodshot eyes stared at the ticket stub in his hand.
The words "Director: Chen Yan" were particularly jarring.
……
Tianjin, the old city.
The black Santana was parked below an abandoned clock tower.
The soil after the rain had a rusty smell.
Wu Gang turned off the engine and pulled out a crowbar wrapped in newspaper from under his seat.
"Old Chen, it's this area."
Chen Yan pushed open the car door and stepped into the soft, muddy ground.
He looked up at the half-collapsed building in front of him.
"A person like Lu Haiming wouldn't let his weaknesses be exposed."
He looked at the huge circular hole at the top of the clock tower. The dial that once stood there was now broken, leaving only a few rusted iron frames sticking out of the void.
"If they can't take it with them, they'll just kill them."
Chen Yan took out a flashlight from his pocket and turned it on.
A beam of white light pierced the darkness.
He found a fresh drag mark at the base of the ruins.
The dark marks left by heavy objects rolling over the moss.
Chen Yan looked in the direction of the beam of light.
In the shadows at the entrance to the clock tower, a man in a tattered cotton-padded coat sat leaning against a stone pillar.
There was a very deep red slit in the man's throat.
In his hand, he held a rectangular object wrapped in layers of tarpaulin.
That was Lu Haiming's life, which he had kept hidden for ten years.
Chen Yan stopped in his tracks.
He didn't turn around, but just looked at the pile of blood-soaked tarpaulins and said in a low voice:
"Wu Gang, it's time to collect the debt."
In the distance, a thunderclap rolled across the sky.
The corpse, having lost its support, slowly slid down the stone pillar.
One corner of the oilcloth wrapping came undone.
A yellowed accounting book was revealed.
The following is clearly written in red ballpoint pen: 1991, Tianjin No. 2 construction site, compensation payment stub.
Chen Yan reached out and touched the cool, sticky cover with his fingertips.
He ripped the ledger out.
He opened the first page of the ledger.
The first line of text.
Lu Haiming.
Withdrawal amount: RMB 2 million.
Purpose: To mark dots.
Chen Yan stuffed the account book into the inside pocket of his coat and was about to turn around when his fingers touched a hard corner inside the cover of the account book.
He pulled out the ledger again, and with his fingertips lifted the interlayer, a folded, yellowed letter slipped out.
He unfolded the letter by the light of his flashlight.
There was only one line of hastily written text above:
"I'll settle the matter of the Bell Tower. You take the land in the capital."
Below is a signature.
Upon seeing that name, the beam of Chen Yan's flashlight trembled violently.
He was more familiar with this name than Lu Haiming.
In his past life, it was this very person who, at the height of his glory, handed him that deadly cup of poison.