bdsm-fiction Chapter 81 The Game in the Shadows
Chapter 81 The Game in the Shadows
Chen Yan pushed open the soundproof door to Hall No. 3.
The darkness swallowed the dull thud of the leather shoes hitting the ground.
The projector's optical axis pierced through the darkness, projecting onto the empty screen.
There is no video.
The bright white light illuminated the dust particles settling in the air.
The large disc rotates above the computer room.
The broken end of the film kept slapping against the metal casing.
Snapped.
Snapped.
Snapped.
The sound collided back and forth in the enclosed semi-circular space.
The last row.
A man is sitting in seat L-14.
His figure was wrapped in a coat, his shoulders were straight.
A coin rolled between his fingers.
That was a Shanghai one-cent coin from 1991, its aluminum surface worn smooth and without any sharp edges.
The coin grazed his knuckles, making a faint metallic scraping sound.
"Director Chen, you're slower than I expected."
said the man.
His voice was flat, as if he were reading a manufacturer's instruction manual.
Chen Yan stopped in the middle of the aisle.
He didn't walk to his seat; his hands hung naturally at his sides, his fingers resting on the edge of his trench coat pocket.
"Lu Haiming sent you."
Chen Yan replied.
The man stopped spinning the coin.
The coin was pressed firmly into the palm of the hand by the index finger.
He called me Shadow.
said the man.
He propped himself up from the back of the chair.
Half of his face entered the edge of the white light.
That face was clean, ordinary, and unremarkable.
"December 16, 2025. Yanjing, outside the Drum Tower. It's snowing heavily."
The man stared at Chen Yan, his tone flat and even.
"You were clutching a six-yuan bottle of Erguotou (a type of Chinese liquor). You ended up collapsing next to a garbage dump under a streetlamp. Your vomit contained blood, and you had a perforated stomach."
He paused for a moment, and the coin bounced off his fingertips.
"The master tape of 'Rain in the Old City' was in your arms, soaked with snow water."
Chen Yan stared at the coin that was flipping in the air.
He moved closer to the volume control panel on the side.
"The story is well-crafted."
Chen Yan said.
"That's the future you wrote on paper."
The man answered.
Where did Lu Haiming buy the script?
Chen Yan asked.
The man let out a soft laugh.
His voice was dry and devoid of any emotion.
"Do you think Lu Haiming only wants that small amount of money for the project?"
The man countered with a question.
Chen Yan had already moved to the fifth row.
He could see the man's posture clearly.
The other person's feet were firmly planted on the carpet.
The width between the knees should be the same as the width between the shoulders.
The weight should be on the front edge of the ball of the foot.
This is a tactical stance that allows for immediate launch and takeoff.
The man's right hand was always hidden in the inside pocket of his coat.
There is a clear outline there.
Chen Yan detected a scent.
It's not the dampness from the rain.
It wasn't the musty smell of the theater.
That was the sulfurous smell of dried high-concentration gun oil and propellant.
Lu Haiming doesn't believe in rebirth.
Chen Yan said.
He stepped over a row of seats to close the distance.
"He only believes in quantifiable data and evidence."
"The calluses on your hands are not at the base of your fingers, but at the base of your thumb."
"There are dark brown indentations on the side of the first joint of my index finger. Those are from years of loading bullets and pulling triggers."
"You're a gunman."
Chen Yan raised his right hand and pointed to the man's pocket.
"Lu Haiming sent an assassin to talk to me about how to die in 2025."
"This means that he has turned to the last page of the file he has."
The man's eye twitched slightly.
He gripped the coin tightly, his knuckles bulging in the white light.
"file?"
The man asked.
"A white paper about the future."
Chen Yan replied.
He continued forward.
There were only three rows of seats between them and that person.
Nineteen years ago, Lu Haiming not only embezzled project funds in Tianjin, but also looted the warehouse of a bankrupt film studio.
"He found a white paper analyzing 'future film trends' among a pile of discarded film sample boxes."
"That's the life's work of a director who's gone mad."
Chen Yan stopped in the middle of the aisle.
"Lu Haiming avoided all the capital traps by following that white paper. Every film he invested in was perfectly timed."
"But he discovered that I wasn't part of that plan."
"The appearance of 'Thunder' shattered his white paper."
The man stood up from his seat.
The coin slipped from his hand and fell onto the carpet with a dull thud.
"Mr. Lu is right, you are indeed a variable."
The man answered.
He took a step forward.
The distance between the two people was reduced to two meters.
"The white paper stated that Chen Yan died in a car accident in 2005."
"But you've lived to this day, still carrying these audiovisual languages that don't belong to this era."
The man pulled a folded piece of official paper from his pocket.
He unfolded the paper with one hand.
It has a string of movie titles printed on it, followed by the year.
The song listed first is "The Sound of Rain in the Old City".
"Mr. Lu wants to buy your destiny."
said the man.
"He can do without 'Thunder.' He can also help you get the Golden Lion at Venice."
"As long as you hand over the second half of the white paper."
Chen Yan glanced at the paper.
The edges of the paper showed obvious signs of burning.
That was irrefutable evidence of Lu Haiming's attempt to cover up his past.
"I can't give him what he wants."
Chen Yan replied.
Why?
The man asked.
"Because this era has no second half."
Chen Yan replied.
He stared into the man's eyes.
"That white paper was actually my will, which I wrote for him in my past life."
"In order to beg him to let Lin Qingqiu go, I gave him the future of the next twenty years."
Chen Yan's voice resonated throughout the theater.
"But I forgot. People like Lu Haiming never read wills. He only looks at the value."
The man tightened his right hand inside his coat pocket.
"Couldn't reach an agreement?"
The man asked.
"The negotiations failed."
Chen Yan replied.
The sound of film being struck suddenly disappeared from the direction of the projector room.
A deathly silence instantly enveloped the entire Hall 3.
The white beam of light trembled violently on the big screen.
The screen was no longer a stark white.
Several black lines were outlined in the halo.
Those are the marks left by charcoal pencils on the paper.
Rough.
Frantic.
The lines converge to form the silhouette of a woman's back.
She stood on the edge of the broken clock tower, her long hair torn to shreds by the wind.
That's Lin Qingqiu.
But in one corner of the screen, there is a storyboard annotation that Chen Yan has never shown to anyone.
[Shot type: Close-up. Action: Self-destruction.]
[Note: This is an unfinished draft from 2025.]
The handwriting is crooked and distorted.
They weren't printed on.
Instead, someone used a hard object to carve strokes onto the film emulsion layer.
Chen Yan stared at the familiar handwriting.
Those final drafts, hidden deep in his memory, never put on paper, but only rehearsed countless times in his mind.
just now.
They are being displayed nakedly on the screens in Venice.
"How did he get this?"
Chen Yan asked.
It felt like a shard of glass had been stuffed into his throat.
Mr. Lu said, "Since you can't remember what you've ever sold..."
The man answered.
He slowly pulled his right hand out of his pocket.
That's not a gun.
Instead, it was a black, old-fashioned miniature tape recorder.
He pressed the play button hard.
A buzzing sound of electricity rang out.
A hoarse, aged male voice, heavy with the smell of tobacco, came from the loudspeaker.
That was Chen Yan's own voice.
To be precise.
It was the voice of Chen Yan, who had died in his previous life, at the age of forty-five.
"Lu Haiming. This is the last tape."
"The storyboard is engraved on the film. Take it. Let her live."
The recording abruptly ended there.
The man took the tape recorder back.
"Director Chen, can we talk about the second half now?"
The man asked.
Chen Yan did not answer.
He turned to look at the screen.
The storyboard etched onto the film began to pulsate wildly.
That was his last curse from his previous life.
Every frame is like a blunt knife.
It is peeling away the outer shell of his rebirth.
Where is Lu Haiming?
Chen Yan asked.
He is not in Venice.
The man answered.
"He's in Yenching. Downstairs in your Beijing Film Academy dormitory."
"He's waiting for you, or waiting for news of your death."
The man bent down and picked up the coin.
He walked to the side door of the theater and pushed it open a crack.
The sound of torrential rain poured in instantly.
"Tonight at 9 PM, Room 302, Danielly Hotel. Let's bring the real 'Old Town Rain'."
The man left behind a sentence.
"Don't even think about calling the police, and don't even think about running away."
"Mr. Lu can give you a golden lion, but he can also give Lin Qingqiu a ticket to hell."
The door slammed shut.
Chen Yan stood alone in the empty theater.
The light on the screen flickered.
The scene freezes on the last storyboard.
Those were bloodshot eyes.
Chen Yan took out a lighter from his pocket.
Click.
Flames shot up.
He walked to the control panel below the screen.
There was the spare film that had just been destroyed.
Chen Yan brought the lighter close to the film.
The orange-red flames instantly licked the flammable celluloid.
Blue-purple flames rose.
Those lingering images of past lives curled and turned black in the firelight.
Finally, it turned into a pool of sticky coke.
Chen Yan stared at the embers.
His hands hung down at his sides.
My fingertips trembled slightly from the force I exerted.
In the corridor.
Su Wan's hurried footsteps approached.
"Chen Yan! Marco's team is in trouble!"
Su Wan burst through the door, clutching a newspaper soaked by the rain.
"Henry committed suicide. In the restroom behind Hall 3."
Chen Yan did not turn around.
He watched the white beam of light on the screen gradually dim.
"I know."
Chen Yan replied.
"He didn't commit suicide. He was the last edited title sequence left behind by Lu Haiming."
Chen Yan turned around.
He stepped onto the pile of black film ash and walked towards Su Wan.
Go and inform Vincent.
"Cancel all premiere parties tonight."
"Transport all the original negatives of 'Thunder' to the Danielli Hotel."
Su Wan was stunned; the paper crumpled in her hand.
"What do you want to do?"
Su Wan asked.
Chen Yan straightened the collar of his trench coat.
He walked past Su Wan and headed into the heart of the storm.
"He wants to buy my life."
Chen Yan replied.
"Then I'll cut my life into pieces and burn them for him to see, one by one."
at this time.
The chimes of the Grand Palace Bell Tower pierced through the rain.
Dull.
slow.
It looks just like the film after it has finished rolling.
That crisp "click".
fracture.