Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Spy Film

Often, before real danger arrives, you get a kind of premonition. We call it the "sixth sense."

Unconsciously, Song Yu also developed a kind of sixth sense.

She sat on the edge of the bed, repeatedly refreshing the live news and ticket booking system. Until suddenly, a piece of news that would decide her life or death flashed up.

Her boat ticket was canceled without reason.

After that, no matter which day she tried to book a ticket to leave Star S, and no matter the destination, the system only showed cold, four words:

"Booking failed."

She couldn’t leave.

They suspected her.

For some reason, when the worst result suddenly crashed down on her, Song Yu’s heart was strangely calm.

She groped her way to the bathroom and washed her face with cold water. The reflection in the mirror showed her exhaustion clearly: sunken cheeks, dark circles under her eyes, her face pale almost to transparency.

The bright light of the makeup mirror cast a ring-shaped eclipse shadow in her pupils.

Her dark eyes were like two miniature black holes, absorbing all the light.

She realized she had finally become the prey in a deadly cat-and-mouse game. Either tonight or tomorrow, sooner or later, someone would come to catch her. Every second she spent in this city now felt like a long wait before execution.

What should she do? Wait to die? Or resist?

The word "resist" was the first thought that appeared in Song Yu’s mind, and she even felt a trace of absurdity.

How could she resist? She wasn’t a female spy, didn’t have superpowers, and was isolated and helpless on this cold planet. No friends, the police were untrustworthy, and she didn’t even know who the enemies hiding in the shadows were.

But still, she was unwilling to sit and wait for death.

She had clearly survived a terrorist attack, and it took great effort to decide to break free from the mess left by Li Cong. She still had so many films to shoot…

How could she fail at the last step and die here?

Moreover, Song Yu thought, she was originally just a last-minute replacement called by Li Cong.

This matter had nothing to do with her.

Why should she?

Calm down. Song Yu told herself. Calm down.

She could do it.

At least, these people only locked her boat ticket—they hadn’t come directly to catch her, nor had they directly burned her to death in that fire that was meant to destroy evidence.

What does this mean?It means they are only suspecting her.

But they don’t know exactly what the chip in her hand recorded.

She still has one last trump card.

This gave Song Yu a faint glimmer of hope.

She sat back on the bed, gazing up at the floor-to-ceiling window in front of her. Outside, the stars shone brilliantly, and the warm yellow lights cast a dreamy glow. She, however, felt like an insect trapped in amber, unable to move at all.

In a flash, a movie line popped into her mind.

“Ten minutes. How will you escape the hotel in ten minutes?”

That was from a spy film Song Yu had watched before.

She remembered the film well: it was the only feature-length film in recent years besides her own, and it had miserably flopped at the box office. Li Cong often mentioned it to teach her:

“The runtime was a full 91 minutes, too long. No wonder it only sold a few hundred thousand tickets.”

But Song Yu knew its failure had little to do with length; it was because it was too boring and too realistic.

Compared to fast-paced action scenes, the film preferred long-winded dialogues flaunting extensive intelligence and counter-surveillance knowledge—supposedly because the director was a former intelligence officer who self-funded the project out of passion. That explained everything perfectly.

Looking back now, one scene stood out: the male lead teaching how to escape a hotel within ten minutes while flirting with a woman in a nightclub.

“Never stay in a budget hotel,” he said with a smile. “They’re full of AI cameras and fully automated services, making escape impossible.”

“What then?”

“You must stay at a five-star hotel. The better the hotel, the more they insist on human service. As long as there’s a person, there’s a way. Of course, first, you need to order room service…”

At that moment, Song Yu stood by the door, memorizing the dialogue, taking a deep breath, waiting for the delivery person to enter.

Calm down. She repeated the word to herself, pretending she was still on set, just acting according to the script. Nothing difficult.

The doorbell rang. The server, wearing a mask, pushed a cart and stood at the door.

Perhaps even fate was on her side: not only was the server a girl, but her figure also somewhat resembled Song Yu’s.

Song Yu tried her best to hide her nervousness and let the girl in.

She looked into the girl’s eyes and slowly smiled warmly—once she made this start, everything seemed easier.

Song Yu lied that she was a variety show performer, completing a game similar to "Transformation Plan."

The task was to swap identities with a five-star hotel server.

She begged the girl to help her and promised a generous reward: “You don’t have to do anything but sleep here for one night; later, people from the production team might pretend to be police or something and come looking for me. If you can resist their approach, you’ll get extra bonus afterward.”

Convincing this young girl was a piece of cake for her.

After all, Song Yu was a director.

No matter how good or bad a director’s eloquence is, the most important skill is to make others believe in you anytime, anywhere.

The girl happily swapped clothes with her.Song Yu slowly pushed the food cart out, lowering her head and continuing to recall the lines from that spy film.

“The hotel staff passage is often a major security loophole: veteran employees love to slack off here, so they’ll do everything to sabotage the surveillance.”

BINGO.

All she needed was to swipe an ID—no facial recognition at all—and Song Yu passed through unhindered, coming straight to the employee lounge on the basement level via the staff passage.

Another girl was inside changing uniforms, grumbling as she changed, complaining about the stupid and inhumane night shift schedule and the oversized, shapeless secondhand uniforms.

The spy film played out perfectly.

Song Yu looked at the girl’s shiny nose ring and tattoos on her fingers, smiling as she suggested, “Want to swap with me? — Just lend me your casual clothes for the night. Mine’s way too tacky; who knows if someone will invite me for a drink tonight.”

The girl’s eyes lit up: “No problem, beautiful. You wear this, you’ll kill the whole scene instantly.”

Ten minutes later, a hip-hop girl appeared in the back alley. She wore a baggy hoodie and sexy hot pants, exposing two long, straight legs.

A baseball cap and oversized sunglasses hid her face completely.

She leaned against the wall. The wall behind was covered in dirty graffiti, and above her head hung a broken surveillance camera. This was, of course, Song Yu’s carefully chosen spot, because:

“The perfect hiding place is the hotel’s back alley. Security here is usually poor; after all, if a dishonest employee steals from guests, most likely the deals happen here.”

Song Yu couldn’t help but smile victoriously.

For a moment, she forgot which acting master had said that actors must have a sense of conviction. She recited the lines rigidly and managed to get through the first half without major trouble.

The problem was, escaping the hotel was just the beginning.

What next?

It was already 3 a.m. The air faintly smelled of urine—perhaps a homeless person had spent the night here.

A broken street lamp stubbornly emitted a faint yellow light, dimly illuminating the concrete wall opposite.

Faded graffiti crawled over the gray-white wall like indelible tattoos.

Song Yu casually glanced over.

At first, she thought the reflective pattern was part of the graffiti, but then she realized it was a poster—and the moment she clearly saw the person in the poster, her heart nearly stopped.

Beneath the broken street lamp.

In the filthy, foul air.

She saw his features clearly for the first time.

That man.

The man who stood behind the curtain on the second floor and shot the killer dead.

She saw a handsome yet aggressive face.

A short, prisoner-like crew cut, narrow eyes, thin lips, and a sharp jawline.

His open, wrinkled shirt collar made him look like a playboy, exuding a bit of dark desolation.But the eyes staring straight into the camera were like a sharp, gleaming long knife, cutting directly through the endless night.

For some reason, at this moment, Song Yu’s heart raced wildly.

Bang bang bang, rumbling, as if it wanted to burst out of her chest and tear her whole body apart.

Because this was a campaign poster.

The man on the poster was running for governor of S Star.

Countless voices appeared simultaneously in Song Yu’s ears.

At one moment, Ji Wen said: “My dad said there will be a new governor election next year here, it’s a chaotic time…”

At another moment, a radio broadcast said: “At this critical time of the election, will Liang Yan still be able to secure re-election…”

Song Yu finally understood what this fake attack tonight was really about.

It was a self-directed, self-acted hero rescue “beauty” play.

To curry favor with the duke’s son and gain political support from an imperial duke. Of course, it also aimed to smear the current governor.

Suddenly, the large graffiti on the wall became a confusing, overlapping illusion before Song Yu’s eyes. She felt dizzy, as if about to be swallowed by her own shadow, and had to reach out to the wall to steady herself.

Even though she had imagined the seriousness of tonight’s event, she never expected it to be this grave.

This was politics, the kind that devours people.

But by now, it was too late to be afraid.

What should she do? Keep acting out the spy film plan? Would that be too childish?

Song Yu couldn’t help but keep staring at the person before her.

Unfortunately, she still didn’t know his name—the edge of the poster was torn.

But this face shouldn’t even appear on a campaign poster.

His expression was too cold, always showing some casualness and unruliness, with not a hint of a politician’s friendliness; instead, he looked like a ruthless gangster.

Deadly danger, deadly attraction.

In her subconscious, an even more terrifying thought suddenly gripped Song Yu’s fragile heart:

What if—just a one in ten thousand chance—he had also watched that movie?

In the surveillance footage, a tall, slender woman in staff uniform calmly pushed a food cart past. Passing under the camera, she naturally lowered her head, just avoiding facial recognition.

Of course, her back was too straight, and her bearing too graceful.

A waitress would never have that kind of aura.

Still, for a beginner, disguising to this level showed potential.

Chi Yan smoked and laughed: “Is security completely blind?”

The hacker who broke into the hotel system said bluntly, “Exactly because there’s no security. Along the entire staff passage, only this one camera still works; the others have all been destroyed.”“If Chen Songyu had taken any normal hotel passage, as long as facial recognition caught her, it would have triggered an alert on our side. But she specifically took the staff passage…”

“She’s filming a movie, right? How does she know so much about the hotel’s security loopholes?” Chi Yan raised his eyebrows, lowering his eyes to look at her blurry profile in the footage.

The faint glow from the screen illuminated his handsome face, even showing a hint of ferocity.

Whether it was from staying up late and nicotine overdose,

or from a sudden thrill,

the two words “director” and “hotel” sparked a strange chemical reaction in Chi Yan’s mind. He suddenly thought of an interesting possibility:

He recalled watching a very boring spy film.

Boring, but not entirely useless.

“Check the staff lounge,” Chi Yan said, “and the hotel’s back alley.”

His gloomy gaze locked onto the pale neck visible as the woman lowered her head, like a beast sniffing the petal in its paw.

This cat-and-mouse game seemed more interesting than he had imagined.

And he always admired the prey’s struggle.

After all, the more fierce the struggle, the sweeter the taste when he bit through the throat.