Episode 7: The Human World Behind the Glitter

The rainy night had stopped. The sky was dark and hazy, dim and lightless. In the bustling city, busy people hurried along, becoming the busiest people in this city. After a whole night of rain, the ground was wet, uneven, full of puddles, covered with fallen leaves beaten down. After a whole night of ravaging, the once-clean city had been polluted, and sanitation workers had begun early in the morning to clear away last night's filth.

People's memories, or their attention to a hot event, fade away. What happened in recent days is forgotten, yet Fan Shiqi's world remained shrouded in a damp greyness.

He had not gone out for two days. He shut himself in his room, unable to understand why they would not let him go. He repeatedly recalled his memories of Yu Mengge when he was alive, so blurry. He vaguely recalled fragments he could not quite remember… They had entered "Go for It, Singer!" together, made the top ten, became new stars in show business, stepped into the music world together, and advanced together toward their dreams. His memory began to blur again… But Yu Mengge had refused to become someone else's pawn, refused to yield. He chose a different road from his own, and in the end, on that night, he fell from a building and died —

The curtains were drawn tight, the phone switched off, even the doorbell wires pulled out. He felt someone was always watching him. He seemed haunted by a soul, always feeling that everything about him was being watched. He looked around nervously, afraid that someone would discover his emotions at that moment.

In the apartment there was only the low hum of the refrigerator, like some invisible breathing in the distance. He had locked that phone away in a drawer, but every night he could hear the message notification sounding — that sound, cold, seeping through the cracks in the walls, as if someone in another world were waiting for his reply.

He refused to respond to anyone. He hugged his knees tightly, staring blankly at that phone, as if waiting for some news of death. Just then there was a knock at the door, which gave his nerves a terrible jolt. He hurriedly hugged a pillow, his heart tightening, muttering to himself, "Don't come over. They arranged it all. It wasn't me…"

Outside the door, several more hurried knocks came, and a voice called, "Fan Shiqi, are you in there? It's Wang Xia, your agent. What's wrong!" Seeing that he did not open the door for a long time, and thinking he might have done something foolish, she immediately took out a key, opened the door, and rushed in hurriedly. Seeing the mess on the floor and the pitch darkness, she said, "Fan…" then tripped over a beer bottle at her feet. "Ouch! What are you doing!" She turned on the light and saw him curled into a ball, hiding in a corner. She sighed, "My dear ancestor, how big a deal is this! Cyberbullying isn't the first time. You make trouble day and night. You know perfectly well how things work in this circle…"

Hearing her say this, Fan Shiqi finally reacted. He immediately stood up, full of energy, and said excitedly, "Is there still time for everything?"

Wang Xia casually picked up a beer bottle from the floor, set it on the table, and smiled faintly. "I've already talked it over with them. Very soon everything will be suppressed. As for what happened back then, you'd better not say anything. Let it rot in your stomach."

Fan Shiqi exclaimed, "What happened back then — they were all participants. I was just…"

Wang Xia hushed him. "Don't say it. You'd better shut your mouth! Otherwise you know what the consequences will be —"

Fan Shiqi covered his mouth and said softly, "I don't want to be blacklisted!"

Wang Xia's face hardened, and she sneered, "At worst you can go back to your old trade. It's not as if you've never slept with people for favours. Anyway, you're no match for Yu Mengge. He's far better than you. You're just a piece of trash —"

Fan Shiqi looked panicked. He opened his eyes and nearly fell off the bed. It turned out to be a dream. He had had this dream again. He had been having it for days, always the same dream repeating. His nerves were extremely tense.

On the third day, his spirits eased slightly, and at last he could not resist opening his laptop. As the screen lit up, a new file had appeared on the desktop.

[FOR YOU]

He stared at that email for a long time. With trembling hands and a concentrated expression, he finally clicked it open. The image was Yu Mengge's face — pale, eerily close, and those eyes staring straight into the depths of his soul.

"You think this will blow over soon? You too will be abandoned by them, turned into their plaything!"

The voice was low, slow, word by word, as if squeezed from the throat, yet forceful, piercing the psychological defences deep inside him.

Fan Shiqi slammed the laptop shut, trembling all over. His breathing was rapid, his forehead covered in cold sweat. That feeling of being watched made it impossible for him to think. His whole mind tensed up, his expression turned strange, and he gripped his own head tightly. Don't think of him. Don't let him enter his mind. Delete it. But no matter how he tried, he could not delete it. Fragment after fragment appeared in his mind. He completely broke down mentally.

He began to suspect —

Was his agent in league with them?

Did the investor of the new film want to use him for hype?

Why did those media reporters always wait downstairs from his building?

Even the delivery boy's eyes seemed to be sizing him up.

Those fans kept cursing him online without stopping.

He even suspected — had that video been deliberately "leaked" by someone?

At that moment, his phone rang, and the ringtone gave him a terrible fright. He opened his phone and browsed the online discussions. No one cared at all about how he felt. He looked at the number displayed on the phone — Song Yiyi. He answered at once. From the other end came an arrogant, crisp voice: "Fan Shiqi, I've called you several times. Why did you switch off and play missing?"

Fan Shiqi looked at himself in the mirror, haggard and pale, and said coldly, "Song Yiyi, what do you want from me?"

Song Yiyi laughed loudly several times. "Ha ha, by the way, I saw what happened on the red carpet. You don't need to look so gloomy. About what happened back then — you know, I know, heaven knows, earth knows. What can a dead man do to you?"

Fan Shiqi's mind was in a daze, and he began to talk nonsense. "He's back. He didn't die. He's back for revenge. At the moment he fell, his eyes hated us —"

Song Yiyi laughed loudly several more times. "Don't be so sensitive. This matter has been suppressed from above. Nothing has happened for so many years!"

Fan Shiqi shook his head. "No, it's not over! He's always been here, right beside us." His mind grew hazy, and he casually tossed the phone onto the sofa, talking to himself, "He's back, he's coming for us, ha ha, coming for every one of you —"

Song Yiyi heard a crackling sound from the other end of the phone, and the call cut off. She cursed casually, "Gone mad, has he!"

Late at night, he seemed cut off from the world. Washing his face in the bathroom, he looked up, and the reflection in the mirror smiled faintly.

— That was not his smile.

He was so frightened he could not utter a word. He collapsed onto the floor, muttering to himself, "He hasn't left… He's still here…"

That night, he barely slept.

The hands of the clock on the wall stopped at three in the morning.

The room fell into utter silence.

Quiet in a way that made one's hair stand on end.

Suddenly, the phone screen lit up on its own.

A video message arrived on his phone and played again —

"Fan Xiao Che, save me, I don't want to die, I can't hold on much longer, save me, ahhh…" Then came a scream that shook the heavens. Fan Shiqi hurriedly threw the phone in his hand away, his face deathly pale, shaking his head and repeating nonstop, "It wasn't me, it was them —"

This time, it was a complete recording, yet with no image of a person. He vaguely saw Yu Mengge, no longer on the rooftop.

He stood behind Fan Shiqi, right in the reflection of the screen.

At five in the morning, the city's sky was still dim, a hazy grey. On the quiet streets, pedestrians began their busy day, and sanitation workers began sweeping the city, bringing it a bright, clean look. After a night had passed, the city welcomed a new day again, and the air after the rainstorm carried the smell of cold iron.

Situ Hengyi stood downstairs from Fan Shiqi's apartment building, looking up at a window that had not been closed properly. A corner of the curtain was lifted by the wind, and a faint fluorescent glow flickered inside — he knew the Yu Mengge case was not an ordinary suicide scene.

When the police received the report, Fan Shiqi was sitting on the floor in a sorry state, already mentally deranged, his eyes hollow, covered in cold sweat, not as if he were acting, murmuring over and over a single sentence: "He's back… He's right here…"

Over these past days, Situ Hengyi had also looked into some of Fan Shiqi's past. Before his debut, he had entered "Go for It, Singer!" together with Yu Mengge, made the top ten, and signed together with Tianze Entertainment, developing together afterwards. Then three years ago, Yu Mengge fell from a building and died. The police ruled it suicide, excluded any criminal case, and closed the case.

But many Yu fans believed Yu Mengge would not have killed himself, and that the authorities, to cover up the truth, had stirred heated online debate before, though in the end it came to nothing. Now, three years later, at Fang Jin's premiere, he had been brought back before the public in an extreme way, stirring people's memories, while Fan Shiqi's past, exposed through cyberbullying, became the focus of online discussion, and some even questioned whether he was connected to the Yu case.

Situ Hengyi himself did not understand show-business gossip, but after looking at his file, his past file, and the cyberbullying file, he found it genuinely strange, full of many questions. Especially after the Yu Mengge case, he had rapidly developed, becoming a top star, and had worked with several well-known directors. He also found that he had worked on a film with Fang Jin, and that after Fang Jin's death, not a single person in show business had come out to speak a word for him, and all his videos had even been taken down.

The entire entertainment world was avoiding one person. He judged that person to be — Yu Mengge. They were all afraid to mention Yu Mengge, and wanted to block anything that might allow a breakthrough to emerge.

Situ Hengyi bent down, holding a notebook, and turned to a page. Fan Shiqi's neighbours had reported him. Over these days they had been frightened by him, always hearing crying, screaming, and arguing, and seeming to hear things being smashed. The neighbours were so scared they thought he was going to kill himself. The recent cyberbullying had been too fierce; anyone would be unable to bear the psychological pressure.

Situ Hengyi received the report and went out on the call with Lin Fan. Seeing the scene in chaos, with a musty smell, as if he had shut himself in for days, and after the police knocked several times with no one coming to open the door, they had to force their way in. In the bathroom they found Fan Shiqi, mentally broken, lying in the bathtub, and thought he was going to kill himself. It turned out he was drunk.

Lin Fan looked around at the chaos, frowned, and clicked her tongue. "So top stars are just like us ordinary people. I thought they were all glamorous!"

Situ Hengyi said coldly, "Lin Fan, go check the scene for any clues, then call the medical staff to examine him, see if he has any injuries, and then take a statement."

Lin Fan exclaimed in surprise, "Boss, this isn't a criminal case, is it!"

Situ Hengyi smiled coldly. "The neighbours called the police. The bureau needs a statement for every case. You're a police officer and you don't know the rules?"

Having said that, he looked over the messy scene. The bathroom mirror had been smashed, and every shard reflected Fan Shiqi's face, while in one piece of reflective glass there was a blurry outline, like another face. The technicians said it was an illusion caused by the angle of refraction.

But Situ Hengyi knew it was not an illusion.

Because he had seen that face.

Three years ago, in the file on Yu Mengge's fall, his mentor had once been in charge of the case. At the time he was still in his internship and could not take part in the investigation. That night, beside the body lay scattered an unmailed envelope, bearing fingerprints that belonged to Fan Shiqi.

At the time he could not take part in the investigation, and afterwards the police ruled it suicide.

But he had always believed the case was not such a simple suicide. Since the relevant case files at the bureau were all encrypted, he could not consult more information. Now, the methods of this series of cases were all pointing to the Yu Mengge case.

Situ Hengyi closed his eyes, and Yu Mengge's smile flashed through his mind — that gentle expression, which had now become a nightmare that hundreds of millions of people could not shake off.

"So people can be raised on lies, and in the end be swallowed by the truth."

He murmured softly and took out an old black-and-white photo — a group photo of Yu Mengge and Fan Shiqi.

The two smiled brilliantly, with an unfinished film premiere in the background, and on the back of the photo there was a small line of writing: "If one day I die, please don't believe anyone."

Situ Hengyi's finger lingered on that sentence for a long time. Perhaps between truth and lies there is only a single thought in a person's mind. The night was about to grow darker and darker, yet dawn would also quietly arrive.

He looked up toward the distant dawn.

Before the sun rises, the colours of the world are grey — that is the moment when night and morning cross — and also the world of truth and lies.

"This drama is not over yet."

He closed his laptop, turned, and left the scene.

Behind him, in the shattered mirror, a faint glimmer flickered —

As if someone were still watching everything.

That day, the whole entertainment news seemed to explode. Because Fan Shiqi's scandal had exposed him to cyberbullying, he was stripped of all his resources overnight, and the company had spent more than eighty million on him, all of it down the drain. This loss forced the agency to abandon him, and his mental state had also developed problems in recent days.

Xia Zilan looked at the gossip news online. He felt no schadenfreude at all. His assistant kept telling him about today's schedule in his ear, but he was not paying attention at all. He looked up and saw Song Yiyi walk past him, as if she had some urgent matter, hurrying to discuss something with senior management. Usually she acted like a love-struck girl, clinging to handsome young men, but Xia Zilan had no interest in dealing with such a person.

He picked up his phone, switched to the game screen, looked up at the assistant beside him, and said distractedly, "What do I need to be careful about for the next engagement? Better say it all clearly at once."

"Today you have an audition. It's a period drama, and you'll play a young prince…"

At that moment, a loud bang was heard from inside the office, as if something had been smashed, startling the assistant into stopping. Everyone present noticed it too and stopped what they were doing, as if Song Yiyi and Shen Yao had started arguing loudly. They seemed very nervous, afraid that past events would be exposed. One unexpected thing after another had happened, Fan Shiqi had gone mad, and no one knew how much he had actually said.