Life countdown begins, ice queen bursts into security room

Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province.

The Journey to the West crew has been here for three days now.

The filming location for "Havoc in Heaven" was chosen in a man-made stone forest at the foot of Tianmen Mountain, where the huge South Heavenly Gate stands in mid-air.

Today's filming scene is Sun Wukong battling the heavenly soldiers and generals.

Hou Jinlai was suspended by wires, hovering on an eight-meter-high steel frame.

He swung the golden cudgel, his body spun three times in mid-air, and landed precisely on the edge of the cloud platform.

Yang Shuhua stared at the monitor, muttering, "One more take, bend your knees a little more when you jump."

Hou Jinlai shouted from above, "Okay, Director Yang!"

Jiang Fan sat in a folding chair next to the monitor, flipping through the storyboard he had worked on that afternoon.

He didn't have any scenes today, but the "Havoc in Heaven" segment is the one that relies most on special effects and action in the entire series, so he was worried and kept an eye on it the whole time.

Su Yuyan stood to his right, wearing a dark gray cashmere coat. As an investor, she had to be present for such an important occasion.

"This is the seventeenth location. Once we pass this one, we can move on to the next filming location." Su Yuyan glanced at her watch.

Jiang Fan nodded, his gaze sweeping over the wire stunt team.

Three steel cables hang down from the top of the steel frame and are connected to the safety belt around Hou Jinlai's waist.

The wireman crouched behind the control panel, holding the winch lever in his hand.

"Ready!" the wireman shouted into the walkie-talkie.

Hou Jinlai stood on the eight-meter-high platform and stretched his wrists.

"Power on!"

The clapperboard snapped shut.

Hou Jinlai leaped into the air, his body flipping in the air.

The golden cudgel drew an arc, its tip sweeping across the crossbeam of the South Heavenly Gate.

The movements were clean and efficient.

All eyes were on the figure tumbling in mid-air.

suddenly--

With a "bang".

Very short and very crisp.

The steel wire on the left side is broken.

Hou Jinlai's body suddenly swayed to the side.

The remaining steel wires could not withstand the sudden increase in tension and broke one after another within a fraction of a second.

"Slap, slap."

Hou Jinlai's body plummeted straight down.

eight meters.

The entire room fell silent in that instant.

"ah--!!"

A scream rang out.

Yang Shuhua sprang up from her chair, her knee knocking over the monitor stand in front of her.

Su Yuyan dropped her thermos, spilling hot water all over the floor.

Her face was deathly pale, her mouth was open, but she couldn't make a sound.

The extras scattered and fled.

Several stagehands stood there, stunned.

It's too late. It's too late for anyone.

The ground underneath is all steel frame and concrete.

Hou Jinlai struggled desperately in the air, grabbing at everything but unable to grasp anything.

Jiang Fan made a move.

There was no time to hesitate.

The divine movement technique within his body, which cost him 50,000 life points, was fully activated at this moment.

The folding chair was kicked away, and Jiang Fan rushed out with his body low to the ground.

The speed was so fast that Su Yuyan, who was standing next to her, only saw a black afterimage flash past her eyes, and the wind that was stirred up blew the script pages on the ground all over the place.

Directly below the point of impact was a prop rockery more than two meters high.

Jiang Fan rushed to the artificial hill, stepped on a protruding rock on the side of the hill with his left foot, and used the momentum to lift himself into the air.

Su Yuyan witnessed this scene.

A person stepped on a stone and flew up.

Jiang Fan spread his arms in mid-air and precisely locked Hou Jinlai's waist and the back of his head.

The two bodies collided in mid-air, and the inertia carried them downwards at an angle.

Jiang Fan didn't try to withstand the attack. He held Hou Jinlai in his arms, and the moment he landed, he flipped to the side, rolling Hou Jinlai three times on the ground.

The last two people stopped half a meter away from the base of the artificial hill.

If it were any more off-center, the back of its head would have hit the concrete base.

The entire room fell silent.

For a full five seconds, among hundreds of people, not a single person uttered a sound.

Then applause erupted, mixed with sobs and curses from survivors.

Yang Shuhua slumped down next to the overturned monitor, covering her face with her hands, her whole body trembling.

Hou Jinlai lay on the ground, his eyes wide open, his mouth opening and closing, but he managed to utter a single sentence after a long while.

"Holy crap... I'm not dead?"

He turned his head and saw that he was being held in Jiang Fan's arms.

Both of them were covered in dirt. Jiang Fan's hoodie had a large tear on the back, and blood was seeping from his elbow.

Hou Jinlai's right arm was scraped.

"Master..." Hou Jinlai's lips trembled.

He scrambled to his feet and grabbed Jiang Fan's leg.

"Master!!"

The 23-year-old young man, in front of hundreds of people, hugged Jiang Fan's leg and cried loudly.

"Master! You saved my life! You gave me my life! From now on, I'll do whatever you ask me to do!!"

Jiang Fan looked at him for two seconds, then reached out and patted the back of his head.

"Let go for now."

"I won't let go! My life is yours!"

Hou Jinlai cried even louder.

Jiang Fan pried him off his legs and checked the injury on his right arm.

It's a superficial injury; the bones are fine. There's a scrape on my knee, but it's not serious.

"Can you stand up?"

"Yes..." Hou Jinlai stood up, sobbing, his legs still trembling.

The medical team ran over carrying first-aid kits.

Jiang Fan pushed Hou Jinlai over and patted the dirt off his clothes.

He turned around, and the expression on his face changed.

He strode toward the wire control panel.

The applause and noise in the audience suddenly fell silent.

Everyone saw Jiang Fan's face.

The head of the wire stunt team was a fat man in his forties surnamed Zhou.

He stood behind the control panel, his face ashen, his legs trembling.

Jiang Fan walked up to him, reached out with one hand, grabbed Zhou Pangzi by the collar, and pulled him out from behind the control panel.

Zhou Pangzi weighed 170 or 180 pounds, and Jiang Fan grabbed him by the collar with one hand, dragging his toes on the ground.

Several staff members nearby gasped in shock.

Is this the kind of strength a human could have?

"When was the steel wire replaced?"

Fatty Zhou's lips trembled: "Last...last month..."

Jiang Fan turned his head and glanced at the broken steel wire fragment. The break was jagged, and the cross-section was rusted and blackened.

"Where's the equipment purchase order?"

Fatty Zhou was speechless; his eyes darted around, and he couldn't utter a single word.

A young man from the wire stunt team next to him suddenly collapsed to his knees.

"Zhou, Brother Zhou told us to buy secondhand goods... The price quoted was for aviation steel cables, and the difference in price..."

Jiang Fan let go, and Fatty Zhou plopped down on the ground.

That's outrageous! They almost lost their lives just for a small kickback.

Su Yuyan had regained her composure. She took out her phone and dialed the number of the legal director of Times Media.

"Old Sun, take the legal team and fly to Hunan Province tonight. There's been a major safety incident with the wire work equipment on set. Yes, the kind that's a matter of life and death. I'll have the evidence sealed up first; you can take over directly when you arrive."

After hanging up the phone, she looked at the production manager of the film crew.

"The props team, set design team, and all outsourced equipment are to be shut down today. No filming will be allowed until the inspection is complete."

The production manager readily agreed and went to implement it.

The hundreds of people on the film crew watched this scene in complete silence.

Yang Shuhua finally stood up from the ground, holding onto the overturned chair.

She pointed at several people in charge of the props department, her voice hoarse: "You bunch of people almost caused someone to die..."

He cursed for a full five minutes, until his voice was hoarse.

-

That evening, Fatty Zhou was taken away.

They also took away the three people from the wire harness team who knew about it.

The next morning, the legal team from Times Media landed in Zhangjiajie, went straight to the film crew's residence, and sealed all the purchase accounts.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the procurement process for the props department was subcontracted multiple times, with the difference in costs exceeding 400,000 yuan.

In the hotel room, Jiang Fan sat at the table, flipping through the preliminary investigation report sent by the legal team.

Su Yuyan sat opposite him, holding a cup of coffee, her expression not very good.

Hou Jinlai had three stitches in his right arm and his knee was bandaged. He was slumped on the opposite sofa.

"Brother Jiang, if I go back, my dad will definitely beat me to death."

"Did your father hit you because you were injured?"

"No, it's because I cried." Hou Jinlai scratched his head. "He said that people from the Hou family can't cry in front of outsiders."

"But I really thought I was going to die just now. Eight meters, Brother Jiang, the wire snapped in an instant, and my mind went completely blank."

Jiang Fan closed the report. "I will explain it to Elder Hou. It's almost Chinese New Year, so the crew will be taking a break. You can go back to Kyoto to recover from your injury. Your scenes will be rescheduled after the New Year."

Hou Jinlai nodded, stood up, hugged his injured arm, and limped away.