After wrapping up that night, Jiang Kaiwen had just sat down in a corner of the set when his phone buzzed repeatedly with Weibo push notifications.
The Weibo trending list was completely dominated by 《The Grand Game》.
#TheGrandGameFinale# rushed to number one, blowing up.
#ChuYansAscensionKillerGaze# climbed up right behind it, also blowing up.
#ChuYanLinZhengPavilionFarewell# broke into the top three, also blowing up.
By the seventh spot, the hashtag had become #JiangYuesActingDeified#.
Film and television critique influencers started weighing in one after another, releasing long reviews. On Bilibili and Douyin, fan-edited compilation videos of Chu Yan spread rapidly within an hour.
The song 《Dance of the Breaking Array》 paired with the footage of him carrying a sword into Taiji Hall had countless netizens crying out that their DNA was reacting.
When Su Qing's message popped up, Jiang Kaiwen was still holding his phone, frantically scrolling through the trending topics.
【Kaiwen, look at the trending topics! It blew up! Everything blew up!】
The next message jumped out immediately after.
【The business email inbox is frozen too! There are too many server requests, I thought our backend was under attack!】
Jiang Kaiwen immediately handed his phone to Jiang Yue. “Third Brother, Sister Qing says the inbox blew up.”
Jiang Yue glanced at it. He was sitting to the side, browsing the messages in 《The Grand Game》's crew group chat.
Zhao Songcheng had just sent a massive red envelope of 8,888 yuan in the group, with the caption: 【Until we meet again in the martial world!】
Jiang Yue casually claimed the red envelope, and he got the luckiest draw.
He typed a few words in reply: 【The mountains are high and the waters are long; until we meet again.】
Cheng Songran clapped his hands in the center of the set, holding a megaphone.
“Everyone! Today's shoot has wrapped up perfectly! We're just one step away from the entire crew wrapping up! Tonight is my treat—authentic Shancheng cave hot pot!”
A cheer erupted from the set.
Jiang Kaiwen didn't have time to reply to any more messages and cheered along.
Inside the hot pot restaurant, Jiang Yue watched the boisterous crowd around him. As the aroma of the hot pot soup base drifted out, his shoulders relaxed slightly.
The pot had just started boiling, and before they could even put in the beef tripe and duck intestines, Su Qing's call came through to Jiang Kaiwen's phone.
Jiang Kaiwen picked up and casually turned on the speakerphone. “Sister Qing, slow down. What's the situation?”
“It blew up.”
Su Qing was extremely excited on the other end. “The inbox really blew up. Quite a few of the top drama projects have high ratings, and there are tons of commercial offers—pharmaceuticals, sports brands, smartphones, and even luxury brands have sent inquiry emails.”
The sound of keyboard typing came from her end; she was clearly still filtering the emails.
Jiang Kaiwen's eyes lit up. “Luxury brands?”
Su Qing immediately poured cold water on his excitement. “Inquiry emails aren't contracts. Let the boss finish filming first.”
As the list of resources Su Qing sent afterward popped up on the phone screen, Jiang Yue flipped his phone face down on the table.
Jiang Kaiwen was stunned. “You're not going to look?”
Jiang Yue picked up his chopsticks. “Let's eat first.”
“But these are A-Tier scripts.”
“The scripts won't run away.”
Jiang Kaiwen looked at him, then at the hot pot. “What about the commercial offers then?”
Jiang Yue picked up a piece of beef tripe. “The commercials won't cook faster than the tripe.”
Jiang Kaiwen was silent for two seconds before saying to the other end of the line, “Sister Qing, did you hear that? Our boss is currently most concerned about beef tripe.”
Su Qing laughed on the other end. “Alright, but don't think you can escape a single email once you get back to Donghai.”
The cave hot pot from the night before could be considered a shot of adrenaline Cheng Songran gave the entire crew.
The next morning, for the final scene of 《Prisoner's Game in the Mirror》, the crew returned to the abandoned studio where they had first started filming.
According to the script, after all the grudges had settled and Jiang Hongyan was sentenced, Chen Jingan returned alone to the rooftop where the incident occurred three years ago.
Here, he was to make his final farewell to his other personality, “Lu Zhichen,” as well as his past self.
Cheng Songran had specifically waited for a cloudy day unique to Shancheng for this scene.
Mist hung suspended in the air like an indissoluble melancholy.
“Attention all departments, final sweep of the set! Except for the core camera crew, everyone withdraw to the stairwell!”
Cheng Songran held his walkie-talkie. “For this scene, emotion is the sole focus. Brother Jiang, are you ready?”
At the edge of the rooftop, Jiang Yue stood tall.
The wind filled his thin shirt, making his back profile look exceptionally desolate against the gloomy, gray sky. He didn't look back, only slowly raising his hand toward the empty rooftop to signal that he was ready.
“Action!”
The camera slowly zoomed in.
Chen Jingan stood in the exact spot from three years ago, looking down at the empty ground below. This was where his nightmare had begun.
A few days ago, while clearing out the locker Jiang Hongyan had left with the 《Prisoner's Game》 crew, the prop team had accidentally unearthed a yellowed entertainment tabloid.
The report was very short and had never made any waves on the internet, yet it shattered all the whitewashed peace.
【At the moment the on-set accident occurred three years ago, the suspected sole witness, Chen Jingan, stood frozen in silence for over ten seconds without calling for help immediately. He later fainted due to accidental injuries until staff members arrived.】
This was the true knot that had fed Jiang Hongyan's paranoia for three years. He knew full well he was the killer, yet he stubbornly believed that Chen Jingan's ten-plus seconds of silence was equivalent to tacit consent—meaning he was an accomplice.
Thus, he had used every possible means to nail Chen Jingan to the pillar of shame, using it to balance his already twisted and collapsed psyche.
Chen Jingan pulled the photocopy of the report from his pocket. His fingers were somewhat stiff from the cold wind, and the edges of the paper trembled slightly at his fingertips.
This was the complete truth.
The law declared him innocent, and the world deemed him guiltless.
But he knew better than anyone that at that moment three years ago, he had indeed stood frozen in silence for a full ten seconds out of fear and a momentary lapse of cowardice.
Those ten seconds became a nightmare he couldn't escape for three years, and the breeding ground that nurtured the hard shell of “Lu Zhichen.”
“So, you didn't appear just to fight Jiang Hongyan.”
Chen Jingan spoke softly, his voice blown to pieces by the wind, scattering into the air.
He looked at the empty space beside him, as if another person were truly standing there.
“You were here to judge me.”
The moment the words fell, Chen Jingan's expression underwent an extremely subtle shift.
His gaze gradually lost focus, the tiny remnant of fragile light deep in his pupils swallowed as if by a black hole. When he refocused, only disdain and a powerful sense of control remained in his eyes.
Lu Zhichen had taken over.
“You're too cowardly, Chen Jingan.”
Lu Zhichen's voice was deep, and even his posture straightened a bit as he slightly raised his chin. “If you can't even face yourself, how could you face the hunt that Jiang Hongyan so meticulously planned?”
At this moment, Jiang Yue's acting had reached a transcendent state.
Without any exaggerated physical movements, solely through the transition of his gaze, the micro-adjustments of the muscles at the corners of his mouth, and the shifting of his neck from relaxed to straight, he completed a dialogue between two completely different personalities within the same body.
Outside the set, Cheng Songran stared intently at the monitor, terrified of missing even the slightest detail.
“Now, Jiang Hongyan has been brought to justice, and the truth has come to light.”
Chen Jingan's voice rang out again. He reclaimed control of his body, his voice laced with an empty exhaustion, yet also carrying a hint of relief. “You should leave now too.”
“Are you sure?”
A cold sneer belonging to Lu Zhichen flashed across his lips. “Without me, are you sure you can survive in this cutthroat quagmire?”
Chen Jingan looked up at the gloomy sky. The gray clouds hung so low they seemed almost within reach.
He suddenly smiled—a smile of surviving a disaster and letting go of everything, clean and pure, with a hint of childlike innocence.
“I don't want to live in the quagmire anymore.”
After going through all this, he had grown tired of this kind of life. The lights, the cameras, and the applause—he no longer wanted to chase any of it.
He tore the photocopy of the report that documented his three-year inner demon into pieces. Opening his hand, he let the paper scraps flutter and scatter in the wind like a flock of butterflies, drifting off to places unknown.
This was Chen Jingan's final line in this story.
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