Half an hour later,
at a private kitchen restaurant in Spring City.
Jiang Nian was digging into a big bowl of rice, piling on forkfuls of wild mushrooms, savoring the incredible burst of umami flooding his mouth.
“Damn!”
“Damn!”
“How do they make these little things so freaking tasty?”
His mouth was completely stuffed, and he was eating with sheer, unbridled joy.
Seeing his absolutely savage table manners, Yang Mi couldn’t help but say, “Slow down, slow down—nobody’s gonna take it from you. Look at you, what’s the rush?”
That said, her chopsticks never stopped moving, continuously piling food into his bowl to make sure he had enough.
And Jiang Nian wasn’t one to refuse.
After plowing through seven or eight bowls of rice single-handedly and wiping out half the dishes on the table by himself,
he finally felt about eighty percent full. He set his chopsticks down with a satisfied sigh, let out a burp,
then picked up a toothpick and leaned back, looking at Yang Mi, Xu Ke, and Gao Yuan’er. “So… where were we?”
“Oh right—we were talking about how I survived, weren’t we?”
He remembered their questions back at the police station.
At that, Xu Ke and the others perked up, curiosity gleaming in their eyes. “Yeah, Mr. Jiang, how did you pull it off? And when you came in earlier, you were covered in blood—what was that all about?”
They’d been stuck inside the station the whole time,
so of course they’d seen Jiang Nian when Ni Jingliang brought him back.
Only back then, they’d assumed he was one of the terrorists—none of them had even considered it was Jiang Nian.
Jiang Nian waved a hand casually. “Nothing much. I just took those guys out and got a little blood splattered on me.”
Unlike when he’d been talking to the officers, where he kept saying “I was so scared,”
in private conversation, he had no such reservations.
As he described his fight with the sunglasses-wearing men, he made it sound like a total breeze—like he’d been playing with them the whole time.
Everyone around the table was instantly hooked.
They couldn’t help pressing for more details, wanting to hear everything.
And Jiang Nian, seeing their interest, didn’t hold back. He embellished the story a bit and gave them a blow-by-blow of his day’s ordeal.
The group gasped and exclaimed in astonishment—for a full hour, the shock on their faces never faded.
It wasn’t that they were easily impressed.
It was that they’d never seen anything like this!
One man taking out eighteen guys? That alone was insane.
But the kicker? All eighteen of those guys were armed with heavy crossbows that packed more punch than guns!
This wasn’t just impressive—this was next-level legendary. It was like a heifer doing a handstand—absolutely sky-high awesome!
“Hey, Mr. Jiang, I just had an idea. What if we turned your experience into a movie? Think it could work?”
Xu Ke’s eyes lit up as a business opportunity suddenly clicked in his mind.
Adapting real-life cases had always been a popular genre.
In Jiang Nian’s previous life, there had been plenty of them—
like Saving Mr. Wu, The Big Shot, Mine Sweeper, Three Billion Detective, Operation Mekong, and so on.
Pretty much all of them had been hits.
Now, Xu Ke saw that same potential in Jiang Nian’s story and couldn’t help getting excited.
Before Jiang Nian could respond, Yang Mi rolled her eyes and shot back, “Director Xu, I think you’ve got dollar signs in your eyes.”
“Jiang Nian just went through all that—he hasn’t even had a chance to catch his breath—and you’re already thinking about adaptations? Don’t you think that’s a little much?”
Xu Ke immediately realized that bringing this up right now was indeed a bit inconsiderate.
So he stood up, raised his glass, and looked at Jiang Nian. “Sorry, Mr. Jiang. I spoke without thinking. Let me drink three glasses as a penalty—please don’t take it the wrong way.”
“It’s fine.”
Jiang Nian waved it off, saying it was no big deal, then took a sip of his own drink. “To be honest though, even if I said yes, you probably wouldn’t be able to make it.”
“Oh? Why’s that?” Xu Ke asked.
Jiang Nian sighed. “Think about the nature of this incident. If the authorities had handled it officially, that’d be one thing. But the problem is, I’m the one who resolved it—and I’m just an actor. Do you really think the authorities would let us turn this into a movie? What kind of message would that send?”
Xu Ke paused, the realization slowly dawning on him, and an awkward smile crept onto his face.
He’d been so caught up in imagining the box office numbers
that he’d completely overlooked that angle.
“As always, Mr. Jiang, you’re the one with the clear head!”
Xu Ke sighed in admiration, downed his three penalty drinks, sat back down, and the conversation continued.
As they chatted,
Ring-ring-ring—
suddenly, a phone rang.
Everyone looked around and realized it was Xu Ke’s phone.
Xu Ke was a bit puzzled himself—the caller was Zhang Zhiliang.
He muttered a quiet “what’s this about?” and answered.
Zhang Zhiliang’s voice came through the speaker: “Director Xu, our commercial shows probably won’t be happening for the next couple of days!”
Since Xu Ke had it on speaker, everyone at the table heard it loud and clear.
Xu Ke frowned, the alcohol already wearing off. “What happened? Did CBD tell us we can’t use the venue?”
“No, it’s that CBD—it’s been sealed off!”
“What?”
Xu Ke blinked in surprise. “How did CBD get sealed?”
“No idea. I was packing up our stuff, everything was fine, and then suddenly the cops showed up and said they had to temporarily shut it down for a day or two for some kind of routine inspection.”
Zhang Zhiliang recounted what he’d just seen.
Xu Ke frowned deeper. “What about the other malls? Wanda?”
“They’re sealed too. I just asked around—apparently, all the major supermarkets and shopping centers in Spring City are closed for inspections right now.”
Zhang Zhiliang said.
At that, Xu Ke was completely baffled.
Wait, what?
Every major supermarket and mall in the entire city—all closed?
What the hell was going on?!
A big place like CBD getting shut down was already rare because of its sheer size.
But every major commercial venue in the whole city getting sealed at once? That was practically unheard of!
And yet, here it was, happening right now.
“Jesus…”
Xu Ke felt a chill of realization and slowly turned his gaze toward Jiang Nian.
He didn’t have any concrete proof,
but something told him this whole mess was probably connected to Jiang Nian—or rather, to everything that had gone down today.
And Jiang Nian, meeting Xu Ke’s stare, couldn’t help but twitch his mouth.
Because he could read exactly what Xu Ke was thinking from that look alone.
Damn it, you rude bastard—you’re really something, you know that?!
