At the instant the impact struck, Ji Huaizhou’s body jolted violently, and the script in his hand slipped to the floor by his feet.
The piercing screech of brakes tore through the silence of the late-night street. The tires scraped harshly against the ground, releasing a scorched smell. His body lurched forward from inertia, his right hand instinctively bracing against the front seat as his gold-rimmed glasses slid halfway down his nose.
“Mr. Ji, I’m sorry!” The driver, Old Chen, spoke with obvious panic, veins bulging on the back of his hands as he gripped the steering wheel. “Someone suddenly ran out—”
The headlights of the Rolls-Royce Phantom illuminated the road ahead—a white figure lay four or five meters away, completely motionless.
Qin Zhou in the passenger seat had already unfastened his seatbelt. As he pushed the door open and stepped out, his tone was full of irritation. “What the hell? In the middle of the night—”
“Check on the person first,” Ji Huaizhou interrupted, his voice calm.
He pushed open the car door, and the cool night air rushed toward him. The street was empty, save for the cold white glow of a 24-hour convenience store sign in the distance. As he approached the figure, his steps paused ever so slightly.
Ji Huaizhou adjusted his glasses again but did not return to the car immediately. Standing in the night, his gaze fell on the girl’s faintly twitching fingers. Following the direction her unconscious hand pointed, he saw a phone lying beside a sewer grate.
The screen was shattered like a spiderweb, yet it still emitted a faint glow.
“Mr. Ji, the ambulance will arrive soon.” Qin Zhou walked back quickly, his expression still unpleasant. “I’ve already contacted the People’s Hospital to prepare the emergency department. But…” He lowered his voice. “I recognize her.”
Ji Huaizhou raised his eyes.
“Zhou Mumu, an eighteenth-tier actress from Xingyao Entertainment. Recently, she’s been flooded with scandals.” Qin Zhou’s tone carried undisguised disdain. “Sleeping her way up, hyping herself, stealing resources—she’s been trending for three days straight. Looks to me like she’s given up and is trying to stage an accident with you to stir up more attention.”
“Stage an accident?” Old Chen could not help but interject. He had just crouched beside Zhou Mumu and had seen more clearly. “Secretary Qin, this girl is seriously injured. When I helped her, her left leg was completely limp—there’s likely a bone injury. And when she ran into the car, she was still holding her phone and looking at it. It didn’t look like she was trying to stage anything—”
“Old Chen, you’ve been driving for twenty years without an accident. I understand you’re kind-hearted,” Qin Zhou cut him off, his tone sharpening. “But have you thought about it? Why now? Why here? Of all times, she runs into the road exactly when Mr. Ji is returning from a company meeting? This street is usually empty at this hour—so how did she just happen to cross here and collide with our car?”
Old Chen opened his mouth but could not find a response.
Qin Zhou turned to Ji Huaizhou, speaking faster. “Mr. Ji, we must handle this carefully. You’re currently negotiating a new film with Director Chen, and next month there’s the international film festival red carpet. If people find out your car hit someone—even if it’s entirely her fault—how will the media write it? ‘Ji Huaizhou’s Car Causes Accident,’ ‘Top Film Emperor in Late-Night Crash’—I can already imagine the headlines!”
Ji Huaizhou did not respond. He walked to the sewer grate and bent down to pick up the phone.
The cracked screen cut at his fingers, and he carefully avoided the sharp edges. The display was still on a social media interface. Dense streams of comments scrolled by, their words harsh and glaring. His finger accidentally brushed the side button, and the screen returned to the home page. The contact list opened automatically.
There were only two emergency contacts.
Fewer than ten contacts in total—and none of them answered calls.
One was “Sister Yang,” presumably her manager. The other was “Sister,” marked with a small star.
Ji Huaizhou’s gaze lingered briefly on that star.
He had seen countless artists’ phones—some had thousands of contacts, others hundreds. Work, connections, resources… behind every name was a web of intertwined interests. But a phone with only two contacts—this was the first time he had seen such a thing.
“Mr. Ji?” Qin Zhou looked at him, puzzled.
“She wasn’t staging an accident,” Ji Huaizhou suddenly said, his voice calm.
Qin Zhou froze. “How do you know? Minor artists like her would do anything for fame—”
“If she wanted fame,” Ji Huaizhou interrupted, turning the phone screen toward Qin Zhou, “she would have started recording before the collision, making sure to capture the license plate and my face. Or at the very least, she would have stored the numbers of a few marketing accounts in her contacts, ready to leak the news immediately.”
Qin Zhou stared at the nearly empty contact list, momentarily speechless.
“And,” Ji Huaizhou continued, putting the phone away as his gaze returned to the unconscious girl on the ground, “when she ran into the car, her eyes were on her phone screen. She wasn’t looking at the car at all. That wasn’t the gaze of someone staging an accident.”
It was… the gaze of someone in despair.
He did not say that aloud. In his eleven years in the industry, he had seen too many kinds of eyes—greedy, flattering, ambitious, hypocritical. He had also seen a few filled with despair—those abandoned by capital, devoured by public opinion, crushed by the industry. The look they had when they left… was strikingly similar to the expression lingering on the face of the unconscious girl before him.
The wail of an ambulance siren approached from afar, red and blue lights slicing through the night.
Medical personnel quickly got out, skillfully assessing the injuries. “Suspected fracture of the left tibia and fibula, possible ulnar injury in the left arm, head abrasions—CT scan needed. Stabilize first, move carefully—”
The wheels of the stretcher rolled, equipment clinking softly, everything efficient and professional.
As Zhou Mumu was lifted onto the ambulance, Qin Zhou lowered his voice and said to Ji Huaizhou, “Mr. Ji, I’ll go to the hospital to handle things. Compensation, medical expenses—someone has to coordinate. Also…” He hesitated. “Should we contact the company’s PR department first? In case any bystanders recorded this—”
“Go to the hospital. Handle the medical matters properly and respect the doctors and the injured,” Ji Huaizhou said as he opened the car door and sat back in the rear seat. “No need to alert the PR department for now. Don’t make assumptions before the facts are clear.”
“But—”
“Qin Zhou.” Ji Huaizhou looked at him through the lowered car window, his gaze steady behind his gold-rimmed glasses. “We know two things right now. First, our car hit someone. Second, the injured person is a young woman currently suffering from online harassment. As for the rest, let the facts speak.”
Qin Zhou took a deep breath and finally nodded. “Understood. Then will you go meet Director Chen first? Dinner has already been delayed by an hour.”
“Mm.” Ji Huaizhou glanced at his watch. “After you handle the hospital matters, give me a detailed report. Including her injury diagnosis and… all trending topics about her from the past three days.”
Qin Zhou was surprised. “What do you need those for?”
Ji Huaizhou did not answer. The car window slowly rose, shutting out the night and its lights.
Old Chen restarted the engine, and the Rolls-Royce drove smoothly away from the scene. In the rearview mirror, the ambulance’s flashing lights gradually faded, blending into the city’s neon glow.
The car fell silent for a moment.
Old Chen finally spoke, unable to hold back. “Mr. Ji, just now… I’m really sorry. I promise I’ll be more careful in the future—”
“It wasn’t your fault.” Ji Huaizhou watched the passing streetlights outside, his voice faint. “She ran out suddenly. You had less than a second to react. You braked in time and prevented something worse. You did well.”
Old Chen let out a breath of relief, though his grip on the steering wheel remained tight.
Ji Huaizhou’s fingertips tapped lightly against the leather seat. He thought of the vicious comments on the girl’s phone screen, the two lonely names in her contact list, the pale and fragile way she had lain in the middle of the road.
The industry was glamorous on the surface, yet it devoured people without leaving bones behind. What had an eighteenth-tier actress experienced to end up wandering the streets in such a dazed state, crossing the road like that in the middle of the night?
And why were there only two contacts in her phone?
Did the “Sister” marked with a star know what her younger sister was going through?
“Old Chen,” Ji Huaizhou suddenly spoke.
“Yes, sir.”
“Clear one hour from tomorrow morning’s schedule.”
“Do you need to arrange something?”
Ji Huaizhou removed his glasses and slowly wiped the lenses. His voice sounded especially clear in the quiet car.
“We’re going to the People’s Hospital.”
————— (So nervous—did this hook everyone?)