Chapter 447: Breaking Bad
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“Red Dragon! Prince! What are you doing?” whispered Famous.
Red Dragon was lying in the grass unresponsive, and Prince’s body was shaking like a fallen leaf in the wind, about to collapse.
No! The script was not like this. In the sequence of shots about the sneak attack, only the bravery of the three police dogs should’ve been highlighted. There was no need to complicate the story.
Famous was extremely confused. Had the script been quietly changed and it was not aware? Or were Red Dragon and Prince improvising? Famous was unable to decide. It bowed its head and rubbed Red Dragon using its nose, then stuck out its forepaw to push it. With difficulty, Red Dragon opened its eyes and looked at Famous, but immediately closed them. Its breathing was weak, and it was foaming at the mouth. If it were acting, then Famous would’ve looked at Red Dragon with admiration, however, this didn’t seem like a performance. Red Dragon was clenching its teeth, and the white foam gushing from the gaps of its teeth was slightly yellow. Unless it had eaten some yellow dye in advance, it was not possible that it was acting.
As Famous was thinking, it hadn’t realized that its own thinking speed had started to lag. It was at that moment that it heard another thump. Prince also fell to the ground. Famous quickly ran over to check. Prince seemed exactly the same as Red Dragon. Both were critically ill with shallow breathing.
Something was wrong! What had happened?! Famous was startled and realized this was bad! Why didn’t it detect the crisis in advance? Was it because it could only see the future within a few seconds of it happening? When it had detected the danger, it had already started. It remembered Zhang Zian’s words—not all dangers can be avoided in time—but it was too late.
As its forelimbs weakened, Famous could no longer support its own body. It slumped to the ground and laid sideways in the weeds. In front of its nostrils, there was a growing yellow setaria. Swaying from its breath, the setaria swung like a pendulum. As if there was some hypnotic effect, Famous felt increasingly sleepy… This time, it was not auditioning, nor was it acting. Its pupils were mirroring the hovering smoke. It seemed to have seen such a scene before.
Yes, there was problem with the smoke! Distant memories reappeared in its mind. Famous was certain that it had undergone similar situations in the meat grinder-like real battlefield. Some people had also released gas bombs and massacred hundreds of people in just a few minutes…
“Famous…Famous…” Zhang Zian’s voice seemed to be getting closer and closer. There was the sound of urgent footsteps. Among the misty smoke and fog, the silhouettes of people appeared.
“Don’t come…the smoke is toxic…” It tried to respond to Zhang Zian and wanted to remind him, but its throat was scorching hot, and its vocal cords only uttered muffled and horse hissing sounds. It couldn’t produce a meaningful and complete sentence. “Don’t come here…” It drifted in and out of consciousness. Its mouth opening and closed, repeating this one sentence.
Famous knew who had done this. It was the pyrotechnician Guan Biao! Releasing toxic smoke to put all the people present in danger? Could he be such a lunatic? Was he out of his mind? Attempting such a thing, did Guan Biao really think he could escape the legal consequences and the condemnation from the public? Things were not that simple. Something had gone wrong, something that they had ignored…
However, Famous had no strength to think anymore. Its mouth stopped moving. A hexagonal snowflake fell from the sky and naughtily kissed it on its eye, which had lost all vigor…
…
As its eyelids felt the coolness, Famous suddenly woke up! It had fallen asleep on the ground. Nothing in its surrounding had changed that much from before. The crew members were busy making final preparations for the shoot in the afternoon. Having finished applying their makeup, the leading actor and supporting actors were in place on the battlefield, and so were a few foreign actors who were going to play the foreign criminals. The prop guns had been assigned to the actors.
Red Dragon and Prince were lying quietly next to it, and their eyes were brimming with vigor. Before falling asleep, they had been led by Feng Xuan through the route several times, and they were already familiar on what to do. Feng Xuan was leading the cinematographers and their assistants to adjust the positions of the cameras and the track of the lenses.
Zhang Zian was playing with his cell phone. He tilted his head and looked at it. “You’re awake, Famous. I told you I would wake you up a few minutes later.”
Famous stood up. Its legs and feet were feeble from the nightmare it just had. A thin blanket, on which Zhang Zian had previously been sitting on, slipped from its back.
“You may as well wake up. It’s snowing now, it’s a little bit chilly.” Zhang Zian leaned over to pick up the blanket and put it under his butt.
Famous looked up at the sky. At that moment, a piece of hexagonal snowflake fell on the tip of its nose and immediately melted. As it felt the coolness, it became sober. “How long have I slept?” Its voice was hoarse.
Zhang Zian glanced at the phone. “Not long, just a few minutes, no more than 10. Don’t worry, you missed nothing.”
“What about Guan Biao? Where is Guan Biao?” it asked urgently.
“Over there.” Zhang Zian raised his hand to point to a few foreign extras with prominent noses and deep-set eyes who would be playing the armed criminals from outside the border in this scene. Standing in front of the extras, Guan Biao put plasma bags into their clothes, connected the hand-held detonators, and finally placed the thin aluminum plates between the plasma bags and the actors’ bodies. The thin aluminum plates were used to absorb the impact, otherwise people would be in a lot of pain, or could even be injured from the small explosions that ruptured the clothes and plasma bags.
Zhang Zian had been observing Guan Biao. After making sure that Guan Biao wasn’t doing anything abnormal, Zhang Zian was relieved.
“No!” Famous stared at the back of Guan Biao. “He did something dirty. I saw it…the smoke, it’s the toxic smoke! During the shoot, Red Dragon, Prince, and I…we all died…”
“Toxic smoke?” Zhang Zian was surprised. “No way?! With so many people present, he wouldn’t dare to use toxic smoke? How do you know, Famous?” No wonder Zhang Zian didn’t believe it. Even Famous couldn’t believe itself. No matter what, there was no way Guan Biao would use toxic smoke.
“I just had a dream, but I’m not sure if it was a sign. Maybe it was just a dream…” it said hesitantly, increasingly doubting its dream.
One dreams at night what one thinks in the day. Perhaps it was because Famous had a preconceived notion about Guan Biao, believing he was a man up to no good, conjuring this unrealistic dream.
Zhang Zian knew that with its ability to detect danger, Famous could predict a crisis a few seconds prior to the actual event. Nevertheless, there was at least ten minutes before the actual shoot. If Famous’s dream really was an omen, it had occurred too far before the actual event was supposed to happen. However, he did not ignore its words. What if this was indeed an omen? What if Famous and the two police dogs really died after the shooting began? One can only live once, and there’s no room for mistakes when it comes to life and death.
“Should I go to talk with the director and ask him to postpone the shoot and double-check the safety measures?” Zhang Zian suggested.
“Forget it,” said Famous, shaking its head. “It’s probably just a nightmare, and I’ll be on guard when shooting.” Unless there was a specific reason, or force majeure, postponing the shoot was not a trivial matter. The delay was at the expense everyone’s time. The director was unlikely to agree to such a request, and he would only think that Zhang Zian was being paranoid.
Having said that, Zhang Zian’s thoughts were still fluctuating, and he couldn’t set his mind at ease. But at this time, Luo Qingyu was still bothering him by constantly sending messages to harass him. He was upset by the message notifications.
Luo Qingyu begged Zhang Zian to recommend him to the director. Luo Qingyu said that in addition to taking unique pictures, he was very good at shooting videos. He was responsible for shooting the sports meetings and the like at school, and his videos had received unanimous praise from the school leaders. Apart from that, he also had participated in the Campus Cinematography Competition, but hadn’t placed well because the script sucked. He himself was very knowledgeable about cinematography.
Zhang Zian temporarily blocked the message notifications from Luo Qingyu. After thinking for a moment, he asked, “Famous, where did the smoke come from? The smoke bombs?” He remembered that the smoke bombs in the crew were just simple props that couldn’t compare to real smoke bombs. The props could only produce a limited amount of smoke to let the cinematographers take close-up shots. The props were unable to fill the air with thick fog and smoke.
“It’s not the smoke bombs, it was from someplace farther.” Famous identified the direction and gestured, “It was from behind the enemies, and then blown over this way by the wind.”
The piles of stones where the enemies would be hiding was located in the northwest part, while the position of the armed police officers was located in the southeast. A light breeze was coming from the northwest, and the smoke’s trajectory would pass through the several foreign extras. If it was toxic smoke, wouldn’t these foreigners be the first ones to die?
Zhang Zian still did not dare to be careless. “Do you still remember the general location from where the smoke began? Take me so I can have a look.”
“I probably remember…” Hesitantly, Famous led him behind the enemies. A few foreigners that had finished applying makeup were yelling something at Zhang Zian and Famous. Zhang Zian ignored them, carefully observing the actions of Famous.
Putting its nose close to the ground to sniff around, Famous found a suspicious position soon. There were several flat stones, each one the size of a human palm, randomly stacked together. They couldn’t tell whether the stones had been stacked by men or were like that naturally.
“Here it is,” said Famous affirmatively. “There is something beneath the stones.”
Zhang Zian squatted down to remove the stones. A round yellow and white cake the size of a sesame seed cake was placed on a metal tray beneath the stones. “What is this?” He couldn’t recognize this thing.
“I don’t know,” said Famous, who had never seen this thing either. “But I can smell that this thing is beneath the stones at several other locations.”
“Actors in place! Actors in place!” yelled the assistant to the director. “Shooting will begin immediately!”
Famous could not think of anything. It looked at the set from afar and found that everyone was in place except itself. “Forget it, let’s go back.”
The several foreign extras gestured at them, urging them to leave quickly.
Zhang Zian leaned over to observe the small round cake. The small round cake was seemingly very soft, and was densely embedded with many khaki colored particles. He did not dare to act rashly. He took out his cell phone and photographed the cake from several angles, and then sent the images to Luo Qingyu. “Let me test you. Didn’t you say you were familiar with shooting movies. Do you know what this is?”
Luo Qingyu almost replied instantly. “Is this a written test or an interview? Too easy, this is a smoke cake used to generate smoke and fog when shooting movies. Apart from being used in producing movies, smoke cake is often used in portrait photography. When taking pictures of girls, if you pinch a small piece of the smoke cake and ignite it with a lighter, you can create a smokey effect, adding dimension to the photos. However, when used indoors, only a small piece of the smoke cake is needed. It’s unnecessary to use a whole one, which will be like suffocating. It’ll be troublesome if the neighbors think the room is on fire and call the fire department. How about it? Has my answer earned full credit?”
To prove himself, Luo Qingyu also sent photos of several girls, including ambiguous private photos. There were also outdoor cosplay photos where the girls were cosplaying the characters in Xian Xia Anime or games. All these photos had a smoke, creating a hazy, artistic concept, and an ethereal “otherworldly temperament.”
Smoke cake? Zhang Zian’s eyes lingered on the pictures of the girls for two seconds. The qualities of these photos were high, so were the girls in the pictures. He didn’t believe they were taken by Luo Qingyu. They had probably been taken by someone else and were being used by Luo Qingyu.
He thought for a moment and sent another message: “Is the smoke cake poisonous?”
Luo Qingyu replied: “Poisonous? How could it be poisonous? Of course, it must be toxic if you eat it. After all, the main components of a smoke cake are sulfur and sawdust, which are inedible. Besides, what are the particles on your smoke cake? There are no such particles on ordinary smoke cakes. Was it made by the film crew?”
Sulfur and sawdust? Zhang Zian seemed to have vaguely realized something.
Luo Qingyu was still sending messages endlessly. “How is it? Did I pass the written test? When will you let me report for duty with the crew? I have more photos with women wearing less clothes in them, would you like to take a look?”
Tempting as it sounded, Zhang Zian ignored Luo Qingyu for the time being. He pinched a small yellow particle, put it under his nose, and inhaled deeply. A unique and faint foul smell poured into his nasal cavities. It couldn’t be wrong! These small particles were sulfur!
Zhang Zian dusted the dirt from his trousers and stood up, looking at the noisy foreign extras. He finally figured it out. This was a rather well-designed trap. The main components of the smoke cake were already sulfur and sawdust. Guan Biao had added extra sulfur.
Burning in the air, sulfur can produce sulfur dioxide, which is colorless and has a molecular weight of 64, which is much heavier than oxygen and nitrogen. Sulfur dioxide deposits near the ground and has no effect on people. However, dogs that crawl forward will inhale much of the sulfur dioxide, which will combine with hemoglobin after entering the bloodstream, then be carried to each organ by the blood.
If a human inhales sulfur dioxide, harmful as it is, there are no life-threatening effects in the short term. But dogs are different. After inhaling, the sulfur dioxide will produce disulfide within their bodies, causing an acute haemolysis reaction. The effect is equivalent to eating onions.
Zhang Zian thought of the onions he just picked out at lunch, and understood that this was a double trap. Whether it was the onions or the smoke cake, the ultimate goal was to make excessive disulfide within Famous and the two police dogs’ bodies.
The most intelligent part was that this trap only worked on dogs. Because people would not be poisoned by smoke, and after the smoke cake burned out, the evidence would be obliviated accordingly. It would be too late when Famous and the two police dogs began to excrete bloody urine the very next day. Although the damage was unlikely to be fatal, they definitely wouldn’t be able to continue to participate in the film.
A little bit impatient from the wait, all the crew members were looking around for Zhang Zian and Famous. Guan Biao looked in his direction guiltily, and his eyes met of Zhang Zian’s from afar, and then Guan Biao’s whole body trembled.
Zhang Zian sneered. You did well in chemistry in high school, right? What a coincidence. Me too. And I’m also a loyal audience member of Breaking Bad. He picked up the phone and called Sheng Ke. The first thing he said was, “Captain Sheng, I found the evidence you want. Please come here immediately. As a law-abiding citizen, I want to report a case to you.”
Sheng Ke was profoundly surprised, and he immediately asked, “Where are you? I’ll go there now.”
Zhang Zian told him where the outdoor location was, and then hung up the phone.
Feng Xuan was the one who found him first. Followed by his assistant and the deputy director, Feng Xuan angrily said, “Zhang, why are you dawdling here? Do you know that everyone is waiting for you and Famous?!”
Zhang Zian smiled. “Director Feng, I’m sorry, but I am afraid everyone will have to wait for a while, and maybe today’s shoot will even be canceled.”
“Ah?” Feng Xuan was stunned. “What happened? Something’s wrong?”
Zhang Zian nodded. “Some things indeed. Yes, Director Feng, I think you should give the new pyrotechnician a call and urge him to come here and report for duty quickly.”
