A Professional Avenger

There’s one thing that Lin Yuetian thought was important for one to be deemed useful for him. That should be, if someone was a person with a superb-material-and-splendid-quality to attract Clients for him.

Lin Yuetian really thought so, especially when he finally went to the filming set later.

***

But, first of all—,

from the bottom of his heart, Lin Yuetian had always believed on; ‘every field has its own elites and experts on their own‘. That included the Art Industry. Those Experts and Elites in the Industry must have lived up to their names and were truly talented in their field, that was Art, whatever form or Art it was.

In this 8th world, the biggest difficulty of his Task was actually——the glaring fact that he’s not a Professional Actor. At least, Lin Yuetian couldn’t display a good acting performance as excellent as the original owner.

Of course, that didn’t mean Lin Yuetian’s suck at Acting. After all, to assist his main job, he had to develop good enough acting skills, adapt to any circumstance, and face any kind of target. Well, that much was obvious judging from his performances in the previous worlds.

However, there’s a difference between acting to suit the circumstance, and acting as he was specifically told to. For Lin Yuetian, he just couldn’t act well when he had to follow the requirements from the Director and the scripts to the Tee. Even if he inherited the original owner’s memory—thus, having his experiences on how to perform best—but Lin Yuetian still didn’t have the confidence that he’d be able to act as well as the real Movie Emperor-Lin would.

That being said, what Lin Yuetian had declared to Gao Yan before, about how he’d quit the Entertainment Industry after finishing this Movie — perfectly, wasn’t just a bluff.

—Well the System thought, he might be bluffing actually, since Lin Yuetian in his eyes—despite claiming to never lie but he had always been lying without even batting an eye.

Forget about the System’s opinion—but back to the reason why Lin Yuetian was serious about his declaration to Gao Yan. It was simple: because he had seen the Movie’s theme. Director Wei Dawen was currently shooting a crime-themed Movie with Double Male Protagonists.

—And the role that Lin Yuetian had snatched from Gao Yan was—the character of a vicious and murderous criminal…

***

Lin Yuetian finished reading the Movie script in advance, and had also memorized his lines to perfection.

This Movie was titled “Peeping Shadow“, and focused on two Main Characters. Gao Yan ended up playing the character of “Zhao Yingnan“, while the character Lin Yuetian played was named “Bai Ziqing“.

The story of “Peeping Shadow” began with a timeline of 10 years ago in the past. It started in the afternoon, when Zhao Yingnan, who was still a sophomore in high school back then, had just moved into his new home with his parents. His life was, in fact, ordinary. Just like how other boys his age, the conflicts in his life were limited to: having difficulties comprehending what his Teachers explained in class—being troubled by finishing his homework—or feeling the frustration from losing a Basketball match, etc.

His life had always been normal and ordinary——until one day, that Saturday afternoon.

Zhao Yingnan who had just moved into a new house, accidentally discovered a small hole in the wall behind his bedroom desk. Out of curiosity, the teenager approached the small hole, and looked at the scenery behind the wall—the inside of his neighbor’s house. The curious boy later observed the life his neighbor was living.

The neighbor who lived next to his house was a young man several years older than him, a fresh graduate who’s currently working and living alone. The guy was surnamed Bai, and he had always been gentle and polite to others around him. Perhaps the teen-Zhao Yingnan at that time just wanted to know how this Big Brother usually spent his daily life in private. Or perhaps, he was just simply tempted by the thrill of ‘observing others secretly’.

In any case, this little voyeurism started as a harmless idea—but Zhao Yingnan obviously never had expected that he’d actually be the witness to the young man surnamed Bai—brutally killing a person!

The panicked Zhao Yingnan unconsciously blurted out a cry out of shock, and immediately chose to call the police. His call soon got a response as some Policemen hurriedly arrived at their residential building.

—Surprisingly, they didn’t find something out of ordinary in his neighbor’s house.

The young man surnamed Bai didn’t even reveal any flaws during the interrogation process.

On the contrary, this incident was later claimed to be a mere prank.

Compared to the youth surnamed Bai who had a well-known nice personality, Zhao Yingnan at that time was a boy known to be mischievous and naughty.

This outcome, naturally, put Zhao Yingnan into a great panic. He couldn’t even tell anyone about it, fearing retaliation.

Perhaps it was his good luck, because not long after, the Big Brother next door moved away.

—But before Zhao Yingnan could breathe a sigh of relief, that night, when he just came back from school, he found a note slipped in the crack of his door. There’s only a line written on it: {You Will Pay For the Evil You Saw}.

From then on, Zhao Yingnan’s life changed drastically. The originally playful and ordinary boy spent his adolescent years clouded in gloom since then. He was drowned in a deep terror, fearing that Big Brother would suddenly come and make him pay the price of his past curiosity.

His deep-seated trauma later led Zhao Yingnan to decide his life trajectory—becoming a Police Officer.

Despite years of hard work and dedication to his career as a Policeman, unfortunately, Zhao Yingnan was unable to get a promotion for a long time. It was due to his improper handling of a case several years ago.

Zhao Yingnan, who had been working as a Police Officer for many years, was seen at the beginning of the Movie, being plagued with frustration in his job. He was unable to bring a criminal to accept his due punishment—due to insufficient evidence.

In his decadence, Zhao Yingnan who was mourning his failure at home suddenly heard the noise from next door.

—It turned out, a gentle University Professor had moved into the house next to his. This Professor looked eerily similar to the Young Adult he met in the past. From his appearance, to his name, this Professor named Bai Ziqing brought his terror alive.

However, Zhao Yingnan was no longer the helpless boy he used to be.

This time, he was determined to find Bai Ziqing’s flaws and bring the other party to justice.

Zhao Yingnan began to approach this new neighbor of his, and had been testing this Professor named Bai Ziqing on several occasions. At the same time, a serial murder suddenly erupted in the City. The victims of the homicides were either prisoners or ex-convicts. Every time at the scene, there’d always be a message left behind, all saying: {You Will Pay For the Evil You Saw}.

Those unusual murders further strengthened Zhao Yingnan’s suspicion of Bai Ziqing. He was thoroughly convinced that Bai Ziqing must be the one behind this serial murder.

To his frustration, he was, again, left with no evidence to back his conviction. To make matters worse, Bai Ziqing himself had always seemed utterly harmless and innocent.

With his conjectures going in no way, Zhao Yingnan’s mental health had been deteriorating with each passing day. He was engulfed in the despair of not being able to pursue the justice he yearned for, and his past trauma also kept haunting him from behind. The last blow came as Bai Ziqing who yet again, slipped out unscathed from the Police’s investigation—suddenly looked at him and smiled triumphantly, as if announcing his win…

—Zhao Yingnan, was successfully driven to insanity.

The Policeman later spent a whole night, digging the wall of his house to make a hole through the house next door.

This time, as if repeating the past, he was presented with the scene of Bai Ziqing’s brutal murder once again.

However, this time, he no longer called any Police. He rushed frantically next door and forcefully broke into Bai Ziqing’s house.

Bai Ziqing kept denying all of his accusations, and during the confrontation, somehow, Zhao Yingnan noticed that Bai Ziqing had been trying to kill him. Soon, a scene of thriller, escaping from a murderer, unfolded in this apartment. During the fight, Zhao Yingnan had even successfully turned the situation around—counterkilling Bai Ziqing by a close call.

–

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Just as Zhao Yingnan breathed a sigh of relief from the dangerous situation, the alarm bell rang.

From outside, the polices lit up the floodlights, shouting their warning.

The bright lights gradually illuminated the dim room inside the house, and as if a veil had just been lifted, the scenery in front of Zhao Yingnan started to become clear one by one.

—And the person lying in front of him, Professor Bai Ziqing, suddenly looked completely different from the young man surnamed Bai many years ago…

At this moment, Zhao Yingnan suddenly remembered the reason why he couldn’t get a promotion for so long.

The case several years ago where he committed some mistake—was because he had encountered a young man surnamed Bai during the investigation process.

This young man was their target, a vicious fugitive. At that time, Zhao Yingnan had recklessly shot the other party to death. From that day onwards, his mental state had been disturbed. He was unable to extricate himself from pursuing the absolute justice in his ideal, and was extremely aversed to things he deemed as Evil.

In his excessive desire to erect justice, Zhao Yingnan ended up creating the imaginary Murderous Neighbor surnamed Bai in his mind. He killed the real ‘Professor-Bai Ziqing‘ under the delusion of delivering justice to a Murderer. Later, it was revealed that the serial killing happening in the City was also done to satisfy his thirst for ‘Eradicating Evil’, he killed those Prisoners and Ex-Convicts under the personality of ‘Dangerous Murderer-Bai Ziqing’ that he had developed in his imagination.

***

The character Lin Yuetian played in this Movie was Bai Ziqing.

This character had a lot of roles in the story, worthy to be called the Main Character. Likewise, the demand for the role’s performance was also high. He needed to display several characters as Bai Ziqing—As the nice youth from the past—As a Psychotic killer seen from the teen-Zhao Yingnan’s perspective—As the Professor Bai who exuded a mysterious charm seen from adult-Zhao Yingnan’s perspective—As a Mad Serial Killer who chased and drove Zhao Yingnan to insanity——but also in reality, he was actually a desperate young man surnamed Bai who was shot to death by the mentally-ill Zhao Yingnan.

Such a complex character was naturally difficult to perform.

However—,

“CUT! End of work! Everyone, that’s all for today~!”

In the filming scene, after shouting the completion of today’s shooting, Wei Dawen quickly approached Lin Yuetian and patted him on the shoulder in surprise.

He was overjoyed and couldn’t help exclaiming;

“Yuetian, I know how much your acting skill has been praised, but, I still need to say this—Great Acting! Whoaaa…honestly, that look you gave just now, is definitely amazing, absolutely breathtaking! I felt like I was facing a real dangerous serial killer!”

[“…Man, This guy’s just acting like he usually is.”] The System sneered coldly in response.

***

Putting aside how Lin Yuetian had safely conquered his role in the Movie, during the filming, Lin Yuetian also successfully found himself a Client for his job.

The person he had been eyeing was a no-name Actor, Qian Yang. He acted as some supporting role in the Movie.

He got noticed by Lin Yuetian, first, because Lin Yuetian felt he was rather familiar, as in, the original owner might have seen him in the past. Additionally, this man was blatantly plastering an envious look on his face, staring at Gao Yan with obvious jealousy and resentment throughout the day. They looked like they might have some beef with each other.

The original owner was not particularly sociable. His sensitive personality coupled with the mental pressure he was subjected to recently, caused his memory to be quite chaotic. It took a long time for Lin Yuetian to finally remember who that Qian Yang was, and what relationship he had with Gao Yan.

According to the Original owner’s memory, Qian Yang was Gao Yan’s classmate in college. The two of them once competed for the opportunity to participate in a Movie set, upon which Gao Yan became the final winner. The said opportunity was also the exact Filming set where Gao Yan met with the already famous Actor-Lin for the first time. Afterward, the original owner remembered seeing Qian Yang once visit Gao Yan in the set, resulting in the two of them having a fierce fight. Apparently, Qian Yang confronted Gao Yan because he suspected the young man had used an improper means to win the opportunity.

Whether it was true that Gao Yan had used some unmentionable methods, or if he won the competition between the two fair and square, even how their conflict was resolved later—the original owner wasn’t clear about that.

Qian Yan’s attitude, however, didn’t seem better but got worse instead. He was convinced that Gao Yan had sacrificed his dignity to serve an old man as his Gold Master. He was hell-bent on continuing his rivalry with Gao Yan, hence following him to join the audition for this Movie as well, and successfully gained a Supporting Role.

Lin Yuetian who finally remembered who this guy was, didn’t hesitate and directly approached Qian Yang, greeting the young man with;

“Could I have a word with you?”

***