historical

Chapter 357: Clandestine Agreement

Translator: Lonelytree Editor: Millman97

Luo Mingxin could not stay much longer with the director rushing him, so he hurried to leave after leaving behind a few quick words. The member of staff did not appear that willing, but to give their movie’s main lead face, he had no choice but to take the girl who appeared to come from the recycle center to the storeroom.

“Most items that cannot be used anymore have already been tossed away. The things that got left behind are still useable but won’t be needed for the rest of the shoot.”

The staff led Ye Shuang to a more deserted corner. After turning several corners and down a quiet corridor, it felt like they had removed themselves from the noisy set and entered a different world, one where the light was unable to hit. It felt like even the temperature there was several degrees lower than normal.

Taking out a key to unlock an inconspicuous door, the member of staff walked into the it first, switched on the light, and grumbled, “I mean, there are certainly uses to these things like selling them as accessories to the movie or using them as giveaways to the fans... If that fails, at least the staff will be able to take them home as a memento, so normally, we don’t allow outsiders to wander in here.”

It was relatively common for the actors to take home props or even set pieces after the shoot wrapped up. They could give them to their fans as presents, put them up for auction, or just collect the exquisitely-crafted props as hobby. For example, in a large fantasy-based movie that was shot several years ago overseas, quite a number of actors swiped the props as mementos, but the one who committed to the biggest action was the director. After the shot wrapped up, he directly hauled the house that was designed for the dwarfs in the movie home and placed it in his yard as a decoration. There were people in the industry still talking about that.

Therefore, the so-called trash actually had their uses, and there was a reason that the member of staff was unwilling to show an outsider like Ye Shuang here.

Ye Shuang strode into the room and looked around. Before doing anything, she sighed. “There are so many of them here.”

“Of course, we are a big production after all!” the man said proudly. The point that Ye Shuang was trying to make flew over his head.

Ye Shuang ignored the thinly-veiled alertness in his eyes—he probably thought that she was there to steal—and continued to sigh to herself. “In that case, what time am I supposed to stay here to search?”

How difficult it was to hide a piece of information in the information era?

Before this, people used to jot things down on paper or physical medium; therefore, there was a basis to finding them. No matter what, the searcher would know about its size and so on. But now? It could be a chip, a USB stick, or even a mobile hard disk... For those with better techniques like Anthony, they could upload the information online and encrypt them with password, they wouldn’t even leave a trace, and there was nothing that other people could do if they were not as skilled as he was.

Facing the room filled with trash, considering the time that she would have to expend to find something that would not release a signal for her to trace, something that would not release a smell for her to trace, something that might be smaller than her fingernail... the urge to surrender appeared almost instantly.

As cautious as the member of staff was, when he saw Ye Shuang did not go forward to rummage through the items like he expected, he could not help but ask, “What are you looking for, Miss Ye?”

“Hmm, looking for a blueprint and perhaps some accounts.” Ye Shuang sighed as she rolled up her sleeves, preparing to work.

The staff coughed but quickly recovered. “There aren’t any paper-based props here. After all, normally, such things are only a cover in the set.”

“I’m not looking for props, and I don’t think it’s going to be paper-based either.” Ye Shuang walked forward to introduce some distance between them. While she spoke, she suddenly bent over, turned, and whipped her leg around. It cut through air before landing abruptly next to the man’s face. When the latter recovered from this sudden development, he just realized how close he had been to being taken down earlier.

Cold sweat poured down his face, and the man suddenly had the urge to use the bathroom. “What... what... what are you doing?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Since you are responsible for looking over the set, I believe you should know where the thing that I’m looking for is.” Ye Shuang slowly pulled back her leg. However, she kept the tip of her feet pointing at the floor; she could attack whenever she wanted. In contrast to her aggressive stance, she smiled. “Let’s not waste both of our time, why don’t you just give me the thing?”

“...I don’t understand.” The staff stared at Ye Shuang, but he could not help his pupils from wandering away.

“Don’t understand?” Ye Shuang thought about it and then said, “Then we’ll slowly try to understand it... Just now, Brother Luo didn’t introduce me, so how did you know my surname is Ye?”

“I overheard Brother Luo mention your name before,” the staff replied in a second.

“That was too fast of an answer for me not to believe that you’d already prepared to lie to me before I even asked the question.” Ye Shuang shook her head. “Plus, you couldn’t have been more wrong because you wouldn’t have heard my name from Brother Luo. He never refers to me by my surname due to some unique reason.”

After all, there were two ‘Ye Shuang’s, so there had to be a distinction when other people referred to them. Brother Shuang was Xiao Ye, and Sister Shuang was Xiao Shuang; even though this rule had not been officially set up, if Ye Shuang’s friends knew both of her identities, then that was basically the term of reference that they were used to.

The staff refused to admit his mistake. “Perhaps he used it when you weren’t around, or could you have forgotten about it?”

Ye Shuang smiled. “I have a very good memory.”

But she released how deep this rabbit hole could go, so she changed tactics. “Regardless, here’s another question. Even though you’ve swapped your identity, I have a clear memory of you appearing next to the little plainclothes before using another identity... Then, could you help explain to me what your interest is in the young man?”

Naturally, she had been present as Brother Shuang then, but both Ye Shuang’s were one and the same. The plainclothes had a good relationship with Brother Shuang, and they even had gone out for meals or chats just the two of them for a few. It might not have been noticed if it had happened once or twice, but the person who had the same cranial structure and force of habit appearing around the young man for multiple times? How could Ye Shuang have missed out on a detail like that?

However, before this, Ye Shuang had not been paying much attention to the value of the information that the plainclothes carried, so she did not expose the man. Now that she realized that there was more potential to be unearthed, the questions that she had in the past were brought back into the present.

The member of staff was stumped.

Ye Shuang blinked and lowered her voice to alluringly whisper, “Even though I don’t know whether you have a partner here or not, everyone saw earlier that it was Brother Luo who called you to bring me in here... If you give me the thing now, we can pretend to walk away from here not knowing each other. That way, at most, you’ll be scolded by the people above you. Otherwise, you should expect the beating that is coming your way.”

The man remained silent, but his gaze moved to a corner behind Ye Shuang. He suddenly raised his voice and called out urgently, “You cannot take this windbreaker—our team still needs to use it in later scenes!”

Ye Shuang turned back to look and grab the windbreaker with a smile.

In a profit-based organization, personal benefits always came first. To not be exposed and punished, forming a clandestine agreement with Ye Shuang was the only solution.