The small hotel room, less than fifteen square meters in size, made no distinction between day and night. The window was nothing more than a decorative facade, and the air inside, stagnant for far too long, hung heavy and oppressively humid.
Wen Chaosheng sat rigidly at the desk, the dim yellow lamplight casting shadows over his bloodshot eyes. He hadn’t slept a full night in days, his entire body taut like a bowstring stretched to the breaking point.
The phone resting on the desk had been set to silent, but its screen lit up once more.
Wen Chaosheng saved another annotated digital document before finally tearing his attention away from the computer screen. He picked up the phone and, with a numb expression, opened Chang Ming’s WeChat.
He had blocked the man long ago, keeping the account only to preserve their past chat history as evidence.
Ever since five days prior, when Wen Chaosheng had fled the hospital room and hastily packed his things before leaving the rental apartment, Chang Ming had been hounding him relentlessly—
From WeChat to Alipay, and even to the director’s Weibo account that he hadn’t touched in ages, every social platform where he could be reached had been bombarded with nonstop messages.
—Brother Wen? You left the hospital?
—Are you back at the rental?
—Your roommate said you grabbed your backpack and left! Where are you? Reply!
—Voice call not answered!
—Wen Chaosheng! Did you go find Xi Zhui again? Can’t you let him go? You think I have no other way to spill this to the media? Reply to me now!
—Fine! So you’re abandoning your parents and friends too? You think I was joking that day?!
—Voice call not answered.
—Brother Wen, I know I was wrong. Come back, okay? We agreed to go back to Italy together!
—Wen Chaosheng! You froze my bank card? Why? I’m in this mess because of you! Are you really trying to drive me to death?
—Voice call not answered.
—Brother Wen, I moved out of the original hotel. I’m staying here [address]. It’s been pouring rain these past couple days, and my leg’s started hurting again. Come help me, please?
…
In five days, over a hundred WeChat messages had piled up. The Chang Ming on the other end of the screen seemed to splinter into countless personalities—
Threatening him with gritted teeth one moment, pitifully admitting fault the next; ranting madly about dragging him down with him, then wheedling sweetly to lure him back.
Wen Chaosheng scrolled through the messages with a blank face, ignoring every one.
Suddenly, another voice message from Chang Ming popped up.
Wen Chaosheng meant to tap it to convert to text but accidentally hit play. In an instant, a sinister, menacing tone filled the air:
“Brother Wen, Wednesday’s almost here. If you don’t reply and keep hiding from me, refusing to leave the country together, I’ll expose everything right on Weibo!”
“Wen Chaosheng, I’ll drag you down to hell with me! You’ll never escape me this lifetime!”
“…”
Wen Chaosheng’s body shuddered violently. In the next moment, his strength gave out entirely, and he dropped the phone to the floor.
It was a deep-seated, instinctive reaction, etched into his bones.
For years, Chang Ming had subtly manipulated him psychologically—a relentless accumulation of pressure and demands!
Wen Chaosheng had started with sympathy and guilt, which slowly turned to helpless resentment, then evolved into submission and fear. By the time he realized it, he no longer had the strength to break free.
Wen Chaosheng struggled to steady his racing breath, forcing his gaze back to the computer screen.
Arrayed neatly on the desktop was a row of files—
Accident reports from the set mishap, overseas court documents holding the scenic site fully liable, tallies of medical and living expenses paid to Chang Ming over the years, and contact info for every crew member from back then.
Wen Chaosheng had also drafted a thousand-word public statement taking full responsibility for “paying to suppress the accident,” while sincerely apologizing for the six-year delay and completely exonerating Wen Chunshen in every line.
Worried that publishing it would spark netizen backlash and boycotts of his career as a director, he had prepared a “voluntary withdrawal from the Rotten Mud production team” agreement to hand over to Jian Jinzhao and Whale Shadow’s investors.
He had even handwritten an apology letter ahead of time, though his recent somatic symptoms made his shaky handwriting look messy.
And if the fallout somehow dragged in Xi Zhui later on, he was prepared to shoulder every bit of the “dirty water” himself.
Every potential pitfall he could imagine, every solution he could devise—Wen Chaosheng had anticipated them all as best he could, pulling several all-nighters and nearly burning through his life force to compile these documents.
“…”
But exposing all that to the public would require more than one person’s influence.
Wen Chaosheng didn’t want to burden his parents or involve Xi Zhui’s team. After racking his brain, he had no choice but to entrust the documents entirely to the trustworthy Jian Jinzhao—
After all, the man’s company was an investor in the film Rotten Mud. Etiquette and logic demanded advance notice.
Wen Chaosheng glanced at the time in the bottom right corner of the screen: 3:41 a.m.
Jian Jinzhao was surely asleep by now.
Feeling bad about disturbing his friend at this hour, Wen Chaosheng picked up the phone from the floor and set an alarm for nine in the morning.
His stomach pain had gone numb. The bread slices he’d bought were all gone.
He wanted to drink some water to stave off hunger, but he lacked even the strength to twist open a bottle cap. Giving up, he staggered up from the chair and collapsed onto the bed.
Episodes like this always brought overwhelming drowsiness.
The winding mechanism in Wen Chaosheng’s body finally ground to a halt. Within a minute, he lost consciousness completely.
The sluggish night seeped in like thick glue, enveloping his body bit by bit. Familiar nightmares coiled around him, but he couldn’t wake no matter how he tried.
“Ah!”
Some time later, Wen Chaosheng wrenched himself free from the nightmare—only to plunge into an even more torturous reality.
Shortness of breath, dizziness, palpitations, tinnitus, full-body rigidity, pains from all over his body mingling into a lethal cocktail.
This episode had hit hard and viciously, but he’d fled the rental in such haste that he hadn’t even grabbed the meds from his suitcase.
These past few days, he’d endured solely on sheer force of will.
Wen Chaosheng lay on the bed for a good while before his stiff fingers regained a sliver of mobility. He groped for his phone and checked the time: nearly seven at night!
“…”
Struggling to sit up, Wen Chaosheng meant to call Jian Jinzhao on WeChat right away.
He had to get everything he’d prepared posted online before Wednesday hit. No matter what, he needed to seize some initiative in public opinion before Chang Ming could go nuclear.
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than a real-time notification dot appeared on Chang Ming’s blocked WeChat profile: first a web link, then a text message.
—Brother Wen, you forced my hand.
Wen Chaosheng stared at the words, a surge of unease rising from the depths of his gut. Compelled by some impulse, he tapped the link. Seconds later, the phone jumped to the Weibo page.
Just twenty minutes earlier, Chang Ming had posted a video publicly, captioned with a headline shocking enough to grab every eye:
@Wen Chaosheng, what right does an unethical director have to continue his career?!
The accusation slammed into Wen Chaosheng like a dizzying blow. Before he knew it, he’d instinctively clicked on the nearly ten-minute video.
Chang Ming was indeed in a nondescript hotel room, masked with a surgical mask and duckbill cap, but his exposed eyes brimmed with desolation and agony. “Hello everyone. I know most of you won’t recognize me, but I still want to introduce myself—”
“My name is Chang Ming. I used to be a rookie actor.”
He paused deliberately, emphasizing, “Yes, used to be.”
With that, he wheeled his chair back a few steps, took a deep breath, and yanked off the small blanket covering his legs—
His left leg, amputated high up, dangled empty, while the atrophied remnant of his right leg looked so frail it might snap with a mere touch!
By brazenly revealing his disability to every netizen, this meticulously staged opening was pure dynamite. Shock comments flooded the video overlay immediately:
“Holy shit?”
“Amputee?”
“What’s this about?”
“Never heard of this actor in Huayu.”
“Don’t tell me he’s just riding the hype train.”
“Wen Chaosheng the director rings a bell. Who is he?”
“…”
Chang Ming rolled back into frame and launched into his escalating accusations. “See this? This is me now.”
“I studied at the Film Academy. At twenty, I got my first movie audition invite ever. After tons of prep, I landed my one and only film role.”
Displayed in sync was an actor’s contract from six years ago.
As if afraid viewers would miss the point, Chang Ming had kindly highlighted the key parts with marker:
Film Cloud End, starring Chang Ming, director/writer/producer Wen Chaosheng.
“…”
Wen Chaosheng stared at his own name until a hazy “filter” blurred his vision.
The video footage grew indistinct, but Chang Ming’s nonstop venomous fabrications and indictments droned on.
“I thought the guy who launched Jian Jinzhao and Xi Zhui had to be some genius director. Turns out all his ‘genius’ was fake!”
“Wen Chaosheng mistreated crew on set, pinched every penny on expenses, and I even spotted signs he’d ghostwritten his own script!”
“Sure, a lowly actor like me had no say in how the director ran things. I just tried to do my job.”
“As filming neared its end, I shot a rock-climbing scene on location to fit the plot. Even though the height far exceeded safety limits, I gritted my teeth and climbed anyway, all for the sake of realistic footage. That’s when the accident happened—”
“When I regained consciousness, my leg was mangled just like everyone saw earlier. My beloved acting career, which had barely begun, was over in an instant!”
“It was only later that I learned the rock-climbing site had serious safety issues from the start. But Wen Chaosheng chose it anyway—to cut costs!”
“…”
No!
That’s not true!
Not like that at all!
Wen Chaosheng’s body began to tremble violently. He tried to speak up for himself, but he couldn’t even form a complete sentence.
Chang Ming’s accusations kept twisting the truth. “After the incident, Wen Chaosheng’s father—the renowned director Wen Chunshen—feared it would tarnish their family reputation. He shelled out a fortune to bury every trace of the accident, so it never even made it back home!”
“And I was just a nobody without any connections or backing, raised single-handedly by my mother. She was heartbroken over my situation back then, but what could we do?”
Chang Ming conveniently omitted every sacrifice Wen Chaosheng had made for him over the years, painting himself as the ultimate victim.
“In my despair and agony, I even tried to take my own life, but heaven wouldn’t let me go.”
He held up the scar on his right wrist—marks originally meant as leverage against Wen Chaosheng. Now they had a perfectly fabricated backstory to win the netizens’ sympathy.
“Then, just as I’d resigned myself to live out my life with this regret and bitterness, I found out Wen Chaosheng was back, making movies like nothing had happened!”
“I tried reaching out to him, but he barely replied to my messages!”
“I showed up at his door, but he turned me away every time! Like he was terrified I’d ruin everything he’d rebuilt!”
“But I couldn’t accept it! I just couldn’t!”
“Why should Wen Chaosheng get to stay in this industry, carefree and content, after destroying my life? Why?!”
His tearful tirade, every word and phrase meticulously crafted to frame and condemn, pointed all the blame squarely at Wen Chaosheng.
—
Bang!
The bomb that had lain dormant in Wen Chaosheng’s body for years finally detonated, triggered by the true culprit himself. Everything he cherished shattered into dust in an instant.
His vision blurred, his ears rang piercingly, and all his senses went haywire. Hallucinations gripped Wen Chaosheng—
He felt like he wasn’t holding a phone, but Chang Ming’s severed limb, drenched in blood. Heavy, ice-cold, it clung stickily to his hand.
Gradually, the limb morphed into a venomous, frigid serpent. It coiled around his hands, tightened around his neck, and then bared its gaping, bloodied maw at him mercilessly.
“Get away!”
“Get the hell away from me!”
Wen Chaosheng plunged into unprecedented terror and madness. “It wasn’t like that! Get away! Get away!”
He hurled the phone to the ground. Then he grabbed the tissue box nearby and smashed it against the screen again and again. “Why won’t you leave me alone? Why can’t you just let me go?”
“I was wrong. I know I was wrong… Don’t come near me! Stay back!”
Crack.
The phone’s screen splintered, plunging into sudden darkness and silence.
Wen Chaosheng collapsed to the floor, eyes squeezed shut. All sound vanished from his world as despair spread like inky black tides, drowning his last flicker of will to live.
Don’t wake up again.
He never wanted to wake up again.
