CH 16

CHAPTER 16—Tengfei Entertainment

As a Golden Laurel newcomer and winner, Shen Qi was dragged away by many creative staff and industry members, and he wasn’t able to escape back to Shen’s villa until midnight.

When he came back, he stopped the housekeeping robot from coming forward to assist him, and only took a bottle of water from the kitchen, and then went back to his room in the dark.

He turned on the light in his room, took off his suit first, stored it carefully, and leaned against the table naked.

He raised his elbow, rubbed his fingers against his right abdomen, moving carefully, and tore off a sheet of material that was no different from his skin color.

The palm-sized bionic skin was thrown into the recycling bin, while the dark red wound on Shen Qi’s waist was exposed to the air.

There was a big hole in the skin covering his strong muscles, and the inside of the wound was bloody.

There were also flickering spots of light inside the wound that indicated the presence of medical nano-robots.

Shen Qi turned sideways and pulled out a drawer from the wall, skillfully taking out a few objects, and began to treat his wound as if he felt no pain from it.

In the quiet room, there was only the sound of medicine being sprayed.

Before Shen Qi picked up the new bionic skin beside the table, he heard the sound of his light brain.

He paused, powered on the light screen, read the name on the communication request, and then quickly pressed the connect prompt.

He found a wireless earphone from a drawer and stuffed it into his right ear.

“Hey Shen Qi? I, it’s Zhifei…” A young man’s voice was on the other end, clear but a bit ruffled.

“En.” Shen Qi responded, then placed his light brain on the table, and picked up the new bionic skin, tearing off the adhesive, and stretching his hands holding the new ‘skin’ towards his waist, “It’s late, what’s the matter Captain He?”

“What are you doing?” He Zhifei could hear Shen Qi urging him through his words, “Oh, by the way, are you feeling better? How has the toxin cleared up? Do you want to arrange another treatment?”

“It’s okay.” Shen Qi declined simply, placing the bionic skin back on his wound, then he stooped down to pick up dark pajamas laid out on his bedside, and put them on.

He Zhifei on the other end of the call heard the rustling sound, and asked curiously, “Shen Qi, you just came back from that so-and-so award, right? Congratulations. The case regarding Simon Star is now not only closed, but you also won an award. Following that, why don’t you find some time to hold a private celebration and enjoy some wine…”

Shen Qi, who had already finished dressing and was waiting for He Zhifei to explain his true purpose for calling, took a deep breath, and sighed, “Drinking is a waste of time, so there’s no need to celebrate. Team leader He, you have something to say, say it.”

“Okay, okay.”

The voice over the phone became quite serious, “The higher-ups transferred your file out of the hunting plan. They said that your actions will be separate, and so you can only pay attention to things you catch with your eyes. It’s a good thing that your identity hasn’t been exposed. You can use the entertainment industry environment to confuse the enemy and avoid danger.”

Shen Qi sat on the edge of his bed, resting with his hands on his knees, unable to deny He Zhifei’s words.

After a while, he spoke again, “Is there any new progress at the intelligence center?”

“Yeah, they just found out about last year’s… eh, eh, what’s the matter with you. Are you telling me what to do!?” He Zhifei didn’t have any reservations when interacting with his comrades-in-arms of many years, but he was startled just now, and quickly stopped the words he was about to say.

“Say.” Shen Qi said in a deep voice.

On the phone, He Zhifei hesitated for a while, but still continued to say, “It’s not impossible to say. Our superior actually didn’t intend to let you take a complete vacation, but they said you can’t interfere!”

“Are you going to tell me or not? I’m going to take a shower.” Shen Qi made a gesture to turn off the communication.

“They found out the whereabouts of the funds, the one we’ve been eyeing since last year. It was finally found coming from Tengfei Entertainment.” He Zhifei muttered, “I didn’t expect that they could have something to do with the trafficking group.”

“Tengfei…Entertainment?” Shen Qi sat up straight instantly, leaned forward and looked at the light screen, “Are you sure?”

“That’s right, the leading brokerage company in the entertainment industry.” He Zhifei snorted, “This company is really incredible. It’s okay to play tricks on tax evasion, but they dare to reach out for this kind of money.”

“How did they find it?” Shen Qi narrowed down the call interface, and typed directly on the light screen.

“The intelligence center hit the right button. Wasn’t there a report about the disappearance of an actor not long ago? They were originally checking Hongjing Entertainment, and then discovered the internal agreement made inside Hongjing. It turns out that Hongjing is teaming up with them to take down and attack Xinwen Entertainment.” He Zhifei babbled and spoke very fast.

Shen Qi had never been in contact with the entertainment industry much in these past years, and so when he suddenly heard the names of these three entertainment groups, he was at a loss.

He furrowed his brows and let out a sigh, and started his own search, taking screenshots and placing them into his light brain storage.

“So, they haven’t found any useful information on Hongjing yet, and Tengfei is being targeted by the intelligence center.” He Zhifei changed the subject, “Although we don’t know how to look at the capital chain, those who engage in intelligence can understand. I heard there’s a problem with the capital flow from Tengfei. Many sources seem to be legitimate, but in fact, after checking thoroughly, they’re all connected to the f*cking black market…they’re too courageous!”

“Tengfei?” Shen Qi closed two other windows, leaving the information on Tengfei.

He quickly scanned the company profile, and kept the info in his mind while reading silently, “It’s been established for 375 years, with more than 3,720 artists under its umbrella, 280,000 employees, and 600 branches…”

“Don’t talk about it, don’t talk about it, I’m dizzy hearing it.” He Zhifei stopped him by yelling aloud, “You, just be a film director with peace of mind and heal your wounds. You can’t go to Simon Star anymore, and you’re not allowed to touch any sensitive subjects. Did you hear that!”

Shen Qi was busy sorting out the information while passively listening to He Zhifei’s nagging, and didn’t answer at all.

“Eh? Comrade Shen Qi, did you really hear me?” He Zhifei raised his voice, “If something happens to you again, I’m afraid that Old Shen will scratch me.”

“Don’t worry, I know.” Shen Qi replied very flatly.

He Zhifei choked up, “To be honest, since you’ve entered the entertainment circle, if you can see people from Tengfei Entertainment during your work, you can pay attention to them under the principle of protecting yourself. But, you can’t act on your own, let alone expose them.”

“Understood.” Shen Qi nodded, looking at the logo of Tengfei Entertainment on the light screen, with stern and focused eyes.

“Don’t worry too much, we’re all watching over here. Director Shen will find more harmonious themes for inspiration, shoot movies, and do shows. It just so happens that there are many handsome men and women in the entertainment industry. If you really meet the right one, why don’t you solve your personal relationship problems by the way.“ After He Zhifei finished talking about business, he started to tease Shen Qi again.

Shen Qi, who was about to ask for more details, was dumbfounded, and his eyes wandered over the hang up button on the light screen.

He gritted his teeth, and it took him a long time to utter another syllable, “…um.”

“When do you come back from the Tourist Star?” He Zhifei chuckled, “Help me convey my greetings to uncle and aunt, and say that Xiao He will visit again in a while.” (TL: ‘Xiao’ literally translates to small, and is often used as a prefix to names to express familiarity or as a diminutive used by an older person to a younger person)

Shen Qi couldn’t bear it anymore. He quickly said goodbye, and amidst He Zhifei’s burst of ”ehhhh”, he simply pressed the hang up button.

After he finished the call, he didn’t rush to take a shower.

He walked to the window in two to three steps, and waved his hand to cancel the current status of the room.

After, the wall where the window was located was reassembled, the room control panel slid out and proceeded to the next step.

The plain white wall started to change color from the corners, turning up like scales until the entire wall was covered with small, metallic hexagons.

The hexagons began to ‘vibrate’, and circular ‘water ripples’ appeared on the wall from the middle.

As the corrugation gradually expanded, the borders of the hexagons also disappeared.

All these changes only took a few seconds, and the wall that originally had windows had been completely sealed and turned into bright and flat screens.

A sweet and clear female voice sounded, and a prompt appeared on the main screen.

[Connecting to light brain information]

[Confirmed user identity]

[Mr. Shen, good evening. How may I help you?]

“Switch to safe mode.” Shen Qi was clicking on his light brain, and then looked up at the screen.

The gentle female voice immediately changed into a male voice with a steady tone.

[Safe mode switching is completed. The shielding has been established.]

[Visitor identity confirmed.]

[Welcome, Colonel Shen Qi. Request for further instructions.]

“Load the internal network of the Central Police Station, and call up all the files related to Tengfei Entertainment.” Shen Qi finished processing the program on his light brain, and while speaking, he took a few steps forward and began to manually operate the dense controls on the screen, “Extract the word frequency, and make a correlation.”

[Received. Start processing.]

[Reminder: Data volume overload. The processing time is being extended.]

[Estimated time-consumed—thirty-five minutes and twelve seconds.]

Shen Qi glanced at it, and saw that the number of the file volume definitely exceeded ten, so he exhaled slowly, turned around, and walked towards the bathroom connected to the room.

As Shen Qi expected, although the internal network documents of the Central Police Station were complicated, many of them were really valuable for reference.

*****

He was reading documents in his room, not even knowing that it was dawn.

But, Mrs. Shen sent a housekeeping robot to remind him to eat, so he stopped, hurriedly grabbed a bowl of breakfast, and went back to his room to continue working.

He forgot about the Golden Laurel Awards, and he didn’t even go out to look at the dozens of trophies he had won when the organizers sent them over.

His attitude made many members of the media who wanted to obtain first-hand information about the film festival anxious.

After being rejected by Xie Yu, and with no way to find Shen Qi, they almost stepped into the office of the organizer of the film festival.

Because the Golden Laurel produced a big award-winning director, and the Golden Toilet hosted the appearance of its first award recipient at the same time, this film festival had become the most watched existence in history.

As for the current hottest two stars, it seemed like a coincidence that they stayed away from the public’s attention after the awards ceremony.

Their approach made all the media groan, saying that life was sad and that the industry was in a cold winter.

The desperate media had no choice but to approach Xie Yu’s agency, hoping to obtain an interview opportunity by exchanging resources.

Xie Yu, who had just disembarked from the spaceship, was about to discuss his follow-up schedule with his manager, when he saw a new prompt made by their light brains at the same time.

“The company knows you’re back, let’s head there.” Zhou Cheng put away his light brain, “The contract period has only one and a half years left, so you can guess what they are going to do without even thinking about it.”

Xie Yu looked at the avatar on the message with the words “Tengfei Entertainment Artist Department” on the light screen, and nodded without saying anything.

“The higher-ups wanted to renew the contract with you before, but the decision on treatment was up and down. Now it’s different from the past. We have the bargaining power, so we can’t let them decide.”

In the next period of time, Zhou Cheng would only take care of Xie Yu, so he didn’t hide anything, “You should listen more and talk less, and trust me with the contract. They are not the only ones in the market. Compare them more with others, and you won’t suffer. You have made money for them for ten years. If Tengfei lacks sincerity, we will find another way out.”

Xie Yu was surprised that Zhou Cheng could say this to him, but remembering Zhou Cheng’s stability and loyalty for ten years, he finally smiled and nodded to his manager, “I’ll leave it to Brother Cheng, I’ll be fine in your care.”