Song Jixing finished filming her scenes as usual, until all her parts were completed.
Perhaps because someone higher up had put in a word, the director gave her a bit of a backdoor, filming all the scenes related to her first, but not daring to do too much that would affect her work progress in the crew.
In any case, it was very quick.
The overly fast progress meant that when Song Jixing was captured by the police in the climax, about a quarter of the entire drama was still unfilmed.
Nevertheless, wrapping up filming was always a joyous occasion!
The director spared no expense in treating the entire crew to grilled lamb skewers to celebrate Song Jixing's wrap.
The skewer stall was brought in from a local famous grill house by the crew staff. That restaurant had been reprimanded by the city inspectors more than once for the way items were displayed at the entrance, and its workers were quite suspicious when they heard they were working at the police station.
While the police wouldn't care about grilled skewers, was it really okay to just grill skewers at the police station?
The answer was obvious.
"50 lamb skewers, ready to go! Come and get them, hot and fragrant lamb skewers!"
"Want some crispy chicken bones? I'll grill a few dozen for everyone!"
"Who ordered the potato chips and eggplant? They're grilled and ready!"
"Piping hot grilled flatbread, who wants some? Great with grilled meat stuffed inside!"
Five skewer chefs shouted at the top of their lungs in the police station's backyard, their voices echoing through the small flower beds!
Fei Wennan grabbed around ten skewers, using the grilled flatbread to cover the meat and gave it a tug, pulling all the meat off the skewers.
Just like that, a simple yet delicious grilled skewer sandwich was made!
One bite and you could taste the crispy outer layer of the flatbread, as well as the fragrant grilled meat inside.
Fei Wennan mumbled with his mouth full, "Mmm... so... delicious!"
A sip of beer, a bite of the meat sandwich, life was good.
On the other side of the police station, the little dog whimpered again, smelling the aroma wafting from afar and his owner's scent, whimpering softly.
Unfortunately, there wasn't a single staff member by his side this time.
As the lead actress, Song Jixing was naturally surrounded by the grilled skewers!
Song Jixing sat at her table eating skewers as "calmly" as usual, occasionally responding to questions from the surrounding actors, until the director and several other influential staff members came to pay their respects with tea.
"...Little Star! Congratulations on wrapping!" The director lifted the tea to offer a toast.
Song Jixing stood up and lifted her cup of "happy water" to return the toast.
The other writers and producers also came forward with tea, "Teacher Song, let me toast you..."
They looked just like well-behaved students toasting their teacher on graduation day.
This scene seemed rather uncommon!
The surrounding actors murmured to themselves, those with high statuses are indeed different! Song Jixing has starred in two films that grossed over a billion!
As an old hand in the crew, Lei Bing naturally thought more thoroughly. Combined with the information he had gathered from his connections and his personal observations in the crew, he strongly suspected that Song Jixing was the one who brought in the investment for this production. Although investments could take many forms, including bringing in little honeys, the director was not the type of person to do such things.
There was just one point that Lei Bing found quite puzzling. After working in the crew for a while, he heard people talk about Song Jixing's background.
Wasn't she an orphan?
Had her wealthy biological parents found her?
That's not how it's portrayed in TV dramas!
Recalling Song Jixing's features, Lei Bing thought it wasn't impossible.
The first day Song Jixing packed up all her things and left the crew, she thought her work would be over.
Unexpectedly, she received a notification to modify an app in the morning after leaving.
It was a very low-level E-rank task that anyone could take.
It sounded vaguely familiar!
Song Jixing clicked into it and saw the task location and the names of the people in distress, Fei Wennan and Ah Huang.
What a coincidence!
When Song Jixing exited, the task had already been taken.
A kidnapping mission wouldn't appear here. The reason it was set as E-rank was likely related to Fei Wennan's little dog.
A young newcomer to the Special Action Department, brimming with enthusiasm, received his first task notification after forming his own squad!
As an ordinary person, his goal in joining the Special Action Department wasn't anything else but the tools they could use while executing missions, which were related to cultivation and extremely cool! He had only seen them in class before.
Just as he excitedly shared the news of taking the task in the group chat, his team members one by one expressed their excitement.
["That's great, Captain! We get to go to the tool room!"]
["Wahh, is this the first time we'll get to interact with cultivators in real life?!"]
The group's excitement barely lasted two minutes before the senior liaison officer called with a regretful tone, "...Due to someone of a higher level wanting to take this task, I'm very sorry to inform you that this task has been canceled..."
The young man froze, holding the phone in stunned silence.
How could this be?
During training, the teachers had told them that task acceptance levels were determined by the action team's strength, with the highest level taking priority. This wasn't about snatching tasks, but more often for the protection of those below.
Sometimes, even if a task was taken by someone else, they could apply to accompany the mission on-site.
He thought of this solution and asked the liaison officer, "Can I apply to accompany the mission? The higher-ups said we could!"
The liaison officer followed protocol and seriously responded, "I have received your request, and I will submit the application to the higher-ups. They will notify you later."
Beep beep beep—
The young man waited at his spot, and three minutes later, he received a reply.
Unfortunately, he was denied accompaniment permission and could not go to the scene.
How could this be?
The young man was puzzled! He had clearly come first and taken the task first. He had even applied for accompaniment, so why wasn't he allowed?
He looked at the task location, and it was very close by.
He was a bit reluctant to let it go, so he decided to go check it out himself!
If he wasn't executing the task, just passing by shouldn't be an issue!
As the currently strongest cultivator, Song Jixing's identity was kept confidential.
Of course, the identities of many people with Spiritual Roots were also confidential, and outsiders didn't know their genders, ages, identities, or locations.
Generally, when applying for accompaniment, one would know the information of the task executor, but because of Song Jixing's special status, this wasn't the case.
As a public figure, if Song Jixing's identity was leaked, it would cause a huge public outcry.
As for why the higher-ups let Song Jixing go, it was mainly because she could use her Spiritual energy to act discreetly right under people's noses without appearing too obvious.
In certain moments, she could seem even more ordinary than a regular person.
