Brother Dao Took the Entertainment Industry by Storm, Fans Beg Me Not to Kill Anymore

Chapter 540: Assassin A, the Perfectly Inhuman Aura

On the set.

The middle-aged professor sitting in the car felt inexplicably uneasy.

He slid the virtual screen in front of him, his gaze drifting momentarily as if he was staring blankly at something, then he continued swiping through the ethereal electronic display.

At that very moment, an urgent notification email popped up from his wrist and landed back on the virtual screen, glowing with a warning red hue.

[Urgent reminder from the China Academy of Top Sciences. Please acknowledge.]

”Thud, thud.”

Sounds came from outside the car, but the professor didnʼt turn his head. He merely adjusted his glasses and prepared to open the message.

Unexpectedly, the entire vehicle he was sitting in shook the next moment, as if something had landed on the roof.

—But that couldnʼt be right. This was a high-speed hovering car. How could something land on the roof?

The professorʼs eyes shifted from the light screen to the window.
It was unfortunately a cloudy day. With the severe urban pollution nowadays, cloudy days were not only hazy but also filled with constantly refracting light pollution, creating a very oppressive atmosphere. It felt as if something ominous was about to break through the human boundary from the depths of the smog and rush out—

But nothing happened.

The hovering car slowly came to a stop at its destination, as if everything that had just happened was merely an illusion.

The professor breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to get out, but he found that the car door wouldnʼt budge no matter how many times he tried to open it.

”Um—”

The professor looked up, intending to alert the system in the front, when he suddenly and horrifyingly discovered that someone was sitting silently in the driverʼs seat, which should have been unmanned.

This was a person who, at first glance, would inexplicably send chills down oneʼs spine.

His facial features were exceptionally good, his appearance handsome, even so perfect that it carried a mask-like, refined quality detached from human vitality. His eyes were pitch-black, the pupils extremely deep, yet no emotion stirred within them. They were like the eyes of a thoughtless machine, silently recording the scene and people before it.

An indescribable sense of danger flooded the mind.

Human intuition was sometimes more accurate than machines.

With just a glance across the space, the prey had already sensed impending doom.

But it was too late.

As he raised his hand, intending to activate the defense device on his person, a bloody hole abruptly appeared in the center of his forehead.

The person sitting in the driverʼs seat had long since raised a pitch-black gun barrel, aiming it at him—

The professorʼs pupils only reflected the mechanical arm, which seemed fused with the firearm, brimming with a sense of technology that even surpassed current tech, filling his heart with terror and despair.

In the next moment, the once living person was instantly stripped of all vitality, collapsing limply onto the back seat, allowing blood to flow continuously from the bloody hole in the center of his brow.

Almost immediately, the blood flowed down the corpseʼs body and spread to other parts of the seat.

In the deathly silent space, a slightly stuttering mechanical sound rang out. The right arm of the person in the driverʼs seat transformed again, and then a mechanical hand with a cold metallic sheen reached towards the seat next to the corpse, picking up the document bag beside it.

Then, the man opened the car door and left without a sound.

Just like when he arrived, he completely vanished into the smog...

-

”Cut!”

Xiao He, dragging the somewhat heavy mechanical arm, stood by the car door. An assistant immediately ran over, ready to take his ”arm,” but Xiao He politely declined.

He walked over to the directorʼs monitor screen at the front and watched the playback on the big screen together with the director, then waited for He Jinnianʼs response.

This scene was the first appearance of assassin A.

Because this scene directly established his aura and status as a major villain throughout the entire film, it needed to be shot with great care. Additionally, this was also the first time Xiao He was wearing this prop version of the mechanical arm, so everyone was still quite nervous, worried about the performance effect while hoping this scene could be shot smoothly in one take.

Fortunately, after a few minutes, He Jinnian revealed a smile and nodded at Xiao He: ”Thatʼs good.”

”Yes!”

Outside the set area, all the staff members breathed a sigh of relief, their faces showing more ease.

The very first scene of the shoot, done in one take, was a good omen for everyone. The ”professor” actor who had been slumped in the car also got out, smiling as he accepted the red envelope He Jinnian handed him. He then said to Xiao He, ”Not bad, young man. Your acting is good. I really felt like you were a bit like a robot.”

Especially the overly exaggerated rotation angle when turning his head and the low-frequency blinking of his eyes, the assassin A played by Xiao He truly had a sense of inhumanity devoid of any emotion.

It wasnʼt the aloof and cool expression people deliberately make when imitating machines. Instead, it was an eerie, refined sense of a mechanical face forever maintaining stiffness and perfect curvature, which inexplicably evoked a feeling of terror.

—Similar to the uncanny valley effect.

That is, when robots or dolls become too human-like, they instead evoke feelings of horror and fear in humans.

Xiao He had grasped this point perfectly.

Furthermore, to highlight the ”perfection” of the robot this time, Xiao Heʼs makeup was surprisingly more refined than for any of his previous roles, even having a somewhat androgynous feel. Combined with his inhuman acting, people werenʼt amazed by his ”beauty”; instead, they were first overwhelmed by the fear of excessive perfection.

This also precisely aligned with one of the main themes of ”Super Spacetime Confrontation”: when humans excessively pursue immortality and perfection, will their subconscious still fear immortality and perfection?

Of course, these werenʼt the main focus.

After confirming the filmed content was fine, Xiao He put down the mechanical prop in his hand.

In fact, while watching the playback, Xiao He was also discreetly observing He Jinnianʼs directorial skills.

Although the script had been accepted and the production team had started filming, no one was quite clear about He Jinnianʼs actual capabilities.

Xiao He still wanted to verify He Jinnianʼs true level, to confirm if he could handle the upcoming production team shoots.

—Fortunately, from what he had seen so far, He Jinnian seemed to have no faults for the time being.

Xiao He temporarily set his mind at ease and began studying the mechanical arm in his hand.

This mechanical arm wasnʼt custom-made at Young Master Huangʼs factory. It had actually been custom-made back in July. Xiao He had only tried it on once and hadnʼt studied it further. Now, with the official filming, he could finally tinker with this arm prop properly.

To be honest, Xiao He wasnʼt very satisfied with the quality of this mechanical arm.

Since this mechanical prop covered the entire arm—meaning it was directly fitted over the arm rather than replacing the arm outright—its final product had to fit the actorʼs arm closely. Its size couldnʼt be overly exaggerated; otherwise, it would give a sense of disproportionate limbs, making it look fake at first glance and very distracting.

Therefore, although this mechanical arm looked full of metallic sheen and mechanical texture from the outside, appearing like a lump of iron, its actual weight was very light. The tactile feel of the physical object was more like lightweight tinplate, feeling like it would deform if bent.

Perhaps this was the difference between on-screen and off-screen.