Chapter 614: Dark Fairy Tale

As a team leader in the Review Department, Zhong Lin actually had quite a lot of work to do every day.

She was also responsible for assisting with some work arrangements for next year's "Hundred Billion Box Office Plan" in the afternoon, so she did not continue watching "Corner" in the office.

However, she kept thinking about this show in her heart.

There was no helping it; it was just too good at leaving cliffhangers!

The first episode ended with the children discovering someone being pushed off the mountain in the video.

The second episode ended with Zhu Jingjing falling from the attic storage room.

The third episode ended with Zhang Dongsheng tracking down the three children.

How could anyone stop watching this! One would definitely want to keep watching!

After getting off work and returning home, Zhong Lin ate something casual and then locked herself in the study to continue the review work for "Corner".

Her husband thought to himself while washing the dishes: "It's probably another new work by Luo Mo."

"Although his songs are very pleasant and his shows and movies are good, I just can't bring myself to like him!"

"This doesn't affect our married life, though!"

He takes up too much of my wife's time!

In the study, Zhong Lin continued watching the show.

The beginning of the fourth episode explained why Zhang Dongsheng knew the Warning letter was given by Zhu Chaoyang from the trial class.

This high-IQ math teacher first carefully observed the envelope and discovered faint traces on it, then quickly rubbed a pencil diagonally across the envelope, immediately revealing the traces on it.

Those were handwriting marks.

When Zhu Chaoyang was answering the test paper, he had pressed the envelope under the test paper, and because of this, pen marks were left on the top.

By comparing the handwriting, Zhang Dongsheng locked onto Zhu Chaoyang.

"The children are still too green," Zhong Lin thought.

Even if the handwriting in the Warning letter was altered, they were still careless with the details.

The subsequent development was indeed as she had expected.

"These three children are not at all what I thought they were at the beginning."

"They are not simple!" Zhong Lin thought.

At first, she felt that they were too bold to dare to give a murderer a Warning letter.

And the result?

She had completely underestimated them!

After Zhang Dongsheng knew they had the video, he indicated that they could make a Requirement to him.

And now, they actually dared to ask him for 300,000!

This connected with the plot line about Pupu's younger brother being sick mentioned earlier!

Yan Liang and Pupu ran away from the welfare institution; Yan Liang's personal arc involved his mentally unstable father and the old acquaintance, the policeman Lao Chen.

And Pupu's personal arc was having a younger brother, Xinxin, who needed 300,000 for medical expenses.

A line of dialogue from Yan Liang made Zhong Lin frown.

"The old man can't be saved anymore, but with the money, we can at least save Pupu's brother, can't we?" he said to Zhu Chaoyang.

Zhong Lin had always felt that Yan Liang was the most naive of the three children, having a feeling of being physically strong but simple-minded.

However, this did not mean that he was the most pure-hearted.

But contradictorily, later on, Yan Liang and Pupu wanted to give Zhu Chaoyang a fountain pen, but they had no money, and Yan Liang instinctively wanted to steal.

Yet, before walking out of the convenience store, he ultimately decided to help the proprietress move goods to exchange for the fountain pen.

The design of these small details not only enriched the daily scenes but also made Zhong Lin feel that the characters were more well-rounded.

She had seen enough characters in the Review Department who were either black or white, with the labels of "Good" and "Bad" stuck directly on their faces.

In this show, most of the characters gave her the feeling of being gray.

This gave her a sense of realism.

But since the protagonists were children, there would be more of a shock to the soul and a complex mix of feelings.

Because in the vast majority, or rather almost all film and television works, children are purely "White," at most mixed with some shortcomings and temperaments.

"Human nature still needs correct guidance," Zhong Lin thought.

On the other side, Zhang Dongsheng thought that after getting rid of his father-in-law and mother-in-law, he would be his wife's only pillar.

But what he didn't expect was—he was cheated on.

Good heavens, you have a pillar on the outside too?

Moreover, there were metaphors in some places in this show, such as Zhang Dongsheng and his wife having been together for so many years and still not being able to have a child.

When he was in the elevator, his crotch was sprayed with water by a brat with a water gun, and he later taught that child a lesson.

His body had some issues.

Zhong Lin had a bad premonition, especially when she saw the scene where Zhang Dongsheng was not wearing his wig or his Glasses, standing there looking at the wedding photo of him and his wife.

Coincidentally, there was also a large wedding photo hanging in her own study!

………

………

The end of the fourth episode was also cut very cleverly.

Zhu Jingjing's mother, Wang Yao, never believed that her daughter's fall was an accident.

She insisted on checking the surveillance at the Shaoniangong.

Then, in the surveillance footage, she saw…….. Zhu Chaoyang!

This woman, who seemed like a madman because of her daughter's death, directly suspected Zhu Chaoyang, convinced that he was absolutely the murderer.

For this reason, she even went directly to find Zhu Chaoyang, acting extremely barbarous; she chased and hit him, pulled and tugged at him, and the vest on the child was almost torn to shreds by her, while his head was also knocked until it bled.

Zhu Chaoyang's mother, Zhou Chunhong, rushed down and stated that she was the one who had signed Zhu Chaoyang up for the math Olympiad class; Wang Yao's words and actions were increasingly suffocating, and she insisted that it was instigated by Zhou Chunhong, even wanting to take Zhu Chaoyang away right in front of Zhou Chunhong, and during his struggle, she slapped the child directly.

The two women wrestled together just like that, pushing and shoving, pulling each other's hair.

In the end, it was the neighbors who helped and chased Wang Yao away.

But Wang Yao remained relentless; she printed many papers, on which it was written that Zhu Chaoyang was a murderer, and plastered these papers all over the residential building.

They were in the hallway, on the walls, and at the front door.

The most outrageous part was that these papers even had a photo of Zhu Chaoyang printed directly on them.

The child breathed heavily while walking upstairs with his head down, not daring to look around, the whole person appearing as if he couldn't catch his breath, while Zhou Chunhong was there tearing down the papers like a madwoman.

Watching this part of the Drama, Zhong Lin's blood pressure soared.

The character of Wang Yao is very unlikable because she is a very arrogant person who has also spoiled her daughter.

Later on, the three children prepared to go to Liufeng Mountain again to burn some paper for the deceased elder.

But it just so happened that at this time, Wang Yao also came to Liufeng Mountain, and because Zhu Chaoyang's mother, Zhou Chunhong, worked at this scenic spot, she broke directly into the scenic spot's broadcast room and accused Zhou Chunhong and Zhu Chaoyang of being murderers over the loudspeaker.

These words spread throughout the entire scenic spot.

"She can still act like a monster like this!?" Zhong Lin's blood pressure went even higher.

Because Zhou Chunhong kept refusing to say what she was doing at the time Zhu Jingjing died, Wang Yao became increasingly relentless.

Finally, an emotionally overwhelmed Zhou Chunhong told her directly that she was in a hotel room with Ma Zhu Ren from the scenic spot that day.

But these words were also heard by Zhu Chaoyang, who had rushed over.

Wang Yao was thus driven out of the scenic spot.

As a woman, Zhong Lin could imagine Zhou Chunhong's collapse and embarrassment at this moment.

Losing face in front of colleagues was something she could endure; after all, having been divorced for so long, dating a friend was nothing, it would just be gossiped about by some long-tongued women.

But this was in front of her son...

Zhong Lin kept reading down and discovered that Zhou Chunhong's love for Zhu Chaoyang was also very heavy.

After her divorce, she only had her son; the subsequent scene where she forced her son to drink milk also made Zhong Lin feel very uncomfortable and suffocated, feeling the pressure even through the screen.

Her son was her everything, so her desire for control was extremely strong, wanting to control everything about her son.

In this episode, there was also a battle of wits between the top student Zhu Chaoyang and the extremely clever math teacher Zhang Dongsheng.

In their dialogue, they threatened each other; one said the other was a murderer, the other said the other had already accepted 30,000 yuan, which could also be considered blackmail and extortion—everyone was guilty.

But Zhu Chaoyang's logic was clear, and he was obviously harder to deal with than that blockhead Yan Liang.

Zhang Dongsheng then questioned him, "How much of the 300,000 can you get?"

Zhu Chaoyang said he was not doing it for money.

Zhang Dongsheng pressed, "Then what are you doing it for?"

Zhu Chaoyang's eyes flickered slightly, and finally he said, "For a friend."

Zhong Lin is a very smart person; she became a team leader at a young age, and while there must be other reasons, her own advantages certainly played a part.

She had already discovered many things that were not quite right earlier, and had found many metaphors.

At this moment, she felt even more: "Ordinary viewers would definitely think at this time that a child is a child after all, too eager for friends, too eager for friendship."

"But I think this might be part of the reason."

"However, it is definitely not all of it!"

After the verbal clash between Zhu Chaoyang and Zhang Dongsheng, he left the Shaoniangong.

His father, Zhu Yongping, had long been waiting for him at the entrance, wanting him to get in the car and take him to eat.

At this moment, Zhong Lin keenly discovered a detail.

"In the first episode, when his father took him to buy shoes, he sat in the back seat."

"This time, he sat in the passenger seat very naturally."

Zhong Lin knew very well that Luo Mo is an absolute detail-oriented person, or rather, a detail fanatic!

His scripts and his shows are always full of deep meaning in terms of details.

Such a small segment can actually show the psychological changes in Zhu Chaoyang.

Although his parents are divorced, but...

——Dad is now my dad alone!

Just like that, Zhu Chaoyang went to eat dessert with his father.

Zhu Yongping even gave his son new swimming goggles.

Zhu Chaoyang was originally very happy, his joy visible to the naked eye.

However, after giving the imported swimming goggles, Zhu Yongping began to say, "Dad wants to ask you something, don't get angry."

"The day your sister had the accident at the Shaoniangong, were you following her?"

Zhu Chaoyang's expression changed instantly: "You think it was me too?"

Zhong Lin felt a bit uncomfortable watching this content.

As mentioned before, the titles of every episode of the whole show are very interesting; the duration of each episode is different, and they all revolve around the title, and once the title is interpreted, the episode ends abruptly.

And this episode is titled—【Flies】.

"Is it 'flies don't bite seamless eggs'?" Zhong Lin guessed the meaning.

But in reality, it is more than that.

In this father-son exchange, after asking, Zhu Yongping defended himself: "Dad just wanted to know if you found any suspicious people."

"What about your Auntie Wang Yao, she keeps saying you ran, saying you avoided her gaze, can you tell me the reason?" Zhu Yongping said.

"Dad, I didn't run, and I didn't avoid her gaze. She hit me, should I just let her hit me?" He looked at his father without flinching.

Zhong Lin could clearly feel that the Zhu Chaoyang before her eyes had become increasingly logical in his speech and actions through one incident after another, and the person himself had also become—increasingly calm!

"Dad, if you wanted to ask about this, there was really no need to go to such expense." Zhu Chaoyang's words began to strike more and more at the heart.

"Dad really sincerely wanted to give this to you..." Before Zhu Yongping could finish his sentence, the waiter responsible for serving the dessert accidentally spilled it, so he went to the restroom to clean up first.

After Zhu Yongping left, Zhu Chaoyang opened his father's bag with a look of resentment and put back the swimming goggles his father had given him.

At this moment, a fly kept circling around, and in the background music, one could hear it buzzing constantly.

"It's coming!" Zhong Lin said in her heart; the focal point of this episode was arriving.

Just then, Zhu Chaoyang seemed to feel something was wrong; amidst the buzzing of the fly, he opened his father's bag again and discovered from inside... a digital voice recorder!

Zhu Yongping was actually recording!

Although it might have been forced by that crazy woman Wang Yao...

But when Zhu Yongping returned from the restroom, Zhu Chaoyang acted as if nothing had happened, still chatting happily with his father.

Yet the swimming goggles he had previously put back into the bag had reappeared on the table.

Zhong Lin sighed: "The child is meticulous; he took the swimming goggles back out to pretend he had never opened his bag."

Zhu Chaoyang began to continue Punishing the Heart of Zhu Yongping, telling him why he wanted to come to this shop to eat, because of memories from childhood; back then, after eating sweet soup, father and son would go to the playground to play.

"When you two divorced, I didn't know what was going on."

"I thought we could still play ball together, and you would still take me swimming."

"Later I understood, and I also knew how much Jingjing needed Dad's company, and how sad Aunt Wang Yao was."

"Although my mom suffered many grievances because of Aunt Wang Yao, and she often cried alone in the middle of the night, at least she still had me."

The child began his counterattack.

Every word was Punishing the Heart!

"I studied hard because you thought I wasn't well-behaved; I thought... if I had been more sensible back then, would you two not have separated?" Zhu Chaoyang looked at him and said.

Zhu Yongping dared not look at him; he just buried his head and kept eating the sweet soup, keeping his head down, eating in large mouthfuls, swallowing in large gulps.

"You silly child, it has nothing to do with you; it's Dad... it's Dad who let you down." The hand holding his spoon was trembling, and he was trying his best to control his tone so as not to lose his composure.

"Dad, I don't blame you; you haven't been bad to me. I really wish I could trade places with Jingjing; even if I died, it wouldn't matter, at least that way, you wouldn't be so sad." He said this in the tone of a naive, innocent child who was being considerate of his father.

Zhu Yongping still dared not look at him, only finishing the sweet soup, and with a very, very faint sobbing tone, said: "You... you should order another bowl, it's delicious, this is delicious, really."

Zhu Chaoyang smiled slightly, his spoon constantly stirring the sweet soup, and said: "I'm full."

As the father and son left the dessert shop, the camera gave a close-up of the bowl of sweet soup that Zhu Chaoyang had been stirring.

A dead fly was lying quietly on top.

This image reminded Zhong Lin of a saying: "As disgusting as having eaten a fly."

Here, perhaps it refers to the digital voice recorder?

"Awesome!" Zhong Lin praised endlessly in her heart.

Before sending Zhu Chaoyang home, Zhu Yongping even took him to squat downstairs at their building and eat a popsicle.

The father and son hadn't spent time together like this for many years.

Zhu Chaoyang returned home and reached out to touch the imported swimming goggles his father had given him.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Zhu Yongping sat in front of a photo of his daughter Zhu Jingjing and turned on the digital voice recorder from his bag.

The words Zhu Chaoyang had spoken came out from the digital voice recorder.

Seeing this, Zhong Lin felt very nervous in her heart.

"The digital voice recorder was placed in the bag."

"Then, the sound of the zipper when Zhu Chaoyang opened the bag must have been recorded as well."

"At the same time, the volume recorded by the digital voice recorder when the bag was opened and when it was closed must be different."

"Most importantly, there was a fly buzzing around the digital voice recorder the whole time!" Zhong Lin thought to herself.

Just then, Zhu Yongping sat there, listening to everything recorded on the digital voice recorder, and then silently looked up at the photo of his daughter Zhu Jingjing.

His hand moved over the digital voice recorder, deleting all the recordings completely.

Then, he was silent for a moment, raised his hand, and slapped himself in the face.

A very forceful, very loud slap!

In the scene, it was not explicitly stated whether Zhu Yongping knew that Zhu Chaoyang had opened the bag.

On Earth, after this segment was broadcast, the audience held two viewpoints.

One group felt that Zhu Yongping heard what his son said, felt very heartbroken, and felt very ashamed. He felt ashamed and blamed himself for suspecting his son, so he slapped himself.

He looked at the photo of Zhu Jingjing because he realized he no longer had a daughter and only had this one son left.

Zhu Chaoyang is my only flesh and blood!

Another group of viewers felt that Zhu Yongping actually heard the sound of the zipper and the buzzing of the fly, so he looked up at his daughter's photo; he knew that his son Zhu Chaoyang might truly be a suspect.

But he had already lost his daughter; could he lose his son as well?

Therefore, he slapped himself in front of his daughter's photo.

Zhong Lin continued watching; she personally held the first viewpoint.

She felt that Zhu Chaoyang's words were too heartbreaking and too piercing, causing his father's attention to be focused on the content of those words, ignoring many details.

Moreover, the subsequent plot was Zhu Yongping beginning to treat his son twice as well, taking him swimming and staying by his side.

However, this swimming scene made Zhong Lin feel it carried a metaphor.

Underwater, Zhu Yongping kept waving at his son, signaling him to swim toward him.

But in this shot, Zhu Chaoyang kept splashing forward, yet his body hardly moved at all.

—The distance between the father and son had not narrowed!

………

………

At this moment, Zhong Lin took one last look at the progress bar in the study; this episode was about to end.

And according to the consistent style of the previous episodes of The Corner, the ending was bound to be high-intensity throughout!

The scene shifted to Zhang Dongsheng's side.

His wife, Xu Jing, had someone else on the outside and still insisted on divorcing him; Zhang Dongsheng was seeing her off in the underground parking garage.

He looked at the woman before him with affection and sorrow.

The woman before him whom he loved deeply.

He said a single sentence.

"Do I still have a chance?"

A simple sentence that made Zhong Lin feel as if the temperature in the study had dropped!

Too familiar!

This line was too familiar!

He was the one who, after asking his father-in-law and mother-in-law "Do I still have a chance," pushed the two elders off the mountain after receiving his answer!

At this moment, Zhang Dongsheng was asking his wife the same question!

He kept crying, tears streaming down his face, incomparably humble.

Yet in return, his wife only sniffled slightly and then said, "I'm leaving."

Then, she reached out her hand to ask him for the car keys.

Before Xu Jing got into the car, Zhang Dongsheng said, "Xu Jing, drive slowly."

This sentence made Zhong Lin's hair stand on end once again.

She knew that Xu Jing was going to die!

At this moment, the scene switched to the three children in the Secret Base.

The children were lying together, and Zhu Chaoyang was telling Pupu and Yan Liang a different version of a story; after finishing, he asked them, "Do you believe in reality, or do you believe in fairy tales?"

Yan Liang, that simple-minded fellow, expressed that it was all a mess and he didn't understand.

Pupu expressed that she believed in fairy tales; how beautiful fairy tales were.

At this moment, Zhong Lin understood.

"Fairy tales represent the bright line of this Drama."

"Reality represents the dark line of this Drama."

"Therefore, what is broadcast for everyone to see is not necessarily the truth."

"All the truth is hidden in the metaphors, hidden in the dark line."

This extremely intelligent woman, having only watched up to the sixth episode, could already almost confirm—Zhu Jingjing's death absolutely had something to do with Zhu Chaoyang!

At this time, the three children lay on the boat, closing their eyes; when they opened them, the singing of "Little White Boat" rang out.

Even though it was a soothing nursery rhyme, and even though the screen showed the three children imagining this broken boat drifting on the sea, Zhong Lin felt goosebumps rising wildly.

Most importantly, the lyrics here had been changed!

A female voice echoed: "【Drifting~ drifting~ drifting to the Western Heaven——】"

Amidst this singing, clouds and mist obscured the entire screen.

When the clouds and mist dispersed, what was floating on the sea was the corpse of Xu Jing wearing a swimsuit!

——True devilish editing!

The scene switched, leading straight to hell.

……..

……..

It was almost 12 o'clock at night, and Zhong Lin stopped reviewing The Corner.

She had a very important meeting to attend tomorrow morning and could not stay up late today.

That night, Zhong Lin's husband felt it was quite magical.

"What's going on? Throwing herself into my arms as soon as she got into bed?"

"Holding me so tightly all night long."

Could it be that Luo Mo's work this time is a Love Film, making Linlin recall our sweet memories from the past?

"Thanks to Luo Mo," the man said in his heart for the first time.

The next day, Zhong Lin got up early and went to the Review Department to hold a meeting that lasted over an hour.

After the meeting, she immediately continued watching The Corner.

Watching until it was nearly time to get off work, she finished the entire series.

She discovered that she had indeed guessed correctly; the sixth episode, "Flies," was one of the turning points of the entire Drama.

In the seventh episode, Zhu Chaoyang began writing a new Diary, and this episode was called "Diary," which showed that this thing was very important.

This meticulous and incomparably precocious child actually wrote the footage from the camera and the matters concerning Yan Liang, Pupu, and the others into his Diary?

In the subsequent plot, people kept dying.

Even Zhu Yongping died.

Towards the end, even Pupu was suspected to have died!

The more Zhong Lin watched, the more she felt that if it continued to play out like this, the Drama would collapse; there would be no way to wrap it up.

Yet the twelfth episode was like a stroke of genius, leaving Zhong Lin completely stunned.

"It can be filmed like this!?"

All the truth, Luo Mo had filmed it, filmed it very cryptically.

Yet on the surface, he wove a beautiful fairy tale and broadcast it for the audience to watch, but it was filled with filming techniques that switched between light and shadow, with filters constantly changing.

In the fairy tale, all three children had a happy ending.

But, in reality?

Zhong Lin watched, taking a deep breath.

"On the surface, this grand finale meets the requirements for the Review Department; no faults can be picked out," Zhong Lin thought.

"But in the shadows..."

In her view, this drama is even more serious than "Manslaughter"!

"Manslaughter" at least moved its setting abroad, while this drama, although it takes place in a fictional world called 【Earth】, has a final big boss who is actually Zhu Chaoyang!

It merely wears the skin of a fairy tale, as if the ending for the three children is perfectly happy.

Yet behind the scenes, it tears everything beautiful to shreds!

"If this is truly filming a fairy tale, then it is a dark fairy tale," Zhong Lin thought to herself.

Luo Mo seems to be Dancing while wearing shackles within the rules of the Review Department, fully displaying beauty.

But his shadow is also doing something completely different on the side, baring fangs and brandishing claws!

(PS: Two-in-one, 6400.)

(End of chapter)