Finally, all forces quieted down, and no one paid attention to Jiang Rushu anymore.
The traces of private salt boat transportation disappeared from the riverbanks.
At some point, government salt at normal prices reappeared in the market streets, and the previously desolate streets gradually regained their vitality.
Jiang Rushu sat on his horse at the bridgehead, watching the crowds coming and going beneath the bridge, his expression unreadable.
The dark clouds above these people's heads had temporarily dispersed, but after the clouds churned, new storm clouds were gathering strength.
Perhaps when they woke up, the powerful would still be powerful, the world would still belong to the emperor, and the common people would be nothing—dying simply and returning to the earth.
Jiang Rushu knew that day would eventually come, but all he could do was make the sky here briefly brighter.
The power of a few individuals was ultimately too insignificant.
Jiang Rushu shook his head, pulled the reins, and urged his horse forward.
Ahead, Shen Jue was also on horseback, waiting for Jiang Rushu's arrival.
"Shall we go?"
"Yes, let's go."
At the end of the storyline, it roughly explained why Jiang Rushu was willing to sacrifice himself in this scheme. Only then did everyone understand that the brief fight scene at the beginning wasn't just establishing character backgrounds—it had revealed the incident's origin from the very start.
The little girl's father was originally a fisherman by the river who was forced to surrender his fishing boat due to government smuggling operations, ultimately getting dragged into deeper, more desperate quagmire. When Jiang Rushu deliberately identified the villain as "Zhang Lin"—a water bandit the authorities were hunting everywhere—it actually represented his determination from the beginning.
How could Jiang Rushu not know about someone the government was searching for everywhere?
When he appeared with "Zhang Lin's" head, he was bound to attract attention.
So from the very beginning, he had been acting.
Hemiao also noticed that Jiang Rushu already had a small string of copper coins tied at his waist. During the fight scene, when his clothes fluttered, the director had specifically given a close-up shot.
Now, with all clues traced back, everything had been foreshadowed from the start.
Perhaps while working as a Thief Catcher, Jiang Rushu had already done many similar things, and the copper coins at his waist were silent witnesses to it all.
But this remained endless speculation for the audience.
The film ended.
Father He and Mother He, still wanting more, gathered together to chat about martial arts films, eventually discussing actor Pu Rong and past events.
Hemiao couldn't wait to pull out her phone and recommend the movie on her social media feed.
And after the release of "Thief Catcher," Hemiao wasn't the only one taking such action.
"Thief Catcher" was spreading at a terrifying speed through organic recommendations from viewers after watching.
[Everyone go watch Thief Catcher! (Screaming madly)]
[I declare this year's best movie has arrived!]
[Everyone go watch "Thief Catcher"! Don't make me beg on my knees! Please, please, you have to watch it!]
[I'm going crazy, I'm actually going crazy! How does domestic entertainment still have such amazing fight scenes? It's like they have some kind of fight scene excellence syndrome! So satisfying! Haven't seen fight scenes like this in ages! I want to kowtow to the production team!]
------------
Haishi, a small island.
Just after boarding the island, Lin Yu'an was bumped into by someone. He felt his pockets and immediately turned his head, shouting to Xu Ning beside him: "That guy was a thief!"
Xu Ning's eyes sharpened, and he quickly chased after the fleeing thin man.
"Bang—"
He showed no mercy, directly taking the man down with a flying kick.
Lin Yu'an hurried over at a jog.
Xu Ning stepped on the man on the ground, turning to look at Lin Yu'an with obvious impatience: "Didn't I tell you to keep your token safe?"
Lin Yu'an smiled bitterly: "I don't know how this guy managed it, but he brought a razor blade onto the island. He cut my clothes."
Seeing this, Xu Ning didn't say more. He bent down, retrieved the card, and handed it to Lin Yu'an: "Keep it safe."
Lin Yu'an took the token, glanced down at the man on the ground, and asked hesitantly: "Is this guy—dead?"
Xu Ning glanced at him sideways: "No."
Lin Yu'an thought for a moment, then said: "Keeping him around is a risk. Let's tie him to a tree. If others find him, that's not our fault."
Xu Ning shrugged indifferently: "No need for such trouble."
Then he found the razor blade hidden on the thief's body, lifted the thief's head, and—under the man's terrified and pleading gaze—ruthlessly drew the blade across his neck, opening a bloody gash.
Blood instantly sprayed everywhere, even splattering near Lin Yu'an's feet. Lin Yu'an jumped back abruptly, quickly scanning their surroundings: "Are you crazy? There are eyes everywhere here."
Xu Ning lowered his eyes, calmly wiping the small razor blade in his hand, and said coldly: "This guy has sticky fingers. Keeping him is a risk. Killing him is safest."
Lin Yu'an choked on his words.
"You'd better adapt to the rhythm here quickly too."
Xu Ning's tone was calm but carried a hint of mockery.
"Otherwise you'll definitely die."
-------------
Today's filming wrapped up, and Director Ren was very satisfied with Xiao He and Liu Zehang's performances, planning to treat everyone to coconut water.
Xiao He found a shady spot to sit with his coconut, and from afar saw a woman wrapped up completely walking over from the path.
He didn't need to look to know it was definitely Sister Liu.
Xiao He quickly asked Xiao Chen to get another coconut ready for Sister Liu.
"Whew—"
As soon as Liu Rulan sat down, she took several drinks of coconut water, also accepting the small fan Xiao Chen handed her to cool herself.
Xiao He asked: "Sister Liu, what's up?"
Although Liu Rulan was his agent, Xiao He didn't need her following him to filming locations daily, so she'd mostly been at the hotel recently handling other matters for him.
He was somewhat surprised to see Liu Rulan coming to find him this time.
"Good news, naturally." Liu Rulan removed her sunglasses, her eyes carrying a hint of smile. "'Thief Catcher' has been released, and the results are excellent."
Xiao He: "Oh."
He had a good sense of "Thief Catcher's" quality, so achieving decent results was expected—he wasn't surprised.
But clearly, he had underestimated what "excellent" meant in Liu Rulan's words.
Liu Rulan also noticed Xiao He's lack of reaction and continued leisurely: "The current box office share has already reached twenty million, and the numbers are still soaring."
Xiao He's eyes instantly widened as he turned to look at Liu Rulan: "Twenty million?"
The box office share for online movies is somewhat similar to theatrical box office—both measure a film's commercial value—though the revenue sources and distribution mechanisms differ.
Box office share mainly consists of members' effective viewing time, pay-per-view purchases, product placement, and pre-roll advertising. Essentially, it's the platform sharing revenue with production companies based on payment results.
Due to this model's low risk and high flexibility, more young directors are favoring this release method. Even members of major director teams are coming out to gain experience. In recent years, online movies have been gradually developing toward quality "theatrical" production values and striving for higher-level box office shares.
However, to date, from what Xiao He understood, the highest box office share for an online movie belonged to a tomb-raiding themed film that achieved fifty-six million in box office share. Although its production cost was also in the tens of millions, it ultimately broke the historical record for Chinese online movies, becoming the work with the highest box office share.
Although subsequent online movies gradually broke through fifty million with platform resource support, there remained a gap, and no excellent online movie had yet broken the sixty million box office share record.
As for one hundred million in box office share, that would likely require at least a phenomenal-level excellent work—nothing like that had appeared in history yet.
And now "Thief Catcher," after just three days of release, had already achieved twenty million in box office share—an astonishing figure.
To put it in perspective: that tomb-raiding online movie took six days to reach the nineteen million mark, while "Thief Catcher" achieved its target in half the time!
Although growth speed doesn't necessarily determine final box office results, such promising trends undoubtedly give everyone full confidence.