Chapter 497

Chapter 497 The Behind-the-Scenes Topic Queen

Everyone was startled by the gunshot again! All of them jolted at once!

“Ah!” He Licheng let out a miserable scream, his whole body thrashing wildly on the ground!

But with Su Rui’s foot pressing down on his head, there was no way he could lift his face off the floor!

He Licheng felt a piercing pain in his ear, his cheek burning like fire, his very soul nearly flying out of his body! It was completely the feeling of having walked through the gates of hell and back!

His ear had been shot clean through!

The bullet pierced his ear, grazed his cheek as it flew past, and drilled straight into the ground!

If the muzzle in Su Rui’s hand had shifted even one millimeter, that bullet would have blown apart He Licheng’s nerve center!

He Licheng struggled and trembled at the same time, his entire body completely soaked through with sweat!

After so many years on the streets, he had never encountered such a terrifying moment! Even though his ears were already ringing from the blast, he could still clearly hear the sound of his own heart shaking with fear!

“Still not willing to talk?”

Su Rui gave a cold smile and casually fired another shot!

The way he fired was so casual, yet so precise it was frightening!

He Licheng’s other ear was shot through as well!

Shot after shot had completely stunned all of He Licheng’s men!

“Run!”

Someone shouted, and a crowd of people instantly surged madly toward the stadium entrance — if they stayed any longer, they might end up as live targets!

If that guy got unhappy and fired a few shots into the crowd on a whim, none of them would get out in one piece!

“Nobody moves!”

Su Rui raised his right arm level, aimed at the guy running at the front, and pulled the trigger cleanly and decisively!

That bullet seemed to have eyes, crossing a distance of thirty or forty meters and drilling straight into the shoulder of the man at the front without any flourish!

It was as if someone had struck him hard across the back with a club — he was mid-run, and carried by his forward momentum, he crashed violently to the ground!

His fall immediately tripped several others!

“Anyone who dares to keep running will get their head blown off!”

Su Rui’s cold voice rang out from behind!

That voice was filled with an overwhelming sense of menace, forcing these thugs to stop in their tracks!

Of course, there was still hesitation in their hearts — after all, their side had over a hundred people, and the other side only had a few bullets left. Could he really keep all of them here?

Reading the looks in their eyes, Su Rui already knew what they were thinking, and said coldly, “I know what you’re thinking. To be honest, I don’t have many bullets left on me — just two magazines. But with these nearly thirty rounds, I can guarantee they’ll find their way into each and every one of your bodies. You won’t die, but you’ll be seriously wounded.”

These words made the hundred-odd people hesitate further. They were genuinely afraid — even though thirty bullets couldn’t kill everyone, nobody wanted to be the one who died first!

Seeing that everyone had stayed put, Su Rui raised his hand and pointed at the two bodyguards beside Toni Landor, saying, “You two, go guard the main entrance. Without my order, no one is allowed to leave.”

He said this in English, and both bodyguards understood perfectly, yet they still hesitated for a moment and looked toward Toni Landor.

Their job was to protect Landor from harm, not to follow the orders of this Chinese man.

Landor smiled faintly, her expression radiating an alluring charm: “Right now, his orders are my orders. Do as he says.”

“Yes.”

The two bodyguards couldn’t defy Landor’s wishes. They gave a slight nod to their fellow bodyguards and stepped through the crowd, heading toward the main entrance.

When it came to one-on-one combat and hand-to-hand fighting, these bodyguards could completely dominate He Licheng’s thugs in a straight fight!

“Good, isn’t this exactly the outcome we wanted?”

Su Rui stood with his foot on He Licheng, his gaze carrying a stern and imposing air.

Having subdued over a hundred people with the strength of one person alone, his face remained ice-cold, without any trace of pride.

Back in the day, when Apollo made his debut, he had single-handedly taken down the notorious “Ghost Shadow” organization, and afterward there had been no celebration whatsoever. What others saw as a great achievement was, in Su Rui’s eyes, nothing more than a small ripple in the flow of life — not worth mentioning.

In truth, he hadn’t expected things to escalate this seriously. One incident after another kept appearing, making him wonder whether these underhanded schemes were aimed at Toni Landor, or at himself.

He Licheng lay face-down on the ground, both ears bleeding, his heart suffering unbearable torment!

“Which matters more, money or your life? Surely you understand something this simple?”

Su Rui ground his shoe hard against He Licheng’s injured ear, and the latter immediately let out a scream like a pig being slaughtered!

The sight of it sent a chill through everyone watching!

“The logic is actually very simple — money or your life. My patience is very limited. I’ve already repeated myself twice and I have no intention of wasting any more words.” Su Rui said coldly, his brow lightly furrowed, looking genuinely impatient.

“If I talk, can you guarantee you won’t kill me?” Suppressing the pain from both ears, He Licheng actually began to bargain.

“Bang!”

The answer came in the form of another gunshot!

The bullet struck He Licheng’s hand, shooting clean through his palm and leaving a horrifying bloody hole!

“You’re in no position to bargain right now. Two choices — talk, or die.” Su Rui said flatly, his eyes revealing a bone-chilling coldness.

…………

“Chen ge, you helped us pull off something this big this time. I really don’t know how to thank you enough.”

Inside the most luxurious suite of the Junlan Kaibin Hotel in Ninghai, a beautiful woman in a bikini draped with a light sheer wrap lay on the terrace, speaking to the man beside her in a voice that was soft and seductive.

The woman had a great figure — full where it should be full, slender where it should be slender, not an ounce of excess flesh, with curves that rose and fell like waves and smooth, delicate skin. It was clear she had put tremendous effort into her upkeep.

Her looks were top-tier as well. Though her chin was sharply pointed in the typical V-line style — clearly the result of cosmetic surgery — a face like hers would absolutely cause a sensation on any street.

Especially those eyes, which shimmered like rippling water and always seemed to let slip a hint of seductiveness, whether intentionally or not. Any normal man who saw them would lose control, inevitably feeling an irresistible urge to conquer this woman!

That seductiveness seemed to come from deep within her bones, yet to a discerning eye, it carried just a slight touch of affectation. Though her figure and gaze were both very enticing, this was a different matter entirely from Toni Landor’s kind of innate, natural allure.

That said, purely in terms of looks, temperament, figure, and even voice, this woman in the white bikini was beyond reproach.

In China, beautiful women like this tend to be unwilling to settle for obscurity. If you don’t take advantage of your youth and use your looks and figure as capital to exchange for certain “things,” that would truly be a waste of what you’ve been given.

Although the terrace was an open space, the Junlan Kaibin Hotel protected its guests’ privacy extremely well. It appeared to be an open area, yet it gave paparazzi no opportunity or angle to take secret photos — unless they came by plane for an aerial shot, only then might they discover the earth-shattering gossip unfolding on this terrace!

This woman was quite well-known in China’s entertainment industry. Her name was Tian Xixi.

A few years back, when Tian Xixi had just debuted, she went by the title of a fresh-faced model, making money by shooting print ads and posing as game characters. But because her figure was genuinely eye-catching — naturally voluptuous in a way that was fundamentally different from those cover girls who achieved their curves through surgery — her name gradually began to make waves.

However, her fame was limited to the small circle of print modeling. To break into the larger world of film and television, she would need to put in “painstaking” effort.

In certain contexts, that kind of “effort” had another synonym: “price.”

And so, with the calculated maneuvering of her management company, Tian Xixi’s computer broke down.

She took it in for repairs without deleting the “battle videos” she had made with her boyfriend from the hard drive. The repair technician’s eyes went wide, and with a “slip of the hand,” everything was uploaded to the internet.

This immediately caused an enormous uproar!

It was a tired old publicity stunt, a storyline with no originality whatsoever — yet every time something like this came to light, it brought roundabout benefits to the woman at the center of the story.

The more people watched, the more people talked — didn’t that just make you famous?

Sure, that kind of fame might not be entirely positive, but society is realistic. People only remember winners. A few years down the line, when you’re a huge star, who’s going to bother bringing up those old “battle videos”?

Once you’re famous, directors will want to use you, and that brings ratings and box office — that’s the entertainment industry!

People who got used to seeing you with your clothes off will want to see what you look like with them on!

Tian Xixi was undoubtedly the biggest beneficiary of all this!

Though she went through a dark period of being looked down on and condemned by everyone, from that point on, Tian Xixi’s fame rose steadily and the offers kept coming!

She even appeared in a film this year that was selected for the Berlin Film Festival, and she herself got the chance to walk the red carpet!

For a female star who had grown from a print model, this was nearly the pinnacle of her career!

Yet Tian Xixi’s management company seemed to feel this still wasn’t enough. They couldn’t confine her reputation to the category of “hot actress” — they wanted to blow her name wide open, just like America’s Toni Landor, developing across film, television, and music, becoming a triple-threat star across the board!

From the very beginning until now, the path Tian Xixi had taken was very similar to Toni Landor’s — centered on sexiness and allure. Whenever she appeared in public, it was always in low-cut outfits, constantly using her wardrobe to draw everyone’s attention and generate all kinds of buzz for herself.

As a result, since her debut, she had also earned the nickname “Queen of Controversy.”

What better topic could there be than stepping on Toni Landor to climb higher?