Chapter 73: Sneaking into Class

When a group of police officers stormed onto the set, both the extras and the crew were completely baffled. Weren’t they filming a historical drama? Why had one officer shown up earlier, and now a whole squad? Had Director Zhang suddenly decided to turn it into a time-travel show?

Only Director Zhang himself was utterly despondent. When he saw the police rush in, he didn’t resist at all. Instead, he held out his hands willingly to be cuffed.

As Director Zhang was escorted out by two officers, the set instantly erupted into chaos. What was going on? Someone quickly whipped out their phone to start filming, already calculating how much they could sell the footage for to a gossip site. But that dream was doomed from the start—he wasn’t the only one with a phone.

With the director arrested, the assistant director and others were left completely stunned. Leaderless, the crew descended into disarray, nearly shoving their phones into Director Zhang’s face for a better shot.

The lead actors looked utterly dismayed. Before filming began, they had done their due diligence, checking thoroughly to make sure no one involved had any criminal history before signing on. Who would’ve thought it wouldn’t be them, but the director who’d get into trouble?

Just great. Months of work down the drain.

…

Elsewhere, facing police interrogation, Director Zhang confessed everything without holding back. A few months ago, he had attended an industry party. The theme of the gathering was openness—in every sense.

Under the dazzling lights, with seductive music pounding in his ears, Director Zhang’s restless heart was stirred. Before he knew it, he’d downed drink after drink. The alcohol clouded his mind and dulled his senses. He didn’t even know who first pulled out a small bag of pills, claiming they brought a bliss like ascending to heaven. At that point, Director Zhang had no judgment left. He took the pills and popped them into his mouth without hesitation.

That night, he was wildly euphoric, and indeed experienced a high like floating in the clouds. But once his mind cleared, he was furious. While not exactly a paragon of virtue, he had always steered clear of things he shouldn’t touch. And now those people had dragged him into this?

He immediately called them, determined to cut all ties. But the person on the other end just chuckled and said, “You’ll come looking for me,” before hanging up.

Director Zhang sneered, fully understanding the implication. But he believed in his own willpower—he could resist the temptation. So he moved into a villa in the suburbs. After having the housekeeper stock up on food for a few days, he gave her time off.

The first two days were manageable. Whenever the cravings hit, he could distract himself and push through. But as time went on, the yearning grew from mental to physical. He started getting dizzy, hearing ringing in his ears, and crying and sniffling uncontrollably. After a day, he began vomiting, his body convulsing, writhing on the floor in agony. But even that brought no relief.

He didn’t dare see a doctor. For someone like him, even a whiff of scandal could destroy his career.

He had overestimated his willpower and underestimated the addictive power of those little pills. Who knew how many they’d given him that night?

The searing pain made him wish he were dead. Dangerous thoughts crept into his mind. With trembling fingers, he pulled out his phone, unlocked a number from his blacklist, and made the call.

Time passed in a blur. Eventually, his mind began to clear, and a surge of energy and euphoria flooded his body. Sitting up, he saw a small bag of rose-colored pills on the coffee table in front of the sofa, along with a note: Welcome to the League of Bliss.

Director Zhang collapsed onto the couch in despair, his vision going dark.

Over the following months, they provided him with a fixed supply of pills. At first, all they wanted was money. For someone like him, the amounts were trivial—barely a drop in the bucket.

But soon, they wanted more. The prices kept rising, and the quantity of pills kept shrinking. When Director Zhang finally reached his limit, they made a new demand: bring in a newcomer, someone with influence. Only then would they restore his supply. Director Zhang refused outright. He had already fallen—he couldn’t drag someone else down with him.

The group didn’t argue. They just laughed and hung up. Director Zhang thought that was the end of it. But from that day on, he never heard from them again. Even when he tried calling, no one picked up.

That’s when panic set in. But no matter how desperate he was, he couldn’t afford to make another mistake. In a last-ditch effort, he scoured the city and finally found a dealer at a bar. He paid a hefty price for a new supply.

After that, he added the dealer on WeChat and started buying regularly every few days. But recently, the dealer’s behavior had become erratic. He refused to meet in person and seemed increasingly paranoid, convinced someone was watching him.

Director Zhang got nervous too. After some discussion, they agreed to stop meeting face-to-face for a while and switch to deliveries. Of course, regular couriers would inspect the packages, so the dealer had an accomplice pose as a courier and hide the pills among a pile of miscellaneous packages before delivering them to Director Zhang.

This time, the plan went awry because the fake courier dropped off the packages at the gatehouse, and the security guard accidentally knocked one to the floor without noticing. After Director Zhang’s assistant picked up the rest, the guard spotted the small package still lying there.

Though the package had no label, no one else received deliveries there. The guard had been paid off by Director Zhang, so he was happy to help. When he saw Song Changfeng, he assumed he was just another extra from the set and asked him to take the package over.

After the interrogation was completed, the narcotics officers realized that behind what seemed like a routine violation lay a massive criminal profit chain. If they followed the leads provided by Director Zhang, they might just be able to uproot a major cancer at its source.

To avoid alerting the suspects, the police issued a deliberately vague public notice about the incident. All people knew was that he had been arrested for committing a crime, but the specifics were kept under wraps. Most assumed it was some kind of financial or personal misconduct.

Once the news was confirmed, it shot to the top of the trending searches almost instantly. Just a few days ago, people were still clinging to hope, but now that the truth was verified, there was nothing anyone could do. Scandals in the entertainment industry had become commonplace, but this time was different—Director Zhang had too many works under his belt. Besides the drama currently in production, he was also involved in films and variety shows. His downfall shook half the entertainment world, and countless artists were caught in the fallout.

Aofeng and Song Changfeng, who single-handedly shook half the entertainment industry, had already returned to the Training Base with a certificate and bonus from the Tongcheng City Police Department. The days of filming had flown by, and thanks to Aofeng’s stellar cooperation, nearly all his scenes were done in a single take. Director Cheng An was stunned by the filming efficiency and couldn’t help but sigh—these days, some people really are worse than dogs, not just in life, but even in acting skills!

After returning to the Training Base, Aofeng expressed his determination to train in Drug Detection and Explosives Detection. Of course, he couldn’t say it outright, so his way of showing commitment was to follow Xiao Qi during every official training session, blatantly tagging along for its specialized courses.

At first, everyone thought Aofeng had gone a bit weird. What male dog follows another male dog around all day? But after a few times, they realized Aofeng wasn’t interested in Xiao Qi itself—he was interested in the training.

Curious, the others stopped Song Changfeng to ask how he managed to train a dog to match his own personality.

They clearly remembered that Aofeng used to be a Salted Fish Dog, but ever since teaming up with Song Changfeng, he’d become increasingly driven. Not only had he taken on the most challenging Criminal Investigation Dog course, now he was even trying to sneak into the Drug Detection classes. Song Changfeng was a jack-of-all-trades—did that mean his dog had to be one too?

Song Changfeng was speechless. This was all Aofeng’s own doing—what did it have to do with him? Still, he had a pretty good idea why Aofeng was acting this way. After failing to immediately detect the contents of the small package earlier, Aofeng had seemed a bit down. Song Changfeng believed that Aofeng was a police dog with independent thought. The best way to handle setbacks was, of course, to face them head-on and overcome them!