In the contract meeting room, the publicity director pressures Ni Zheng to read a 300-character apology, claiming that three years ago at the fishing port pier, she had unprovokedly assaulted an ordinary woman. She dismantles the statement line by line on the spot: the timeline is wrong, the facts are wrong, and no record of any penalty exists. She tears up the script and refuses to read it.
She pulls up the fourteen-second surveillance clip on her phone and drags it to the key frame. In the first four seconds of the original, Luo Qiao has already crossed through the gap in the railing; the last eleven seconds were cut out. Ni Zheng demands to know who has the original footage, who forwarded it, and how many files were attached to the email. Legal searches the contract but finds no relevant clause. She presses the intern until they produce a copy, then has them stamp and sign for receipt. She photographs it as evidence.
The red light on the camera in the corner has been on the whole time. When she walks out, the stack of photocopies in her hand is still warm. But whose hands did the file forwarded from the public-opinion team pass through?
