"What do you mean, they're missing?!"
The director leaped out of her chair without even stopping to put on her shoes. Bare feet hitting the icy tile floor, she rushed to the desk and snatched up the radio.
"Find them! Everyone, go find them! Camera crew, stage crew, sound crew, every fucking one of you, get out there and look!"
A chorus of overlapping responses erupted over the radio.
Chaotic footsteps, the clatter of equipment hastily set down, and someone shouting, "Sweep that cornfield over there too!" all tangled together.
It was fully light out, but the morning mist in the mountains had yet to clear, wisps still winding between the cornfields and dirt roads.
The production vehicles crawled along the sun-dried dirt road at the village entrance, all their windows rolled down. Crew members leaned halfway out, shouting Jiang Xun's and Duan Qizhao's names at the tops of their lungs.
Their voices echoed back and forth through the empty mountain valley.
"Jiang Xun-"
"Duan Qizhao-"
There was no response.
Only the mountain wind passed through the cornfields, making the leaves rustle.
The director tightened her grip on the radio, her temples throbbing.
Today was the final day of filming. She had burned incense for four days and prayed to every god and Buddha in heaven, not even overlooking the earth god statue with its peeling paint outside the Village Committee.
The production had invited only two guests from the city: the Duan Corporation's sole heir and the biological son the Jiang family had only just found. If either lost so much as a strand of hair, the entire production team could be bankrupted paying for it.
And now, of all things, both had disappeared together.
Reports began trickling in over the radio.
"Not at the village entrance!"
"Not in