425 Dogs out

Elliot Cort, his steps steady and calculated, entered the ground floor of the hospital. His gaze, akin to a scanner, meticulously scanned his surroundings. Yet the everyday bustling scene held no particular significance, not even a slightly livelier crowd to be found. This left Elliot perplexed. Could it be that no one had discovered this secret?

Regardless of whether it was right or wrong, now that he had arrived, he naturally had to get to the bottom of it.

Temporarily focusing his thoughts, he moved with practiced steps. After inquiring at the front desk, he didn't hesitate further. He went straight towards the building housing the rehabilitation center. Once inside the target structure, his pace slowed. Seemingly casual, yet his gaze burned like a torch as it swept through the surrounding rehabilitation rooms, waiting areas, restrooms, and corridors, searching for his target.

Recently, the entire North American focus had converged on Hollywood.

With only a week left until the Oscars, the long awards season was finally coming to an end. Who would emerge as this year's ultimate winner? The attention was indeed riveting.

This year's competition was incredibly fierce. Just two days before the voting deadline, negative news continued to surface, unfolding like a remarkably captivating drama. As one side sang, the other took the stage. Until the very last moment, it remained unpredictable who would emerge victorious.

The rivalry between "The Social Network" and "The King's Speech" had almost reached the point of open hostility. The Weinstein Brothers had employed all tactics to smear their opponents.

Previously, Mark Zuckerberg had publicly expressed his dislike for "The Social Network", which wasn't surprising. Unexpectedly, even the film's positively portrayed character, Eduardo Saverin, wasn't particularly fond of it, believing the movie had inaccurately portrayed him.

Meanwhile, the battle for Best Actress between "Black Swan" and "The Kids Are All Right" had heated up. Natalie Portman's "body double controversy" gained more and more traction, propelling her to the center of attention.

Entertainment Weekly boldly speculated that during the Toronto International Film Festival, Natalie had tried to use rumors to mask her relationship with Benjamin, likely with the aim of boosting her Oscar chances. While there was no direct evidence for this news, none of the parties involved had offered any response, direct or indirect. Still, it caused quite a stir.

Natalie's chances of winning Best Actress plummeted, while in contrast, Annette Bening's prospects began to rise. Especially when her co-star and rival, Julianne Moore, was absent from the nomination list, Annette personally rallied support for her. All the waves of support were starting to gather around Annette.

In comparison, David Fincher had already given up on the award season promotion, focusing his energy on preparing for the filming of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". Consequently, his news was much less prominent. Even the revelation that Renly had made it to the backup list for Best Actor wasn't enough to steal the spotlight from the award season.

Yet precisely because of this, almost every media outlet and artist flocked to Los Angeles. The news focus and scoop points were repetitive; trying to deliver something fresh and innovative, or digging up different scoops, wasn't an easy task.

Of course, even so, the final moments of the award season in Los Angeles were still a frenzy for paparazzi and journalists. It didn't require much effort to corner a bunch of artists. The press releases might be repetitive, and the difficulty of uncovering exclusive news might increase exponentially, but gains came with losses, and all of this was acceptable.

If it weren't for the explosive rumors, Elliot would probably still be in Los Angeles, tailing Natalie like a shadow. He had a feeling that after the voting deadline, the negative news hadn't ceased, and there might still be more scandalous information to uncover. However, this particular rumor was incredibly sensational—Elliot couldn't just ignore it.

The rumor claimed that Renly was seriously ill, possibly even terminally, and was undergoing secret treatment.

So far, only a handful of people knew about this rumor. It was said to have originated from an ordinary user's Facebook status. The user mentioned visiting his critically ill uncle and inadvertently witnessing Renly Hall receiving treatment. Originally, he had intended to greet Renly, but he looked to be in terrible shape—weak and connected to an IV. Consequently, the user had merely nodded politely before leaving.

The status was accompanied by a photo: a young man with a beanie sat in a chair, his left hand connected to an IV, his figure emaciated.

However, the photo was unclear, showing only a profile, making it impossible to confirm if it was indeed Renly. Furthermore, the user had only a small number of friends—less than thirty—so the rumor didn't spread widely.

Elliot's initial reaction to this news was that it was absurd and laughable, like a fairy tale. But upon calmer consideration, he realized that something was amiss.

During the busiest time of the award season, when Renly had just received his first acting nomination of his career, he had vanished. He seemed to have no connection with the PR game. Renly, the youngest, most anticipated, and most talked-about contender in this year's Best Actor race, had now been entirely overlooked. Not to mention winning, even his chances of competing had vanished.

Among the five nominated Best Actor candidates, Renly's voice was the weakest, even lower than that of Javier Bardem, who had won a minor role Golden Globe three years prior and an international acting award this year. Renly was practically invisible.

If Focus Features had tilted all their resources toward Annette, and considering Renly was only twenty-one, receiving a nomination was already a huge victory, so an active PR campaign wasn't necessary. However, Renly's absence from this year's nominee luncheon was truly peculiar.

The nominee luncheon, as the name suggested, was a banquet attended by all the Oscar nominees.

Superficially, this luncheon was meant to commend and acknowledge all the nominees. Because on the night of the awards ceremony, nominees from technical departments or those with lesser fame would likely struggle to attract attention on the red carpet, practically becoming background figures. Moreover, nominations were based on merit, but winning was a matter of luck—ultimately, there was only one winner, and only one focus. The other nominees would be ignored. Therefore, the Academy specifically organized this luncheon to shine the spotlight on each nominee, allowing them to revel in their moment of honor.

In reality, this was an official PR event. Apart from the nominees, the guest list also included Academy higher-ups and a small number of industry professionals. At an event like this, nominees with hopes of contending for the little gold man would launch their final PR blitz. Those with slim chances would expand their networks, laying a solid foundation for their future development.

Generally speaking, no one would miss the nominee luncheon. Except for outliers like Woody Allen, the attendance rate at the nominee luncheon was even higher than at the awards ceremony—because the venue for the ceremony had limited seating, the number of guests each production could bring was naturally restricted. Taking the producer department as an example, usually only five producers could attend the awards ceremony, and three could give acceptance speeches. If other producers wanted to attend, it would take away spots that could have been allocated to other crew members.

However, such restrictions didn't apply to the nominee luncheon. Every nominated work, every nominated department, and every nominee could attend collectively.

But Renly was absent.

Many journalists noticed Renly's absence. How could they not, when he had been the most prominent newcomer actor in recent months?

In fact, Jennifer Lawrence, Hailee Steinfeld, and Renly, these three individuals were generally regarded as the new generation's forces at the Oscars this year. They represented the future, and each media outlet would report on them to varying degrees. However, now, the sole male actor representative had actually not attended!

This was truly too strange.

Consequently, the journalists began to inquire about Andy Rogers—Renly's agent. As Renly's representative, Andy finally shed some light on the situation, making it clear that contacting him was equivalent to contacting Renly. This way, future cooperation would proceed more smoothly.

Andy stated that Renly was currently filming a brand-new project. His absence from the nominee luncheon was regrettable to Renly more than anyone else. However, in order to deliver a better performance, Renly had chosen to wholeheartedly dedicate himself to his work.

Taking on a new project right before the Oscars approached wasn't uncommon.

In 2008, Viggo Mortensen had completely skipped the entire award season's PR after earning an Oscar nomination for "Eastern Promises" and instead went to film "Appaloosa". In 2001, Joaquin Phoenix had also skipped PR after being nominated for Best Supporting Actor for "Gladiator" and opted to film "Signs".

There were two possible explanations for such situations. One possibility was that the individuals involved weren't interested in Academy PR, tired of the superficial social mingling and empty rituals. Viggo belonged to this category. Another possibility was that the project they were filming was extremely significant, and in the decision-making process, either the agent or the actor chose the latter option. Of course, if the individual themselves didn't place as much importance on the Oscars, that was also a factor. Joaquin belonged to this category.

Now, the journalists' imaginations ran wild. Had Renly already been cast in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"? Was he currently preparing for this film? Or perhaps he was collaborating with David Fincher on the script—David had also been absent from most of the latter half of the awards season's PR events.

There were numerous instances of rising to fame and then flying high in Hollywood. Could the collaboration between Renly and David be one of those? And on top of that, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"? That would undoubtedly be a sensational news piece! Everyone started digging in that direction to unearth news.

Originally, Elliot had also considered this angle. However, upon hearing such explosive rumors, he changed his mind. As a result, he appeared in Seattle!