Chapter 167 Caught in the Act [VIP]

Chapter Summary: There's nothing embarrassing about it; what's embarrassing is...

Mu Zhi and He Zhiyue have had no contact for the past few months.

She was suddenly greeted with a message from He Zhiyue, concerned about her foot injury...

Mu Zhi wondered: How did he know that he twisted his ankle yesterday? Did his staff tell him?

It's much better now after I applied the medicine last night.

This morning when I woke up, my foot was only slightly swollen, and I felt fine walking.

He Zhiyue sent another message.

[He Zhiyue] I watched the video of a fan seeing someone off at the airport.

Mu Zhi: ? She opened Weibo and browsed her own super topic.

A Weibo post with over 2,000 likes and over 1,000 comments caught her attention.

A fan who followed Mu Zhi on her flight and whose nickname looked familiar posted a video of Mu Zhi going through security.

Mu Zhi was wearing a pair of loose black wide-leg pants today, with zippers at the hem. When going through security, she pulled up the pant legs to reveal her ankles, which were covered in brown.

She sprayed the medicine again in the morning, and the color on her feet was noticeable.

So that's it. He Zhiyue watched the video and deduced that her foot was probably injured.

Mu Zhi felt He Zhiyue's attention and care for her, and a strange emotion that was hard to explain rose in her heart.

"Sister Zhizhi, the plane is about to take off."

Hearing Minmin's reminder, Muzhi came back to her senses and switched back to the chat window with He Zhiyue.

Type a reply to him quickly.

[Muzhi] My foot is fine, thank you for your concern.

After switching her phone to airplane mode, Mu Zhi reflected on her reply and realized it seemed a bit cold.

Two hours later, the plane arrived in Ningcheng.

When Mu Zhi got off the plane, she took out her phone, turned off airplane mode, connected to the internet, and opened her chat window with He Zhiyue.

[He Zhiyue] That's good.

[He Zhiyue] "He Zhiyue" retracted a message.

Mu Zhi: What did He Zhiyue post, and then retract it?

She didn't reply and closed the chat window with him.

We took a car from the airport to the hotel booked by the film crew.

After checking in, Mu Zhi and her team retrieved a large pile of luggage that had been packed and shipped from southern Yunnan from the front desk and carried it upstairs.

They spent the whole afternoon organizing clothes and personal belongings. By evening, Mu Zhi and her group went out for dinner.

On the way back, I ran into director Tang Yan, Zhou Zilong, Du Qianqian and her staff in the hotel lobby.

"Zhizhi, when did you arrive in Ningcheng?"

Hearing Director Tang Yan's casual greeting, Mu Zhi replied, "I arrived at noon."

After she finished speaking, she saw Director Tang Yan's expression change and turned to look at Du Qianqian standing behind her.

Du Qianqian's eyes darted around, and an embarrassed look appeared on her face as if she had been caught red-handed.

Zhou Zilong didn't notice the strange atmosphere. He was always straightforward in his dealings with people, so he asked curiously, "Zhizhi, you arrived at noon. Teacher Du treated us to lunch. Why didn't you come with us?"

Then he asked Mu Zhi if she had eaten dinner.

Mu Zhi observed the reactions of the others. Zhou Zilong had just blurted out the truth again, and she already understood the ins and outs of the matter.

To save face for Du Qianqian, Mu Zhi smiled and replied to Zhou Zilong, "I spent the whole afternoon in my room packing my luggage. We just got back from dinner."

Back in the hotel room.

Minmin, still somewhat angry about what had happened in the lobby, said, "Sister Zhizhi, you really should have slapped Du Qianqian in the face! She invited the director and the male lead to dinner but not you, and then lied and said you were busy. You didn't even offend her..."

After a pause, Minmin asked with a puzzled look, "Could it be that Du Xixi is still holding a grudge about the audition for the movie 'Back to 17'?"

Mu Zhi walked to the sofa and sat down: "What she thinks is not important."

"As for Du Qianqian's invitation to dinner, I don't need to embarrass her in public. Director Tang and Teacher Zhou Zilong have already figured out what happened."

Du Qianqian's scenes only started after the crew moved to Ningcheng. Du Qianqian should have joined the crew in the last couple of days. She wanted to build good relationships with the crew, so she treated the director and the male lead to dinner.

They probably felt that if Mu Zhi were also present, she would steal the spotlight.

Mu Zhi wasn't invited. When the director and others asked, he casually made up an excuse, saying that Mu Zhi was busy and couldn't come.

Unexpectedly, they ran into Mu Zhi and her group returning from dinner in the lobby. By sheer coincidence, Director Tang Yan and Zhou Zilong exchanged a few casual words with Mu Zhi, inadvertently exposing Du Qianqian's lie.

We'll be filming together all the time, and we'll see each other all the time. There's no need to publicly fall out over a meal. I don't want to have anything to do with Du Qianqian.

Anyway, Mu Zhi has nothing to be embarrassed about; it's Du Qianqian who is embarrassed.

Minmin listened and felt that Muzhi's words made a lot of sense, so she didn't bother with the matter anymore.

"By the way, Sister Zhizhi, tomorrow is National Day."

The film crew is starting shooting tomorrow. Mu Zhi asked, puzzled, "What's wrong?"

"The movie 'Twins' is being released tomorrow!"

Mu Zhi has no films released this year and is busy with work, so she pays little attention to the films released during the summer and National Day holidays.

Mu Zhi was somewhat surprised when Minmin mentioned that the movie "Twins," which Liu Rui had snatched from her, was going to be released the next day.

The agent, Ji Binghe, did not tell Mu Zhi about this.

In the past, when one of the company's top-ranking artists had a new work to release, the company would usually ask other artists to help promote it.

Ji Binghe knew that Liu Rui's movie was snatched from Mu Zhi, and she knew that Mu Zhi was easy to talk to, but not so easy to talk to.

So I didn't talk to Mu Zhiti.

Mu Zhi was still quite curious about the final product of the film "Twins," and thought she would check the reviews after its release tomorrow when she had some free time...

Early the next morning.

Mu Zhi departed from the hotel and headed to the film set.

Since the crew had just moved from the Dianling Mountains, the two-day rest period was still a bit rushed.

When Mu Zhi arrived at the scene, she found the entire crew busy setting up the set.

She surveyed the scene before her. This street was modeled after a tourist attraction abroad, and the production team had spent a huge sum of money to recreate it almost perfectly. They would be filming an important and bloody negotiation scene here.

The scene we're filming today is quite challenging for Mu Zhi.

The waiting time is expected to be very long.

Mu Zhi took the script to her RV to read it, calming herself down and preparing for the later filming.

Du Xixi arrived on set while the actors were preparing to rehearse their lines.

This is Du Xixi's first time joining a film crew.

She had intended to enter the film industry when she competed with Mu Zhi for the same movie. After failing the audition, she went back to acting in TV dramas. Later, when she saw that "Back to 17" was a box office hit, she was proud and wanted to play the leading role like Mu Zhi, but she couldn't get any good scripts at all.

The film "Safe Evacuation" was a resource that the company and agent worked hard to secure for Du Xixi, even though she only had a few minutes of screen time in the film, all for the sake of "gilding her resume".

Actually, Du Qianqian's scenes won't start until tomorrow.

She came to the film set today to "learn," firstly to show the director how much she values ​​the film, and secondly to watch Mu Zhi film, wanting to see if Mu Zhi is just lucky or if her acting skills are really that good.

After obtaining the director's permission, Du Xixi moved a chair and sat next to the monitor.

Du Qianqian could clearly sense that the director treated her differently from Mu Zhi. Tang Yan spoke to Mu Zhi with more politeness, and his eyes showed undisguised admiration.

Du Qianqian suppressed her displeasure and focused on watching the show.

The plot of the scene that Mu Zhi, Chai Yin, Zhou Zilong, and the extras are about to film:

The female lead, Zhou Wenjing, and her boss, a senior translator, arrive on this street to carry out a mission to help the male lead rescue hostages. A thug goes berserk and shoots at the character played by Chai Yin.

The veteran translator, less than half a meter from the female lead, was shot in the head and killed right in front of her...

Du Qianqian observed Mu Zhi's performance during the rehearsal without blinking. She couldn't help but bite her lip. She was satisfied as long as she memorized her lines on set, acted according to the director's instructions after the scene was explained, and completed the scene with as few takes as possible.

Unlike her, Mu Zhi is very proactive. This proactivity manifests in her actively communicating with the director and fellow actors, discussing the scenes to be filmed, and boldly offering her own ideas to better establish the character.

Another point is that Mu Zhi is very focused and single-minded when acting.

Mu Zhi's immersion even inspired her co-stars to put aside their joking and become seriously involved as well.

After watching Mu Zhiwei's performance, which was full of subtle expressions, realistic reactions, vividness, and empathy, Du Qianqian couldn't help but think that if she were in Mu Zhiwei's shoes, she would probably just widen her eyes in shock, her mind would go blank, and she would be completely unable to empathize with the character's situation.

Why could Mu Zhi do it so easily?

She thought Mu Zhi's performance in this one-shot scene was already very good.

After watching her individual performance on the monitor, Mu Zhi said to the director, "My reaction just now was a bit slow; it might have been better if I had been a little faster. Director Tang, shall we try another take?"

Director Tang Yan: "Okay. I'll do as you say."

After this scene was filmed, there was a 10-minute break.

When Du Qianqian saw Mu Zhi approaching, she sat down in a chair, her hands on her lap tightly gripping the fabric of her pants. She couldn't help but look up and ask, "Could you tell me... how did you do that?"

Mu Zhi glanced down at Du Qianqian and said in a very calm tone, "I watched a bloody scene of headshots for more than an hour last night."

In the evening, I finished work and returned to the hotel.

Mu Zhi forgot about paying attention to the movie "Twins".

It was only when Minmin diligently sent me data charts related to the movie that I remembered.

It's 8 PM now, and the movie "Twins" has grossed around 17 million RMB so far.

Mu Zhi clicked on another image, which was today's box office ranking:

The number one film grossed nearly 200 million.

It ranks second with over 50 million.

It ranks 3rd with 30 million.

Then there's "Twins" in fourth place, which is expected to gross a maximum of 20 million on its opening day. As for its subsequent box office performance... unless it receives overwhelmingly positive reviews and achieves a box office comeback.

Otherwise, the highest box office gross for the movie "Twins" would only be a little over 100 million.

Mu Zhi thought to herself: The original movie had a very high rating, the remake shouldn't be this bad, right?

With a suspicious heart, she opened Weibo, and #TwinsAreUgly# was trending on the hot search list.

Many netizens who posted photos of their movie tickets on the trending topics page complained:

"The plot has been drastically altered," "The adaptation is terrible."

"A suspense drama was turned into a melodramatic romance."

"Liu Rui's acting has become greasy."

"Liu Rui is getting on in years, maybe she should film fewer bed scenes."

"'Discarding the essence and selecting the dross' perfectly describes this film adaptation."

Mu Zhi's initial predictions and concerns were proven true. Director Dou underestimated the audience and arrogantly mixed multiple elements together to make a film that "catered" to the market, but the audience did not buy it.

She put down her phone and went to take a shower.

Filming for the movie "Safe Evacuation" began in early August and took place in the country for 90 days.

November has quietly arrived, and in a week we will be going abroad for filming.

Three days before leaving the country.

Mu Zhi received a call from her agent.

“Luke and screenwriter Yan, please come over tomorrow.”

"I wanted to talk to you about the company's film project."

Mu Zhi: "Okay."

The next day, in the evening.

After finishing her work, Mu Zhi and her team arrived at the restaurant where they had arranged to meet Lu Ke and screenwriter Yan.

Luke told Mu Zhi in person that Lanxing Media is operating normally and will not be affected by external factors in the future; the project will continue to move forward.

The three finished discussing the script for the film project.

Mu Zhi asked, "How's the company doing lately?"

Luke didn't hide anything from Mu Zhi, "After the big boss woke up, the internal turmoil in the company quickly subsided and things returned to normal."

After a pause, Luke subtly brought up He Zhiyue, adding, "The boss is too busy and is looking for a suitable professional manager for Lanxing Media..."

Mu Zhi was not surprised by this.

She knew that He Zhiyue had always had great ambitions, not just to build an entertainment empire. He Hongshuo's accident was an excellent opportunity for He Zhiyue to enter the He Group.

He seized the opportunity; he was determined to win against Dong Jingwan and her son.

Early November.

All members of the crew of "Safe Evacuation" who went abroad to participate in filming have completed all the relevant procedures and departed in batches to fly abroad for filming.