Chapter 69
Today, on the Lantern Festival, filming began in Q City for the movie "Restoration".
Winters in this city aren't as cold as the icy, snowy landscapes of the north, but they are rather damp and chilly.
The cold wind seeped into the bones, the sky was always dark and gloomy, and the tall buildings in the distance were hidden in the fog.
Shen Li watched the scene on the director's monitor; the suspense was palpable. Why do so many suspense films love to film here? The natural environment is the best answer.
The scene shifts from an empty shot to Shen Li. This scene marks the end of the story. After carrying out her plan and revealing the truth, the female lead is handcuffed and put into a police car.
Before getting on the bus, she glanced back and, through the mist, seemed to see another version of herself—her daughter as she grew up.
The wind blew through her hair, the hallucination vanished, and she cried. The camera froze on the moment her tears streamed down her face.
"This is really good; this shot could be used as a promotional poster."
Director Xie repeatedly watched the footage on the monitor. He has a habit of shooting the main actors' solo scenes first, so that he can quickly see how the actors portray the characters and grasp the degree to which each person is immersed in the role.
“Something feels off,” Shen Li stared at the final frame of the image. “Wouldn’t it be better if we were smiling here?”
"Hmm?" Director Xie looked at her, thought for a moment and then suddenly realized, "I understand, let's shoot another take."
"Restore" tells the story of a mother who uncovers the truth behind her daughter's death and seeks revenge.
The story begins with Lin Xiao, a mystery writer who has been out of the public eye for many years, staging a murder himself.
During her time as a victim under protection, she made a comeback using her new identity as a writer, publishing novels to reconstruct case clues and leading the police to identify her lover, Hu Zheng, as the prime suspect.
This led to an investigation that uncovered the truth behind her daughter's death ten years ago.
The script sets up two timelines.
Ten years ago, Lin Xiao became famous at a young age, but she married into a wealthy family at an early age. After marriage, she was entangled in trivial matters and had many conflicts with her husband. She had no heart for writing and could only shift her attention to sharing her writing experience online. During this time, she took on a student named Hu Zheng.
During her long-term contact with Hu Zheng, she gradually fell in love with him. Her emotional affair was discovered by her husband, and after the divorce, she raised her daughter, who had just started elementary school, alone. Within a few months, she quickly fell into a new relationship with Hu Zheng.
The daughter did not reject the man who was about to become her stepfather, and soon Lin Xiao and Hu Zheng remarried. The three of them lived harmoniously after their marriage.
Hu Zheng's new book is a bestseller, making him a popular author. Although Lin Xiao's popularity has waned, her previous classic works are still enough for her to live off her past achievements.
Their daughter is a genius who has shown extraordinary intelligence at school. She also enjoys reasoning, and Lin Xiao and Hu Zheng intend to cultivate her writing skills and train her thinking.
A family of three moved into a large villa, and life seemed to be going in a good direction. However, one day, the daughter suddenly disappeared and was later found drowned in the river.
Ten years later, her husband, who had once been her apprentice, had become a master of detective fiction and had also taken on an apprentice.
Upon learning that Lin Xiao was his master's master, the apprentice immediately read her past works. He admired Lin Xiao greatly and repeatedly urged her to try writing again.
Despite this, Lin Xiao still has no intention of making a comeback. She believes that her spiritual energy has long been exhausted and is content to be a housewife.
Not long after this persuasion, the apprentice suddenly disappeared and was later found to have committed suicide by overdosing on pills. This was too similar to the death of his daughter, and Lin Xiao began to have doubts and fears.
She orchestrated the murder, placing Hu Zheng under police surveillance and caught in a media storm. She not only gradually revealed that Hu Zheng was responsible for her apprentice's death, but also discovered that her daughter's death was not an accidental drowning, but rather murdered by Hu Zheng.
"She personally trained a murderer who killed her own daughter."
There's a line in the script that describes Lin Xiao's state of mind.
The closer Lin Xiao got to the truth, the greater her guilt became. Later on, she felt so guilty that she wanted to commit suicide, a sentiment that appeared multiple times in the script.
In the end, the screenwriter still wanted to portray the mother's fantasy of her daughter growing up, and her inability to suppress her guilt, which caused her to weep.
Shen Li felt guilty, but Lin Xiao's feelings were not constant. She devised a series of schemes to expose Hu Zheng's evil deeds and then kill him.
This is her courageous revenge, and also her profound analysis of the past and present, in order to redeem herself.
So after everything was over, Lin Xiao should feel not only guilty but also somewhat relieved.
"One scene, one shot, two takes!"
After striking the clapperboard, Shen Li composed herself and began her performance.
Before the police took Lin Xiao into the car, she looked back and her eyes flashed with surprise and confusion.
In the mist, she seemed to see another version of herself appear in the empty villa.
By the window, she bent over her desk, writing and drawing. That was her grown-up daughter, and also the younger version of herself who had never been in love and was engrossed in writing.
The wind blew away the fog, and the illusion vanished.
Lin Xiao's eyes were filled with sadness, followed by a sense of relief.
Tears streamed down her face, yet she smiled. The image froze on her smile, and then it ended.
Midday.
Shen Li Mao was inside the RV, wrapped in a down jacket to warm up. It was winter in reality, but the scene they were filming was set in summer. She had been wearing thin clothes all morning, and her fingers were frozen.
Xiaoyu handed her the hot water bottle and scrolled through nearby restaurants on her phone: "It's the Lantern Festival today, sis, want to eat tangyuan (sweet rice balls)?"
“Yes, it’s warm.” Shen Li nodded.
Then Xiaoyu suddenly laughed: "Hahaha, I don't need to order anymore, Brother Luo is treating."
Shen Li opened her phone and saw a picture posted in the crew's group chat by the production assistant: a box of steaming hot glutinous rice balls.
Production assistant Xiao Li: Good afternoon, everyone! Happy Lantern Festival! Teacher Luo has ordered some tangyuan (sweet rice balls) for you all. You can pick them up in the break room.
"I'll go get it." Xiaoyu pushed open the RV door.
A short while later, there was a knock on the door, and Luo Mingxiu came over.
Shen Li looked at the two boxes of glutinous rice balls in his hand, and was about to talk to Xiao Yu on her phone.
Luo Mingxiu: "No need, I ran into her on my way here. She and Xiaowen were eating in the rest room."
Shen Li tilted her head: "So you came all this way just so I could eat with you?"
"Mmm." Luo Mingxiu smiled and tilted his head in the same way she did.
“Oh,” Shen Li pouted, “then hurry up and close the door, the cold wind is blowing straight in.”
Luo Mingxiu rushed in and took out a lunchbox from the bag, placing it in front of her.
Shen Li immediately opened the package and took a sip of the hot soup.
"Ah, that feels good." She squinted her eyes, scooped up a glutinous rice ball with a spoon, and bit into it.
A gentle, sweet aroma filled the air; it was her favorite purple sweet potato and oat filling, not too sweet at all.
Shen Li looked at the lunchbox with curiosity and then noticed that the flavor was marked on the lid. She glanced at Luo Mingxiu's and saw that it was the same as hers.
"You're not going to order all purple sweet potato flavor because of me, are you? That would be too obvious."
"I ordered all three of the restaurant's signature glutinous rice balls: sesame, red bean, and purple sweet potato."
"How was it?" Luo Mingxiu smiled at her, his face full of seeking praise. "Wasn't I clever?"
"Pfft—" Shen Li couldn't help but laugh out loud, raising her hand to scratch his chin, "Hmm, you're so awesome."
His outstretched hand was instantly grabbed, and Luo Mingxiu lowered his head and rubbed his face against it: "Your hands are so cold."
Shen Li: "Nonsense, it's the dead of winter, I wore short sleeves and was exposed to the cold wind all morning, do you think everyone is like you, hot all year round, like a fireball."
Luo Mingxiu picked up her lunchbox, tore off the outermost layer of thick packaging, and put it back: "Now that the heat has spread, you can hold it with both hands to eat, and it will warm up quickly."
Shen Li held the lunchbox close to her face and started eating. Soon she felt much warmer all over.
Luo Mingxiu ate quickly, and after finishing, he propped his face up and looked at her.
With just a slight glance, Shen Li could see him licking his lips, as if he hadn't eaten enough.
"Do you want more?" Shen Li pushed the lunchbox over.
Luo Mingxiu nodded, then shook his head, but made no further move.
Shen Li saw him purse his lips again, but his eyes were not fixed on Tangyuan, but on her.
The man's Adam's apple bobbed.
Shen Li chuckled: "I was wondering why you ate so fast, you were just waiting for me here."
“You bad dog,” she smacked him, “how can you be so shameless when it comes to dating.”
Luo Mingxiu looked at him expectantly: "Don't you like it?"
"Hmph." Shen Li didn't say anything, took back her food, finished it in a few bites, and then wiped the small dining table clean with a paper.
Luo Mingxiu got up to throw out the trash. When he came back, he saw that Shen Li was already leaning against the sofa.
Her face was flushed from eating hot food, and her beautiful eyes looked at him as she beckoned to him.
Luo Mingxiu felt a surge of warmth in his heart, walked over and hugged her tightly, pulling her into his arms. He had finally gotten what he wanted, and he savored it repeatedly until the waist he held in his hands went limp.
Shen Li lowered her head, resting her chin on his shoulder as she breathed.
In that kiss just now, Shen Li was very proactive, and Luo Mingxiu was flattered and eager to win back her, which finally made her give in.
At this moment, Luo Mingxiu's heart was pounding and his breathing was intense. Even at this time, Shen Li did not forget to tease him in the ear.
"Is it tasty?"
Shen Li tilted her head and could clearly see that the base of his ears had turned red.
"So sweet." Luo Mingxiu's voice was muffled. He pulled open his down jacket and wrapped it around her, pulling her closer with his arms.
His nose was close to her face, and his eyes were unfocused again.
"Chen Li, you're bewitching me."
"I didn't drug you." Shen Li leaned forward, her nose touching his.
When her phone beeped with a message, she freed her hand from Luo Mingxiu's embrace to touch it.
Xiaoyu: Sis, update your Weibo for the Lantern Festival.
Reminded, Shen Li suddenly straightened up: "Oh no, I forgot to take a picture of the tangyuan."
“I took a picture.” Luo Mingxiu picked up his phone and sent her one. “I took several.”
The photo you sent is great; one of the glutinous rice balls has leaked its filling, and the purple filling is flowing out, making it look very appetizing.
Shen Li opened a photo editing app, added a cute expression to one of the glutinous rice balls, and then overlaid a smoky food filter before editing and posting.
After posting and refreshing, I happened to see Luo Mingxiu's Weibo post. The pictures and captions were so similar. Luckily, she added a filter, otherwise, if you didn't look closely at the ID, you would have thought it was posted by the same person.
"Why is this picture of yours also of a dumpling with the filling showing?" Shen Li took his phone and flipped through his photo album. The so-called "several pictures" were just photos of the same food container taken from different angles.
"..."
"What's wrong?" Luo Mingxiu asked, then seemed to understand something and said, "The pictures are almost identical, isn't it too easy to give ourselves away?"
"Yes, if the glutinous rice balls are full of fillings, then we're full of fillings too."
"Shall I edit it again?"
“No need,” Shen Li said. “When fans find out that we’re filming together, most of them will think it’s no big deal that we’re eating the same glutinous rice balls. Let people guess. Just like Liang Jin said, we’re giving each other a heads-up. We don’t need to hide it like that anymore.”
"Okay, sure." Luo Mingxiu hugged her again, kissed her cheek, and smiled.
"Are you doing this on purpose?" Shen Li saw his bright smile, reached out and pinched him.
"No," Luo Mingxiu denied outright, adopting a defensive stance.
The two of them laughed and joked around.
.
On Weibo, in the comment sections on both sides.
Just as Shen Li said, neither side's fans felt anything was wrong, and the atmosphere was friendly. Luo's fans ignored the purple sweet potato flavor and focused on promoting the fact that Luo Mingxiu treated the crew to tangyuan (sweet rice balls).
The fans also thanked Luo Mingxiu for the glutinous rice balls and wished him a happy Lantern Festival and smooth filming.
Fans are all decent people; they won't cause trouble on the artist's Weibo, fight on public squares or other forums, or launch a coordinated attack on the studio team on Weibo if they have any complaints.
The new movie doesn't have any big stars besides Shen Li. It's not enough to promote their own artists, they also have to promote Yao Yunhe.
This is what makes Shen's fans most dissatisfied. Yao Yunhe's team had previously clashed with Shen's fans because of their marketing efforts to piggyback on Shen's popularity.
Although it was later reported that the two parties had reconciled privately and there was no reason for them to argue anymore, the relationship between the two groups of fans has not improved to the point where they can accept the collaboration between the two parties.
Even when the movie's lead actors were announced online, there was a tendency for the two sides to start fighting again. However, this time Yao fans were not as aggressive towards Shen fans, and they mostly focused their energy on criticizing Luo fans.
It can be said that from the time the rumors started to the time filming began, all three parties were arguing, with the most heated arguments coming from the fans of Yao Yunhe and Luo Mingxiu.
Yao Yunhe is a popular actress known for her controversial and tumultuous career, having consistently played leading roles since her debut.
This was her first attempt at a movie, and she was playing a supporting role to Shen Li. But when it was officially announced that Luo Mingxiu would be the male lead, her fans were devastated.
In the previous drama, Luo Mingxiu was a supporting actor to Yao Yunhe. Why was he overtaken by someone else?
Besides, this is Tianye's own resource. Why can't they make a movie with their own daughter as the lead actress instead of having to collaborate with Qingli?
Her family strongly protested that her older sister had taken the role, unaware that Yao Yunhe herself wanted to try her hand at film and wanted to work with Shen Li, so her producer aunt specially created a prominent supporting role for her, exchanging resources for it.
In this drama, Yao Yunhe plays the captain of the criminal investigation team. Although his role is not as exciting as the battle of wits between the male and female leads, he is a positive character who investigates the case from beginning to end.
She is also a central character throughout the entire series. Once the movie is released, anyone with a discerning eye will know just how much this role has benefited her.
But the fans can't see it yet. They just feel that they are being overshadowed by the less experienced actors and are not convinced. Since joining the cast is a done deal and cannot be changed, they take their anger out on Luo's fans, arguing and attacking each other.
The uproar even affected the few CP fans the two had gained from their previous collaborations on set, with their CP fan page being shut down due to the backlash.
The place was a chaotic mess, filled with smoke and dust.
However, none of this has anything to do with another inconspicuous CP fandom.
Among Shen Li's many popular couples, they are the least popular but have the most harmonious atmosphere.
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