Chapter 989: Don’t Play These Dirty Things
Zheng Qian was about to say something else when she suddenly heard the crisp sound of high heels hitting the ground behind her.
The two looked back and saw the popular young actress Lin Ruoxuan, who had been in the front of the line during the previous audition, walking towards them, followed by three assistants. She had a Chanel jacket casually draped over her arm, revealing a valuable diamond necklace on her collarbone.
"Isn't this Miss Zhen?" Lin Ruoxuan stopped in front of them, a hint of a smile on her red lips. "I heard Director Wang asked you to chat for half an hour?" She lowered her head and fiddled with her newly applied acrylic nails. "But the financing representative just called my agent and said that the second female lead needs to bring eight million to the set."
The tail end of her tone was long and drawn out, like a silk thread soaked in poison.
Zhen Yan felt Zheng Qian suddenly grab her wrist.
In the twilight, the huge poster of "Undercurrent" on the outer wall of the studio was rustling in the wind. The heroine looked back with a gun in her hand, her eyes as sharp as a knife. It was exactly the makeup photo of Lin Ruoxuan that was officially announced last month.
"Teacher Lin might have remembered it wrong." Zheng Qian suddenly let go of Zhen Yan, took a half step forward, and said with a smile, "The audition notice we received didn't mention the requirement to bring money to join the crew."
She deliberately emphasized the words "audition notice" and glanced at the assistant behind Lin Ruoxuan who was holding five Hermès paper bags.
Lin Ruoxuan's expression changed slightly, and she turned the phone case inlaid with diamonds in a circle in her palm.
Just as he was about to speak, a group of people suddenly rushed out from the side door of the set.
Director Wang was surrounded by seven or eight staff members as he walked towards the parking lot. He gestured and discussed the storyboard with the screenwriter as he walked.
As he passed by them, Director Wang's gaze lingered on Zhen Yan for two seconds, and he nodded imperceptibly.
This subtle movement caused Lin Ruoxuan's carefully drawn eyebrows to furrow. She suddenly leaned close to Zhen Yan's ear and sneered, her Chanel No. 5 scent mixing with a sneer: "Do you know why you've been a bit player for five years? This industry doesn't want acting skills, it wants business skills."
Her fingers, painted with bright red nail polish, brushed across Zhen Yan's washed-out canvas bag. "Just like that book in your bag, 'An Actor's Self-Cultivation,' it should have been replaced with 'High Emotional Intelligence Talking Techniques.'"
Zhen Yan suddenly remembered filming a war scene in Hengdian last winter. She played a palace maid who was shot and needed to roll down the icy steps.
The stand-in suddenly raised the price, so she gritted her teeth and shot seven takes herself.
At that time, the blood clots froze into ice in the temperature of minus five degrees Celsius, scratching her neck and leaving blood marks all over it. Now those scars seemed to be aching again.
"Teacher Lin is right." Zhen Yan suddenly laughed and pulled out an old Stanislavsky book from her canvas bag. "So every time I read this..."
She turned to a dog-eared page and read, "'Love the art in you, not yourself in your art.' I'm glad I didn't learn those rhetoric."
Lin Ruoxuan's carefully maintained expression finally cracked. Just as she was about to explode, her agent rushed over with a vibrating phone in hand: "Mr. Zhou said he's already booked a private room at the Ritz-Carlton and wants you to come over now to discuss product placement."
Watching Lin Ruoxuan walk away in her ten-centimeter high heels, Zheng Qian breathed a sigh of relief. "Just now, I was really afraid you'd throw the thermos at me."
She glanced at Zhen Yan's clenched knuckles, which had turned white. "But you're right, we don't play dirty."
As the night deepened, Zhen Yan looked at the huge poster of "Undercurrent" across the street.
Lin Ruoxuan's figure holding a gun was dyed a blurry purple by the neon lights, and the muzzle of the gun was pointed at where they were standing.
She suddenly remembered the detail that Director Wang pointed out during the audition - when the character discovered that her lover had betrayed her, the script required her to smash the engagement ring, but she chose to gently take it off and place it on the windowsill.
"Sister Zheng," Zhen Yan turned and walked towards the subway station, "accompany me to the drama academy. I want to see Professor Xu's production of 'The Seagull' again."
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