Chapter 276: On the Table and Under the Table
When the clock struck 11 o'clock in the evening, someone rang the doorbell outside very punctually.
Su Yun ran to open the door with a smile on her face, and sure enough, the person who came in was Lin Qingxia, who originally said that she was tired from work and didn't want to play cards, but turned around and turned into a lively little fan girl when she heard that Zhuang Long was there.
"Welcome, welcome. I've been wanting to meet you for a long time." Su Yun invited him in very attentively.
This extremely attentive attitude, if she hadn't known that this was a legendary girl who had been involved in scandals with many male artists, Lin Qingxia would have thought that Su Yun looked exactly like those greasy men who coveted her beauty...
Although Su Yun is not very popular in Taiwan, as a unique female artist in Hong Kong, a new behind-the-scenes boss, and a long-time friend of idol Zhuang Long, Lin Qingxia still showed her a friendly attitude to the greatest extent: "Hello, I actually like watching your dramas... but for some reasons, I can't show it too much."
"It's okay, I understand." Su Yun smiled at her kindly, and then warmly invited her into the house, "Come in quickly, the fight is about to start."
Lin Qingxia responded softly, and then tried her best to suppress her inner excitement, and followed Su Yun through the small garden into the large living room on the first floor.
As soon as she entered, her eyes subconsciously fell on the mahjong table opposite the door - there was an idol she had fallen in love with at first sight since the days of "Artificial Intelligence"...
These days, apart from Su Yun, an alternative and maverick eccentric, the convention is that the European and American entertainment industry dominates the Asian entertainment industry, and male artists dominate female artists. Therefore, even though she has achieved the status of an iconic female artist in Taiwan, when facing Zhuang Long, an international male artist who is active in Hollywood and the theater industry, she can only be a little fan girl rather than a collaborator.
To be honest, she recently planned to come to Hong Kong for development. In addition to wanting to break away from the stereotype of her in Taiwan and transform herself, part of the reason was also for Zhuang Long, who had signed a film contract with Zhao Shi in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong film industry is extremely short of new-generation female artists who can hold their own in the industry, so the first person Lin Qingxia wanted to find was Zhao, a company that made its name by promoting female stars and also had Zhuang Long under its umbrella.
Unfortunately, Zhao is now focusing on Su Yun's film shooting and has neither the time nor the energy to discuss cooperation with her.
In Zhen Art Presentation, Zhang Aijia, who is also from Taiwan and has a wide range of acting skills, plays the leading female role in most of the films. Therefore, Jiahe, a film company in Hong Kong that is very short of leading female artists, invited her to work together as soon as she arrived in Hong Kong.
The sincerity shown is quite enough: the co-stars are either Hong Ganbao or Chen Xuanlong, both of whom are the two leading male actors strongly supported by Jiahe.
So Lin Qingxia first teamed up with Hong Ganbao to film the fantasy martial arts film "New Shushan Swordsman", and then negotiated a contract with Chen Xuanlong for the action comedy "Project A" - during this period, Zhen Yicheng, who did not want to fall behind, even used their connections to invite her to film an action comedy film "I Love Tuberose"...
If I were not a freelancer, I would have become a pawn in the fight between film companies.
When a person reaches a certain position and is excellent enough, even if he or she does not think about it or do anything about it, all kinds of troubles will come to him or her. For example, anyone who has been one of the most beautiful female artists in Taiwan will inevitably be caught up in complicated emotional turmoil.
Lin Qingxia, whose career was once affected by emotional problems, felt that the water on this side of Hong Kong was not shallow. She decisively announced that she would go to study acting and would not have time to take on any acting jobs. This calmed down the undercurrent that was about to arise around her.
"So, after finishing the filming of 'Project A' for which we have signed a contract, you plan to leave Hong Kong and go to the United States to study?" Zhuang Long asked in a gentle voice while playing with the cards.
His appearance was naturally gifted, and because of Su Yun's scheming trick, he sat in a seat that Su Yun carefully selected for the best lighting - this way, his already beautiful appearance became even more vivid and attractive, and Lin Qingxia, who was deliberately arranged by Su Yun to sit opposite him, was a little infatuated for a moment.
Noticing Lin Qingxia's distraction, Zhuang Long was about to give Su Yun a glare to calm his anger at being put on the table, but it turned out that it would have been better if he hadn't looked at her. He got even angrier after looking at her: This guy probably knew that he had done something shameful, and he didn't even glance at him the whole time...
And when his eyes were fixed on the mahjong tiles, this scumbag who was his next player tried his best to break his rules. She played the same cards as he did, and after a round, she didn't let him touch the easiest mahjong tiles at all, let alone the easiest to make mahjong!
Zhuang Long was annoyed and his anger flared up to ten points. When Su Yun followed him in playing Ba Tong, he secretly kicked her lightly with his toes under the table.
"Ouch!" Su Yun called out subconsciously, which immediately attracted the attention of Lin Qingxia, who was distracted, and Mei Yanshuang, who was absorbed in sorting the cards.
"It's okay. I accidentally pulled a muscle when changing positions. It hurt a bit so I couldn't help but scream." Su Yun dealt with it without blushing or panting. Then he looked at the cards on the table very naturally, and then gave Lin Qingxia a card according to his guess.
In Mahjong, the meaning of "songzhang" is exactly the opposite of "chuzhang". "chuzhang" means that you play a card and the next player immediately plays the same card to suppress the opponent; while "songzhang" means that the player in the upper hand feeds the next player the desired card based on speculation, so that the next player can achieve a winning hand as soon as possible...
"Bang! Nine cards have fallen to the ground. You guys better be careful." Lin Qingxia took the mahjong tiles that Su Yun had played with a happy look on her face.
"You always give her loose cards. If she plays a big card in a while, you have to take care of everything!" Mei Yanshuang had already seen through Su Yun's little thoughts, but as an opponent and sparring partner with not much interest in the matter, she just teased Su Yun jokingly.
In contrast to Mei Yanshuang's doting and teasing, Su Yun was kicked by the player above him.
After being kicked twice for no reason, which were not very harmful but extremely insulting, Su Yun immediately slammed the mahjong tiles he had just touched on the table: How can this be? You are so petty, I am just using you as a sweet date!
When Su Yun was rejected by Lin Qingxia when she called him before, she remembered what Lin Qingxia wrote in her autobiography, that she stayed up late to play cards in order to see Zhuang Long.
So Su Yun unceremoniously used Zhuang Long as bait, and used it repeatedly, not only throwing him out on the phone but also arranging a good-lit opposite position for him at home, almost saying that she was using him as a beauty to attract targets...
Really, it's not like he was asked to seduce a rich woman or a tycoon, so why would he be so angry about such a beautiful fangirl?
If it were me, my mouth would be crooked from smiling, okay?
The more Su Yun thought about it, the more indignant she became. Taking advantage of the card-playing action on the table to cover her eyes, she pulled her feet out of the slippers that the Cantonese people loved so much under the table, aimed at the right spot, and wanted to step on Zhuang Long's instep.
Good guy, you want to use your acting skills to hide from her who practices martial arts every day!
With a desire to win, Su Yun began to multitask. While maintaining her calm on the table, she also performed leg skills under the table to firmly step on his two feet that were dodging everywhere.
Giving him a smug look, Su Yun played another seven bamboos.
"Huge, small three yuan mixed with one color, give me money!" Lin Qingxia pushed the mahjong tiles in her hand out in surprise.
Perhaps it was because the desire to win always overcame all other thoughts after sitting at the mahjong table. Seeing that Su Yun really tricked Lin Qingxia, not only Zhuang Long, who had been glaring at her, but even Mei Yanshuang, who was sitting opposite her, gave her a resentful look.
It's as if you are such a heartless person that you forget the old one when you have a new one.
Su Yun chuckled twice to fool him, then continued to play another game, preparing to start the discussion: Now that the situation is very good, it's time to show your real thoughts.
"I'm planning to make an action fantasy movie recently. There are three heroines. One is Ah Mei, one is a newcomer, and the one with the most important role, I hope you can come. Are you interested?" Su Yun said, and slowly told out the plot outline of "The Exorcist Sister" that she had already prepared.
Lin Qingxia was somewhat stunned, but also somewhat suddenly enlightened: since ancient times, the Chinese have discussed business either at the dining table or at the mahjong table. Su Yun had gone to so much trouble to arrange a card game with her, so the meaning behind it was naturally not difficult to guess.
But she didn't expect that after her previous film "New Shushan Swordsman" was a huge flop, even director Xu He, who was an ultimate lover of special effects, didn't dare to ask her to shoot this kind of movie again. After the loss of Jiahe, the original plan of sequel was changed to Chen Xuanlong's "Project A"... Su Yun actually dared to ask her to challenge this type of subject matter.
"Do you know that the previous investment in "New Shushan Swordsman" was over 20 million, but the box office in Hong Kong was less than 16 million..." Lin Qingxia thought about it again and again, and still felt that she should tell him about her previous challenge of transformation which ended in a big failure.
Xu He is well-known in the industry for being good at winning awards but easy to lose money, but Su Yun is a rare box office guarantee in the industry.
Well, if she fails again this time, people may not necessarily say that there is something wrong with Su Yun, but they will definitely think that she is a box office poison that will end up losing money no matter who she works with.
"Of course I know that Xu He used my connections to film this drama and contacted Industrial Light & Magic to do the post-production special effects." Su Yun looked at her, "This drama is not bad, but it was born at the wrong time, just like "Blade Runner" that Zhao and I are very optimistic about..."
"When you are famous, you are prone to gossip. It's not you who is wrong, but the world." Su Yun's sweet talk almost made Lin Qingxia, who was being criticized openly and secretly because of the poor box office performance recently, tear up.
"The reason I specially invited you, besides the fact that you are very suitable for this role, is also because I think you can use this movie to wash away your stigma and let everyone see that you are not just a literary goddess who can only shoot art films and romance films, but a good actor who can handle all styles." Su Yun said very seriously.
"Thank you...I..." Lin Qingxia's eyes were red and she was hesitant to speak.
"You agreed to it, right? Look, we've been easing you up all night, and now you've got nothing again. What a shame..." Mei Yanshuang said with a sour look and a smile.
Compared to Mei Yanshuang's constant teasing and joking remarks in public, Zhuang Long only appears calm and steady on the surface, but he is just as active in private.
However, Su Yun would not allow him to express his dissatisfaction. Seeing that it was almost done, she decisively gave him two hard blows, then quickly stepped on her slippers and withdrew her feet as if nothing had happened.
Lin Qingxia smiled embarrassedly, and in a panic she pushed the tiles but accidentally scattered them, so she quickly said sorry, then bent down and looked under the table to look for the fallen mahjong tiles...
The mahjong tile fell at Su Yun's feet. She subconsciously looked over there and was suddenly confused: It's strange, why are the shoes Su Yun wearing so strange?
Seeing that Su Yun was wearing a pair of "Yanyan shoes" with one large and one small, one blue and one pink, Lin Qingxia was puzzled, but suddenly she noticed that the person opposite her was wearing the same pair of shoes with one large and one small, one blue and one pink.
Recalling the occasional shaking of the mahjong table, and looking at the shoes that Su Yun and Zhuang Long had obviously worn by mistake—
Oops, it seems she has accidentally discovered something terrible...