Happy birthday, Ye Chu. I'm sorry I gave you a terrible birthday.
·
Ye Chu still refuses to accept my feelings. But it's not too bad; at least she's willing to tell me the truth now.
Ye Chu said, "Shi Shan, don't imagine yourself as a container, filling it with emotions and emptying it whenever needed. Containers are finite. You should imagine yourself as a mountain spring, with an inexhaustible underground source supporting you, and you selectively overflowing the water..."
Ye Chu said with exasperation, "Shi Shan, you need to study, study, study! Use your brain! Forget about Zhan Kexiang, he's just a piece of trash! He forced you into the role that way because you were a newcomer, and training you would take a lot of time, which he didn't have! So he had to resort to the most brutal method! You can't stay a beginner under Zhan Kexiang forever!"
Ye Chu said weakly, "Shi Shan, I can't help you anymore. Why aren't you in pain? Why aren't you angry? Why aren't you sad? Why aren't you suppressing your feelings? Why are your emotions always like lukewarm water, fluctuating no more than three degrees Celsius?"
I said: I really have nothing to be in pain about.
This is the truth. From childhood to adulthood, I've met very few people who are inferior to me, and very few who dare to disobey or anger me. Apart from some setbacks in acting, my life has been smooth sailing and virtually flawless.
I only know these few kinds of feelings: sweet and warm love, from my parents; a subtle pride, from my family; controlled anger, from my upbringing; and a smooth and worldly demeanor, from the environment I grew up in.
I was born in a bountiful earthly paradise. There were no mountains to conquer, no obstacles to overcome. No mountain springs could be found, only man-made fountains.
Ye Chu said: Aren't you in pain if you can't act well?
I said: Of course, but after so many years, I've gotten used to it.
Ye Chu said: You have so many girlfriends and good brothers, don't you have any deeply touching moments? Recall the feelings of that moment and apply them here.
I shook my head: They were all touched, but I didn't find it particularly moving. What I did for them wasn't difficult for me. For example, if your father bought two pounds of vegetables for your mother, and she cried with gratitude, do you think your father would be equally moved, or just inexplicably so?
Ye Chu looked shocked: If that's the case, why do you like acting?
I thought for a moment and said: Because this is the only thing in all these years that I have had to put in effort to achieve.
Ye Chu froze. After a long while, she groaned.
Ye Chu said: The Celestial Dragons really deserve to die.
·
On the day filming of "Half a Day" wrapped up, Ye Chu encountered a problem.
Even the behind-the-scenes footage at a TV station like Ruguan is scripted. Ye Chu and I not only had to act in the drama, but also in the behind-the-scenes footage.
According to the script for Ru Tai's behind-the-scenes segment, Ye Chu was supposed to cry her eyes out, and when the emotion got to her, she would hug me, and I would hug her back tightly. But, but, on the day filming wrapped, Ye Chu completely forgot about it.
To be precise, Ye Chu didn't forget; she just hugged the wrong person. I was standing to her right at the time, and as she was crying with tears blurring her vision, perhaps unable to see the person in front of her, she actually hugged Xu Hanwen, who was standing to her left.
The guy filming the behind-the-scenes footage realized this and hesitated, unsure whether to remind Ye Chu to reshoot. I stopped him with a look.
Filming only happens once, and with so many people watching, it's a lot of noise and intrigue. Making Ye Chu act again would be a real disaster.
The cameraman had no choice but to make do and finish filming the scene where Ye Chu hugs Xu Hanwen.
Ye Chu held Xu Hanwen and cried emotionally for a while before realizing something was wrong. The person in her arms had lost a lot of weight and smelled of tobacco. —This is what she told me the day after tomorrow. Xu Hanwen was also stunned by her sudden action. In front of the camera, he couldn't push Ye Chu away, so he could only embrace her affectionately and cry for a while, like a father or mentor.
After the two awkwardly finished crying, the filming wasn't over yet. This was the photographer's job—if he didn't capture any interaction between me and Ye Chu, Ru Guan would skin him alive.
Ye Chu let go of Xu Hanwen, forcing back tears. She couldn't interact with me according to the script anymore; after all, she needed to create hype, so how could she give me a secondhand hug?
The photographer was making faces, and Ye Chu couldn't stay there being so sentimental forever. So I put my arm around Ye Chu's shoulder and hastily finished the shoot.
Anyway, as long as there is physical contact, Ru Guan TV can portray it as an embrace, so it doesn't matter.
·
Many memories flooded my mind. The makeup artist finished. I didn't examine my makeup closely; after all, Muse magazine's style is pretty much the same. I'd already experienced that enough when I was the cover model before.
The fitting was completed a week ago, and now all that's needed is to follow the procedures. The September issue is the most important of the year, focusing on conveying the aesthetic trends of the new season. Even before the temperature has truly dropped, we need to create the atmosphere ahead of time. It's the so-called "autumn's chill hasn't faded, but autumn's presence is already here."
In other words, I'll be shooting in this August heat wearing a knitted sweater. And there are even more heavy clothes to come, waiting for me to endure them one by one.
The photography location was spacious, and the air conditioning was barely adequate. With dozens of lights on, the temperature quickly rose to over thirty-five degrees Celsius. I've gotten used to this.
When Ye Chu arrived in the morning, I saw that her assistants had brought a large amount of ice packs, cooling sprays, sweat-absorbing sheets, and handheld fans. They were very well prepared. Actually, *Muse* magazine also provided these things for us, but Ye Chu is not what she used to be and dares not use things provided by others indiscriminately anymore.
After what seemed like an eternity, Ye Chu finally made her dazzling entrance. The moment I saw her, all the burning pain I had been feeling suddenly vanished.
Ye Chu was wearing a well-tailored long trench coat, black leather gloves, and a military belt around her waist. She looked as if she had just stepped out of an interrogation room.
This outfit is absolutely stunning. Even if she pulled out a gun and shot me right now, I would feel that I deserved to die.
The only incongruous thing was the sweat on Ye Chu's forehead. There was no other way; Jin Jiu had to work his ass off. To endure this kind of suffering in this place, at this time of year, was an honor that most artists could only dream of.
I stepped forward and reminded Ye Chu with a smile, "Why are you wearing your coat now?"
Ye Chu looked somewhat bewildered: "Isn't this part of the design?"
“That’s true. But we usually put on our jackets a few minutes before shooting,” I said in a low voice, “so we don’t have to suffer as much.”
Ye Chu shook her head in disagreement: "Then there won't be time to take care of it, will there?"
It was just a magazine photoshoot, yet Ye Chu took it so seriously. This surprised me somewhat. Then it dawned on me: Ye Chu's acting skills are so convincing that I often forget she's only in her early twenties.
For Ye Chu, this was her first magazine cover. I then realized that Ye Chu's sweat wasn't all from heat; some of it was also from nervousness.
I looked around and leaned closer to her, saying, "There's really no need to be so nervous. It doesn't matter who Muse photographs. A year's worth of magazines look like twelve twin sisters."
Ye Chu rubbed her leather gloves, making a crunching sound as she twisted the leather: "I don't have Jing Zhang."
You absolutely mustn't laugh at a time like this, or Ye Chu will hold a grudge even more. I could only nod in agreement: "Yes, I see. Even so, I still want to share some tips with you—just treat this like a movie shoot. Imagine yourself playing a very high-profile cover girl in a film."
Ye Chu's eyes lit up.
I didn't get to see Ye Chu's solo cover shoot, so I don't know how she performed. But while she might not know how to shoot for a magazine, she certainly knows how to act. I think it probably won't be too bad.
After shooting several looks, the rest of the "Half the Sky" crew arrived one after another.
As the protagonist, Ye Chu needs to interact with every supporting character. I'm the first one.
While everyone else was still getting their makeup done, Ye Chu and I had already started filming.
The photographer asked us to pose face-to-face, with our arms crossed. It was an awkward pose; it looked like we were just brushing past each other, but we were actually very close. The photographer exclaimed, "It should have a 'kissing with blank expressions' feel—yes, yes, a little more to the right—"
Ye Chu has never kissed me. Not in the drama, and certainly not in real life. Zheng Bohan insists that Li Yiming and Li Ruhui are comrades-in-arms, I guess he'll have that engraved on his epitaph.
Ye Chu has a very professional attitude towards filming. I noticed this early on. She doesn't care about exposing her body in front of the camera, nor is she shy when filming scenes with physical contact. She has almost none of the awkwardness and shyness that a twenty-year-old girl should have.
We were face to face, very close. Ye Chu's eyes were downcast, looking pityingly at my heart. That was also where Li Ruhui was shot in the drama. The dramatic effect of this scene was excellent; I heard the flash go off several times, click, click, the shutter sound ringing out incessantly.
For some reason, I suddenly felt that this expression was very familiar.
My thoughts drifted away for a moment before I realized that she had looked at me with that same gaze in many of the moments we spent together.
When we were acting together, when I was performing for her with deep affection time and time again, when she was giving me acting advice and guidance, when I was making mistakes, when I was listening attentively to her, and even—when I was lying in the snow.
She pitied me. But not because of the hardships I endured while filming, not because of my madness, and not because of my futile attempts to befriend me. Rather, it was because I was an ordinary yet hardworking actor, forever unable to reach the pinnacle of success, so I resorted to self-harm, bottling up all my emotions and then vomiting them out with fanfare.
It turns out she had started to pity me a long time ago. That's why she tolerated everything about me.
At that moment, a fierce emotion swept through my heart. I glanced sideways at her profile; beneath her heavy makeup, her expression still carried a dramatic sense of sorrow. Suddenly, I felt a churning in my stomach, and I almost couldn't stand up.
I want to kiss her, to kiss her madly. And then, in that moment of kiss, to bite her to death, to devour her. To make her flesh and blood my own, her blood and tears my own. That way, her talents, her emotions, her understanding, would be mine, an inexhaustible source of nourishment. I would no longer have to be a shameful thief, no longer—
I suddenly opened my mouth and bit Ye Chu's shoulder hard!
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