Chapter 11
At the renovation site of the "Allure" film studio, heavy machinery roared in a frenzy of activity. Money, like the most efficient lubricant, enabled every process to operate at unprecedented speed. At this rate of progress, a magnificent yet dilapidated Zhou Dynasty royal city would rise within the scheduled timeframe.
However, in sharp contrast to the enthusiasm on the construction site is the low temperature and stagnation at the core of the creation.
A suite in a luxury hotel in Haicheng has been temporarily converted into a project studio. The walls are covered with historical materials about the "Beacon Fire Drama," concept drawings for scenes, and fragments of the script, repeatedly revised and discarded. The air is thick with the smell of coffee and an invisible anxiety.
Director Lin Na and screenwriter Chen Feng had another argument, and their voices came through the half-open door, carrying an uncontrollable irritation.
"No! It feels completely wrong!" Lin Na slammed a stack of manuscripts on the table. "We don't want a simple 'beauty is the root of trouble' article! But what are we writing about now? A clear-headed woman who refuses to be manipulated, struggling in a patriarchal society? This is too superficial! It can't support the... the 'extreme' that President Zhou wants!"
Chen Feng pushed his glasses up, his face a little tired. "Director Lin, if we remove the feminist expression, we'll lose the core that's most readily available and the most easily discussed right now. President Zhou denies 'isms' and demands 'authenticity,' but what is the 'real' Bao Si? The history books only contain a few words about her! Are we supposed to invent her psychological motivations out of thin air? Love? Hatred? Patriotism? Which one wouldn't be cliché?"
"That's the problem!" Lin Na scratched her hair in frustration. "We're trapped. Without a core, all the scenes and conversations are like rootless duckweed. What we've built is a spiritual palace with an empty shell."
Just as the sound of Lin Na and Chen Feng's argument was faintly heard from the main conference room, the scene in the inner room of the suite separated by a wall was completely different.
The curtains were half-drawn, the light dim. Liu Yifan hadn't turned on the lights; only a large floor-to-ceiling mirror reflected her hazy figure. She had just finished a nearly exhausting round of physical training, trying to use her physical fatigue to soothe Baosi's soul, imprisoned for a thousand years.
There were all sorts of materials scattered on the floor: patterns of Western Zhou clothing, rubbings of bronze decorations, and even a few books on psychology and existentialism. She tried everything.
Facing the mirror, she practiced over and over again every subtle movement that might be recorded in history books, belonging to Bao Si: the curve of holding a goblet or wine cup, the ripple of her skirt as she walked, the look in her eyes as she gazed at the distant mountains...
She first tried "resentment." Imagining the resentment of a woman treated as a gift, she frowned, her eyes blazing with silent rage. But then, she paused. No, that wasn't right. Zhou Ping'an didn't want a goddess of vengeance, a woman with a deep vengeance and deep hatred.
She tried again, "sad." Imagine a grieving soul, helpless and foreseeing the tragic end of the world. She lowered her eyes, letting a hazy mist linger in them. Still, it wasn't right. It was too fragile, too easily read, not "extreme," and unworthy of the stage funded by hundreds of millions of dollars.
She even tried being "empty," letting everything go, keeping her face emotionless. But that became numbness, not the penetrating "coldness" she wanted.
"What's missing?" she muttered to herself, sweat dripping down her forehead. She felt an unprecedented sense of frustration. This role was like a smooth piece of amber; she could see the figure sealed within, but she couldn't find any cracks to get in.
She sat down wearily, her back against the cold mirror. Her eyes unconsciously swept over a book scattered on the floor. It was the title of a book on cognitive philosophy that Zhou Ping'an had casually mentioned the last time they met. She had made a note of it and, for some unknown reason, bought it.
Suddenly, a thought pierced her mind like an icicle.
Zhou Pingan's words echoed again:
“Your most beautiful moment is when you’re ‘not in love’.”
"It's the kind of beauty that makes your heart skip a beat. You can't explain why, but you just can't forget it."
"Once you talk about 'ism', it's no longer beautiful."
He wasn't judging her acting; he was defining something he saw in her essence.
Where is Bao Si?
When King You of Zhou set fire to the beacons to amuse the princes for her, he wasn't after her "ideology," her "resentment," or her "sorrow." Perhaps he simply wanted her existence, her "beauty," and that ultimate, unconquerable quality: her "not smiling."
Could it be that Bao Si’s “not smiling” was not a “reaction” to a specific event, such as resistance or sadness, but rather a complete and indiscriminate “indifference” to everything around her - including King You of Zhou’s passionate infatuation, the embarrassment of the princes, and even the impending destruction of her country and her family?
A kind of... extreme boredom caused by seeing too much?
The thought made her shudder.
If this is true, then all her previous attempts to "act" Bao Si's emotions were completely misguided. Bao Si is not a role that requires mobilizing emotions to "act", she is a state that needs to be "become".
To achieve this state, she had to understand what had created this extreme indifference and boredom. She had to understand the man who had created this environment—King You of Zhou. He had to be powerful, mad, and paranoid enough to drive someone to the point of losing interest in everything.
At this moment, Liu Yifan suddenly raised his head and looked at himself in the mirror. The woman in the mirror had a confused look in her eyes, but with a trembling feeling of sudden enlightenment.
She understood.
She isn't creating a character; she's interpreting a relationship, a relationship that existed three thousand years ago but, strangely, reappears in the present, between her and the man named Zhou Ping'an, recreating the core concepts of "gazing and being gazed at," "definition and resistance to definition."
To become Bao Si, she must first understand King You of Zhou.
To understand King You of Zhou, the only and most vivid example in this time and space is Zhou Ping'an.
This conclusion shot through her like an icy electric current, filling her with both fear and an unprecedented clarity. She could no longer remain trapped in this room, working on her own. She had to get out, to tell Lin Na and Chen Feng about her discovery. The direction of the story had to be completely reversed.
She took a deep breath, as if trying to absorb the icy determination into her lungs and into her blood. She stood up and straightened her clothes, which had become slightly disheveled from training. The fatigue of her failed attempt quickly faded from her face, replaced by a determination that hinted at a desperate struggle.
She walked towards the door that separated her from the outside team, put her hand on the doorknob, paused for a moment, and then pushed the door open without hesitation.
The arguing between Lin Na and Chen Feng came clearly the moment she pushed open the door.
Just then, the door to the inner room of the suite was gently pushed open. Liu Yifan emerged, dressed in simple sportswear and bare face, her face a look of immersive fatigue and concentration. She had been in the inner room doing individual body training and rehearsing her lines.
"Director Lin, Editor Chen," her voice was a little hoarse, but her eyes were clear, "I just re-ran the scene where 'after the beacon fires were lit, Bao Si saw the princes rushing in in panic.' I keep feeling... are we going in the wrong direction?
Just then, the door to the inner room of the suite was gently pushed open. Liu Yifan emerged, dressed in simple sportswear and bare face, her face a look of immersive fatigue and concentration. She had been in the inner room doing individual body training and rehearsing her lines.
"Director Lin, Editor Chen," her voice was a little hoarse, but her eyes were clear. "I just re-ran the scene where 'after the beacon fires were lit, Bao Si saw the princes rushing in in panic.' I keep feeling... maybe we got it wrong?"
Lin Na and Chen Feng looked at her at the same time.
"We've been trying to 'explain' why Bao Si 'didn't smile,' trying to find a reasonable, powerful 'inner motivation' for her." Liu Yifan walked over to the whiteboard and pointed to words like "resistance," "awakening," and "accusation." "But is it possible that we're overthinking this?"
She paused, as if organizing a more instinctive feeling: "Is it possible that her 'not smiling' is precisely because she 'is too lazy to smile'?"
"Too lazy to laugh?" Chen Feng frowned.
"It's not indifference, nor hatred, but rather a kind of... utter boredom and emptiness." Liu Yifan's gaze grew distant, as if he were peering through a wall into some nonexistent place. "She saw through everything in this palace, including King You of Zhou's infatuation with her. They were all equally absurd, equally 'boring.' In her eyes, the beacon-lighting charade wasn't tyranny, nor proof of love, but rather a grander, more boring... monkey show."
This interpretation stunned both Lin Na and Chen Feng. It was closer to an existential nihilism than any specific motive, and more subversive.
Liu Yifan continued, his tone growing more and more certain, as if clearing away a fog. "To understand this 'boredom,' to understand why she felt all this was 'utterly boring,' we can't just study Bao Si. We must understand the person who made her feel 'bored'—King You of Zhou."
Her voice deepened, with a calmness that was almost fatalistic: "In other words, I want to try to understand, Zhou Pingan."
Silence fell over the room. Lin Na and Chen Feng both understood Liu Yifan's meaning. Zhou Ping'an was the "King You of Zhou" in this modern context. His cold analysis of Liu Yifan—"Your most beautiful moment is when you're 'not in love'"—was another version of the "King You's gaze."
Liu Yifan turned around and faced the two core creators, his eyes firm. "He doesn't want a symbol of resistance, nor does he want a pampered vase. What he wants, perhaps, is a kind of... indifferent testimony to 'existence' itself. Bao Si is that witness, and King You of Zhou's madness is her mirror image. And I..."
She paused, took a deep breath, and spoke out the fact that she had been avoiding but had to face:
"And I found that the more I tried to get into Bao Si's skin, the more I inevitably had to examine Zhou Ping'an through her eyes. His obsession with this project, his unwavering devotion to it, the way he looked at me...all of this helped me shape King You of Zhou, and also pushed me deeper into Bao Si's heart."
"This isn't a choice; this is the only path," Liu Yifan concluded, his tone carrying the resolve of an actor finding the key to a role. "The direction of the script may not lie in history books, nor in our imaginations, but in... how we interpret the person who gave us all this."
Lin Na was silent for a long time, the anxiety in her eyes gradually replaced by a new light. She looked at Chen Feng and said, "Old Chen, maybe we are really wrong. We have been looking for answers outside of ourselves, but the answers may have always been within us."
Chen Feng nodded thoughtfully. "If the core is 'gaze and the nothingness of existence,' then Mr. Zhou himself is the best research model. Miss Liu's feelings... may be correct."
The direction of the creative meeting completely reversed. Instead of focusing on fictionalizing Bao Si's inner thoughts, they began to use Zhou Ping'an's behavioral patterns, fragments of his words, and even the crazy way he pushed the project as the key to interpreting King You of Zhou and reshaping Bao Si.
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