Chapter 21
Lin Na and Chen Feng were the only ones left in the studio, looking at the densely packed whiteboard with new shooting points. Liu Yifan had just left, and she wanted to go back to the set to calm down.
Chen Feng stroked his chin, his face still showing the excitement of the methodological breakthrough. He moved closer to Lin Na, lowered his voice, and his eyes flashed with the light of having unearthed a treasure:
"Director Lin, since this approach seems sound... I was thinking about that last time Yi Fan came back from Rongcheng and reviewed with us her interactions with CEO Zhou at the battery factory... At the time, we just treated it as background information. Now, looking back, can we squeeze something out of it? That kind of temptation and tension of 'entering the enemy's territory for the first time', maybe..."
He spoke with some excitement, but was interrupted by Lin Na before he could finish his words.
Lin Na didn't look at him immediately, her gaze still fixed on a certain spot on the whiteboard. She shook her head very slightly, almost imperceptibly. She was silent for two seconds before turning to look at Chen Feng. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes were steady.
"Let's forget about that time." Her voice was not loud, but it carried a determination that left no room for discussion.
A hint of surprise crossed Chen Feng's face. He had obviously not expected this proposal to be rejected outright. In his opinion, it was also extremely valuable "status material."
Lin Na seemed to see his confusion. She didn't explain, but simply looked away, looking out the window, and added in a flat tone, as if stating a simple fact:
"Mr. Zhou said we don't want a love storyline."
She paused, her fingertips unconsciously tapping the table lightly before continuing. Her voice was softer than before, but with a clear warning:
"Besides, that line... is too dangerous."
She uttered the word "danger" softly, but it was like a pebble dropped into still water, sending silent ripples between them. She didn't spell out what the danger was—was it the danger of straying from the project's original purpose? The danger of touching Zhou Ping'an's restricted zone? Or the danger of Liu Yifan's own uncontrollable state?
She didn't say anything, but Chen Feng understood instantly. The excitement on his face quickly faded, replaced by a solemn look of realization. He pushed his glasses and nodded, not asking another question.
"Got it," he murmured, refocusing his attention back on the key points of the shot at hand.
The room returned to silence, with only the faint sounds of construction work outside the window. The brief conversation just now seemed to have never happened.
The morning sun filtered through the cracks in the hotel curtains, casting a warm glow on Zhou Ping'an's face. When he awoke, a rare, brisk aftertaste lingered in his consciousness, like the smooth feeling of an instrument after completing a high-precision calibration.
Last night's visit to the cinema had been the right decision. He simply felt that since he had tacitly accepted the idea of "mutual affection," it wasn't appropriate to have Liu Yifan, a woman, running around all the time. As the man, he needed to be more proactive. Besides, last night had felt... quite pleasant.
In the quiet night, walking side by side through the unfinished royal city with the person whose pictures had covered the walls of his entire youth, discussing light and loneliness - this in itself gave him a simple satisfaction.
This wonderful feeling lasted. He woke up naturally after nine o'clock, washed up slowly, and left this ordinary hotel in Xiangbei. When he got into the car, the first thing he said to the driver was: "Let's go to the movie studio again."
Driving along the somewhat deserted streets, he gazed out the window at the passing street scenes, his mind drifting. Ever since selling 35% of the battery factory's shares to Weihua and handing over day-to-day management to professional managers sent by Weihua, the burden on his shoulders had indeed been much lighter.
The amount of money was just a number. He believed that the specific management matters could be handled more efficiently by more professional people. He only needed to grasp the core technical direction and the flow of large amounts of funds.
This "letting go" caused some complaints from his business partner, Li Dingshan, who believed he was trusting Weihua too much and giving up too much control. But Zhou Pingan disagreed.
In his view, trading partial control for Anping Battery's rapid growth within the Weihua ecosystem, along with his own valuable energy and time, was a perfectly worthwhile deal. Li Dingshan's concerns were essentially a reflection of the path dependency of traditional business thinking.
This also means that his current life is far less busy than outsiders imagine. He has plenty of time to devote to things like "The Fall of the Nation", which he considers more valuable and "interesting".
The car stopped again at the empty entrance of the cinema. The construction site was much noisier in the morning than at night, with all kinds of mechanical sounds and human voices mixed together.
After getting off the car, he walked towards the temporary building of the project department and happened to meet the on-site executive producer who was rushing out at the door. When the other party saw him, he quickly stopped and greeted him.
"Mr. Zhou, you're here."
"Yeah. Director Lin and the others are here?" Zhou Ping'an asked naturally.
"Everyone's all here, having a creative meeting in the studio. They're pretty engaged," the executive producer replied with a smile, adding, "Do you need me to notify them?"
"No need." Zhou Pingan waved his hand almost immediately, saying in a calm tone, "I'm just taking a look. There's no need to disturb them from working."
He had come here on a whim. For him, the actual creation was the artists' responsibility; he provided the resources and occasionally checked on the "progress." He preferred to be a bystander, observing the "growth" of this vast royal city from nothing to something.
So he turned onto another path and, alone, slowly began to wander around this vast, unfinished construction site. The sunlight shone on the rammed earth walls and exposed timber, revealing a rough and vibrant texture, completely different from the hazy mystery of last night.
He walked and stopped, occasionally looking up at the towering roof trusses, or squatting down to twist the sand of the newly laid floor tiles with his fingers, like a leisurely supervisor or a curious tourist.
He felt a rare sense of relaxation and lightness. He didn't realize how his state might be interpreted as complex calculations by Liu Yifan and the others. He simply felt that the morning sun was beautiful, and that this city, being built for the beautiful memories he had, was also beautiful.
After the meeting, Liu Yifan needed solitude. His emotions were roiled, and the complex feelings of being exposed, objectified, and yet fatally attracted needed to find an anchor in his body. The theory was clear; now he needed to remember it with his body.
Without disturbing anyone, she walked out of the makeshift studio alone, heading towards the core palace area. She needed to return to the platform that night, not under the darkness and solitary lamp, but amid the hustle and bustle and dust of the day, to feel that "loneliness" again and verify the "truth" that was being scrutinized.
She turned around a pile of neatly stacked antique blue bricks and was about to step onto the rammed earth path leading to the main hall, but her footsteps suddenly stopped.
Not far ahead, next to the rammed earth wall foundation outside the palace, Zhou Ping'an was standing there alone with his back to her.
He tilted his head slightly, gazing intently at a set of huge early bracket sets with heavy "dou" that were being installed by several workers high above.
The sun shone unobstructed on him, and a thin layer of dust fell on the shoulders of his dark coat. He stood with his hands in his coat pockets, his posture relaxed, not like he was inspecting, but more like a pure, slightly curious bystander.
Liu Yifan's heart skipped a beat. The image of him standing in the shadows last night flashed through his mind, overlapping with his figure in the sunlight before him. Lin Na's words, Chen Feng's lines, and the words scribbled in her own notebook, "Moaning is also material," all flooded back into his mind like a tide.
She immediately realized that this was a good opportunity to observe him in the unprepared daylight. She took a deep breath, suppressed the surging emotions, adjusted her breathing, made herself look as natural as possible, and then walked over.
Hearing footsteps, Zhou Pingan turned around. Seeing her, a flicker of surprise crossed his face, then faded into a calm, almost natural gentleness. His eyes were bright, much clearer in the sunlight than at night. There was no scrutiny, no calculation, only a kind of... clear focus.
His eyes lingered on her face for a moment.
Unlike last night, when she was shrouded in darkness and stage makeup, the sunlight now illuminated her without reservation. Her face was bare of any makeup, her complexion clear, yet revealing an almost transparent whiteness. The subtle lines at the corners of her eyes and the barely perceptible dryness on her cheeks could be clearly seen.
Her eyebrows were not deliberately trimmed, and their natural sparseness made her eyes look bigger and more... empty, as if she had just experienced an extremely tiring long journey, and all her emotions had been drained away, leaving only a deep sense of fatigue.
This defenseless, even weary reality was completely different from the ever-dazzling image meticulously printed on posters in his memory, and from the perfect symbol she was last night, wrapped in costume and lights.
An extremely subtle sense of relaxation, one he himself hadn't even noticed, quietly spread within him. It was as if, only at this moment, he had truly "seen" her: not a distant symbol, not a vessel of "beauty" to be frozen, but a living, tiring, tangible person.
"Is the meeting over?" He spoke first, his tone as normal as if he had met her in the corridor of the battery factory.
"Yeah." Liu Yifan stood beside him and followed his gaze to look up, "Come out for some fresh air and find the different light sensations between day and night." This reason was impeccable.
"Yeah." Zhou Ping'an responded, his gaze returning to the brackets under construction. "During the day, the details are much clearer. At night, it's more about the atmosphere."
His comments were as objective as if he were describing a technical parameter. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he turned his head to look at her and asked naturally, "You said yesterday that you felt lonely standing up there. Now that it's in the sun, does it feel better?"
This question was asked so directly and so simply, without any tentative hint, as if one really just wanted to understand an objective difference in feelings.
Liu Yifan was stunned. All the coping strategies she had prepared seemed unnecessary and pretentious at this moment. She looked at his profile, outlined by the sunlight, at the pure, inquiring light in his eyes. The stinging feeling of being "objectified" last night strangely faded, replaced by a more complex emotion.
His question was so direct, so simple... Liu Yifan was stunned. She found that the sophisticated model she had constructed with Lin Na and Chen Feng to analyze and respond to Zhou Ping'an had completely failed at this moment.
The model didn't include the variable "simply asking about feelings." This "simplicity" itself created a new complexity that she couldn't understand or categorize.
She met his gaze, not avoiding it, and tried to answer in an equally direct manner: "It's different. Solitude in the sun... is open, even a little... warm. Unlike the night, which is cold and penetrates into the bones."
Zhou Pingan listened attentively, then nodded, as if taking note of a valuable set of comparative data. He was silent for a few seconds, then looked at her and said:
"That's good."
Those two words floated lightly, yet like a pebble, they landed in Liu Yifan's heart. She couldn't quite decipher their meaning. Did he think her good health would be beneficial for her work? Or was it simply... a wish for her to feel better?
Before she could dwell on it, Zhou Ping'an had already changed the subject. Pointing at the massive wooden structure made of countless neatly-formed mortise and tenon joints, he commented in his unique, engineer-like tone, "This mortise and tenon structure is much more complex than modern steel structures, but when it's put together, it offers a seamless, stable fit that bolts simply can't provide."
He seemed to be explaining to her, but also seemed to be talking to himself.
Liu Yifan stood beside him, the sun warming her body, the hustle and bustle of the construction site a distant background noise. As she looked at this man immersed in the beauty of technology, the emotional swamp in her heart, recently opened by Lin Na, seemed to be illuminated by an unexpected, simple, and direct ray of sunlight.
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