Filming proceeded at a breakneck pace, the progress bar flying forward as if it were a game. Lu Zhi sat beside the Director, hearing him say over and over: “Alright, that’ll do.”
“Leave this one for post-production, they can photoshop it later.”
“Leave this one for post-production, splice it together with the earlier footage.”
“Leave this one for post-production, add some special effects and it’ll look the part.”
“Leave this one for post-production…”
After a while, Rong Yin stepped off the set and sprawled out on a nearby chair. Lifting her sharp little chin, she asked Lu Zhi matter-of-factly, “Where’s my dinner?”
Lu Zhi checked her watch; it was five minutes to four. But aside from the yogurt Rong Yin had already drunk, the bag Little Ma had handed over was completely empty of food. Clearly, Sister Zhuang was very strict about controlling her diet; everything aside from her prescribed fitness meals was normally refused.
The little assistant stood beside her, holding an electric fan, his eyes fixed on his nose and his mind on his own business, saying nothing.
“Mingming,” Lu Zhi called out to Zhou Mingming, who was resting on a small stool nearby. “Can you share some of your snacks with Rong Yin?”
Zhou Mingming was still in a state of disillusionment, so she didn’t react immediately when Lu Zhi called her. She paused for a moment before scrambling to her feet. “S-sure!”
Zhou Mingming’s snacks were actually in Lu Zhi’s bag; she was just asking as a formality.
Dried strawberries, banana chips, orange-flavored soft gummies.
Lu Zhi watched, speechless, as Rong Yin’s eyes began to sparkle and shine, her eagerness almost generating sparks.
It seemed these things were all “contraband” for her.
Lu Zhi shook the small jar as if teasing a puppy. “Pick one of the three.”
Rong Yin didn’t explode. She pursed her lips slightly and deliberated very seriously for three seconds before pointing a finger at the dried strawberries.
Lu Zhi gave her the dried strawberries, noticing out of the corner of her eye the little assistant frantically signaling Rong Yin.
Holding the jar, Rong Yin glared at the assistant, whose eye-twitching signals were about to cause a cramp, and threatened, “Stop blinking! Don’t you dare tattle! Or I’ll beat you up!”
The young man didn’t get angry at her words; he just stood behind her, looking aggrieved.
It was another late-night shoot. Around eight or nine in the evening, Lu Zhi asked the assistant to order some fruit platters for everyone.
“She’ll be jealous she can’t eat any and might throw a fit. Before, when Sister Zhuang was here, she only ordered coffee.” The little assistant scurried over again to warn Lu Zhi kindly.
Lu Zhi rubbed her brow. “Order coffee then.”
Over a hundred cups of coffee arrived. Rong Yin held a sugar-free, milk-free iced Americano, accepting the thanks from the other staff with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
In xianxia dramas, there are many flying scenes, and soon Zhou Mingming also began being suspended on wires for the first time. Luckily, the young lady studied dance and had good balance. Her supporting role had few scenes and a very low combat power setting, so most of the time, she just had to hang up in the air. Occasionally, she’d swoop down three or four times, make a couple of half-convincing sword moves, and then come down.
Still, she was quite excited, tugging on Lu Zhi’s arm and saying nonstop, “It’s so fun!”
Lu Zhi laughed despite herself, touching her shoulders and waist. “Does it hurt?”
Zhou Mingming was a bit sensitive; she dodged Lu Zhi’s hands while laughing. “No, it doesn’t hurt.”
Lu Zhi handed her the coffee she’d saved for her—a vanilla-flavored mocha. “Go remove your makeup and change clothes first. Later, I’ll have the driver take you back to the hotel.”
Zhou Mingming took a sip of the coffee. “Sister Chen, I want to stay here and play.”
Seeing she was still on a high, Lu Zhi didn’t insist. After she changed out of her costume, Lu Zhi found her a small stool to sit on nearby.
Rong Yin was still filming a group fight over there—the kind where one person fights ten—all in slow motion. Speeding it up and everything, no need to guess, would again rely on post-production.
Lu Zhi stood by off-set, watching Rong Yin brandishing a sword slowly, like an elementary schooler doing calisthenics. She must have learned dance too; her body was very flexible. Although her fighting movements were leisurely, the backbends and splits she executed mid-action were all beautifully done.
It was just that the exquisitely crafted, high-quality longsword looked somewhat incongruous compared to Rong Yin’s slender little arm. Even with the wide water-sleeves, there was a special worry that she might accidentally snap her own arm while swinging the sword around.
“Sister Chen, Rong Yin’s Aliens Are Coming shouldn’t have been dubbed, right?” Zhou Mingming watched for a while, then suddenly tugged at Lu Zhi’s sleeve, asking her in a soft, curious voice.
The drama she mentioned was the small web series Rong Yin starred in when she debuted. Rong Yin played a quirky, otherworldly alien. A girl fresh at eighteen, beautiful and full of spiritual qi, even with the cringe-worthy plot, countless netizens couldn’t help but fall head over heels for this sweet-as-honey female lead.
Afterward, countless tech-savvy fans spontaneously edited videos of her on Station B, shipping her with CP partners ranging from veteran Best Actors to two-person comedy performers.
CP chemistry has always been called a metaphysical phenomenon in the entertainment industry. In many dramas, both the male and female leads have stunning visuals, but strangely, the spark never ignites. The actors love each other to death, but the audience just can’t feel the pink bubbles.
But Rong Yin seemed completely free of this limitation. Whether fans paired her up randomly online, or with official co-stars, regardless of age or seniority, she could make netizens ship them crazily and obsessively.
“Her eyes can pull strings!” was the most upvoted comment about Rong Yin’s acting.
It was precisely because of this comment that Rong Yin spent four years acting in low-budget sweet dramas, including the one currently filming.
Lu Zhi said, “It wasn’t dubbed back then.”
Zhou Mingming made an “Oh” sound and added, “I think Rong Yin’s own voice sounds very nice. Why does she need dubbing now? It seems like many actors are dubbed these days.”
Lu Zhi thought for a moment. “Maybe she’s too busy.”
Zhou Mingming “Oh”ed again and sighed. “I really envy her. I hope I can be that busy someday too.”
Lu Zhi smiled but didn’t say anything else.
Midway through, Rong Yin came down to rest, and a stunt double took her place.
As soon as she came back, she saw a young woman sitting next to her chair, playing games, eating cookies, and leisurely enjoying the show.
Lu Zhi keenly sensed Rong Yin’s immediate displeasure; she started breathing heavily through her nostrils. Lu Zhi raised an eyebrow and spoke first: “Mingming, share a piece of your cookie with Rong Yin.”
As soon as she said it, Rong Yin’s eyes almost visibly lit up; the delighted surprise on her face was impossible to hide, and for a split second, she even doubted if she’d heard correctly.
Zhou Mingming quickly stood up, pinched a piece, and offered it over.
Rong Yin controlled the corners of her mouth, looking at Zhou Mingming with feigned disdain. Then, with an orchid-finger gesture, she plucked a round cookie from the blue packaging bag in Zhou Mingming’s other hand.
Zhou Mingming held her own piece, glancing at Lu Zhi with some unease. Lu Zhi smiled at her, and she settled back down with peace of mind.
It took five minutes to finish one cookie. Rong Yin glanced over at Lu Zhi, who was talking to the Director, then turned back to the girl beside her with an especially benevolent look. “Mingming, share another piece with me.”
Before Zhou Mingming could speak, the assistant’s voice piped up: “Sis Rong Yin…”
Rong Yin whipped her head around, shooting a death glare. “Scram!”
When Lu Zhi returned, what she saw was an angry Rong Yin, a bewildered Zhou Mingming, and a smiling apologetically assistant.
She didn’t ask anything, simply pulling the seated Zhou Mingming up. “It’s likely going to be a very late night tonight. There’s no need for you to hang around here if you’re not busy. I’ll have the driver take you back to the hotel. Go back, shower, and sleep. Set your alarm, you’re getting up at seven tomorrow, got it?”
Zhou Mingming: “Okay.”
Lu Zhi: “When you get back, check if you have any bruises. If you can apply the medicine yourself, do it. The medicine is in the drawer, go get it yourself, the red bottle.”
Zhou Mingming: “Okay.”
Lu Zhi: “No more snacks, you’ve eaten a lot today.”
Zhou Mingming laughed sheepishly. “Hehe, okay, Sister Chen.”
Rong Yin just watched them from the side, slanting her eyes, her brows tightly furrowed. She was clearly very resentful that Zhou Mingming received such treatment.
Lu Zhi escorted Zhou Mingming to the parking lot. After returning, she stayed until four in the morning, when Rong Yin’s scenes finally wrapped.
The on-site staff were all dizzy with exhaustion. When the wrap was finally announced, they didn’t even have the energy to cheer.
As for why the wrap was so late, the biggest reason was that the female lead had to hop between sets the next day. She wouldn’t be on this set for the next three days, so naturally, the Director wanted to catch her and film whatever could be filmed first.
Fortunately, the other set was also in Hengdian—a Republican drama, and Rong Yin was the female lead there too.
However, Lu Zhi knew from the plot that this drama would ultimately fade into obscurity, likely never airing, or perhaps dying halfway through production.
This was a common occurrence in the film and television industry, nine times out of ten.
It was already five o’clock by the time they finished removing makeup and arrived at the hotel. Rong Yin had been sleeping soundly and lolling in the car; Lu Zhi gently patted her face and called her for a long time before waking her up.
Back in 2109, the rest was handed over to Little Ma. Rong Yin was utterly exhausted from the night’s work and had no mood to make things difficult for her, collapsing straight into sleep.
Lu Zhi divided the work with Little Ma. During the day, Little Ma would take Zhou Mingming to the xianxia set. Lu Zhi would come at nine to wake Rong Yin for the Republican drama crew. If there was nothing in the afternoon, the two would switch back.
Little Ma nodded repeatedly, then handed Lu Zhi a few A4 sheets of paper. “Sister Chen, this is the list Sister Zhuang made before about things Rong Yin needs to pay attention to normally. They’re mostly little life details. I’ll take care of most of them, just look them over when you have time so you know.”
Lu Zhi glanced at it. It was written in great detail, down to how to wear clothes, how many grams of food to eat per day, accommodation standards and taboos, travel times and locations, what to say, who to meet, how many people should follow…
How to put it… basically, 24 hours a day, from inside out, clothing, food, shelter, transportation, speech, and behavior, everything was listed clearly.
Lu Zhi remembered that before she departed for Hengdian this time, there had been a similar one for Zhou Mingming on her desk, but she had thrown it in the trash.
This was characteristic of Splendid World Entertainment’s way of creating idol stars. They liked to use a ruler to measure every inch of an artist’s body for places that didn’t conform to their star-making criteria. Then, they’d use a millimeter-precise standard like a rasp to slowly grind away the uneven parts of the artist, like the assembly-line star-making machines prevalent overseas.
Because of this, the artists under Splendid World Entertainment were generally young and obedient children, like Zhou Mingming.
For someone like Rong Yin—beautiful, full of spiritual qi, but strong-willed and unconventional—they weren’t willing to discard her, but they wouldn’t lower their standards to accommodate her either. Instead, they believed even more in using methods akin to breaking a falcon to restrict and train her, even more harshly, to achieve the goal of making her completely obedient to their whims.
However, according to the plot’s development, this set of methods had clearly backfired on them.
But what did it matter?
Every year, beautiful men and women flooding into the entertainment industry were like carp crossing a river. They had far too many opportunities to test and fail.
