After Being Dumped by the Film Empress, My Acting Skills Soared - Chapter 32

Chapter 32

“Yeah, what do we do now?” Shao Niannian muttered. Her pace of eating the sweet potato didn’t slow down a bit; she took two consecutive bites, puffing out her cheeks like a squirrel, while her eyes constantly scanned the surroundings.

After a moment, Niannian suddenly asked, “Have you ever climbed a wall?”

“What?”

“When you were a student, did you ever climb a school wall?” Niannian repeated.

“No.”

Niannian asked, “Skipping class? Not turning in homework? Sleeping in the back row? Ever done any of that?”

“None of them,” Jiang Yan said with a smile. “I was the top-ranked student in my year at the National Film Academy. I wanted to do those things you mentioned, but I didn’t have the time.”

“Is that so?” Niannian wiped her mouth and couldn’t help licking her dry lips.

The sweet potato was delicious, but eating a whole one was a bit cloying for her. She desperately wanted some water. “Since you’ve never done any of it, this is perfect.”

“What is?” Jiang Yan didn’t understand.

The next second, Niannian pulled Jiang Yan toward the school gate, still clutching the paper bag. As they approached, a brilliant smile bloomed on her face. She asked sweetly, “Uncle, do you have a trash can here? I want to throw this away; it’s inconvenient to carry.”

“I do. You two look very unfamiliar. You’re not from our county, are you?” The guard’s suspicious gaze didn’t dissipate despite Niannian’s warmth. He stood up half-doubtingly and helped Niannian toss the paper bag into the bin.

“We aren’t,” Niannian said quite frankly. “But we met not long ago! Our film crew was shooting here earlier; we borrowed your sports field.”

Niannian blinked, acting as if she had just realized something. “Oh, I remember now. Last time we came, it didn’t seem like you were on duty, Uncle. It’s normal not to recognize us. We’re probably considered celebrities in your county by now.”

A film crew coming to the county was common knowledge. Hearing this, the guard believed her. “I wasn’t around a few days ago, so I didn’t know you’d been here. Ha! Now that you mention you’re actors, you do look a bit familiar! I must have seen you on TV. You girls are certainly pretty, but why did you walk all the way from the center of town to our school?”

“I can’t let you in from here, though.” After the small talk, the guard didn’t forget his duty. “If you want to enter the school, you need a document stamped by the school leadership, or a teacher has to come out and get you. Otherwise, you can’t come in.”

Niannian leaned her hands on the security booth window, her gaze inconspicuously scanning the interior. Hearing the guard’s words, she hurriedly waved her hands. “We’re not going in. Uncle, I wanted to ask if there are any natural shelters nearby? Places where someone could hide?”

The smile that had been on the guard’s face faltered. His previous friendliness vanished, replaced by a wary appraisal of the two. He waved them away. “No, no. This school is just a patch of flat land; you can see everything at a glance. There are no ‘natural shelters’ here.”

The guard began shooing them away. No matter what Niannian asked next, he gave no response.

Jiang Yan followed Niannian wordlessly. After walking a short distance, Jiang Yan wanted to look back at the security booth, but Niannian, as if anticipating this, reached out and put an arm around her shoulder. She stood on her tiptoes and whispered, “Don’t look back. Keep walking until we’re out of his sight.”

Jiang Yan obeyed.

Once they were far enough away that the guard was a mere blur, Jiang Yan finally asked why.

Niannian explained patiently, “What were we chasing when we got to that school?”

“The scent of perfume and steamed buns.”

“Exactly. And who were we chasing?”

“Xixi.” Jiang Yan connected these fragments of info with the empty landscape and the single middle school.

School hours in the county were very relaxed. Today was Saturday; students who didn’t care for studying had gone home yesterday. Those left behind were in self-study sessions under a teacher’s supervision and wouldn’t be wandering the campus.

Jiang Yan straightened up and looked toward the end of the road—a flat dirt path leading to the edge of the county. In this area, besides the school, there was only a small hill enclosed within the school’s perimeter.

The hill wasn’t large; calling it a slightly high, oversized mound of earth wouldn’t be an exaggeration. There were stairs built by the school leading up, making it a recreational spot for students.

Niannian gave a soft “mm.” “We only saw the guard on this road. There’s no way he didn’t see Xixi pass by.”

“And inside the booth, I saw a child’s literacy book. Next to it was a pinyin workbook with crooked handwriting.” Niannian frowned slightly. “This place is remote and it’s a middle school. Unless there’s a special circumstance, staff wouldn’t bring their small children here.”

“More importantly… what kind of child learning pinyin writes with a gel pen?”

“Kids that age can get filthy just using a pencil. What kind of teacher would let a first-grader use a gel pen for homework? They’d have to have a heart of steel not to get angry seeing a black, messy mess of a workbook.”

Jiang Yan understood. She frowned; the surrounding area was too open. To get close to the school, they would have to take a long detour. Xixi was definitely inside the school, and the guard’s abnormal reaction confirmed it.

Jiang Yan wasn’t sure why the guard’s expression had changed when Niannian asked about hiding spots, but she was certain his vigilance was because of the runaway Xixi. The breakfast lady had said Xixi escaped from the welfare center. For a child like her, having a center willing to take her in was usually considered a good thing.

Jiang Yan pursed her lips and looked at Niannian, her voice low. “What do you want to do?”

She felt they were not far from the truth. Perhaps they could uncover the whole story today.

Niannian reached out to Jiang Yan. When Jiang Yan confusedly placed her hand in Niannian’s, Niannian instead grasped her wrist. The warmth of the touch made Jiang Yan instinctively flinch.

“Just follow me. Today, I’ll let you experience how ‘bad students’ spend their time at school!”

Niannian gave herself a title, pulled Jiang Yan’s hand, and sprinted down a small path she had scouted earlier, preparing to circle around from the back.

A strange sensation flickered in Jiang Yan’s chest. For a moment, before she could catch it, the feeling vanished, leaving only the heat on her wrist that continued to rise.

“Is a person’s body temperature really this high?” Jiang Yan panted slightly as she ran behind Niannian. The cold wind rushed into her nose and mouth, making her throat sting with a metallic, bloody taste, yet the spot where her wrist was held was burning.

A few days ago, Jiang Yan had thought Wen Jing was wrong. She believed she could clearly distinguish between reality and fiction. It was only during filming that she would unconsciously immerse herself, absorbing a character’s personality and falling into a specific story.

The niche lesbian film she had starred in, Restless Night, did indeed feature the plot Wen Jing had mentioned. But Jiang Yan had always instinctively denied it. To her, Restless Night was in the past. When she was mentally unwell, her past characters would fight for dominance in her mind, affecting her perception of the world and her emotions.

Jiang Yan denied Wen Jing’s judgment because she was certain she was lucid the day she traveled far to buy Niannian that cake. That cake was just an apology. Later, when she asked the logistics team to buy a better brand from the city, it was because the first one felt cheap and lacked sincerity. Jiang Yan didn’t want to be in anyone’s debt.

But now?

Her wrist was enveloped in warmth, sending a slight numbness to her fingertips. The answer she had once firmly given Wen Jing now wavered. It was getting harder to say the same thing—could she still tell the difference between reality and Restless Night?

Her sluggish brain gave an expected answer.

Probably not.

In Restless Night, “her” lover was a brave, solitary adventurer. And right now, wasn’t Niannian another brave adventurer?

Because of that movie, Jiang Yan had fallen in love with skydiving and rappelling. She had even fallen for her co-star, like an invasive plant sucking the nutrients from its neighbors. She projected her character’s love onto another person, immersing herself in that thrill. But once the filming ended and the “protagonist aura” was lifted from her lover’s face, Jiang Yan suddenly stopped loving them.

The other person didn’t actually like extreme sports. Everything about them was the opposite of the heroine in Restless Night. The contrast of falling from a great height made Jiang Yan wake up from the dream. Her “lover” wasn’t what she wanted.

On the day she proposed a breakup, she was predictably cursed out. She was called a “slut,” a “piece of trash who played with hearts.” All the poisonous words exploded in her ears, but she just folded her arms with a shallow smile, as if watching a play. To the enraged woman, her expression was full of mockery.

A slap ended it all.

While holding an ice pack to her face, Jiang Yan had her manager give the woman some resources as compensation. At the time, she reflected on the woman’s curse: “Only someone with a broken brain would think characters they play have real-life counterparts. If everyone dated like you, they’d be looking for partners in a psychiatric ward!”

Jiang Yan had merely raised an eyebrow, thinking to herself: It’s just that you couldn’t meet my standards. How can you say such a person doesn’t exist in this world?

Years had passed, and Jiang Yan had matured. She was mostly helpless against her strange “affliction,” hiding those old thoughts away from view.

But today, looking at Niannian, the love stirred by Restless Night began to shift. Her chest felt itchy, as if a long-dormant sprout were poking through. If someone else pointed it out to her, Jiang Yan would answer:

“Look, the brave person I’m looking for doesn’t necessarily have to love rappelling, diving, or skydiving. Anyone who uses their wits to solve things and charges at the front of a problem is brave.”

If Wen Jing were to point at her again and say, “You can’t tell reality from fiction,” Jiang Yan would definitely nod and admit it.

“Falling for a brave person doesn’t seem like a bad thing. Compared to the ‘you’ who ran away from love…” Jiang Yan curled her lips. “I prefer a passionate idiot.”

Even if this passionate idiot wasn’t being brave for her sake, Jiang Yan was happy to be immersed in it. Fictional emotions were too beautiful; one didn’t need to exhaust themselves to hold them close. Jiang Yan had no reason to say no.

Climbing the wall and sneaking into the school hill went smoothly.

Niannian pulled Jiang Yan to the top of the small hill. Thick trees provided shade, and the temperature was noticeably lower. Their faces were flushed with heat from the run.

The hill had a small pavilion at the top. A stone path led from the bottom, lined with fences to prevent students from trampling the greenery. Passing the pavilion toward the stairs leading down the other side, Niannian immediately noticed something off.

“Look.” Niannian nudged Jiang Yan. Both looked at a large, black iron drum standing not far away.

The drum was massive. It would take two adults to reach all the way around it. Its base was firmly embedded in the soil; pulling it out or pushing it down the hill would be a monumental task.

Jiang Yan and Niannian exchanged a look, both coming to the same conclusion. They stood near the drum, trying to figure out its secret. Before they could get a closer look, the iron drum let out a “creak.”

Then, a side of the iron opened. Because the drum was dark, mossy, and rusted, one wouldn’t notice a door had been cut into it without looking closely.

The person they were looking for poked her head out of the “small door.” Her cheeks, which had been wiped clean earlier, were now filthy again. Xixi looked at them with a cold, wary face.

Looking inside, they saw a small puppy nestled on an old towel, gnawing on a steamed bun. Its short tail wagged so hard it looked like a helicopter propeller about to lift off.

Jiang Yan and Niannian were stunned; they hadn’t expected Xixi to be living in such a strange place. Before they could react, the sound of a dog barking and the guard’s shout rang out simultaneously. A bad feeling rose in their hearts.

“We’re doomed.”

“Stand straight, all of you!” The guard slammed his hand on the desk. His dark face was contorted with anger, looking even grimmer. He was clearly beyond annoyed.

At the shout, Niannian immediately stood at attention, facing the wall with her hands raised, pinching her earlobes. She looked the picture of contrition.

Jiang Yan looked at Niannian’s practiced movements in a daze. After a moment, she slowly raised her hands to pinch her own earlobes too. “So, when you said you’d let me ‘experience school life,’ did you mean the ‘getting scolded’ part of it?”

Jiang Yan was bewildered. In nearly twenty years of schooling, this was her first time encountering this. After being a model student for two decades, she found herself facing a wall in a security booth at age twenty-eight.

“…” Jiang Yan pursed her lips. It was, at the very least, a novel experience.

“I could call the police for this! Didn’t I warn you not to trespass? Going up that hill… if something had happened, who would take responsibility?” the guard yelled.

The culprit who started it all—Xixi—was sitting quietly on a high stool, hunched over the desk, meticulously writing with a gel pen. The puppy lay at her feet, calmly grooming its fur. It looked nothing like the fierce beast that had barked at Jiang Yan and Niannian earlier.

“We won’t do it again, Uncle! We really know we were wrong!” Niannian was clearly an expert at this. she admitted fault proactively and offered to write a self-reflection letter. Her pretty face was full of grievance, looking as though she might cry at any moment.

After this “combo move,” the guard’s anger died down by half.

Even though Jiang Yan knew these were just template phrases for erring students, the moment she saw the blank paper and gel pen, her composure shattered. A twenty-eight-year-old writing a “self-reflection letter”—the first time in her life.

Jiang Yan hesitantly took the paper. She hovered her pen over it several times but couldn’t write a single word. Beside her, Niannian was already scribbling away, using the wall as a desk. Thoughts were flowing like a spring; she couldn’t stop.

Jiang Yan was stuck.

The two, who had been standing a bit apart, drifted closer. Jiang Yan stared at the blank paper, biting her lip. she tried to keep her eyes from drifting to Niannian’s letter, afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from copying.

Even when analyzing a character for a movie, Jiang Yan had never been this conflicted.

Niannian, who was already halfway finished, leaned into her ear and whispered, “If you don’t know how to write it, just look at mine. Mix it up… and don’t write your real name.”

“Otherwise, if a Best Actress’s self-reflection letter from this dump gets out, a single copy would sell for four figures.”

Jiang Yan, previously burdened by psychological and moral pressure: “…”

Fine. Who says the person brave enough to break my boundaries isn’t a hero?

Jiang Yan let out a soft huff and began copying while secretly despising herself. She’d be a fool if she ever listened to Niannian again.

“Experience school life”…

Heh. Just a trope from some trashy novel. If they had just told the guard their intentions from the start, they wouldn’t be stuck here writing this.

The resentment in Jiang Yan’s writing was so palpable that Niannian didn’t dare speak.

Niannian also felt a bit guilty. Didn’t the “Romance Bot” Gu Yizhi sent say that the most romantic love is reminiscing about school days? That unforgettable memories are made in the midst of laughter and trouble?

Well, this is certainly unforgettable, Niannian thought. Jiang Yan probably never imagined she’d be facing a wall writing a self-reflection letter at twenty-eight.

It was all thanks to her.

From another perspective, Niannian felt she was quite impressive. Having a Best Actress write a self-reflection letter with her? Now that was an achievement!