After Reuniting with My Aloof Movie Queen Childhood Friend - Chapter 25.1

This was the first time Li Zhulan had seen Ji Youyi interested in something outside of filming, so she seized the opportunity to promote her goddess.

Upon returning to the hotel in the evening, she dove into her room, rummaged around for a while, and delivered a USB drive over to Ji Youyi.

Li Zhulan respectfully presented it with both hands. “Eye of the Storm, Meng Xingshu’s debut work at age 16. Rationally speaking, it can’t beat her later works, but emotionally, it is absolutely the number one in my heart. My Ming Yu, my white moonlight, ahhh! I am practically begging you on my knees to watch it!”

“A completely ordinary student from a top high school who was just catching up on homework on set, yet her very first acting gig broke the record for the youngest movie queen, winning acclaim both domestically and overseas, sweeping up nominations and awards, and taking the Best Newcomer award along the way!”

She promoted passionately, “Anyway, it is absolutely a must watch! If you are interested in the two sisters, you definitely have to watch it! The plot is ordinary, but her acting is truly spectacular! Or even if it’s just for that face, it’s worth watching! Aren’t you really curious about what Teacher Meng looked like at 16?!”

To be honest, Ji Youyi actually was a bit curious.

“I understand all that, but,” she twirled the USB drive, amused, “if you’re recommending your goddess’s movie, why are you giving me a pirated copy? At least you should send a link from Filmily, right?”

Li Zhulan grew even more excited: “You actually know which platform holds the copyright to her movie? You care about her so much!”

“?” She didn’t; she had just casually mentioned the wealthy platform that booked their hotel.

“Sigh, do you think I don’t want to contribute to the official view count? The reality is that the official version can’t be watched.” Li Zhulan waved her hand. “Eye of the Storm altered its ending to pass censorship. The version outside the firewall contains the true ending. The official ending leaves people feeling so suffocated they could suffer internal injuries. Do you know how to bypass the firewall?”

Ji Youyi really didn’t know how. Since it was hard to refuse such hospitality, and she happened to be free tonight, she accepted the USB drive.

After taking a hot shower and finishing off two boxed lunches, she comfortably snuggled into the hotel’s large bed and started watching the movie.

Due to professional habits, it was actually very difficult for Ji Youyi to immerse herself in a film solely from an audience’s perspective.

In the past, to direct movies, she had naturally watched countless films. However, it was always a process of “deconstructing films” rather than just “watching” them: breaking down the film’s design, analyzing the creative intent, and learning the shooting techniques.

To her, movies were merely textbooks and a means to make a living, rather than some high-level piece of art.

Therefore, Ji Youyi felt that being scolded by others wasn’t undeserved at all.

Audiences who disliked her cursed her for only knowing how to shoot popcorn movies to scam people out of money, claiming she fundamentally didn’t understand how to appreciate the beauty of the Seventh Art, well said! She indeed didn’t know how to appreciate it.

She had no lofty pursuits, she just wanted to live and have food to eat.

When she first opened the movie, Ji Youyi still felt as if she had flipped open a new textbook, just like usual.

But perhaps because the two boxed lunches at night had stuffed her too much, or perhaps because life had been too comfortable recently, as she studied, her mind actually wandered.

For the first two minutes, she could still smoothly fathom the director’s expression. But with Meng Xingshu’s appearance, the focus of her attention gradually shifted.

The movie used a beautiful and warm artistic style to depict the short life of the protagonist, Ming Yu.

In a small town prone to typhoons, a family of three lived in a corner of a dilapidated old district: a mother and her two daughters.

The mother worked as a female laborer in a factory, a grueling and cheap piece of physical work. Under the pressure of life, the eldest daughter, Ming Yu, began sharing the household chores from a young age, washing clothes, mopping floors, mending old garments, and taking care of her younger sister.

Every school day at noon, she had to frantically pedal her bicycle back home to cook, then deliver the food to her mother and sister respectively.

After school, she would take her younger sister, Ming Yan, to look after a small grocery store. The compensation she received in return consisted of pens that leaked ink because they had been dropped during delivery, scratch paper stained with grease, bread close to its expiration date, and the electricity saved by doing homework inside the grocery store.

Once the grocery store closed, she would ride that old, broken secondhand bicycle with faulty brakes, slowly carrying her sister back home.

The road home was completely pitch black. Ming Yan sat on the back seat, tightly gripping her waist out of fear, so Ming Yu would begin teaching her sister to sing children’s songs.

You sing a line, I sing a line, the crisp singing voices and giggling laughter fell together into the wind, so that no matter how dark the road was, it became a beautiful memory.

Life was poor, yet Ming Yu never felt it was bitter.

On typhoon days, during nights when the power went out, the two sisters huddled on a narrow bed wrapped in the same blanket to whisper secrets.

Outside the window, brilliant flashes of lightning tore through the night sky, illuminating trees along the street that were torn out by their roots by the hurricane.

Ming Yu habitually reached out to cover her sister’s ears, and at the exact same time, her own ears were covered by a pair of soft, small hands. As the thunder roared and the four eyes met in smiles, she could only feel happiness.

Even though there were raging winds, torrential rain, flashes of lightning, and rumbling thunder outside, staying within the eye of the typhoon brought her serenity and peace of mind.

But very soon, this stable happiness was shattered.

The younger sister, Ming Yan, who was still in elementary school, was tortured and killed by a classmate, but the murderer escaped legal punishment because he was under 12 years old. In the courtroom, he cast a provocative gaze toward Ming Yu.

The mother and daughter found no recourse anywhere. Ming Yu gave up her education and exerted every effort, only to receive the news that her mother had been fired by the factory.

She began working jobs to support the family while running around to handle her sister’s case, but her mother could no longer endure the poverty.

An argument erupted, and Ming Yu knelt before her mother in tears, begging her. The mother also wept unstoppably, yet she still signed the settlement agreement. She took the money and left this small town, from then on, only Ming Yu was left amidst the storm and thunder.

Yet her remaining behind did not seem to carry any meaning.

She had managed with great difficulty to ensure the murderer entered a juvenile detention center after turning sixteen. But in just two years’ time, the murderer was released from the detention center and was about to attend a university chosen for him by his family.

With hands stained with blood and a heart devoid of repentance, he was still able to welcome a bright future.

Unable to accept this outcome, Ming Yu finally went insane. She disguised herself as a domestic worker, sneaked into the person’s house, and stabbed everyone in the family to death.

The final scene of the movie was bathed in a gentle setting sun.

The sky was clear and bright, and the light was soft and beautiful. Ming Yu washed away the filth from her body and returned to her own home.

She sat at her doorstep, looking at the familiar street, as if seeing herself many years ago, holding Ming Yan’s hand to teach her how to walk.

She was only five years old herself back then, holding her sister, knowing she should let go but reluctant to do so. In the end, she let go anyway, and so little Ming Yan walked a few steps on her own, her legs trembling, and she tumbled forward, only to be caught in time by Ming Yu.

She held her in a full embrace.

Ming Yu quietly reminisced, gave an extremely faint smile, and slowly picked up the knife.

The twilight grew darker, and the light converged on her body, which no longer rose or fell. Blood spread, and a gentle breeze blew her dark hair into soft strands.

The end credits began to roll. Ji Youyi snapped out of the film, finding her mouth very dry.

While watching the movie, let alone drinking water, she had even forgotten to deconstruct the film.

She got out of bed, opened the free bottle of mineral water on the table, and slowly drank half of it before her soul finally settled back in.

She let out a long breath.

Magnificent, truly magnificent. It was hard to imagine that this was Meng Xingshu’s first time participating in a movie.

A high school student with zero experience, yet her acting barely showed any signs of greenness.

She perfectly executed Ming Yu’s different states during different periods.

During the several explosive scenes in the drama, whether facing the cold-eyed departure of high-ranking officials among the crowd, or facing her equally pained mother inside a chilly room, her performance was not weak at all compared to the veteran actors she shared the scene with, and she even faintly outperformed them.

That ability to easily drag the audience into the plot to empathize with the protagonist using just a single look or action could only be described with the word “genius.”

A remaining life swallowed by hatred and despair, combined with a life that withered rapidly after revenge, and topped off with Meng Xingshu’s flawless appearance, pushed the character of Ming Yu directly to an aesthetic peak.

Oh no, Teacher Meng was too good at acting; she made someone who didn’t understand art understand a little bit of it.

Ji Youyi drank the remaining half bottle of water, crawled back into bed, picked up her phone, and began searching for materials related to Eye of the Storm.

She originally wanted to look for behind the scenes footage to see if there were any pictures of the “high school version of Little Meng obediently doing her homework on set” that Li Zhulan had mentioned.

But because Meng Xingshu had just visited Meng Xiao on set this afternoon, everything searched up at this moment was related to Meng Xiao and the Decree of the Phoenix production crew.

Ji Youyi scrolled for a long time before finding a video worth watching, and she clicked into it.

She was met with the incredibly hyped voice of a marketing account. “The Meng sisters are truly too sweet to ship! Even when fully booked, Meng Xingshu will make time to visit her sister on set. The two sisters spend their birthdays together, and also…”

The video content was paired with snippets of this afternoon’s livestream. Meng Xingshu lowering her head to cut the cake, while Meng Xiao was accepting the interview, her affectionate and slightly bashful gaze falling upon Meng Xingshu from time to time.

The marketing account spent a large paragraph describing how deep the bond between the two sisters was, inserting quite a bit of referenced material.

First, it played a few clips of Ming Yu and Ming Yan interacting in the movie Eye of the Storm, where the beauty within the frame almost overflowed the screen.

The narration of the marketing account continued without interruption, its tone maintaining the exact same pattern: “I really envy Meng Xiao so much for having such a loving movie queen older sister! She is properly a true princess of the entertainment industry!”

Afterward, to corroborate this conclusion, an interview segment was played in the video.

The image quality of the interview wasn’t very high-definition, one look was enough to know it was from many years ago.

Meng Xingshu’s slender back was perfectly straight, her face youthful and clean, and she gave a faint smile toward the camera:

“Being able to empathize with Ming Yu is solely because of her love for her sister.”

“I also have a sister, she is the most important existence in my life. If possible, I will use everything I have to protect her.”

“I didn’t want to portray Ming Yu’s death as something very tragic. I think she must have been filled with hope and happiness at that moment, because they could finally reunite. She had waited for this day for far too long.”

As Ji Youyi watched, the screen suddenly went black, and a prompt popped up saying that the video had been deleted.

Baffled, she had no choice but to open a web page to search for it herself. She found that segment of the interview from ten years ago and watched it completely from start to finish.

In the interview, Meng Xingshu wore light makeup and a single ponytail, her disciplined white shirt revealing a touch of naive student vibe.

The G-Region media representative sitting opposite her was overbearing, speaking in heavily accented Mandarin while launching aggressive, interrogative questions at her.

The environment back then was likely a time when the mainland economy, along with Chinese language films, had just started taking off. The opposite side dug one pit after another with their words, wanting to steer the topic toward “the root weaknesses of mainlanders.”

Yet Meng Xingshu remained composed throughout the entire process and absolutely refused to fall into any traps. Only when asked, “Ming Yu is a murderer after all, why can you still empathize with her?” did her eyelashes droop slightly.

Ji Youyi rewound that downward gaze and watched it twice over, suddenly feeling a bit heartbroken.

She had always thought that Meng Xingshu possessed immense talent and had the backing of the Meng family, so her path to fame must have been entirely smooth sailing.

But she had never thought about how, as an ordinary high school freshman entering the industry completely in the dark, she had to travel alone with the production crew to various regions and overseas for promotions without anyone to help her, enduring so much slighting and bullying.

Ji Youyi unconsciously pressed her lips together, her index finger lightly tapping on Meng Xingshu’s face in the center of the screen, as if crossing ten years of time and space to quietly pinch the face of the young Meng Xingshu.

In the next second, a notification message abruptly popped up at the top of the screen:

Your dearest, dearest, dearest Sister Meng~ invites you to a voice call.

Wait, what? Ah?

She tapped the screen to pause it! Tapping the screen was meant to pause the video, it required a tap!

She didn’t actually mean to touch her face!

The phone that she had been holding steadily just a moment ago instantly became incredibly hot to the touch.

Ji Youyi stared at the phone that had dropped onto the blanket, swallowed hard, and after repeatedly telling herself that she hadn’t been caught red-handed by the actual person, she finally moved her index finger and tapped to accept.

At 10:00 PM, Meng Xingshu had just concluded a dinner gathering.

Before Meng Yuting came to S City, she had spent a period of time in H Province.

Back then, not long after H Province was established as a province, Meng Yuting followed the tide of the era and headed south to seek her fortune.

She caught the best timing. That year, the real estate market was raging, and housing prices expanded at a speed measured in seconds in the hands of crazed property speculators. Right after buying in, one could turn around and sell it for a higher price.

Buying land, selling houses, even without the residential projects breaking ground, money effortlessly entered her pockets just like that.

Everyone knew that as long as they bought a plot of land they could make money. Major financial groups fought red-eyed over land, and Meng Yuting plunged headfirst into it as well, yet she came away empty-handed.