After Reuniting with My Aloof Movie Queen Childhood Friend - Chapter 6

Zhoubei New Village was located on the outer ring of S City. The commute, which took over two hours to the city center, made its rental properties cheap and affordable.

But they weren’t exactly “good.”

Ten thousand yuan a year could only rent a single room less than ten square meters. There were no windows, no private bathroom, and the soundproofing was as thin as paper. As soon as Ji Youyi closed her door, she could hear the cacophony of her neighbor’s television.

Since she’d have to pay for a TV herself, she figured she was coming out ahead by listening for free.

The room never saw the sun, it was damp and gloomy, feeling even more bone-chillingly cold than the outdoors. There was no air conditioning, so Ji Youyi wrapped her coat tightly around herself and began to organize “Little Ji’s” home.

Little Ji was a very sensible girl. So sensible, in fact, that she had carefully chosen the place to end her life so as not to stain someone else’s rental property.

Before leaving, she had cleaned the room meticulously. The floors were mopped, the counters wiped, and everything was categorized and stored, one bag for things to sell, another for things to donate. Her old belongings, including bedsheets and quilts, had been washed and folded neatly at the foot of the bed, smelling faintly of laundry detergent.

Her personal IDs and paper files were organized into a folder with a sticky note attached: [I don’t know if these are useful. If not, please burn them. Thank you.]

The handwriting was a bit childish and not particularly beautiful, but it was clear the writer had tried hard to make every stroke straight and tidy.

But being “sensible” rarely leads to a good end. Being sensible means compromising, yielding, and accepting mockery, contempt, and being trampled upon.

Ji Youyi sat at the foot of the bed in silence for a while. Then, she shed her coat, spread the quilt, and crawled in. Her exhausted body fell into a deep sleep almost the moment she hit the mattress.

The rising sun and setting moon could not penetrate these prison like walls, but the creeping chill of the night seeped into her dreams. In her sleep, Ji Youyi frowned, curling into a tight ball and hugging the quilt, yet she couldn’t drive the cold away.

That was until her cheek accidentally brushed against soft fur. It was gentle and sweet, like a tender hand smoothing the furrows in her brow. Like a sleeping child, she reached out and embraced that warmth.

The next day, Ji Youyi looked at the cashmere coat she had wrapped around herself, now wrinkled and deformed from her grip and felt like the sky was falling.

This coat was a “charity” gift from that rich, beautiful girl before she got out of the car yesterday. It was recognition of her “beggar” act, a testament to the girl’s good deeds, and more importantly, the starting point of their beautiful future friendship!

Or, perhaps, a sum of money from a second hand market. Cough.

Ji Youyi looked at the fragile, high-end luxury item and let out a long sigh. Forget it, easy come, easy go. At least I have an extra blanket now.

Resigned, she rolled the coat up, stuffed it into her suitcase, and headed for the station.

She had to film the drama her company had booked for her. The “trash” company had bought her a bus ticket, and after six hours of bumping along, Ji Youyi finally stepped onto the ground of D City with wobbly legs.

With a pale face, she bought a cup of millet porridge at a small shop near the station, gulped it down to suppress her nausea, and then lugged her suitcase toward a remote area.

Yesterday, when Wantao threw the script at her, he mentioned the production covered meals but not lodging, she had to figure that out herself. Ji Youyi hadn’t been polite, she’d watched him book her ticket and demanded four hundred yuan in cash before she would leave.

Counting her remaining three hundred plus yuan, she found the most decent-looking guesthouse near the film studio. The owner was a middle-aged woman who managed the place alone. When Ji Youyi entered, the woman was leaning back behind the counter playing on her phone, the volume piercingly loud.

Using her basic skill of being sweet-talking and cheerful, Ji Youyi secured a room in three minutes. The auntie gave her a 50% discount, 10 yuan a day. Ji Youyi painfully pulled out a hundred yuan bill to rent it for ten days upfront.

After dropping off her luggage, she didn’t have time to rest. She hurried to the hotel where the leads were staying for the script table read.

A table read, as the name suggests, is when the cast and crew sit together to read the script. A good session can improve a project’s quality, but clearly, today’s was just a formality.

The two leads were both late. After they arrived, they spent a few minutes posing for various promotional photos and then immediately started playing on their phones.

The only person taking this seriously was the screenwriter, Li Zhulan, a young woman with short, brownish curls tucked back by a small clip and wearing black square rimmed glasses. Several times she stared at the leads, wanting to speak up but not daring to, she could only click her ballpoint pen frantically. The sound was buried under the chatter and the “crick-crack” of people eating melon seeds.

As for the director, he was busy spitting out melon seed shells.

Ji Youyi observed the room and then, blending in perfectly, joined the ranks of those eating melon seeds. These seeds cost money, consider this hidden compensation. Every seed I crack is a cent earned!

After surviving the table read and hiding in the crowd during the opening ceremony the next day, the web drama Life is Like the First Meeting officially began filming.

It was a low budget historical idol drama set against a backdrop of palace intrigue. The story followed Cao Qiu, the Prime Minister’s daughter, who marries the powerful official Zhang Song. After being neglected, betrayed, and seeing her whole family slaughtered, she is reborn to the time she first met the male lead and vows revenge.

Ji Youyi hadn’t read the specifics, she only knew that after all the back and forth drama, the female lead happily marries him again in the end.

Ji Youyi was deeply shocked, but fortunately, she didn’t need to understand it. She just had to play the “vicious female supporting character.”

As the male lead’s childhood friend from his hometown, Ning Li comes to the capital to seek refuge with him. she clings to his household, making trouble for the female lead behind the scenes. After fulfilling her mission as a romantic catalyst, she is kicked out and dies miserably on the streets.

The character was simple, stereotypical and one dimensional. It required no extra effort, a “mask-like” performance would suffice.

Ji Youyi wasn’t a professional actress, but her acting skills were more than enough to crush these “traffic star” idols. She drifted through the morning without a single NG caused by her own performance. However, after finishing the last scene of the morning, she was called over.

“Hey, you there.” Standing by the monitor was a man in a black suit, looking to be in his thirties. He was ugly. He tilted his chin at Ji Youyi, his eyes nearly rolling to the back of his head. “Come here.”

Ji Youyi took off her earrings with both hands and asked indifferently, “What is it?”

“Do you even know how to act? Do you know what you’re playing?” The man started shouting, slamming the monitor with every question. His face grew even uglier as he sneered.

Ji Youyi glanced at the screen. The scene they just shot was a confrontation between her and the female lead. The frame showed both of them in profile against a classical garden backdrop. Two beauties, it was very pleasing to the eye.

“Is there a problem?” Ji Youyi asked.

“You’re still talking back? You don’t see the problem?” The ugly man’s roar could be heard across the whole set. “Do you know you’re a supporting character? Why do you have as much screen time as the lead? If you love stealing the spotlight so much, why didn’t you become the lead? Do you even have the ability?”

Ji Youyi realized what was happening. This was one of the female lead’s people. They felt the lead wasn’t outshining her, but they didn’t dare scold the director, so they came to pick on the “weakest link.”

Well, sorry, he picked the wrong one.

Ji Youyi looked at the director sitting nearby watching the show and dragged him into it. “Director Hu, is this what you meant? Oh my, you really should have told me. I’ve always cooperated with your arrangements. Whatever you want to change, just tell me directly and I’ll listen. Why bother the Assistant Director to relay the message?”

Director Hu’s eyes twitched. He was likely trying to figure out how to smooth things over. “Uh, well, this isn’t the Assistant Director.”

“Oh, the Director of Photography?” Ji Youyi replied fluently. “Director Hu, I personally think that if there’s a disagreement, it’s best to discuss it internally. I’m just a small actress, you don’t need my input. I’ll follow orders, we can reshoot anytime. Otherwise, calling me out like this in front of everyone… someone who didn’t know better might think there’s bullying going on in our crew, right?”

“No, no, nothing like that, how could that be?” Suddenly labeled with such a heavy accusation, Director Hu waved his hands in panic, a sycophantic smile on his face as he tried to play peacemaker.

He introduced the man to Ji Youyi, gesturing for them to shake hands. “This is Mr. Wang from Yeye Media, Wen Yang’s manager.” Wen Yang was the actress playing the female lead.

Ji Youyi threw the “peace” right back in his face. “Oh, I see. I was wondering why someone who understands nothing about positioning, camera angles, or scripts was staring at the monitor. It turns out it’s an amateur trying to guide professionals.”

She finished her sentence, then suddenly covered her mouth, her face full of feigned panic, as if she realized she’d “misspoken.” “Sorry! I didn’t mean that! I… I, Director Hu, you guys take your time chatting. I won’t disturb you.”

The man in the suit was so enraged by her series of insults that the veins on his forehead bulged. He rushed forward, pointing at her. “What do you mean by that? Speak up! Stand still!”

Seeing that a fight might break out, Director Hu was genuinely scared now. He jumped up to hold the man back. “Mr. Wang, it’s not worth it, she’s just a young girl! She doesn’t know any better!”

Ji Youyi stood safely three steps away. While backing up, she patted her thin chest with a small hand, looking both frightened and confused, adding fuel to the fire: “Heavens, how scary. How can someone vent their personal emotions in a professional setting?”

With that, she slipped away, leaving the mess for the director to clean up.

This was the director’s job anyway. The director is the person in overall control. If the client thinks a supporting actor has too much screen time, the director should be the one to edit it. If staff members disagree during filming, the director should make the final call immediately. Letting an ignorant outsider disrupt the order of the set was ridiculous.