Forced to Act out a Strange Script with a Rival - Chapter 12

At this moment, she seemed to—be deeply immersed, …

“Blasphemy?”

What does that mean?

Si Xiaoxiao’s eyes widened.

Shouldn’t this instance be the one where Li Ting suffers?

Why does it feel like the one suffering is still her?

“What do you think ‘blasphemy’ means coming from an R20 System?” Li Ting gave a slight, knowing smile.

She had two reasons for testing Si Xiaoxiao just now. The first was naturally to make Xiaoxiao more vigilant and not trust everyone. The second was that opening a window is much easier after first opening the roof.

Si Xiaoxiao immediately crossed her arms defensively: “I, I, I! I’m an artist, not a prostitute! I won’t do anything weird with you!”

Li Ting rolled her eyes: “We’re both women, what could I possibly do to you!”

Si Xiaoxiao’s cheeks instantly flushed crimson, and she retorted angrily: “What do you mean, ‘both women?’ Women can do a lot!”

This remark brought another awkward silence between the two.

Li Ting’s mood was complex: “You’ve been corrupted quite a bit by this circle…”

Si Xiaoxiao, mortified, shot back: “What are you pretending to be a little white rabbit for, you big bad wolf!”

“So, which task do you choose?” Si Xiaoxiao didn’t continue the petty argument, giving her a choice.

Si Xiaoxiao was speechless, asking with a slight hesitation, “Blasphemy, what level counts as blasphemy?”

With these two tasks laid out, who would choose murder!

“I don’t know,” Li Ting wasn’t sure if her guess was right.

But if she said it out loud, Si Xiaoxiao would surely be annoyed and embarrassed, so she chose to play dumb.

So, Si Xiaoxiao said: “Then ask the system!”

“Ask the system?” Li Ting was a bit taken aback.

She regarded the system as an unknown enemy and wouldn’t have thought to ask it herself.

Si Xiaoxiao naturally knew that Li Ting found it hard to trust people or things, preferring to rely on her own conjectures, and spoke bluntly: “Stop with all the twists and turns in your head. Keep it simple. She issued the task, and only she knows!”

Li Ting considered this, found it reasonable, and then quietly called out to the system in her mind, asking what her task actually was.

The system actually answered.

[The Blasphemer’s mission is to acquire the Saintess’s Holy Water.]

Ho-Holy Water?

Li Ting was dumbfounded. What exactly was Holy Water?

[Bodily fluid.]

Li Ting’s heart, which had been hanging, completely sank. It really was that kind of thing!

One truly couldn’t expect much from an R20 System.

Seeing Li Ting’s change in expression, Si Xiaoxiao became extremely curious: “How is it? What’s the task?”

“You can’t go back on your word after agreeing to do this task,” Li Ting cautiously gave Si Xiaoxiao a heads-up.

Si Xiaoxiao quietly took a step back, probing: “It’s not… that you have to be on top of me, is it?”

“…Cough, cough, cough!!” Li Ting choked on her own saliva, and the heat rose in her face: “Don’t say it so directly!!!”

“It really is??”

Si Xiaoxiao watched the usually calm Li Ting blush, backed up several more steps, and fearfully distanced herself from Li Ting, then blurted out: “If anyone’s on top, it’s going to be me on you!”

It’s typical for rivals; they have to compete in everything.

“…The system wants me to collect your bodily fluid.” Li Ting deliberately emphasized the words “your.”

“Bodily fluid, huh…” Si Xiaoxiao nodded, saying, “To collect my bodily fluid, why are you blushing?”

Li Ting hadn’t expected Si Xiaoxiao’s reaction: “It’s bodily fluid… and, it has to be collected by me, I…”

“What’s so hard to talk about?” Si Xiaoxiao looked at Li Ting. How could the usually composed Li Ting suddenly fumble at a time like this?

“You… don’t mind?” Li Ting looked at Si Xiaoxiao with a strange expression.

Could something like that be spoken about so nonchalantly?

Indeed, everyone is now advocating for the rejection of sex-shaming, and women should also correctly face their own needs.

So, Li Ting immediately reflected, re-educated herself, and put back on a gentle, calm smile: “If you don’t mind, I can help you. After all, if you do it yourself, it might be more difficult.”

Si Xiaoxiao thought about it, then said: “True.”

Li Ting maintained the gentle, sophisticated elder sister smile, politely asking: “Mhmm, do you prefer using your hand or your mouth?”

“Hand and mouth?” Si Xiaoxiao thought again, frowning.

Li Ting’s tone was gentle, but with a robotic feel: “Could it be that you usually prefer to use a tool?”

“Huh? A tool?” Si Xiaoxiao looked Li Ting up and down.

Then, she shook her head frantically: “No, don’t use a knife!! You’d better not help, I’ll cry myself!!”

“Cry?” Li Ting’s expression suddenly turned strange. She instantly realized their conversation wasn’t on the same channel.

“Yeah! I’ll just try to get myself emotional. Once I cry, you just collect it! Please, don’t have crazy ideas and force me to cry with a knife!” Si Xiaoxiao’s words tumbled out quickly.

Oh, so it was tears. I thought it was tears.

The smile on Li Ting’s face instantly became strained, and awkwardness flashed across it. After a long pause, she spoke with complex feelings: “Mhm, it’s tears.”

“Ah? Is something wrong?” Si Xiaoxiao blinked furiously, very confused why Li Ting suddenly said something that carried a touch of “I am Neylon” absurdity.

To be fair, tears are indeed a bodily fluid.

Li Ting maintained the gentleness on her face, and her brain gave up on thinking.

Sometimes, it really is better to be simple-minded.

“I’m starting,” Si Xiaoxiao began to work up her emotions.

But her mind was screaming, How can a proud Chinese woman cry in front of her arch-rival? Absolutely not!

Five minutes passed, and she couldn’t cry at all.

Frustrated, Si Xiaoxiao gave an instruction: “Pinch me.”

The robotic ‘Little Li’ obediently pinched Si Xiaoxiao.

Although it hurt, Si Xiaoxiao held back.

As a rival, Li Ting understood Si Xiaoxiao well and suggested: “How about I leave?”

The Tsundere kitten was still brave on the outside but weak on the inside, recalling every sad thing in her life: “No leaving! I can cry!”

Seeing Si Xiaoxiao’s difficulty, Li Ting proposed: “How about trying other bodily fluids?”

“What else? I won’t agree to shedding blood!” Si Xiaoxiao clearly didn’t get the wrong idea, remaining genuinely simple and backing away rapidly.

One truly wonders where she got the confident ‘two women can do it’ knowledge from just now.

Although Li Ting didn’t pay attention to Si Xiaoxiao, people constantly brought Si Xiaoxiao up to her.

Thus, she was well aware of Si Xiaoxiao’s “well-known” bad acting.

Si Xiaoxiao genuinely couldn’t act crying scenes. The child had been optimistic and carefree since she was small.

Of course, another reason was that crying is ugly. As a vase beauty who constantly paid attention to her looks, she naturally wouldn’t give anyone a chance to screenshot her ugly face.

As a rival, Li Ting of course knew Si Xiaoxiao’s little thoughts, so she proposed.

“I can teach you to cry beautifully.”

Si Xiaoxiao’s eyelashes fluttered slightly, like a cat whose tail has been caught, feeling the sting of being exposed while also being comfortably stroked: “Cry beautifully? Really?”

When it came to crying scenes, Li Ting was quite experienced: “I’m not like some people who are still just a pretty face after years of acting. My scene from back then is still the most famous textbook in the internal entertainment industry.”

After all, though much time had passed, she had been coached by the nation’s most senior director—hand-in-hand, step-by-step—for a crucial emotional turning point in the Bronze Sparrow Interlude story.

Li Ting had only played one role, Xun Ye, throughout the years, but that role was indeed the ceiling.

If the character Si Xiaoxiao played, Cao Xueliao, was a brilliantly burning little sun, then Xun Ye, played by Li Ting, was the self-pitying, pure moonlight.

The simple crying of a clay-fired fool is certainly endearing, but how heart-stirring it is when a figure like a jade tower on a fairy mountain sheds tears.

One of Xun Ye’s breakout moments in Bronze Sparrow Interlude was the scene where she silently wept in the snow while holding the corpse of her best friend.

That scene made countless people empathize and cry their hearts out with the character, creating a spectacle of millions of people shedding tears.

Even more remarkable, she cried so beautifully that countless actresses scrambled to imitate her afterward. Since then, whenever an actress had a crying scene, Li Ting was used as the benchmark for scoring.

For example, a certain star’s crying scene was rated as ‘0.5 Li,’ or another’s was too fake, only worth ‘0.1 Li,’ which became a persistent running gag.

Si Xiaoxiao, who debuted in the same batch as Li Ting and made her name as an actress, was one of the most tortured by the ‘Li-scale.’

Whenever she acted a crying scene, she was ridiculed. Over time, rather than having an ugly-face screenshot, she preferred to be criticized for being unprofessional, so she aimed to cry as little as possible, trying to just get through it superficially.

However, as an actress, Si Xiaoxiao, of course, still wanted to act well.

“First, think of something sad.”

Si Xiaoxiao looked at Li Ting and said, “I have to cry in front of my arch-rival later.”

“Uh…”

“And cry very ugly.”

That was indeed sad, but it wouldn’t make her cry.

“I won’t let you look bad.”

Li Ting sighed helplessly and slowly walked toward Si Xiaoxiao: “Stanislavski said that you can stimulate emotion and naturally shed tears by imitating the physical state of crying, such as short, rapid breaths.”

Her expression was serious. Her fingertips gently lifted Si Xiaoxiao’s chin, like an engineer operating a precision instrument, and she said: “Inhale sharply, tense and tremble your body, and feel the sourness in the tip of your nose.”

Li Ting resembled a stern teacher, her finger was her teaching pointer, and the unpolished flower bud gained the posture of blossoming under her guidance.

“Adler proposed ‘substitution of emotion’ (or affective memory).”

Li Ting’s tone was very light, yet carried an undeniable command: “Imagine I stole your role, took your fans, and I’m looking down and mocking you, but you are utterly helpless.”

Si Xiaoxiao, under this soft narration, indeed became immersed. The first emotion sparked was not sorrow but anger, her eyes glinting with a poisonous fire that grew more and more intense.

Li Ting frowned, realizing she might have set the wrong scene.

The little lion who never gives up would never feel sad because of her defeat; she would always fight, proudly.

It was only she who had always been this way.

However, tears don’t have to be purely sad.

As long as it makes her cry.

She thought for a moment and continued: “Imagine the departure of your best friend, the disappointment of your fans. You’ve tried desperately hard to act every role well, but, but Teacher Yan Yun still shakes her head at you. She says you have no talent. She says she regrets discovering you…”

The light spots reflecting from the dark silver chain on her ankle jumped into Si Xiaoxiao’s eyes, stimulating the first layer of physiological tears.

“Enough.”

Si Xiaoxiao’s emotions were being led by Li Ting.

“Teacher, she said she would always love me, no matter how many times I messed up…”

Si Xiaoxiao seemed to have been struck on a secret pain. Her throat’s broken gasps carried a honey-like tremor, and her tear-soaked pupils were covered with a layer of mist.

“Jacques Lecoq’s Physical Theatre theory believes that crying is essentially the diaphragm’s lament.”

In a trance, the director’s earnest teachings surfaced in Li Ting’s mind again. She cupped Si Xiaoxiao’s tear-streaked face, as if seeing the little girl from back then.

Very beautiful.

Tears rolled down her cheekbones. It was the first time Li Ting had watched this girl up close like this.

And as Si Xiaoxiao tried to turn her head away, she presented the most vulnerable, slender curve of her neck to Li Ting. A single tear slipped into the hollow of her collarbone, swimming on her pale skin.

Those weren’t tears of sorrow, but a tremor forced out by Li Ting, blooming with a breathtaking brilliance in its fragility.

Li Ting felt the thrill of controlling another person.

Si Xiaoxiao lifted her face. Her lower eyelids were flushed with a subtle pink, like rouge, the faint color spreading along her tear troughs. Her eyelashes trembled slightly with her breathing, like fluttering butterflies casting fractured shadows on her lower lids.

Her obsidian pupils were soaked, becoming even clearer.

Li Ting’s soul was captivated by that pair of eyes. She felt her throat itch, wanting desperately to kiss that crystal pearl.

It reminded her of the last theory the teacher had taught.

That was Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty theory: the performer’s emotions would rebound and affect the director.

At this moment, she seemed to—be deeply immersed, consciously sinking into the experience.

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