I Rely on My Versatility to Reach the Top of the Entertainment Industry [Ancient Times to Modern] - Chapter 46

“Don’t worry, Zhou Nan won’t bother you anymore,” the makeup artist said cheerfully.

Jing Yi lowered his head and hummed in acknowledgment, silently reciting the calming mantra while waiting for the heat in his face to subside.

In this film, as the antagonist, Jing Yi didn’t have many scenes in the early stages. Most of the time, he just needed to obediently serve as background, occasionally going to the dance hall with the character played by Ji Lin to listen to opera.

Their dialogues didn’t require much emotional embellishment either—just conveying the innocence of schoolboys in their late teens.

He acted like this for three days, and it wasn’t until the fourth day that Jing Yi had his moment in the spotlight.

“Cut! This take is good,” director Gu Chen announced through the megaphone before calling for the next scene.

In the next scene, both Jing Yi and Ji Lin’s characters were required to practice calligraphy.

The calligraphy served as a subtle foreshadowing, with the characters they wrote carrying hidden meanings.

“You don’t actually have to write for this scene,” Gu Chen called the two younger actors over. “I’ve already arranged for hand doubles. You just need to strike the right posture.”

His eyes, so similar to Gu Guochang’s, lingered on Jing Yi’s face a moment longer, and he added, “You performed very well in the previous take.”

Jing Yi met Gu Chen’s gaze and smiled faintly. “Director Gu, I can write.”

Ji Lin also said, “I don’t need a double either.”

Gu Chen raised an eyebrow. “Well, you said it. Ji Lin, your character isn’t supposed to be good at writing anyway, so it’s fine if you write poorly. But Jing Yi, your handwriting is important.”

“It’s alright, I can do it,” Jing Yi said with determined eyes. “Please trust me, Director Gu.”

Gu Chen looked at Jing Yi’s calm, smiling face and uncomfortably averted his gaze. “Alright, we’ll try it once.”

Ji Lin went to prepare on the side, but Jing Yi remained.

When no one else was around, Jing Yi said quietly, “Director Gu, what happened in the past… there’s no need to dwell on it anymore.”

Gu Chen looked at Jing Yi but didn’t respond.

Jing Yi bowed slightly and turned to leave.

All departments in the crew got into position, with the two leads standing among the extras. The camera moved smoothly, pausing briefly on Ji Lin before settling on Jing Yi.

According to the script, the character they were to practice writing with brush and ink was “Love.”

The extra playing the calligraphy teacher swayed slightly as he delivered his lines, explaining that calligraphy could reflect emotions and that artistic conception was crucial.

“You must try your best to recall love in your lives—parental love, sibling love, friendship…”

As the calligraphy teacher spoke, in the camera frame, Song Yu, played by Jing Yi, let out a soft laugh.

Gu Chen stared intently at the monitor.

On screen, Song Yu, dressed in a blue robe, wore a perfectly curved smile. Sunlight streamed over him, making anyone who saw him think, “What a pure and kind young man.”

But when the camera slowly lowered to capture Jing Yi’s face head-on, Gu Chen was startled by the look in Jing Yi’s eyes, his heart trembling involuntarily.

Unconsciously, Gu Chen recalled the backstory of Song Yu’s character from the script.

Song Yu was the illegitimate son of Song Chengye, heir to a warlord family. His mother, Lin Tingting, was a prostitute. In order to get him into the Song family, the terminally ill Lin Tingting knelt in the snow, humbly begging the Song family patriarch for mercy.

After a night of pleading in the heavy snowfall, Lin Tingting froze to death.

Song Yu was pulled from his mother’s arms by the Song family servants. Burning with fever and barely conscious, he watched as Lin Tingting was wrapped carelessly in a straw mat and taken away on a cart used for transporting slop.

After his mother died, Song Yu entered the Song family.

The women of the Song family sat on chairs, each dressed more lavishly than the last, yet the words that came from their mouths were even more vulgar than a brothel madam’s curses.

Zhang Wan, the legal wife of Song Yu’s father, wept and made a scene, clamoring that she didn’t want Song Yu to stay.

Unwilling to let the opportunity his mother had bought with her life slip away, Song Yu no longer resisted the torment of his high fever and drifted into a dazed faint.

The matriarch, taking pity on Song Yu, brought him to her room to treat his illness.

While burning with fever in a muddled state, Song Yu listened to every word spoken by the Song family and gleaned one crucial piece of information from the doctor’s remarks: to survive in the Song family, he had to pretend to be a fool whose mind had been damaged by the high fever, someone who had lost all memory.

To test whether Song Yu was truly brain-damaged or faking it, and whether he would compete with her own son for the inheritance, Zhang Wan took Song Yu to the mass burial ground and forced him to watch as stray dogs, specially captured for the purpose, gnawed at his mother’s corpse.

It was that very scene that completely drove Song Yu mad.

In his heart, there was no love—only hatred for the Song family. Outwardly innocent and unassuming, he appeared to contend for nothing, yet in secret, he had long built his own enterprise, delivering a perfect death trap to the Song family.

Gu Chen had already seen Jing Yi’s Seduce the Monk and Xie Qiyun directed by his father. In those films, Jing Yi’s acting was truly astonishing. Especially in Seduce the Monk, when the Tiger Demon shaved his head to become a monk, the emotional shifts in his eyes were genuinely breathtaking.

It was precisely that scene that made Gu Chen decide to cast Jing Yi as Song Yu.

But he never expected Jing Yi to portray Song Yu so brilliantly!

How could someone nearly twenty years old have eyes that truly looked as dead as if life had departed from them?

As Gu Chen pondered this, he noticed that the monitor had already captured Jing Yi’s writing and was stunned once more.

The character for “love” on the white paper was written in traditional form. The strokes above the radical “friend” appeared elegant, but the final downward stroke of “friend“ was sharp and piercing, like a dagger thrust into place, abruptly rendering a perfect character awkward and mismatched.

Gu Chen stared at the character, called “Cut!”, rewound the footage, and played it again. Yet even upon reviewing it, he remained shocked by the transformation in Jing Yi’s eyes. Biting his finger, Gu Chen suddenly remembered that he had used this same hand to slap Jing Yi earlier, and he quickly lowered it.

Perhaps Jing Yi’s flawless grasp of the role was due to his innate acting talent, but that deathly stillness in his eyes that made one’s heart palpitate likely had something to do with the incidents that had occurred before.

…

Jing Yi noticed that Gu Chen was acting strangely.

When Ji Lin made a mistake, Gu Chen would scold him, but when Jing Yi erred, he said nothing.

Moreover, Gu Chen specifically waited by the catering truck for Jing Yi to pick up his lunch box.

The lunch boxes in this production crew were red, making it impossible to see the food inside.

When Jing Yi opened his lunch box, he froze.

“How is your lunch box completely different from mine?” Sheng Xiaguang glanced at the two large chicken legs and heaping portions of meat in Jing Yi’s box, then at the meager shreds of meat in his own, his face full of discontent.

Ji Lin, standing nearby, took a look at Jing Yi’s lunch box and then at his own, muttering quietly, “It’s different from mine too.”

Jing Yi also found it strange: “Maybe Director Gu was helping hand out the meals and gave me the wrong one by mistake. I’ll go exchange it.”

“Don’t,” Ji Lin suddenly spoke up. “Give it to me, we’ll swap.”

Before Jing Yi could respond, Ji Lin swiftly swapped their lunch boxes. Then, he ferociously stuffed the chicken legs into his mouth, eating voraciously.

Sheng Xiaguang said disdainfully, “You look like a starving ghost reincarnated.”

Ji Lin cast a glance at Sheng Xiaguang, recalling their time together in the rainforest and the occasional care Sheng had shown him. He picked two large pieces of meat from his bowl and placed them in Sheng Xiaguang’s lunchbox.

“Damn it,” Sheng Xiaguang exploded. “I hate other people’s saliva. Are you doing this on purpose?”

Ji Lin glanced at Sheng Xiaguang, then picked the two pieces of meat back, which only provoked more sharp-tongued remarks from Sheng.

Jing Yi waited until the two had finished before speaking again: “Mr. Sheng, would you like some of my dishes too?”

Sheng Xiaguang looked at Jing Yi, remembering how Jing Yi had also avoided meat during Xie Qiyun’s film shoot, and silently extended his lunchbox.

Jing Yi said thank you, scooped all his dishes into Sheng Xiaguang’s lunchbox, then picked up his chopsticks to eat the rice.

Just as he was eating, a video call popped up.

Jing Yi adjusted the angle and answered, facing himself.

“Good afternoon, Jing Yi.” Lu Yuzhi’s voice came through the phone, soon followed by his face appearing on the screen. “Did you miss me?”

Jing Yi smiled: “No.”

The smile instantly vanished from Lu Yuzhi’s face as he said pitifully: “How could you not miss me?”

Jing Yi sighed helplessly: “There are people around.”

Lu Yuzhi: “Who?”

“Mr. Sheng and Mr. Ji.” Jing Yi glanced at the two men with an apologetic smile.

They waved to indicate they didn’t mind, so he turned his attention back to the phone, scooping rice into his mouth with his right hand.

Gu Chen had said they needed to speed up filming, with only twenty minutes for meals, and half of that time had already passed.

Lu Yuzhi noticed the pitifully small amount of rice in Jing Yi’s lunchbox and the empty spaces where dishes should have been. He pressed his lips together: “I said I’d have meals delivered specially for you, but you refused. How can you get full like this?”

“It’s fine, everyone’s eating the same.”

Jing Yi didn’t want to be treated specially.

He took another mouthful of rice.

“That’s not true.” Ji Lin suddenly spoke up. “Senior Lu, Jing Yi’s boxed meal is with me, and it’s different from ours.”

His completely flat tone made it sound like he was talking about something completely unrelated.

After speaking, Ji Lin even stood up specifically and brought his lunchbox in front of the camera.

Sheng Xiaguang furrowed his brows and gave Ji Lin a strange look.

Lu Yuzhi saw the uneaten meat and half-finished chicken leg in Ji Lin’s bowl, frowning in confusion: “Jing Yi? What does Ji Lin mean?”

“…” Jing Yi met Lu Yuzhi’s gaze through the screen for a long moment before speaking. “That portion indeed came from the meal I collected.”

Lu Yuzhi pressed: “Then why does he say it’s different?”

“Probably a mix-up.” Jing Yi said. “I originally wanted to exchange it, but Mr. Ji wanted to eat it.”

Ji Lin looked at the camera, his eyes flickering slightly: “Director Gu gave it to Jing Yi. Gu Chen, Director Gu.”

Lu Yuzhi froze.

Ji Lin added at this moment: “Senior, when mistakes happen on set, Director Gu only criticizes us, not Jing Yi.”

Sheng Xiaguang continued eating while staring intently at Ji Lin’s face.

In the rainforest, Ji Lin had been truly sparing with words, always walking at the back of the group and speaking only when necessary. He had never seen Ji Lin talk this much to anyone before – it was really strange.

“I understand.” Lu Yuzhi smiled. “Thank you, Ji Lin. I won’t keep you from your meal any longer. I’ll hang up now.”

“Okay.” Jing Yi checked the time and quickly finished the remaining rice.

After finishing the afternoon scenes, it was time for the evening meal.

Jing Yi originally planned to go collect his meal from the catering truck, but Ji Lin said he wanted to rehearse their lines together.

Thinking that the next scene to shoot would be Ji Lin’s role—where he coincidentally encounters Japanese people due to Song Yu’s plan to deal with the Song family, gets critically injured, and sees Song Yu while on the verge of death—Jing Yi agreed.

After discussing the scene for a while, Ji Lin’s assistant brought over the boxed meals.

“This is yours, Mr. Jing.” Ji Lin’s assistant, with a baby face full of confusion, turned to Ji Lin and said, “Brother, Director Gu really emphasized which boxed meal was for Mr. Jing.”

“Mm.” Ji Lin didn’t say anything and directly swapped Jing Yi’s box with his own.

Xiaguang, who arrived late, casually handed over his boxed meal to make it easier for Jing Yi to transfer some dishes.

Just as everyone was eating, a commotion suddenly arose in the film crew.

“Wow, it’s Lu Shen, Film Emperor Lu! Why is he visiting the set? That trench coat is so handsome! Paired with sunglasses, he looks so cool!”

“I know, I know! Film Emperor Lu is here to visit Jing Yi! Wow, a divine love story.”

“But why is his assistant carrying a food box? That looks like the vegetarian meal box from Jialan Temple?”

“Not just that, didn’t you see someone pushing a food cart too?”

Amid the discussions, Jing Yi looked toward the source of the noise.

Lu Yuzhi was taking off his sunglasses, walking toward him with a gentle smile.