I Was Taken by the Female Lead After Transmigrating into a Book - Chapter 107

After completing the final preparations, Bai Feifei took a deep breath, took off her warm jacket, and once again walked into the frigid interrogation room.

“We re-aged the bench outside the interrogation room,” Li Ke said, rubbing his chin and watching the prop master put the cold handcuffs on Bai Feifei’s wrists. “No restrictions on your performance. Let’s try to film it.”

He sized up the two main actors of this scene. Even on camera, they looked a little too tired and thin.

But the more they looked like that, the better the film would be. No director would want their protagonist to be beautiful from beginning to end; it wasn’t realistic.

Everything was in place. Li Ke watched the scene on his small monitor with satisfaction. The clapperboard sounded, and the filming began.

Huo Wu’s character, Wu Ling, sat on a wooden bench outside. The old, brownish wood had peeling and chipped spots everywhere. She was wearing a brand-new police uniform that Fu Sang had never seen before, and the badge on her shoulder was deeply imprinted in her eyes.

Fu Sang was followed by two police officers, one standing on either side of her. Her wrists were bound by cold, gleaming handcuffs that were so tight they made her wrists look incredibly slender and weak.

Besides Wu Ling, there was another police officer waiting by the door. He was looking down and playing a game. When he saw someone being brought in, he lazily looked up and asked as a formality, “Name?”

The officer behind Fu Sang held up the file. “Fu Sang.”

“Bring her in,” the police officer muttered, looking at the surname “Fu.” “Fu? Is there a surname Fu in the Hundred Family Surnames?”

This was a very insignificant interlude. The officer following Fu Sang was clearly familiar with him. He subconsciously glanced at Wu Ling and said with a smile, “It’s not that strange. Isn’t there a ‘Wu’ sitting next to you?”

“That’s not the same,” the officer laughed. “Wu Ling is a minority. Their people have all kinds of surnames. But Fu Sang is Han. Hey, don’t bring her in with the cuffs on. We didn’t issue a mandatory summons. Why did you two handcuff the young girl so tightly?”

The two officers behind her exchanged glances. One of them shrugged and didn’t say anything. Who wouldn’t want to be a good person? But their duty required them not to let go. He said, “You can take them off once you’re inside, Fu Sang. Just cooperate with the talk. If you’re truly innocent, the law will give you justice.”

From beginning to end, the two protagonists were silent. They only glanced at each other once during their first meeting and then passed each other in the midst of other people’s conversations.

After Bai Feifei went inside, she and Huo Wu filmed from two different locations. The filming outside was still ongoing.

Bai Feifei’s hands were still cuffed. She leaned closer to the camera to listen to the conversation on the other side.

“‘The 714 Major Traffic Accident Case’,” Officer Wu said, looking at the file in his hand. He asked in a low voice, “It’s been so long since this case happened. Why did you suddenly cuff the victim?”

He had just started on this case not long ago and didn’t know much of the inside story. He was only here to temporarily handle the handover. Even though the handover, including the follow-up interrogations, was the sole responsibility of the second-grade officer next to him, the rules stated that anything had to be done by two or more people, so he was dragged along to make up the numbers.

Wu Ling hadn’t said anything yet, but he thought of something and continued, “Weren’t you fully responsible for following up on this case? I heard Captain Liu specifically asked for you. What’s the relationship between this case and Li Jianshu’s case?”

It was only then that Wu Ling glanced at him and took the handover form from his hand. “Officer Wu, with that much curiosity, how did you graduate?”

This was a rare pun-based joke in the show, and it was a unique, dark sense of humor belonging to Li Ke.

Officer Wu chuckled and said, “What can I do? My name is Wu Qimao (curious cat). I’m the curious cat that curiosity killed.”

Even though she already knew how to spell his name, Wu Ling still looked down at the officer’s name on the form.

The camera zoomed in. The words “Wu Qimao” were presented to Li Ke through a close-up shot.

He laughed so hard he almost slid off his chair. But besides him, everyone else’s face was filled with a look of awkwardness and the urge to say something but held back. They avoided making eye contact with him.

Li Ke was tired from laughing. He wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and patted the armrest of his chair. “What? What? Is it not funny? Is the joke not funny?”

The assistant director let out a dry laugh. He endured Li Ke’s deadly stare and said with genuine self-awareness, “Fifty years after you die, when people mention you, they might add to your list of hobbies, ‘He loved puns and bad jokes that no one laughed at,’ and another, ‘His humor was extremely low-brow.'”

Li Ke wasn’t ashamed at all. “You just don’t have the appreciation for it.”

The filming went more smoothly than expected. The indoor temperature was low, so they didn’t need much touch-up. Only the hairstyle needed to be tweaked to maintain the same height as before.

The next scene continued from the previous one.

Fu Sang sat alone in the empty interrogation room. Her wrists were fixed to the tabletop, and her range of motion was extremely limited. She couldn’t curl up her body, and the low temperature in the room made her shiver.

There were four people sitting in the elevated chairs: two recorders and two main interrogators, one of whom was Wu Ling.

It was only then that Fu Sang’s gaze finally met hers from a distance.

Next to Wu Ling sat her mentor, Liu Boyang, who was also the captain of the First Division of the Criminal Investigation Team and was responsible for all the overall guidance for this case.

By all accounts, Huo Wu, in terms of both experience and age, had no right to be sitting there. But because of the special nature of the case, as an undercover police officer, she was there to assist with the interrogation and observation. Her mentor was the main interrogator, and she was only responsible for the routine questions.

Huo Wu lowered her head and looked at the emotionless girl on the form. With her white uniform, blue clothes, and black hair, there was no resemblance to the bright and cheerful girl she remembered.

She briefly introduced herself and Liu Boyang’s positions and their roles in this case. She then opened her mouth again and said, “Name?”

Fu Sang glanced at her, then turned her gaze back to the surface of the table, lowering her head slightly. “Fu Sang.”

One of the recorders looked up from his notebook and frowned slightly.

Wu Ling was silent for two seconds, but she quickly took the initiative and said, “Louder, and raise your head.”

The recorder, who was already frowning and ready to swear, choked. He held back his words and was left speechless.

Fu Sang’s expression didn’t change. Her long eyelashes lowered. Her hands were curled into fists. This time, her voice was a little louder, but only a little. “Got it.”

Wu Ling continued from above, “Date of birth?”

“June 27, 1989.”

“Age? Are you still in school?”

Fu Sang hesitated for a moment before answering, “I’m 16 and in my second year of high school.”

After asking for the basic information, Wu Ling closed the form in her hand. She looked up at Liu Boyang’s placid face and said, “Now, I want you to recall everything that happened that day. Don’t leave out any details.”

Fu Sang’s eyelashes trembled slightly, as if she was deep in thought. After a moment, she finally seemed to figure out where to start. She opened her mouth and said, “It was a Friday. I had just finished school and was going to… pick up my friend from work.”

Wu Ling interrupted her. “You were going to pick me up from work. I was working at the ‘Night’s Eve’ bar at the time.”

The recorder looked up at her and wrote everything down.

Liu Boyang took a sip of his strong tea. His dark lips pursed, and he slightly tilted his head back.

Wu Ling then said, “Continue.”

Fu Sang thought for a moment and continued, “I forgot my phone in the classroom and was going to go back for it, but they saw me at the back gate of the school…”

She had been asked about the events of that day countless times in the 48 hours she had been there.

Fu Sang’s voice was raspy. With every word she spoke, her voice became hoarser. After a long time, she licked her dry lips, closed her eyes tiredly, and said in a low voice, “That’s everything.”

Her voice became softer and softer, but this time, no one told her to “speak up” or “raise your head.”

Wu Ling looked at the records that the recorder had handed over to her. They were almost identical to the previous ones. From the logical flow of the entire incident to the exact timing of each event, and even Fu Sang’s keen sense of time, everything pointed to her innocence.

But there was someone who had made a real-name report to the city bureau, claiming that Fu Sang was the true mastermind behind it all.

Due to public pressure, the city bureau had no choice but to detain her for investigation.

Liu Boyang quickly looked over the file. This time, he took over the main interrogator’s role, asking a series of questions that seemed unrelated but were easy to overlook.

The entire dialogue-heavy scene took a full two hours to film.

There were no stand-ins during this time. Bai Feifei’s brain and mouth had almost developed a muscle memory. Whatever Officer Liu asked, she answered. Her mouth moved a step faster than her thoughts. She was no longer able to think.

Even though it was just acting, it still made Bai Feifei feel a sense of shock and disbelief. So this was what an interrogation was like. So the police officers in the interrogation room also had to maintain an extremely high level of alertness and keen perception at all times to find the loopholes in a criminal’s testimony in such a short amount of time.

When the handcuffs were taken off, Bai Feifei’s entire body was almost stiff.

The actual filming took more than two hours, but the final, edited content in the film would probably only be a little more than ten minutes. This was with the premise that the filming went extremely smoothly and no one made a mistake.

It wasn’t even dark yet when they finished. Li Ke found it incredibly unbelievable. “We usually set aside two days for a dialogue scene like this. You three, as the main cast, finished it in two hours?”

The two hours only accounted for the actual filming time. It didn’t include the time for preparation and cleanup before and after. But even so, this progress was faster than anyone had expected.

Bai Feifei was exhausted. Her hands could barely move. She had to keep them raised just to get her muscles to move a little. She said with a miserable expression, “If we had filmed for two days, I think I would have died.”

She had been in the sun in 37°C weather for a while, but her fingertips were still cold. Her entire arms were stiff, her legs were numb, and her mind was completely blank. She could barely talk normally. Her head was filled with every line from the interrogation room.

Bai Feifei’s eyes darted around the set aimlessly. In the next second, she saw Huo Wu, who had taken off her costume and was rushing toward her.

In an instant, as if her soul had been saved, Bai Feifei let out a fake, whiny cry. When Huo Wu was still a few steps away, she rushed into her arms. “I’m so tired. This kind of mental scene is a completely different kind of tired than action scenes. I can’t even tell if the car crash was worse or if this scene was worse.”

There was no hierarchy of pain. Huo Wu tenderly squeezed Bai Feifei’s still-cold fingertips. She said in a low voice, “I’ll give you a massage when we get back.”

“What about singing me to sleep?” Bai Feifei looked up, her eyes watery. “Pat my back, sing a song, and talk to me.”

Huo Wu was stunned. She realized Bai Feifei was overtired. Like Fu Xiaoxiao, the more tired she was, the more she would talk nonsense without thinking.

But Huo Wu accepted all of her requests. She even had the time to ask back, “Are there any other Stacking Fun terms? You can ask for anything you want.”

(Stacking Fun is a common name for a popular bedtime storybook for kids.)

“Kiss my mouth and touch my hands,” Bai Feifei’s mouth wasn’t controlled by her brain. She didn’t realize anything was wrong as Huo Wu carried her away. Her eyes were even fixed on the Behind the Scenes camera. She continued to babble recklessly, “Hug my waist and take a bath together.”

Before she could continue, Huo Wu freed up one hand and pinched Bai Feifei’s mouth shut, silencing her physically.

Bai Feifei looked back in confusion, her eyes full of questions.

Huo Wu’s eyes were filled with a smile. She kissed her and said, “Kissing your mouth first. You stay quiet.”

Bai Feifei thought for a moment and decided it was a good deal. She immediately became obedient.