I Was Taken by the Female Lead After Transmigrating into a Book - Chapter 111

It took a few minutes for Bai Feifei’s brain, which had completely crashed, to finally process Huo Wu’s phrase, “You were so beautiful when you questioned me just now.”

She straightened up like she was coming back to life, almost unable to believe what she had just heard.

Huo Wu looked at her very gently. “What’s wrong?”

Bai Feifei grabbed Huo Wu’s sleeve and stammered, still not quite believing it, “A’Wu, what did you… what did you just say?”

Huo Wu blinked. A moment later, she repeated the sentence very slowly, adding at the end, “Absolutely beautiful.”

Bai Feifei took a moment to react. After a while, a hint of embarrassment appeared on her face. She responded in a low voice, “Actually, I never told you, but the first time I saw you in a police uniform, I thought you were drop-dead gorgeous.”

Huo Wu let out a soft “hmm.” After a moment, as if she remembered something, she asked, “Then, what were you thinking at that time?”

Bai Feifei was still lying in her arms, thinking Huo Wu’s question was a little strange.

What was she thinking?

Bai Feifei’s eyes darted around. In a short time, she learned to extrapolate and cleverly asked, “Then what were you thinking?”

When Huo Wu looked down, her gaze met Bai Feifei’s. Without needing any more words, Bai Feifei dove back into Huo Wu’s arms. Her voice came out muffled, “I wanted to kiss you. Didn’t you want to kiss me? I bet you were thinking the same thing I was. But there were so many people on set.”

Huo Wu softly replied, “Mhm. There were a lot of people.”

She paused, then continued, “Let me tell you a story. A long, long time ago…”

Bai Feifei let out a muffled laugh in her arms again. “Is the story long?”

Huo Wu laughed and continued in a calm, gentle voice, “There was a ‘golden couple’ in the entertainment industry that everyone envied. Everyone in the industry knew about them. When they first got married, they kissed in public, and people said they were young and arrogant, showing off their love without regard for the occasion.”

Bai Feifei looked up. She was buried so deep in Huo Wu’s embrace that she was a little breathless, so she panted softly a few times. “What happened next?”

“I occasionally saw news about them later on,” Huo Wu said, thinking as if she were calculating the time, and her pace slowed down. “In their third year, entertainment news said they were showing affection in public to debunk rumors of their marriage falling apart.”

“In their seventh year, the general sentiment was similar,” Huo Wu said, her voice jumping to a much later time. “When I saw them again recently, the mainstream media were praising their relationship, saying they were a model couple and a real-life example of a love that could last a lifetime.”

Bai Feifei’s suddenly-clever brain couldn’t figure out the meaning behind what Huo Wu was saying. She just twisted her body and burrowed deeper into her arms, contorting herself into a position that would be difficult for an average person. She had her legs crossed but could lie flat on her upper body on Huo Wu’s legs, and her arm was even wrapped around her waist. Finally comfortable, she took a breath and said, “What do you mean?”

“It means,” Huo Wu said, “kiss me if you want to. Don’t worry about what the outside world says. That has nothing to do with us.”

With that, she lowered her head and pressed a kiss on Bai Feifei’s lips.

It was a kiss without any lust, a quick touch and separation, but Bai Feifei was already very satisfied.

She giggled twice and suddenly said, “I really want to announce to the whole world that I love you.”

But she hadn’t forgotten what Huo Wu said at the hospital, that she was waiting for Bai Feifei to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with her.

Bai Feifei rubbed against Huo Wu again and whispered, “A’Wu, I have something to tell you. Don’t laugh at me.”

Huo Wu rubbed Bai Feifei’s ear with her thumb, signaling that she was listening.

Bai Feifei said softly, “Auntie Xue told me that this film is definitely going to win an award. If I’m lucky, maybe I can really bring back a Best Actress award.”

Huo Wu didn’t say any empty words to encourage her dream, nor did she pour cold water on her. After a moment of thought, she said, “From my perspective, you have a great chance.”

“What perspective?” Bai Feifei’s spirits lifted. “An actor’s perspective?”

“Every perspective,” Huo Wu said. “You forgot, what was the role I played most on set?”

General producer, big boss, lead actress… what else? Bai Feifei shook her head and said honestly, “I can’t think of anything.”

“The audience,” Huo Wu said, smiling and pinching her cheeks, unconsciously tugging on them. “The only ones who can decide if a film is good or not, if it’s successful or not, are the audience.”

“Generally, as you get to the end, the progress actually slows down,” Li Ke said, half-lying on his special lounge chair for cooling off. The nearly 40-degree weather couldn’t change the tone of his words. “But you see, with us, it’s the opposite. The speed has actually increased quite a bit.”

For modern dramas, the beginning and end are usually difficult, while the middle is the easiest to film. In the beginning, actors need to get rid of all their modern habits, and it takes a long time to get into character, so the overall filming speed can’t be fast.

In the middle, the actors are all in character, and they’re familiar with the plot, people, and scenery. Their cooperation with the director’s team has also been established, so it’s much faster. But people’s energy is limited. Toward the end, it becomes difficult to push the progress, and everyone becomes tired, so the speed will definitely be pulled down.

No one is an exception, including the main director.

Li Ke closed his eyes. He had a hydrating and repairing mask on his face and was holding a small spray bottle of ice water, spritzing his face to keep it cool. He said, “Feifei is so thoughtful. The spray she got for you is a specially chilled, small bottle… Oh right, what was I just saying? You see, you said we should leave more time for accidents, but I disagreed. Now it seems my idea was correct.”

Not only did they catch up on the schedule, but they even had extra time.

In the tent not far away, they were filming a scene with Li Qinqin as the main character. After the confrontation in the hospital, Li Qinqin quietly disappeared and was temporarily out of everyone’s sight. Her existence only remained in people’s mouths.

She had many more scenes, but at this point, her image to the audience and all the staff had already become that of a mistress who knew nothing and a mistress who had lost her only son.

She was also a pawn that had been abandoned.

She might as well have a label on her forehead that read “Useless” to strut around town. The bar under her name was still open, but it had visibly lost its former liveliness and glamour. It seemed to have suddenly lost a lot of “big shots.”

It was a very secretive, small ecosystem.

The people at the top had control of most of the resources. These people attracted young men and women and kept the place lively. A place like a bar is always more lively the more people it has, and the more lively it is, the more people come.

But this phenomenon had been disrupted.

Now there were only a few people left, but Li Qinqin still kept the bar. She hadn’t sold it or closed it. Even though there weren’t many people and the consumption wasn’t high, she kept it open.

Similarly, she was waiting for an opportunity.

When Li Ke opened his eyes, there was one more person under the tree. She had gone to Huo Wu’s lounge chair, fanning her and holding a face mask, which she was applying for her.

He was silent for two seconds, wordlessly moved his lips, and turned over.

Bai Feifei had obviously just returned from “learning from her seniors.” Her face was full of excitement. The temperature inside the tent was much higher than outside, and her face was flushed red. “The seniors are so amazing. In that scene, a lot of them were in a chaotic fight, and they were really pulling each other’s hair!”

Li Ke, who had already turned over halfway, turned back. “Huh?”

After a while, he remembered. There was indeed such a scene.

The person Li Qinqin was waiting for was actually a retired veteran cadre. She was almost like Fu Sang; there weren’t many people she could trust. Besides that veteran cadre, who had been a part of her life for a very long time. He was an old man with white hair, who lived out his years in a retirement home in the military family compound. He would occasionally come out to stroll and chat with people in the compound.

The old cadre had a daughter named Qin Huainian, who was around the same age as Li Qinqin and went to the same junior high school, but they went to different high schools. Li Qinqin’s high school was the same one as Fu Sang and Li Ran.

The old man considered Li Qinqin a personal demon in his life because he couldn’t pull the young girl out of the abyss back then and watched her go further and further down the wrong path until she was in a complete dead end now.

And the old man’s daughter also considered Li Qinqin a personal demon. That stemmed from the fact that her mother didn’t feel like a real mother; most of her attention was on Li Qinqin.

With their clashing views, the two women, who were almost a hundred years old combined, actually started fighting in the bar without any hesitation. In the end, it was the real hundred-year-old man who held up his trembling cane and hit each of them, finally separating them.

“So what if you’re a detective?! A detective hits people?! A detective is strong?! Why didn’t you just kill me?!” The woman’s shrill voice came from the tent not far away, almost to the point of madness.

Bai Feifei was startled by it. She was in awe and said, “That voice is amazing!”

Huo Wu was used to her “good” standards, but Li Ke was curious. “What’s your sense of aesthetics? They’re fighting like this, and you think that voice sounds good?”

No matter how good it sounded, it was still the voice of a woman in her late forties. The actress playing Li Qinqin had good acting skills and strong lines, but in Li Ke’s opinion, her voice wasn’t particularly unique.

But Bai Feifei nodded with certainty. “Of course. How great is a loud voice like that? You can tell she’s healthy and full of vigor just from her voice. It sounds like she’s in great shape.”

But Li Qinqin’s body was not very strong. Compared to the actress playing Qin Huainian, who was a retired military woman, their body types formed a stark contrast.

Bai Feifei was extremely envious.

Her own voice was on the clearer, childlike side. Although she herself didn’t like it, Huo Wu seemed to, so she reluctantly thought it was okay. But in essence, she wished she could have a voice like a lion’s roar—a voice that, the moment she opened her mouth, the first word people would associate with it was “powerful.”

“If I had a voice like that,” Bai Feifei said with emotion and envy, “when I said my cursing lines, it would definitely sound so beautiful.”

Li Ke: “…”

Huo Wu’s expression didn’t change. She was used to it, so she nodded and praised her. “I think so too.”

Li Ke: “?”