I Was Taken by the Female Lead After Transmigrating into a Book - Chapter 72

After the lecture, the next scenes went much more smoothly.

Both were seasoned, experienced actors. After a few minor adjustments, they entered the shoot effortlessly.

This was a surprise home visit.

Qiyang’s father had a mental illness. Although it developed later in life, it still cast a heavy shadow on an already less-than-warm family. In the entire household, only Qiyang’s elderly grandmother treated her like a person, working hard, using the money from selling scraps and collecting junk to fund her education. However, even this meager savings was all used to pay compensation after her father’s mental episode resulted in serious injury to another person.

In reality, there weren’t many charitable funds. And even if there were, they would rarely focus on girls growing up in environments like Qiyang’s.

As Chen Yanfang walked into the house, she kept wondering where things went wrong, what step led to Qiyang harming her son.

This was a confrontation scene between the two of them. Their states had changed significantly compared to the previous, faulty takes.

Qiyang’s edge was much more contained, reserved and introverted. This scene, in the plot’s sequence, came before the one with Chen Yanfang. It was from Qiyang that she learned that the person who guided Qiyang to harm her son was the school principal.

The scene was so well-acted that the people off-set cheered. As soon as the shot was finished, before Bai Feifei could turn to talk to Huo Wu, a makeup artist rushed over to her side, and Huo Wu was getting ready to go on set.

Bai Feifei was a little surprised.

The set didn’t require much rearrangement, and Huo Wu’s screen time wasn’t long. After a quick rehearsal, the shoot went ahead smoothly.

The assistant director provided a voiceover, informing Wuling, who was standing under a wall to avoid the rain, about what was happening inside the house, and Huo Wu gave a corresponding reaction.

This scene wasn’t difficult, and there wasn’t much room for the actress to showcase her skills. It would only be a ten-second shot at most in the final cut and was completed quickly.

But Li Ke glanced at the focused Bai Feifei and cleared his throat. “You don’t understand, do you?”

Bai Feifei looked up as expected. “Huh?”

“Right now, you might not think Huo Wu’s performance was anything special, but when you see it in the final cut, you’ll get it,” Li Ke said smugly. “Even if the assistant director hadn’t given her a cue, she could have given me the reaction I wanted in sync with the progress. That’s what makes her so good.”

Bai Feifei’s expectations for the final cut were now even higher.

With that final “cut,” both Zhou Yun and Qin Ling’s scenes were wrapped up. Although the celebration was mainly scheduled according to Zhou Yun’s wrap time, and they shared the same cake, the crew was thoughtful enough to put both of their names on it and prepare two different bouquets of flowers.

The spacious courtyard suddenly became very crowded. Everyone loved a good celebration, especially since this was the first time that two actors had a joint wrap-up. Amidst the cheers, the cake and flowers were brought out by the staff. With everyone’s congratulations, the day’s work came to a temporary close.

Watching the lively scene and the two actors who were so emotional they were in tears, Bai Feifei couldn’t help but say, “Ah Wu, do you think we’ll ever wrap up at the same time?”

“Hard to say,” Huo Wu replied honestly. “The weight of the scenes, shooting schedules, and progress are all different. It’s rare for leads to wrap up on the same day.”

Although she knew this was likely the outcome, Bai Feifei was still a little disappointed.

But she quickly cheered up. “Then what if we work on a project together and shoot a lot of scenes at the same time? Maybe we’ll end up wrapping up on the same day?”

Huo Wu was amused by her idea, but before she could say anything, Li Ke floated over like a ghost. Even in that noisy environment, his keen hearing didn’t fail him. “Of course not!”

His words were firm and decisive.

Bai Feifei instantly froze, her face filled with a pitiful expression of dashed hopes.

Huo Wu gave Li Ke a side-eye. Her expression was calm but full of reproach.

Li Ke, knowing he was in the wrong, rubbed his nose and started shifting the blame. “No, Bai Feifei has a childlike mindset, but why didn’t you tell her? What if she takes it seriously and wants to do a dozen projects with you just to wrap up together? What then?”

He thought, ‘She’d be even more disappointed. Would you be able to console her then?’

Huo Wu said calmly, “Thinking about it doesn’t hurt anyone.”

Li Ke shrugged, not saying the words but making his point clear: ‘Go ahead, spoil her.’

Bai Feifei still had to go for a makeup trial, so she left with the staff shortly after.

Li Ke then continued the topic he hadn’t finished. “You’ve changed. I didn’t see you like this before. Now you just go along with everything she says. What if you lose control and she takes it seriously?”

“She was just saying it casually,” Huo Wu said. “Of course, she knows it’s impossible to do that many projects together. She just said it because it made her happy.”

“You seem to understand her very well,” Li Ke mumbled.

A moment later, he still lingered. Huo Wu looked at him sideways but didn’t ask anything, waiting for him to talk.

Soon, Li Ke couldn’t hold it in anymore. He finally cleared his throat and said, “Uh, Ling Xinghe is wrapping up in a few days, on the same day as Li Ran. Their scenes are more concentrated, and Bai Feifei was with them during that period, too.”

“And?” Huo Wu told him to say it all at once.

Li Ke paused and said, “After he wraps up and goes back, ask your eldest sister to keep a close eye on him. I’ve noticed he hasn’t been in a good mood these past few days.”

It was expected to feel bad when filming a scene like that.

Ling Xinghe grew up spoiled, but his family’s discipline was strict. The biggest tantrum he ever had was when a nanny put his things away, and he got angry because he couldn’t find them. And he wasn’t angry at the nanny, but at himself for not putting things back in their place.

A person with such a nature, playing a villain who wasn’t evil to the core, was prone to contradictory empathy.

He felt that everything Li Mingming did was hateful and deserving of death, but he could also empathize with the reasons why Li Mingming became that way. He was willing to delve deeper and understand why he would do all those bad things but still want everyone in the world who knew about him to say, “What a pity.”

A pity for a once-malicious abuser—that’s what Li Mingming wanted.

This was the source of Ling Xinghe’s pain. As an actor, he was simultaneously in the audience’s perspective, a God’s-eye view, and Li Mingming’s perspective. So he had difficulty controlling his focus. The shooting was not going well. He would occasionally break down or freeze, which made filming very difficult.

Huo Wu thought for a moment. Li Ke wouldn’t come to her for no reason. There were too many film crews, too many actors, and many had gone through similar situations. If it didn’t delay the filming schedule, Li Ke never paid them any mind.

With Ling Xinghe’s situation, if it wasn’t because he was her brother and Li Ke had watched him grow up and didn’t want to say anything too harsh, and if the filming hadn’t been affected, he wouldn’t have come to her; he would have handled it internally.

Huo Wu asked, “Is it delaying the filming schedule?”

“Hard to say,” Li Ke said quickly. “The current progress can barely keep up, but if he continues like this, he definitely won’t be able to finish within the deadline.”

He looked directly at Huo Wu. “Even if Ling Xinghe’s acting is good and his image fits, if he continues like this, I might have to replace both him and Li Ran.”

Although they were major supporting roles, their scenes were relatively concentrated, and the overall difficulty of filming wasn’t particularly high. But Li Ke also understood the influence these roles had on actors of this age. The difficulty was that the young actors had too much empathy. They were easily affected by emotions and immersed in the role, but similarly, it was also difficult for them to get out of it.

Li Ke’s method of handling things was always simple and blunt.

If this one doesn’t work, replace them.

“Understood,” Huo Wu said. “I’ll go talk to him later and monitor the shoot for a day tomorrow.”

Li Ke suddenly said, “Or, why don’t you bring Bai Feifei?”

This time, Huo Wu’s expression was clearly puzzled.

Li Ke explained, “You might not believe me. I’ve heard of Stockholm syndrome, but this is the first time I’ve seen ‘Moor’s Gothic.'”

Li Ke made a poker-faced wordplay. “In the show, your brother is the abuser, and Bai Feifei is the victim. It should have been a plot where the victim falls in love with the abuser, but your brother has somehow turned it into a scene where the abuser begs for the victim’s forgiveness.”

Huo Wu was finally a little intrigued. “Is that so?”

Li Ke also found it very strange. “I saw it a few days ago. Whenever your brother has nothing to do, he tries to get close to Bai Feifei. Hey, don’t tell me he’s trying to steal your girl? I remember when he first joined the crew, he didn’t like her much, did he? He’d put her down in his words and play all these little kid tricks.”

When this was mentioned, Huo Wu couldn’t help but remember the “boyfriend” misunderstanding from back then.

She was uncharacteristically silent for a moment, then said, “I’ll handle this.”

Li Ke still didn’t move.

Huo Wu then said, “You can go on with your work.”

Only then did Li Ke realize Huo Wu was trying to get rid of him. He wrinkled his nose and pursed his lips, mimicking Fu Xiaoxiao’s elderly posture with his hands behind his back, and walked away.

After the makeup trial for tomorrow, Bai Feifei wasn’t in a hurry to go back.

Her scenes for the next few days were mostly with Li Ran. They were relatively simple conversational scenes but involved several confrontations with Ling Xinghe, who played Li Mingming, before the final resolution.

She went to check the set in advance, where the staff was still arranging the set, and she unexpectedly found Ling Xinghe in a corner.

She hadn’t seen him in a few days, and upon seeing him, he looked even more haggard than she did, even though she was consciously controlling her weight.

Bai Feifei walked up to Ling Xinghe and said, “Did you stay up all night playing video games?”

“No,” Ling Xinghe said, showing a face that, without makeup, already looked like a late-stage heart disease patient. His purplish-black lips looked particularly sickly. “I stayed up all night going crazy, writing little essays to confess to the world.”

Bai Feifei wanted to look at her phone to see how one would write a confessional essay but couldn’t find it when she reached for it.

As she was searching her pockets, a hand appeared out of nowhere and handed her the phone.

The hand was a familiar one, the clothes were familiar, and the scent was even more familiar.

Bai Feifei instinctively called out “Ah Wu,” and couldn’t help but giggle. She even felt that her laughter was inexplicable, but she was just happy.

The happier the person next to him was, the more depressed Ling Xinghe became.

He shot his sister a resentful look, slowly lowered his head, and changed the song.

The number of times Huo Wu talked to Ling Xinghe in front of Bai Feifei was not many. Huo Wu herself was not a very sociable person. Although she had said she would talk to Ling Xinghe, it was hard to start the conversation.

Just as she saw him change the song, Huo Wu casually asked, “What are you listening to?”

Ling Xinghe gave her a resentful look, his face full of grievances. “The Great Compassion Mantra. Sister, do you think the Buddha can save a beast like me who has ruined others’ lives?”