The Canary and Little Cannon Fodder [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 16

“Excellent! That is a wrap! Cut!” Luo Yunqi sat behind the monitor, looking at Bo Shuyi on the screen with immense satisfaction.

The crew on the set was completely bewildered. That was it? Were they dreaming? Bo Shuyi passed a scene in just one take! Although her performance just now looked quite good, did it really warrant a one take pass? Director Luo was notoriously picky; why did her pickiness suddenly vanish when it came to Bo Shuyi?

Bo Shuyi’s lines had been long and rapid, leaving her breathing slightly uneven. She walked over to Luo Yunqi, who showed her the playback of the performance. Luo Yunqi looked up at her and said, “Shuyi, your performance was simply magnificent!”

However, after watching the playback, Bo Shuyi frowned and said, “It is still not good enough.”

Luo Yunqi thought she was being modest and said with a smile, “It is already good enough. I honestly do not see how it could be better.”

Bo Shuyi moved her gaze away from the monitor, a faint light shimmering in her eyes. “Director Luo, may I perform it one more time?”

Luo Yunqi froze for a moment. “It can really be better?”

Bo Shuyi did not answer directly. She stood up straight and said, “Give me one more chance, Director Luo. It will give you more options to choose from during editing.”

Luo Yunqi thought about it. “Fine, then try it once more.”

“Lighting, get ready! Let us go again. Action!”

When the staff heard “one more time,” they felt a sense of relief; this was more like it. Clearly, Bo Shuyi’s acting had improved, but not to the level of passing in a single take.

Bo Shuyi returned to her position. Her expression was silent, but her eyes flickered with a light of refusal; a light that quickly transformed into a blazing fire, as if she intended to burn away all the filth of the world.

Luo Yunqi stared at the monitor, frowning. So far, Bo Shuyi’s movements were identical to the previous take. So why did she want to do it again?

However, the moment Bo Shuyi opened her mouth, Luo Yunqi’s expression changed instantly. She listened with near awe to lines that were technically similar to the previous ones, yet felt deafeningly powerful.

As Bo Shuyi finished her last line, she stared into the lens. A single tear seemed ready to fall from the corner of her reddened eyes, but it never did. She wanted a display of fearless persistence, not cowardly weeping.

The set fell into a dead silence. Everyone seemed to have forgotten how to speak, staring blankly at Bo Shuyi standing in the center. Was this still the vase beauty they knew? Who on earth kept saying Bo Shuyi was just a vase? Did they have no conscience? Was it fun to play tricks on people?

Luo Yunqi was slow to call “cut,” so the lights and camera remained fixed on Bo Shuyi. Bo Shuyi suddenly blinked, and a tear caught on her eyelashes, sparkling under the lights. The heavy sorrow lingering in everyone’s hearts scattered with the wind. Luo Yunqi finally snapped back to reality. “Cut!”

The film set came back to life. Luo Yunqi could not wait to play it back. Under the lighting, it felt as though the light only wanted to be on Bo Shuyi; no one could look away. More than beauty, it is strength that conquers everyone. And just now, they had been conquered by Bo Shuyi.

The night shoot ended much earlier than expected, but Bo Shuyi was unable to return to her hotel room to rest immediately. An excited Luo Yunqi pulled her to her own room, where the assistant director and the screenwriter were already waiting.

The assistant director had just returned from an errand, and the screenwriter had been summoned by Luo Yunqi’s relentless phone calls. The two of them had gathered in Luo Yunqi’s room in the middle of the night, sitting on the sofa in a daze.

“Director Liu, do you know why Director Luo called us here?” the screenwriter, Zhao Ruirui, asked with a yawn.

Liu Yong shook his head. “I just got back. Director Luo said there was something important and told me to wait for her. In the middle of the night, I almost thought she wanted to hidden rule me,” Liu Yong said, making a dry joke.

Zhao Ruirui covered her mouth and yawned again. “I can barely keep my eyes open. Why is Director Luo not back yet?”

Just as Zhao Ruirui finished speaking, the door burst open. Luo Yunqi walked in with a brisk pace. Zhao Ruirui and Liu Yong stood up. “Director Luo.” They then saw a graceful beauty walk in behind Luo Yunqi. Who could it be but Bo Shuyi?

Bo Shuyi held a script that had been heavily marked up. She nodded to Zhao Ruirui and Liu Yong. “Writer Zhao, Director Liu.”

Luo Yunqi could not contain the smile on her face. She said to the three of them, “Sit down, sit down! I have something big to tell you!”

Zhao Ruirui sat down with a look of doubt. Liu Yong asked, “Director Luo, what is the big news?”

Luo Yunqi replied, “I will tell you right now. Shuyi, show your script to Writer Zhao.”

Bo Shuyi sat opposite Zhao Ruirui. Hearing this, she placed her script on the glass coffee table between them. The cover of the script was clean, printed with Starlight for You. The corners were not curled at all, making it look as though it was rarely flipped through.

Seeing such a clean script, Zhao Ruirui did not know what the director would think, but she personally felt Bo Shuyi was not professional enough. She had not seen Bo Shuyi’s audition, and she had not been on set for the first scene today, so she did not know the true level of Bo Shuyi’s acting.

In fact, ever since Lin Nanyun and Bo Shuyi went public with their relationship, Zhao Ruirui believed that Bo Shuyi was only chosen as the lead because of the capital behind Lin Nanyun. She thought Lin Nanyun wanted to promote Bo Shuyi, and the power of capital had swayed the director, meaning the script she had meticulously written was going to be wasted.

Zhao Ruirui picked up the script and flipped through it casually. Seeing it filled with messy scribbles, her expression darkened even further. “Director Luo, aside from being rarely flipped and covered in doodles, there is nothing special about this script.”

Luo Yunqi poured two glasses of water for herself and Bo Shuyi. Hearing this, she said, “Look at it more closely.”

Every word in that script had been written by Zhao Ruirui herself; she did not see what was so interesting about it. Liu Yong noticed that Zhao Ruirui did not really want to look. While Luo Yunqi was busy pouring water, he took the script from Zhao Ruirui’s hand. “I am too curious. Let me see it first.”

Liu Yong looked carefully. Every dozen pages or so, a paragraph of the female lead’s dialogue was bracketed with a black pen, with several words changed in a flamboyant handwriting, or an entire sentence completely rewritten. The more Liu Yong read, the more amazed he became.

Luo Yunqi smiled. “Yong, what do you see?”

“Who changed these lines? They are so much better than the original! This is incredible!” Liu Yong blurted out.

He then realized that the script’s actual writer, Zhao Ruirui, was sitting right next to him. He said awkwardly, “I speak without thinking. I did not mean you were not good.”

Zhao Ruirui gritted her teeth and struggled to maintain a smile. “It is fine.”

Luo Yunqi said excitedly, “Right? Tonight, Shuyi filmed that vital night monologue scene. After she finished, I thought it was perfect and planned to move on, but Shuyi said it could be better. She went back up, changed the lines, and performed it again. Everyone on set was stunned.”

“Shuyi, did you change these lines yourself?” Luo Yunqi asked curiously.

Just as Bo Shuyi was about to nod, Zhao Ruirui interrupted, “How is that possible? She is not a screenwriter.”

Zhao Ruirui unhappily took the script back from Liu Yong. “Let me see again.”

This time, Zhao Ruirui looked with extreme care. She wanted to see what kind of lines could be so much better than her own! However, the further Zhao Ruirui read, the more her face flushed. Finally reaching the last page, Zhao Ruirui looked up and stared intently at Bo Shuyi.

“This was definitely not changed by you! Did you find Teacher Yishu? Other than Teacher Yishu, I cannot think of anyone else in the screenwriting world who could transform and elevate an entire character with just a few lines of dialogue.”

Bo Shuyi: “…”

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