Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Under the silver rays of moonlight, her beauty was revealed.
This phrase originated from an ancient poem that described a woman’s beauty. These words floated into Assistant Director Zhao’s mind whenever he was with director Jiang. Even the female lead in their current film paled in comparison to the beauty of the main man. However, his temper was not something you’d want to be on the receiving end of. Nervously, Assistant Director Zhao stumbled forward.
“Di-director, what’s the matter?”
Jiang Zhi had nestled himself on a comfy deck chair complete with a thick, wool lining, his pair of slender long legs crossed. These past two days had been really cold, which sapped the energy out of him. His ill condition was making itself more apparent due to this, and with a voice that sounded almost hollow, he said, “Remove her makeup.”
He pointed toward the female lead, Yu Ran.
Yu Ran was currently one of the top members in the film and entertainment industry. The film Jiang Zhi was currently working on had a nationalist theme, hence, it was required that every actor was to appear as plain as possible with minimal to no makeup. However, this requirement was something that Yu Ran absolutely refused to abide by.
After being explicitly pointed out by the director, Yu Ran stood awkwardly in the spotlight. Seeing her in that position, her manager rushed forward to defend the star of the show.
“It’s just a little bit of makeup, can the director plea–”
“What do you think?”
Jiang Zhi interrupted, his brows raised.
He was blessed with a pair of naturally-dreamy eyes, but in a matter of seconds, that could fade away to leave only a glare so sharp that it pierced right through your soul.
“Hurry up and remove Ranran’s makeup.”
The manager issued the order to the makeup artist who made haste to remove the makeup on Yu Ran’s face.
Today was a bit cloudy and there was quite the breeze blowing. Soon, autumn would be over, explaining why the weather was getting chillier by the day.
“Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough…”
The man lazing on the deck chair went into a coughing fit so intense that his face became noticeably flushed.
Ah Wan quickly arrived with a can of warmed milk which he gave to Jiang Zhi. After that, he produced a thick wool blanket and covered the delicate prince to shield him from the bitter cold. Soon after, a voice called out to him.
“Master Jiang, Yang Xu’s manager would like to meet you.”
Yang Xu was the lady who had gotten transferred elsewhere due to arriving late at the set.
With two ivory-pale fingers clamped onto the black-colored milk can, Jiang Zhi slowly sipped his warm drink as the person who had called out to him waited patiently for a response.
“I’m busy.”
Standing nearby, Assistant Director Zhao asked meekly, “Yang Xu, who played that part?”
Yang Xu was the second most important female character in this film, appearing in a considerable number of scenes. What was most important, however, was the high box office sales! To be honest, the assistant director was reluctant to let that particular actress go, however, whatever he felt was irrelevant…he simply didn’t dare to speak up against the director.
Director Jiang’s eyelids remained half-open. Still holding the can in his hands, his fingers tapped on its side a few times as if deep in contemplation. It was only after a while that his lashes fluttered and his eyes opened back up.
He raised his hand and pointed toward a seemingly random direction.
“You, come here.”
The crowd looked over to the pointed direction.
On the opposite side where more than twenty background actors stood, a young lady with the most stunned expression of all stepped forward. Her eyes wide, she pointed a finger at herself in disbelief.
“Me?”
The lady appeared to be quite young. She wasn’t the tallest and it was rather hard to make out her actual facial features due to it being smeared with artificial blood. She wore the same costume distributed to most other background actors and it was apparent that her role was that of a passerby, an unnamed civilian who suffered heavy bombardment by enemy artillery and would only appear on-camera for just a split-second.
This passerby froze when suddenly called out by the main director.
“Hm.”
The director spoke with limited vocabulary as if he was only partially awake.
“Your name?”
The ‘passerby’ scratched her head, unable to fathom what had just happened. Her expression reflected her dazed state as she replied.
“I’m Fang Lixiang.”
“How many years have you been acting?”
The girl seemed to have finally gotten back her bearings as her eyes lit up.
“I’ve been acting in specific roles for the past four years.”
“Can you play Yang Xu’s role?”
Ah, pies were falling from the sky today!
“Yes!” She replied as she thumped her chest. Brimming with confidence, she added, “I can do it, director. I can even act like the best, most realistic corpse you have ever seen!”
Immediately after saying that, her body crumpled onto the ground. She muttered something to herself for a few seconds before her limbs gave way and her eyes rolled upward, revealing her whites. She then reached out her hands toward the horizon before slowly collapsing onto the ground. She was clearly playing the role of someone dying from a gun-inflicted wound.
“…”
The masses remained silent. Her performance of death was truly sublime.
“Then, we’ll go with her from now on.”
Jiang Zhi announced as he shifted into a more comfortable position.
Assistant director Zhao’s jaws were agape. How could the director reach a conclusion so simply?
And so, Fang Lixiang had finally risen from the dead. Oh God, this could very well be the peak of her life!
She was bouncing with giddiness, feeling as though she could jump to the sun if she wanted to.
“Xufang, Xufang!”
“Yup.”
Xufang was standing among the crowd of background actors.
Both of them had met three months ago. One of them had played as a crowd actress while the other had played more specialized roles. Still, they would always bump into each other on set. In the beginning, they weren’t particularly familiar with each other, but it was only after last month’s incident when Zhou Xufang hadn’t been paid that Fang Lixiang took the initiative and had helped her retrieve her income. While their goal hadn’t really been achieved, they had forged a friendship out of the tiny revolution.
Fang Lixiang jumped in front of Xufang with a grin on her face, revealing two small dimples on the sides of her mouth.
“Pinch me!”
Zhou Xufang pinched her friend’s arm for a second, maybe longer, but she did so gently.
Thinking that it wasn’t painful enough, Fang Lixiang grabbed the soft part of her thigh and twisted hard, and it was painful enough that tears started welling in her eyes. She grit her teeth to take in the pain and flashed a bitter smile after the pain had mostly subsided.
“I’m not dreaming.”
She exploded on the spot after that.
“Xufang, I’ve truly become the Weaver Girl now. Open your eyes, my ancestors, for I have brought honor to my family!”
Zhou Xufang remained silent.
Fang “The Weaver Girl” Lixiang waved her hands before Xufang’s blank eyes.
“Whatcha starin’ at?”
She then looked over in the direction of Zhou Xufang’s gaze.
“Oh, you were looking at Director Jiang?”
Zhou Xufang nodded and replied, “He’s really good-looking.”
Fang Lixiang looked over for a few seconds. Tsk, tsk, tsk…he was not only good-looking, but he could also wreck the entire nation with those killer-looks.
The way Director Jiang looked, if he went back in time, he would definitely be the femme fatale who’d be the source of all the nation’s problems. Even if the femme fatale was simply laying there weakly, there would definitely be somebody who would rise up from the free-for-all to take the prince’s hands.
“Ming Saiying, what crazy sh*t are you going on about!?”
Yu Ran, who had always maintained a “saintly big-sister” image in the world of entertainment was now red-faced.
The person whom she was arguing with was the fourth child of the Ming family, also the female lead of a nearby set.
“Crazy?” The Ming family held quite a significant position in the imperial capital. It was definitely not running short financially-speaking, however, Ming Saiying only ever moved horizontally in the entertainment world with virtually no prospects for growth in her career. If they were doing comparisons in terms of arrogance though, she would reign supreme over others.
“…even that’s better than your sulking.”
“Why yo-”
Yu Ran had reached her boiling point.
Ming Saiying, who was still wearing her costume for the ancient imperial court drama, crossed her arms and raised her jaw before threatening with the voice of a true, evil imperial consort.
“I wonder who it was that went knocking on the director’s door in the middle of the night wearing nothing but a teeny weeny dress.”
This incident was well-known across the entertainment industry.
It was merely a few days after Jiang Zhi had started the process of filming this movie when the female lead, Yu Ran, had gone knocking on the director’s door wearing a paper-thin lace dress at night. As the popular saying goes, ‘The ‘drama’ does not necessarily end on set, it goes on after the director had gone home too’. She was then escorted by a comrade policeman to the nearby station for a round of interrogation.
With her still-fresh wound being prodded by Ming Saiying, Yu Ran angrily pulled at her enemy’s hair. Both their managers rushed in to pull them apart, and in the midst of all the shoving and pulling, someone accidentally pushed over an expensive vertical camera that was placed nearby.
Fang Lixiang, who had originally planned to watch the epic fight unfold, noticed the falling camera, and with eyes widened from surprise, she yelled out.
“Xufang, quick, dodge!”
As Fang Lixiang was calling out to her, Xufang’s attention was still focused on Jiang Zhi’s face. The director was still seated on his deck chair, sipping away carefreely on his milk.
The label on the can of milk was in English. Zhou Xufang knew this because of her extremely good vision, so despite being hundreds of meters away, she could see every little detail there was to see. No wonder her client had wanted to abduct him. He was just too d*mn handsome, much more good-looking than the marshmallows she had stored in the glass box back at home.
“Xufang!”
Fang Lixiang reached out to pull her friend away, but it was a little too late.
“Thud!”
The camera fell onto Xufang’s body. She took a step back and blocked the falling frame of the camera with her arm. However, in the process, it carved a massive cut onto her arm, which in turn, started bleeding profusely.