51: Maybe I Shouldn’t Tease Her?
Click. Click. Click.
Xia Ruyun sat on set as she watched Feng Wei take the camera into his own hands. The cameraman, temporarily jobless, stood off to the side like a child waiting for their mother at the grocery store.
“Alright, I adjusted the lens, take a look. I want it to be like this and just keep it at a fairly constant angle for this shot,” Feng Wei motioned for the cameraman to take his camera back. Once the cameraman had taken it, he swept his hair back with one hand while looking towards the set. “Everyone ready?”
One chorus of agreements later, he walked back to his director’s chair and shouted. “Action!”
---
“Cut! Cut!” Feng Wei waved his arms to bring everything to a halt halfway through the scene. “Xia Ruyun, yes, you should be less panicked than everyone else because you’re faking it, but I still need more than what you’re giving me right now.”
As he spoke, Feng Wei studied Xia Ruyun a little more, taking note of the heavier amount of makeup around the eyes.
Xia Ruyun, meanwhile, pinched her leg, trying to clear the dredges of fatigue from her mind. Rolling her shoulders, she flashed a thumbs-up to Feng Wei.
Feng Wei nodded. “Alright, back from the top, action!”
---
The screen in the executive board room displayed a bolded headline pinned to the top of every news outlet:
[Jiang Jinglong EXPOSED! Records show embezzlement of public funding, insurance fraud, and rampant insider trading within Golden Scale Investment! Will they survive?]
A burst of murmurs spread throughout the room.
Executives all began shifting in their seats. Squirming. Fidgeting. Everyone looked around in panic yet tore their gaze away the moment they met another’s eyes.
What if I get associated with the person who leaked this?
“I know it’s the holiday season,” Jiang Jinglong sat at the head of the table. With his face darker than a demon’s, he scraped his eyes over all the executives in the room. “But you all are here because of this article, and the resulting fact that our company’s stock is in free fall. We’re already down 15% today.”
The entire board room fell quiet. For a moment, an invisible golden dragon appeared in the air behind Jiang Jinglong. Wind blew through the meeting room as everyone’s bodies folded under the pressure.
Yet, even with everyone bent over the table (literally) under Jiang Jinglong’s full-force dragon aura, the room stayed quiet.
“Fine, we can do it the hard way,” Jiang Jinglong clicked his tongue. He stood from his chair and walked to the door. Yanking it open, he turned back to the people inside. “We have a critical deal coming up, I don’t care what executive you all are, you’re working on this. Secretaries you’re getting reassigned except Du Ruolin since you’re my secretary. Understood everyone? It’s time to prove yourself. Meeting adjourned.”
And with his last word, the golden dragon disappeared back into his body before he slammed the door shut.
“What the hell...”
“Who did this?!”
“I can’t go back to being an analyst...”
“I already booked a trip abroad with my family, and you’re telling me I have to cancel it now?! To slave away as an analyst at the bottom of the ladder?”
“Whoever did this, I hope you know I’m never forgetting.”
---
“Cut! Well, done everyone,” Feng Wei nodded, clapping his hands. “I expected that to take a lot longer. “Let’s just shoot this a couple more times to get some extra angles and to get some extra takes.”
And with that, Xia Ruyun watched as her day disappeared behind a camera. Shooting... reshooting... and being an extra for what felt like every other scene.
---
That night, Xia Ruyun took a quick trip to the gym before taking an extended trip to her bed. Yet, even in bed, she didn’t dare rest. Instead, she sat under the warm lights with her hair tied up. In one hand she held her script. In the other, she held a thin pen, annotating the script. Unlike Li Feiling who kept her notes light, Xia Ruyun had always found success only after a forest of notes.
Some people are just... more suited to acting perhaps...
I could always get away with not annotating music at all, but I can’t do that for acting...
A sigh slipped through her mouth.
I wonder what’s going on with Li Feiling these days... she seems... fidgety.
Twirling her pen, she frowned as she thought back to Li Feiling freezing up the night before.
Maybe I shouldn’t tease her? She seemed quite shocked... but then again, she didn’t take it poorly. She's not the type of person to stay quiet if she doesn't like it.
... I think she is at least...
Coming to no real conclusion, she shelved her thoughts and put down her script as her phone lit up. After swiping open the message, a faint smile tugged at the corners of her lips.
[Li Feiling: Want to come over to practice your scenes? We can exchange some pointers even though our scenes don’t overlap.]
Xia Ruyun typed out a quick [Sure] only to chuckle as the immediate response came through.
[Li Feiling: Alright, looking forward to it ヽ(*・ω・)ﾉ I’ll text you when I’m back]
Liking the message, Xia Ruyun swiped out of the messaging app. Then, with the spirit of procrastination possessing her, she opened the news app. Once in the news app, she flipped over to the entertainment people section.
[Wang Tianmin joins high profile Chu Changfeng production!]
[A look back through Zhang Jingsong’s work as we prepare for his new work, Flame of Heaven’s Mandate]
[Tian Qiu and Li Depeng spotted attending a charity gala. Are they un-retiring?]
[New Report! Chen Wenhui’s new variety show shocks! Twice as many viewers as expected!]
Pausing on Chen Wenhui’s name, Xia Ruyun frowned.
She sounds familiar…
…
Wait a second, wasn’t she another cast member during the last show?
… something like that…
Good to know that she’s doing well, I guess. I always see her in the news, is she paying for articles?
Xia Ruyun hesitated for a moment. Her thumb hovered over the article. After deliberation though, she put down her phone and returned to her script.
Not my business anyway. No point in trying to read into it…
---
As one woman studied her script, another sat in a restaurant near the hotel in a private room. Li Feiling sat across from her manager, Ye Shuhua, as they caught up on work. As waiters brought their last dish into the room, Ye Shuhua put away her tablet. “That should be all of your promotional shoot obligations in the coming few days. Is everything clear?”
“Mhm, makes sense,” Li Feiling filled a small bowl with soup before spinning the food back to Ye Shuhua. “
“Done eating already? Isn’t soup your end of meal dish?” Ye Shuhua raised an eyebrow. “Or are you eating more after your soup for once.”
“My bowl of food earlier wasn’t that small,” Li Feiling shrugged, a smile dancing across her lips.
“Well, a fair bit smaller than what you were eating during the last film,” Ye Shuhua used a chopstick to point at Li Feiling’s now-empty first bowl sitting off to the side.
“It’s not like I need to be as muscular as I was during the last film,” Li Feiling sipped from her bowl. “Don’t worry, I’ve been in contact with Liu Qiangli. I just have to keep the food a little lighter and the portions a little smaller since I’m shooting right now, I can’t let my figure slip, can I?”
“Sure, sure,” Ye Shuhua shook her head. “Whatever you say, young miss.”
“Eugh, don’t call me that,” Li Feiling rolled her eyes. “You’re just like Xia Ruyun. Calling me names for no reason.”
“Am I now?” Ye Shuhua took a spoonful from the soup and drizzled it over her rice. She reached out and plucked some cabbage and tofu from the soup and put it into her own bowl.
Li Feiling drained her bowl of soup. After setting the bowl down with a clink, she wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Yeah, she was teasing me the other day because Wu Linjie keeps calling me Esteemed Sister Feiling. Just… eugh. Made me shudder. Wu Linjie should just call me by my name.”
“Well, he respects you, and you two have a history,” Ye Shuhua spoke before digging into her food. After swallowing a bite, she continued. “And what about Xia Ruyun, then?”
“Xia Ruyun’s fine, I don’t really care what she calls me, even if it is for no reason,” Li Feiling shrugged. Casual, she stretched back into her seat and rubbed her stomach.
Ye Shuhua put down her bowl. Seeing no further comments coming, she murmured “Interesting” before changing the topic. “By the way, Li Feijian reached out to me. He wanted to ask if you would be willing to help at the company because he’s busy.”
“What? No,” Li Feiling sat back up with a frown. “Why would I do that?”
“He said he’s willing to give you shares,” Ye Shuhua added.
“Still no, I have enough money already,” Li Feiling rolled her eyes with a snort. “Tell him to go ask mom and dad.”
“I’ll let him know,” Ye Shuhua laughed. “Would you be willing to do some advertisements for him at least?”
“I mean… sure, but he still has to pay the same rate as everyone else,” Li Feiling crossed her arms. “Can’t let my older brother cheat me out of labor.”
“He wouldn’t dare,” Ye Shuhua shook her head. “Has he ever after all these years?”
“Nope, but that’s because I’m very firm on my ideals,” Li Feiling puffed out her chest. “I’d never bend my ideals like that. You know me.”
Ye Shuhua opened her mouth to retort, only to pause.
Well…
Hmm.
“I guess you’re right... I can’t think of a time where you did sacrifice your ideals.”