Chapter 12
Thanks to Shi Xi, everyone in the studio thought there was something between Gu Feining and him.
The male actors who used to take care of Gu Feining now consciously kept three meters away from her. Due to Shi Xi’s influence, none of the guys were hanging around Gu Feining anymore.
Gu Feining didn’t know how to explain it to the others. So rather than taking the initiative to clarify, she decided to just leave this misunderstanding alone.
In fact, including the previous time, Gu Feining had already been attacked by Shi Xi twice.
He was becoming more and more skillful. He’d escaped immediately after hugging her, leaving the people inside the studio to misunderstand their relationship.
But everyone knew the rules. Everything that happens in the studio stays in the studio. That is, aside from the photographer who had taken photos just now, who was at a loss as he held the camera. The photo of these two people hugging, if it were sold…
Gu Feining also noticed the photographer and smiled while walking over to him, asking him to send the photo to her later so that she could post it on Weibo.
The photographer hurriedly nodded, expressing he would sort out the photos and send them to her later.
Gu Feining let out a sigh of relief.
Her words indirectly meant she had noticed him taking pictures, so if such a thing was exposed, she would know who the source was. No photographer would want to take the risk of ruining their reputation over such a matter.
In the past, she had never realized she had to pay attention to so many things in the entertainment industry. The photoshoot that day started with Shi Xi’s unexpected actions. The production team put a lot of effort into this, even building their own sets. They also hired many teams of directors and photographers. There would probably be many instances in the future that required such manpower and preparation.
Gu Feining’s turn with Shi Xi could only start at around three in the afternoon. In the morning, she had taken a peek at Shi Xi and Zhong Lin’s part. When she went over, Shi Xi was filming an action scene. They were fighting intensely but he didn’t look nervous at all.
Shi Xi was tall, and he was also a singer and dancer. His fighting scenes were very beautiful and he had a strong awareness of the camera. This was probably the advantage that these dancer-singers had. They had a lot of control over the camera and knew how to present themselves so that they looked their best in front of the camera.
This greatly surprised Gu Feining. His vigorous and impeccable movements were especially attractive.
Many girls would be charmed by his appearance in this scene.
The part that Gu Feining and Shi Xi were filming would be heart-wrenching. Gu Feining’s solo part was about the simple separation of the couple while the scene with Shi Xi was an upgraded version, separation by death. However, the spotlight wasn’t on her, it was on Shi Xi. She was only responsible for dying.
As this was the very first acting variety show for Shi Xi, he needed to hand in his first homework.
He was trying many different kinds of roles in one go. He must be extremely tired today. When Gu Feining saw him, she could tell how exhausted he was.
The mentors had some time to take breaks whereas Shi Xi had no time to rest at all. Because they were in a hurry to avoid delaying the filming, along with the fact that everyone had their own schedule, they only had one day to film all these scenes. Thankfully, Gu Feining was on a holiday this month, so her schedule was quite flexible.
It was just that it wasn’t easy for actors to shoot several scenes with a variety of emotions in one day. Furthermore, Shi Xi was new to acting.
During the scene where Gu Feining and Shi Xi were separated by death, Shi Xi filmed the entire scene with red-rimmed eyes.
Gu Feining was just a dying patient lying on the hospital bed. Then at last she woke up, like the glowing embers of a setting sun, and the two of them had a conversation. She just had to speak weakly, but Shi Xi’s part was more emotionally complex.
What surprised Gu Feining was that Shi Xi performed quite well. Although the tension of the scene was insufficient, as soon as she saw his expressions, Gu Feining knew he was much better than many of those popular young actors nowadays.
His raw talent had exceeded Gu Feining’s expectations. As a newcomer, he was definitely someone born to be in the entertainment industry. Gu Feining had originally prepared to stay up late today to film, but she realized that she had totally underestimated Shi Xi.
As of now, she felt Shi Xi’s only problem was that he wasn’t very good at delivering lines. That was inevitable. It was hard to do well without a long-term accumulation of experience.
Gu Feining lay on the hospital bed and listened to Shi Xi act the scene out over and over again. He slowly got better and better and had more and more explosive emotions which caused her to feel a little breathless. His emotions were strong enough to even affect others.
It took almost four hours to shoot the scene on the hospital bed, and they had missed dinnertime.
After shooting, Gu Feining sat on one side of the sofa silently. She hadn’t even eaten two mouthfuls of the food the production team had prepared. She had gone through too many emotional turmoils today. After experiencing a failure in her relationship, she had experienced the emotions of being separated from her lover due to death. Thus, she was having trouble returning to her normal state of mind.
This was the problem with being an actor. If you wanted to show the audience the true emotions of a character, you needed to truly feel it, and the extent of emotions you felt when acting naturally would have to be the same as how the character themself would feel.
Suddenly, a cup of water was handed to Gu Feining. Shi Xi squatted in front of her, raising his head to look up at her face.
“Why do you look so upset?” Shi Xi reached out and pinched Gu Feining’s face.
Gu Feining didn’t resist, only shaking her head and said, “It’s nothing.”
She took the cup of water and placed it at the side.
When Shi Xi saw how Gu Feining was behaving, he asked her, “Do you need me to comfort you?”
Gu Feining shook her head again. She wasn’t feeling horrible, she was just unable to get out of character.
However, Gu Feining had yet to speak when Shi Xi reached out to place his hand at the back of her head and pull her into his arms.
She hadn’t had a chance to react to what was going on when Shi Xi whispered in her ear, “You gave me encouragement earlier, let me give you comfort now.”
Gu Feining didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. When did she say she needed comfort?
He was the one who wanted encouragement, and he was the one who wanted to comfort her.
Gu Feining suddenly realized she couldn’t beat Shi Xi. As long as Shi Xi was involved, she’d lose control of the situation.
Although Shi Xi didn’t do anything that repulsed her, she had been alone for so long she was unable to get used to someone invading her life like this.
They had finished filming the hardest parts, and it was quite easy to film the remainder. The two of them filmed the portion when they were in school, the part where they graduated, their work, and marriage scenes. These were all parts of the flashbacks that would be shown when the character was reminiscing about their relationship. Although every scene was likely to be aired for just one or two seconds, the production team still put a lot of effort into filming them.
Shi Xi and Gu Feining felt like they had lived through these two characters’ lives, from getting acquainted with each other to falling in love, they truly went through the whole relationship from the beginning to the end.
Finally, when Shi Xi held Gu Feining’s face and kissed her on her forehead, they reached the end of the story. All that was left was up to the editors.
Gu Feining didn’t expect them to have such chemistry while working together. When the filming ended, she heard the staffs’ talk and realized that it wasn’t Shi Xi’s session with her that went well, his performance with Teacher Gu and Zhong Lin was also not bad.
It seemed he had indeed come fully prepared.
It was already past eleven at night when they ended work. Gu Feining removed her makeup, changed her clothes, and left. As soon as she opened the car door, she saw Shi Xi was sitting in her minivan, and Xiao Mang, who was behind her, hurriedly covered her mouth, forcing herself not to scream.
Shi Xi looked at Gu Feining, resting his head in his hand, and said, “Teacher Zhong said we should go out and have a drink together. I’ll have to freeload off you for a ride there.”
If an important senior asked them out for drinks, they had to go.
“Where’s your car?” Gu Feining didn’t want to sit in the same car as Shi Xi. They had just started filming their variety show, and there were definitely going to be reporters following them.
Shi Xi smiled, “My car led the reporters away.”
What else could Gu Feining say? Shi Xi had already made preparations with everything into consideration.
The place they would have a drink at was actually the high-class bar below the hotel. The ambiance was good and they found a private room to sit in. All the staff in the production team had arrived. Zhong Lin had good connections in the entertainment industry, and he was also thoughtful. Eating together was a great way of getting to know everyone.
Gu Feining didn’t drink. Because they had to film tomorrow, they didn’t force anyone to drink. If you wanted to drink, you could. Otherwise, you could drink water instead of alcohol. The atmosphere was quite good. Shi Xi was still the center of attention, everyone surrounded him.
Gu Feining sat at the side and ate quietly. When they mentioned her, she would say some words. All she needed to do was to be polite.
When it reached the wee hours, their gathering was about to end.
Gu Feining had gone to the bathroom in the middle of it and was caught by Zhong Lin as soon as she came back. The film emperor seemed to have drunk too much and grabbed her, insisting on having a drink with her. She couldn’t get out of it and was forced to drink a cup. She truly didn’t know how to drink. When she drank, she almost choked and even teared up. Still, she forced herself to drink half a cup, with her eyebrows all scrunched up.
Just as she was about to finish drinking, her cup was snatched from her.
Shi Xi stood by her side, his expression unhappy. He looked at her a little helplessly before he told Zhong Lin, “She doesn’t drink. I’ll help her drink this cup.”
Zhong Lin’s expression turned gossipy and he patted Shi Xi’s shoulder and said, “For what reason will you drink on behalf of her?”
Shi Xi finished that cup of alcohol without reacting. He then took the cup in Zhong Lin’s hand and filled it up again, “How about I drink another cup as payment so that you won’t say anything?”
Zhong Lin was happy, “One cup is not enough.”
Shi Xi didn’t refuse and straight-up drank three cups.
Only then did Zhong Lin leave, quite satisfied. His gaze lingered on Gu Feining and Shi Xi as he wore a bright smile.
Gu Feining’s face was a little hot. She didn’t know whether it was because of Shi Xi or the alcohol.
Shi Xi predicted she wouldn’t be able to last very long given her current state and since the gathering was about to end, he led Gu Feining, who was walking unsteadily, out of the bar, bidding farewell to the people present before leaving.
Gu Feining didn’t expect that this alcohol would affect her so much. When she left the bar and got into the lift, she started to feel dizzy. When she reached her room, she didn’t even have the strength to stand and she had to lean on Shi Xi as support.
It was quite awkward being this level of drunk. She was still awake but could no longer control her body. She tried her best, wanting to stand up, but every time she stood up straight, she would fall back down.
After a few tries, Shi Xi directly grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, “Stop making trouble. If you continue, I will ignore you.”
Gu Feining didn’t listen at all. She struggled to climb out of Shi Xi’s arms and stood by the wall. She glared at Shi Xi with watery eyes, not speaking.
Shi Xi was distracted by the watery eyes looking at him in such a manner for a moment before reaching out his hand. “Your room card.”
Gu Feining shook her head, she couldn’t give her room card to people randomly, especially men.
Shi Xi patiently asked again, but she continued to shake her head.
He could only change his approach. “If you don’t go in soon, someone will come.”
Only then did she remember she couldn’t be photographed with Shi Xi, so she quickly took out her room card and opened the door, grabbing Shi Xi’s collar and dragging him in again.
Shi Xi didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. When she knocked into the wall at the entranceway, her steps were unsteady and her legs weakened again. He hurriedly picked her up and after she was standing steadily again, he stood in front and she leaned into him.
The smell of alcohol, her unfocused eyes, her soft body, and the feeling of familiarity, all made him feel restless.
Chapter 12
Thanks to Shi Xi, everyone in the studio thought there was something between Gu Feining and him.
The male actors who used to take care of Gu Feining now consciously kept three meters away from her. Due to Shi Xi’s influence, none of the guys were hanging around Gu Feining anymore.
Gu Feining didn’t know how to explain it to the others. So rather than taking the initiative to clarify, she decided to just leave this misunderstanding alone.
In fact, including the previous time, Gu Feining had already been attacked by Shi Xi twice.
He was becoming more and more skillful. He’d escaped immediately after hugging her, leaving the people inside the studio to misunderstand their relationship.
But everyone knew the rules. Everything that happens in the studio stays in the studio. That is, aside from the photographer who had taken photos just now, who was at a loss as he held the camera. The photo of these two people hugging, if it were sold…
Gu Feining also noticed the photographer and smiled while walking over to him, asking him to send the photo to her later so that she could post it on Weibo.
The photographer hurriedly nodded, expressing he would sort out the photos and send them to her later.
Gu Feining let out a sigh of relief.
Her words indirectly meant she had noticed him taking pictures, so if such a thing was exposed, she would know who the source was. No photographer would want to take the risk of ruining their reputation over such a matter.
In the past, she had never realized she had to pay attention to so many things in the entertainment industry. The photoshoot that day started with Shi Xi’s unexpected actions. The production team put a lot of effort into this, even building their own sets. They also hired many teams of directors and photographers. There would probably be many instances in the future that required such manpower and preparation.
Gu Feining’s turn with Shi Xi could only start at around three in the afternoon. In the morning, she had taken a peek at Shi Xi and Zhong Lin’s part. When she went over, Shi Xi was filming an action scene. They were fighting intensely but he didn’t look nervous at all.
Shi Xi was tall, and he was also a singer and dancer. His fighting scenes were very beautiful and he had a strong awareness of the camera. This was probably the advantage that these dancer-singers had. They had a lot of control over the camera and knew how to present themselves so that they looked their best in front of the camera.
This greatly surprised Gu Feining. His vigorous and impeccable movements were especially attractive.
Many girls would be charmed by his appearance in this scene.
The part that Gu Feining and Shi Xi were filming would be heart-wrenching. Gu Feining’s solo part was about the simple separation of the couple while the scene with Shi Xi was an upgraded version, separation by death. However, the spotlight wasn’t on her, it was on Shi Xi. She was only responsible for dying.
As this was the very first acting variety show for Shi Xi, he needed to hand in his first homework.
He was trying many different kinds of roles in one go. He must be extremely tired today. When Gu Feining saw him, she could tell how exhausted he was.
The mentors had some time to take breaks whereas Shi Xi had no time to rest at all. Because they were in a hurry to avoid delaying the filming, along with the fact that everyone had their own schedule, they only had one day to film all these scenes. Thankfully, Gu Feining was on a holiday this month, so her schedule was quite flexible.
It was just that it wasn’t easy for actors to shoot several scenes with a variety of emotions in one day. Furthermore, Shi Xi was new to acting.
During the scene where Gu Feining and Shi Xi were separated by death, Shi Xi filmed the entire scene with red-rimmed eyes.
Gu Feining was just a dying patient lying on the hospital bed. Then at last she woke up, like the glowing embers of a setting sun, and the two of them had a conversation. She just had to speak weakly, but Shi Xi’s part was more emotionally complex.
What surprised Gu Feining was that Shi Xi performed quite well. Although the tension of the scene was insufficient, as soon as she saw his expressions, Gu Feining knew he was much better than many of those popular young actors nowadays.
His raw talent had exceeded Gu Feining’s expectations. As a newcomer, he was definitely someone born to be in the entertainment industry. Gu Feining had originally prepared to stay up late today to film, but she realized that she had totally underestimated Shi Xi.
As of now, she felt Shi Xi’s only problem was that he wasn’t very good at delivering lines. That was inevitable. It was hard to do well without a long-term accumulation of experience.
Gu Feining lay on the hospital bed and listened to Shi Xi act the scene out over and over again. He slowly got better and better and had more and more explosive emotions which caused her to feel a little breathless. His emotions were strong enough to even affect others.
It took almost four hours to shoot the scene on the hospital bed, and they had missed dinnertime.
After shooting, Gu Feining sat on one side of the sofa silently. She hadn’t even eaten two mouthfuls of the food the production team had prepared. She had gone through too many emotional turmoils today. After experiencing a failure in her relationship, she had experienced the emotions of being separated from her lover due to death. Thus, she was having trouble returning to her normal state of mind.
This was the problem with being an actor. If you wanted to show the audience the true emotions of a character, you needed to truly feel it, and the extent of emotions you felt when acting naturally would have to be the same as how the character themself would feel.
Suddenly, a cup of water was handed to Gu Feining. Shi Xi squatted in front of her, raising his head to look up at her face.
“Why do you look so upset?” Shi Xi reached out and pinched Gu Feining’s face.
Gu Feining didn’t resist, only shaking her head and said, “It’s nothing.”
She took the cup of water and placed it at the side.
When Shi Xi saw how Gu Feining was behaving, he asked her, “Do you need me to comfort you?”
Gu Feining shook her head again. She wasn’t feeling horrible, she was just unable to get out of character.
However, Gu Feining had yet to speak when Shi Xi reached out to place his hand at the back of her head and pull her into his arms.
She hadn’t had a chance to react to what was going on when Shi Xi whispered in her ear, “You gave me encouragement earlier, let me give you comfort now.”
Gu Feining didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. When did she say she needed comfort?
He was the one who wanted encouragement, and he was the one who wanted to comfort her.
Gu Feining suddenly realized she couldn’t beat Shi Xi. As long as Shi Xi was involved, she’d lose control of the situation.
Although Shi Xi didn’t do anything that repulsed her, she had been alone for so long she was unable to get used to someone invading her life like this.
They had finished filming the hardest parts, and it was quite easy to film the remainder. The two of them filmed the portion when they were in school, the part where they graduated, their work, and marriage scenes. These were all parts of the flashbacks that would be shown when the character was reminiscing about their relationship. Although every scene was likely to be aired for just one or two seconds, the production team still put a lot of effort into filming them.
Shi Xi and Gu Feining felt like they had lived through these two characters’ lives, from getting acquainted with each other to falling in love, they truly went through the whole relationship from the beginning to the end.
Finally, when Shi Xi held Gu Feining’s face and kissed her on her forehead, they reached the end of the story. All that was left was up to the editors.
Gu Feining didn’t expect them to have such chemistry while working together. When the filming ended, she heard the staffs’ talk and realized that it wasn’t Shi Xi’s session with her that went well, his performance with Teacher Gu and Zhong Lin was also not bad.
It seemed he had indeed come fully prepared.
It was already past eleven at night when they ended work. Gu Feining removed her makeup, changed her clothes, and left. As soon as she opened the car door, she saw Shi Xi was sitting in her minivan, and Xiao Mang, who was behind her, hurriedly covered her mouth, forcing herself not to scream.
Shi Xi looked at Gu Feining, resting his head in his hand, and said, “Teacher Zhong said we should go out and have a drink together. I’ll have to freeload off you for a ride there.”
If an important senior asked them out for drinks, they had to go.
“Where’s your car?” Gu Feining didn’t want to sit in the same car as Shi Xi. They had just started filming their variety show, and there were definitely going to be reporters following them.
Shi Xi smiled, “My car led the reporters away.”
What else could Gu Feining say? Shi Xi had already made preparations with everything into consideration.
The place they would have a drink at was actually the high-class bar below the hotel. The ambiance was good and they found a private room to sit in. All the staff in the production team had arrived. Zhong Lin had good connections in the entertainment industry, and he was also thoughtful. Eating together was a great way of getting to know everyone.
Gu Feining didn’t drink. Because they had to film tomorrow, they didn’t force anyone to drink. If you wanted to drink, you could. Otherwise, you could drink water instead of alcohol. The atmosphere was quite good. Shi Xi was still the center of attention, everyone surrounded him.
Gu Feining sat at the side and ate quietly. When they mentioned her, she would say some words. All she needed to do was to be polite.
When it reached the wee hours, their gathering was about to end.
Gu Feining had gone to the bathroom in the middle of it and was caught by Zhong Lin as soon as she came back. The film emperor seemed to have drunk too much and grabbed her, insisting on having a drink with her. She couldn’t get out of it and was forced to drink a cup. She truly didn’t know how to drink. When she drank, she almost choked and even teared up. Still, she forced herself to drink half a cup, with her eyebrows all scrunched up.
Just as she was about to finish drinking, her cup was snatched from her.
Shi Xi stood by her side, his expression unhappy. He looked at her a little helplessly before he told Zhong Lin, “She doesn’t drink. I’ll help her drink this cup.”
Zhong Lin’s expression turned gossipy and he patted Shi Xi’s shoulder and said, “For what reason will you drink on behalf of her?”
Shi Xi finished that cup of alcohol without reacting. He then took the cup in Zhong Lin’s hand and filled it up again, “How about I drink another cup as payment so that you won’t say anything?”
Zhong Lin was happy, “One cup is not enough.”
Shi Xi didn’t refuse and straight-up drank three cups.
Only then did Zhong Lin leave, quite satisfied. His gaze lingered on Gu Feining and Shi Xi as he wore a bright smile.
Gu Feining’s face was a little hot. She didn’t know whether it was because of Shi Xi or the alcohol.
Shi Xi predicted she wouldn’t be able to last very long given her current state and since the gathering was about to end, he led Gu Feining, who was walking unsteadily, out of the bar, bidding farewell to the people present before leaving.
Gu Feining didn’t expect that this alcohol would affect her so much. When she left the bar and got into the lift, she started to feel dizzy. When she reached her room, she didn’t even have the strength to stand and she had to lean on Shi Xi as support.
It was quite awkward being this level of drunk. She was still awake but could no longer control her body. She tried her best, wanting to stand up, but every time she stood up straight, she would fall back down.
After a few tries, Shi Xi directly grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, “Stop making trouble. If you continue, I will ignore you.”
Gu Feining didn’t listen at all. She struggled to climb out of Shi Xi’s arms and stood by the wall. She glared at Shi Xi with watery eyes, not speaking.
Shi Xi was distracted by the watery eyes looking at him in such a manner for a moment before reaching out his hand. “Your room card.”
Gu Feining shook her head, she couldn’t give her room card to people randomly, especially men.
Shi Xi patiently asked again, but she continued to shake her head.
He could only change his approach. “If you don’t go in soon, someone will come.”
Only then did she remember she couldn’t be photographed with Shi Xi, so she quickly took out her room card and opened the door, grabbing Shi Xi’s collar and dragging him in again.
Shi Xi didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. When she knocked into the wall at the entranceway, her steps were unsteady and her legs weakened again. He hurriedly picked her up and after she was standing steadily again, he stood in front and she leaned into him.
The smell of alcohol, her unfocused eyes, her soft body, and the feeling of familiarity, all made him feel restless.
