Chapter 118
Li Chu woke up the next day feeling sore all over, realizing she had been tricked. She knew Ning Manqing couldn't be so easily affected by the script and get into character. The old pervert was still an old pervert.
Although Fifty Years Rewound had officially started production, the official filming date was mid-March.
Ning Manqing had set aside enough time to read the script and hand over important matters to her assistant to ensure that she could grasp the general direction of the company remotely while on set.
The movie had already generated some buzz during its pre-production publicity. After all, it came with its own fanbase, and Ning Manqing's special status attracted even more attention.
CP fans were overjoyed when they learned that their idols were going to film a romance movie, leaving messages on the official Weibo account, pleading with them not to deceive them. After all, in the previous two dramas, during promotions, the leads had also smiled mysteriously, claiming the dramas were sweet, only for the fans to find themselves chewing on glass shards hidden within the sugar.
In the makeup room on set, Ning Manqing was getting her makeup done.
She was having her old-age makeup applied for the beginning of the film. This makeup was time-consuming, and Ning Manqing had been sitting still for two hours.
Her face no longer showed any traces of youthful beauty, as if she were truly a 67-year-old woman.
Ning Manqing was applying wrinkles to the skin on her hands, while Li Chu sat beside her, resting her chin in her hand, watching.
“Even at 67, you're still a beautiful woman. As expected of our Teacher Ning.”
Li Chu affirmed. The marks of time were startling in contrast, but if they both reached that age, they would still be each other's old babies.
Ning Manqing raised her other hand, which hadn't been made up yet, and pinched Li Chu's nose.
She didn't speak, only smiled, but the smile and the action of her hand already conveyed her answer.
She wouldn't speculate on what Li Chu would look like at 67 because, based on her personality, she believed there was no point in looking decades into the future. She wouldn't care about Li Chu's appearance then; she would only care about whether Li Chu was healthy and could continue to enjoy the beauty of the world.
Ten minutes later, Ning Manqing's styling was complete.
When she stood up and put on her costume, there was still a sense of dissonance. Although the exposed skin looked aged, it couldn't conceal her graceful figure and the vigor of her youth.
She walked step by step into the set, her body becoming more hunched until she entered the frame, as if she had merged with the gray-haired woman in the play.
The scene was stunning. The transformation was gradual, yet it seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. A truly good actor didn't just rely on facial expressions to convey information; even a silhouette could carry a lot of meaning.
Seeing the amazed expressions of the people around her, Li Chu felt even more proud.
That was the three-time Best Actress winner, the White Shark of the business world, and her lover.
In Fifty Years Rewound , the protagonist was named Zhou Nian.
The opening scene was her children attending her birthday banquet. As she grew older, her energy waned. After the banquet, she only invited her eldest daughter and her granddaughter into the room.
She didn't speak, just quietly looked at her middle-aged daughter.
“If she were to be reborn, she would be about your age.”
The granddaughter tilted her head, not understanding, and was about to ask a question when her mother tugged at her, stopping her.
But children could never contain their curiosity. The granddaughter couldn't help but chirp with many questions.
Zhou Nian smiled and answered them one by one, reminiscing about the woman she couldn't have.
Because she had been ill before her birthday, and it lingered, she quickly became exhausted. On the low cabinet beside the bed lay her unfinished book. She asked her eldest daughter to read it to her, but her granddaughter volunteered.
“Love is a moment of weakness, a mood of turning to others for help. It's not asking for others' giving, but asking for their participation.”
The book was Shi Tiesheng's Notes from a Sickbed . The child's voice reading the mature words was somewhat amusing, but after the amusement came an inexplicable pang of sadness.
Zhou Nian's eyelashes trembled, every line on her face filled with helplessness.
The granddaughter could read the words but couldn't understand their meaning, continuing to read innocently, “Love is the incompleteness under division appealing to others for wholeness, or even asking hell for heaven. Love is so difficult, often falling into predicament.”
Amidst this innocent voice, Zhou Nian closed her eyes and fell asleep.
In the script, there was a thunderstorm that night, but there was no rain on set, and there was no need to create rain. This part would be handled in post-production.
Ning Manqing filmed some additional shots and then started preparing for the next scene.
Her role in this makeup wasn't just for the beginning; there was also a scene of meeting in a dream.
However, in the next scene, she didn't have any lines because that scene was presented through the dream of another protagonist.
While Ning Manqing was filming, Li Chu also finished her makeup and styling.
The costumes, hair, and makeup for modern dramas were simpler than those for historical dramas, and she didn't need complex makeup, so it was quickly done.
Her hair was already long, which perfectly matched the image of the other female lead, Wu Tang. Slightly curled long hair with bangs and the styling created a gentle and sexy look.
In Wu Tang's timeline, she went to see the young girl she was supporting as usual. She didn't know that the girl in front of her had a different soul. On her way back that night, she had a strange dream, dreaming of an aged Zhou Nian.
In the dream, Wu Tang was surprised and amused, as if in the blink of an eye, the child she had watched grow up had become a gray-haired old woman.
The lighting on set was soft, the surroundings dim, and the light cut in from an oblique angle, bringing a hazy feeling, indicating that this was not a real scene.
Li Chu got into character, looking at the woman sitting there, her face first confused, then filled with an unspeakable surprise and melancholy.
“Is it Xiao Nian?”
She inexplicably identified her, touching the hair of the person in front of her with a wry smile.
“How did you grow up so fast?”
It was a young woman and an old woman, yet they reflected the past.
Rather than saying it was Wu Tang's dream, it was more like the dream of the elderly Zhou Nian. In her dream, the person who had left was as if they had just gone out for a while, and then time flew by. When she opened the door, she was surprised to see that the girl of the past was now old, still treating her like a child.
The director yelled "cut," but Li Chu didn't immediately snap out of character. She gazed at her lover's aged face, a gentle rain falling in her heart.
Ning Manqing hooked her pinky finger. The makeup only created a visual difference; her fingers were still soft and warm, making Li Chu stare in a daze.
Li Chu's mind wandered inappropriately, thinking that if Ning Manqing were really sixty-seven, her fingers would be thin and dry, and it wouldn't be comfortable. But if Ning Manqing was sixty-seven, she would be sixty-four. In the normal world, she would have long been menopausal, and in this world, she would probably have long stopped having heats, so there was no need to worry about that.
After her thoughts returned, Li Chu snapped out of character, thinking tearfully, what the hell was she thinking at such a romantic and sentimental moment? Was this the backbone of a practical person?
Fifty Years Rewound was actually a commercial film, but the screenwriter and director were from an art-house background, and they wanted Li Chu and Ning Manqing to star in it. So after failing to get funding from Juxing Pictures, they immediately turned to Li Chu's studio, which was owned by the boss's wife, to try their luck.
It was always difficult for people to change their habits. So sometimes, in the warm and clean scenes, there was inevitably a hint of moist ambiguity. This rhythm was a bit fragmented, so reshoots were often necessary.
The director was quite worried that the investors would be angry because of her slip-ups and tried hard to control herself, but sometimes her mind just couldn't be controlled.
Li Chu and Ning Manqing decided to talk to her. The director tearfully said that the story she wanted to film was darker, but that would make it niche and attract a lot of criticism.
Li Chu asked, “For example?”
“For example,” the director sighed, “Zhou Nian didn't discover the evidence of Wu Tang's wife's crime, but deliberately set a trap, causing Wu Tang's wife to suffer from a serious illness and be imprisoned. She also schemingly isolated Wu Tang from everyone else, controlling her in a vacuum environment except for herself. Wu Tang eventually discovered this and wanted to leave, but... anyway, it gradually fell apart.”
Li Chu exclaimed, "Good heavens!" It changed from a warm, healing, mutually pursuing drama to a dark, obsessive, sadomasochistic drama, from "I'm the Big Boss's Pampered Pet" to "I'm in the Obsessive's Basement." Honestly, if it were the latter, Li Chu wouldn't have accepted it initially. This kind of love was morbid, crazy, and depressing. Whether in terms of storytelling or commercial value, the former was superior.
Ning Manqing pondered for a moment and said, “Then film what you want to film first, and then don't mess up.”
She was the major investor, so these words carried absolute weight.
The director was overjoyed, almost sliding to hug her leg and saying, "Mom, you're the best!"
Li Chu: ???
She had reason to suspect that Ning Manqing just wanted to use filming as an excuse to engage in those indecent plays, like the basement series.
Ning Manqing blinked at her, pretending not to understand her expression.
These were all the director's ideas. What bad intentions could the investor have? She was just acting according to the director's ideas.
So, it wasn't just the director who was having a split personality; the entire crew was splitting along with her.
In the morning, it was a warm and redeeming scene of eating hot pot together, and in the afternoon, it was a morbid cage of collapse.
Qian Duoduo said dizzily that filming this drama felt like watching two movies, and it was officially produced fan fiction.
Yuanzi and A Yao deeply agreed. Tang Congnan, who occasionally visited the set, was so angry that his teeth itched but couldn't do anything about it. He inwardly condemned Ning Manqing's behavior of using public funds for love. Every day, the money flowing out of the production was a waterfall.
The director was like a happy little bird, fluttering in the world of capital.
Ning Manqing switched between the two filming states very well, and Li Chu felt like she was practicing her acting skills every day.
In one scene, she was looking at her young lover, and in the next, she was trying to escape but was caught and dragged back.
The car stopped in place, and the scenery on the tracks created a moving scene. She sat in the car, wanting to call for help, but someone covered her mouth and pulled her back.
“Where are you going?”
The woman's voice behind her was full of malice, and the cool hand moved up her leg, reaching under her skirt.
Li Chu tilted her head back, her body stiffening, whimpering a few times, unable to speak.
There was no such expanded plot in the script! Don't think you can do whatever you want just because there's no camera in the car!
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