Hua Jin, however, merely tucked his head and gave a few dull hums as acknowledgment. He could not even bother to give the director a cursory reply.
Gu Xiaoyang wanted to continue scolding him, but he got hold of himself when he glanced at the actor. Apparently, he was concerned about offending this person. Nothing would come out well with him being overly critical with this guy. Moreover, he had berated him in public; his anger could be considered as somewhat vented.
As such, he swallowed down whatever anger he had left and, after taking several, deep breaths, lectured him. "Act your part well from now on!"
"Okay. I got it, director."
The idol's lackadaisical and careless response, which sounded like provocation, evoked the director's suppressed anger again.
Furious, he charged over and pressed up against him as he regarded the latter with a threatening glare. Speaking in a voice that only the two of them could hear, the former spat, "Wipe the thought from your mind that your strong backer excuses your ostentatious behavior in the production team! Your supporter may be why you're able to enter this team, but it doesn't mean that I have to be at your mercy! Pull up your socks or get lost if you don't want to act properly!"
"I'm staying." An evil smirk spread across the latter's face and he blew a breath at the former. "Kick me out of the crew if you can, director."
"You!"
The director clenched his fists in anger and, after several rounds of attempting to exercise forbearance, turned to leave abruptly.
Yun Shishi could not make a head or tail of this sudden development and was quite dumbfounded at how the scene had unfolded. She then studied her co-actor, who was arrogantly standing there with a frown. He seemed to be feeling indignant. She could tell that he was purposely making things difficult for the director.
As such, she walked to him and patiently asked, "Can you act properly?"
The moment she spoke, his tone somehow softened as he smilingly replied, "I did act properly!"
"Was that the result of proper acting then? Be it your positioning or line-reading, nothing was right at all! How many times have you repeated your few lines?"
The man pouted, feeling somewhat displeased by her admonishment. "I'm not in good form."
"You're given plenty of time to get into the right condition, yet you're telling me now that you're in no good form? Don't you find yourself being unprofessional and half-hearted like this?"
Their interaction had the rest of the production crew curiously looking over. They were startled to see the rookie actress speaking to the beloved idol in such a manner.
It was no secret to them that the idol had a powerful backer; hence, no one dared to offend him even when he threw his weight around here.
Trust the rookie actress to call him out in public just like that!
Everyone else witnessing this secretly marveled, How gutsy of her!
Hua Jin kept mum, though.
Still, that did not stop her from criticizing him. "Please stay focused and put more effort in your acting. It isn't the first or second time that this has happened! Everyone here is tired, especially the director, who's been involved with the filming for the entire day. Can't you empathize with them? Is it necessary for the rest to suffer with you on this cold night?"
The actor only responded with: "I'm feeling down."
"Feeling down?" A heated laughter burst out from Yun Shishi. "Everyone has to suffer with you just because you're feeling down? Aren't you being quite selfish here?!"
He stared at her, dumbfounded, before suddenly posing a question in an extremely strange tone, "Are you rushing to end the filming to go home?"
"Pardon?"
"You have someone waiting for you at home, so you are anxious to finish the shoot and go back to accompany that person, right?"