CH 58

November 7, 2021kaychandra

Chapter 58: Filming Location

When Gongxi Qiao came out of the shower and changed into his pajamas, he noticed that Xi Qing’s face was a little red, so he picked up the remote control on the table and turned down the temperature of the air conditioner by a few degrees. “This air conditioner is too old, and the cooling function isn’t very good.”

“It’s okay.” Xi Qing moved his eyes away from Gongxi Qiao’s neck that still had water droplets on it. However, when he saw the open bathroom door, he once again moved his eyes unnaturally to the ground. “The rain outside has become lighter. Are you guys going to continue filming tomorrow?”

“If it doesn’t rain tomorrow morning, we definitely will. One more day of waiting is one more day of wasting money.” Gongxi Qiao threw the dirty clothes he had changed out of on the chair and flipped the wet hair on top of his head to the side. “Not to mention that with you as an investor, the crew will definitely shoot more carefully and perform more enthusiastically.”

Xi Qing handed him the hair dryer that was on the table. “Blow dry your hair before you sleep.”

“Thanks.” Gongxi Qiao sat down on the bed and turned on the hair dryer, which made a whirring sound.

Because his robe was a bit loose, when Gongxi Qiao held up his hand with the hair dryer, it revealed his white and firm chest. It was neither too weak nor muscular, but with an indescribable sexiness.

Xi Qing’s gaze lingered on Gongxi Qiao’s chest for a few seconds. Then he turned his head to look at the air conditioning unit on the wall, which showed 22 degrees C. He frowned. Was this air conditioner broken? Why did he still feel hot at this temperature while wearing his summer pajamas?

“When you appeared downstairs, I almost thought I was seeing things.” A few minutes later, after touching the roots of his hair to make sure it was almost dry, he turned off the hair dryer and said, “I didn’t think it was really you.”

Even his dad, who was too busy to leave because of work, only sent him some daily necessities and snacks a week ago. He didn’t believe that the head of the Xi family would be more leisurely than his dad, a private entrepreneur.

“Am I interrupting your work?” Xi Qing hesitated. “If it caused trouble for the crew, I ……” He paused and got up and unplugged the hairdryer. “In the future, after using these small appliances, make sure to unplug it.”

“Mm-hm,” Gongxi Qiao nodded, lifting the quilt. “It’s late, let’s go to sleep.”

The bed in the standard room of the hotel wasn’t narrow, one meter eight in width, enough for a big man like Gongxi Qiao to roll around in the bed. But squeezing two people in, the space was halved.

“Which side of the bed do you want?” Gongxi Qiao looked at the bed. “I have to get up early for makeup tomorrow, so why don’t you sleep on the inside and I’ll sleep on the outside, so I don’t wake you up when I get up.”

“Okay.” Xi Qing saw that a brand new blanket was on the bed, and it looked like someone had made the bed recently.

The two of them were lying on the bed, covered with the blanket, with the air-conditioner blowing. The atmosphere was indescribably good.

After turning off the lights, the room was silent. Xi Qing wasn’t much of a talker, and Gongxi Qiao was sharing a bed with a friend for the first time, so he didn’t know what to say. But even so, the atmosphere didn’t seem awkward, but rather indescribably peaceful.

Half an hour later, Gongxi Qiao’s dazed voice reached Xi Qing’s ears.

“I’m actually really happy that you came to visit the set. Thanks.”

In the darkness, Xi Qing opened his eyes and a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. “We’re friends. You’re welcome.”

Gongxi Qiao turned around, facing the direction Xi Qing was lying. He smiled and said, “Good night.”

“Good night.”

He didn’t have any dreams that night. When Gongxi Qiao woke up, it was 5:30 a.m. He glanced at Xi Qing, who was still sleeping. He dressed quietly, grabbed his toiletries, and knocked on the room next door.

“Qiao Shao.” He Peng opened the door of his room and saw Gongxi Qiao’s things. He turned his head in the direction of the bathroom and yelled, “Old Jiang, have you finished brushing your teeth yet? Qiao Shao is here.”

Jiang Long wiped the toothpaste foam around his mouth and walked out of the bathroom. He smiled good-naturedly at Gongxi Qiao. “Qiao Shao, good morning.”

“Good morning.” Gongxi Qiao shook the mouthwash cup he was holding, “I came to borrow your bathroom. Da Xi is still sleeping, and I’m afraid that if I make too much noise, I’ll wake him up.”

After everything was packed up, Gongxi Qiao raised his wrist to look at the time and said to Jiang Long and He Peng, “It’s getting late, let’s go down and meet up.”

He went back to the room to grab his cell phone. Seeing that Xi Qing wasn’t yet awake, he quietly walked out of the room and closed the door. The room was once again quiet.

Xi Qing, who hadn’t moved in the bed, opened his eyes and looked at the closed door. Finally, his eyes fell on the pillow where Gongxi Qiao had slept. He slowly reached out and touched it, and leaned his head on it.

The pillow had a faint mint smell, the smell of the shampoo. Xi Qing closed his eyes, pulled Gongxi Qiao’s blanket over himself, closed his eyes, and continued to pretend to be asleep.

The weather was just as the crew expected, a sunny day. Because of the rain, the wet ground made it very humid, and the sun overhead was really strong. Everyone felt like a bun in a steamer, hot and stuffy. Before 9 a.m., their clothes were already soaked.

When Xi Qing followed Producer Zhou to the filming site, Gongxi Qiao was shooting a fight scene. At this time, Gongxi Qiao was dressed in a snowy white costume, wearing an immortal style wig, but the expression on his face was very strange to Xi Qing.

The Gongxi Qiao he usually had contact with was mostly lazy, elegant, intelligent and humorous, but definitely not this indifferent and ruthless.

The role Gongxi Qiao was playing was like a carefully carved jade statue. No part of his body wasn’t exquisite, but he had no vitality.

Without post-processing, the swordplay was definitely not as fast as lightning as shown in TV dramas, but nevertheless, the swordplay performed by Gongxi Qiao, who was hanging on a wire, was perfect and impeccable.

There was a murderous aura and sword momentum. Even a layman who didn’t know martial arts could see that his swordplay wasn’t random, but had a fixed pattern. That was why it looked so good.

Looking at this kind of Gongxi Qiao, Xi Qing stopped in his tracks and looked up in awe at the person hanging from the wire, already lost in thought.

He couldn’t help but think that it was a source of pride for him to fall in love with such a person.

“Qiao Shao’s acting skills are very good, and he’s also very agile in martial arts moves. The martial arts director in the group said that he has the strongest comprehension ability among all the actors when it comes to martial arts.” Producer Zhou knew exactly who Xi Qing was focusing on, so he went on and on about Gongxi Qiao’s merits. “And scriptwriter Lin also said that when this movie airs, Qiao Shao’s Immortal Emperor Yunheng will definitely become a classic that will drive countless female fans crazy.”

Xi Qing inclined his head to look at him and said lightly, “Is that so?”

“Qiao Shao was born to do this. His acting skills are very superb and his interpretation of the role is very accurate.” Although Producer Zhou to some degree was flattering Gongxi Qiao, he mostly really appreciated him, because Gongxi Qiao’s performance was enough to amaze many people.

Xi Qing didn’t say anything. Only after noticing that the back of Gongxi Qiao’s costume had been soaked through, he frowned. “Xiao Qiao …… How long does he have to hang up there?”

“Qiao Shao’s sense of drama is very good. He should be able to finish shooting these shots in about half an hour.” Producer Zhou took Xi Qing to sit beside the director. “Big boss, sit down first.”

Xi Qing looked at the sunshade overhead, and looked at Gongxi Qiao under the blazing sun. He pursed his lips and didn’t speak.

‘Cultivation’ wasn’t a simple love story. In this movie, the most important thing, regardless of gender, wasn’t love, but the cultivation level and the fate of the world.

What was immortality? What was cultivation? Immortal discipline taught to stay away from the mundane, not to be tainted with karma and right and wrong. The main character, Immortal Emperor Yunheng, cultivated the Merciless Path, but walked the Great Path of the Common People.

He was said to be ruthless, because he didn’t value love, or even karma, and adhered to the path of his own conscience.

The story began with a catastrophe in the secular world, but ended with world peace. Yunheng had encountered treacherous mortals, and mortals who sacrificed themselves for others. He had encountered cultivators who thought they were above the common people, and also cultivators who fought for mortals.

The Great Dao of the world was intangible, and the life span of mortals was short, but from his point of view, there was no difference between mortals and cultivators, because both were born and grew and died, only the length of time was different. This world hadn’t seen anyone achieve immortality for nearly a thousand years, so in his eyes, the current path of cultivators was wrong.

However, he couldn’t change others. The only thing he could do was to stick to his own conscience and keep going.

In the end, he, who was ruthless in the eyes of other cultivators, sacrificed himself for the sake of the common people of the world and restored peace to the world, which had been scourged by the devils.

After his death, suddenly a sacred light of virtue descended from the heavens to the earth. No one knew whether this was the result of Immortal Emperor Yunheng’s cultivation, or whether the heavens had mercy on all things and allowed the earth to be blessed by virtue.

In this land, gradually more and more cultivators accumulated karma for the sake of the common people until, after five hundred years, there were finally once again cultivators ascending to immortality.

Lin Yu was a meticulous screenwriter, so the characters under her pen were always alive with flesh and blood. But because of this, the movies made from her scripts were more likely to touch the hearts of the audience.

As a good screenwriter, the world created by her pen was alive.

In order to play this role well, Gongxi Qiao studied the script countless times, and finally portrayed an Immortal Emperor Yunheng that the screenwriter, director and himself were satisfied with.

“Xiao Qiao did a good job in these shots. OK, it passed!” Plunged into the world of filming, Director Jiao completely didn’t notice that there was an extra Xi Qing next to him. He said with a face full of excitement, “Just now that sidelong look of ignoring the villain was simply perfect, keep it up. Let’s proceed to the next shot. No. 2 push close. No. 3 pay attention to the close-up of the hand.”

“You and other filth need not say any more.” The man looked ahead with an expressionless face, raised his hand and pointed across with the tip of his sword. “My name isn’t for you and others to call.”

Twisting up a sword flourish with his backhand, he stepped on the immortal sword under his feet and flew forward, his snow-white figure flying through the forest like an immortal phantom. In just a few moves, the demons in his way were turned into smoke and dust.

He looked coldly at the open space in front of him and soared away without hesitation.

After this series of shots was done, Gongxi Qiao’s waist was almost numb from hanging. After being lowered from above, he took the water handed over by Xiao Yao and drank several mouthfuls before he had the energy to deal with the compliments of the surrounding staff.

A towel was handed to him, and he took it before realizing that the person handing it was Xi Qing. He wiped the sweat from his forehead while saying, “When did you arrive?”

“I’ve been here for a while, but I didn’t call out to you because you were filming.” Xi Qing pulled him down under the sun umbrella and handed him a bottle of herbal ice tea that was still cold. “My bodyguard just brought it up the mountain, it’s herbal tea, drink some of it to cool down.”

“Thanks.” The cold tea went down his throat and into his stomach. Gongxi Qiao instantly felt cooler. He let out a long breath, “Did you think my actions were silly just now?”

There were no special effects when they were acting live, but the actors had to act like, ‘I’m cool, I’m awesome.’ If there were no staff around, that kind of behavior would probably be mistaken for insanity.

“No, it looked good,” Xi Qing said, looking at Gongxi Qiao’s back. The costume was soaked through and stuck to his back. It seemed water would drip out if he squeezed it.

“Mr. Gongxi, we need to make up a shot of you standing sideways.” A staff member ran over and saw Xi Qing talking to Gongxi Qiao. He nodded respectfully to Xi Qing before apologizing, “Please fix your makeup and we’ll finish the shot as soon as possible.”

“No problem.” Gongxi Qiao nodded, and then several staff members gathered around, some blowing on his back with a small electric fan to let the costume dry as soon as possible, and some touching up the makeup at the corners of his eyes and eyebrows. In less than ten minutes, Gongxi Qiao again stood under the blazing sun for filming.

Producer Zhou noticed Xi Qing’s unhappy face and hurriedly explained with a smile, “This is how filming is done in the crew. Sometimes it’s possible to go back and forth dozens of times for a single shot.”

Xi Qing stepped out from under the sun umbrella. Feeling the sunlight stinging his skin, he looked at Gongxi Qiao not far away in a daze, hiding the distress in his eyes.

About half an hour later, Gongxi Qiao finally finished shooting. He walked straight towards Xi Qing and saw him standing in the sun. He was a bit puzzled. “The sun is so hot, why are you standing here?” With Xi Qing’s status, didn’t someone arrange a cooler and more convenient location for him to watch the filming?

“It’s nothing. I just want to see how you guys usually shoot.” Xi Qing handed him an open drink bottle. “Actors don’t have it easy.”

“It’s not easy in any profession.” Gongxi Qiao took a few big sips of his drink and smiled. “The crew is actually taking care of me. They started filming my scenes early this morning. It would have been even hotter if they started filming in the afternoon.” He stretched out his hand and pulled Xi Qing back under the sunshade. Gongxi Qiao sat down on a chair and sighed comfortably. “Aiya, I’ve almost finished shooting my scenes today. I can take a good rest after one scene in the afternoon.”

Xi Qing took a fan from the nearby table and shook it gently at Gongxi Qiao. “Take care of your health.”

“Thanks.” Feeling the comfort of the fresh breeze on his face, Gongxi Qiao’s face revealed a relaxed smile.

Director Jiao, who had just come out of his mental world of work, was a little puzzled when he noticed that his fan had disappeared. Who was so bold as to sneakily take away his fan?

When he saw the fan held in the hand of Lord Xi, he silently and wordlessly withdrew his eyes.

Heh, it’s just a fan.