CH 65

The video of Gu Qingchi ended up on the trending list, so Ye Li decided to take advantage of this opportunity to help promote his new movie.

If the film was successful, Gu Qingchi would be able to make it. It would be a lot easier to land his next role. 

As an actor, Gu Qingchi still had a ways to go.

If you only looked at Weibo, Gu Qingchi had quite a few followers as an actor.

He also had quite a few endorsements coming his way. Endorsements were an important part of a celebrity’s income. However, at present, Gu Qingchi’s endorsements currently accounted for almost ninety percent of it.

This was incredibly unreasonable. He was an actor. His movies should be the bulk of his income. 

Usually, an actor’s reputation and skill would match up with the number of endorsements they get.

However, Gu Qingchi’s situation was rather special. He easily won over the fashion industry’s favor. All sorts of brands had extended an olive branch to him. He had more endorsement offers than he knew what to do with.

However, he still wasn’t an A-list or even a B-list actor.

If he had debuted as an idol, he might’ve already shot to the top by now. He could have been participating on variety shows and accepting endorsements all day long.

However, he was an actor. An actor was judged by his representative works. At the moment, he only had one, Ke Mu. Although he managed to land himself on the big screen right from the get go, it still wasn’t enough.

Movies cost millions or tens of millions or even hundreds of millions to produce. Therefore, they needed to be careful when casting their roles.

Directors weren’t stupid. They liked experienced actors.

Ye Li did receive quite a few scripts for television dramas. However, since they’d already made it onto the big screen, television dramas were a last resort. 

As long as you played your cards right, anyone could get onto a television drama. In fact, a lot of influencers and idols move into acting through television dramas.

However, movies were different. There wasn’t a lot you could do to get cast for a movie. All you could do was wait for an opportunity.

However, Ye Li and Gu Qingchi weren’t in any hurry. Gu Qingchi probably didn’t care. Meanwhile, Ye Li’s goal wasn’t just mere two or three years of popularity. His ambitions were bigger than that.

Gu Qingchi only had one more scene to film before he’d be done. 

His first couple of scenes didn’t have a whole lot of emotional fluctuation to them. He only needed to express his numbness, his indifference. That kind of apathy was very familiar to Gu Qingchi.

During those two years, his body’s self-protection mechanism kept him in that apathetic state almost all of the time. Even now, he would occasionally fall into that state out of habit.

This state of apathy was exactly what Slater wanted. In addition to apathy, the character needed to express a feeling that was difficult to describe. It was like facing an ancient piece of artwork, untouchable.

Even if he’d fallen to his lowest point. Even if he was a horrible person through and through. Even if he was bad to the bone. 

The next scene would be the heart and soul of this character. It was his most revealing moment in the entire movie.

This was also the reason why Slater had gone to such great lengths in order to get Corenzo to let Gu Qingchi tag along with him and his friends.

According to the timeline of the movie, this scene was somewhere in the middle.

The male lead and female lead went to the nightclub to find Silva. In the end, they left without success. 

For this scene, Slater wanted Silva to laugh, but he also wanted it to seem as if he was about to cry.

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“I bet he’s going to lose his temper after the third take.”

Xiao Ke sat on a small stool next to him and nodded in agreement. She and Corenzo had gotten to know each other over the past couple of days. 

“Cut! Start over! Cut the cameras!”

Slater threw the script in his hand out of exasperation.

“Are you a corpse? Can’t you smile? Laugh? You’re supposed to be indulging yourself. You’re supposed to be living it up.”

After venting his anger, he stalked away. 

“Rest for two hours. We’ll try again after later.”

Gu Qingchi was left sitting there. Several actors went to comfort Gu Qingchi. Gu Qingchi got up and made his way out, thanking them one by one. He didn’t even stop for Xiao Ke. He gave Xiao Ke a heads up and left.

“Don’t worry. I’m a little tired, so I’m going to lie down in my room for a bit.”

His room was upstairs. He quickly entered the room and shut the door behind him. Then, he fell back against the door, shrunk down to the floor, and took a deep breath. 

Disappointing others. Wasting their time. This kind of thing made Gu Qingchi feel very uneasy.

He was most suited to being by himself. If he was by himself, it wouldn’t matter how awful things were. At the very least, the only person he’d be responsible for would be himself, and it didn’t really matter what happened to him.

Gu Qingchi sat there for a while. At some point, he unlocked his phone and opened WeChat.

Xie Luyu made Gu Qingchi feel at ease. Gu Qingchi hadn’t even realized it himself. In front of Xie Luyu, he didn’t feel the need to hold himself back or worry about how much trouble he was causing. 

It was nasty and unreasonable of him. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that Gu Qingchi was taking out his anger out on Xie Luyu. However, subconsciously, Gu Qingchi felt that Xie Luyu owed him. He’d already paid the price in advance, so he didn’t need to feel uneasy about making demands.

He hesitated for a bit, but he still decided to message Xie Luyu.

[Are you there?]

Xie Luyu replied almost immediately. 

[Yes. What’s up?]

Gu Qingchi wanted to say that he didn’t act as well as he would’ve liked, that he was yelled at by the director in front of everyone, that he dragged down everyone on the crew. However, once his fingers reached the keyboard, he didn’t know how to say any of it. In the end, he simply typed a couple of words.

[It’s nothing.]

He’d just sent the message when he got a call from Xie Luyu. Gu Qingchi subconsciously accepted the call. 

It seemed to be very noisy on Xie Luyu’s end, but Xie Luyu soon made his way to a quiet area.

“What’s the matter? Is the food bad? Or do you not have any clothes left?”

“What did they do to our Xiao Gu?”

What did they do to make him come looking for me? 

Xie Luyu didn’t actually say the second part. He was afraid that Gu Qingchi would hang up out of embarrassment.

Gu Qingchi didn’t say anything. Xie Luyu patiently waited for him.

It took a few minutes for him to speak.

“There’s a bit of a problem with my last scene.” 

Gu Qingchi briefly went over Slater’s evaluation of his performance.

Xie Luyu started analyzing the role and guiding Gu Qingchi.

“I won’t be able to teach you everything about controlling your facial expressions right away. There are too many muscles involved. We can keep practicing once you get back. As for now, do you remember that video from not too long ago?”

Gu Qingchi didn’t pay attention to what was going on online, and Ye Li hadn’t felt the need to bother him about it. 

“What video?”

Xie Luyu knew it would be like this. He lightly brushed over the topic.

“A tourist happened to take a video of you. You were at a plaza, and there were a couple of foreigners with you, remember? There was this part where you were smoking a cigarette. You laughed pretty naturally then. I think that expression fits this scene. See if you can recreate what you were feeling at that time.”

Gu Qingchi suddenly understood. His sensitivity to and understanding of emotion had always been impeccable. He’d simply been misinterpreting the character’s feelings this entire time. 

He felt that Silva ought to be frustrated and dejected. These were the emotions that he was bringing out. He hadn’t even realized it.

However, he’d actually gotten things wrong. Silva should be happy. In fact, he should be very happy. He felt comfortable slumming it up with these hoodlums, and he felt relaxed at the nightclub. In his opinion, he’d abandoned the rest of the world first, not the other way around.

“Mn, I got it.”

Xie Luyu’s laugh rang out. 

“Good. I’ll hang up then.”

Xie Luyu hung up the phone. Then, he opened the door and walked out.

The director, who was standing right outside the room he was in, was given a fright.

“What are you doing in the prop room? You’re just here to make a cameo. I don’t need you to do any work. Even if you do help out, I’m not going to pay you anything extra.” 

“I was just looking for a quiet place so I could help the kid out with his homework.”

This director was an open and sincere person.

“Those gossip rags say that you’re secretly married. Don’t tell me it’s actually true?”

“What marriage? If I get married, you’ll be the first to know. Make sure to prepare a huge gift for me.” 

As soon as Irene entered the nightclub, her eyes started darting around. She caught sight of her target almost immediately.

There was no mistaking him. Silva really was dazzling. Even in this kind of environment, he has still managed to capture everyone’s attention.

Silva sat on the sofa, the top two buttons of his shirt unbuttoned, a smile on his face. There was a woman with bright and showy makeup leaning into him. He was surrounded by his friends.

He was at the center of them all, a cigarette still burning between his fingers. His pretty face was blurred behind a veil of smoke. 

He didn’t try to hide when he saw Irene. Instead, he whistled at her.

He gave Irene an even brighter smile. It was as if he was saying, “Let’s play around together.”

Irene stepped forward to talk to him.

The music was far too loud. She was practically screaming into Silva’s ear. 

“Why aren’t you dancing anymore!?”

Silva raised his hands along with the crowd. He wasn’t paying attention to her at all.

After a while, he leaned into her ear like she did to him.

“I’m going to dance right now.” 

Once he finished speaking, he stood up and stepped onto the platform. The girl that was pole dancing on the platform readily gave way to him. The cheers from the crowd became even louder.

As a dancer, he had an elegant waist and graceful limbs. He used his ten years worth of experience to dance in a place like this.

“Cut.”

Slater was finally satisfied. 

Gu Qingchi appeared a couple more times after this scene, but those scenes had already been filmed. He appeared in the female lead’s flashback. That scene was very simple. He had danced with the female lead.

Thus, Gu Qingchi’s role here was now over.

Xiao Ke had already started packing his luggage a few days ago.

When the scene ended, Corenzo walked over to Gu Qingchi’s side. 

“I can dance pretty well. I’m even better than those professionally trained students. Slater promised to give me a cameo during the competition scenes. I’ll be playing one of their opponents, the one that earned second place. When the time comes, you’ll be able to see me in the movie too.”

Gu Qingchi quietly listened to him speak.

“Your lead actor isn’t much of a dancer, but Irene is pretty good. She doesn’t have a fixed dance partner so we tried dancing with each other, and it worked out pretty well. Who knows, we might set our sights on Blackpool. When that time comes, I won’t be getting second place again.”

Corenzo spoke a whole lot. Finally, he pulled out his cell phone. 

“Thanks to Slater, I was able to buy a new cell phone, the kind with a touchscreen. I’ve never used one before, but Irene told me about this little green app. I’ve been trying it out. How do you add friends on the app?”

Corenzo placed his phone in Gu Qingchi’s palm and tapped on WeChat.