Chapter 45

Chapter 45

The greeting card from the third young master of the Guan family was eventually found by Lan Yifang, who dug it out from the kitchen trash can in the RV. It was covered with a pile of makeup remover cotton pads, and the words on the card were blurred by the makeup remover.

But it was still barely possible to make out the handwriting, which wished for a successful start of filming and box office success. The signature was Guan Shengyu.

It was a very tactful blessing, which also indicated that the third young master of the Guan family had left himself room for maneuver in his pursuit, making it more of a test.

Qi Wei breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the card, then couldn’t help but remind An Ye, “If you plan to completely cut ties with Huan Zhou, don’t get involved with Guan Shengyu. Things are too messy over there right now. These half-hearted ties are particularly disgusting, and they could tie you down for your whole career.”

“An Jie might not even know what Guan Shengyu looks like…” Lan Yifang said quietly, with an awkward smile. “She doesn’t usually pay attention to these things.”

Matters like fan or celebrity meal deliveries were always handled by the agency. Guan Shengyu was from Huan Zhou, and the staff who brought it over were from Huan Zhou as well. If Qi Wei hadn’t mentioned it today, Lan Yifang might have thought it was a congratulatory meal sent by the company for An Ye’s opening.

“You need to pay attention. From now on, just let me know about things like this directly,” Qi Wei said while putting on her coat. “An Jie is in a very special situation right now; no mistakes can be made.”

Lan Yifang nodded earnestly and nervously.

The second meeting was thus dismissed, and by the time everyone headed home, it was already five in the morning. When they reached the parking lot, Chi Tuo walked at the back and tugged at An Ye’s sleeve.

An Ye turned around. “Mm?”

“Do you trust today’s driver?” he asked softly.

An Ye glanced at the driver standing outside the nanny van, smoking. She nodded and quietly replied, “He’s the one I’ve been using before. His family works with Qi Wei, and he’s tight-lipped.”

She had made some effort to bring back someone she trusted from Yan Wan’s side. Luckily, this driver was tight-lipped, usually as silent as a mute. Since Yan Wan thought she was mentally unstable, he didn’t pay much attention to her. Rather than letting her find an outsider whom he couldn’t control, it was better to use someone familiar.

Yan Wan had really underestimated her. Qi Wei and she had been in contact for more than a year, though every time they met it was at night, avoiding others, it still got back to Yan Wan’s ears through the staff. Yan Wan never paid attention to it.

On one hand, Qi Wei was his defeated subordinate and now a lone commander. Yan Wan had mocked her, saying she was suited for being a paparazzi. On the other hand, he had never imagined that An Ye would want to set up on her own. A mentally unstable person not only staying on Huan Zhou’s big ship but also thinking about paying a huge ransom to leave—that itself was illogical.

“I’ll take your car back,” Chi Tuo hesitated. “By the time we get to the city, it’s almost time for work.”

An Ye stopped walking and sized him up.

He’s cultivating immortality and still doesn’t plan to sleep?

“I was worried about drowsy driving, so I came in Qi Wei’s car,” Chi Tuo thought she was unwilling, explaining, but then he changed his mind. “Forget it, I’ll just go with her.”

It was going to be rush hour on the way back, and An Ye’s nanny van indeed stood out.

The anger from seeing her being pressed into the dirt earlier had mostly dissipated. He regained some rationality.

He couldn’t get too close, like a clingy parasite. They hadn’t been in contact much for the last five years. He was afraid that after spending more time together, An Ye would realize that meeting in person wasn’t as good as remembering each other. For example, he wasn’t as relaxed or capable as she thought.

An Ye grabbed his arm and glared at him. “You get in my car. At least I can sleep three more hours in it.”

Chi Tuo froze for a moment. An Ye furrowed her brows, but his pause was very, very brief—only someone like her, a drama fanatic, would notice the strange emotion.

After that, things returned to normal. He said goodbye to Qi Wei, got into the car, and sat in the back seat, just like last time.

The back seat was spacious, and when reclined, it could serve as a small bed.

An Ye didn’t ask about his strange reaction just now. Once in the car, she took out a disposable eye mask and handed it to him, ordering, “Sleep quickly.”

“Do you have time next Monday night?” Chi Tuo asked, putting on the eye mask.

“If it’s not snowing, I’ll definitely still be on set. Why?” An Ye asked.“About the paperwork.” The driver, whom Chi Tuo hadn't interacted with before, spoke somewhat vaguely. “I’ll give you a call about it later.”

“Sleep,” An Ye said, her tone not very pleasant. “Let’s talk about next Monday when next Monday comes. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

Chi Tuo seemed to slightly raise the corner of his mouth, finding a comfortable position for himself. He looked like he was preparing to fall asleep obediently.

The car drove out of the parking lot, and An Ye looked out the window.

Was it because of her sudden touch? She wondered.

But after their reunion, the number of times they had unintentionally touched had increased. After all these inexplicable reunions, every physical contact felt normal to Chi Tuo. It was only just now that there was one moment of awkwardness—less than a second, and An Ye noticed because Chi Tuo had weirdly grabbed her for just a split second.

An Ye looked at the shadow of Chi Tuo, who was half-lying against the window.

Forget it.

She stopped thinking about it.

Right now, it was already good enough that she wasn’t slowing anyone down. Who could she even help...

Lan Yifang climbed into the car and, very skillfully, curled up in the front seat. Soon, there was a soft snoring sound.

Chi Tuo seemed unsure if he was asleep or not, but at least from his posture, he appeared relaxed. If he wasn’t asleep, it was probably just meditation.

An Ye leaned back in her seat.

She was too tired. After applying the medicine, her side felt fiery, and the cold wind outside made her lose her desire to sleep.

Usually, she really hated it when someone interrupted her immersion into a scene, but today, it didn’t seem to matter much.

Today, she had eaten high-calorie food and talked about many things related to herself. A lot of questions were slowly being untangled, and backup solutions had already been thought out. This sense of control made her feel safe.

This was the rare state of An Ye in recent years that she didn’t particularly mind.

She yawned.

The shooting location today wasn’t at the Ninth People’s Hospital, but at a small car junkyard near the outskirts of Baigang City, which had been converted into a small outdoor filming set in the last two years due to its terrain and the spray-painted colors being suitable for scenic shots. At 5 a.m., there were two film crews here rushing to finish scenes. One of them was the B-camera team of Director Yang’s film, shooting establishing shots and empty frames, as well as scenes with some secondary actors.

The filming location was even more complex than the muddy ground they had filmed on before. An Ye knew that many of the scenes for Arin’s character, especially the fantasy young girl persona, needed to be shot on this terrain with green screens for later special effects work.

To get out of this outdoor set, they had to pass by the B-camera team, so An Ye glanced over to check the progress of Team B.

At 5 a.m. on a winter morning, it was still pitch black outside. The photography team had their lights on, and from a distance, An Ye could see busy figures. She squinted and noticed a small flashlight shaking beside the photography team.

The flashlight was shaking very quickly, as if someone was running with it.

“Master Chen, stop for a moment!” An Ye suddenly spoke up.

The nanny van came to an abrupt stop in the night.

Lan Yifang continued to sleep, clicking her mouth, while Chi Tuo had already taken off his eye mask and asked, “What’s wrong?”

An Ye didn’t answer him.

She was fully focused on the small light, which was getting closer. As it approached, she realized it was a young girl holding the flashlight.

She was wearing the same clothes as Arin’s character during the shoot, but the outfit was in a child’s size, which seemed a bit strange.An Ye recognized the little girl. This child was playing the younger version of Arin's character, and the scenes she appeared in were almost all special-effects-heavy, with not much screen time. She projected the image of the kind of childhood Arin once wished for. When Director Yang was choosing actors, he showed An Ye the audition videos and gave her a vote of choice.

At the time, An Ye was quite sentimental. She had debuted as a small actress playing a role for a grown-up actor in Director Yang's movie. Ten years later, she was starting to choose her own young actresses.

In the end, she gave up her vote. This little actress was chosen by Director Yang himself. When An Ye watched her, she was reminded of herself when she filmed her first commercial—eyes full of novelty and confusion, with a hint of fear.

The little girl seemed to want to run toward the street. As she got closer, An Ye noticed that two adults, appearing to be in their thirties or forties, were following her and loudly shouting something.

“I want to go home!” The little girl's voice already had a hint of crying. “I don’t want to act! I want to go home!”

The six or seven-year-old child, with arms and legs as slender as An Ye’s when she was young, stopped after saying that and wiped her eyes.

"You can go home after this is over!" The woman following her, presumably the little girl's mother, was out of breath. “The director didn’t ask you to do much, just stand by the small broken car and jump a little. How is that too much?”

The little girl wiped her eyes again, silent now, and continued walking toward the street with her head down.

Her father tried to pull her a couple of times but failed. Frustrated after staying up all night, he quickly walked up, picked her up, and started heading back. After two steps, he couldn't hold back and slapped her twice on the bottom. "Can you be a little more sensible? It's freezing cold, and so many people are waiting for you! You say you won’t act, and now you won’t act. Do you know that we’ll lose money? We’ll lose ten or a hundred times what we’ve invested. Are you going to pay for it?"

An Ye shivered slightly in the quiet car.

After being slapped twice, the little girl didn’t struggle anymore. She shook the flashlight, rubbed her eyes, and finally couldn’t hold it in anymore, bursting into tears.

“That car is red!” she cried out. “It’s red!”

“It’ll break if I jump on it!!” She kept crying. “It’s red! It’ll break!!”

When a child cries like that, there's no logic, so all An Ye could hear was the repeated shout of "red," as if the color was her belief.

Her mother finally couldn’t take it anymore, and slapped her on the bottom, shouting loudly, "What’s with the red! This is acting! Do you even know what acting is?!"

“If you keep crying, I’ll smash all the red things at home!”

"How can you be like this! Normally, if you like a color and it gets damaged, we can tolerate it, but look at what time it is!"

“It’s freezing cold, and a bunch of uncles and aunties are staying up with you! How can you be this unreasonable? The money you make from acting—do you think we want it? We’ve been saving it for you! How can you buy red things if you don’t act?!”

The little girl was still crying. It was vaguely clear she was talking about how the red was the color of her little orange, and she mentioned something about making a promise...

An Ye lowered her head and dialed a number.

"Assistant Director," she said, her voice a bit hoarse as she rubbed her forehead. "Is the car the little girl needs to jump on red?"

The Assistant Director on the other side was confused, listening to the distant cries while trying to gather his thoughts. "An Ye, what’s wrong?"

"Is it necessary for the plot to use a red car? I remember Arin has a fear of bright colors," An Ye said. "Wouldn't it make more sense to use a black or gray car?"

The Assistant Director paused, after shooting for the whole night. The jumping scene was meant to show the little girl’s character leaping in the ruins, and the car's color hadn't been given much thought. In the scene, the car wasn’t even visible—only the sound of the jump was.

"You can’t see the car in the shot, so any color is fine," the Assistant Director said. "The problem now is that this kid is not cooperating at all, she keeps running away as soon as we bring her over."

"That child likes red," An Ye said. "She doesn't want to jump on the red car."

The Assistant Director: "............"

The Assistant Director: "Damn, her parents didn’t say anything, and now it’s been more than half an hour of this."

An Ye heard the Assistant Director shouting on the other side of the phone: "Change the car, change the car, don’t use a red one!"

The voice echoed from the set, and the little girl's heart-wrenching cries suddenly paused.An Ye hung up the phone.

"Drive," she closed her eyes.

Something was placed into her palm.

An Ye looked down.

Shi Tuo had put a strange-flavored candy into her hand.

An Ye turned her head.

He was still wearing the eye mask, maintaining the same posture from before, motionless as if he had already fallen asleep.

A spicy, strange-flavored candy.

She tossed it into her mouth, chewed a couple of times, and closed her eyes.