Chapter 147: She is Cha Eun-sang

Sitting in writer Kim Eun-sook's office again, Lin Xiaolu no longer had the nervousness and panic of last time.

After all, she had already repeatedly watched the complete version of this drama in the future world of 2025.

It could be said that besides Kim Eun-sook herself, she was probably the person in this space-time who understood this work the best.

After Lin Xiaolu entered the door, she sat quietly for more than ten minutes before the office door was slowly pushed open.

Kim Eun-sook walked in wearing a simple black jacket. Seeing her, a faint smile appeared at the corners of her mouth, "Good morning, YoonA-i."

"Good morning, writer Kim Eun-sook."

Lin Xiaolu stood up immediately, bowing ninety degrees in a standard way, her tone respectful but not humble.

"No need to be too polite, sit down." Kim Eun-sook smiled slightly, sat down behind the desk, and then asked with concern, "Coming so early, have you had breakfast?"

"I ate some bread on the way." Lin Xiaolu nodded lightly.

"Mm." Kim Eun-sook responded lightly, her tone changing, the topic falling on business, "You should already know the reason for asking you to come today, right?"

When saying this, her expression was slightly regretful, "Originally I wanted to give you more preparation time—but the situation has changed, and I had to call you over temporarily."

"It doesn't matter, writer Kim Eun-sook, you giving me this opportunity, I am already very satisfied."

Lin Xiaolu said these words very sincerely; after all, Kim Eun-sook's willingness to delay deciding on the female lead because of her alone was enough to prove that she had been placed in a very special position.

In fact, Kim Eun-sook, who came from the grassroots, also knew very well what an opportunity meant to a young person.

Precisely because of this, she left room for Lin Xiaolu after that initial audition.

Thinking of this, Kim Eun-sook looked at her, her tone becoming solemn, "Then let's not waste time. How about an official audition?"

"Okay." Lin Xiaolu nodded, her expression as serious as ever, with a few more points of certainty in her eyes.

Kim Eun-sook looked at her composure and confidence, couldn't help but reveal a smile of anticipation, then stood up and said, "Then let's go. It just so happens that people from the TV station also came over today. They are in the conference room; let's go over together."

Lin Xiaolu stood up immediately and followed behind her.

Along the way, she began to adjust her emotions and breathing rhythm, as if making final preparations before stepping onto the battlefield.

As the staff pushed open the conference room door, Kim Eun-sook walked in first, while Lin Xiaolu lowered her head slightly and followed silently behind.

Looking around, three or four middle-aged men and women were already sitting there, their expressions focused, one of whom was the producer sent by SBS TV station, Zheng Shangxun.

"Sorry to keep you all waiting."

Kim Eun-sook said with a light smile, then led Lin Xiaolu to the conference table.

"This is Lin YoonA, whom we are still considering, so today I invited her to conduct an audition."

"Oh, Girls' Generation's YoonA-i, everyone knows her."

Zheng Shangxun, the SBS producer sitting at the table, smiled slightly, his words polite yet enthusiastic, "We are very much looking forward to the live performance."

And Lin Xiaolu also smiled slightly, bowing ninety degrees again, "Nice to meet you, seniors, please give me your guidance."

"Come, YoonA, stand over there."

Kim Eun-sook raised her hand and pointed to the empty space behind the conference table, where a chair was placed, obviously set up to match the audition scene.

A camera was set up diagonally opposite, the red light was on, and the lens was aimed directly at her.

Lin Xiaolu walked over slowly and stood still by the chair.

She took a deep breath, as if pressing her breath into the deepest part of her body.

"You should know which scene you are auditioning for, right?" Kim Eun-sook asked.

"I know." Lin Xiaolu nodded lightly, her voice not loud, but firm and clear.

Kim Eun-sook nodded lightly, "Good, then you can start whenever you are ready."

The moment the words fell, the entire conference room seemed to have been pressed on the mute button. The air seemed to have frozen a layer of thin frost.

She didn't start immediately, but slowly lowered her eyelids, as if she were really standing in that empty school corridor, facing that uninvited male lead.

"What right do you have to find me?"

Lin Xiaolu's voice sounded, carrying a trace of trembling stubbornness.

She didn't deliberately act; she was just recalling, just restoring.

Restoring the anger and anxiety of that moment when she faced Lin Xiuyuan in the hotel room and suppressed her temper time and time again.

"Who do you think you are? You think that with one word from you, I have to return to Korea? I—I have my life, why should I go back with you?"

While speaking, water light began to appear in her eyes, and tears accumulated bit by bit.

That wasn't tears deliberately squeezed out, but emotions fermenting from the depths of her heart, accumulating layer by layer, breaking through the embankment of emotions bit by bit, and finally overflowing naturally.

She thought back to that night in the hotel room in Roppongi, where Lin Xiuyuan had moved closer and closer, stopping again and again. The way he teased her and held back—that clear sense of proximity yet deliberate avoidance—left her feeling as if her emotions had been stirred up with nowhere to settle.

That kind of out-of-control anger, grievance, and unwillingness had now turned into the character's emotions, pouring out in every word and sentence.

"You—do you know, I don't even know where I'm sleeping tomorrow, but you tell me what 'I'm here to take you home'?" Lin Xiaolu's voice choked, her fingers pinching her clothes tightly, tears sliding down her eyelashes and dripping at her feet, yet without any affectation or sensationalism.

She didn't deliberately go to act out a "crying scene," but at this moment, her eyes carried forbearance, stubbornness, and a little bit—unspeakable longing and reluctance.

It was like looking back at the moment when Lin Xiuyuan reached out his hand on the streets of Shibuya but didn't pull her, instead holding Sulli's hand.

"If you really want to help me—then don't say these things to make me feel even worse."

After saying this, her eyes turned from despair to a faint plea, slightly raising her head, looking bit by bit toward the direction where the "male lead" was, light seeming to flow in her eyes.

It was a kind of emotion of "I have nothing left, but if you are willing to walk over now, I would still want to go with you," perfectly coinciding with the "wanting to speak but stopping" that the script needed to express.

Complex, forbearing, yet deeply moving, performed by Lin Xiaolu without any flaws.

The air froze at this moment.

Several judges sitting behind the conference table looked at each other, and producer Zheng couldn't help but lean forward, as if wanting to see more clearly.

And Kim Eun-sook sat there, the expression on her face gradually turning from initial calmness to subtle appreciation, then shock,

and finally a trace of surprise and approval flashed in her eyes.

A moment later.

Lin Xiaolu, who had finished this segment, slowly exhaled a breath, raised her hand to wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes, and bowed to the front, "Thank you, everyone."

There was silence in the room for a second.

Immediately after, it was producer Zheng's first sentence.

"Unexpected acting skills. I've always heard others say that you, YoonA-i, lacked a bit of spiritual energy, but looking at it now, it seems it's not as others said."

"The eye acting is also full; actors with light in their eyes are good actors." Someone next to him echoed.

Kim Eun-sook nodded lightly, the corners of her mouth slightly raised, her voice light yet affirmative, "YoonA, compared to last time you came, your acting has advanced several steps. It seems you really have been cramming acting recently. Just now, I had a feeling that you really understood this character."

Lin Xiaolu listened to their evaluation, pursed her lips lightly, her hands still hidden behind her back, slightly tight, her heart beating fast, but carrying a kind of long-lost sense of stability.

This was an opportunity she had grabbed with all her might at the intersection of two space-times.

Thinking of this, she replied softly, "This is all thanks to writer Kim Eun-sook for giving me this opportunity, allowing me to have time to get to know this script well, and this world of the female lead."

At the same time, Lin Xiuyuan's figure became clearer and clearer in her mind, and suddenly there was an impulse to see the other party immediately.

And at this time, the discussion in the conference room hadn't completely dissipated. Kim Eun-sook was just about to stand up to signal everyone to take a break, but producer Zheng suddenly seemed to remember something, paused, and looked at Lin Xiaolu.

"YoonA-i, can I trouble you one more time?"

Lin Xiaolu was stunned, then nodded, "Of course, please say it."

Producer Zheng looked at Kim Eun-sook and said with a smile, "Actually, writer Kim mentioned you to us before, saying you had a crying scene that particularly moved her, which is why she strongly recommended you to us."

Hearing this, Kim Eun-sook pursed her lips and nodded with a smile; that crying scene of Lin Xiaolu last time did indeed give her a surprise.

And producer Zheng continued, "So I am also very curious, Miss YoonA—can you do an impromptu crying scene? No need to set a scene; we only look at your emotional expression."

"It's not that I want you to cry hard," producer Zheng added, "I just want to see how much infectious power you can bring when you truly sink down, because looking at the script's direction, the female lead's crying scene is a highlight."

"Okay."

Lin Xiaolu stood in place, nodded lightly, and lowered her eyes.

At this moment, the conference room fell into a short silence.

And this time, Lin Xiaolu didn't choose the hypothetical scene Lin Xiuyuan mentioned earlier, which was 【Zheng Xiuyan leaving the group and the combination showing the Tokyo Dome stage】 as an anchor point.

Now, she had a new anchor point.

A more real, and closer to the future reality picture.

She thought of that broken future in 2025. She thought of the torn-apart team, thought of the friends she could never see again, thought of one departure and ending after another.

Suddenly, she felt her breathing become heavy, her chest as if pressed by thousands of pounds.

She closed her eyes, just for a second.

Opening them again, the emotion had already dived into her blood.

At first, she just stood there, looking toward some non-existent direction, her eyes full of dullness and disbelief.

"She—she's not here anymore?"

A sentence, as if talking to herself, but like a stone thrown into deep water, rippling out circles of ripples.

Her voice was a bit hoarse, as if she had cried all night, or couldn't say too many words.

"I—I haven't given that doll to her yet; she said she wanted that one, and I haven't had time to tell her—"

"The photos from a few days ago were very blurry—she hasn't seen my newly dyed hair yet."

Speaking, Lin Xiaolu's hands began to lift, as if to grab something, but she couldn't grab anything.

"Why—she didn't even say a word to me, and just—just—"

Fiercely biting her lower lip, her voice began to harden, her breathing rapid.

Tears swirled in her eyes, but she was still trying hard to control them from sliding down.

"I thought—as long as we lived well, we could—could always be like this—"

At this point, Lin Xiaolu couldn't go on.

Since learning about that future, that "parallel space-time" in her heart had become a crack that couldn't heal: the team disbanded, friends died, one familiar figure after another disappeared from her life silently.

She didn't understand why fate was so stingy.

Life and death, it turned out, really didn't just appear in movies and scripts.

This was perhaps the epitome summary of Lin Xiaolu's future for herself in 2025.

Thinking of this, her knees softened slightly, almost unable to stand.

Her whole person was like being pierced by reality in an instant, yet still struggling not to let herself fall.

"She won't come back, right?"

Lin Xiaolu looked forward, those eyes clean, clear, yet full of despair.

She seemed to really be someone who had just lost a close friend, standing in front of reality, desperately trying to convince herself that this was a dream,

yet having to accept the coldness of reality.

They could no longer travel together, couldn't drink beer together late at night, couldn't huddle on a bed laughing and gossiping and recalling youth.

Tears finally slid down, rolling down her cheeks uncontrollably, her lips slightly pale, her whole person as if submerged in water, even breathing becoming an instinctive struggle.

At this moment, Lin Xiaolu was no longer "acting."

She was that "he (future)" who had personally experienced loss and sorrow.

In the conference room, there was dead silence.

Even the battle-hardened directors and producers seemed to have been pulled into that sorrowful, broken world by her, unable to extricate themselves.

Kim Eun-sook blinked lightly, as if trying hard to control her emotions, fearing that if she blinked, tears would fall.

As a screenwriter, she could empathize with emotions more than anyone else.

A few seconds later, Lin Xiaolu slowly restrained her emotions and took a deep breath. Tears still hung on her eyelashes, but she had already stood straight again.

"Thank you."

This time she didn't bow, but spat out those two words lightly, then looked at everyone.

She knew that at that moment just now, she had handed over the most real emotions without reservation.

The air seemed to still echo with her sentence "She won't come back, right," making people feel stuffy in their hearts, unable to let go for a long time.

It was also at that moment that Kim Eun-sook suddenly raised her head and looked at producer Zheng and the two middle-aged men next to her with an unmistakable tone, "She is Cha Eun-sang."

Producer Zheng didn't refute, just nodded.

The two directors next to him also nodded in agreement silently.

This crying scene without a script completely moved them.

Another few minutes passed.

Lin Xiaolu pushed the door and walked out of this conference room that had almost exhausted her. As soon as her footsteps left the door, her whole person was like floating up from underwater, finally able to breathe.

Standing at the door, she took a deep breath, and a long-lost relaxed smile appeared on her face.

That Damocles sword that had hung over her head and might fall at any time had now quietly disappeared.

Although the contract hadn't been signed yet, judging by the reactions of Kim Eun-sook and several producers and directors just now, this female lead should have no suspense.

She breathed a sigh of relief and walked toward the studio exit. Everything that could be done had been done, and the next task was to wait for notification.

Or rather, wait for the contract.

But just as she walked to the door, she suddenly saw a man walking in from outside with a girl.

That familiar figure made Lin Xiaolu stand still in place.

The other party also saw her, so he bowed slightly, "Hello."

Lin Xiaolu, seeing this, hurriedly returned a courtesy, "Hello."

The man walking in front turned back and shouted, "Park Shin-hye, hurry up and come in."

"Nei~ Oppa."

The girl responded lightly, then smiled slightly at Lin Xiaolu and followed quickly.

Lin Xiaolu stood in place, looking at her back, and after a long silence, turned and left.

Although she felt a bit guilty about snatching the other party's role, people are selfish. If given another chance, she would still snatch it,

and she didn't have any thoughts of regret.

And compared to regret, Lin Xiaolu now missed someone's figure even more.

The sequelae of the experience school were slowly emerging.