Chapter 256: The Unspoken Answer

Yeah, can this be the same?

Especially for Yang Mi, who currently took Liu Yifei as her target.

Many people said that her female lead position was because the Li Xiaolong Maiden went to Japan to film a movie, so it fell into the hands of her, Guo Xiang.

And, watching *The Message* sell well in the country, Liu Yifei as one of the female leads in it, acting opposite Fan Fan Binbing, and performing on the same stage with Chen Nuo and Jiang Wen,

watching the gap with her not narrowing, but getting bigger and bigger.

How could Yang Mi not be anxious!?

If she wanted to catch up with the other party, appearing in this legendary movie was undoubtedly a shortcut to reach the sky in one step.

As if she could act, it was as if in the plot of *The Return of the Condor Heroes*, Guo Xiang finally got her wish and became Mrs. Yang, while the Li Xiaolong Maiden returned to the ancient tomb to be sad alone!

Just thinking about it made Yang Mi feel excited.

Heaven still lived up to the painstaking efforts, on the day Yang Mi was about to leave, the school finally had people come.

A deputy director in the crew led the team, took photos of the girls in their class, just like during the art exam, front, left, right, and back, and at the same time recorded a VCR, reporting their name, height, and weight.

Afterward, Yang Mi returned to Hengdian, and while filming, began a long wait.

At the same time, a total of eight groups of people screened nearly ten thousand girls from major art colleges across the country, and the photos and videos that met the conditions were brought back one after another and gathered somewhere in Beijing.

Zhang Yimou was happily and difficultly picking and choosing among them, and finally selected more than a hundred people, requiring those deputy directors to find them and conduct a second round of video shooting.

By early November, more than twenty people were selected and notified to come to Beijing for an audition.

After two more rounds of screening, finally in mid-November, it entered the final two-choose-one stage.

One of them was a girl that a deputy director accidentally bumped into on the streets of Shijiazhuang, Hebei, which made Director Zhang very moved.

"Otherwise, let it be her?"

Zhang Yimou rubbed his eyes; after repeated auditions, although he was energetic, he had been busy all day and couldn't help but be a bit tired.

After that crying scene just now, Zhang Yimou felt that it was 50% similar to the appearance of the female lead "Jingqiu" crying uncontrollably by "Lao San's" sickbed in his mind.

Zhang Weiping frowned and said: "What about Miss Ni Ni, aren't you considering her?"

Zhang Yimou pondered for a while, but finally shook his head: "Miss Ni Ni is also very good, actually very consistent with my conditions. But she has acted with Chen Nuo before, I'm afraid the audience will feel that we are filming a sequel to *The House of the Zhang Yaba*. That unrequited love between Zhang the Zhang Yaba and Xiao Zhu left too deep an impression. I'm afraid the audience who have seen it won't be able to get rid of that existing impression."

Zhang Weiping nodded understandingly, then thought for a while, and said again: "Mouzi, when you choose roles for filming, logically speaking, I don't want to ask. But this time, you really have to consider it well. Just like you told me before, the success or failure of a movie is actually half decided when choosing the role."

"This little girl named Zhou Dongyu, she is indeed very consistent with the pure and green feeling of Jingqiu that you want. However, this is looking at her alone in one place."

"If you add Chen Nuo..."

"To tell the truth, I just imagined what it would feel like for Chen Nuo to stand with her. As an audience member, I feel I would find it very hard to believe that a boy like Chen Nuo would fall in love with such a girl; I thought about it left and right and found it very hard to convince myself. I feel this will be a not-so-small problem when it is finally released."

Zhang Yimou frowned: "Then what do you mean? Do you think Miss Ni Ni is suitable?"

Zhang Weiping said: "If you think Miss Ni Ni is not okay, we can slowly choose again, how about that?"

Zhang Yimou pondered for a long time, but finally nodded.

The casting for *Under the Hawthorn Tree*, which had originally entered the final selection, had to be looked at from the beginning again.

It wasn't decided until December 7th.

And that night, Zhang Yimou and Zhang Weiping watched the Golden Horse Awards ceremony of Taiwan CTV at the former's home in Beijing.

As for why Director Zhang's home could watch Taiwan and Hong Kong TV stations and even HBO, BBC, it was all because art needed it.

In short, after watching, the two were also filled with emotion.

Zhang Weiping laughed: "Best Film was also won, how many awards has *The Message* won this time? Six or seven? Good guy, truly remarkable. I don't know how the newspaper media will report it tomorrow. This Qi Yuntian is only a few years old, and he can already give an acceptance speech for Best Film at the Golden Horse Awards."

"Young and successful, such stories are not rare in our China, from ancient times to the present." Zhang Yimou laughed.

Zhang Weiping hehe-ed: "*Assembly* didn't win a single one this time, Wang Zhongjun must be cursing his mother now, his grievances with Chen Nuo, I think if he is smart, he had better invite the other party for a drink early, and just let it be."

"Also, Mouzi, I see that Chen Nuo's market in Taiwan is really not small. If we manage it well this time, I estimate there is hope to break into that side and make a big profit."

Zhang Yimou smoked a cigarette, sighed, and said: "Now our female lead hasn't been decided yet, the schedule agreed with him is to start filming in January... He has to go to the US to film *Twilight* in April next year, to tell the truth, I'm really worried it won't be in time."

Zhang Weiping was also a bit anxious when he heard this: "Jin Chen, Guli Nazha, Li Yitong, perhaps Zhou Dongyu, Miss Ni Ni. Mouzi, I won't express my opinion anymore, this time you decide who you want to decide. Or Zhou Dongyu is also fine. In short, no matter what, the big picture matters."

Zhang Yimou nodded: "Actually, I am indeed still inclined toward Zhou Dongyu now."

"Then it's Zhou Dongyu!"

Speaking of this, the two also made up their minds.

Although it took more than ten days of tossing and turning, it seemed to have returned to the starting point. But in the movie production project, this so-called waste is actually a normal process.

Therefore, after agreeing to let Zhou Dongyu come over to sign the contract tomorrow, the two didn't chat about this matter anymore, and started smoking and drinking together, talking about the work arrangements afterward.

While talking, halfway through, they talked about the sudden applause at the Golden Horse Awards, and the two sighed for a while again.

Especially Zhang Yimou, who expressed many views on the current teaching mode of the film academy, and was quite appreciative of the bold practice of letting students go out to explore in their freshman and sophomore years, believing that only by turning practice into a part of teaching could some talents truly be cultivated.

Just chatting, suddenly Zhang Yimou's work phone rang, it was a very strange number.

Although it was already almost 11 o'clock, film people have always worked regardless of day and night, and not many people knew this phone, so Zhang Yimou didn't think much, picked it up and said hello.

Only heard a soft voice coming from the opposite side: "Hello, Director Zhang, I am Liu Yifei..."

When Chen Nuo picked up Liu Yifei's phone, he was in a Hilton suite in Central, Hong Kong, with his mouth blocked by something soft.

Janice Man had gone home to sleep, his high-end suite was empty and a bit scary, so a certain vixen volunteered to come over to boost his courage.

The way to boost courage was also very simple, bold and lustful.

Chen Nuo actually saw it on the night of the awards ceremony; the vixen's desire to roll in the sheets with him could be said to be undisguised.

If he hadn't sent a text message, I'm afraid Fan Fan Binbing would have come to knock on his hotel door that night, not caring at all whether Janice Man was inside.

Even if Janice Man was there, she might have been even more excited.

At another time, Chen Nuo might have had some flowery thoughts, but that night was truly inappropriate.

Because the matter of not winning Best New Performer was unexpectedly a huge blow to Janice Man. As soon as she entered the room, she started crying, crying until her two eyes were swollen in the end.

Chen Nuo comforted her for a long time before he got the truth out; it turned out the girl was a mixture of a sense of crisis and inferiority.

Once asked by him, she hugged him and cried to death, tossing and turning until almost three in the morning before falling asleep.

One might ask, in this situation, how could he dare to play those heart-teasing games.

Therefore, he could only wait until the next day, after arriving in Hong Kong, for Fan Fan Binbing to finally be able to come and perform "dog and horse labor."

Outside the floor-to-ceiling window on the 52nd floor where Chen Nuo lived, there was nothing but the vast night.

The air conditioner was on in the room, and the air was a bit stuffy.

So the cool glass pressed against Fan Fan Binbing's chest actually had a cooling effect.

Fan Fan Binbing twisted her waist twice, bit her lip, and suddenly turned around, saying, "... Are you doing it on purpose?"

Chen Nuo's skill in playing dumb was first-class, but the smile at the corner of his mouth betrayed her: "What's wrong?"

"What do you think? I told you to work hard, work hard! Bad guy."

Fan Fan Binbing's voice was soft and low, her eyes flowing, giving Chen Nuo a white look, her whole body sticking to him, a pair of slender jade hands wrapped around his neck, tiptoeing, pressing his head down, "Suffocate you. Do you believe I'll murder my husband?"

Liu Yifei's phone call came at this time.

"Hello." Chen Nuo's voice was as calm as ever.

Hearing Liu Yifei's question on the phone, he also gave an answer normally: "What did I do yesterday, you just wear a school uniform... what kind of thing is that, that is which country's school uniform. If you don't understand, let Li Jing buy it, the kind of high school students in China in the 90s."

"... Hmm right, tie a ponytail. Light makeup, that's right. What am I doing? I'm not doing anything, I'm running."

After hanging up the phone, Chen Nuo looked down at Fan Fan Binbing and said angrily: "What's going on, don't you know I'm talking about business? As soon as I answer the phone, you get excited again, right?"

Fan Fan Binbing stood up, licked her crimson lips, giggled and said: "You let Yifei go to audition for Director Zhang's play, why don't you say hello to Director Zhang for Yifei? Do you really want people to work hard on their own?"

Chen Nuo hehe-ed: "Otherwise? I have nothing to do and joke with her?"

Fan Fan Binbing said: "What's wrong with you? Suddenly so heartless."

"What do you know? Turn around."

"Then you work harder..."

It wasn't just Fan Fan Binbing who wanted Chen Nuo to work harder; Chen Nuo also wanted Liu Yifei to work harder.

This Golden Horse Awards ceremony stimulated not only Janice Man; after it ended, Liu Yifei immediately found him, her expression exceptionally solemn, telling him that she wanted to do what Fan Fan Binbing said, and one day in the future, also pick up that award.

Chen Nuo gave her this idea.

Let her use all her strength to strive for the female lead in *Under the Hawthorn Tree*.

This wasn't because Chen Nuo felt she could strive for it, but because Chen Nuo felt she couldn't strive for it.

Because Chen Nuo believed that no matter how big his face was, Zhang Yimou wouldn't use an actor who couldn't be used for his sake.

The purpose of him saying this was to let Liu Yifei try the taste of failure after using all her strength.

Let her truly taste the bitterness of life.

If she really did this this time, Chen Nuo felt that this person could still be saved.

Otherwise, it was still that sentence, obediently be an idol drama female lead. Anyway, people live a lifetime, whether it's like Yang Mi or like Maggie Cheung, it's about the same, right.

Therefore, on the afternoon of December 10th at 2:30.

Zhang Yimou, Zhang Weiping, and the relevant personnel in *Under the Hawthorn Tree* saw Liu Yifei wearing a blue and white school uniform and a ponytail in the audition room of the New Picture company.

Although Chen Nuo didn't say too much, Li Jing still gave Liu Yifei, who was wearing a school uniform, an idea, letting her hold a middle school textbook in her hand.

And then obviously, this move achieved its intended effect.

She held the textbook, in the middle of the audition room, bowed to Zhang Yimou, and said: "Hello Director Zhang, hello everyone."

Zhang Yimou looked her up and down, and asked: "Yifei, hello. Nice to meet you. Ask a question, how old are you this year?"

"21 years old."

Zhang Yimou smiled and said: "Can't tell, very young, very good, I just thought you were only 18."

Liu Yifei tried hard to keep smiling, trying her best not to let her nervous mood show, "Thank you, Director."

"Then Yifei, we are now conducting an on-site audition. Please show us your side, back, and front."

Zhang Yimou and others couldn't help but nod while watching during the process of testing the image.

Indeed a good embryo.

According to Director Zhang's consistent saying, some people look good in reality, but may not look good on camera. Some people look good on camera, but are average in reality.

Only a very small number of people look good both on camera and in reality.

And Liu Yifei was clearly the third type.

Even Director Zhang was reflecting on whether he had fallen into some kind of thinking trap. It's not that you must use an 18-year-old girl to play an 18-year-old girl, if someone is a bit bolder, 37 playing a 22, it's all possible, not to mention 21 playing 18.

For the appearance item, everyone at the scene gave either 99 or 100 points.

Next was acting.

Director Zhang had been busy preparing for the Olympics for the past three to five years, and hadn't watched any movies or TV shows, only recently finished watching *The Message*, and although he couldn't say how amazed he was by Liu Yifei's performance in it, he felt it was barely passable.

So he truly didn't expect that the students who were let go by their alma mater and tempered by practice would be like this. It seemed a bit unexpected.

Very simple crying, laughing, love, hate, hmm.

Director Zhang paid special attention to Liu Yifei's eyes during the process, because in this play, his requirement was that the female lead's eyes must be clear to the bottom, must be dramatic, thorough, unique, and vivid.

By 4:08 PM, the first independent audition in Liu Yifei's acting career ended.

PS: PK is on recommendation these two days, asking for monthly tickets for support, thank you.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 257 =====