Chapter 9: Ni Ni

Li Xiaotian was originally on set holding a reflector. When they reached the fourth take, he asked someone to take over his job, walked quickly to the back where the monitor was, and asked Zhang Yi: "Zhang Yi, what on earth are you doing?"

Zhang Yi sat in front of the monitor and replied upon hearing this: "Come over here and look, look at his legs. The angle of his crouch changed this time. These lines, they're perfect, so full of feeling."

Li Xiaotian's expression was very ugly: "Kid, we had an agreement. This time, you cannot just do whatever you want."

Zhang Yi didn't even turn his head, saying excitedly: "But this time it's truly different, it's definitely not messing around. Come look. See, here, he has a clenching motion with his fist; this represents the resistance in Zhang Yaba's heart. But he lets go immediately, showing he wants to resist but lacks the guts. The second time, he used a different method, see? He didn't clench his fist, but instead..."

"Stop!" Li Xiaotian grabbed Zhang Yi and pulled him up, clutching his collar, and said through gritted teeth: "Zhang Yi, do you know what you are doing right now? Do you know that you aren't burning film, but the coffin money of your parents and mine? Are you trying to piss me to death! If you keep treating yourself like Wang Jiawei, then just return my money, and you can go play however you want by yourself."

After the fourth take, Chen Nuo began to doubt himself.

Where exactly did it go wrong?

A single shot, filmed a full four times. Can he even be an actor?

Chen Nuo decided that if it needed to be filmed again and still didn't work, he would have to ask Zhang Yi how exactly he should act.

However, this take passed.

Chen Nuo didn't know what Zhang Yi's standard for passing was, because he didn't feel the fourth take was that much better, nor did he feel the first take was that bad.

After the initial stutter, the subsequent filming went exceptionally smoothly. One morning, aside from a small accident during the coordination of the extras, almost all of Chen Nuo's other scenes passed in one or two takes.

At noon, the crew had no boxed lunches. Li Xiaotian took everyone to find a rice bowl shop, where each person got a 7-yuan rice bowl with two meat dishes and one vegetable. All you can eat.

After the day ended, Zhang Yi called Chen Nuo over, looking very excited, patted Chen Nuo on the shoulder, and said: "Let's go, come to my place for dinner."

By this time, the sky was already dim. Having filmed all day, Chen Nuo was a bit tired, so he declined: "Thank you, Director, but it's getting late, and the travel is quite a delay, so let's just forget it."

"What delay? No delay." As he spoke, Zhang Yi pulled Chen Nuo into the Sihe Academy next door, "Right here."

"Ah?"

Chen Nuo looked around. The courtyard he had just entered was the very same Sihe Academy where the first shot of the day had taken place. It was dinner time, and every household was bustling with shadows. An old man happened to come out of the room next door, looked up, and greeted Zhang Yi: "Yi, your mom has been stewing that pork knuckle all afternoon; I can even smell it."

"Haha, Uncle Zhang, why don't you come to my place and grab a bite?"

"Don't bother, if I go, you kid won't have enough to eat. Oh my, isn't this the lead actor? Yi, the kid you found this time is really not bad, truly handsome." The old man gave a thumbs up.

"That's right, he's from the acting department, a future big star. Uncle Zhang, I'm heading back first, let's talk later."

"Alright then."

Chen Nuo stared at Zhang Yi, a bit unable to react, "That old man isn't...?"

"Right, that's him, the one who led the fuss this afternoon, saying this and that were wrong. My Uncle Zhang, he watched me grow up."

"You... is this really your home?"

"Otherwise?" Zhang Yi asked in surprise: "Where else would I find so many extras? Those neighbors this afternoon were all my acquaintances, pure friendly cameos, they didn't ask for a single cent."

The pork knuckle stewed at Zhang Yi's home was delicious, fatty but not greasy, tender and soft, melting in the mouth.

For Chen Nuo, the only drawback was that no matter how much chili was added in the north, it wasn't spicy enough. As a person from Xichuan, having been in Jingcheng for ten days, he still hadn't found a restaurant that suited his taste.

Zhang Yi's parents were very warm to him. The couple were both over sixty, and it was clear they doted on their youngest son, Zhang Yi, especially. Every other word was "Little Chen, Yi has been weak since he was little and has a bad temper, please be patient with him while you act in his film." Chen Nuo didn't dare imagine what their reaction would be if the old couple knew he had once kicked Zhang Yi in the crotch.

The next day, Chen Nuo got up at 5:30. Zhang Yi specifically instructed him to arrive early because the lead actress would be coming today, and the two would have a scene together.

"You two need to get familiar as soon as possible. Also, she is even younger than you, you... don't get any bad ideas."

Chen Nuo looked surprised, "No, Director, why do I feel like you've always been looking at people through colored glasses?"

"Fine, I won't bicker with you. Get back and get some rest, 7 o'clock tomorrow morning, be on time."

Chen Nuo arrived at 6:50. By then, the sky in Jingcheng was already bright. A hundred meters from the alley where the set was, Chen Nuo saw Zhang Yi gesturing and talking with a tall girl.

"Good morning, Director." Chen Nuo walked over to greet him.

"You're here? Let me introduce you two. This is Chen Nuo, from Xichuan. This is Ni Ni, from Nanjing. You two are about the same age, so you should have more in common. Come, shake hands and get to know each other."

The girl was quite poised and took the initiative to reach out her hand, "Hello."

"Hello."

Chen Nuo looked at her face. Although she was still young, the girl's features already had a certain charm. Especially her brows; the space between her eyes was slightly wide, her eyes were slender and tilted slightly upward, carrying a sense of heroic spirit in her gaze.

He felt she looked very familiar, and he had heard of this girl's name as well.

So, this girl was definitely a star in mainland China in the future. But she shouldn't be very famous.

Otherwise, even if he had spent a lot of time in LA in his previous life, he should have been able to recognize her at a glance, just like Yang Mi.

"Alright, you two chat, I'm going over there to take a look. We'll be ready to start filming at 8 o'clock." After Zhang Yi finished speaking, he left.

Chen Nuo and Ni Ni stared at each other, neither speaking for a moment.

"This is my first time acting, how about you?" Chen Nuo finally took the initiative to start.

"I filmed commercials when I was very young, this is also my first time filming a movie. Are you very familiar with Teacher Zhang? Before you arrived, he kept talking about you." It was clear that Ni Ni's personality was actually quite cheerful; once Chen Nuo started, she continued naturally.

"Him and I, we're quite familiar, I suppose. He is... my acting teacher."

Ni Ni laughed, her slender eyes narrowing into slits, "What a coincidence, I also came to Jingcheng to take classes before. He taught me too. So we can be considered fellow students?"

Looking at the girl's smiling eyes, Chen Nuo couldn't bear to tell her that they weren't fellow students, but rather fellow sufferers.

After chatting for a while, the two began to change costumes. The first scene filmed today was Xiao Zhu secretly bringing a bowl of Eight-Treasure Porridge to Zhang Yaba, and while Zhang Yaba drank the porridge, Xiao Zhu watched him from the side.

It was a simple scene, but it NG'd a full five or six times. This time, Zhang Yi didn't sit behind the monitor; every time there was a cut, he would run over to give Ni Ni acting notes.

Only then did Chen Nuo realize that Zhang Yi actually did give actors acting notes.

(End of chapter)