Chapter 617: Tormenting Each Other Till We're Grey

Damn it!

You little bastard did that on purpose!

Watching this take go to waste, Jiang Wen couldn't hold it in any longer: "Zhou, what are you laughing at?!"

"No, how would I even know about that."

Zhou Yi, chest puffed out and head held high, gave a perfect demonstration of what it means to be bold without reason: "I was controlling my expression the whole time before that, really. Maybe seeing you get sent flying by me made me so happy I couldn't hold it in for a second?"

Bullshit, so happy you couldn't hold it in!

"Besides, this is instinct, instinct is really hard to control, okay? If you have to blame someone, blame yourself for all the evil you've done. Sending you flying is just too satisfying a thing, that's why the corners of my mouth lifted up from the heart."

Jiang Wen: "……"

Screw your instinct!

So it's fine since you're not the one getting hit, right?

Back in school your teacher never taught you what it means to liberate your nature—oh wait, you really never learned that.

Reaching up to touch the quality wig propped on his head, Jiang Wen had a whole string of curses stuck in his throat—cursing felt wrong, not cursing also felt wrong.

He admitted that back on the set of *In the Name of the Father* he had indeed been a tiny, tiny bit harsher on Zhou Yi, but he could swear to the heavens that compared to the actual intensity of filming a movie, he had already been very merciful to Zhou Yi back then.

"So, one more take?" Cheng Long glanced at Jiang Wen's sighing, groaning state and tentatively asked.

Zhou Yi, who had just been squatting in front of the camera pondering, immediately lit up: "Sure, no problem on my end, let's do one more take."

"This time you have to control your facial muscles, no laughing."

Resigned to his fate, Jiang Wen pointed at him with his right index finger, a Great Wastes Prisoner-of-Heaven Finger warning: "Didn't I teach you how to control it before? Don't you go messing around on me."

"Fine, fine, fine, I promise I won't mess around."

Zhou Yi jogged eagerly toward the truck without looking back, nodding his head frantically.

The actors gathered around all wore strange expressions—laughing felt wrong, not laughing also felt wrong. After director Chen Musheng's gaze swept over them, each one sat up ramrod straight, terrified of being called out.

"Action!"

At the command, the truck scene that had been the first to start blocking and filming replayed once more.

Jiang Wen, once again playing the bread bandit, fixed his gaze with determination and surging emotion, waving the bread in both hands as he burst out of the convenience store. The instant he vaulted over the obstacle and ran toward the road, the words "Run!" had barely left his mouth when Zhou Yi was already barreling toward him in the truck with its headlights on—

Jiang Wen turned his head, his gaze toward the truck front filled with despair.

Because… it was too fast.

Zhou Yi was driving too fast.

"Bam!"

The props crew members, who had also noticed this, hurriedly pulled the wire. Jiang Wen, once again flung out of frame, landed on the air mattress and rolled three times, grimacing in pain as he stood up, not even bothering to call someone over to take off the wire.

Because there was a hundred percent chance they'd have to do it again.

This was the biggest gap between an amateur guest actor and a professional actor—the control over screen time was just too poor.

If you really wanted to act, you had to be ground down on set for a long time.

The only thing worth being grateful for was that Zhou Yi at least had some self-awareness, knew he couldn't act, and never touched film and television at all. Otherwise, there'd probably be a whole new batch of viewers who hated him for relying on popularity instead of acting skills.

"Cut!"

Cheng Long, who had instinctively called cut, had clearly also spotted the problem. He came over and asked: "One more take, okay? A-Yi, pay attention to the signals I give you, follow my cues."

"We're already here, what else can we do, let's just shoot."

Jiang Wen, clapping his hands, had also come to terms with it. Getting hit, so what? As a professional actor, what hardship hadn't he endured?

This grudge, he was keeping score.

When Zhou Yi came to write the score for the new movie he was already preparing to adapt, that would be the start of his "tormenting" of Zhou Yi. If Zhou Yi couldn't write the feeling he wanted, he absolutely would not let Zhou Yi off the hook. The demands weren't even high, and that would be a disservice to the several times he'd been hit!

Heaven's way cycles round, who does the blue sky spare?

Bitter first, sweet after!

Endure!

Brushing the dust off his jacket, Jiang Wen, who had returned once more to the starting point of the scene, raised his hand and made an OK gesture.

Third time, rolling!

"Bam!"

This time, Jiang Wen was sent flying out of frame by Zhou Yi in the most perfect parabolic arc, but just as he landed he heard director Chen Musheng's slightly regretful voice ring out: "Zhou Yi, no, your expression is off.

"Right now you should be showing terror, extreme terror, you get what I mean? Think about the thing you're most afraid of?

"We're shooting your close-up, you can't fail to give the audience a big reaction at this moment, because you hit someone, and you were drinking, you're driving drunk…"

Zhou Yi rubbed his chin, nodding along as he listened.

He was, after all, being paid, he had to show his face. Otherwise, those viewers who walked into the theater because of his cameo would at the very least curse "F your mother, give me a refund."

Like Shen Teng's *Hotel of No Sunset*, that kind of fraud— the studio promoted it as a special appearance, but in the end he only showed up in a poster shot from start to finish, which was purely ruining the reputation.

Jiang Wen, sprawled on the air mattress, felt for the first time in his life the urge to stab someone on set.

He was about to get hit again…

"One more take?"

"One more."

Faced with Cheng Long's inquiry, in keeping with the golden spirit of "we're already here," Jiang Wen gritted his teeth, stamped his foot, and stood up again.

For Cheng Long, who came from a martial-arts background, repeating a dangerous action a dozen or so times was an everyday occurrence. None of the action team from *New Police Story* thought anything of it, but Jiang Wen was not from a martial-arts background.

So the fact that he could still choose to continue earned a sideways glance of respect from Cheng Long.

Although the danger wasn't really that great.

Fourth time—

"Bam!"

Jiang Wen was once again floored by Zhou Yi's sudden accelerator, becoming an airborne human for the fourth time!

"Still not good. A-Yi, come, follow my lead—your fear is too over-the-top. You need to exaggerate your emotions, not make them melodramatic. We're not filming some nonsensical comedy on the set of *Kung Fu Hustle* in Shanghai."

While instructing Zhou Yi, Cheng Long couldn't resist cracking a joke at the end—he was worried that after so many NGs, Zhou Yi might be feeling psychological pressure, since he was still a greenhorn in the film industry.

Zhou Yi nodded repeatedly in agreement, while Jiang Wen, his heart bleeding, silently walked back to the starting point of the scene, hands on hips, awaiting the verdict of fate.

The fifth time—

"Bang!"

"Good! The expression works, the camera works, the layers of changing expression work—huh? Jiang Wen, why did your wig fly off?"

Cheng Long, delighted by Zhou Yi's progress, turned his head and saw Jiang Wen rolling on the air cushion, along with the wig slowly drifting down to the ground…

The wig cap… had come loose.

Perhaps because the momentum from being flung through the air and crashing to the ground in the previous takes had been quite fierce, Jiang Wen—who had to roll three times every time he landed on the mat—clearly hadn't noticed that his premium, flowing wig was already on the verge of falling off.

This time, after being hit, a strand of hair accidentally caught on a small protrusion on the front of the car, and the wig was yanked right off…

"What the f*ck!"

Never expecting that something would actually go wrong on his end, Jiang Wen cursed up a storm.

"Uncle, hurry over, I'm ready."

The child playing the son, innocent and unfiltered, excitedly waved at Jiang Wen. From the look of him, he seemed to be dying to see Jiang Wen perform as an airborne human one more time.

Cheng Long: "…"

Chen Musheng: "…"

Xie Tingfeng: "…"

Cai Zuoyan: "…"

Wu Yanzu: "…"

So, how should one put it…

Xie Tingfeng, who felt he was about to burst out laughing, desperately tried to recall the saddest things in his life—such as breaking up with Wang Fei, Wang Fei's new romance, Wang Fei apparently getting married, and other such news…

The more he thought about it, the sadder he got, and finally he managed to suppress the corners of his mouth that kept wanting to curl up.

"F*ck you, you surnamed Zhou—if the score for my new film isn't better than Mozart's, don't even bother turning it in!" Watching Zhou Yi's barely suppressed laughter and unstoppable schadenfreude, Jiang Wen got anxious.

F*ck it, bring it on, let's hurt each other!

Let's torment each other!

Who's afraid of whom!

Zhou Yi, who finally wasn't the one with the problem this time, blew on his fingernails, pretended he hadn't heard, and tilted his chin toward the scene's starting point: "Stand there nicely."

Jiang Wen: "…"

So angry!

Aaaaaah!!!

Filled with a bellyful of grievance, Jiang Wen became the convenience store bread robber for the sixth time, encountered the fully-insured semi-trailer for the sixth time, and was sent flying through the air for the sixth time…

Six times! Six times!

Director Jiang, who had always been the one seizing creative control and parasitizing other people's crews, never having suffered this kind of grievance on someone else's set, felt that tonight he would dream of Zhou Yi driving a truck to send him flying.

Logically speaking, as a veteran actor, he shouldn't be this furious—after all, it's just work.

But he couldn't help it—Zhou Yi's laughter was simply too infectious, too mocking.

The moment he closed his eyes, he could hear that demonic sound piercing his ears—the kind that lingers for three days without fading.

The key point is—he was the one who found that truck and had it modified!

It was him!

Zhou Yi, who had finally vented his frustration, felt his mood greatly uplifted, and even the next 8 minutes of camera work went unusually smoothly.

What the saying "Miao Renfeng is in high spirits when joy arrives" means was embodied thoroughly in Zhou Yi at this moment.

"Old Jiang, thanks, man."

At the end, having finished filming his cameo, Zhou Yi—remembering the one who dug the well when he drank the water—earnestly gave Jiang Wen a thumbs-up: "The truck you had modified is really awesome, top quality."

"You little bastard, just you wait!"

Going right up with an elbow, then trapping Zhou Yi's head in the crook of his arm, Jiang Wen grinned viciously: "I've already finished the initial concept for my new film. You'd better pray your score passes in one take, or I'll torment you to death."