When Qiu Mian woke up, the first thing he did was check his phone.
“Seven minutes and forty-two seconds. Very swift,” the assistant preemptively answered, quickly handing over a bottle of water and a fan while showering him with attentive care. “You still have time to rest. How was it? Was it tricky?”
The time flow in dream worlds was inconsistent with reality, usually far faster. For example this time, Qiu Mian had lingered in the dream for about two hours, yet less than ten minutes had passed upon exiting.
“Quite interesting,” Qiu Mian took a sip of water. “Nothing too major, though.”
“That’s for sure! With you stepping in, everything’s bound to get sorted out!”
Qiu Mian sent a voice message to Liang Rui, indicating that the dream had been resolved. He briefly described the dream’s contents and added, “I ran into the dream-solving team you mentioned. That captain is indeed annoying, but his abilities seem sufficient. Reduce your dream-traveling frequency for the next month.”
Liang Rui wouldn’t reply until he woke up, but Wei Pu had listened to the whole thing and eagerly pursued: “Did their captain give you trouble?”
“Trouble is a bit of a stretch, but he’s predictably going to go looking for trouble actively. Better let Brother Liang avoid him for a while.”
“What about you, Mian-mian?”
“Me?” Qiu Mian gave a short, light laugh. “Can he actually control me?”
Qiu Mian had always been rational and self-aware. He wouldn’t retreat because of warnings or provocations, nor would he deliberately target anyone out of petty retaliation; he simply did what he believed needed to be done.
Let alone the official addition of a new dream-solving team, even if a hundred were added, they wouldn’t be able to stand in his way.
Wei Pu gave a thumbs-up and whispered, “I’ll go probe that netizen who reportedly works at the dream-solving base later. Maybe I can dig up some secret intelligence.”
For the sake of convenience, the authorities had established dream-solving bases in major districts. Aside from the frontline traveling dreamers, the majority were logistics personnel—researchers, psychologists, field surveyors, information collectors, numbering nearly a thousand in total.
A portion of these members specifically handled online dream interpretation and Q&A, both gathering related dream intelligence and soothing the dreamers’ emotions to reduce their anxiety. A few prominent ones even managed to become internet influencers; though ordinary people had no idea what their actual jobs were, Wei Pu, as Qiu Mian’s assistant, had sharp eyes and had managed to hook up with someone suspected of being a member.
Qiu Mian didn’t encourage or dissuade him, though his tone carried a faint ghostly chill: “Just make sure you don’t get geolocated by them.”
“Don’t worry, all the information I give is fake. Recently, the dream-solving base has been expanding recruitment, and a bunch of college student interns have arrived. This netizen has a sort of clear-eyed stupidity,” Wei Pu confidently assured.
“Mian-mian, are there any features about that captain you mentioned? I’ll find an opportunity to probe and ask.”
Wei Pu knew that due to prosopagnosia, Qiu Mian would subconsciously focus on other features when encountering people in daily life, such as their clothing, posture, or physical traits. If it were someone he cared about enough, he wouldn’t mistake them even after a single meeting.
Not that he had run into anyone worth caring about, though.
“Features, huh…” Qiu Mian pondered for a moment. “His hands were quite nice.”
“?”
“Slender and well-proportioned, prominent knuckles, with a light-colored mole on the pad of his ring finger.”
Even though he wore half-cut gloves, they had after all observed each other closely, and Qiu Mian offered an impartial evaluation.
“…” Wei Pu said, “Were you guys standing pretty close?”
Qiu Mian didn’t reply because the director called for the gathering.
The scene scheduled for filming that night was a major climax near the end. The male and female leads, numerous supporting actors, and even more extras were all required to appear. The scale was grand, and it was visually projected to film until past midnight, with no guarantee they’d even finish in time.
He pushed the matter of dream-traveling to the back of his mind, pouring his focus into improving his acting skills. He told his assistant, “Help me download a few documentaries about animals, oh, microorganisms work too.”
Wei Pu was dumbfounded once again: “Animals? What are you going to do with those?”
“Study,” Qiu Mian dropped a cryptic remark, preparing to test out the results of his stolen techniques.
The scenes for the male and female leads were prioritized for filming. Given the prerequisite of pulling an all-nighter, they were best suited to be the first batch wrapping up.
However, the female lead’s state today was somewhat poor, leading to several low-level mistakes in succession that severely delayed the overall progress. By the time it came to filming Qiu Mian’s main scenes, the time was approaching midnight.
The female lead had a pretty good attitude, and coupled with the fact that she was the biggest name in the entire production, even Director Mai dared not use harsh words with her. But he was obviously much less polite to the others, specifically reminding Qiu Mian, whose daytime performance hadn’t been stellar: “Have your assistant grab two bottles of eye drops. Use them when the princess dies, and try to wrap up a bit earlier.”
Qiu Mian paused slightly: “Just like that?”
Director Mai said, “You wouldn’t be able to act it out if it were complex anyway.”
“Pfft!” Someone sarcastically echoed: “You wouldn’t be able to act it out if it were complex anyway.”
Qiu Mian glanced over; the person who had deliberately hurried over to mock him was actually Mi Chun. This time he recognized him by his height, though he had no idea why a guy without a single scene left of his own was still lingering around here past midnight.
“Floor manager, clear out the irrelevant people.” Director Mai was already losing patience, and seeing Mi Chun only flared his temper further: “Hurry it up!”
Everyone scrambled into action. Wei Pu collected the eye drops, crouching nearby on standby as he softly coaxed Qiu Mian: “It’s fine, you’re not a performance major. Besides, plenty of professional actors can’t just cry on command.”
“I can, though,” Qiu Mian stated calmly. “I just don’t know how to express emotions other than weeping.”
Wei Pu didn’t take it to heart and simply changed his phrasing: “It’s fine, just shed a couple of pretty tears. No need for overly exaggerated expressions; lots of people look more comical crying than laughing, and they end up getting screenshotted into meme reactions.”
Wei Pu’s suggestions held zero reference value. After a moment of thought, Qiu Mian still decided to do things according to his own ideas.
Action.
The ambush failed, and seeing the protagonist’s reinforcements growing increasingly numerous and nearing a state of encirclement, Qiu Mian lowered his gaze to conceal his reluctance, turned around, and waved his hand: “Go!”
“Wait!” The male lead’s shots had already been filmed, so a staff member stepped in to shout the lines on cue, reciting a string of persuasion to surrender. First reminiscing about past lord-and-servant camaraderie, then clarifying the unrequited debts he owed, stating bluntly that acting this way made him no different from their enemies.
This shot only filmed Qiu Mian from behind. Dressed in tight black martial arts attire that clearly outlined his slender waist, his spine ramrod straight, and his high ponytail swaying lightly behind him, under the deliberate lighting, the front half of his body was caught in a transition of light and shadow, giving the clear impression of someone stepping half a foot into darkness yet still retaining a chance of salvation.
Once the male lead’s verbal barrage finished, it was the princess’s turn to call out. Qiu Mian finally seemed somewhat moved, turning his head slightly as light and shadow sculpted a handsome profile curve, yet the words he uttered were utterly resolute: “In the Northern Mountains stands the owl, its wings impure. My nature is like that of the owl, greedy and vile.”
This section went smoothly. Next came a minor amount of slow-motion fight choreography, which Qiu Mian breezed through swiftly. After the insider’s sneak attack, the princess blocking the blow, vomiting blood, and collapsing, they reached the absolute climax of the entire scene.
The princess lay in Qiu Mian’s arms, spitting out stage blood as she finished her farewell lines, and the camera cut to Qiu Mian.
In the eyes of others, he still wore that aloof, unapproachable expression, as if the person losing their life in his arms wasn’t his beloved, but some random, irrelevant passerby.
Director Mai frowned and picked up the small megaphone, preparing to shout cut, when the sound abruptly choked in his throat.
With a blank expression, Qiu Mian shed two clear tears.
His eyes didn’t even turn red, nor did he use any muscle exertion of his eyelids. He simply gazed silently at the princess’s sleeping visage, his thin lips trembling slightly as if he had lost all strength left to wail or lament, gradually letting the two tears overflowing his eyes fall sparingly, every single one shed entirely for her.
After an unknown length of time, his frozen movements restarted. He brushed away the blood at the corner of the princess’s lips, pressed it against his own, and abruptly raised a desperate smile amidst the bead-like spray of blood and tears, before pulling out the long sword at his waist and spinning around while holding the princess to stab it straight into the insider.
The extra playing the insider hadn’t reacted yet, dumbly rubbing his arm: “Huh?”
“CUT!”
Hearing the command, Qiu Mian set the princess down, preparing to wait for the director’s harsh critique before doing another take. Unexpectedly, Director Mai looked at the monitor for a moment, made a hand gesture, and said, “That’s a pass. Prepare for the next take.”
That passed just like that? Qiu Mian thought to himself, Director Mai really had zero expectations for him.
The female supporting actor playing the princess, however, questioned, “Director, shouldn’t Yinian be grief-stricken right here after my death, wailing as he avenges me?”
Yinian was the character played by Qiu Mian.
“He can’t pull off that kind of outward emotion,” Director Mai flicked his chin toward Qiu Mian. “Though this change might be even better. The emotion just now was enough.”
“I think so too. Pair that shot up with special effects and it’ll definitely be killer, what’s the word, both beautiful and unhinged!”
The screenwriter nodded. “Actually, thinking carefully, Yinian has always been cold-hearted and detached. When the princess dies he’s going to go crazy, but he can’t go crazy in an overly unhinged way either. While wailing is an obvious expression, the performance just now carried a sense of heart-wrenching powerlessness.”
“Teacher Qiu is amazing, crying on command just like that!”
Faced with the series of praises, Qiu Mian took them as mere commercial courtesy. After all, his emotions hadn’t truly stirred; he had simply mimicked the expression of the milky-white silkworm upon seeing the pale-pink silkworm die. The similarity probably wasn’t even ten percent, not to mention Director Mai’s reaction had seemed flat.
Still, passing on the first take was pretty great.
As for weeping without warning, he genuinely could do it, even though there was zero emotion behind those tears.
Yet amidst the chorus of praise, there was still one discordant, indignant voice.
“He didn’t act it well at all! How can the script just get changed on a whim like that? What did the original work even write…”
“Hey, Teacher Mi Chun!” Wei Pu suddenly poked his head in and popularized, “There’s no princess in the original work, oh, and of course, no character of yours either. The romance arc was added in the show, so it gets changed however we want!”
Mi Chun glared at him before storming off in a huff.
With the heavy scenes finished, the remaining scattered shots were quickly completed. They wrapped up just past midnight, much earlier than anticipated, and everyone happily dismissed.
For the ride back, they took the Mercedes GLE driven by Wei Pu. The car belonged to Qiu Mian, though the assistant was the one constantly using it.
Wei Pu couldn’t help bringing up Mi Chun, nearly laughing out loud: “He refused to leave even after getting chased off by Director Mai, just to watch you act, standing there from the afternoon until midnight.”
“He was probably hoping to watch me get chewed out,” Qiu Mian said, scrolling through his phone where Liang Rui had already replied with an OK.
“Such persistence. Wouldn’t it be better to use that effort to improve oneself…” Wei Pu muttered. “By the way Mian-mian, your acting just now looked insanely cool! I knew you’d pull it off! Did you figure out some kind of trick?”
“Sort of, but it’s hard to explain.”
Qiu Mian paused, sharing the inspiration he gleaned from the dying silkworm.
Wei Pu: “…”
“As expected of you, so observant…” Unable to keep praising, Wei Pu left it speechless: “Is this why you made me download animal documentaries?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought spring had arrived, all things reviving, and it was mating season again, and that you’d blossomed with peach-blossom luck.”
He sighed as he spoke, like a worried old father: “Mian-mian, you can’t even clearly see other people’s faces, is there any chance you could actually fall for anyone?”
“I’m just face-blind, not blind.”
Qiu Mian rested one hand on the car window, letting the late-spring night breeze gently brush across his face. The river of stars in the sky shone brightly, and his eyes were as clear and pristine as a full moon.
“If I like someone, I’d willingly take ninety-nine steps forward on my own.”