Su Wanying’s gaze snagged for a moment on Shen Baizhu’s fingers where they had closed over Rong Shu’s. The burn on her own hand throbbed with renewed spite.
She had nothing left to say that wouldn’t cost her further dignity. So she turned on her heel and walked away, the sharp click of her heels marking every step.
“Is Teacher Su alright? Did she misread the situation between us? Isn’t this just normal consideration between colleagues?”
Rong Shu asked it with genuine puzzlement, her head tilted like a child who had missed something obvious.
There was a small smear of congee at the corner of her mouth. Without any particular awareness of it, she drew out the tip of her tongue, a flash of vivid red, and swept it clean. The soft pink dragged across the pale curve of her lip and left a faint, wet trail behind it.
Shen Baizhu’s breathing shifted. He pulled his gaze away and held it elsewhere.
“Don’t worry about her.”
What he could not account for was the way his mind was already moving toward tomorrow’s scenes. The reshoot of the arm-to-chest sequence. And after that, the bath scene.
This thought strayed in his mind more than it should have, but he seemed to be unaware of it, this thought was briefly recognized but then its impact on him was casually brushed away by him.
Rong Shu was a merely small-time actress, which meant she would have a shared room. She was grouped with the extras and background cast, the accommodations was assigned by the director briefly. Then they were being loaded onto a vehicle like sacks of wheat, to be portered to the hotel, which sat tucked against the foot of a hill somewhere in the quietly remote outskirts of Hengdian, at a distance of thirty-minute drive.
She packed her bag with care; lipstick, compact mirror, room key, each item was placed with deliberate neatness. There was no recording device among them. Obviously she would have been a fool to pack that, there is never a soft, sweet, and oblivious female lead, and Su Wanying who destroyed the original owner more so was anything but that. She would never give this female lead any handle against her, further so she doesn’t need this low handle methods.
The roommate who the director assigned to Rong Shu turned out to be a young university student named Xu Wei. While in van, they sat together and Rong Shu who had no particular intention of prying, happened to catch a glimpse of the conversation open on Xu Wei’s screen.
Director Bai, come find me tonight. You’ve been filming all day, let me give you a massage.
The reply came back almost instantly. Wouldn’t be great, you still have a roommate. Give it three days, I’ll take you somewhere proper. Behave.
Hmph. Just lock her outside. She looks like the type who keeps her head down and doesn’t make noise. Besides, doesn’t that make it more exciting? A photo ‘the kind that would require censoring’ followed the text.
Fine. Accompanied by an emoji that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
Rong Shu smoothly redirected her gaze like someone who has never seen anything that transpired on chat preface of Xu Wei. She was someone who respected the choices people made themselves. But respecting them doesn’t means she understood them. The man was old and by the previous interaction with him clearly revealed that hygiene situation too was clearly not inspiring.
But fine. The room was theirs, and she had no objection to vacating the premises.
And as it happened, she had been quietly wondering how to manufacture an excuse to cross paths with Shen Baizhu once filming wrapped for the night.
It would make a classic and reliable damsel in distress scenario.
[A real couple playing a Republican-era tragic romance, they’re giving everything. Eating this content by the bowlful.]
[You can only get that kind of chemistry with genuine feelings involved. He’s gorgeous, she’s stunning, my eyes can’t handle it.]
The replies cascaded downward in an unbroken chain of agreement.
[Obsessed +1]
[+1]
[+1]