The cameras stopped.
They did not catch the satisfied curl at the corner of Rong Shu’s mouth. The slow, upward drag of her eyes as she let the amusement sit there unguarded for just a moment, edged with something close to mockery.
Well. What do we do about this? See Author, your male lead can’t keep his hands off me, and its clearly none of my fault. I have nothing to apologize for. Female Lead, congratulations, your boyfriend is mine now.
The director’s voice came through like a thunderclap. “What is wrong with the stand-in? I just praised you and now you can’t hold it together? Is this the kind of professional conduct you want to be known for? If you don’t want the work, don’t take it. And now Teacher Shen has to stay up half the night with you.”
It was two in the morning. Everyone on set was running on dark circles and stale coffee. A little temper was understandable.
This was the entertainment industry, though, which meant the frustration would definitely land on Rong Shu and not on Shen Baizhu. That was simply how the hierarchy worked.
Rong Shu gave a small, quiet flinch.
Shen Baizhu looked at the person still tucked against him, fragile-looking and utterly magnetic, and felt something in his chest fill up with a tenderness that had arrived without his permission.
“Director, that was my fault. I’m tired. Can we pick this up tomorrow? We can get the hand close-ups in reshoots. Don’t blame her. She did well. Her performance was good.”
Director Bai nodded without argument. Shen Baizhu had come into this production with funding attached, his family’s entertainment holding company serving as a key sponsor. The director had never fully mapped out the depth of his background, only that his older brother ran upwards of fifty entertainment companies and sat at the top of the industry.
“Little one, don’t be upset. Alright, alright. We’ll pick it up tomorrow.”
The set began to clear. As Rong Shu disentangled herself from him, stepping out from the bracket of his legs, she heard a quiet, even voice behind her.
“I’m sorry.”
The skin at the back of her neck went a deeper shade of red.
What happened next was either a loss of balance or something else entirely. Her footing gave out, and she pitched forward directly in front of him, her softness landing squarely against the bridge of his nose.
His first thought was that it was very soft and smelled wonderful.
His second thought was that he was going to drown.
The rose fragrance hit him in a concentrated wave, and whatever thread of composure he had been holding onto pulled itself to its absolute limit.
Rong Shu’s legs had been unreliable since the end of the first scene, which was a reasonable consequence of filming two back-to-back sequences of this nature. With her footing gone completely, she did the only thing available and wrapped both arms around the back of his head, which, in the context of the scene still lingering in the air and the lighting that had not yet been taken down, looked like something it was not.
The forbidden red light was still casting itself across everything. Illuminating what spilled over at the edges.
Rong Shu recovered command of her body, shuffled her feet into something resembling order, and upon hearing the low, barely suppressed sound from the man in front of her, removed herself from the situation at speed.
She was nearly at the door when she heard it behind her. A single muffled laugh.
She collided directly with Su Wanying on her way out.
Su Wanying’s eyes went wide. The look she turned on Rong Shu was entirely without any attempt at disguise. Bed, low light, rumpled sheets and a woman bolting for the exit. It had all the composition of a wronged wife walking in on something she already suspected.
Su Wanying had been behind the camera the entire time. She had watched Shen Baizhu with complete clarity. The man who was ordinarily made of cold edges and careful distance had looked, for an extended stretch of this scene, like something else entirely. Unguarded and hungry and not particularly bothered about hiding it.
And two people with very little fabric between them had been pressed together for the better part of an hour. The conditions were not exactly designed for restraint.
From across the room she could see Shen Baizhu reaching for the sheet to pull across himself, and the effort of not reacting to that made something crack behind her back teeth.
Su Wanying leaned in close to Rong Shu’s ear and said, very quietly, “Put away whatever thoughts you shouldn’t be having.”
Rong Shu was playing a minor stand-in in this novel. That did not mean she was anyone’s to handle carelessly.
She let out a cold breath of a laugh and fired back in the same register, close and unhurried.
“Who’s performing for who here?”
The sarcasm was thick enough to leave a mark.
t/n:”bed substitute/stand-in” (床替) is a real industry term for body doubles used specifically in intimate scenes, which is why the dynamic here has so many layers. the power imbalance is intentional and the author is absolutely cooking.