Shrine - Chapter 84

Chapter 84

Shrine entered a period of stagnant, halting progress.

Because the female lead could no longer act well.

From that day on, she began to suffer from insomnia, losing her hair in clumps. Sometimes when the makeup artist was applying her makeup, the powder wouldn't even set, just caking on the surface like a mask of dough. She would sit there, as lifeless as a pasted paper doll, staring at the pale edges of her own lips. The anxiety of overthinking everything had a far greater impact on her than she had imagined. Even when the stylist combed her hair down and said casually, "The hair tie used to go around twice, now it needs three loops. Let me know if it's too tight."

Ruan Ruan's subconscious reaction was to apologize: "I'm sorry."

"Huh?" The stylist used a comb to undo the ends of her hair.

Ruan Ruan pressed her lips together, her chest heaving violently. Her apology was completely inexplicable. Perhaps she was worried about prop inconsistency, creating a continuity error, but this drama was being filmed in chronological order, so that wouldn't be an issue. Besides, the audience wouldn't notice such a fine detail.

But she had started to obsess over every tiny detail she might affect, to contest the gazes and expressions of everyone around her. Fate's penmanship is always absurd. The vastly different Ruan Ruan had fallen into the same predicament as Shi Ran in her youth. Her understanding of people's emotions gradually became chaotic; she could no longer clearly perceive the attitudes of those around her.

She always felt that no one liked her, that they too would, at some point, squat in the dark bushes, smoking and speaking ill of her.

She could no longer draw nourishment from "pleasing others," so her social system collapsed. Before, everything was "okay, okay, okay," "right, right, right," and "it's fine." Now, she picked through her words, unsure which phrase to use.

What was most bewildering was her deep sense of shame, making it difficult to face Xin Chen. She would catch glimpses of Xin Chen frequently checking the time whenever she supervised the set. Most people nowadays were used to using their phones, but Xin Chen liked to wear a watch. When she checked the time, her eyes would glance sideways, her wrist tilting up slightly, like a proctor during a childhood exam. The sense of pressure was self-evident.

The more she worried about the production schedule, the worse her acting became. She would read the script with her ears burning red. Zhong Yi, not wanting to pressure her, ate an orange nearby.

She thought of Shi Ran.

At night, she hid under the covers and called Shi Ran, still forcing a lighthearted tone: "When are you coming to visit the set?"

Hope was like a small flame.

Shi Ran laughed, a soft and gentle sound, and said the same thing as before: not yet.

The flame was extinguished. There was no more nourishment under the covers, and the stuffiness was unbearable.

She didn't dare ask for leave, didn't dare go find Shi Ran. Several major scenes had already been postponed. If she ran off now, the production team would probably be furious.

While eating in the break tent, Wu Mei brought her some news. Zhong Yi's schedule was running out. Her agent had flown to Shucheng specifically to negotiate with Xin Chen.

Ruan Ruan lost her appetite. No one had said anything to her, but it felt as if a continuous stream of gas was filling her chest, making it painfully difficult to breathe. She began to doubt herself. Life is born with an order, and her fate was to be abandoned, to be forgotten. If she insisted on standing under people's gazes, she simply couldn't bear the weight of their scrutiny.

Her body started itching again, especially behind her ears. During filming, she often couldn't control the urge to scratch. If she didn't, it would turn very red, red enough to affect the shot. She heard the cinematographer tell the director, "This is the only way I can shoot it. You'll have to change her final look later. Have the styling team give her more hairstyles that cover her ears. If they absolutely have to be visible, we'll just have to fix it in post."

Ruan Ruan covered her ears. They wouldn't obey her, leaving her in a dilemma.

Post-production was charged by the minute. She couldn't let the production incur that extra expense, nor did she want to make the makeup and styling team change her look again.

In the second week, while waiting for a night scene, she fell asleep on the sofa. She dreamed that marketing accounts had posted Ruan Dongliang's chat logs, claiming her own brother had revealed she was being kept by someone. Her eyelids fluttered, and the dream shifted to a video platform where someone was live-streaming with her great-uncle, talking about how her mother had run off with another man. Her lips twitched, and Xin Chen was saying the video platform was going to downgrade the drama because investment prospects weren't good. And finally, there was Shi Ran.

She dreamed of Shi Ran. She had landed a massive project with an international director, and the entire hot search was in a state of joyous celebration.

When Ruan Ruan woke up, there was a hollow sweat beneath her eyelids. A large lamp nearby was glaringly bright and hot, like an oppressive interrogation light in the darkness.

In the third week, the call sheet was adjusted. The female lead was absent for three days. The gossip mills in Shucheng churned, and the crew whispered among themselves.

Xin Chen asked Ruan Ruan to come to her office—the same large conference room where she had told Shi Ran to calm down. She stood to the side, looking over some documents with her right hand propped on her hip. Seeing Ruan Ruan arrive, she smiled and said, "Sit."

Then, the delivery rider arrived. Xin Chen had ordered an Americano for herself and handed an iced latte to Ruan Ruan.

Ruan Ruan bit at the dead skin on her lips, not daring to pull too hard, afraid it would make applying makeup difficult when work started.

She cupped the condensation on the iced latte as if it were a hot cup of tea, waiting for Xin Chen to speak.

"I won't beat around the bush. Your state has been terrible recently," Xin Chen said, habitually leaning halfway over the conference table and fiddling with a small hole in the cable management port. "What's going on? Is it just about that stuff online?"

Ruan Ruan felt deeply embarrassed. For any other celebrity, this level of online controversy wouldn't be considered very serious. She felt that no one could possibly understand the chaotic state of her mind, where everything she saw was a mess.

A normal person might just be confused between their online persona and their true self. But for Ruan Ruan, the current public opinion had shattered the survival system of self-deception she had built over twenty years. She was confused between pleasing others and not pleasing them, between passive acceptance and standing firm, between right and wrong.

She found it somewhat difficult to judge what was right and what was wrong.

"You're not talking. What are we supposed to do if you don't talk?" Xin Chen was at her wit's end. She stood up, ran a hand back through her hair, and tilted her head up like a dying fish out of water. After calming herself for three or four seconds, she spoke again, her voice even. "The director told me you're avoiding the camera. Is that right?"

"Huh?" Ruan Ruan looked up. She hadn't noticed.

Xin Chen saw that her eyes were rimmed with red—whether from lack of sleep or something else, she didn't know, but it was a pitiable sight. So she softened her tone a little more, trying to be gentle. "The director said that whenever he tries to get your face in the shot, you turn away. When he focuses on your eyes for a close-up, you either blink constantly or start fidgeting. Do you want to see for yourself? The playback?"

Ruan Ruan nodded, then paused and shook her head.

She lifted her eyelids to glance at Xin Chen, then her gaze flickered away, fixing on the latte in her hands. Her fingers anxiously tapped against the plastic cup.

"I'm sorry, I… I'll pay attention next time."

"Can you really adjust?" Xin Chen frowned. "I really need a clear attitude from you, Ruan Ruan. I don't want to pressure you, but… you understand, right?"

The decision to split the show into seasons had already lengthened the shooting schedule, which required a lot of work to manage the platform and the investors. On the cost side, Zhong Yi's team had said that since the seasonal split was to accommodate her schedule, they had lowered her own salary and wouldn't charge extra. Meanwhile, Xin Chen had already stretched the budget for one season across three. She had calculated everything down to the last cent and simply couldn't afford any mistakes.

Every one of Ruan Ruan's NGs, every minute and every second, felt to Xin Chen as if it were cutting her flesh and drinking her blood.

She, too, heard the sound of herself being roasted over a fire every day. She, too, was too anxious to sleep.

The director, cinematography, props, art, logistics… these were the first things she thought of when she opened her eyes. Even when she closed them, her WeChat would buzz with someone asking her for money.

Tens of millions had been invested, and for a supernatural drama, post-production was still the biggest expense.

In the end, she didn't say much more. She offered Ruan Ruan some encouragement and prepared to go back and think things over herself.

In the fourth week, on the last of the three days scheduled for shooting empty scenes, An Lu called.

Wu Mei and Ruan Ruan listened together. They knelt in front of the coffee table, the phone on speaker, just like in the old days when they had few opportunities and would wait for a response from a production team.

Usually, a production team would only call once they had made a decision. Back then, they would huddle close to their good friend, barely daring to breathe, raising a hand to cover a triumphant smile while their other hand tightly squeezed their friend's, giving it a little shake. Then, they would lean closer to the receiver and say as calmly as possible, "Okay, Teacher, I understand. Thank you, Teacher, thank you~"

Now, Ruan Ruan also tried to remain calm as she spoke to the phone, "An Lu, go ahead."

"They might recast your role in Shrine. I'm telling you in advance so you can be mentally prepared."

Previous Table of Contents Next