Chapter 460: Even Crew Boxed Lunches Have an Internal Race? The Old Man Serving Food is Actually a Peak-Level Master! |
The rain was still falling.
Ghost Claw Chen’s hunched back slowly disappeared into the shadows at the end of the alley.
In the middle of the alley, only a frightened child and a man frozen like a sculpture remained.
Jiang Ci, playing A Jie, stood in the muddy water.
Rainwater ran along his hair, gathering at his chin, hanging there in a suspended droplet.
That single drop of water ultimately couldn’t bear the weight,
“Plop,” it fell into the bloody water at his feet.
The frame froze.
In this moment, the cinematic language was steeped in desolation, right down to the bone.
He stared intently at the screen, his folding fan already twisted out of shape in his grip.
The crew members nearby barely dared to breathe, afraid to shatter the moment.
A full ten seconds passed.
Jiang Wen let out a long breath.
“Alright. Cut.”
No thunderous roar, just a pardon.
The string, stretched to its breaking point on set, finally snapped.
But Jiang Ci didn’t move.
His gaze was still vacant, fixed on the few “corpses.”
A Jie’s soul was still trapped inside that shell, unable to escape.
That feeling of powerlessness crashed over his reason in wave after wave.
Until—
“Ptoo! Ptoo! Ptoo!”
The “corpse” at his feet suddenly came back to life.
The stuntman instructor playing A Jiu the blacksmith sat bolt upright,
ripping the blood pack from his mouth, his face scrunched up.
“Damn it! What kind of tofu did the props team buy? Is it rotten? It’s stinking me to death!”
A Jiu grumbled, reaching into his ear to pick out bits of tofu dregs.
Beside him, Aunt Gui, whose “throat was supposed to be cut,” also flipped over, her first action being to whip out a compact mirror to check her makeup.
“Don’t move! Don’t move! Let the makeup artist remove it first. This stage blood sticks to the hair, it’s a nightmare to wash out!”
The worst off was Fa Shu, grimacing and rubbing his lower back,
moaning and groaning as he stood up with the set assistant’s help.
“Oh, my old back… Master Chen really went for it. He almost shook me apart.”
The noise of reality flooded in, shattering the filter of tragedy.
Jiang Ci’s eyes moved.
He watched A Jiu, still complaining about the sour tofu,
then looked at Fa Shu, who was borrowing a light to light a cigarette.
The immense sense of dissonance left him momentarily stunned.
“Hey, handsome, you okay?”
Fa Shu, cigarette dangling from his lips, limped over, his face still smeared with blood as he grinned at Jiang Ci.
He reached out and patted Jiang Ci’s shoulder, offering him the cigarette pack.
“Don’t look so down. That look in your eyes just now… damn, it was brilliant. Makes me feel like I didn’t take that beating for nothing. I died a worthy death!”
Jiang Ci took the cigarette, his fingers still trembling slightly.
He looked down at the cigarette in his hand, then back at Fa Shu’s face, crinkled with smiles.
“Fa Shu, your… your back alright?” Jiang Ci’s voice was exceptionally hoarse.
“No problem! Tough as nails!” Fa Shu waved a hand, taking a deep, heroic drag of his cigarette.
“In our line of work, who isn’t in pain? As long as the performance is good, even a broken bone is a damn medal!”
Nearby, Jiang Wen stood up, holding his megaphone.
“Alright! Stop having your little moment here!”
“Listen up, everyone! To let this emotion settle, and to give our lead actor a little time to come back to his soul…”
Jiang Wen paused, then waved his hand grandly: “The whole crew gets an impromptu three-day break! Three days from now, we shoot the second half of the alley fight!”
“Whoa—! Long live the Director!”
Cheers erupted instantly.
Hearing the word “break” in Jiang Wen’s crew was rarer than winning the lottery.
The crowd dispersed, starting to pack up the equipment.
Jiang Ci, wrapped in a large towel, crouched under the eaves, staring blankly at the curtain of rain.
In his line of sight, a familiar figure was bending over, rummaging around a trash can.
It was Ghost Claw Chen.
This peak-level master, who moments ago had been slaughtering everyone in the alley with a glare that could stop a child’s crying,
was now stepping on an empty water bottle, flattening it, and expertly stuffing it into his red, white, and blue plastic bag.
He spotted a discarded cardboard box from the props team, his eyes lighting up,
and trotted over happily to pick it up, folding it flat and tucking it under his arm.
At that moment, there was not a shred of the grandmaster’s bearing left on him.
He was nothing more than a scavenging old man, haggling over a few cents.
Jiang Ci watched the scene, the corner of his mouth twitching involuntarily.
*So this is what they mean by ‘a true great master hides within the bustling city,’ huh?*
“Dinner is ready! Dinner is ready!”
A tantalizing aroma wafted over.
A long line had formed at the crew’s meal distribution point.
Jiang Ci touched his stomach, and that hunger belonging to A Jie surged back.
He got in line.
The people serving the food weren’t the usual set assistants, but an elderly couple who looked kind and gentle.
The man was tall, though a bit portly,
with a ruddy complexion. He wore a loose white undershirt,
a towel draped around his neck, and held a large cattail-leaf fan, using it to fan himself as he cheerfully greeted everyone.
The woman was wearing an apron, quick and nimble in her movements, with a loud, hearty voice that radiated efficiency.
“Come on, come on, eat more! Look how skinny you all are!”
“Oh, missy, eat more meat! On a diet? Forget dieting! How can you carry a camera without strength?”
It was Jiang Ci’s turn.
The old man—everyone called him Uncle Long—looked up and glanced at Jiang Ci.
His gaze was very gentle, like looking at his own useless grandson.
“Young man, you’ve worked hard.”
Uncle Long said with a smile, as his large iron ladle dipped into the stainless steel bucket.
The bucket was full of braised pork belly, glistening with oil, mouthwatering just to look at.
Usually, cafeteria aunties had a special skill—the “Parkinson’s hand-shake method,” where a full ladle of meat would shake down to just two pieces.
Jiang Ci instinctively focused on Uncle Long’s wrist.
[System Notification: Skill “Micro-level Motion Capture” has been triggered.]
In his vision, red lines outlined the muscle movement of Uncle Long’s arm.
Stable.
Incredibly stable.
The wrist hung in the air, perfectly still.
Uncle Long’s wrist gave a gentle twist.
A full, heaping ladle of braised pork, skin and meat together, landed on Jiang Ci’s rice.
Then, with an extremely subtle tremor, that wrist moved again.
It wasn’t the trembling of Parkinson’s.
It was a vibration imbued with a certain rhythm.
“Whoosh—”
The pieces of meat, originally piled up, now spread out evenly across the entire lunchbox under this clever application of force.
This…
Jiang Ci’s gaze sharpened.
*This technique… why does it look so familiar?*
This method was similar to the skill of shaking water off a lion head in a lion dance, yet it also had the feel of Tai Chi’s “listening” energy.
“Stop daydreaming. Eat it while it’s hot.”
The old woman beside him—Aunt Feng—interrupted Jiang Ci’s thoughts.
She ladled a bowl of snowy white liquid from a thermal jar and handed it to Jiang Ci.
“Home-made ginger milk curd. It’s not part of the boxed lunch. It’s a gift for you.”
Aunt Feng lowered her voice, a sharp glint flashing in her eyes, which were not in the least bit clouded.
“It’ll drive out the chill. Young man, the next scene is a tough battle. Don’t let your body get cold. Those old bones might be brittle, but their punches still hurt.”
Jiang Ci took the ginger milk curd. It was warm to the touch.
Just as he was about to say something, Jiang Wen squatted down beside him, holding an extra-large stainless steel basin.
Jiang Wen’s mouth was stuffed with braised pork, and he said, muffled, “So? Tastes pretty good, huh?”
Jiang Ci glanced at the old couple busy at work, then back at Jiang Wen.
“Director Jiang, these two…”
“They look familiar?”
Jiang Wen swallowed the meat in his mouth, a sinister grin spreading across his weathered face.
He pointed his chopsticks at Uncle Long, then at Aunt Feng.
“That’s your ‘Uncle Long’ and ‘Aunt Feng.’”
“Meaning, in the next alley fight, they are the… other two mountains you have to face.”
Jiang Ci’s hand trembled, the piece of meat on his spoon almost falling to the ground.
He watched Uncle Long, who was now cheerfully ladling soup for a set assistant, his face all smiles,
and then looked at Aunt Feng, who was scolding a lighting technician for not eating his greens.
“So…”
Jiang Ci took a deep breath, feeling as though the ginger milk curd in his hand had suddenly become scalding hot.
“This is what they call a ‘max-level pro stomping through a noob village’?”
Jiang Wen chuckled, patting Jiang Ci’s shoulder.
“Don’t be scared.”
“Master Chen is the Asura path. These two…”
Jiang Wen lowered his voice, a tone of schadenfreude creeping in.
“They are smiling tigers.”
“Compared to Master Chen’s straightforward, hard-hitting style, these two specialize in… making you take this beating with a smile on your face.”