Chapter 468: The Shadow Emperor's Deadweight Drop, This Girl Really Is Going All Out! |
Three days later.
The dark clouds over Kapok Alley finally dispersed.
The atmosphere on the film set was a little strange.
That scene a few days ago, the "rainy night crawl," had emotionally drained all several hundred members of the entire crew.
Now, when everyone looked at Jiang Ci, it was like they were looking at some fragile piece of porcelain.
However, the man himself, Jiang Ci, was currently sprawled out on a lounge chair at the edge of the set,
holding a large enamel tea mug printed with the words "Serve the People," with goji berries, red dates, and astragalus floating in a thick layer, steam rising from it.
"Brother Jiang, you..." Lin Xiaoman, the new actor playing A Xiu, came over,
holding the script in her hand, her face full of tension. "What do I do if I can't drag you in the next scene?"
only smeared with a thin layer of black powder, making her look exactly like the mute girl A Xiu who grew up in the alley.
Jiang Ci slurped down a mouthful of his health tea, squinting his eyes with satisfaction:
"Can't drag me? Then you've got it right. I'm a 'corpse' right now. If you could just lift me up easily, wouldn't that make me a blow-up doll?"
Lin Xiaoman blushed, but before she could speak, Jiang Wen over there was already bellowing into his megaphone.
"Everyone get into position! Scene Eight, A Xiu saves A Jie! This is the first breath of relief after the most oppressive part of the whole film. All of you, get your game faces on!"
Jiang Wen was wearing a red vest today, full of energy.
He pointed to the few high stone steps in front of the workshop entrance. "Xiaoman, remember, that feeling of weight. If you can't act it out, I'll have people tie sandbags to your legs!"
"Got it, Director!" Lin Xiaoman steadied herself, her gaze turning resolute.
"Complete silence on set! Action!"
The clapperboard snapped shut with a "smack."
The second before, he had been joking with Lin Xiaoman.
Jiang Ci now threw himself face-first into the pile of prop mud.
He slammed onto the ground with a thud.
"Splash."
Mud and water splattered everywhere.
Jiang Ci's chest stopped its obvious rise and fall.
The muscles throughout his body immediately went completely slack.
Yet, at the core, he maintained a subtle sinking force.
This was the "deadweight drop" acting method.
Many actors, when playing someone unconscious, just close their eyes and don't move.
But true masters know that the body of an unconscious person is deathly heavy.
Because without muscle support, the center of gravity completely drops.
The camera zoomed in.
Lin Xiaoman, as A Xiu, rushed out of the workshop.
Seeing A Jie lying at the bottom of the steps, covered in blood and grime, barely breathing in, breathing out,
tears immediately welled up in her eyes.
She was mute; she couldn't shout.
"Uh... uh..."
A Xiu threw herself into the muddy water, her hands trembling as she grabbed A Jie's arm.
The moment she grabbed hold, Lin Xiaoman's heart sank.
Heavy.
Too heavy.
Jiang Ci looked so skinny, but how did it feel, when she first grabbed him, like she was pulling a dead pig?
Lin Xiaoman gritted her teeth, planting both feet on the slick ground,
leaning her body backward, trying to drag Jiang Ci up the steps.
"Get... get up!"
She screamed in her heart, her face turning beet red.
Not an inch of movement.
Jiang Ci was as heavy as if he had taken root.
Behind the monitor, the Assistant Director frowned:
"Director Jiang, this... isn't this too heavy? Xiaoman's little frame, she really can't pull him. How about we have Jiang Ci put a little effort into cooperating?"
Jiang Wen ignored him, his eyes locked on the screen: "Put in effort? If he did that, it would look fake as hell!!"
In the frame, A Xiu was frantic, tears and snot smeared all over her face.
She tried several times, but A Jie's "broken" leg was always caught on the edge of the drainage ditch.
With every pull, A Jie's body only slid a few centimeters through the mud, before sliding heavily back down.
That despair was so real it was suffocating.
Just then, Lin Xiaoman suddenly let go.
She looked around, her gaze frantic yet determined.
Suddenly, she spotted the old burlap sack used to cover sundries by the workshop door.
A Xiu scrambled over, yanked the dusty sack down, and rushed back to A Jie's side.
She laboriously stuffed the sack underneath A Jie's body,
then grabbed the two corners of the sack,
winding the sack's straps tightly around her wrists.
"She added this part herself?" Jiang Wen's eyes lit up. "Good! Smart!"
With the sack as a makeshift sled, the friction was a little less.
A Xiu turned around, her back to the workshop gate, hoisting the sack straps onto her shoulder,
leaning forward to the extreme, practically crawling on the ground.
"Urgh——!!!"
It moved.
Jiang Ci's body finally moved.
He slid slowly through the mud, leaving a wide drag mark behind him.
Although his eyes were closed, Jiang Ci's senses were incredibly sharp.
He could feel Lin Xiaoman's rapid breaths blowing onto the back of his head.
This girl was really going all out.
To keep this scene from failing, Jiang Ci adjusted his breathing extremely subtly.
At the exact moment Lin Xiaoman put her strength into it,
he subtly tightened his core a little,
shifting his body's center of gravity up by about an inch.
This one inch, the camera couldn't capture, the audience couldn't see.
But in the lifter's perception, that huge mountain had finally loosened its grip.
Just that tiny bit was enough.
"Splash——"
A Jie's body was dragged to the foot of the steps.
This was the biggest obstacle.
Three levels of bluestone steps, each one about twenty centimeters high.
A Xiu didn't think about anything else.
She turned around, facing A Jie, hooked her hands tightly under his armpits,
braced her heels against the edge of the step, and threw her entire body weight backward with all her might.
"Bang!"
The first level.
A Xiu's knee slammed heavily against the hard corner of the stone step.
That crisp sound made everyone on set inhale sharply.
No knee pads.
That was a real knock.
Lin Xiaoman's features twisted in pain, but she didn't loosen her grip for a second. Instead, she held on even tighter.
Jiang Ci's eyelids twitched slightly.
He even used that tiny twitch to portray A Jie's instinctive convulsion from pain while unconscious.
"Ugh ah..."
A Xiu, fueled by the adrenaline rush from the sharp pain, suddenly exerted force.
The second level.
The third level.
Finally, the blood-smeared man was, by sheer force, dragged over the high threshold.
The light abruptly changed.
Outside the door was the cold, pale light of the clearing sky.
Inside the door was the warm, yellow tungsten light of the workshop.
This threshold was the dividing line between life and death.
A Xiu was completely exhausted.
She collapsed onto the ground, sitting there with a thud, gasping for breath.
A Jie lay among a pile of unfinished lion head frames.
Those frames woven from bamboo strips hadn't been pasted with paper or painted, bare and stark.
A Jie was like a dying little lion returning to its nest, curled up among the bones of its ancestors.
The camera slowly pulled back, giving a top-down shot.
Under the warm, yellow light,
the frail mute girl,
the dying youth,
and the circle of silent lion head frames watching over them.
The frame froze, the composition exquisite,
yet it exuded a heart-wrenching desolation.
"Cut——!!!"
Jiang Wen's shout was especially loud, carrying undisguised excitement.
"Print it! That was too damn perfect! That's tension! That's vitality!"
With this command, the tense atmosphere on set finally relaxed.
Jiang Ci, who hadn't moved a muscle a second ago, "rose from the dead" the next.
He didn't jump up immediately to look at the replay like he usually did.
Instead, he reached out first and firmly supported Lin Xiaoman, who was still struggling to get up beside him.
"Don't move."
Jiang Ci's voice was very light, but carried a convincing steadiness.
He crouched down, ignoring his own still-wet mud,
and gently rolled up Lin Xiaoman's pant leg.
On her knee was a patch of bruising, the skin broken, oozing beads of blood.
"Hiss..." Lin Xiaoman winced in pain.
"You really slammed that one hard."
Jiang Ci frowned, turning his head to shout at the still-dazed set assistant, "First aid kit! What are you standing there for? Ice pack!"
Turning back, he had become that warm senior again.
"Were you cursing me out as a pig in your head when you were dragging me?"
Jiang Ci joked with a smile, trying to ease the girl's tension and pain.
Lin Xiaoman looked at the man in front of her, his face smeared with mud yet smiling warmly, and her eyes reddened.
"No... no..." she sniffled. "It's just... Brother Jiang, you really should lose some weight..."
"Pfft——"
The staff members who had gathered around all burst out laughing.
The previously oppressive and heavy atmosphere dissipated instantly.
Jiang Wen walked over, watching this scene, and reached out to slap Jiang Ci on the shoulder, with considerable force.
"Alright, stop acting out an idol drama here." Jiang Wen exhaled a puff of smoke.
"Hurry up and get cleaned up. The next scene is the real tough battle."
Jiang Ci stood up and looked towards the depths of the workshop.
There sat that black, fierce-looking "Zhang Fei Lion."
Even though filming hadn't started yet, Jiang Ci could feel
that lion's eyes were watching him from the darkness.
Waiting for his blood to awaken the sleeping lion's spirit.
"Director Jiang." Jiang Ci wiped the mud from his face. "This lion has been hungry for a long time, hasn't it?"
Jiang Wen grinned, showing a mouthful of gleaming white teeth: "So hungry it's about to eat people. What, scared?"
Jiang Ci didn't answer.
He just walked over to the pile of lion head frames and reached out to touch the bamboo strips.
A rough texture touched his fingertips, so much like A Jie's miserable life.
"Scared?"
Jiang Ci chuckled softly, his gaze growing deep.
"Scared it won't get enough to eat."
With that, he turned and walked towards the makeup room,
his silhouette stretching long under the warm, yellow light...
Late into the night.
On Weibo, a leaked behind-the-scenes photo from the *Awakening Lion* film set quietly surfaced.
It was a blurry picture.
A rainy night, in a muddy alley, a thin figure,
dragging a man covered in blood, crawling towards a faint light.
The caption was just one sentence:
[Some people are just acting. Some people are giving it their all. This is probably why we can always trust Jiang Ci.]