A OO Love After Officially Announcing with the Best Actress - Chapter 23

Because the set had been cleared, there were few people around, so that embarrassed, angry, helpless cry sounded especially obvious.

“Ah—”

“It’s a psychological barrier!” Lin Ke growled. “With Fang Wuyu here, how am I supposed to film this kind of scene?!”

The person in question had already left the crew and was currently on the way to catch a flight.

Lin Bingran raised her eyes and glanced at Lin Ke. “You care quite a lot about Wuyu?”

Fang Wuyu was your lover. She climbed right over your head and wanted to take my role. I’m not allowed to care?

Lin Ke said, “You call her so intimately. How could I not care?”

Lin Bingran rubbed her brow, thinking, So she’s jealous?

Annoyed, she said, “Do you need me to call her back? You two can talk face-to-face again?”

Lin Ke puffed out her chest, outwardly strong but inwardly weak. “Talk about replacing my role?”

Lin Bingran looked at Lin Ke. Had she been too gentle? Even an eighteenth-tier actress dared put on airs in front of her now?

Lin Bingran said coldly, “Whether you get replaced or not isn’t up to you. But as long as you’re still the lead of this film for one day, you need to film properly and obediently. Also, learn to separate personal feelings from work.”

Lin Ke said, “I… I don’t want a double.”

“Can you film now?” Lin Bingran asked.

Lin Ke gripped the bedsheet tightly.

The set fell into a brief silence.

Lin Bingran’s tone was cold. “When you can cast aside every outside distraction, we’ll continue filming this scene.”

Lin Ke hugged the blanket and stood barefoot beside the bed. “Wait! Teacher Lin!”

Lin Bingran glanced sideways. “Speak.”

Lin Ke bit her lip. “I’m not Lu Meng. I won’t give up my role!”

It was as if Lin Bingran’s reverse scale had been touched. Her expression darkened, and even her perfunctory grace disappeared. She said directly, “You’re not qualified to talk to me about this.”

“Will you replace me?” Lin Ke pressed, questioning her, wanting an answer that would make her feel secure.

Lin Bingran left angrily. Her expression when she walked away was more than a little ugly.

Behind the monitor, Shen Feng’s head felt as big as an ox. “Bingran! What happened?”

Lin Bingran turned and left. “Rest for two days.”

Shen Feng stomped her foot and jabbed a finger toward Lin Ke, hating iron for not becoming steel. “You really are my ancestor!”

The director and Lin Bingran both left. The cinematographer packed up the camera and slipped away. A few minutes later, Lu Tu stormed up in a whirlwind.

“Are you crazy?!” Lu Tu screamed in collapse, rubbing her face wildly.

Lin Ke was dazed. “…I, I, Teacher Lin, she…”

Lu Tu said, “It’s already spread downstairs. They’re saying Lin Bingran was so angry with you that she refused to continue filming!”

Lin Ke felt her brain buzzing, as if a hundred or eighty bees had flown inside. “No way… The crew is so big, with so many people, producers, directors, investors… She can stop filming just because she says so?”

Lu Tu poked Lin Ke’s forehead, leaving a fingertip mark on her little darkened face. “Lin Bingran accounts for half the investment in this film. On this crew, she’s the father! You really are a newborn calf unafraid of tigers. Fine, you treat the tiger like a cat, but you can’t even handle one scratch from the cat!”

Lin Ke was poked backward, then bounced back upright like a roly-poly. Now clear-headed, she said helplessly, “Then what should I do?”

Lu Tu said, “Go apologize! Go kowtow!”

Kowtow?!

Lin Ke stepped on the bath towel and almost exposed herself. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

Lu Tu was extremely shocked. “You still say you’re not wrong? You made her so angry she stopped filming! Do you know what kind of person Lin Bingran is? She can blacklist you with one curl of her toes!”

Lin Ke panicked. “That’s because Fang Wuyu wanted to steal my scene! She even said it in front of the director!”

Like thunder from a clear sky.

Both of them were blasted dizzy.

The more Lin Ke spoke, the more fired up she became, as if she wanted to vent all the grievances she had accumulated since coming to Water Town. “Would apologizing even be useful?! I could apologize ten or eight times and it still wouldn’t compare to Fang Wuyu whispering into her pillow once!”

“I… will I become the next Lu Meng?” Lin Ke asked anxiously.

How would Lu Tu know? Her vision went dark, and she fainted directly.

Beside the city moat, Shen Feng arranged a hotpot meal and sat face-to-face with Lin Bingran, splurging on two bottles of beer.

“I’ll apologize on Xiao Lin’s behalf!” Shen Feng filled Lin Bingran’s glass, then boldly drank another glass herself.

Lin Bingran swished tripe, then beef, eating until her mouth was red from the spice. “No need.”

Shen Feng asked, “Were you angry today?”

Lin Bingran placed her chopsticks on the chopstick rest, picked up her glass, and took a gulp.

“Quite angry,” Lin Bingran smiled. “How long has it been since someone dared argue with me to my face?”

Shen Feng tested, “Could there be a misunderstanding?”

Lin Bingran pondered. She fished out a strand of potato noodles. Half a month ago, Lin Ke had sat right here, unable to even eat a single noodle strand, and that embarrassed appearance seemed still vivid before her eyes.

“I think she really does like Wuyu,” Lin Bingran said.

Shen Feng choked on a mouthful of beer. “Cough—cough, cough! It’s actually true?”

Lin Bingran nodded. “Your analysis was very accurate. Her behavior these past two days also supports our guess, doesn’t it?”

“A Fang Wuyu fan, my anti-fan, so disgusted she can’t even keep filming.”

Shen Feng wanted to swallow back the words “I apologize for Lin Ke” and said, “Then… what do we do?”

Lin Bingran leaned back. The chair creaked. “Let her cool off for a few days.”

The film was the priority. Lin Bingran said, “I’ll film normally tomorrow.”

Shen Feng nodded. “Then I’ll suspend Xiao Lin’s call sheet for two days and let her follow the crew to learn more. Xiao Lin’s acting is still immature.”

Lin Bingran neither agreed nor disagreed. She scooped a piece of yellow throat into her bowl. “Hiss.”

“Too spicy?” Shen Feng asked.

“A little.” Lin Bingran nodded. It was the yellow throat scalding the wound inside her mouth—the one Lin Ke had bitten open. Once it touched chili oil, the sensation was especially sour and refreshing.

“What if…” Shen Feng suddenly said, “I find a double?”

Lin Bingran’s settled anger faintly flared up. “What?”

Shen Feng quickly said, “Of course I mean for you! Let Lin Ke film with the double!”

Lin Bingran laughed in anger. “Even that silly girl knows not to give up her role. Do you think I’d be willing?”

Shen Feng poured Lin Bingran half a glass of wine. “Your actions today were too big. Stopping filming isn’t a small matter. Aren’t you afraid it’ll trend and you’ll get smeared again?”

Lin Bingran said, “I’m not afraid.”

But Shen Feng was. Calculating the time from start to finish, this film still had several months of shooting ahead. Add in pre-production filings, casting, the crew traveling all over to scout and film locations, post-production and promotion after filming, and then the final release—it would take at least a year from beginning to end.

Shen Feng said, “Just in case… I’ll have someone contact a few suitable people first.”

The existence of doubles was to better present a film. Using them appropriately and reasonably was not impossible.

Lin Bingran was silent. “Sorry to trouble you.”

Shen Feng waved her hand. “This film was never made with profit in mind. We’re filming it for joy. Back then, you agreeing to invest was already support for me. If I’d known Xiao Lin was your anti-fan, I really wouldn’t have used her.”

Lin Bingran gave a faint laugh. The red-oil hotpot bubbling before her suddenly seemed to lose its appeal. She said, “Just consider it my poor judgment.”

Shen Feng glanced sideways with a smile and leaned closer to fill her glass again. Suddenly, her nose twitched. “What’s going on with your pheromones?”

Lin Ke curled up under the covers, wrapped in the blanket while scrolling on her phone. The online comments scolding her had never stopped.

Lin Bingran’s fanbase was huge, and every few days, they would come to her private messages to line up rows of candles.

After browsing for a while, she even accidentally clicked into the homepage of a CP fan.

Lin Bingran and Fang Wuyu’s cuts—one movie had been edited to death, yet they were still shipping it. There was pitifully little material. Lin Ke did not know what was so good about it.

Suddenly, her butt was slapped, and Lu Tu yanked the blanket open.

Lin Ke looked like a quail. “…What is it?”

Lu Tu held ice cubes in one hand and had the other hand on her waist. “I asked around. Fang Wuyu has already left.”

“Oh. And then?” Lin Ke mumbled.

Lu Tu said, “The little demoness who could whisper into her pillow is already gone. What do you mean, ‘and then’?!”

Lu Tu dragged Lin Ke up from the bed. “Go apologize! Cry, beg, whatever you have to do. If Lin Bingran doesn’t forgive you… I-I’ll jump from this sixth floor!”

Guo Rongrong knocked on the bathroom door and called loudly, “Jie, I’m leaving first. I put the hangover soup on the table for you!”

“Mm.” A water-dampened reply came from the bathroom.

Guo Rongrong opened the door and left. Catching sight of the Room 602 plaque, she lightly rolled her eyes at the door.

In the bathroom, Lin Bingran turned off the hot water and wiped her face in front of the foggy mirror.

She wiped a clean patch on the mirror, revealing her wine-flushed face.

Lin Bingran’s breathing was slightly hurried. Her gland was swollen and hot, and her forehead was flushed too.

There was a thermometer in the drawer. She pulled it open and took her temperature.

Her temperature was high. After taking medicine and waiting restlessly for a while, the fever went down, but the other symptoms on her body became even more obvious.

A laptop rested on Lin Bingran’s knees, her feet rubbing against the carpet. She drank a glass of water to cool down, lowered the air-conditioning, and still wanted to find a piece of ice to chill her restless gland.

The fragrance of tea slowly filled the entire space. Lin Bingran put down her phone, slipped into her slippers, and went to the bedroom. From the bottom of a drawer, she pulled out a small pink box. Inside lay a round toy with a protruding tip.

She shuffled in her slippers to the bathroom to wash and disinfect the item, preparing to face this heat period.

Blushing, Lin Bingran recorded the date of this heat in the phone app.

Her heat period was unstable. When she was busy, it might not come for three to five months. But when it did come, she became easily excited and agitated.

Lin Bingran walked out of the bathroom wrapped in a bath towel. Perhaps because of the alcohol, her whole body carried a slightly intoxicated air. A sense of emptiness swept over her, and the desire to relieve herself grew stronger and stronger.

Knock, knock!

Lin Bingran furrowed her brows. Her pheromones were already about to go out of control.

Knock, knock—

“Teacher Lin, it’s Xiao Lin.”