Acting Out of Character (GL) - Chapter 3

Luo Jingyi’s eardrums were still aching.

Early that morning, she had already spent ages arguing on the phone with Old Tao over who should play the female lead in her new film, A Minor’s Final Wish. She had rejected every actress he recommended.

Old Tao was so angry that he nearly laughed. “Jingyi, aren’t you being far too picky? You’re not even satisfied with Bai Xing. Who else could you possibly want? You’ve practically crushed the confidence of every actress in the country. Their managers are coming to my house in tears. What am I supposed to do?”

“Don’t ask me. Ask your security guards why they let people wander in so casually.” Sitting in the back seat of a car, Luo Jingyi wore a Bluetooth earpiece and looked out the window, speaking as rapidly as a machine gun. “Call 110 if that doesn’t work. See whether the police can handle it.”

Old Tao: “…”

Never argue with a screenwriter, especially one with a razor-sharp tongue. The moment she opened her mouth, she could leave you with nothing to say.

Old Tao was both the director and producer of A Minor’s Final Wish. He had been Luo Jingyi’s senior in the directing department when she attended drama academy. He had won countless awards himself and was internationally renowned.

Outside, people bowed so deeply to Director Tao that their vision nearly went black. Yet whenever Director Tao stood before Luo Jingyi, she usually drove his blood pressure through the roof.

They had also collaborated on her previous film. During casting, she had frustrated him so badly that he developed a fever and spent three days receiving intravenous fluids.

Director Tao had a sharp tongue himself, yet against Luo Jingyi, he could not even wrestle a punctuation mark away from her.

Eventually, he no longer had the life left in him to argue and let her decide everything. The investors relied on her anyway. Despite being merely the screenwriter, she could carry the box office herself.

Later, Director Tao washed his hands of the matter entirely. The resulting film, deeply branded with Luo Jingyi’s distinctive style, swept through the National Day holiday season. The results proved that Luo Jingyi’s casting judgment never failed.

Director Tao had nothing more to say. Apart from having to endure some irritation, working with Luo Jingyi brought him both fame and fortune. There was nothing bad about it.

Afterward, Director Tao had even invited Luo Jingyi to dinner specifically to discuss life with her in the most earnest manner possible.

Perhaps because three years had passed since their last film, Director Tao had somewhat forgotten the terror of being dominated by Luo Jingyi. For this film, he was once again adapting one of her scripts.

This time, A Minor’s Final Wish was aiming for both critical acclaim and commercial success, but they had become stuck at the casting stage once again.

In truth, Director Tao had already formed a list of potential female leads when the core creative team first began developing the project. He had even chosen four.

Acting skills? They had them! Beauty? They had that too! Did she want popularity? They had that prepared as well. They even had actresses with acting ability, beauty, and popularity all at once. Look right here!

He had thought everything would be foolproof this time. And yet?

Teacher Luo still disliked every single one of them.

Director Tao simply could not understand. “Teacher Luo, could you please tell me exactly what’s wrong with Bai Xing? Did you watch her audition clip? She was practically Chen Yao, your female lead, brought to life.”

Luo Jingyi said, “Her acting is too mature.”

“Huh?”

“Chen Yao is still somewhat inexperienced. She doesn’t fully understand herself, nor does she understand life. She only has a vague, incomplete understanding of the world. Bai Xing understands too much. Her performance is also too polished. I don’t want that polish.”

“So you want to choose a young newcomer?”

“A newcomer’s acting skills wouldn’t be strong enough to carry the role.”

“…Why don’t you just say you want an immortal from heaven?”

Director Tao argued with her for ages, saying that the investors had begun pressing him and that he was losing sleep night after night. He urged her to decide as quickly as possible.

Even Luo Jingyi, who had always remained calm and composed, developed an earache from all the pressure.

The roles in A Minor’s Final Wish had yet to be finalized, while the new script she was preparing to write had suddenly revealed a fatal contradiction. The entire chain of logic she had previously worked out had to be overturned and reconsidered from scratch.

The script refused to come together, she could not find a personal assistant, and the moment she entered her office, Luo Jingyi discovered something filthy sitting in her chair and crying.

The crying was so utterly heart-wrenching that it nearly shook blood from all seven openings of her head. Yet the filthy thing claimed she was displaying her acting skills and was the living embodiment of Chen Yao, the female lead of A Minor’s Final Wish.

Luo Jingyi had already exercised considerable restraint. Following her doctor’s advice not to become angry because rage damaged the liver, she merely told the other woman to “get out.” She did not unleash any other curses or yank a monitor from the desk and smash it over her head as a farewell gift.

After the woman was driven away, her secretary, Xiao Wei, hurried over in alarm and asked Luo Jingyi:

“Teacher Luo, what happened?”

Luo Jingyi’s face was dark, and she did not utter a single word. Yet the sight of her like this frightened her secretary even more than if she had jumped up and started cursing.

“Don’t tell me that Xiao Mao, the one without an appointment, barged in by herself just now…”

Who did not know that Teacher Luo had an especially terrible temper while writing a script?

Admittedly, even when this Empress Dowager was not writing, her temper had never been mild. But once she entered a state of complete concentration, the words “Empress Dowager” were no longer enough to describe her.

She became a walking nuclear bomb.

Not only did she explode at the slightest provocation, but her radiation radius was vast and the lingering damage severe.

Teacher Luo had an extremely strong sense of time. If she said she would meet someone at a certain hour, that was when she would meet them. Arrive early and wait. Arrive late and goodbye.

No one was ever permitted to touch her personal belongings carelessly. If anyone did, she would disinfect them immediately.

Xiao Wei had been Teacher Luo’s secretary for three years and had encountered plenty of bizarre people who violated her taboos.

But that morning’s visitor had been the first person she had ever seen who immediately and efficiently violated every single one of Teacher Luo’s taboos.

The quieter Teacher Luo became, the more terrifying she was. Sweat was already beginning to form on Xiao Wei’s forehead.

Luo Jingyi’s gaze fell on the desk and chair. She said flatly, “Replace them.”

Xiao Wei felt as though she had received a royal pardon. “All right! I’ll handle it immediately!”

Xiao Wei was about to flee when Luo Jingyi asked, “Who was that person crying in here? Which company is she from?”

To save her own life and redirect Luo Jingyi’s anger elsewhere, Xiao Wei immediately presented her tablet and showed Luo Jingyi the information the woman had left when making her appointment.

“White Horse Pictures…”

Luo Jingyi found it baffling. What were these obscure little companies doing nowadays?

They did not properly train their actors, yet they constantly invented new tricks for climbing to the top.

The desk and chair had both been thrown away. The replacements would not arrive until that afternoon at the earliest, so Luo Jingyi could not continue staying at the office that day. She decided to go straight home and shut herself away to write.

Luo Jingyi’s home was near Beijing’s East Fifth Ring Road, not far from her studio. The residential development was called Qianli Chunqiu and stood beside a low mountain and an artificial lake.

The name Qianli Chunqiu was far too grandiose and carried a faintly feudal air. It sounded as though the people living there were all local tyrants and gave off a slightly uncultured impression. Luo Jingyi did not particularly like it.

The personal assistant who had nearly run her legs off searching for a suitable house had advised her at the time:

“Teacher Luo, Qianli Chunqiu is already quite good. Otherwise, would you rather look at Hepburn Garden, Oriental Provence, or Yushu Linfeng Villas?”

Luo Jingyi: “…”

The detached villas in Qianli Chunqiu were quiet, sparsely populated, and surrounded by good landscaping. Pedestrian and vehicle traffic were kept separate.

At the very least, during the precious morning hours when she did her best writing, there was no noise whatsoever apart from insects chirping and birds singing.

She had chosen this place two years earlier and spent a fortune buying the property precisely because it offered tranquility amid the bustle of the city.

There was another reason: the security guards were responsible and refused to admit anyone who was not a resident of the community.

Those who tried every possible method to appear before Luo Jingyi, fighting for a role in one of her films—or even for a place in her bed—were stopped outside by security, saving her a great deal of trouble.

Like most places in Beijing, Qianli Chunqiu was filled with ginkgo trees, while a ring of parasol trees surrounded the lake.

In autumn, once the ginkgo leaves turned yellow, most of the parasol leaves had also fallen. They formed a thick layer across the ground, lending the scenery a touch of poetic beauty.

One of the films she had written previously contained a scene for which they could not find a suitable location. She had brought the crew to the lakeside to film it, and the results had been excellent.

Luo Jingyi liked places with a sense of drama. Whenever she stayed home but could not think of the right conflict or capture the feeling she wanted, she borrowed a small boat from the property management office and drifted across the artificial lake for a while.

Only the center of the lake offered absolute silence, a place no one else could reach.

Looking out from the water, there was a tranquil lake nestled among the reinforced concrete of the enormous metropolis.

Such scenery could awaken her inspiration.

Luo Jingyi feared noise and hated trouble. Because she used her mind intensely throughout the year, she suffered from elevated intracranial pressure and easily developed nervous exhaustion after concentrating for long periods.

Therefore, her entire home had been renovated with soundproofing materials. Once she stepped inside, as long as the cat remained silent, it was as quiet as outer space.

Yet during the very days when she was most irritable, her elderly cat, “Ancestor,” had acquired an astonishing new skill: pulling down door handles.

Whenever Luo Jingyi was researching or writing a script in her study, Ancestor would leap without warning and use its cannonball-like weight to hook the door handle forcefully.

The handle would snap downward with a loud bang, startling the deeply focused Luo Jingyi as though a criminal were about to burst into the room.

Luo Jingyi felt that she had brought this upon herself. Back then, she had been too lazy to give Ancestor a proper name, and now everything it did truly lived up to the behavior of an actual ancestor.

The problem was that no matter how badly Ancestor behaved, it was still only a cat. Luo Jingyi could not seriously argue with it.

She could no longer stay in this house. All of Beijing felt unbearably restless, so she planned to spend some time in a scenic little city in the south.

The script she was currently writing was a suspense drama adapted from a murder case. She could not simply sit behind closed doors and invent everything from imagination. Traveling might help her untangle her thoughts and perhaps even inspire something unexpected.

She called her mother and asked her to come over and look after Ancestor for a while because she needed to travel for research.

Her mother said that Xiao Qiao had not been feeling well lately and had just undergone surgery, so she needed to remain home and care for her.

Without a personal assistant, Luo Jingyi was standing in her walk-in closet, choosing the clothes she would take with her. At her mother’s words, her hands stopped moving.

“Surgery? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Her mother gave a dismissive sigh. “It was nothing. Just a small polyp. Once it was removed, everything was fine. Besides, I thought you didn’t like hearing about her.”

“Oh, so you were being considerate of my feelings. Don’t worry. I didn’t feel much even when I caught the two of you rolling around in bed while I was still underage. It’s been so many years. Stop sneaking around already. Aren’t you tired?”

“…You child. Your words never spare anyone.”

Luo Jingyi said, “Why don’t you bring Xiao Qiao here with you? I have mountains and water here, and even the smog can’t reach us. It’s perfect for recuperation. Bring her here to recover, and she might get better more quickly.”

After politely declining for a while, her mother suddenly changed the subject and began worrying about Luo Jingyi’s romantic life again.

She said that Luo Jingyi was already thirty-four and spent every day with nothing but work in her eyes. It was time for her to slow down, look at the people around her, and think about her future.

Her mother’s words made Luo Jingyi laugh. “What’s going on? I stopped giving you trouble, so now you’ve decided to start giving me trouble instead? I’m perfectly happy alone. What’s wrong with having only work in my eyes? If I hadn’t poured all my passion into my work, would you be able to bring your old lover to such a picturesque place to recover?”

“Are you deliberately being impertinent with me? How can your situation be the same as mine?”

“How is it different? We’re biological mother and daughter. What if you passed your lesbian genes down to me? Marriage may be out of the question, but perhaps one day I’ll bring home a girlfriend instead. Then our family of four will be complete.”

Her mother became too exasperated to continue and stopped talking about it. She changed the subject and chatted aimlessly, reminding Luo Jingyi to be careful while traveling alone.

Luo Jingyi brushed off each reminder, put down her phone, and thought about what she had just said to irritate her mother. She could not help laughing.

Author’s Note:

Luo Jingyi: Don’t ask. The answer is always that I’m irritating my mother. I’ll never turn gay. Not in this lifetime.