SM Chapter 21
by VolareYe Lai joined the new drama cast after the new series started filming. According to the shooting schedule, his parts would be finished in just over a month.
Perhaps due to dumb luck, the drama he previously filmed became a smash hit during the summer break, bringing him, a supporting actor, some fame as well. Zhang Yihao asked him to post promotional content on Weibo every day, and his Weibo followers increased by hundreds of thousands overnight.
Consequently, even the crew members were much more polite to him after he joined the new cast, calling him Teacher Ye with every other word.
This circle has always been like this, acting according to one’s status is nothing new, and Ye Lai had long been accustomed to various cold faces and disregard.
On the first day he joined the cast, the stagehand saw that he was alone and even asked if he needed an assistant. This sudden enthusiasm made Ye Lai a little uncomfortable.
Whether they were big shots or small fries, most of the people who joined the cast brought assistants. Ye Lai had always been on his own. He wasn’t used to having someone following him around, arriving and leaving on his own. Besides, he knew his place very well, and he wasn’t so busy that he needed to bring an assistant.
The stagehand was obviously an old hand, wearing a smile and saying that Teacher Ye was low-key.
Ye Lai wasn’t really familiar with anyone in the cast. Apart from filming, he quietly waited in the rest room. However, a young man who hadn’t been in the industry long after debuting from a talent show kept trying to get close to him. Both of them belonged to the type who disliked socializing and preferred quiet, so they had that in common.
“Brother Lai, I really like your acting.” The young man was only eighteen or nineteen. Ye Lai had watched that music talent show before he joined the cast. His name was Sun Yuhao. His singing skills weren’t great, but he had an outstanding appearance. Ye Lai had guessed at the time that this person would definitely go down the path of acting after his debut. This time, he was a supporting actor with roughly the same amount of screen time as him in the drama.
Ye Lai found it funny when Sun Yuhao said this. He hadn’t played many roles in total, and he was only a supporting actor in that hit idol drama recently.
Generally, people who said this were just looking for a topic to chat about, exchanging pleasantries as a formality. But Ye Lai just wouldn’t engage in this formality, asking him, “Then tell me, which of my roles do you like?”
Ye Lai guessed that the other party wouldn’t be able to name many. If he kept digging into it, the topic would naturally not be able to continue. If he was so uninteresting, the other party wouldn’t come looking for him in the future.
Ye Lai didn’t expect the other party to actually list all the roles he had played, with a particularly earnest look in his eyes.
“I like the movie you acted in before the most, the character Chi Wen. I watched it again a few days ago.” Sun Yuhao didn’t feel Ye Lai’s teasing at all. “I’ve liked you since before my debut.”
Ye Lai smiled, “How old are you?”
Sun Yuhao scratched his head, “I’m eighteen this year, almost nineteen.”
Once the topic was opened, Ye Lai also became more talkative. Sun Yuhao really had the mind of a child, and in ten minutes, he had explained clearly how he debuted, completely defenseless.
Ye Lai finally reminded him tactfully, and Sun Yuhao understood his meaning, feeling a little embarrassed: “I usually don’t talk much.”
As they went back and forth, Ye Lai became familiar with him. They waited together when they had to wait for a scene, and they ate together. Time passed quickly.
He could tell that Sun Yuhao liked acting. Without any background, it wasn’t easy to be in the entertainment industry. He wasn’t familiar with many issues for his first time joining a cast, and Ye Lai helped whenever he could.
After filming the scenes in the studio, the cast was going to move to the mountains for location shooting. Before Ye Lai went, he sent a message to Sheng Mingqian, thinking that he wouldn’t get a response. Sheng Mingqian replied to him that night with just one word, “Okay,” which was considered as acknowledging his explanation. Through the words, he could imagine the indifferent expression on Sheng Mingqian’s face.
The night Sheng Mingqian came to him drunk, they still did it. Each had their own thoughts and neither was invested, ending it hastily. After Sheng Mingqian withdrew, he left and didn’t stay the night.
Sheng Mingqian hadn’t liked wearing condoms in the past two years, always finishing inside. Ye Lai didn’t shower that night either, and the next morning he could still feel the stickiness inside his body.
The two of them hadn’t been in contact for a long time after that day. He knew from Lin Han that Sheng Mingqian was busy with the post-production of the film, and also told him that the audition for “The World on the Bough” would be postponed, the specific time had not been determined. After Sheng Mingqian finished the film post-production, he would spend some time with his parents.
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The temperature in the mountains was low, and it rained every morning and night. Ye Lai didn’t bring many clothes when he went out, not as careful as Sun Yuhao, a child. He started sneezing the second day after arriving. In the end, Sun Yuhao lent him his coat and cold medicine.
His nasal voice was heavy when filming, but fortunately, the voice would be dubbed over later.
There weren’t many actors filming in the mountains. Accommodation conditions were limited, so they lived directly in the village committee’s dormitory. He and Sun Yuhao shared a room.
The director of this drama wasn’t as strict as Sheng Mingqian. As long as he understood the role thoroughly, filming was easy. Ye Lai rarely had to reshoot scenes. Halfway through filming the scenes in the mountains, it started to rain. After filming the rain scenes, the whole team rested and waited for the rain to stop before filming again.
The weather forecast wasn’t very accurate. The villagers said that once the rainy season came, it could last for ten days or half a month.
Ye Lai wasn’t used to the humid environment in the mountains, and allergic symptoms appeared after a few days. After developing a fever, red rashes appeared on his body. There was a village doctor in the village. Sun Yuhao said he would buy him medicine, but he didn’t come back for two hours.
Ye Lai was worried and went out to look for him. On the way, he heard from a crew member that Sun Yuhao had just left with someone from the investment side.
“Who is it? Which investor?”
The crew member was frightened by Ye Lai’s suddenly serious and terrifying gaze, not knowing why he had changed so much. He stuttered and said the brand’s name, and then said it was Li Tianfeng.
“Which way did they go?” Ye Lai grabbed his arm and shook it.
The crew member raised his finger and pointed to a wooden house halfway up the mountain: “It should be there. I just glanced roughly at the direction they went.”
Ye Lai ran up the mountain in the direction the man pointed. The bluestone road was slippery and difficult to walk on after the rain. Ye Lai fell over every two steps he took, his pants torn and his knees burning with pain. The umbrella ribs broke, and it rolled down the hillside into the bushes, and was blown away by the wind.
Ye Lai couldn’t care about anything else, got up and continued to run. Sun Yuhao had just debuted and might not know, but he had been in the entertainment industry for so many years and knew what kind of person that Li was, specifically preying on handsome young boys. Many years ago, he had almost suffered a loss himself.
He didn’t have the mind to think about why that Li would come to the mountains at this time. He had probably noticed Sun Yuhao, who had fair skin and a good appearance, long ago. Ye Lai had seen too many dirty things in the entertainment industry and usually avoided them if he could. He hadn’t had any problems in these years.
The wooden house should be vacant. Finally, he was almost there. Mixed with the sound of the pouring rain were painful noises, as well as the crackling sound of tables and chairs colliding.
“I said, why are you so ungrateful? So many people are rushing to let me screw them. If you follow me, I’ll give you better resources, and it won’t be a problem for you to be successful in the entertainment industry.”
“President Li, please let me go. I don’t want resources. I’m only eighteen.”
Ye Lai rushed to the door as fast as he could. The door was locked from the inside, and he couldn’t push it open from the outside. Looking around, he picked up a stone from the ground and smashed the glass window of the wooden house.
Looking in through the broken window, Sun Yuhao was kneeling next to the wooden table, his mouth covered in blood, his left face already swollen, his clothes torn in half, his hands desperately grabbing the pants that had been pulled down to his thighs.
Seeing Ye Lai outside the window, Sun Yuhao, with a terrified look on his face, seemed to have found a life-saving straw, opened his mouth and wanted to speak, but spat out a mouthful of blood, silently saying something.
Ye Lai judged from his mouth shape that Sun Yuhao was saying “Save me”. He threw the stone in his hand at the head of the pot-bellied middle-aged man inside, “Beast, let him go.”
Li Tianfeng didn’t expect anyone to come looking for him, dodged the stone thrown in by Ye Lai, and cursed.
Ye Lai had already climbed in through the glass window, supporting Sun Yuhao, who was still trembling, and helping him put on his pants.
“Ye Lai, what are you doing here? You ran away that year,” the man reeked of alcohol, which was nauseating, and showed a disgusting smile, pulling up his loose belt, “What? Do you want to join us?”
Ye Lai thought of the times when Li Tianfeng had made things difficult for him in the past. The throbbing headache caused him to lose his mind. He picked up the chair beside Sun Yuhao and smashed it down on Li Tianfeng’s fat face. The stool shattered into pieces, and a pig-like wail penetrated the wooden house and pierced through the rainy night.
Li Tianfeng’s screams and the pungent smell of blood stimulated Ye Lai. He rushed up, pressed down Li Tianfeng who was covering his face, his knees pressing hard on his stomach, and grabbed the stool leg still in his hand and smashed it down again and again, until the screams became smaller and smaller, leaving only weaker and weaker breaths and moans.
Sun Yuhao came back to his senses from the fear, seeing Ye Lai next to him, soaking wet and already red-eyed. The stool leg in his hand was covered in blood, constantly raising and falling. He realized that hitting him like this would kill him, and went up to pull away Ye Lai, who had completely lost control.
“Brother Lai, don’t hit him, hitting him again will kill him.”
Ye Lai was pulled by Sun Yuhao, and sat down on the ground, his hands still shaking. Li Tianfeng on the ground was already disfigured, staring with his eyes wide open, breathing dryly with his mouth open.
“Are you okay?” Ye Lai threw away the wooden stick in his hand, his palms supporting the ground, barely breathing.
“I’m okay, he just hit me, didn’t do anything to me.” Sun Yuhao still couldn’t speak fluently.
Ye Lai’s wet eyelashes stuck together, and the few drops of blood splashed on his cheeks and nose made him look somewhat morbid, his eyes pale, staring blankly at the bloody cement floor: “It’s good you’re alright.”