TRMP Chapter 23

Chapter 22

Jiang Yifeng didn’t expect that a single sentence of his would rekindle someone’s hopes.

After Qiao Ran left, Jiang Yifeng’s daily routine consisted of watching others film, recording their acting habits, and familiarizing himself with their acting styles.

Jiang Yifeng learned quickly, but he always watched silently, like a little radish seedling squatting beside the set, with little presence.

Until…

“What did the doctor say?”

“A bone fracture, at least a month of rest.”

“Let me try to finish filming the scene.”

“No, no, no, don’t rush.”

Although Xu Chen said not to rush, sweat was already dripping from his forehead.

The injured actor was a veteran with a significant role. It was their first time working together on an action scene, but the props didn’t provide adequate protection.

The veteran actor was dedicated and willing to endure the pain to finish the remaining scene, but Xu Chen wasn’t ruthless enough to make him perform injured.

“Rest first, rest first, don’t worry. I still trust your acting skills.” Xu Chen reassured the veteran actor, promising to postpone his scenes and using filming techniques to ensure continuity.

The veteran actor’s foot injury was severe, so he had no choice but to give up.

Xu Chen went back and started trying to use camera angles and stunt doubles to fill the gaps.

“How did you act that!” Xu Chen slammed the machine: “You were doing so well before, what are you doing now? Is that the expression?”

“…Let’s do another take.” The two supporting actors said with difficulty.

Jiang Yifeng squatted on the side of the set, watching.

The two supporting actors were movie stars heavily promoted by a certain film company, having played supporting roles in many major productions.

They were good-looking, but their acting skills were average. Xu Chen had only given them insignificant supporting roles. However, they clearly failed to grasp the essence of the characters. When the veteran actor was performing with passion, driving their emotions, they acted well. But once they were separated from the veteran, they completely lost their emotional cues.

Even when other actors replaced them, without the veteran actor’s lead, their acting styles were different.

Xu Chen was still instructing them.

Jiang Yifeng touched his nose. He suddenly wondered if his bad luck was causing the entire crew to suffer?

—His bad luck shouldn’t be that powerful, right?

He watched the two try again, but after being scolded, their emotions were even worse.

“What expressions are those, what expressions!”

Xu Chen was about to roll his eyes.

He didn’t have a habit of pointing fingers and scolding others, but one thing after another piled up, making Xu Chen feel like he needed to take blood pressure medication to get through it.

His appearance, almost bursting with anger, made Jiang Yifeng feel sorry for him.

After all, Xu Chen was the only director willing to hire him—Xu Chen had shown Jiang Yifeng a bit of grace.

“I’ll try.” Jiang Yifeng suddenly spoke.

Xu Chen looked at him in surprise: “Can you do it?”

Jiang Yifeng’s acting skills weren’t bad.

However, his character traits were too distinct, so it was difficult for him to act poorly.

Xu Chen was quite skeptical of Jiang Yifeng, an unknown and possibly a traffic actor.

“Just try.” Jiang Yifeng looked at the two actors’ unfriendly eyes and smiled innocently.

—It seems like he’s getting himself into trouble.

Xu Chen waved his hand, asking Jiang Yifeng to change clothes and try.

Jiang Yifeng took a deep breath.

Remembering the two actors’ expressions, Jiang Yifeng knew that he had offended them.

It was do or die.

When Xu Chen went to the hospital to visit the veteran actor again, the actor was holding his phone and watching short videos.

As soon as he saw Xu Chen, he quickly put down his phone and said, “Is there something wrong with the crew… My foot doesn’t hurt anymore, I can continue in two days…”

“No, I’m here to tell you to rest easy. Anyway, we still have a few months of filming left. After your leg heals, we can add some shots later.” Xu Chen said with a complicated expression.

“Huh?” The veteran actor was stunned: “What’s wrong?”

“Look…” Xu Chen took out a video he had recorded on his phone and gave it to the veteran actor.

It was a scene that originally belonged to the veteran actor. In the phone’s lens, half of the person playing the veteran actor’s face was revealed.

Jiang Yifeng’s eyebrows, eyes, expressions, and emotions were almost a one-to-one replica. Although his face didn’t resemble the veteran actor’s at all, when he pulled his face down and spoke, even the actor himself was surprised.

“Him?”

“Yes, him.” Xu Chen put away his phone: “I may have discovered a good seedling.”

Jiang Yifeng was squatting by the set, eating a boxed lunch.

Recently, the boxed lunches had more meat. The crew had specially ordered more expensive boxed lunches for him, and the crew members’ attitude towards him had become much more enthusiastic. Even several big-name movie stars had spoken to Jiang Yifeng.

This surprised Jiang Yifeng.

Although the several lead actors were very approachable, due to differences in accents and age, he had hardly spoken a word to them off-screen.

Except for the two supporting actors, who felt increasingly uncomfortable as the filming progressed, everyone else was satisfied with Jiang Yifeng filling in.

“System, I always feel like their eyes are going to kill me.” Jiang Yifeng cautiously said to the system.

“Host, you don’t need to feel, they actually are.” The system looked at the two actors through Jiang Yifeng’s eyes, and even it felt a chill down its spine.

Jiang Yifeng had been cautious lately. Except for necessary communication, he stayed far away from them, completely unlike how he acted around Qiao Ran.

Xu Chen also noticed that Jiang Yifeng didn’t like to interact with the two actors, so he would occasionally take Jiang Yifeng with him to watch the monitors.

He even caught Jiang Yifeng teaching a child how to do math problems a few times.

“What’s wrong? Your child?” Xu Chen looked at the elementary school math problems on his phone and couldn’t help but laugh: “How old are you? Are you married?”

“…” Jiang Yifeng carefully considered whether a twenty-five-year-old could have a sixth-grade child, and then shook his head: “No, a relative’s child.”

He said vaguely.

After all, his film company nominally didn’t allow artists to earn any extra money.

Xu Chen didn’t ask further, nodded, and didn’t think about it anymore.

But the speaker may not have intended their words to be taken seriously, while the listener took them to heart.

One of the supporting actors, Wang Mingchuan, smiled at the camera during an interview, “The atmosphere on our set is very good. There’s a young actor who’s always doing elementary school math problems. The problems are so difficult that even we find them challenging. Nowadays, children’s problems are really too difficult.”

In one interview, he repeated the “young actor teaching elementary school math problems” twice.

The internet knew that he was filming Xu Chen’s new drama.

Soon after his interview, a marketing account posted an article, guiding the narrative: a young actor on set is secretly married and has children.

In recent years, netizens and fans have had a very low tolerance for secret marriages and children—everyone is here to be a girlfriend fan, who wants to help support their idol’s girlfriend?

Everyone listed the known actors one by one, seriously trying to figure out who the jerk who betrayed his fans was.

Digging up information takes a long time, and Jiang Yifeng was unaware of it.

He was secretly wary of the two actors plotting something, and almost every day, he ran away to change costumes immediately after filming, and usually stayed behind the camera to watch everyone else film.

He worked normally for several days, causing Wang Mingchuan to suspect that Jiang Yifeng didn’t know anything at all.

After all, Jiang Yifeng had no manager, no assistant, and was purely a wild grass in the entertainment industry. It was normal for him to be uninformed.

So Wang Mingchuan decided to push him a little.

When the two finished filming in the afternoon, Wang Mingchuan walked up to Jiang Yifeng and opened his mouth, seemingly unintentionally, “I’m sorry, I accidentally said something about you the other day…”

“?” Jiang Yifeng was filled with question marks.

He wasn’t familiar with Wang Mingchuan at all. What could the other person say?

—Scold him in front of reporters?

Looking at Jiang Yifeng’s confused expression, the anger in Wang Mingchuan’s heart grew stronger, but he still pretended to be nice to him, lowered his voice, and said, “It’s about your child.”

Jiang Yifeng’s expression changed drastically.

Wang Mingchuan triumphantly drifted away, leaving Jiang Yifeng standing there.

—Damn it, would he have to pay a penalty for breach of contract?

Jiang Yifeng trembled as he took out his phone and carefully checked. When he opened the news column and searched for Wang Mingchuan’s name, he opened the comment section and saw the screen full of “secret marriage and childbirth” speculations.

Jiang Yifeng… he breathed a sigh of relief.

The company didn’t stipulate that artists couldn’t get married, only that they couldn’t have side jobs.

No one expected that Jiang Yifeng’s side job wasn’t earning money through underhanded means, but helping elementary school students with their homework.

He put down his phone with peace of mind, but when he saw the comments speculating that he was secretly married and had children, the first person Jiang Yifeng thought of was Xie Jingshen.

Was Xie Jingshen considered his lover?

If so, he should be considered secretly married now, right?

Perhaps Jiang Yifeng’s silence made Wang Mingchuan more convinced that Jiang Yifeng had a “mysterious child,” so the rumors online were almost rampant.

Wang Mingchuan’s company was a representative of the T circle entertainment, and their ability to control the online commentary was top-notch in the industry.

A small amount of public opinion guidance was all that Wang Mingchuan’s own team needed to do.

So when everyone was discussing other people, someone quietly guided the public opinion towards Jiang Yifeng.

The ordinary onlookers were confused.

Those who didn’t know Jiang Yifeng wondered who he was, and those who knew Jiang Yifeng were even more confused…

—Jiang Yifeng doesn’t even have fans! Without fans, where would fans’ sister-in-law come from!

However, the public opinion became even more rampant.

It’s just that the entertainment industry likes to dig up information through clues. Through speculation and seemingly true information, they can always connect things.

Jiang Yifeng… was so obscure that there was no material on him.

Without material, nothing at all, there was nothing to dig up.

Marketing accounts: “…”

Marketing accounts: “So, in the end, we have to rely on eloquence.”

Even Xu Chen heard about it and asked Jiang Yifeng with confusion, “Do you have a child?”

Jiang Yifeng was surprised: “What child?”

“The internet says you have a child.” Xu Chen thought of the information his assistant had revealed to him last night. After summarizing it, he said to Jiang Yifeng again: “They say you got married and had a child at eighteen, and at twenty-five you already have a child in elementary school.”

“Was eighteen the legal age to get married?” Jiang Yifeng didn’t expect that the story could be fabricated like this: “It’s okay, I don’t have one yet. After I earn enough money…”

Jiang Yifeng always felt like he would think of Xie Jingshen.

—Could he have a child after getting married?

Jiang Yifeng didn’t know.

The author has something to say:

CEO Xie: If you can give birth, it’s not impossible ()

CEO Xie: If you can’t, I can try harder ()