"Oh, Oh, Josephine Wong. She's finally here!" Saturday morning, Bethany excitedly stood at the entrance of the movie set of The Haunting Crescent nervously clapping her hands as a very modernly designed SUV with dark purple paint rolled over.
"Hi! " a pretty young woman with a ponytail, very light makeup, leather jacket, tight white shirt with purple stripe and dark-colored jeans hopped off the SUV, "I'm Josephine Wong, very nice to meet you and I am super excited to join today's shoot!"
"Oh god, I really want to get her autograph." Bethany chuckled and told Jason who was standing by her side, "I swear, I'm gonna ask her when she wrapped up her cameo. That's still professional, right?"
"Yeah. But didn't you say she was surprisingly grounded and personable?" Jason clapped his hands as the rest of the staff on the set to welcome Josephine Wong.
"Welcome, Josephine. " Stephanie and the director, whose name Jason and Caroline eventually came to learn was Benny, went ahead and greeted Josephine: "Thank you for coming. And thank you so much for being so flexible with your schedule."
"No worries. I am staying here for some personal relaxation time after the film festival anyway." Josephine hugged Stephnie and Benny the director with a bright smile: "Now, just let me know what I need to do. I'm all yours for these two days."
"Oh, not a problem. Let's start with the assassination scene." Benny led Josephine into the set, and then gave Stephanie a weird look.
"Okay. I'm gonna go inside." Bethany pumped herself up by waving her fists in the air: "Wish me luck, Jason."
"No problem. Good luck keeping it professional with Josephine Wong." Jason laughingly pointed at Bethany, and then he noticed that Stephanie was walking straight towards him.
"Hey Jason, you got a minute?"
"Yeah, what's up Stephanie?"
"So the director and Robert would like to ask you… could you be extra careful today. I appreciate that you guys as paranormal consultants are professional at your job, but today, please don't find another hand near the set okay? If you see anything, try to handle it quietly or talk to me, or Robert." Stephanie said to Jason in a serious tone: "We can't afford any more delays due to incidents like that."
"Yes. I understand. But have you talked to the director about not shooting in this place? "
"I don't know what you're talking about." Stephanie shook her head and her hands dismissively, "Just remember what I said. We can only ask Josephine Wong to change her schedule so many times."
Jason sighed as he watched Stephanie go back into the set, he was aware that he and Caroline's caution would probably fall on deaf ears, yet it was still disappointing and disheartening to just hear Stephanie outright denying ever hearing about it.
With a heavy mood, Jason then proceeded to his paranormal consultant routing - circling the exterior of the moving set and practicing casual cultivation methods. On his first circle he didn't find anything wrong, but ended up almost bumping into Josephine Wong's driver in the parking lot.
"Hi! Are you a staff on set?" the driver was a handsome young man with silver white hair and a pair of sharp looking eyes, "Nice to meet you. My name's Garret. I am Josephine Wong's driver and assistant personal assistant."
"Jason." Jason shook hands with the driver: "Why aren't you inside with Josephine Wong?"
"Yeah, I'm mostly just a driver and an errand boy. I can't go on set during shoots. Only the assistant and other professional aid can go in. Some non disclosure stuff. Too complicated for me." Garret scratched his head: "It works out for me anyway, I don't care for action movies."
"Yeah? But you drive for an action movie star!"
"Ha! Ms. Wong is much more than an action movie star. She's also a … kickass martial artist!" Garret laughed and said: "I learned quite a lot from her, trust me, so worth it!"
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Conversation with Garret turned out to be surprisingly more fun than Jason expected, they talked about the kind of movies they like, what kind of animations they like, and even found out that Garret and Jason were both very interesting the art of drawing - the only difference is that Jason likes drawing modern animation, while Garret was more interested in traditional oil painting. But before they could spend more of this morning chatting, a sudden phone call called Garret away - from his facial expression, it sounded quite urgent.
"Sorry Jason, looks like I have something important to pick up for Josephine." Garret sighed and shook his head: "I'll see you later."
"No problem. I'll see you later." Jason nodded: "Being an assistant personal assistant sure sounds like it sucks sometimes."
"Yes. Hope I get promoted to personal assistant soon." Garret laughed and drove away.
And as if the call to get Garret away was deliberately made at a bad time, just when the SUV left the street, lt was time for lunch break.
Today's catered lunch was something that Jason never saw on the set before: nice and tender barbeque ribs, roasted beef with gravy, salad with fresh fruit, sweet potato chips and assorted sushi. It was as if the set supervisor went out of his way to make the experience more pleasant for Josephine Wong.
"Hey!" while Jason was in line to take food, someone tapped his shoulder from behind, which startled Jason. And as he turned around, he found that it was none other than Josephine Wong: "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like that."
"Hi… Ms. Wong, sorry I didn't see you there. " being face to face with one of his favorite actresses got Jason a little bit flustered: "My name's Jason. How was your shoot today?"
"Please, just Josephine is fine." Josephine Wong used one of the tongs to place some ribs onto her plate: "It's nice! The assassination angle was super well directed. I haven't seen you on set today. Are you working off set?"
"Yeah. Technically, I'm a paranormal consultant." Jason answered without saying much.
"Oh!? Paranormal consultant, do they have these now?" Josephine sounded surprised.
"It's a precaution. We all heard about what happened on the set of 'Darkness Incoming'." Stephanie came between Josephine Wong and Jason and said: "Josephine, why don't we have lunch together and catch up?"
"Umm, why don't Jason join us? I want to chat with a fellow martial artist."