Ever since she learned about 9787532754335's father's identity, Li Ling's attitude towards him had become even more enthusiastic. Previously, when they chatted, it was mainly her talking. Now, she often pestered him about his son. 9787532754335 was very shy, an introverted good father who didn't like to say much. Under her persistent questioning, he reluctantly revealed some details. His son was very introverted and didn't like to talk. Since childhood, he preferred to stay at home and draw. During winter and summer vacations, when he took him out to play, other kids loved going to amusement parks, parks, and zoos. But his son couldn't move once he entered an art gallery. He was particularly obsessed with some dark-themed paintings. While others visited art galleries to see the "Mona Lisa" or "The Birth of Venus," his favorites were "The Death of Marat," "Saturn Devouring His Son," and "Guernica." Li Ling suggested she wanted to see his son's drawings. 9787532754335 searched for a long time and finally sent some very abstract sketches. A freshly made plate of spaghetti, crawling with eyeballs of various colors. A brightly blooming golden sunflower, densely packed with two rows of shark teeth. She fell silent. 9787532754335: "What do you think of his drawings?" Li Ling praised insincerely, "Very good, very imaginative." 9787532754335 seemed very happy and sent a wobbly heart-shaped triangle: "He says thank you, sister." Li Ling was utterly charmed. She remembered that she often saw quite peculiar and eerie artworks on set before, not knowing which master from the art department had created them. Compared to the child's naive strokes, the other was obviously much more mature. She told 9787532754335 about this and promised to take pictures of those paintings for his son to see. But the next day, she found that the old easel in the dressing room had been taken away. "Really a pity," Li Ling said to 9787532754335, sending five crying bean emojis in a row. 9787532754335 said, "It's okay, as long as you have him in your heart, he's very happy." With Li Ling's encouragement, 9787532754335's persona gradually changed from a shy father to a proud dad who loved to show off his child. She learned that his son was very handsome as a child and was often chased by boys in kindergarten confessing their love (Li Ling thought this must be a typo). But the character was very dull, making people laugh. The little genius still preferred to bury his head in drawing. He had an astonishing talent and focus in art, which made it hard for him to make friends his age. He was too immersed in his own world. For some reason, when Li Ling heard this, she thought of Jin Jingyao. More precisely, she thought of his smile while sitting among a group of sculptures in "Blood Swan." Some people are born without peers. Several times, the school teachers came to talk to 9787532754335, tactfully suggesting they pay more attention to the child's mental health, teach him to be sociable, and stop drawing such disgusting pictures, or he wouldn't make friends. Li Ling was furious when she heard this. She had completely forgotten her own silence when she saw the eyeball spaghetti and shark sunflower, and began to rant. "What's disgusting about it? It's clearly very cute! Very innocent! Very imaginative!" "What kind of lousy teacher? How dare they say that? It's clearly her own disgusting adult mindset labeling the child."After a moment of silence, 9787532754335 said, "That's what I told the teacher too." Li Ling: "You really are a good father [thumbs up][thumbs up][thumbs up]" 9787532754335 felt a bit embarrassed again. Their conversation completely turned into a parenting channel. He confided to her with some distress that his son recently found the neighbor's daughter very cute and kind, but didn't know how to compliment her, only saying, "You look really silly when you smile." What should he do? Li Ling felt that this sounded somewhat familiar, as if no matter how old they get, straight men have a similar way of speaking. She comforted him generously, "Little boys are always stubborn and care a lot about their face. They'll grow out of it in a few years." 9787532754335 emphasized rather stiffly, "He's not an ordinary little boy." Li Ling: "Yes, yes, I know, he's a little genius, he's very smart." 9787532754335 fell silent again. He was a very traditional Chinese parent. Every time Li Ling praised his son, he would become somewhat at a loss, as if he didn't know how to respond. Li Ling said, "Don't worry too much about the little genius. Although he's very shy in front of the girl he likes, at least he's willing to share his thoughts with you. That's a good start." 9787532754335 immediately retorted, "Who said he likes her?" Li Ling thought his reaction was a bit over the top. If he found the girl cute and kind, how could he not like her? Then she remembered 9787532754335's traditional personality, probably the type who firmly opposes early romance. But this was also good, aligning with the core values of Jinjiang Literature City. She edited three thumbs up emojis and was about to send them when 9787532754335 sent a message: "Our relationship isn't that good." "He went to boarding school at a very young age. Actually, he was bullied a lot at school but never told me." - Speaking of which, the atmosphere on the set had been quite oppressive recently. Zhou Jing was getting beaten up every day. The timeline of the scenes being shot here was jumbled. There were events from before he met A-Ling and after. Anyway, he was always at the bottom of the theater troupe's food chain, the most insignificant character. Some violence was invisible. For example, discrimination, humiliation, and even silent neglect. Everyone would be chatting and laughing, but would fall silent when he appeared. Every actor would receive applause and cheers after their scenes, but when he took his bow, the audience looked like expressionless zombies. They would mock his clothes, his family background, his walking posture, his accent, and even his overly beautiful appearance in veiled ways. These things were like soft knives cutting into flesh. And violence always escalates. While the people on stage were rehearsing, Zhou Jing, who had memorized all his lines, was suddenly told to go distribute flyers. As soon as he stepped out of the theater, someone put a sack over his head and dragged him like a corpse into a corner of the woods. Several people surrounded Zhou Jing, loudly mocking him, kicking his chest and waist with their toes, stepping on his hands and back with hard leather shoes, pressing his face into the stinking mud. And that still wasn't enough. They lifted Zhou Jing, grabbed his hair, and tightly wrapped the sack around his face. The coarse brown fabric clung to his skin, outlining his facial features. He was nearly suffocating, gasping for air, the dirty cloth sinking into his mouth, making him look even more grotesque, almost like a second skin. Afraid of causing trouble, they didn't dare to go too far and finally let go. But they only exposed Zhou Jing's mouth and nose, his eyes were still covered. Perhaps they knew Zhou Jing's gaze was too sharp and didn't dare to meet his eyes. Not being able to see, they could continue their violence with a clear conscience. They laughed and stuffed flyers into Zhou Jing's mouth, forcing him to swallow them, counting as they did: "One, two, three, four..." Zhou Jing didn't know when those sharp voices disappeared. His lungs were about to burst, all the air squeezed out. His body felt hollowed out, like a rusty drainpipe, with sewage and filth flowing through, filling him, drowning him. He felt so dirty. He really felt so dirty. There was no one around, the ground was covered with footprints. He crawled out of the wet mud, his body swaying, his hands covered in blood, and his first reaction was to go to the shower room to wash. In the dimly lit bathroom, clear water mixed with bright red blood and dark brown dirt, turning into a dirty river spreading out from the tiles. He draped a towel over his shoulder and looked at himself in the mirror. Below his neck, his skin was torn and flesh was exposed, only his face was intact, showing no signs of injury. Yang Yuanyuan had gotten smarter, he had learned not to hit the face. He forced himself to get up and went to the cafeteria to get food, only to find he was late. All that greeted him were empty trays and a few grains of rice. As he walked out of the cafeteria, someone suddenly poured a pot of vegetable soup over his head. Yang Yuanyuan's accomplices laughed, leaning against the upstairs railing with smug faces, asking him kindly, "Didn't you get enough to eat this morning?" "Flyers don't taste good?" He reeked of fish, suppressing the urge to vomit. He was dirty again. - These scenes took a long time to shoot, much longer than originally planned. The action director was a veteran martial arts choreographer from Hong Kong, a top figure in the industry who had also worked on many Hollywood blockbusters. He had heard that Jin Jingyao mainly shot art films and rarely involved action scenes, so he had thoughtfully designed the action to be very simple, almost like a schoolyard fight. Unexpectedly, on set, he discovered that the director had practiced boxing for many years and was quite skilled. After exchanging a few moves, his passion for the craft was ignited, and he revised the scenes on the spot, increasing the difficulty several times over. The changes made the scenes more intense, more frenzied, and more visceral. However, while the other actors were all stunt performers and had no problem keeping up, Luo Mingqing kept messing up. Jin Jingyao had previously used Li Ling to provoke him, which only made him more rebellious, insisting on acting according to his own ideas. His performance was stiff, and Jin Jingyao was dissatisfied, correcting him repeatedly, starting over again and again. The standoff lasted a long time, with neither side willing to compromise, resulting in mutual frustration. In the end, the producer had to step in to mediate, convincing the director to revise the storyboard once more, changing the plot so that Yang Yuanyuan didn't participate in the beating, but instead watched others beat Zhou Jing while filming it with a DV camera. This effectively reduced Luo Mingqing's screen time, with many of his original shots replaced by close-ups of Zhou Jing's perspective. But for the film, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The violence became more direct. In the close-up shots, Zhou Jing's pain was strikingly vivid. Even though Li Ling knew it was all fake, every move meticulously designed by the action director, every position repeatedly confirmed in advance, with no room for accidents. Yet, after an entire afternoon of shooting, with everyone too exhausted to stand, only ten seconds of footage might be usable. Looking at the monitor again and again, she still felt the pain. A raw, intense pain, a throbbing ache from deep in her memory. Zhou Jing seemed to be repeatedly cut open and flayed in front of the camera, exposing the most unsightly flesh and blood, only to be pieced back together again. From the costumes and props, Li Ling roughly guessed that after a certain action scene, there would be a confrontation between Zhou Jing and A-Ling. Some things that were originally vague and ambiguous during the filming process gradually became clear. Zhou Jing lived in a two-faced world. Outside the basement, he was a bullied weakling, a clown, a parasite. But in the narrow, dark basement, he had his own dreamland. Here, it was just him and a lame girl, his ex-girlfriend, the only person he had ever loved. He was the master of this paradise, and he could do whatever he wanted to her, hurt her, possess her. No one would care. But he only wanted to protect her. This world was too dangerous, too crazy, and A-Ling was too fragile. Only by hiding her in his basement could she be safe. Unfortunately, he was already broken. He couldn't distinguish between protection and control. The only thing he could give her was a sick and incomplete love. - One day, Li Ling received a notice from the assistant director, saying that the next day's schedule included a scene between A-Ling and Zhou Jing. She found it a bit strange. It was originally agreed to coordinate with Luo Mingqing's schedule and finish all of Yang Yuanyuan's scenes first. The assistant director only said it was the director's decision and didn't know much else. The scene was actually very simple. Zhou Jing had been beaten in the theater and didn't want A-Ling to see it. Every day, he forced himself to hold on and only returned to the basement late at night. He stood by the bed, looking down at A-Ling with a heavy gaze. Confirming that she was already asleep, he turned around and took off his shirt. Jin Jingyao had lost a lot of weight again. For this shot, he had been dehydrating for several days, almost to the point of being skin and bones. In the moonlight, the young man's bare upper body was not pleasing to the eye. Instead, the clearly visible ribs made him look somewhat sickly. But the shocking wounds on his pale skin, like blooming blood flowers, gave his body a strange allure. He seemed like a broken poem. A poisoned apple injected with **. A-Ling had her back to him, covering her face with the quilt, already in tears. She hadn't fallen asleep at all, waiting for him to come back. She didn't know who had beaten him like this. She wanted to curse him, call him useless, a real waste, but she couldn't get the words out. The only thing she could do for him was to continue pretending she didn't know anything. Sparkling tears slid down her cheeks, like silent rivers under the moonlight. She cried so quietly, so sorrowfully, as if she held all the world's tears. Luo Mingqing stood in front of the monitor, staring at Li Ling's face, his eyes slightly red. The wound on his foot had long since scabbed over, but strangely, he felt a piercing pain again. He heard a staff member beside him praising her, "Teacher Li cries so beautifully." "Her acting is getting better and better." "Really, she gets into character in a second, and the tears come just like that." He showed a strange, sinister smile and said hoarsely, "Are you sure she's acting?" "Maybe she's really feeling sorry for her great director." He said this out of anger, and even he felt disgusted after saying it. Unexpectedly, the staff member's eyes lit up and said, "Makes sense!" Another person looked at him with admiration, "Teacher Luo, you really know how to ship.""