That declaration of "I'll take it," landed with decisive weight in the elegant private dining room.
The atmosphere of the dinner reached a certain peak at that mont.
A hint of relaxation finally appeared on Zhang Mouyi's serious face, the satisfaction of finding a kindred spirit.
Gu Huai's expression was complex, containing both worry for Su Qingying choosing a path of hellish difficulty,
and a faint, underlying anticipation for the birth of a top-tier, insane performance.
The dinner concluded.
A server pulled open the wooden door. Zhang Mouyi walked out first but stopped in the doorway.
He took a thick folder from his assistant and handed it to Su Qingying.
It wasn't an ordinary script. The cover was plastered with colorful sticky notes,
and the opened side pages revealed dense notes annotated in both red and black ink.
"This is the howork I pulled several all-nighters to complete. It's yours now."
After speaking, Zhang Mouyi glanced at Jiang Ci once more.
"The two of you are the 'eyes' of this drama."
"Don't let down."
On the ride back to the hotel, it was still Gu Huai's black entourage van.
Sun Zhou had already been arranged to return in another car earlier. At the mont, only the driver, Gu Huai, and Jiang Ci were in the vehicle.
The car remained quiet for a long ti before Gu Huai finally couldn't hold back and spoke.
"This is too difficult for Qingying."
His fingers tapped unconsciously on his knee, as if organizing his thoughts.
"Switching between Ling Xi and A Li forcibly within one drama will be imnsely draining for the actor."
Gu Huai turned to Jiang Ci.
"When you're acting opposite her, cooperate with her more, give her more reactions. Help her find the 'switch' between the two characters as quickly as possible."
Gu Huai's concern stirred sothing in Jiang Ci's heart.
If Su Qingying's performance collapsed, wouldn't his Heartbreak Value KPI plumt into the green across the board?
From this perspective, this Film Emperor was actually on the sa front line as him.
Su Qingying *had* to perform well.
Jiang Ci nodded, his attitude utterly sincere.
"Don't worry, Teacher Gu. I will cooperate fully."
Back in his hotel room, Jiang Ci walked straight into the bedroom.
Just as he was preparing to enter a state of deep ditation, his phone screen lit up.
It was a WeChat ssage.
From Su Qingying.
The content was brief, fitting her usual style.
"Friday afternoon, 3 PM. Do you have ti? To discuss the script."
Jiang Ci looked at that line of text, not surprised in the least.
This problem was too hard.
Portraying two roles, two characters with completely opposing personalities, emotional logic, and behavioral patterns.
As one of the country's top-tier actors, Su Qingying would inevitably seek the most direct and effective way to break through this impasse.
That was to establish the deepest possible character connection with her acting counterpart before filming began.
He had to beco her "anchor."
To give her a clear, unchanging reference point when switching between Ling Xi's destructive personality and A Li's healing personality.
Jiang Ci replied.
"I have ti. I'll arrange the location."
He needed an absolutely private environnt, free from any external disturbances.
He didn't want to conduct this "academic discussion," which concerned his future life-extension efficiency, in a cafe or restaurant.
He imdiately sent a WeChat ssage to Lin Wan, outlining his requirents.
Lin Wan's efficiency was astonishingly high.
Ten minutes later, an address ca through.
It was the top floor of an old Western-style house in the forr concession area. It had once been the private study of a writer who lived in France,
and was now converted into a mbers-only reading space not open to the public.
Excellent soundproofing. Tight security.
Friday afternoon, 2:45 PM.
Jiang Ci arrived early.
The study was large, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on three walls. The air held the quiet scent of old paper mingled with wooden furniture.
He didn't prepare tea and snacks as one might conventionally do when waiting for soone.
Instead, he walked over to the massive redwood desk and spread out a pre-prepared, one-ter-square sheet of white paper.
Then, he took out a marker and drew two tilines on it, starting from different points and ultimately intersecting.
He labeled two nas at their respective starting points.
"Ling Xi."
"A Li."
At exactly 3 PM, Su Qingying arrived on ti.
She was still wearing a plain-colored long dress. Pushing open the slightly ajar door, her gaze imdiately fell on the focused figure at the desk.
When her eyes landed on the large sheet of white paper on the desk, covered in lines and notations, her forward steps subconsciously paused for a mont.
Countless CP fans had been imagining all sorts of heart-wrenching, unrequited love scenarios about their rumored affair.
Yet here were the two protagonists, in the sa place, about to conduct a character dissection.
"I thought we would start with the lines."
Su Qingying's voice broke the quiet of the study.
She walked closer slowly, her gaze fixed on the complex analytical diagram.
Jiang Ci didn't look up. His pen tapped on a node he had just drawn on the white paper.
"The lines are the result. The emotions are the driving cause."
"I want to first align with you on what the 'anchor point' of the character 'Ye Chen' is in the hearts of each of these two won."
Su Qingying listened quietly.
Jiang Ci picked up the pen and wrote two words heavily directly below the tiline belonging to "Ling Xi."
"Destiny."
"Ling Xi's love is passionate, destructive, intolerant of flaws."
"What she fell in love with was Ye Chen, the half-demon, that powerful and perfect Ye Chen. It's a love based on worship and possession."
"Therefore, when she discovers this perfection contains variables she cannot control, her love instantly collapses."
"Destroying him, sealing him, turning him into a specin that belongs to her forever becos the only way for her to maintain this 'perfection.'"
After speaking, he moved to the other tiline.
Directly below "A Li," he wrote two different words.
"Companionship."
"What A Li encountered was a Ye Chen who had slept for a thousand years, accidentally awakened, weak, lonely, and tsundere."
"What she fell in love with was his imperfections and the gentleness hidden beneath his tsundere shell."
"So her love is about acceptance, about healing."
Su Qingying was completely drawn into his rhythm.
Looking at the two clearly distinct emotional paths on that white paper, she realized for the first ti that performance could be deconstructed in such a "rational" way.
The imnse difficulty that had troubled her these past days—how to switch between the two characters—seed to have found a clear problem-solving approach at this mont.
Looking at Jiang Ci's profile, overly focused in the afternoon sunlight, she suddenly felt the person before her didn't seem like an actor.
More like an... emotional engineer, skilled at calculation, capable of quantifying all emotional feelings into data.
Looking at Jiang Ci's profile, overly focused in the afternoon sunlight, she suddenly spoke.
"You seem to have an... unusual obsession with 'tragedy.'"
She asked.
"Why?"
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