novelraw Chapter 365: The Rain Soaked the Genius
Chapter 365: The Rain Soaked the Genius
Chapter 365: The Rain Soaked the Genius
Lin Wan's gaze never left Gu Zhiyuan from start to finish.
That man's state was extremely off.
She gave a meaningful look to the assistant behind her.
The assistant understood, silently retreating to investigate the girl named "Chen Yi."
Jiang Ci's words crushed the nerves that Gu Zhiyuan had stretched to their absolute limit.
Gu Zhiyuan's eyes were bloodshot,
What churned within them wasn't anger,
But a pain born of humiliation pushed to the extreme.
"What do you know!"
He let out a hoarse roar at Jiang Ci.
Jiang Ci was unaffected by this roar.
He responded, "I don't know."
"I only saw that the delivery girl just now looked more like 'Liu Piaopiao' than any of the 'princesses' who auditioned this afternoon."
Gu Zhiyuan was completely shattered by these words.
His body suddenly went limp, unable to support itself any longer, and he staggered, collapsing onto an old, cracked tire.
He buried his hands in his greasy hair, gripping it tightly.
"Three years ago..."
He began, his voice dry and raspy.
"I made a film called 'Kite'."
All the remaining clamor on the film set vanished.
Lin Wan looked at the man curled up on the tire.
Gu Zhiyuan's gaze grew unfocused; he had fallen into that memory he dared not touch.
It was a rainy night three years ago, in a damp little town in the south.
The film crew had waited in place for three days for a genuine downpour.
When bean-sized raindrops finally began to pound down, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Behind the monitor, a young Gu Zhiyuan, brimming with ambition, shouted into his walkie-talkie, "All departments, attention! Rolling!"
On screen, there was a dilapidated roof eave.
Chen Yi sat beneath that eave, rainwater flowing down the roof tiles, forming a curtain of water before her.
Her costume was an old shirt,
Her hair was plastered wetly to her face.
In her hand was a rock-hard, plain steamed bun.
The script required her to portray hunger and despair.
Before filming began, the assistant director had still been worried, asking Gu Zhiyuan if they should use tear sticks on Chen Yi.
Gu Zhiyuan refused.
He believed in the genius he had chosen.
Filming began.
Chen Yi did not cry; there wasn't even any excessive emotional setup on her face. She simply lowered her head, staring at the bun in her hand for a long, long time.
Then, she raised her hand, using the rainwater dripping from the eave to rinse her mud-stained fingers.
She opened her mouth and took a savage bite of the bun.
The bun was too hard; she struggled to bite it, her cheeks bulging as she chewed with great effort.
Her face expressionless, she chewed, bite after bite.
The bun was too dry, difficult to swallow.
She stopped chewing, stuck out her tongue, caught the rainwater flowing from the eave, and swallowed it along with the bun crumbs in her mouth.
The entire process, not a single line of dialogue.
Gu Zhiyuan behind the monitor forgot to breathe.
He wasn't seeing an actor performing hardship.
He saw how a person trampled into the mire by life could survive without making a single sound.
It was a numbness more terrifying than despair,
A calmness that had grown accustomed to suffering, treating hardship as daily routine.
And deep within that calmness, hidden, was a spark that refused to be extinguished.
In that moment, Gu Zhiyuan was so awestruck behind the monitor he was rendered speechless.
He knew he had struck gold.
A true, born-for-the-lens genius.
"Director, cut?"
The clapper loader's quiet reminder finally pulled him back from that immense shock.
Only then did he realize he had long been in tears.
The memory ended.
Gu Zhiyuan painfully narrated the aftermath.
"The film was released, a box office disaster. Thirteen million in ticket sales; the investors lost everything they put in."
"I became the 'Box Office Poison' everyone in the industry cursed, a madman who used investors' money to chase his own bullshit artistic dreams."
His voice grew lower and lower, filled with self-loathing.
"But I wasn't the worst off."
Gu Zhiyuan lifted his head, his red-rimmed eyes brimming with remorse and pain.
"Chen Yi, she was the female lead I fought tooth and nail to cast. When the film failed, all the filth was dumped on her."
"She was branded as 'Gu Zhiyuan's person'."
"No one dared to use her anymore, no one gave her another chance. So what if she got a Cannes Best Newcomer nomination? In this circle, picking the wrong side is more terrifying than lacking talent."
"I destroyed her."
Gu Zhiyuan covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking violently, emitting a sob suppressed to its limit.
"I personally dragged the most inspired genius down from the heavens, threw her into the mud, and then I ran away myself."
He hid in that garbage-filled place, hiding for three years, using alcohol and self-exile to escape this sin.
And the girl he destroyed, meanwhile, was in the real mire, struggling to survive relying on a broken electric scooter and five-star reviews.
Jiang Ci listened quietly.
A true tragedy isn't the heroism of the Wujiang River suicide.
It's taking a person who shines and snuffing them out alive, leaving behind only ashes on the ground that no one cares about.
The film set was utterly quiet.
Amid this heavy atmosphere, Lin Wan's phone screen lit up silently.
A message from the assistant who had just left.
[Chen Yi, 28, graduated top of her class from the Magic City Film Academy acting department.]
[Nominated for Best New Actress at the Cannes Film Festival three years ago for 'Kite'.]
[Since then, no leading roles. No acting records for the past two years.]
This data confirmed the brutal story from Gu Zhiyuan's mouth.
Lin Wan turned off the screen and looked at the man still curled on the tire, his shoulders trembling slightly.
She was a creator; she understood better than anyone the pain of personally destroying one's most cherished work and actor.
Just as she was about to say something, Jiang Ci, who had been silent all along, moved first.
He picked up the box of braised pork knuckle rice left on the concrete block, walked over to Gu Zhiyuan, and shoved the takeout container into his arms.
"Director," Jiang Ci's voice was very calm, "You haven't delivered this meal to the set assistant yet."
Gu Zhiyuan looked up at him blankly.
Jiang Ci looked into his eyes and said, word by word:
"Find her. Use the method you're best at to repay what you owe her."
These words jolted Gu Zhiyuan, who was immersed in endless regret, awake.
Repay her? With what could he repay her?
Just then, rapid but deliberately hushed footsteps approached from the distance.
The assistant who had left earlier hurried over, her expression somewhat flustered,
But more than that, it held a professional wariness.
She didn't shout, but instead walked quickly to Lin Wan's side,
Bent down, and said urgently in a low voice:
"Sister Wan, trouble. Li Feifei's agent, Sister Wang... she's back with people."