A grand feast for the Chinese entertainment industry

Chapter 54 Deliberate
Midway through the meal, when the mutual flattery was at its peak, Lao Duan patted Su Huilun on the shoulder, dismissed him, and took the initiative to sit next to Lin Jianlu, starting to talk about serious matters.

According to the established plan, in just a few days, "Cold-Blooded Video" and "Million Dollar Celebration Edition" will be released simultaneously worldwide, including in mainland China.

The prices are definitely a bit high, but based on past experience, sales shouldn't be a problem. "You still need to go there. This time, we won't ask for anything else, just sign two shows each in Taiwan and Hong Kong!"

Although Lin Jianlu was no longer very interested in the money, she readily agreed.

He had already agreed before, but Lao Duan was afraid that Lin Jianlu would slack off, so he just mentioned it again. He was overthinking it; Lin Jianlu's professional ethics have always been reliable.

After he finished speaking and left to continue their mutual flattery, Lin Jianlu turned to look at Gao Yuanyuan again. She noticed several times that Gao Yuanyuan's expression was somewhat stiff.

"Cassette tape! Ready?"

Gao Yuanyuan was still naive; she thought a little too much, but not too much at all. After all, getting these people to sign their autographs was quite important to her.

So the silly girl paused for a moment and then came to her senses. She actually ran away on the spot. After a good ten minutes, she came back with a small cardboard box. Her home was in Fengtai, which was a bit far away. The crew was filming during the summer vacation, and she had nowhere else to stay, so she had been staying in the small hotel where the crew was staying, which was not far from where they ate.

This small box of cassette tapes was part of her luggage.

There are many pirated copies.

Or rather, apart from Lin Jianlu's "Cold to the End," which wasn't available as a pirated copy when she bought it, almost everything else was pirated. Lin Jianlu took it, glanced at it, and started rummaging through the copies. She found the one with her phone number written on it, held it in her hand, and then handed it to everyone, saying, "Sign it, sign it! Find your own copies, and once you sign it, it's an original!"

So a group of big stars signed the pirated cassette tapes.

The most amazing thing is that there are only one cassette tape belonging to each of them, one for Wakin Chau and one for Su Huilun. All the tapes that can be found for others are mixed and matched – all of them are signed as genuine.

After signing her name, Gao Yuanyuan hugged the small box, her face beaming.

But the next day, she came looking for me, saying, "Hey, where did my cassette tape of 'Cold to the End' go? You must have kept it for me!"

Lin Jianlu looked completely innocent. "How could that be! Look again. What would I need your tape for? Don't worry if you really can't find it. That's how it is when you lose something. You can't find it no matter how hard you look, but when you give up, hey, it reappears!"

Gao Yuanyuan was skeptical, but then she remembered that Lin Jianlu had signed his phone number on the cassette tape, and she blushed again, pursing her lips shyly, "Then... I'll go back and look for it again!"

…………

Big stars' time is more valuable, so we filmed the scenes of these big stars who were making cameo appearances first.

It's quick.

Although most of their scenes were added on the spot, and some shots had to be reshot, they were really just cameos. Some were only ten or twenty seconds long, while others just showed their faces. The scenes were all completed in one day.

Coincidentally, the next day was also a cloudy day.

Lin Jianlu had no choice but to keep his promise and accompany them to climb the Great Wall.

Moyan didn't participate, so it was basically Lin Jianlu who accompanied them, and Xue Zhongding was in charge of taking pictures. They snapped photos all the way, and when they came down, Li Zongsheng was the one who was panting the most.

The next day, they were going to visit places like the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and the Temple of Heaven, but Lin Jianlu declined to accompany them. Instead, Xue Zhongding accompanied them, while Lin Jianlu returned to the film crew to continue spending time with Zhang Yangmo.

So they changed locations and returned to the intersection.

This time it was finally a real scene between them—the shot of Lin Jianlu hearing Xu Jinglei's wrist.

With previous experience, this time it went relatively well; we got it right after five or six takes.

Strangely enough, after Zhang Yang finished shouting, Xu Jinglei surprisingly praised him on the spot, saying, "You acted well!", which surprised Lin Jianlu.

This girl is very arrogant. Although they are acting opposite each other, their roles are limited. She is too lazy to pay attention to Lin Jianlu, and Lin Jianlu is too lazy to pay attention to her. They have not spoken more than ten words to each other in total.

I didn't expect her to say that.

It's as if she's a veteran actress herself, praising a newcomer.

"It's alright! Luckily, I don't rely on this for food, or I would starve to death!"

The girl chuckled, "You're so modest!"

...Finally, it was time for the scene of developing photos in the darkroom.

This was Lin Jianlu's last scene on set. After that, all they had to do was wait for the film to be edited out and then come back together to do the dubbing. In other words, once this scene was filmed, they could leave.

The scene is simple; it mainly involves that near-kiss scene.

The darkroom was bathed in a reddish glow, making it difficult to discern the faces of either person clearly.

It felt like a very ambiguous scene.

The girl's beautiful eyes were just five centimeters away from him, and her delicate lips were once only two centimeters away. The man tentatively probed, changing angles in various ways, while the woman was actually trying to please him.

Alas, they didn't end up kissing.

"Cut! That's a wrap! Lu, Jinglei, congratulations on wrapping up filming!"

Lin Jianlu truly breathed a sigh of relief.

After a series of farewells, he left the photography studio feeling relaxed. Unexpectedly, Xu Jinglei chased after him from behind. "Jinlu, can I have your phone number? Let's have dinner together sometime?"

"It's done!"

…………

It was midday, and after driving back downstairs, I switched to my old bicycle and leisurely rode off to buy some vegetables and meat, which would allow me to cook lunch myself—suddenly, that leisurely feeling returned.

Comfortable!

While he was cooking, his phone suddenly rang. He answered it and heard Chen Shuhua say on the other end, "How's your filming going? I'm free this afternoon, is it convenient for me to visit the set?"

Lin Jianlu was taken aback. "Huh? You didn't go to Chengde with them?"

"No! I felt a little unwell when I woke up this morning, so I told them I wasn't going and would stay in the capital to rest for a few days, and then we could go back together when they returned."

"Hi……"

After cooking the dish in the pot, Lin Jianlu immediately took off his apron and went downstairs to drive over to pick her up. It was at the New Grand Hotel, about a 20-minute bike ride away, and even faster by car.

After parking the car, the two went upstairs together. The dish they had cooked before leaving was still warm!
"Are you hungry? I'll get you some rice, you eat first! I'll prepare two more!"

Chen Shuhua didn't stop him, and didn't even say anything. She just watched him serve himself half a bowl of rice, but he didn't eat it. Instead, he seemed very interested. When she saw him tie on an apron, she followed him to the narrow kitchen. Right at the door, she watched him stir-fry vegetables over a high flame.

Two hot dishes and one cold dish were not ideal, so we added scrambled eggs with tomatoes as a last resort. Now that's settled. The older generation is superstitious about this; the table must have an even number of dishes.

So we ate together.

She said she just had a slight headache when she woke up, but it was gone after lying down for half a morning.

My appetite remains small as always; controlling my weight is essential.

"Actually, you should go. Just try to get through it. The Summer Palace should be quite fun."

"There will be other opportunities in the future! I will definitely go next time."

After the meal, as usual, a small handful of tea leaves were thrown into the large teapot, boiling water was poured in, and then everyone had a cup of tea and sat on the sofa to chat.

At this moment, she suddenly brought up serious matters.

“You mentioned before that you wanted to include ‘Gift’ in my EP, and Duan Ge talked to me about it. He said that since we already have four songs, and these songs are all of high quality, they are enough for charting. So why not collect more songs and make it ten or twelve to release a formal album?”

"Oh... sure! I have no objection! Hmm... Old Duan is really strange. It's been several days, why hasn't he mentioned it once? And why did he insist on having you stay behind at this time to talk to me alone?"

Chen Shuhua blushed upon hearing this, "I didn't stay on purpose!"

(End of this chapter)