IHWL – Chapter 61.1

Chapter 61: Two Flowers in Bloom

    Because Su Jin left backstage without permission before the second rehearsal and had to redo her makeup when she returned, the entire recording of ‘The Four Beauties’ was affected and delayed by a full fifteen minutes.

    After staying up until the middle of the night, the crew was so exhausted that they were thrown off their feet. The dark circles under the program Director’s eyes spread all the way to his chin, and from a distance, he was exactly the essence of a panda.

    “Is Miss Su’s makeup done?” There was no smoking in the backstage, so he could only hold the tail of his cigarette, chewing the butt with some annoyance. “The entire crew is now only waiting for her, let her quickly…”

    “Sorry, I’m late,” a soft voice sounded behind him.

    The figure wrapped in a red cloak from the dressing room gracefully came out. Her black hair was pulled into a flying fairy bun, and her hairpin was a filigree in the shape of a flying goose. The girl was holding a pipa in her arms. She was indeed the picture of an ancient lady walking down from a mural, exuding a kind of tranquility and beauty through time and space. 

    Her makeup was not too heavy and slightly outlined her beautiful features. A little tear mole at the corner of her eye became extraordinarily moving with her knitted brows and smile.

    Director: “…”

    Strange, the Director sized her up several times and always felt an indefinable sense of dissimilarity.

    It was only a few hours since the last rehearsal, but how come Su Jin’s temperament had changed so much? If she was a rose growing freely under the sun before, she was now an orchid under the moonlight.

    He couldn’t say which was better, but Su Jin now was more like the ‘soft outside and rigid inside’ Wang Zhaojun in history.

    The Director only took it that he was overthinking it. He suppressed the contradiction in his heart and directed his assistant to equip Su Jin with a clip-on mic —— Although Su Jin would only mimic playing the pipa in front of the camera with the pre-recorded audio synchronously, for the sake of saving face, she still had to put on a mic. However, they certainly wouldn’t turn the microphone on.

    Other celebrities, who turned off their mic, were ‘lip synching’; she would be ‘match-synching’.

    Everything was ready. The Four Beauties were ready. Su Jin’s appearance was the most special, and she would be riding a basket from the sky.

    ……

    Soon, the second rehearsal officially began.

    This rehearsal was particularly formal, with multiple cameras fixed under the stage, capturing every move of the artists on stage from different angles.

    Lin Yan was standing on the stage, holding Su Jin’s jacket in one hand and a glass of water in the other, really like her assistant.

    For him, everything here was unfamiliar. He had long been accustomed to a life of dealing with silent animals. He had never imagined that an unexpected encounter would lead him to appear in this place, looking up at celebrities on the stage.

    When other staff members didn’t recognize him, they came to ask him which artist’s attendant he was.

    He replied, “Su Jin.”

    “Huh? If I remember correctly, her assistant is Xiao Xia, no?”

    Lin Yan didn’t answer, and the man touched his nose and could only turn around and leave in embarrassment.

    The show ‘The Four Beauties’ was based on the order of ‘making the fish dive down in shame and wild geese alight; putting the flowers to shame and outshining the moon’. The first person to go on stage, naturally, Xu Yadan, who played Xi Shi’s role.

    Legend had it that Xi Shi was raking her yarn in the lake and the fish, seeing her beauty, even forgot to breathe and gradually sank into the water… Today Xu Yadan wore a long dress with lake water sleeves and danced in the flock of dancers, her aqua sleeves flying like an illusion.

    She had been practicing dance since childhood and had a deep background in folk dance. This drew praise from the staff who were watching.

    When her dance was over, she held up her aqua sleeves to cover her red lips, seemingly sending out amorous glances to the man below the stage. Unfortunately, her glances were all dumped on the blind. Lin Yan calmly stepped back and disdained to interact with her.

    Xu Yadan secretly gritted her teeth. However, the stage lights dimmed at this time, and spotlights cast on the stage roof. Accompanied by a light mist, a delicate antique hanging basket slowly descended from the air, attracting everyone’s attention.

    “Miss Xu, please get off the stage.” A dancer beside Xu Yadan saw her standing in place and hurriedly pushed her without a trace.

    Xu Yadan could only withdraw her jealous eyes. She tucked her fancy sleeves and fluttered out of the stage surrounded by her backup dancers.

    Before she left, she glanced behind her, at the one who descended from the sky, and thought angrily: If the news of Su Jin posing and faking playing the pipa gets out, the image of the Goddess in the hearts of fans will definitely be shattered.

    The antique hanging basket was covered with a layer of golden cushions. Su Jin embraced a pipa to cover half of her small face. In the misty fog, she fell from the sky, light as a wild goose.

    All of a sudden,she gently raised her hand, her left hand pressing the top half of the pipa while the nails of her right hand swept down the strings. What flowed out next was the melodious sound of the pipa.

    The Director, who was standing next to the stage, was stunned and immediately picked up the intercom to contact the studio: “Why is the soundtrack playing now? Didn’t we say that the music would play only when the basket was halfway down?”

    The voice of the other party came through the intercom: “Ancestor! It’s not us! The soundtrack has not yet played. This is the music from the guest’s microphone!”

    The Direct reflected: “The microphone was left on?…You mean, Su Jin is playing it herself?”

    Before today’s rehearsal, Su Jin’s agent specially communicated with the Chief Director. He said that Su Jin had hurt her hand saving someone’s life and was unable to play the pipa, asking them to play an accompaniment. At that time, everyone thought it was a pretext to cover up the fact that Su Jin was ‘not good at playing the pipa at all’. The staff below had been talking, saying that Su Jin’s ‘talented woman persona’ could no longer stand firm. She even had to fake playing 《Zhaojun Goes Out of the Frontier》. She should not have had the cheek to post that she learned the art from a great master…

    Also, before the second rehearsal today, Su Jin was late again, which made the Director’s perception of her hit the bottom. He thought she was playing the big card and lacked artistic virtue… To his surprise, she played this pipa song out of the blue, making everyone’s impression of her greatly change.