Without giving it much thought, Rong Xu nodded and said, “Yeah, I got a small scrape while filming a scene today.”

Qin Cheng: “…How could you be so careless?”

Rong Xu replied helplessly, “It’s hard to avoid. In that scene, I was supposed to get beaten up. If I faked it too much, it wouldn’t have looked natural.”

Qin Cheng: “!!! Someone actually hit you?!”

For the next half an hour, this man repeatedly and seriously reminded his young lover to be extremely careful on set. Toward the end, Rong Xu’s expression gradually turned earnest. He raised his brows and asked curiously, “But wait, didn’t you do way more fight scenes in Stormbringer? I remember your character was beaten until he vomited blood.”

Qin Cheng: “…Just be careful.”

What did it matter if he got hit? It was nothing. But if you got hurt—that was unbearable!

After hanging up, Rong Xu went into the bathroom, standing before the mirror to carefully inspect the small cut on his chin. After a moment, he lowered his head to look at the gash on his arm.

Hmm, good thing Qin Cheng didn’t see this one—it was far worse than the cut on his chin. If he’d seen it, he probably would’ve nagged him for another hour.

Nagging Qin Cheng: “…”

The filming of 3,200 Miles continued smoothly. Although Rong Xu lacked experience with action films, with veterans like Clemens and Jennifer guiding him, his initially awkward fight scenes soon grew smooth and natural.

Just as Rong Xu had said, Roy was a deeply contradictory character. He could kill without batting an eye, yet he was also just a sixteen-year-old boy, full of hidden fear.

Rong Xu balanced these dual aspects perfectly. In one scene, Roy drove his car into the forest by the roadside late at night, planning to sleep there for the night.

At the same time, the heroine Natasha was still bound and gagged in the car trunk. She whimpered and struggled, banging against the car. Meanwhile, the thin, beautiful boy in worn clothes leaned against the car, gazing up at the stars.

His eyes were clear and dazed, like pure crystals. Yet behind him came the muffled sound of a woman’s sobbing and banging. It was as if he heard nothing, earnestly looking at the sky—as though he were still that slum child lying on a wooden bed, peering at the sky through a hole in the ceiling.

This dissonance of image and sound created a blasphemous beauty.

After shooting this scene, Clemens was so thrilled that he hugged Rong Xu on impulse, nearly kissing him. Just as he was about to land the kiss, Rong Xu twitched his mouth, raised a hand, and pushed him away. Clemens suddenly came to his senses, sheepishly backing off to Jennifer’s side—still sneaking glances at Rong Xu.

Rong Xu: “…”

I’m not the one who wanted to kiss you—you wanted to kiss me! What’s with that “It’s all your fault” look?!

After half a month of working together, Rong Xu finally understood why Clemens sometimes gave him such strange looks.

It turned out that two months ago, old Mr. Holt had personally come to Washington and given his son a severe beating.

Clemens wasn’t an idiot, nor was he especially dutiful—no way he’d just stand there and take it. Of course, he fought back. But sadly for him, old Mr. Holt had decades of boxing experience and wasn’t about to lose. The more Clemens resisted, the harder he got hit. Word had it Clemens walked away with a full black eye.

Since then, Clemens had been far more restrained. He deeply suspected that his father had planted spies in the crew—how else could he have known that Clemens had secretly scammed investors while preparing this new movie, pocketing some of the money? (At least that’s what Clemens thought his father had come to punish him for.)

If there were indeed old Mr. Holt’s informants here, Clemens dared not slack off—he worked harder than ever, practically the model of a responsible director.

Thanks to the director’s dedication and the actors’ cooperation, filming for 3,200 Miles progressed far ahead of schedule.

When the Zhuang Hua Luo crew finished their final promotional tour in America, 3,200 Miles had only been shooting for eighteen days—but over one-third of the film was already complete. Plus, several big explosion scenes didn’t even require the actors. At this pace, Rong Xu might finish all his parts in just another month.

That morning on set, as Rong Xu arrived, he spotted Jennifer approaching from afar, smiling and speaking clumsy Chinese: “Congratulations, Rong! I believe you will win an award.”

Rong Xu chuckled softly. “Thank you, Jennifer. But I think just getting a nomination is already great. You know—the competition this year is tough.”

Switching to English, Jennifer asked, “How so? You have two Golden Phoenix nominations—that’s one more than the other six nominees. I thought you were fantastic in Dark Clouds. I’ve also listened to Ling Xiao’s music—I love his songs. But now… I also love your songs, Rong.”

Rong Xu smiled slightly and dropped the modesty. “Then I’ll borrow your good wishes.”

That morning, the Golden Phoenix Award nominations were finally announced.

It was already late January 2045—a time when many global award nominations were typically revealed, including the Golden Phoenix and the Oscars. The Golden Phoenix released its list this morning, and as the highest-grossing and most influential film of 2044, Dark Clouds naturally received ten nominations.

Among them: Best Actor.

Best Actor nominee: Rong Xu, for Dark Clouds as Ling Xiao.

Best Actor nominee: Rong Xu, for Silent as Du Ran.

For the global film industry, 2044 had been a seemingly eventful yet somewhat underwhelming year. Before December, Dark Clouds led the box office in China—it fully deserved its accolades. But overall, China’s film market had been sluggish. Of the five Best Picture nominees for the Chinese Golden Phoenix, five were foreign films.

After the nomination list was announced, Director Xu immediately sent a text message to congratulate Rong Xu. But being a straightforward and blunt old man, he also said directly over the phone: “I honestly didn’t expect we’d get a Best Actor nomination. Rong Xu, keep pushing. With your role in Dark Clouds too, maybe you really could win this award.”

Indeed, while Silent had earned 3.9 billion at the box office—making it the top Chinese art film of 2044—it hadn’t reached the 5-billion-plus box office heights of past literary hits like Disciple or The Angled Staircase.

Director Xu was very confident about competing for Best Director and Best Picture at the Golden Phoenix Awards, but not particularly for Best Actor or Actress.

At many second- and third-tier awards, Silent had already won Best Picture, and Rong Xu had been nominated for Best Actor several times—but all these honors combined still couldn’t compare to the weight of a single Golden Phoenix trophy.

On the phone, Director Xu carefully went over some preparations for the awards with Rong Xu. Later, when Rong arrived on set, he received congratulations from Jennifer as well.

Not long after, as both of them finished makeup but before filming officially began, Clemens approached Rong Xu and said, “Congratulations, Rong Xu.”

Rong Xu curled his lips into a smile. “Thanks. Clemens, I didn’t think you’d heard about this too.”

Clemens raised an eyebrow, surprise clear in his crystal blue eyes. “Of course I knew. Last night I heard from Adel—your worldwide box office has already surpassed nine billion. Too bad it didn’t hit ten billion—otherwise, this would definitely rank in the top five globally.”

Adelica Holt—Old Mr. Holt—was Clemens’ father.

Hearing this, Rong Xu’s smile faltered slightly. He thought for a moment, then suddenly understood: “You mean Zhuang Hua Luo’s box office?”

Clemens froze, then asked back: “Isn’t that what I meant?”

Only then did Rong Xu learn the global box office total of Zhuang Hua Luo.

After a month in theaters, Zhuang Hua Luo officially ended its run yesterday. Right now, Director Liu was probably holding a celebratory party somewhere, and hadn’t called Rong yet to report the final numbers. But Old Mr. Holt, being a senior figure in the industry with great influence, must have gotten the numbers from other channels and passed them on to his son—as motivation.

After a pause, Rong Xu smiled lightly. “I think Director Liu must be very satisfied with this result.”

Clemens curved his lips and said bluntly, “That’s a really high box office. You know, even Director Liu himself can’t guarantee that every film of his will surpass five billion. Any movie over five billion is considered a mega-hit, with solid standing globally.”

Jennifer laughed. “But it still didn’t pass ten billion. Otherwise, there’d be another film in Qin’s ‘Ten Billion Club.’”

Clemens raised a brow. “Qin Cheng?”

Jennifer nodded. “Yeah, he has six films in the Ten Billion Club.”

Clemens clearly wasn’t that interested in Qin Cheng, casually muttering, “I think I’ve shot two ten-billion films too,” before turning away to handle other matters.

Meanwhile, Rong Xu and Jennifer sat with their scripts, running lines. They had over a dozen dialogue scenes today, so it was good to rehearse. But for these two seasoned actors, acting was second nature. After half an hour of running lines, they put the scripts down. On the other side, the explosives team was still prepping props, so filming hadn’t begun yet.

“Rong, honestly, I really admire you. Your first movie broke ten billion at the box office—that’s incredible.”

A crisp female voice suddenly spoke beside him. Turning his head, Rong Xu saw Jennifer smiling seriously at him. “I’ve been in this industry for so many years, and I only have one movie over ten billion. In our ‘Crazy Qin Squad,’ Wen Xuan has three ten-billion films; the rest of us—me, Hugh, James—only have one each.”

Rong Xu shook his head. “The success of Dark Clouds can’t all be credited to me. Jennifer, you had a cameo in that film too, didn’t you?”

The bold and dashing actress smiled. “Don’t be modest, Rong. No matter what, that honor belongs to you.”

Rong Xu didn’t continue the topic, but asked curiously, “By the way—what was that ‘crazy-qin’ you mentioned earlier? I didn’t get it.”

Jennifer replied, “Oh, that? Sorry, my Chinese isn’t great. I heard Lin and Wen call him that, so I translated it myself in English—‘Crazy Qin’—that’s ‘Qin Feng Feng,’ right?” She paused, then tried to pronounce it carefully in Chinese: “That is… Qin—”

“Wait, Jennifer!!!”

“Qin Feng Feng.”

Rong Xu: “…”

Out of nowhere, Qin Cheng appeared behind Jennifer: “…?”

__

Author’s Note:
Jennifer: Yeah, that’s right—it’s Qin Feng Feng~

Rong Rong: ……

Qin Chengcheng: EXCUSE ME?!