Chapter 38: I Want Them All

After saying goodbye to the old lady downstairs, Shen Xici took a bus to the airport and flew back to Ningcheng.

The apartment he had found in advance was just as he remembered it, with a rather French-style decor. The only drawback was that the living room only had two armchairs, one dark green and one retro red, and no sofa.

The landlady’s surname was Cui. She was an old professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, a well-known painter in the country. She wore a light-colored silk dress and a three-strand pearl necklace, elegant and intellectual. She spoke with a local Ningcheng accent, which was melodious and pleasant to hear.

“I designed the decor of this house myself, but aesthetics are a very personal thing. Since I’m renting this house to you, if you find it inconvenient without a sofa, I can add one.”

“It’s really no trouble. I live alone, so no one will be sleeping on the sofa,” Shen Xici paused, then smiled. “The two armchairs are more than enough, and they’re beautiful and comfortable. I’d be a little sad to see them go.”

The location and community of this apartment were both very good, and the decor was visibly expensive. Four thousand a month was a steal for him. To ask for a sofa on top of that would be a bit too much.

Professor Cui saw through his thoughts. “You don’t need to feel burdened. If a house is empty, the air becomes stale and things break down. I don’t rent this house out easily. It was only after our video call the other day, seeing that we had a connection, that I decided to rent it to you.”

She had painted many portraits, and very few had a profile as striking as Shen Xici’s. His brows, eyes, and nose bridge were like Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy—a clear and exquisite bone structure, pleasing to the eye. Looking at him satisfied her professional obsession. The amount of money was secondary.

After confirming several times that there was really no need to add a sofa, Professor Cui left. She had already hired someone to clean the day before, so the house was ready to be moved into. Shen Xici put away the rental contract and took out the items from his suitcase, putting them away one by one.

Seeing the cups, towels, and bathrobe that didn’t belong to him, Shen Xici found a drawer and put them away separately.

The next day, he had an appointment with Lu Jieming to look at the script. Shen Xici got dressed, put on a black mask and a pair of thin, fingerless gloves, and went out.

Pushing open the heavy, soundproof door of the KTV private room, Lu Jieming was already there, waving at him from a long black sofa. “Here, here!”

Today’s Director Lu had shaved his beard, revealing a clean, baby-like face. His hair was cut short. You could tell he had cut it himself; it was uneven and messy, but at least he no longer looked like a wild man who had just finished a survival show. He had a touch of modern civilization about him.

On the glass table was a bowl of popcorn, a pot of tea, and three sets of dice. The neon light ball on the ceiling was spinning, casting colorful spots of light on all four walls.

Shen Xici sat down on the sofa. “KTVs are cheap during the day. What’s the group-buy price for this?”

Hearing this, Lu Jieming knew he was a kindred spirit. He said very proudly, “The group-buy price is only 38.8. I used a coupon and got another five yuan off. In a bit, I’ll write a sixty-word review with a picture and get a free drink! Five hours, medium room, with food and drinks. Not only is it private, but it also has BGM accompaniment. You tell me if that’s a good deal or not!”

As he was speaking, from a room next door, the wailing sound of someone singing “Tibetan Plateau” came through. Even the soundproof door couldn’t block it. Lu Jieming “hissed.” “I gotta say, this BGM is quite high-pitched, even if the voice is cracking. It’s good, it’s good, haha.”

Shen Xici quite approved of the place Lu Jieming had chosen. The sofa was also very comfortable, but the lights were purplish-red, and the faces of the people in front of him kept changing color. He suggested, “Director Lu, why don’t we turn off this purple and red light ball?”

Lu Jieming: “Purple and red are good! In the future, we’ll be so popular we’ll be ‘red and purple’!”

“…”

Such a unique angle!

Shen Xici joked, “But you have to let me finish reading the script that will make us ‘red and purple’ in the future, right?”

Lu Jieming was flattered and grinned from ear to ear, eagerly running over to adjust the lighting, afraid that Shen Xici wouldn’t be able to see clearly.

The script didn’t have a title yet. It was about a young man named Gu Changsheng during the Republic of China era, a hundred years ago. He came from a humble background but was handsome and charming. He knew his strengths and used his looks to gain many advantages.

At that time, the common people were struggling to survive, but Shanghai was a bustling metropolis, a dazzling place. Gu Changsheng was tired of poverty and decided to go for a big score. He disguised himself as Sheng Yuen, a young master whose entire family had emigrated overseas and who had returned to China to visit relatives.

With this false identity, his realistic acting, and his strong mental fortitude for improvisation, Gu Changsheng moved through high society, playing all sides, and became extremely popular in social circles, capturing countless hearts.

Initially, Gu Changsheng just wanted to scam some money from these rich people. But unexpectedly, someone who had met the real Young Master Sheng Yuen abroad came looking for him. Just as Gu Changsheng thought he was about to be exposed, the other person praised his performance. Gu Changsheng subtly probed for information and learned that this person had mistaken him for an undercover agent of our party, assuming his impersonation of Sheng Yuen was to more easily infiltrate the enemy and carry out missions.

Gu Changsheng played along, pretending to be a rich young master on one side and a loyal undercover agent on the other, even maxing out his favorability with both sides. He was on the verge of being exposed several times but managed to turn the situation around each time.

After finishing the rest of the script, Shen Xici looked up from the treacherous story. Lu Jieming was standing at a microphone stand, clutching his heart and singing a sad love song, looking as if he was about to collapse from a broken heart.

Letting go of the microphone, Lu Jieming ran over, looking expectant. “Finished? What do you think?”

When Shen Xici was reading the first part, he had a vague sense of familiarity. The further he read, the stronger this feeling became. “The male lead’s fake name is Sheng Yuen.”

Lu Jieming tossed a piece of popcorn into the air and tried to catch it with his mouth. “Yeah, any questions?”

Shen Xici: “His surname is Sheng. Is it based on the Sheng family from the Jiangsu-Zhejiang region?”

Lu Jieming was a bit surprised. “You could tell? Yes, yes, yes, I did a lot of research, and this family was the best fit. A hundred years ago, they were prestigious, and tracing their family line back, they had produced top scholars and many high officials. And they were super, super rich! The fact that you can tell means my research wasn’t bad!”

Shen Xici looked at the name “Sheng Yuen” on the script. As far as he knew, the “Yu” generation was Sheng Shaoyan’s great-great-grandfather’s generation. So in the script, he would be impersonating Sheng Shaoyan’s great-great-granduncle. In other words, he would be playing Sheng Shaoyan’s ancestor?

This role was indeed quite good!

Eating too much popcorn made his mouth feel greasy. Adhering to the principle of not wasting free stuff, Lu Jieming gulped down a large cup of tea and pressed on, “You still haven’t said, what do you think of the script? It’s the masterpiece I wrote after months of seclusion. It’s good, right?”

“It’s brilliant. The latter part of the story is even more brilliant than I imagined.”

Or rather, more brilliant than the movie he had seen in his previous life. In his last life, a commercial film called “Double Face” had grossed nearly two billion at the box office during the Spring Festival. Set in a fictionalized Republic of China, the male lead from a poor background pretended to be a rich young master. At a banquet, he met the daughter of a prestigious family, and they fell in love. Later, after many difficulties, the clouds cleared, and they finally got married. The male lead also became a famous industrialist in Shanghai.

The reason Shen Xici remembered it so clearly was that when he watched it, he found the plot design of the male lead impersonating a rich young master and an undercover agent to be ingenious, absolutely brilliant. He loved it. But just as his expectations were raised, the plot took a sharp downturn and started to focus on the emotional entanglement of the male and female leads, with lines like “I love you, but I’m not worthy of you, I can’t be with you.” The quality of the dialogue was inconsistent, and the pacing of the plot was also hit-or-miss. There were a few very clever shots, but some other shots were too contrived and blunt.

He had thought at the time that, perhaps because it was positioned as a commercial film, it had to make concessions for the male and female leads’ romance, which meant that within the limited runtime, many of the male lead’s potential storylines were not explored. A few scenes were glossed over, and the ending was also rushed. The director was also the screenwriter, so he must have made some difficult choices and compromises.

It wasn’t until he finished reading this script and the thick stack of hand-drawn storyboard designs that he vaguely found the answer.

“Brilliant, right?” Lu Jieming gulped down another cup of tea, adjusted his crooked, black-framed glasses, and rested his elbows on his knees. “I put a lot of effort into the character of Gu Changsheng. He’s not a good person, but he’s not bad either. He’s more like a master scammer who isn’t bound by good and evil. He looks like a pampered noble, but he comes from a poor background, so poor that he only has one decent set of clothes. He doesn’t love anyone but himself. No matter how nice someone is to him, he’ll still scam them. His conscience doesn’t hurt. But this very person, who has no conscience, no sense of morality, who is calm and cunningly smart in the face of trouble, ultimately chose such an ending.”

Shen Xici continued, “It’s like a beautiful and exquisite palace lantern. Every side is different, and every side is painted exquisitely by him. In the end, he lights the candle and burns himself to ashes.”

Lu Jieming slapped his thigh, excited. “Yes, yes, yes, you really get it! You really are the most suitable person to play Gu Changsheng!”

Shen Xici raised an eyebrow. “Director Lu, you didn’t say that when we first met. Didn’t you say that the role most suitable for me had to be written from scratch?”

“Pfft, wasn’t I just trying to trick you into signing the actor’s contract first, and then see what role was suitable? But your manager,” Lu Jieming slipped up, “Bah, your ex-manager! Your ex-manager looked so intimidating, I didn’t even dare to continue trying to trick you.”