Chapter 5: Gossip In The Crew

Knock knock knock—

“Mr.
President, you wanted to see us?”

“En.” Rong Cheng Jue said with a hard-to-read expression on his face.
“Ma Ke, Ma Xiu, I remember that both of you graduated from Hua University as well.
Do you know if anyone has courted Ye Zhen while in school?”

This kind of question.
“We… We don’t know.” If they hadn’t heard the rumors before coming here, they wouldn’t even know who the little girl who suddenly appeared was.

“Then you can go and inquire about it.”

“Ah?” The two brothers looked at each other, “Oh.”

“Ah Zhan,” Rong Cheng Jue said, turning his eyes to his special assistant.
“Help me find out who in Rong Cheng Entertainment had contact with Ye Zhen, and report the detailed list to me.”

Lifting his head from the document, Ah Zhan asked, “Excuse me, Mr.
President, how detailed do you want the list to be?”

“Including everyone who had eye contact with her!”

“Okay.”

“Oh yeah, and Xi Gu you—” Rong Cheng Jue looked around the office and suddenly discovered, “Where did he run off to?”

“He left with Miss Ye.”

!!! 

“Call that grandson back! Immediately! Right now!”

“Okay, I’ll go now.” Ah Zhan put down the documents in his hands, turned around and walked out of the president’s office.

Seeing this, the Ma brothers also took the opportunity to leave.
After the special assistant called the security guard downstairs to intercept Xi Gu, Ma Ke couldn’t help but ask, “What’s going on now?”

“Can’t you see it?” The special assistant raised his glasses expressionlessly.
“This is the beginning of a domineering presidential plot.
We should be honored to play a part in it.”

“Oh, I see,” The brothers suddenly understood.
“I told you how familiar it feels.
A domineering president usually has to investigate the heroine’s background.
A thick stack of papers in a brown bag and throwing it away, that is so cool!”

“Damn it, wouldn’t that mean that our roles are very important?”

***

In contrast to the excitement of passersby A, B, C, who had been assigned a role in the show, Xi Gu was desperately trying to jump off the throne of “suspected love rival”.
“You ask me why I went off with Ye Zhen? It’s because she came in my car.
I sent her here to see you, okay?!”

“Why did she join the crew of “Treasure of the Great Tang Dynasty”? It’s because you don’t want her to work in the entertainment industry.
She asked me to help her and wanted to learn something from the crew!”

“All right, grandson, listen carefully.
I’m telling you for the last time!” Xi Gu put his hands on the desk and shouted to defend his dignity.
“I didn’t know Ye Zhen before today! I’m not interested in my brother’s woman! I don’t like her at all!”

“Okay, okay, I believe you,” said Rong Cheng Jue, wiping the saliva from his face.
He only asked a few questions, but why was this person so upset? “Why don’t you like Ye Zhen? What’s wrong with her?”

“Arrghhh—” Xi Gu felt the urge to die.
He took three steps back and fell onto the sofa, no longer wanting to talk to his grandson.

But the president still wouldn’t let him go.
He said, “Forget it.
I forgive you for your lack of sight.”

Xi Gu shook his body stiffly to show that he had become a corpse, but he couldn’t help but say, “I have a feeling that you have been interested in her for a long time.
When did it happen? Why didn’t I know?”

“Do you still remember that there was something wrong with me after my return from England?”

“I don’t remember,” Xi Gu said honestly, “You were always abnormal.”

“…”

Of course, Ye Zhen didn’t know about the “bloody storm” behind her. 

After separating with Xi Gu that day, Ye Zhen spent another weekend at home before receiving a phone call from Xigu saying that his contract with the crew of “Treasure of the Great Tang Dynasty” had been negotiated and that he would be filming the next day.
While negotiating the contract, the producer told him that there was a vacancy for a script supervisor, which might be more suitable for a pure newcomer.
Xi Gu asked if she wanted to accept it.
If she accepted, she could join him in the crew; if she didn’t want to, she could also directly join the IP Expansion Department of Rong Cheng Entertainment and serve as the deputy director of the department in charge of the overall planning and analysis of big data.

Of course, the latter was notified by Xi Gu on behalf of Rong Cheng Jue.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Ye Zhen still decided to join the filming crew as a script supervisor.

The script supervisor, as the name implies, is the person who sits behind the monitor, the timecode recorder, the director’s megaphone and also oversees the planning of the shooting sequence.

However, there was more than one script supervisor in the crew, and it was natural that it was not the newcomer’s part to do this much work.
Ye Zhen’s task was to record the details of each actor’s appearance, clothes, headwear, handheld props, and so on.
Before the shooting, she would accompany all the departments to check and prepare, and after the shooting, she would hand over the records to all the departments.
It could be said that it was a complicated and tedious job, and it was also easy to make mistakes.

If something went wrong, there would be an “NG” scene that would be ridiculed by the audience if it was released as it is.

However, as a person engaged in scientific research, the most indispensable thing was her perseverance and observation.
Soon, Ye Zhen became accustomed to her job, and no one even noticed that she had just joined the industry.

Gradually, she began to familiarize herself with the life of the crew.
When she was free, she would compare some interesting things from the perspective of ordinary people and the person who had left.

As a child, she had asked this person what the crew looked like and if it was fun to film.
Contrary to all those artistic and romantic conceptions, that person wrinkled his nose and said in disgust, “It’s not fun at all.
The crew is like a big construction site.
The production and the director are the labor contractors, and I’m an indentured laborer.”

Ye Zhen had never understood the meaning of those words.
Now that she had experienced it herself, she realized that it was true.

For example, the film crew of “Treasure of the Great Tang Dynasty” was currently filming in a famous film and television base in the industry.
However, in addition to some basic pavilions and towers, many special scenes of each film crew had to be constructed and transformed by themselves.
So if you climbed up to a higher place to have a look, you would find that the whole film and television base was one big construction site – one side was being torn down to build something, and another side was being built to be torn down again.
The whole film and television base was a mess, and nothing was in order.

The reason we say producers and directors are contractors is that most crew teams are different from the established companies we know.
They are very flexible and can be taken apart and put together.
There are group leaders, cars, costumes, props, makeup, and even the executive director of financial affairs.
They have their own relatively fixed group and person in charge.
When a crew began to work, the producers and directors also began to work in the crew.
The team leaders of various departments led their members to work.
After the shooting of the crew was over, all the teams either dispersed or came together to shoot the next production.

…..It really does look like a labor contractor.

Ye Zhen thought that the comparison of actors being indentured laborers was a bit exaggerated.
Something more comparable is that when you film in the wilderness, even if you finish the filming, there is no place to go and nothing to eat.
All you can do is sit around with the crew all day long.

“The Treasure of Tang Dynasty is currently in the film and television base, surrounded by all kinds of living facilities, so there are no such problems.
But there are other problems, such as too many crews.
Each crew has hundreds of people, and the hotels are not enough.
Many crew members can’t even stay in small hotels, so they have to stay in private homes.
Of course, as a newcomer, Ye Zhen can’t enjoy preferential treatment.
But since she was a newcomer, she didn’t fully understand the rules.
She found herself dazedly following Xi Gu to the nearest 5-star hotel.

So it was properly called “Paratroopers”.

Most of the crew were old people who were used to running all over the country.
So their attitude towards her was not that alienated, to avoid offending, nor close enough to be on intimate terms with.
Once this project has been completed, our relationship will still be as high as the mountains and long as the rivers*.
Who knows when we will meet again?

[TL/N: The original metaphor is that a person’s behaviour or reputation lasts forever, like a mountain.
Later it became a metaphor for deep kindness.]

Ye Zhen clearly felt the unspoken atmosphere, but she didn’t take it to heart.
She usually just did her own things obediently.
After work, she went back to the hotel and did her school project.
In a flash, more than half a month had passed.

That day, as usual, Ye Zhen wrote the daily report.
She made three copies, one to give to the other group of script supervisors and another one to the executive film director.
Finally, she turned to go to the general planning office.
As Ye Zhen was about to open the ajar door and hand in the third copy to the coordinator, she heard someone mention “Ye Yi”.

Startled, Ye Zhen withdrew her hand and continued to listen to the conversation.

“……I’ve always felt that something is wrong with this matter, but I can’t put my finger on it, Lao Wu, do you know what’s going on?”

“You’re asking me? I was indeed in Macau that day, but I wasn’t at the scene,” The person called Lao Wu said in a low voice, “Those people who left seemed hurried.
They didn’t say anything no matter what was asked.”

“Then there’s definitely something going on.”

“Obviously! Everything was going well, why would they leave?”

“No way, but human life is at stake~”

“Shush, do you still want to get along or not?!”

“Ai, doesn’t matter, we’ll just look over this.
Get working…”

Ye Zhen’s head was blank, so dazed that she didn’t know how she had managed to get out of the planning office and back to the hotel room.
By the time she remembered, it was dark and someone was knocking on her door.

Staring at the door for a while, she finally realised that she should open it.
She got up from the floor and staggered to the door.
She turned the lock left and right several times before opening the door.

Xiao Lin, the assistant coordinator at the door, said, “What’s wrong with you? Do you know what time it is? Do you know what time it is? You didn’t give the coordinator the daily report and went back to sleep? What?! You’re so proud of your background!”

When she heard the two words “coordinator”, Ye Zhen looked up at her thoughtfully.
Her messy long hair, red eyes, and pale face made her look a bit grim and somber in the dimly lit room.
Xiao Lin couldn’t help but take half a step back, but she still shouted, “I’m here to get the daily report.
Give it to me as soon as you finish it!”

“Wait a minute,” Ye Zhen replied with a hoarse voice.
She turned around and slowly searched the room for the daily report without even turning on the light.
After a long time, she finally found it when she bent down to look under the table.
She walked back as if floating and handed it to her, “I’m sorry, today I—”

“Bang-” Before she could finish, Xiao Lin grabbed the schedule and ran away as if a ghost was behind her.

“…” She seems to have frightened her.

Under the light of the corridor, Ye Zhen looked at herself in the full-length floor mirror.
She wanted to smile, but in the end she couldn’t.
She closed the room door, turned on the light, and habitually put her hand in her pocket to touch the poker card again and again.
It was not until quite a while later that she slowly took it out of her pocket.

Under the light, what was most noticeable on the card was not the clown representing the king card, but the two words “Ye Yi” that penetrated the back of the card.

“Before I came here, I thought I was thinking too much…”

She wasn’t expecting this, heh—

Thinking about it, Ye Zhen finally smiled.
But her smile was more heartbreaking than when she cried.

Translator ramblings^^

ahhhh, is the Yue girlfriend of Ye Yi involved in his death and she is actually pretending to be in grief or something… bro this shit is fcked up.

yolo, so this is why you should experience translating something in the wee hours^^ bruh, im so sleepy right now that I made so many mistakes and had to reread this so many times that the chapter is almost memorized-_-.

This was another difficult chapter to translate and this chapter is like the main one that really showed me the reality of mtl+edited and human translators… So, please support human translators because they are the best!!!!

see u next time, bye<3