Chapter 622: Chapter 253: The Affairs of the Crew
Because they had many outdoor scenes to shoot, for convenience, the “Chu Tianyao” film crew booked an entire hotel at the edge of Erhai, near Cang Mountain, to serve as the crew’s base for the next few months.
But due to limited rooms, not all staff members qualified to stay inside the hotel. Most of the lower-level workers had to squeeze into budget inns several kilometers away, only to ride small bikes to report in every morning.
Luckily, as the third female lead, a somewhat notable role, Shen Yutong was allocated a private room. Although it was merely average by hotel standards, since the inn adopted a high-end style overall, both the room’s view and lighting made Shen Yutong extremely satisfied.
Every morning she awoke wrapped in a panoramic sea view, with the snowy Cang Mountain visible not far away—
Sometimes Shen Yutong felt like she wasn’t here to shoot a film, but rather to go on vacation.
Living here for a few months, not having to worry about food and lodging, and earning six hundred thousand, what kind of fairy-tale treatment was this!
But Shen Yutong was also very sober, or perhaps for the first time in her twenty years of life, she had never been so clearheaded…
She knew well that she could have all she did now, not because she was special, nor because she worked hard, but merely because… she met Zhou Wang.
This was a fortune hundreds of thousands of times more than ordinary people.
Although she had only been with the crew for over a week, Shen Yutong already had a vague understanding of the entertainment circle she once yearned for.
This was a world where everyone appeared to smile outwardly, yet invisibly rigid hierarchies stood, comparable to a jungle.
Shen Yutong witnessed firsthand an employee from the lighting crew getting dismissed because he accidentally stepped on the second male lead’s shoe. Although the second male lead, at that moment, still had a smile, after the next day, she never saw that lighting crew employee again…
It was said the person was dismissed from the crew for not being responsible with his work.
At this moment, a “beep beep” sound came from the room door, then the door was pushed open, with Shen Yurou walking in cautiously, holding a tray with a room card between her fingers.
On the tray was a sumptuous local breakfast, with a small bowl of black-bone chicken rice noodles, glutinous rice pastries, fried dough sticks, bean porridge, tea eggs, stewed meat rice noodles, plum juice, and more—a feast to behold.
Seeing Shen Yurou, Shen Yutong, who had just sat up on the bed, slightly sleepy-eyed, woke immediately. She hurried out of bed to help her sister.
“Sis, I told you, you don’t need to do this, I’ll go to the restaurant and eat by myself once I’m awake.”
Helping Shen Yurou set the breakfast on the table, Shen Yutong said with a bit of reproach.
“I saw the other actors’ assistants all doing this…”
Shen Yurou explained softly.
“I said you’re only nominally my assistant, how could I let you really do an assistant’s work?”
Shen Yutong was a bit helpless, “I even invited you to share the bed with me, yet you refused, insisting on making a floor bed for yourself.”
“The floor is quite comfortable to sleep on too, it’s hot weather… Yutong, you should eat quickly, the assistant director said under no circumstances should you be late for the crew meeting in a bit.”
Shen Yurou seemed a bit embarrassed, as if fearing Shen Yutong would continue speaking, she hurriedly changed the topic.
“It’s today that they’ll be shooting the profile photos, right?”
Shen Yutong acknowledged while heading to the washbasin to brush her teeth and asked indistinctly.
“Mm-hmm, I heard from the big star’s assistant that the photos you take today will be posted on the crew’s Weibo later. Yutong, you’ll be a star yourself soon.”
Shen Yurou said with a smile.
“Far from it, sis!”
Though a bit excited, Shen Yutong managed to restrain herself and shook her head, “Compared to a real star like Xixi, I’m still a long way off…”
The “Xixi” Shen Yutong mentioned was Shen Yurou’s “big star,” whose full name was Xia Xiwei. She was currently a well-known rising actress in the Huaxia Entertainment Industry, one of the fastest-rising female stars in the past two years.
The first season of “Chu Tianyao” becoming explosively successful could attribute seventy percent of its credit to Xia Xiwei, who played the lead role.
A scene where she wore a low-cut outfit made netizens exclaim that such a treasure girl existed in this world—she pulled off the impossible feat of looking slim but well-proportioned, combined with her pure and sweet looks, her fame soared understandably.
Because Xia Xiwei continued to be the lead in the second season of “Chu Tianyao,” the investors were willing to spend so much money. Thus, Xia Xiwei not only played the principal character in the series but also held an exceedingly transcendent status throughout the crew.
That usually gruff director who wouldn’t hesitate to scold anyone treated Xia Xiwei with exceptional politeness, even bearing a hint of flattery, making Shen Yutong envious.
She couldn’t forget how she was scolded more than once during auditions by that same director. Shen Yutong dared not imagine how often she would be cursed at every day once filming officially started.
Finished with washing up, Shen Yutong pulled out the script from beside her bed, silently reviewing the lines from the first few scenes, and began eating breakfast.
But after a while of eating, she didn’t hear any noise from her sister Shen Yurou. Shen Yutong curiously looked up, only to see Shen Yurou, sitting opposite, gazing absently at the sea view outside the window, her eyes drifting, her expression frozen, her mind clearly elsewhere…
Remembering the faint sobbing she vaguely heard in a daze last night, Shen Yutong sighed and finally couldn’t help speaking up,