Chapter Fifty-Four: Deliberate

Halfway through the meal, just as the mutual flattery among the business associates reached its peak, Old Duan patted Lu Jianlu on the shoulder and coaxed Su Huilun away. He then proactively took a seat beside Lu Jianlu to discuss some serious matters.

According to the established plan, in just a few more days, both the "Cold to the End" cassette and the "Ten Million Celebration Edition" were going to be released globally and simultaneously, including the mainland.

The pricing of the merchandise was undoubtedly a bit on the expensive side, but based on past experience, sales were hardly something to worry about. "You still need to make a trip over there. As for other places this time, I won't make any demands, but sign two events each in Taiwan and Hong Kong!"

Since there was money to be made, Lu Jianlu, though no longer all that interested, readily agreed.

He had already agreed beforehand, but Old Duan was afraid Lu Jianlu might turn lazy, so he deliberately brought it up once more—though he was worrying needlessly. Lu Jianlu's professional ethics had always been reliable.

After finishing the business and wandering off to resume the mutual flattery, Lu Jianlu turned his head to look at Gao Yuanyuan. On several occasions, he noticed that her expression was somewhat stiff.

"Cassettes! Are they ready?"

Gao Yuanyuan was still rather innocent; she had overthought things a bit, yet not quite enough. After all, getting these people to sign autographs for her was still a fairly big deal.

So the silly girl froze for a moment before snapping back to reality. She actually dashed away on the spot, and a full dozen minutes later, she came back carrying a small cardboard box. Her home was in Fengtai, which was a bit far, and since the crew was shooting during the summer break and she had nowhere else to stay, she had been living in the small motel booked by the production crew, which wasn't far from the dining spot.

This small box of cassettes was part of her luggage.

A lot of them were pirated copies.

Or rather, aside from Lu Jianlu's "Cold to the End," which hadn't yet been pirated when she bought it, virtually all the others were bootlegs. Lu Jianlu took the box, glanced at it, and immediately started rummaging through it. When he reached the one where he had written his mobile phone number, he directly snatched it and kept it in his hand, then started passing the rest out to everyone. "Sign them, sign them! Find your own, look for your own! Once you sign it, it becomes an authentic copy!"

And so, a group of top stars ended up signing autographs on pirated cassettes.

The most hilarious part was that cassettes dedicated solely to them individually only amounted to one tape each for Wakin Chau and Su Huilun; as for everyone else, whatever could be found were just assorted compilation medleys—all of which were signed into authenticity.

After finishing the autographs, Gao Yuanyuan hugged her small box, her face beaming.

Yet the next day, she sought him out. "Hey, how come that cassette of 'Cold to the End' is gone? You must have confiscated it!"

Lu Jianlu put on an innocent look. "How could that be! Look for it again. What would I want with your cassette? Don't panic even if you really can't find it. Things are always like that when they go missing—no matter how hard you search, you can't find them, but the moment you stop looking, hey, it pops right back up!"

Gao Yuanyuan was half-skeptical, but upon second thought, recalling that Lu Jianlu had scribbled his mobile phone number on that cassette, her face flushed red once more. She pursed her lips, feeling rather shy. "Then... I'll go back and look for it again!"

The schedules of top stars were far more expensive, so the crew prioritized shooting the scenes featuring these guest-starring celebrities.

And it went quite quickly.

Although the scenes were basically added at the last minute and a few individual shots would need to be re-shot later, their role was genuinely just that of guest stars—the longest took a dozen or twenty seconds, while the shortest required just flashing a face, wrapping up everything within a single day.

As luck would have it, the very next day turned out to be overcast.

Helpless, Lu Jianlu was forced to honor his promise and accompanied the group to climb the Great Wall.

Mushroom Records hadn't participated, so Lu Jianlu acted as the primary host, while Xue Zhongding took charge of the photography. *Click, click* went the camera all the way up, and by the time they descended, Jonathan Lee was panting the hardest.

The following day, they were scheduled to tour the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, and other such places, but Lu Jianlu begged off. He had old Xue, Xue Zhongding, accompany them instead, while he himself returned to the production crew to continue grinding away with Zhang Yang.

Thus, they relocated back to that same street corner.

This time, it was finally a genuine counterpart performance—the shot where Lu Jianlu sniffs Xu Jinglei's wrist.

Drawing on previous experience, this time went reasonably well, passing after five or six takes.

Curiously, after Zhang Yang called a wrap, Xu Jinglei unexpectedly and rare for her, took the initiative to offer a word of praise on the spot: "Not a bad performance!" This left Lu Jianlu stunned for a few moments.

The girl was terribly arrogant. Although they were acting opposite each other, their screen time was limited, and she couldn't be bothered to pay attention to Lu Jianlu, just as he couldn't be bothered with her. Previously, the total number of sentences they had exchanged hadn't exceeded ten.

He hadn't expected her to suddenly come out with something like that.

It sounded almost as if she were a veteran actress validating a newcomer.

"Not bad! Good thing I don't rely on this for a living, or I'd starve to death!"

The girl chuckled softly. "You're certainly modest!"

Finally, it was time for that darkroom photo-developing scene.

It was Lu Jianlu's last scene, as well as Xu Jinglei's final scene with the production. Afterward, all they needed to do was wait for the footage to be edited and return together for dubbing—meaning that once this scene was shot, they could clear out.

The scene was very simple, centering mostly on that almost-kiss.

Bathed in the reddish glow of the darkroom, the features of both individuals appeared somewhat indistinct.

It was an atmosphere thick with ambiguity.

The girl's captivating eyes were right there, five centimeters away, while her delicate lips at one point drew as close as two centimeters. The man probed cautiously, shifting angles, whereas the girl was actually attempting to reciprocate the whole time.

Ah, in the end, they didn't kiss.

"Cut! It's a wrap! Lu, Jinglei, congratulations to both of you, your roles are completed!"

Lu Jianlu let out a genuine, heavy sigh of relief.

After a flurry of goodbyes, he walked out of the studio feeling light and unburdened, completely unprepared for Xu Jinglei to chase after him from behind: "Jinglei, let's exchange numbers? Grab a bite together sometime?"

"Sure!"

It was mid-morning. He drove all the way back downstairs, switched to his "Flying Pigeon" bicycle, and pedaled leisurely to buy some vegetables and meat, still having plenty of time to cook lunch himself—suddenly, that leisurely feeling washed over him once more.

Blissful!

Just as he was stir-frying in the middle of cooking, his phone suddenly rang. He picked it up and heard Chen Shuhua's voice on the other end: "How is the filming going? I'm free this afternoon, would it be convenient for me to visit the set?"

Lu Jianlu was momentarily stunned. "Huh? Didn't you go along to Chengde?"

"No! I woke up feeling a bit under the weather this morning, so I told them I wouldn't go and decided to stay here in the capital to rest for a few days, just waiting for them to come back so we can return together."

"Ah..."

After scooping the dish out of the wok, Lu Jianlu immediately untied his apron, went downstairs, and drove to pick her up. She was staying at the New Otani Hotel, which was only about a twenty-minute bike ride away, and even faster by car.

When they parked and went upstairs together, the dish he had scooped out just before leaving was still piping hot!

"Hungry? Let me dish you some rice, eat first! I'll whip up a couple more dishes!"

Chen Shuhua didn't stop him, nor did she even speak. She simply watched as he scooped half a bowl of rice for her, though she didn't eat it right away. Instead, with a look of keen interest, she watched him tie his apron back on. She followed him into the narrow kitchen and stood right at the doorway, watching him stir-fry over high heat.

Three dishes—two hot and one cold—felt a bit lacking, so he hurriedly added a scrambled egg with tomatoes. That settled it; the older generation believed in superstitions regarding these things, and setting the table required an even number of dishes.

And so they ate together.

She mentioned that she had only had a slight headache upon waking up, but after lying down for half the morning, she was already fine and back to normal.

Her appetite remained as small as ever—a necessity for weight control.

"Actually, you should have gone. You should have pushed through it; the Chengde Mountain Resort must be quite fun, too."

"There will be opportunities in the future! I'll definitely go next time."

Once the meal was finished, they followed the old routine: pinching a small handful of tea leaves into a large teapot, pouring boiling water straight over them, and then, each holding a cup of tea, sitting on the sofa to chat idly.

It was at this moment that she suddenly brought up business.

"You mentioned before that you wanted to put 'Gift' onto my EP as well. Brother Duan talked to me about it, saying that since there are already four songs, and the quality of these tracks is very high, it's already enough to chart. So instead of just an EP, we might as well collect a few more songs, round it up to ten or twelve, and release a full-fledged formal album."

"Oh... Sure! I have no objections! Huh... Old Duan is strange, though. It's been several days, how come he didn't mention a word of this? Did he deliberately make you stay behind just now to tell me alone?"

Hearing this, Chen Shuhua's face turned red. "I did not deliberately stay behind!"