When the Stars Tremble

The Sixth Star

Caught off guard by his words, Feng Tao stretched her neck and leaned forward to examine him, “Really? You’re blushing?”

Jiang Chuyi calmly looked at him.

Zong Ye smiled slightly, “Almost.”

Feng Tao sized up Jiang Chuyi and said, “Don’t take it to heart. We were just joking. Did it scare you?”

She maintained a normal expression, “No.”

Feng Tao’s tone was quite regretful, “I’ve asked Zong Ye many times before, and he always refused to cooperate. Now that he finally agreed today, we encountered a calm girl.”

Jiang Chuyi smiled and explained, “I’m not calm, just haven’t reacted yet.”

Feng Tao let out a long “oh” sound, savoring it, “Then, should Zong Ye continue stripping?”

Both of them froze.

Feng Tao laughed out loud, “Just kidding. Come on, let’s continue with the shoot. Everyone, be quick so I can get off work early. Being on a business trip is too tiring. I still have to catch a flight back home tonight.”

This was a balcony on the second floor. Jiang Chuyi was sitting against the railing, with nothing behind her back.

Feng Tao was directing the prop guys to position the light boards.

Since there was always a lack of chemistry between Jiang Chuyi and Fu Cheng, Feng Tao had a sudden idea and temporarily had Zong Ye and Fu Cheng switch places.

Zong Ye was tall and needed to bend down slightly for his hands to rest beside Jiang Chuyi, unknowingly forming a posture that completely enveloped her.

The wind machine was just a few meters away, and the staff was squatting on the side, adjusting the wind direction and speed.

Suddenly, someone turned it to the highest setting, and the huge blades rotated rapidly, blowing wildly at the two of them.

Her hair and the hem of her dress were blowing in the wind. Jiang Chuyi’s eyes were blinded, and she timely pressed down on her dress. Fortunately, she was wearing a long dress today.

However, she soon paused.

The wind was blowing towards Zong Ye’s back. With just half a step between them, from Jiang Chuyi’s angle, it was easy to catch a glimpse of another scene.

Zong Ye slightly arched his back, his posture relaxed, and the loose collar of his shirt was blown even more open.

She couldn’t help but take a few more glances.

Starting from that beauty mark, sliding down, the lines of his collarbones were extremely beautiful, like bamboo joints, a sharp line extending to his shoulders, down to his waist, then stopping at his firm abs… One could almost imagine the warm sensation of fingertips brushing over them.

She held her breath.

It had to be admitted that there was a reason for Zong Ye’s popularity. He seemed to be born to please women. There seemed to be a magnetic field on his body, as if waiting for people to savor it. Once savored, one would find that their soul had already been captured.

The disruptive wind deliberately showed off, but he didn’t do anything. However, this kind of unintentional charm made people’s throats even drier.

Yet he himself was unaware of it.

Zong Ye leaned over and softly whispered in her ear, his breath seeming to brush against her neck.

Jiang Chuyi immediately shifted her gaze and casually made a sound, pretending to be unintentional, “What?”

He raised his eyebrows very lightly, patiently repeating, “We’re about to start shooting.”

She responded, “Okay.”

It might be because they were too close, but when Zong Ye changed his posture just now, his hand accidentally brushed against her arm. Jiang Chuyi immediately felt that something was not right with her, but she couldn’t say exactly where. When the wind blew again, her mind was filled with that fleeting glimpse from earlier.

Feng Tao didn’t know what had happened. She only saw that the atmosphere between them in the camera lens reached a subtle critical point, with ambiguity entangled with restraint, which was the feeling Feng Tao wanted. She quickly took a few close-up shots, pressing the shutter repeatedly.

Half an hour later.

Feng Tao put her hands on her hips and called them over to look at the finished photos together. The group gathered around to discuss, unanimously agreeing that the composition, characters, and lighting of this shoot were perfectly integrated.

Just as they were about to wrap up, Feng Tao suddenly zoomed in on a certain photo and said to Jiang Chuyi with a meaningful tone, “Baby, it seems like you were blushing?”

Jiang Chuyi: “…”

As soon as she said that, Zong Ye glanced at her, slightly curling his lips. Somehow, he was amused by Feng Tao’s words.

Jiang Chuyi forced a smile, “It might be the lighting.”

*

Ever since IM launched the recruitment for BloodXGentle’s fifth-anniversary collaborative movie, marketing accounts liked to release smoke bombs from time to time. In various kinds of gossip, almost every young actress was brought up, causing fans to complain.

With the completion of the styling photo shoot, the movie “Catching Stars” officially began filming. In mid-November, the BloodXGentle official Weibo account released a picture and took the opportunity to make an official announcement.

Subsequently, several lead actors and their studios reposted the Weibo post. Rumors around the project finally settled.

Major active forums were flooded with discussions. Those not as invested in the hype made bets on what kind of ridiculous angles the solo fans and group fans would use to fight each other when the movie was officially released.

It was known that every time BloodXGentle released a single or MV, if there was even a slight discrepancy in their individual close-up shots, dance parts, or even the derivative merchandise released with the album, it would trigger a bloody battle. At the very least, the comment section would be a massacre, and at worst, the entire forum would be taken over.

And this time with the movie, not only was there the issue of screen time distribution, but it would also involve Fu Cheng and Wang Tan’s CP fans, as well as several actresses outside the group.

One could imagine how lively it would be.

Before the movie officially started filming, Gao Ning specially flew to Venice to visit the set.

Jiang Chuyi took her to the place where they had a group dinner last time. While the two of them were chatting about next year’s arrangements, Gao Ning’s phone rang. She answered it.

Who knows what the other side said, but Gao Ning’s brows were tightly knitted. She pulled out her chair and stood up, “I’m going out to take a call.”

Jiang Chuyi gave her a strange look, “Just talk here.”

Gao Ning waved her hand and left in a hurry.

This phone call lasted for half an hour. When Gao Ning came back in, her eyes were filled with anger.

Jiang Chuyi vaguely felt that something had happened and was about to ask when she saw Gao Ning slam her phone on the table, “Damn those beasts!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Those damn career ruiners won’t die!”

Jiang Chuyi listened for a while and finally understood what had happened.

Originally, she was just an ordinary supporting role. No one paid attention to her after today’s official announcement of the movie. Jiang Chuyi had been out of the public eye for so long that many people had already forgotten about her.

But in the evening, on a certain section of a forum, a poster dug up an old post from years ago.

This post deeply investigated her relationship with Qin Tong.

Back when Jiang Chuyi debuted, most of the movies she starred in were directed by Qin Tong. When she was 16 years old, she accompanied Qin Tong to attend a dinner party of an old friend.

After the meal, Jiang Chuyi helped Qin Tong get into the car, and they were photographed by paparazzi lurking nearby.

Because the lighting was dim at the time and the angle was tricky, an ambiguous photo with a lot of imagination was born and used by many media outlets to smear them.

Qin Tong was furious and fell ill in the hospital. At the same time, Jiang Chuyi’s reputation also plummeted.

This post listed the clues from back then in detail, saying that she had the backing of the Shanghai faction and was definitely involved with Qin Tong. The poster vividly wrote out a story of a power-for-sex relationship, accurately hitting the curiosity of contemporary young people for gossip.

Marketing accounts rode on the popularity of BloodXGentle’s official movie announcement and quickly reposted it on Weibo.

*

Gao Ning and Jiang Chuyi no longer had any appetite and returned to the hotel.

When they were in the lobby, they happened to run into a few people from the crew. When they saw Jiang Chuyi, they all fell silent for a moment.

As they passed by, Xin He took the initiative to greet them, “Just coming back from dinner?”

Jiang Chuyi stopped and smiled back, “Yes.”

After observing her for a few seconds, Xin He spoke, “Don’t take the online stuff to heart. It will die down in a couple of days.”

Jiang Chuyi made an agreeing sound.

Just then, someone next to them spoke up, “By the way, how is Director Qin doing recently?”

The others looked at each other.

Gao Ning was about to lash out, but Jiang Chuyi stopped her and nodded at them, “He’s doing well.”

Back in the room, Gao Ning couldn’t help but curse, “She just had to bring that up. Shameless.”

Seeing Jiang Chuyi remain silent, Gao Ning took a deep breath and comforted her, “Forget it. Just stay off Weibo for the next few days. I’ve already contacted the legal department. We’ll send a lawyer’s letter right away to have them delete the posts. Making up sexual rumors about a minor, they really have no bottom line.”

Jiang Chuyi was actually quite calm, “I know. You don’t need to rush.”

These so-called “dark materials” were actually insignificant to Jiang Chuyi. She really didn’t feel bothered. It was like a war that had already ended. She had endured for a long time, getting through the most painful period. When people later brought up this war, trying to revive the humiliation and smoke from that time, reopening old scars, it actually couldn’t have any impact on her.

They looked at her like a joke.

And she indeed was one.

Jiang Chuyi settled Gao Ning and didn’t stay with her long. The crew had a meeting for a table read the next day. She returned to her room to take a shower and still needed to take some time to review the script again.

Around twelve o’clock, WeChat was still beeping non-stop. There were quite a few friends in the chat list sending their condolences. Regardless of whether these people were well-intentioned or simply joining in on the excitement, she was too lazy to reply or even look.

Jiang Chuyi took her phone, set it to silent mode, turned off the lights, and went to sleep.

She didn’t sleep well at night and had several intermittent dreams.

In the middle of the night, she was awakened by pain, drenched in cold sweat. It turned out her period had arrived early. She turned on the bedside lamp, went to the bathroom, called room service, and changed the soiled sheets.

After all the commotion, it was already past six in the morning.

Jiang Chuyi sat on the edge of the bed and checked her messages on her phone. Last night, Er Er had sent a WeChat message asking if she could arrive a little earlier tomorrow as there was something to discuss about the script.

Jiang Chuyi memorized her lines for a while, packed her character biography and script into her bag, and went to the next room to find Little Zhong.

The table read was starting at nine o’clock. Jiang Chuyi couldn’t eat breakfast, so Little Zhong accompanied her to the meeting room.

Er Er hadn’t arrived yet when they got there. Little Zhong filled a bottle with hot water and gave it to Jiang Chuyi to hold, “Press it against yourself.”

Afraid that she was cold, Little Zhong carefully draped a blanket over her, “If you really don’t feel well, just lie down for a bit. When the screenwriter comes, I’ll call you, okay?”

Jiang Chuyi wrapped herself in the blanket and mumbled an agreement.

After a rustle of movement, Little Zhong placed a cup of hot water on the table, hesitating, “By the way, sis, I have something to tell you.”

“What?”

“Take a look.” Little Zhong hesitated and placed her phone in front of her, “It was too late last night, so I didn’t mention it to you.”

Jiang Chuyi lowered her eyes, and a news article came into view—

“Xin He personally steps in to like a post. Was it an accidental slip or intentional?”

She scrolled down and saw a screenshot of Xin He liking a post smearing her.

“This happened last night. It was late, so I didn’t tell you. But when I woke up in the morning, I saw that it had made it to the trending search again. It seems like it won’t die down anytime soon.”

Looking at her expression, Little Zhong cautiously asked, “Xin He has already posted on Weibo, saying that it was an accidental slip or something. Should we respond on our end?”

“What’s there to respond to?”

Jiang Chuyi handed the phone back to Little Zhong, “Don’t bother. It has nothing to do with us.”

“But…”

“Don’t bother.”

Jiang Chuyi didn’t want to say more. She put her arm on the edge of the table to lay down again.

She occasionally had some small temper tantrums that would surface when she wasn’t feeling well. Seeing her like this, Little Zhong whispered with concern, “Do you want me to go to the room and get you some painkillers?”

Jiang Chuyi buried her head between her arms, too drained to answer, and shook her head very slightly.

Who knows how much time passed, but in a state between sleep and wakefulness, Jiang Chuyi felt a heavy ache in her lower abdomen. She was in low spirits and languidly asked, “Little Zhong, what time is it? Can you buy me a cup of coffee?”

After a while, no one responded. She was under the blanket and was too lazy to change her position. She weakly called out again, “Little Zhong, go buy me a cup of coffee.”

“Coffee?”

Jiang Chuyi asked again tiredly.

A few seconds later, she felt something was off. She opened her eyes and turned to look.

Ji Kai and Wang Tan were staring at her strangely.

— Little… Zong?

The meeting room, which only a few people had arrived in, was unusually quiet.

The person who was ordered to do the task had a normal expression. He raised his wrist, glanced at his watch, and asked, “It’s eight o’clock. Do you want it hot?”

Jiang Chuyi was stunned by the question, her mind still in a state of confusion, dazedly repeating his words, “Hot? Hot.”

Zong Ye went with the flow and said slowly, “Then please wait a moment.”

Wang Tan couldn’t hold back and burst out laughing.

After being in a daze for a while, Jiang Chuyi suddenly came back to her senses, “Uh, I, where’s my assistant?”

“Your assistant?” Ji Kai leaned back in his chair, smiling ambiguously and tilting his head to indicate, “He went to buy you coffee.”

Jiang Chuyi: “…”