Although the director was scolding “all,” no one on set had the self-awareness to be “all” – they all turned to look at the man in the corner of the room.
Shang Shao paused the slight movement of toying with his pipe and narrowed his eyes at Zhuang Tiwen.
Zhuang Tiwen’s Ning Ji Film had borrowed eighty million from him in total – this included the penalty fee for Ying Yin to buy out her contract from her original agency, the registered capital and various miscellaneous expenses for establishing the company, and later the investment funds for producing this film, Li Shan. The project had been put together too quickly, everything done in haste, so many costs were significantly higher than usual – not to mention the operational funds Zhuang Tiwen had poured in to get the film approved for production in Hong Kong.
Therefore, strictly speaking, Shang Shao could be considered half an investor in this film. Though this investor remained incognito – apart from Zhuang Tiwen, no one on set knew who he was.
To get things done in the entertainment industry, Zhuang Tiwen’s first choice for an ally had not been Shang Shao, but Chen Youhan, who held the reins of GC Entertainment. GC Entertainment had not originally been a top-tier producer in the industry, but a few years ago, seeing the advent of the golden era of the Chinese film market, it had boldly poured ten billion into the “Mingrui” film special project and leaped to become the industry’s leading producer. Back then, when Shang Lu first went to the mainland to shoot films, he had also chosen GC to pave the way for him – after all, behind those two letters lay connections and relationships.
Li Shan’s When Snow Melts It Turns Green had never approached GC. First, because his company had close ties with Chenye, and the two were essentially rival factions within the industry. Second, because this film was high-risk with unclear returns on investment – very much in a weak position. Bringing in a capital giant at this point would very likely cost Lishan his creative control on set, which he could not tolerate.
Tiwen had already prepared all the proposals and roadshow materials and had scheduled a meeting with Chen Youhan. The mistake was that, wanting to cover all bases, she had consulted Shang Shao, asking him whether bringing the lead actress along to such a meeting would show more sincerity.
“What you’re saying,” the man across from her said, feeding a miniature pony with an inscrutable expression, “is that you want Chen Youhan to be Ying Yin’s producer.”
Zhuang Tiwen: “…”
It was essentially correct, but somehow it sounded off…
“How much are you short?”
“Thirty million, but I also want to talk to Chen Youhan about overseas distribution.”
“That little. US dollars?” Shang Shao asked very casually.
“Of course not!” Tiwen was startled. “RMB.”
“Will the producer come to the set?” Shang Shao asked a rather inconspicuous question.
“Not necessarily, it depends on their mood, but they certainly have the right to. After the film is completed and enters the promotion and distribution phase, the producer has to show up more often – like giving interviews, walking various film festival red carpets with the crew, attending overseas distribution banquets,” Tiwen answered matter-of-factly. “If the producer has made significant contributions or has some interesting angles to explore, they might also shoot fashion magazine spreads together and such.”
After she finished speaking, she had no idea what calculations were going on in the man across from her. All she knew was that he fed the last handful of hay, lowered his gaze, lightly brushed the grass fragments off his palm, and said, “I’ll fund it.”
Zhuang Tiwen was taken aback. “You haven’t even watched the film, and you don’t know anything about this project.” She hesitated. “Brother Shao, to be honest, this project is mostly just me indulging my own curiosity – I want to see how far I can take it. It might not even make a profit.”
Her feeling was a bit like being reviewed by an elder or superior – before things were even certain, she’d start by saying a few polite, self-deprecating words.
But Shang Shao said, “I don’t need to know. Just consider it my personal sponsorship for you to have your fun. If it makes money, you decide how to split the bonus; if it loses money, we’ll talk about it then. Just remember this,” Shang Shao shot her a glance, “anytime in the future when you think of inviting Chen Youhan to get involved, come ask me first.”
All of this happened in December.
At this very moment, Zhuang Tiwen, under Shang Shao’s glance, was so nervous she felt her soul about to leave her body – but she could only stare back at him with wide eyes, her entire expression screaming “I can’t help you.”
Come on! Did some people have absolutely no self-awareness at all?! Why couldn’t the Best Actress get into character? Why had the schedule been delayed again and again? Why hadn’t the hundred-plus crew members had their New Year’s Eve dinner yet? Wasn’t it all thanks to you?!
Zhuang Tiwen roared internally. And this was Li Shan! Li Shan! What could a fledgling producer like her – with a bit of (borrowed) money – possibly do against an industry heavyweight of his stature?!
“Xiao Zhuang! Luo Siliang!” Li Shan was furious, hands on his hips, his black cloth-soled cotton shoes pacing back and forth on the concrete floor of the room. Seeing no one move, he looked up and roared, “Waiting for a bridal sedan? Do I have to carry you out myself?!”
Everyone: “…”
The tyrant had truly lost his temper. The crew members, who had been quietly enjoying the show, finally snapped to their senses and scrambled to roll up their equipment and clear out.
Ying Yin steeled herself and walked over to Shang Shao. “Mr. Shang…”
She didn’t dare call him Shang Shao, for fear that sharp-eared crew members might overhear. Nor did she dare call him Brother Ah-Shao, lest the tabloids spin it into another tale of her clever seduction.
“Do I have to go out too?” Shang Shao placed the cigarette between his lips, but didn’t light it.
The cigarette holder was slightly bent from where his fingers had pinched it – a stark contrast to his otherwise reserved and meticulous demeanor.
“Mhm.” Ying Yin nodded.
Who would dare defy Li Shan’s orders? With her hands tucked into her coat pockets, she looked up at him, a hint of pleading in her eyes. “Just wait for me outside, alright? It’ll be quick.” She knew how many pairs of eyes were watching, but she didn’t care anymore, her voice soft and low. “When you’re here, I can’t help but want to look at you.”
Her honesty brought a faint smile to Shang Shao’s face.
“Why?” he asked impassively, removing the cigarette from his lips.
“I want to make sure you’re still there.”
By the time they reached the door, the moon had risen, faintly imprinted on the sky like a photostat.
Shang Shao asked, “How many kisses will it take?”
Her heart leaped at his question, her fingernails digging into her palm. “For you – just one.”
She walked with him all the way outside, stepping into the snow, and said, “I’m going now.”
She said she was leaving, but she didn’t turn around right away. Shang Shao, holding his cigarette in one hand, gently placed the other on her waist, lowered his head, and looked into her eyes.
“Don’t forget to look back.”
He kissed her – only on the corner of her lips.
Ying Yin nodded, turned, and left a trail of solid footprints behind her. As she blinked, the corners of her lips lifted slightly, but the corners of her eyes grew warm with moisture.
She walked quickly toward the set, where the lights blazed bright – the place she had dreamed of for over a decade.
The set had already been cleared, leaving only the camera operators. Everyone had assumed she’d need quite a while to compose herself. Several crew members had cigarettes between their lips, ready to light up and exhale smoke, when she gracefully stepped over the threshold with a light bounce in her stride – her nose red from the cold, but a smile on her lips. “I’m ready. Anytime.”
Even Li Shan was startled, though he didn’t show it, keeping his surprise tightly bottled up. He asked no further questions, went straight back behind the monitor, and gave Ying Yin and Jiang Te two minutes to get into character.
Out on the open ground outside the house, the man standing alone stiffened at the crisp sound of the clapperboard falling.
Though it was cruel to witness it firsthand, it was still better than this endless waiting.
He was far from as composed and relaxed as he had just appeared. His hands slipped into his coat pockets, aimlessly fumbling for a while. After a long moment, he slowly remembered that he was supposed to be reaching for a lighter to light his cigarette.
The lid of the white porcelain cigarette case flipped open – there were no cigarettes inside, nor any lighter. Perhaps it had slipped out at some point without him noticing.
How far into the scene were they now? He hadn’t heard the director call “cut,” which meant the scene was going smoothly, following the storyboard as planned.
So then… the kiss had already happened.
Shang Shao bit down on the cigarette. From the side, his jawline looked like a stone carving – rigid and pale.
A few producers who had gathered together to smoke were suddenly visited by an unexpected guest they never would have dared to imagine.
“Excuse me,” said the man who had just arrived, a man of few words but with an exceptionally fine voice, “does anyone have a lighter?”
They were all stunned for a moment, then scrambled to respond. “Yes, yes – here, here.”
Luo Siliang, the production manager, was the first to reach into his pocket and pull out a pink plastic one, handing it over. “It’s a wheel type.”
He added the unnecessary explanation, afraid Shang Shao might not be used to it.
Shang Shao nodded and turned his face away. Beneath the stars and moonlight, his eyelashes lowered, betraying not a single trace of emotion. The flint wheel scraped lightly – a flame flickered up. Shang Shao cupped it with his injured left hand, brought it to the cigarette, and took a long, deep drag.
Everyone around fell silent. The light spilling through the windows and door cracks of the wooden house spread across the snow, casting its glow on his silhouetted figure standing sideways.
It seemed as though that single drag of smoke had revived him.
The smoke curled and dispersed, its warmth quickly carried away by the cold air. Shang Shao handed the lighter back. “Thank you.”
Luo Siliang, after all, was a shrewd operator who had climbed up through the ranks. Though not as slick as Old Du, he had dealt with plenty of big names – all of them constantly stirring up storms on trending searches. Yet today, he truly felt a bit ill at ease. He took back the lighter, gave an awkward laugh, puffed out a cloud of white breath, and fell silent.
It was another producer who had sharp eyes. “What happened to your hand? Wrapped in a tie – are you injured?”
The hand was holding the cigarette. At the remark, Shang Shao glanced sideways and said flatly, “It’s nothing.”
“We have a medical kit on set and a doctor with the crew. How about I take you to get it treated?” Luo Siliang asked in his authentic Beijing accent. “It’s not far – there and back. By the time we return, they’ll probably be done wrapping up. Perfect timing.”
Shang Shao had initially been inclined to go, but upon hearing that last sentence, his foot, which had yet to lift, settled back down.
He couldn’t have her come out and not see him the first moment she looked.
“Is this your first time visiting a set?” Once the conversation had started, there was no fear of a second round. Luo Siliang made small talk.
Shang Shao nodded. Perhaps finding his injured hand too conspicuous, he deftly switched the cigarette to his other hand. As he raised it, the moonlight revealed a long, slender hand – lean and sharply defined, with a striking, upright boniness.
“Aren’t you cold?” another person asked, patting his own gloved hands. “Not like me -my fingers are nearly frozen off.”
Shang Shao nodded again, exhaling a stream of smoke. “I grew up in the south. Not as afraid of the cold.”
That single remark revealed a touch of mortal warmth. The others laughed, and the atmosphere lightened somewhat thanks to his rare graciousness. “Miss Ying is also from the south, but she’s terribly afraid of the cold – she’s famous for it throughout the crew.”
At the mention of Ying Yin’s name, he gave an “mm” and his expression visibly softened. Then, as if remembering something, he casually said “excuse me,” turned and walked away while pulling out his phone.
There was no whispered gossip behind him. The few people stood there in silence, watching him walk off, the red embers of their cigarettes glowing and dimming against pale exhaled breaths – a sight that looked piercingly cold.
“Miss Ying sure has an eye for people,” someone finally said after a long pause.
The call to his pilot connected quickly. The pilot had already landed in the provincial capital, picked up the luggage handed to him by the flight attendant at the airport, and was about to go buy eight-treasure rice pudding and sparklers. The sparklers were easy to find, but the eight-treasure rice pudding was trickier – in the end, he found it on the New Year’s Eve menu of a major southern restaurant. He didn’t have the kitchen make it; instead, he had it packed and kept fresh with ice.
“You mean an oil-filled radiator,” the pilot said, correctly identifying the item after hearing Shang Shao’s description. “Got it. How many do you need?”
“One hundred units.”
“…”
Two of them would be placed in Ying Yin and her team’s rooms, and the rest would be distributed to the crew. He could have chosen to install air conditioners in all the rooms instead, but it was New Year’s, and it would be difficult to arrange for workers. Moreover, he had just observed that these rooms didn’t have pre-drilled holes or mounting brackets for AC units – it would be a hassle. Ultimately, what changed his mind was Tiwen’s earlier remark. “Brother Shao, oil-filled radiators are truly magical – they’re so much more comfortable than air conditioners.”
He was biased. He asked the pilot to bring a nebulizing humidifier as well.
“Anything else?” the pilot asked helplessly. “Don’t you have any needs for yourself?”
He was employed by that man, Lin Cunkang, to take care of him and fulfill all his requests. If anything seemed too absurd or far-fetched, it didn’t matter – he could call Mr. Lin for help, and he would arrange everything.
Shang Shao didn’t make things difficult for him. “I’ll talk to Uncle Kang.”
After hanging up, the tight, constricting feeling in his chest eased for only two seconds. The moment he came back to himself, the suffocating sensation crashed over him again, overwhelming.
He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly – and with each breath, pain stirred within him. The cigarette was burning down to its end. He held it between his fingers, which curled slightly – the pain ran from his heart to his fingertips, to the very ends of his nerves. He couldn’t open his hand anymore.
His watch had become a useless ornament. He couldn’t bear to look at the time, afraid it would move too slowly – the agony of a day dragging like a year turned out to last barely half a minute.
Junyi didn’t come to keep him company either. She was afraid, so she only watched from afar.
How could he bear it? Junyi thought. She wished he didn’t have to be some upright, noble gentleman – didn’t have to be some ordinary man who respected his partner’s career aspirations. It wasn’t as if he even watched films anyway; even if he didn’t understand the people and dreams living within these lights and shadows, it would be perfectly understandable. He didn’t have to be her soulmate, her kindred spirit. He could have thrown a tantrum, shown his anger, made threats – made life miserable for everyone. It wasn’t as if he lacked the ability to do so, and such things were hardly uncommon.
She had heard plenty of stories: women who married into wealthy families, got involved with tycoons, or found themselves benefactors, who would then softly tell the director, “Sorry, I don’t do kissing or intimate scenes.”
But as Junyi watched his silent silhouette from afar, she thought instead: Thank goodness he is that upright, noble man – a light illuminating the snowy path where she walks alone.
The tightly closed door of the set let out the sound of a latch being pulled open.
Shang Shao’s body went rigid. After a moment, he turned around.
Behind him, the crunching of footsteps in the snow drew nearer and nearer, stopping about two meters away. Ying Yin stood there, with the set lights behind her, her gaze drifting and unfamiliar as it settled on his face – as if she were struggling to discern what he meant to her.
His fingertips pressed crescent-shaped indentations into the cigarette butt. Shang Shao let her look for a while, then called out to her in a low voice, “Ying Yin, come here to me.”
Ying Yin came back to herself and smiled. “Good evening.”
Her smile was strange – like one she’d give a stranger, tinged with a certain detachment and perfunctoriness. Hearing some commotion, her gaze unconsciously followed toward another direction. That direction was where Li Shan and Jiang Te stood, just outside the threshold, chatting under the glow of the lights.
Shang Shao’s breath caught. The sharp pain in his heart struck without warning, so much so that he lost his composure. In full view of everyone, he dropped his cigarette, strode forward, and abruptly pulled Ying Yin into his arms.
“Who are you looking at?” His voice and the trailing note both trembled. “Tell me – who do you want to look at?”
His embrace was too tight, squeezing Ying Yin’s body until it hurt. She frowned slightly, her half-raised hand lingering in the air, not quite falling onto his shoulder.
“Just one kiss scene, and you’ve already left me behind, is that it?”
His question seemed utterly unreasonable, yet it pierced Ying Yin’s heart like a dagger. That dagger felt real, substantial – it made Ying Yin’s pupils contract sharply, and she exhaled a trembling breath, as if she had been shoved stumbling out of her own body.
“That’s not it…” By the time she spoke, tears had already rolled down her cheeks without her knowing.
Shang Shao didn’t listen to her excuses. In front of everyone near and far, he wrapped his arm around her waist, pressed her back, cradled her neck, and pulled her body tightly against his – taking her kiss.
His kiss was suffocating, fierce and overbearing – claiming everything, replacing everything.
He wouldn’t allow her to remember the feeling anyone else had given her.
“Look at me.”
He commanded, his voice impossible to tell whether cold or scorching. His jet-black eyes were like deep pools veiled in mist, fixed on her with relentless intensity, demanding she wake up.
“Your heart – it belongs to me. Here, with me, Shang Shao.”
Ying Yin was held so tightly by him that her waist bent backward. Unsteady in the snow, she stumbled and softened into his arms, her hands reaching up to clasp his neck and back. Looking up at him from under his towering gaze, her body trembled slightly. She closed her eyes and leaned into his kiss with dependence. “Mr. Shang…”
Why did her voice sound so nasal? She sounded wronged, like she was tattling.
Shang Shao was satisfied, yet the urge to kiss her surged even fiercer within him. If not for the wrong timing…
He would have thrown her back onto the bed – or right there on the spot – in more absurd and unyielding ways.
Wrap time was always the liveliest moment, yet the surroundings were utterly silent.
In truth, no matter how hard one tried to see clearly, it was impossible – because the moonlight was faint, and the man’s figure beneath his black coat was cold and profound, blocking out all prying eyes. Besides, how could anyone dare to really look? They wouldn’t dare to be presumptuous with him, whether in words or glances – not merely because he was clearly wealthy and powerful, but because of those eight minutes he had stood alone, bracing himself in the freezing snow.
After a moment of stillness, activity resumed. From near and far, voices called out, wrapping up work and heading off for the New Year. Someone asked if there would be fireworks, someone else asked about red envelopes. Luo Siliang’s voice cut through the various crews. “Building A, Unit 13 – we’re having our New Year’s Eve dinner! No one goes home sober! Get Director Li drunk and we’ll have tomorrow off!”
The warmth amidst the cold was all the more moving. Amid the exchanges of “Happy New Year” at seven in the evening, someone set off a small firework – a tiny one, leaving a trail of smoke, lighting up only a sliver of the world – yet it made everyone look up to watch.
That fleeting brilliance reflected in Ying Yin’s eyes. In an instant, the firework faded, but her gaze remained bright.
Li Shan curled the corner of his mouth, withdrawing his gaze from the embracing couple. The heart that had been stalled all afternoon had come back to life – retrieved, for the film, for her, for his own late-career dignity.
When he turned to look at the male lead beside him, there was both responsibility and relief in his eyes. “Now,” he said, “do you still want to talk to me about being too deep in character?”
In a dream, one knows not that they are but a guest – snatching a moment of fleeting pleasure. He ought to witness what true, steadfast, and magnificent love really looks like.
