Chapter 57: The Early-dead White Moonlight
Xuan Xia ended with the sentence “One fan is worth ten haters. Suddenly I feel bad for Zhou Shiqing, having fans like this,” then pulled Yan Xiaowen away, avoiding Yu Lanlan.
During the meal, Yan Xiaowen looked at the meal in her plate and said unhappily, “So annoying, I didn’t perform well.”
Xuan Xia said, “No, you performed pretty well.” If she performed any better, she couldn’t exactly tear down the cafeteria, right?
Yan Xiaowen still felt unsatisfied, but soon asked Xuan Xia uncertainly again, “Xia Xia, that crazy woman Yu Lanlan won’t really smear you all over the internet, will she?”
Xuan Xia didn’t care at all: “Whatever she does, anyway, sending her to jail is real too.”
Yan Xiaowen then stopped mentioning Yu Lanlan.
After a while, they started chatting about the afternoon exam.
Unlike Xuan Xia, who grew calmer the closer the exam got, she felt weak everywhere, always thinking she’d forgotten everything she reviewed before, a total waste of effort.
Seeing her sigh, Xuan Xia had an idea and said, “How about I draw you a talisman for sure success in every exam?”
Yan Xiaowen went “Hm?” and asked, “There’s really such a talisman?”
Isn’t that just something they play with online?
Xuan Xia didn’t say if it was real or fake, just asked her, “Want it?”
Yan Xiaowen knew she’d been messing with these superstitious things lately, and they even looked pretty legit, so regardless of truth, she nodded repeatedly: “Yes, yes, yes.” Just for some mental comfort.
So after lunch, the two ran back to the dormitory.
Xuan Xia laid out her tools from her bag, making Yan Xiaowen click her tongue in amazement. “You carry them with you now?”
“Do you know what eating tools are?”
Qu Xingxuan said, these were her eating tools.
Yan Xiaowen looked at her with indescribable feelings. Eating tools? Did she plan to retire and set up a stall under the bridge later?
But besides that, Yan Xiaowen found it quite interesting to watch Xuan Xia properly start drawing the talisman.
Don’t say it, it really had that indescribable aura.
The brush fell, talisman complete.
Xuan Xia let it dry for a bit first, then once the cinnabar mark was dry, folded it into a tiny piece and handed it to Yan Xiaowen. “Here, just carry it on you.”
Yan Xiaowen pinched the small triangular talisman piece. “This will make me pass every exam?”
“Try it and see.”
Yan Xiaowen stuffed the triangular talisman into the cardholder she carried, then held the cardholder and said, “If I pass all the final exams, this believer will go to the temple to burn incense and fulfill the vow. Yours is called Changsheng Temple, right? Then I’ll go to Changsheng Temple!”
“If you put it that way, I’d better perform the ritual for you to ensure you pass them all,” Xuan Xia joked.
Yan Xiaowen immediately went along: “Then you’d better mean it.”
Xuan Xia thought for a moment, then sat up straight, pinched an incantation gesture with one hand, closed her eyes and silently recited an incantation, then loosely gripped Yan Xiaowen’s right wrist with her other hand that wasn’t pinching the gesture.
After she gripped it, Yan Xiaowen didn’t know if it was psychological, but she felt a cool sensation rising from her wrist all the way to the top of her head.
Then her whole body felt much more refreshed and invigorated than before, like she’d sniffed cooling wake-up oil.
Yan Xiaowen mumbled, “Ah this… feels kinda comfortable, heh.”
Xuan Xia opened her eyes and let go of her hand. “Done, sure success in every exam!”
Then in the afternoon exam, Yan Xiaowen amazingly found her state was indeed better than the morning exam.
While answering questions with clear thoughts, Yan Xiaowen whispered in disbelief, “No way, is it really this magical?”
***
Yan Xiaowen wanted to discuss it properly with Xuan Xia after the exam, but by the time she finished and came out, Xuan Xia had already left early.
Mainly because Xuan Xia had just appeared in the dating show live broadcast, there was quite a bit of online content about her, and Jiang University students weren’t isolated, staying up all night to review was one thing, but they wouldn’t miss gossip.
So today Xuan Xia got several times more stares and attention than usual, and even during the exam, this attention didn’t decrease.
Though these lines of sight didn’t affect Xuan Xia’s performance, being treated like a magical species all the time was really uncomfortable.
So as soon as Xuan Xia confirmed she could leave early, she hurried off first.
But even after leaving school, Xuan Xia couldn’t rest. Yang Wanxiu had returned to Jiangshi and brought her two scripts, saying Ji Ziyao had gotten her two supporting roles, to join the film crew in two weeks.
Xuan Xia: ???
This sudden?
She hadn’t even taken a single performance class.
Yang Wanxiu said, “Don’t worry. Brother Ji picked these two roles with few scenes, not difficult.”
The two roles Ji Ziyao got her were one ancient costume and one modern.
Totaling twelve scenes combined.
The ancient one had two more scenes than the modern one.
In terms of filming time, the ancient one started earlier than the modern one.
Xuan Xia first picked up the ancient costume role’s script to read.
This ancient costume drama was titled Jiao Yue Chronicle, about a tear-jerking romance between the merman princess and a mortal cultivator.
As for how tear-jerking, the male lead’s clan is wiped out at the start, his eyes destroyed; midway the female lead sacrifices her eyes, her clan wiped out, interspersed with love entanglements, ending with the female lead’s death, the male lead finally realizing her importance, then using everything to revive her and restore her eyes.
“Turns out audiences like this now!” After reading the whole plot, Xuan Xia’s heart ached.
The male and female leads were current hot popular actors, the director a reputable one specializing in this type, plus big investment, future broadcast scores assured.
Ji Ziyao had previously said he accompanied an artist to join a crew, and it was this film crew.
That artist played the female third lead in this drama.
As for the role Ji Ziyao fought for Xuan Xia, it was originally cast, but for some reason the actor quit, and when the director tried contacting others, Ji Ziyao happened upon it, so he immediately shamelessly pushed Xuan Xia.
This role wasn’t important; done well it was icing on the cake, botched it was no big deal.
So the director did this favor.
Her role in the drama was unrelated to the main leads’ storyline, but the villain male second lead’s early-death white moonlight.
Because she was an early-death white moonlight, her scenes were the villain male second lead’s dream scenes, indeed not difficult, only three with lines, the other four just actions, simple ones like sitting or admiring the moon.
Only the last scene had more lines, but even so, just about ten sentences, not long ones.
Xuan Xia memorized the lines after two reads.
But this was her first time touching a script, so Xuan Xia read very seriously, also going over the male second lead’s character intro and his plot to better understand this early-death white moonlight character.
Yang Wanxiu was quite pleased to see her studying the role script so seriously.
This showed Xuan Xia wasn’t frivolous; who wouldn’t want their artist to film seriously and delve into roles with effort.
Because actors speak through their works!
