Daylight had fully broken. Emily Foster had already come downstairs with her luggage. No one came to see her off; Samuel Reed stood at the window, watching her get into a van, ready to head to the train station.

"Bang!"

Emily Foster shut the car door.

The vehicle let out a sigh and slowly started up, as if it was taking away all of Samuel Reed's hopes and dreams. His already small eyes looked even more blurred, with no trace of spirit left in them.

"Hey, look!"

Steven Grant suddenly called out.

Samuel Reed snapped back to reality and saw that the car door had actually been opened again. At that moment, he felt his heart pounding.

Emily Foster jumped out of the car with her luggage, looked up and saw Samuel Reed at the window, awkwardly waved her hand, and then went back into the building.

She still hadn't left. She still wanted to play this role, even though she always thought this was just a ragtag troupe.

……

This storm passed without real danger, but Samuel Reed was frightened. He changed the shooting schedule, moving all of Emily Foster's scenes to the front, wanting to finish them early for peace of mind.

The relationship between Emily Foster and the crew also became awkward. Even though she tried hard to act natural, as if nothing had happened, everyone kept a subtle politeness and distance from her.

And the crew's good luck seemed to change with this incident, as all sorts of troubles began to arise.

Samuel Reed's filming methods, in the eyes of classmates David Cooper and Steven Grant, were downright heretical. Completely different from what was taught at school—he would try everything the teachers warned against in class, almost as if on purpose.

He never prepared a storyboard in advance. When Richard Morgan asked about the camera movements for the next day, he said it was all in his head, but once on set, he would change it again and again, with new inspirations constantly emerging.

Fortunately, Richard Morgan was no pushover and fully kept up with his ever-evolving ideas.

The actors had it a bit easier; Samuel Reed's requirements for Andrew Clark and the others were actually not high. He just had the leads read the script for the day, and for the supporting actors, he only explained the general plot direction and basic performance requirements.

Then, these actors with no acting experience at all would just "play around" with the movie on set.

Because of this unorthodox shooting style, the direct result was that film stock was being used up far more quickly than originally expected.

Then Steven Grant got a call from Beijing, saying he had some matters to handle back there. Samuel Reed asked him to take the filmed reels back and, while he was at it, buy some more film.

All these big and small matters had little to do with Andrew Clark.

He had been in Fenyang for less than a month, but he already felt like he had blended into this small county town—eating, sleeping, shopping, wandering the streets when he had nothing to do—everything was just like his old life.

Old Reed was still quite satisfied with his performance, especially during the scene where Xiao Wu had to be naked.

Xiao Wu, in order to meet the singer he loved, went to the bathhouse to scrub his dirty body clean.

This scene required Andrew Clark to be completely naked. Although it had been explained to him beforehand and Andrew Clark agreed readily, Samuel Reed still felt unsure. He even sent Steven Grant to do some deep psychological work, like explaining the necessity of nude performance and the techniques of realism, and so on...

Andrew Clark listened in a daze and said, "Isn't it just being bare-assed? As long as you don't shoot the front, it's fine."

The next day, filming began. The bathroom had been set up by the art department over the course of a day. All the people present were men. Andrew Clark quickly took off his clothes and jumped into the bath.

His body was very thin, no longer possessing the explosive beauty and strength from his martial arts days. His bones stuck out, like ribs wrapped in skin—one could say it was downright ugly.

But Samuel Reed didn't use soft lighting to beautify it, nor did he create a misty atmosphere. He simply and directly presented this raw sense of reality.

After finishing the scene, Andrew Clark quickly climbed out of the bath, loudly complaining.

The water was fucking cold!

Richard Morgan looked at the footage and said, "Shocking!"—though it was unclear whether he meant the meaning conveyed by the image or Andrew Clark's body.

Samuel Reed also praised Andrew Clark highly, saying he had portrayed "the love and loneliness faced during a period of social transformation."

Hearing this made his balls ache.

Chapter Eight: Wrap

Beijing, night.

Yvonne Wright pushed her bicycle into the courtyard, quietly closing the door behind her.

The main house was brightly lit, with the sounds of the TV and a family's laughter drifting out.

Yvonne Wright glanced over enviously, shook her head, and went into her own room.

She hadn't had dinner yet—not because she wasn't hungry, but because she didn't want to eat. Or rather, ever since the day Andrew Clark left, she had been in this state of anxious uncertainty.

This place was much better than the old one—not just clean, but the morning sunlight streaming straight into the bedroom made her want to linger in bed.

With the door closed, the sounds from the main house were mostly cut off, leaving only a faint trace of something—maybe wind, maybe voices—seeping in through the cracks.

Yvonne Wright washed her face, rubbed it hard with a towel, and the skin that had been tense all day gradually relaxed, leaving her feeling light and refreshed. She sat at her dressing table, gently patting cold cream onto her face until it was evenly applied.

Then, she just sat there, staring blankly into the mirror.

Her hair was jet black, and her fair skin glowed with a faint iridescence under the light.