WSSAPF chapter 15

“Xie Jun, come closer.” Li Zhuoyao suddenly stopped and called Xie Jun, his tone serious.

Xie Jun looked a bit puzzled but quickly approached.

“Boss? What’s wrong?”

He stared directly at Xie Jun’s face, and Xie Jun felt a bit embarrassed, his ears turning red.

“Why are you staring at the kid? You’re scaring him,” Gao Jun said.

“You come and take a good look. Does he look like Zhou Chulan, especially the eyes?”

Gao Jun lazily walked over, put his face in front of Xie Jun for a few seconds, and then said, “There’s a resemblance. It’s not surprising; they both have that kind of slightly elongated eye shape.”

“What about you? Do you think you look like the guy just now?” Li Zhuoyao asked Xie Jun.

“I didn’t notice. That guy is so good-looking. I’d be happy if people said I look like him.” Xie Jun touched the back of his head and laughed, his eyes curving.

“But we are all local mountain people. Upon closer examination of appearance, there are some similarities. For example, the cheekbones and brow bones might be slightly higher than others, and the eye sockets might be more pronounced,” he added as if recalling something.

“Oh right, I forgot you’re also from here. So, are you and him from the same village? Haven’t you seen him before?”

“No, our family moved here from the neighboring village just two years ago.”

Zhou Chulan’s house was located by the roadside at the foot of the mountain, not in the village of Wengtai. There was still a distance from the settlement of the village.

Li Zhuoyao felt a bit heavy in his heart. The strange feeling that had surged just now gradually disappeared. He hated this elusive feeling, like a kite losing its string, leaving only an empty handle in his hand. Since the incident, during the long process of memory therapy, he had traversed through these hazy memories countless times. A considerable part of the memory fragments had hidden in the semi-lit shadows.

Before he could digest this emotion, he involuntarily plunged into the cumbersome work again. Soon, the program officially started. Four popular female artists moved into this mountain villa. While preparing in the dressing room, they chatted casually, and the atmosphere was good. Li Zhuoyao sat with the directorial team in the makeshift control room, staring at dozens of screens displaying various camera angles, letting out a sigh of relief.

“The director has high requirements, looking for female stars whose personalities match the program, and explicitly stated that due to budget constraints, the pay is not high. There are still many people who want to fund their way into the group.”

“This is Li Zhuoyao’s new variety show, and it’s so primitive. The competition must be fierce.”

“Oh, Li Zhuoyao is my favorite variety show director, so sentimental. Besides, with his handsome face, they’ll make a fortune just by making an appearance.”

Li Zhuoyao stared at the screen, his thoughts drifting away. He had put a lot of effort into creating this bamboo and wood villa in the mountains of Guizhou, trying to faithfully replicate a “pastoral idyll” blueprint on a 1:1 scale. He was the chief architect, the artists were performers, and the entire production team worked together to weave a brief and beautiful dream for the audience. Dreams are meant to be awakened. He seemed to see the sighs and reluctance of these female stars after the program recording ended. However, that bit of true sentiment and attachment was not enough to change the original direction of life. Everyone’s life trajectories briefly intersected here, then they individually flowed into the sea, sailing into the vast ocean.

The same fate awaited him and Zhou Chulan. Li Zhuoyao took a deep breath, deciding to seriously accept and digest what had happened between him and Zhou Chulan.

It was just a rejection of confession. Who hasn’t experienced heartbreak? Although he had never tasted the feeling of heartbreak before and had always been pursued by others, encountering someone like Zhou Chulan allowed him to experience the bitterness of unrequited love. Moreover, the work schedule was indeed very tight. These days, busy with preparations for the program shoot, Li Zhuoyao was working tirelessly. His entire being was filled with work, leaving little room to think about Zhou Chulan. Every day, he rotated like a machine.

After the shoot began, the entire production team stayed in the temporary activity board houses on the mountain. This large area of activity board houses could accommodate about 200 people. Because the program often ended late, and it was difficult to travel at night, they directly built simple dormitories on the mountain for the staff to rest. Most of the rooms were quadruple, with a few single rooms, and Li Zhuoyao had one to himself, with only a bed and a desk inside.

On the first night, he couldn’t sleep. Perhaps it was because he wasn’t used to the bed or because of the sudden rain that night. It was almost summer, and the rain seemed particularly abundant, pounding on the window glass with a “pitter-patter” sound.

The bed was narrow and not very comfortable to lie on. Li Zhuoyao lay there, unable to sleep, and suddenly remembered that the last time he slept in such a simple bed was at Zhou Chulan’s house. He had lay in Zhou Chulan’s duvet, and the breath between his nose and mouth was filled with Zhou Chulan’s scent, making him feel secure, and he quickly entered dreamland. However, this room only had the smell of paint and the dampness of metal.

Li Zhuoyao held his phone up to his eyes, reached out, opened the chat conversation with Zhou Chulan, and slowly reviewed the message history. This was the first time he had opened it since they kissed. The chat history was not long, mostly him talking, Zhou Chulan responding briefly, and towards the end, Zhou Chulan stopped responding altogether.

The entire room was lit only by the glow of his phone. Zhou Chulan’s profile picture was still silently black, blending with the surrounding night.

Li Zhuoyao thought that what would remain between them were only these fragmented words. To delve deeper would be like trying to grasp something intangible. When he came here, it was also to dream a beautiful dream of “pastoral idyll.” Zhou Chulan would sing for him, and then he would be told that this is the end of the song.

The rain continued to beat on the steel roof, very noisy. Li Zhuoyao had almost spent the entire night sleepless. Just when he finally felt a bit drowsy, it was already bright outside. He checked the time, 6:30 AM. The artists’ recording time was from 8 AM to 10 PM almost all day. He had to get up and start preparing. He changed his clothes, walked out of the room, and there was a large horizontal sink in the courtyard, with a row of faucets on top. He turned one of them on to start washing up.

“Li Director, you’re up so early?” Zhang Yan’s agent Ah Li came out of the room holding a basin, seeing Li Zhuoyao, he greeted him with sleepy eyes.

“We start shooting at 8, so I need to get up and prepare. Why are you up so early too?”

“Sis Yan forgot to bring her face masks. I’ll have to drive to the county town to buy some for her later. I wanted to ask you, where’s the nearest gas station? My car is almost out of gas. The map shows there’s one at the foot of the mountain, it looks quite small, is it open for business as usual?”

“Yes, you can go there for refueling.”

In his calm lake of thoughts, a stone was suddenly thrown.

“Will it be open so early? Sis Yan uses face masks every day, waiting to use them.”

“It opens at 9. If you’re in a hurry, you can knock on the door directly; someone will come out.” Li Zhuoyao answered quietly.

“That’s good. Director Li, do you have anything you want to bring? I can bring it back for you. It’s inconvenient to buy things here in this remote and impoverished place.”

Li Zhuoyao shook his head, expressing gratitude to Ah Li. He turned on the tap and poured a handful of cold water onto his face.

As the chief director, he controlled the overall rhythm of the program, almost sitting in the control room staring at the cameras all day. Teams like the audio, camera, and publicity worked in shifts, 12 hours per rotation, which was quite exhausting. Although this observational variety show had no script, there were daily fixed shooting tasks, and the production team would design specific segments. When encountering particularly good materials, Li Zhuoyao would note them down as highlights for editing and promotion. Assistant director Sun Ran worked with him in monitoring the recording. During meal or restroom breaks, the two had to take turns.

In the blink of an eye, it was dinner time. Li Zhuoyao asked Sun Ran to continue monitoring the cameras in the control room while he went to have dinner. The dining area was also a temporary activity tent, and the cook was a local chef recommended by Zheng Nanyun, who prepared delicious meals.

That night’s dinner was sour fish soup, a dish Li Zhuoyao liked. While waiting in line with other staff who had changed shifts to get their meals, he ran into Ah Li again.

Did you manage to buy the face masks? Dushan is quite poor; there aren’t many decent shopping malls in the county town,” he asked.

“Bought them. Sister Yan wanted the basic moisturizing and hydrating ones, easy to find.”

“That’s good.”

“By the way, have you been to that gas station? The owner is quite handsome. Such a small place unexpectedly has hidden talents.”

“I have been. His name is Zhou Chulan. I heard he’s quite talented, especially in painting.”

For some reason, whenever the topic of Zhou Chulan came up, Li Zhuoyao’s words became more numerous.

“He paints? No wonder he has a special temperament. Well, I have to dig him up even more.”

“Dig him up?” Li Zhuoyao was a bit surprised.

At that moment, Ah Li happened to be at the front of the food line, reaching for his tray and talking to the person serving food.

“Hey, mister, give me more soup, less rice, I’m on a diet.”

Ah Li, 36 years old, a gold-level agent in the industry, and also a fitness enthusiast, sat down at a table with his tray, inviting Li Zhuoyao to join him.

Li Zhuoyao hastily got his food and walked over.

“Are you serious? Do you want Zhou Chulan to enter the entertainment industry?”

“Of course. With that great face, it’s a waste not to enter the entertainment industry!”

Li Zhuoyao stirred his rice with chopsticks saying nothing.

“But he actually rejected me. I’ll try again later. This person, handsome as he is, seems hard to approach. Oh, that mysterious aura around him is just perfect for a character in the script I’m working on now.” Ah Li sighed, took a sip of soup, and immediately displayed an amazing expression.

“This sour fish soup is too delicious.” He praised repeatedly.

“The person serving food even told me the recipe for the sour fish soup, saying they added a kind of oil from around here and asked if I could get used to it.”

“Mao ginger oil,” Li Zhuoyao said.

Mao ginger oil, also known as mountain pepper oil, was something he first tasted at Zhou Chulan’s house.

Local chefs liked to use Mao ginger oil for seasoning. The sour fish soup itself was already sour, but after adding Mao ginger oil, it gained a spicy bitterness. The combination of sour, bitter, and spicy interwove, stimulating his taste buds and spreading to all his sensory nerves. At the moment it entered his mouth, Li Zhuoyao’s nose tingled.