Chapter 35
A man’s words are a deceiving ghost.
It’s just the filter of familiarity, An’an thought. She wouldn’t be so easily coaxed into a state of blissful ignorance.
She could say the same thing: the actor playing the male lead had just passed in front of the white Mazda. In the script, the male lead’s character was described as “graceful and handsome,” but honestly, he wasn’t even half as good-looking as Amuro.
“Then, is that an objective fact, or does An’an also see me through a filter?” Amuro retorted.
She was stumped. After a long pause, she couldn’t come up with a definite answer.
“Then believe what I said,” Amuro said, opening the car door. He walked around to the passenger side and opened the door for the girl.
He could only escort her to the entrance of the dressing room. He couldn’t go any further.
Director Yuko had forbidden anyone other than the actors from entering. Agents and assistants had to wait in their vans.
Like parents waiting outside an exam hall, several assistants were surrounding their celebrities, touching up their makeup. The air was thick with the scent of cosmetics.
In an atmosphere where everyone was cramming at the last minute, it was easy to get the idea that if you’re doing it, I should be doing it too.
Although I don’t know if it’ll be useful, I might as well touch up my makeup… Fan An walked to an empty mirror in the corner.
She had brought many different shades of lipstick and couldn’t decide which one to use.
“Does Mr. Amuro have a favorite color?” the girl asked for outside help. “This red, that red, or another red?”
Amuro: Red.
He was on the red side. He supported his team’s color.
Bourbon didn’t know that if he had just asked, Fan An would have told him that she had also brought a black lipstick.
Layering red and black lipstick was also an option. Such a Public Security mole color.
The girl was still waiting for his answer. She tested the colors on her arm, different shades of red blooming on her delicate skin.
If Amuro had to say, every single one suited her.
“Because these are all colors I tried before I bought them,” Fan An said honestly. “Even if the sales associate’s words were as beautiful as a flower, I would never buy fluorescent green or Barbie pink.”
It was precisely because they all suited her that she couldn’t choose. She needed outside help.
If you can’t solve a problem, throw it to someone else and let them have the headache. This was Miss An’s philosophy of life.
“This one,” the blond young man said, picking up a lipstick and handing it to her.
“Crimson?” An’an took it.
A classic red, very beautiful. She twisted the tube and applied it to her lips, bit by bit.
The girl pressed her lips together. The moist lipstick was sticky, making a soft “pop” sound.
The surroundings were chaotic, filled with the noise of people. She wasn’t concentrating very well, and the red accidentally smudged past her lip line.
“Oh no, it’s getting late,” An’an glanced at her phone, quickly stuffed the lipstick into her bag, and hurried to leave.
Amuro’s attention had been on her the whole time. Unlike the girl, he wasn’t distracted. He reached out and took her hand.
“Wait, your lipstick is smudged.”
Unable to find a tissue, Amuro hesitated for a moment, then wiped his thumb across the girl’s soft lips.
The lipstick stained the pad of his thumb, wet and slick.
The dark-haired girl said thank you. She lifted the curtain of the dressing room, then took two steps back and flashed a peace sign at Amuro.
“Wait for my good news!”
The curtain fell like a stage curtain. The next was her battlefield.
…
An’an’s number was in the middle. There were people before her and after her, a position that made it difficult to leave a deep impression on the director.
While waiting, Fan An silently observed the performances of the senior actors.
As written in the audition script, the swimming pool was decorated to look like a party.
Amidst the noisy, decadent scene, the rich second-generation male lead stood by the edge of the deep end, his gaze wandering aimlessly, sipping champagne with a bored expression.
The female lead had to swim from the shallow end to the deep end. Fan An secretly measured the distance with her fingers: Good, within fifty meters.
That was the furthest she could swim. Any further, and she would sink.
The female lead leaped out of the water. She propped herself up on the edge of the pool with her arms and reached out to the male lead, whose heart was pounding like a frantic deer.
The male lead couldn’t help but take her hand and pull her out of the pool. He ignored the champagne that had fallen to the ground and asked eagerly, “May I have the honor of knowing your name?”
The camera focused on the female lead’s face. For this scene, Director Yuko had let the actors improvise, to perform according to their own understanding: what was the emotion that flashed in her eyes?
Mockery, coldness, madness, triumph, hatred, or a complete blank.
It was an exam with only one fill-in-the-blank question, but it was worth 100 points. Every auditioner, on high alert, noted the answers of the people before them, repeatedly revising their own.
“Actually, any of them would work,” Fan An said to herself. “Human emotions are very complex.”
For example, Kinoshita Yatarou, who had tried to stab her. In that moment, his expression had been a fusion of triumph, hatred, distortion, ecstasy, madness, fear, and a series of similar yet opposite emotions.
Director Yuko wanted to choose the most suitable one from them. Fan An wasn’t sure if she wanted a “thirty percent indifference, thirty percent mockery, thirty percent coldness, and a trace of carelessness” kind of wild pie chart.
That would be too difficult. Fan An couldn’t do it. She recommended that Director Yuko go find the male actor from the cast of Broken-Winged Angel: The Devilish Young Master’s Fierce Love. In that script, the devilish young master’s eyes were filled with pie charts every day.
Coincidentally, the male lead was currently in the hospital. It would be very convenient to arrange a sex change operation for him, a one-stop solution to all their problems.
“Next,” the director’s assistant called out.
An’an patted her cheeks. She took a slow, deep breath and slowly got into the water.
The pool water was as cold as ever. Because it wasn’t an outdoor pool, the sunlight couldn’t get in. It was even colder than the pool at the resort hotel.
The cold water cleared her head. She held her breath and dived into the water.
To have no regrets, one must give it their all. This feeling belonged to Fan An, and also to the female lead in the drama.
It seemed like a coincidence, but it was actually a carefully rehearsed first meeting. There was no room for error. Her revenge plan could not fail at the first step!
Use everything you can.
A rich second-generation playboy? A bored, high-ranking person? An arrogant man watered by power and wealth?
‘Fall in love with me. Become my subject.’
Crystal-clear water splashed on the surface. The girl lifted her head.
Her long, black hair fell on the surface of the water. Her lips were as red as blood. Water droplets slid down her lotus-white arms. Her wet fingertips reached towards the shore.
One hundred percent of her beauty was on display. The light and shadow seemed to favor her, sprinkling across her cheeks.
The champagne fell to the ground. The male lead had run this scene a dozen times. The repeated lines were on the tip of his tongue. He recited them without thinking, “May I have the honor of knowing your name?”
As the male lead recited his lines, he bent down to take the girl’s hand.
He had never felt so far from the pool. The male lead took a step forward.
“Wait!”
An’an was instantly pulled out of character. She shouted, but it was too late.
The male lead, standing on the edge of the pool, was only one step away from the deep end. His foot, as expected, found nothing but empty air.
With a splash, the male lead fell into the pool.
Fan An: “…”
Help! If he drowns, who’s to blame? Is it Suspect An’s fault again?!
The girl was speechless with grief. She ordered a song for herself, “The Injustice to Dou E.”
(T/N: A famous Chinese play about a woman who is wrongfully executed.)
An’an, feeling wronged, got out of the pool by herself. After a moment of chaos, the male lead swam up on his own.
“Sorry, sorry!” he said, extremely apologetic. “It was my fault. I didn’t follow the script. I’m so sorry!”
He was supposed to reach out and pull the girl ashore. But his feet were faster than his eyes. The male lead had completely ignored the deep end in front of him and had stepped into empty air.
“Director Yuko, it was my fault. I take full responsibility,” the male lead said earnestly. “Let’s do it again. Let’s do it one more time.”
Director Yuko sat behind the camera. She had watched the whole thing.
“No need,” Director Yuko shook her head. “Each person only gets one audition. Miss Fan An’s audition is over.”
“You can go,” she said to Fan An, using the same set phrase she had used to dismiss the other actors. “Wait for the notification.”
Male Lead: “Director Yuko!”
It was clearly his fault. How could this happen?
All the actors knew that the part Director Yuko was really testing was the female lead’s expression and emotion when she introduced herself after being pulled ashore by the male lead.
Because of the male lead’s mistake, Fan An had not been pulled ashore at all. She hadn’t even touched the test paper.
“This is my set. You follow my rules,” Director Yuko said mercilessly. “Next audition, get ready.”
The male lead was about to die of guilt. He looked at Fan An, at a loss.
The girl stood by the edge of the pool, her head lowered as she wrung the water from her swimsuit.
“Don’t look at me like that,” An’an sighed. “If you have to say it, it was partly my fault too. I used too much force.”
In that moment, she had indeed been acting with the intention of bewitching the male lead and making him willingly drown in the water.
“Didn’t the female lead’s family die in a shipwreck?” she said. “I think she has a special complex about water.”
“Facing the male lead, who is connected to the mastermind, even if the female lead intends to use him, she might not be able to resist the urge to drag him into the water and drown him.”
This was Fan An’s interpretation. But judging by Director Yuko’s reaction, she had probably interpreted it wrong.
Reading comprehension is so hard. Fan An couldn’t say she wasn’t disappointed, but she couldn’t continue to be sad on the set. Mr. Amuro was still waiting for her outside.
..
“I failed. So embarrassing.”
The girl curled up in the passenger seat, like a dejected cat whose fur had been soaked by the rain.
Amuro couldn’t help but ruffle the dejected cat’s head.
“What an un discerning crew,” he said deliberately. “Our An’an is clearly the best.”
“Looking at people through a filter will only make them unrecognizable,” An’an said, lifting her head from her knees and reproaching him. “My image in your eyes is about to be blurred into a mosaic.”
“How could that be?” Amuro raised an eyebrow. “You’re clearly a cute cat.”
An’an: Case solved. This person uses a cat-ification filter.
“If I could, I’d like to be a person, thank you.”
The girl was slumped in the passenger seat, like a dejected black slime, oozing gloomily.
Seeing that she was about to lose her human form, Amuro rested one hand on the steering wheel and suddenly said, “Want to go for a drink?”
“Hm?” An’an thought for a moment. “Is there a host-club-like, considerate and gentle service? If there is, I’ll go.”
Amuro: “…A proper bar. No extra services.”
He paused for a moment, then changed his mind. “If you want, there can be.”
The handsome blond young man lowered his eyes and asked again, “So, are you coming?”
…
The last auditioner left the swimming club. The crew was busy packing up the props.
In front of Director Yuko were all the actors’ files. The assistant sister was leaning over, carefully watching her sister’s expression.
As just a director’s assistant, she had no say. Who would be the sole female lead of this drama was up to Director Yuko to decide alone.
Throughout the entire audition process, Director Yuko had shown no emotion, using the same “wait for the notification” set phrase with every actor.
The assistant sister guessed that perhaps her sister was not satisfied with any of them.
“Should we organize another audition?” she asked. “Or ask for a recommendation?”
“I remember my sister is very close with Sharon. Maybe we can ask her to recommend someone?”
Director Yuko was good friends with the famous actress Sharon Vineyard. Hearing this, she replied, “Sharon said she has already recommended someone.”
But she hadn’t said who. The mysterious woman had wagged her finger. “Cheating is forbidden. I also want to see her skills.”
“If I had known who was recommended by Sharon during the audition, the scales in my heart would have definitely tilted towards her,” Director Yuko did not shy away from the rules of the entertainment industry’s social circles.
“But now, even if someone tells me her backer is Sharon, it no longer has any meaning.”
Director Yuko showed her first smile of the day. She stood up excitedly and paced back and forth.
“All my previous statements before the audition are null and void.”
Director Yuko announced, “I don’t care if you call me a hypocrite—I want her!”