At this moment, Qin Xuan left the green-screen studio and came outside. After all, right now he counted as unrelated personnel, so it wasn’t convenient for him to stay inside.
As for staying in there to do hard labor like moving equipment, that was impossible.
No sooner had Qin Xuan stepped outside than he felt a wave of heat, so hot that sweat immediately broke out all over him. He searched around and found a canvas canopy in a corner.
Inside was a reclining folding chair, its surface wrapped in ice-silk fabric. Beside it stood a small pink fan, and on the table were sliced cantaloupe and grapes.
Qin Xuan wiped away his sweat. Seeing that there weren’t many people around, he hesitated for a moment, but in the end chose to duck into the canopy to hide from the heat. As soon as he entered, the temperature seemed to drop by several degrees.
Lying back on the folding chair, he immediately felt strands of coolness traveling from his back through his whole body. He turned on the fan. It was truly comfortable.
This was probably some celebrity’s seat. Only celebrities got treatment like this.
In any case, they would be filming for a while, so he would just lie down for a bit.
As for eating someone else’s things, he wouldn’t do that. That would be crossing too many boundaries.
Just as he was estimating how long those celebrities would be filming, drowsiness unknowingly swept over him, and he fell asleep. Mainly, he had only just been reborn, and the mental pressure was rather great. After all, he had to adapt to this new world.
In his dream, Qin Xuan dreamed that he had lost his entire fortune and had no choice but to deliver takeout. His electric scooter shuttled through torrential rain. He received bad reviews, got complaints... The landlord’s calls demanding rent buzzed nonstop, and he couldn’t even bear to buy himself a bowl of hot noodles.
“Uh!” Qin Xuan abruptly sat up. He hurriedly patted his own body, looked at his surroundings, and then met a pair of clear eyes.
And that flawless, smooth face was right in front of him.
“You slept in my seat rather comfortably, didn’t you?” Liu Yifei’s voice was soft and sweet, with a hint of slyness.
Qin Xuan stood up and moved to the side. “Sorry, Teacher Liu. I didn’t know this was your spot.”
“If you didn’t know, that means you can just sit wherever you like? Do you know that’s impolite?” Liu Yifei looked pure and innocent, like a little grown-up.
“My fault. I apologize.” Qin Xuan knew he was in the wrong.
Seeing that he was quite sincere, Liu Yifei did not pursue it. She waved her hand and said, “All right, I forgive you.”
She wasn’t angry over the matter.
Qin Xuan was not familiar with her either. Seeing that she did not mind, he prepared to leave.
“Hey, wait.”
Liu Yifei picked up a piece of cantaloupe from the table and handed it to him. “Take it and eat. Your lips are peeling.”
Qin Xuan looked at the cantaloupe in her hand, then at Liu Yifei’s sincere face. It inevitably stirred something in his heart.
“Mm!” Seeing that he did not move, Liu Yifei held it a little farther toward him.
Qin Xuan reached out and took it. He bit into the cantaloupe. The fragrant, sweet juice and rich flesh passed down his throat, entering his limbs and bones, and even his blood.
“You need to drink more water in this weather. I don’t have any here, so take these grapes too!” Seeing that there were also signs of peeling on his face, Liu Yifei picked up a bunch of grapes and gave them to him.
Qin Xuan accepted them, and a warm current flowed through his heart. In his past life and this one, aside from his uncle and aunt, no one had cared about him like this anymore.
Although he knew Liu Yifei was only acting out of kindness, he still could not help feeling moved.
“Thank you, Teacher Liu,” he said gratefully.
Liu Yifei smiled shyly, clean and pure without the slightest impurity.
Even Qin Xuan, an old man whose heart had already gone cold, was somewhat infected by Liu Yifei’s innocence.
There was still true feeling in this world!
He found another place and squatted on the ground. Like an old farmer, he raised his head and bit into the grapes in his hand. He had been on this set for half a day and had not even drunk water; he really was thirsty.
When the crew members saw him like this, they could not help glancing over a few more times. They were not looking at the way he ate, but rather at the fruit in his hands with envy. Ordinary crew members generally could not eat that; only actors, Americans, and people from Hong Kong and Taiwan could.
Just then, Qin Xuan suddenly heard a burst of arguing. Looking toward the sound, he saw several young people arguing with a few pale-skinned Americans.
“We finally finished after all that effort, and you say redo it, so we have to redo it? What do you take us for? Animals?”
“Exactly. You get off work while we work. You drink water while we keep working. You eat while we continue working. Do you even treat us like human beings?”
“We’re all doing the same job, so how are we different from you Americans and Hong Kong people?”
“Shit, if you can do it, do it. If not, get lost!”
The argument was quite fierce, and the crew members could not help gathering around to watch. Among the onlookers, there was also dissatisfaction.
This was an irreconcilable conflict. Simply because their identities were different, their treatment was different. There had already been several incidents, and later, Qin Xuan had personally seen it happen a few times too.
This was what the domestic filming environment was like right now. Hong Kong people stood a cut above others, let alone Americans.
To put it this way, for the same position and the same work, Hong Kong people were paid several times more.
There had been two famous outbreaks of conflict. One was in 2004, when that Xie Biwang and someone else beat people up; the other was the Zhao-Zhen feud in 2012, where the stars on both sides clearly took positions.
Those were only conflicts in front of the camera. If even those celebrities could not endure it, then there was no need to mention how serious the conflicts behind the scenes were.
Because many of the people behind the scenes had no voice at all.
After Qin Xuan finished gnawing the fruit in his hand, he tossed it to the side, wiped his mouth, and also went over to watch.
Although those people were at the grassroots level, they had at least worked on big production crews before, and their skills were up to standard. Shooting a low-budget film would be no problem for them.
That was right. Qin Xuan wanted to pull the lower-level crew of The Forbidden Kingdom over for his own use.
While the argument was still going on, Fang Long came out to smooth things over and settle the matter. Fang Long’s prestige was still very high. Once he came out to speak, many people were convinced.
But those staff members still harbored resentment, so they sat together and complained—sitting on the ground.
“Motherfucker, what kind of bullshit is this? The Americans can’t explain things clearly, and the Hong Kong people can’t explain things clearly either. Working with them is just exhausting,” one of them complained.
“We do the work, they take the wages!”
“...”
Seeing them discussing things with such indignation, Qin Xuan had already sat down beside them.
He too slapped his thigh in righteous anger. “They’re all dogs looking down on people. They use our people, shoot our movies, and when the films are released, they still earn money from our audience. Without us, they’re nothing.”
“Right, that really is how it is. Our film and television companies are trash too. They just love using Hong Kong crews. How exactly are we worse?” That person thumped his chest in agitation.
Because emotions were running high, the words they said inevitably carried aggression.
Of course, their techniques were indeed advanced, but these young people would not admit that. Who wasn’t hot-blooded?
“Huayi, Bona—I hate those two the most. They basically all use Hong Kong people. They won’t even give us internship opportunities,” another person said discontentedly.
In recent years, the entire film and television industry had been using behind-the-scenes teams from Hong Kong. Otherwise, so many actors would not have been made to play supporting roles for Hong Kong and Taiwan stars, carrying the sedan chair for them.
For example, movies like Battle of Wits, The Warlords, and Red Cliff were all funded by the mainland, filmed by Hong Kong teams, with Hong Kong and Taiwan stars as the main leads, while they just tossed out a female lead role to placate the mainland side.
It could be said that these years were when Hong Kong and Taiwan stars were at their most active over here.
They claimed that their production model was advanced, that their industrial foundation was mature, and that bringing over their model meant learning from them. Pure nonsense.
The rise of mainland production capability came from policy support and mainland capital spending enormous amounts of money to invest in film and television effects. They built cinemas and filming bases. The Oriental Movie Metropolis that Old Wang set up was the best example.
Basically all special-effects blockbusters were filmed there. It was just that the market could not sustain them, but the infrastructure was right there.
It had nothing to do with Hong Kong. What damn strength did they have? After so many years, they were still making cop-and-robber films.
The Wandering Earth used many newcomers, and some were even interns.
“Especially that guy from China Film, Han something. I hate him the most. He says he’s carrying out some blockbuster strategy, but it’s all just giving other people food to eat. We drink the soup and still have to look at their faces. Fuck!” Qin Xuan was also extremely agitated, stirring up discord here.
There was no way around it. If he wanted to blend in with them first, he could only wrong Mountain Eagle a little and make him play the villain. Who told him to be the biggest boss?