Sister? Let Me Dream a Little

The next day finally brought the bright sunshine Ke Wei had been waiting nearly a week for.

It wasn’t that autumn in D City had no clear days; it was just that the *Seal the Heart* crew had been terribly unlucky, trapped under overcast skies and drizzle ever since filming began.

And the key scene they needed to shoot called for sunlight so bright it was almost blinding, so the schedule had been pushed back again and again.

Then, over the past two days, the sky had finally started to clear. Ke Wei had even pulled out her phone to make sure the icon really showed a sun and not something else before settling on today at last.

Modern dramas had this advantage: makeup and styling didn’t take hours and hours like period pieces.

By the time Bai Mo came out after finishing his makeup, he happened to spot Ke Wei waving him over.

“Yu Qing, come here.”

To strengthen the sense of immersion on set, Director Ke usually liked to address people by their characters’ names.

“Coming.” Bai Mo answered, handed the things in his hand to Xi Zhen, and walked over.

Xi Zhen accepted them without hesitation. She was truly diligent when it came to playing the assistant. That was also why Li Xingqing, who stayed on set all day, had suspected Xi Zhen might have another identity, but had never doubted her role as an assistant.

Now that the lead actor was here, Ke Wei was ready to begin explaining the scene.

This scene was considered a major one not only because it was the turning point of the entire plot, but also because of what it meant for Yu Qing and Chi Zengshen.

After all, in the story’s main thread, Yu Qing had remained at Chi Zengshen’s side in order to avenge his lover. But after all those lies, by the end, Yu Qing could no longer even tell what was in his own heart. All he could do was use reason to restrain himself; he could not love Chi Zengshen.

And this scene was where, after the truth was finally exposed, Yu Qing personally ended Chi Zengshen’s life.

Actually, when the script was first being discussed, this section stirred up a lot of debate. Everyone had their own opinion. Some people thought Yu Qing shouldn’t kill Chi Zengshen here, because that would be unfair to Chi Zengshen himself.

Others said Yu Qing should die by suicide after Chi Zengshen’s death; this kind of double death could create a different kind of HE.

In the end, after all the discussion, Ke Wei made the final call on the plot direction.

Yu Qing would kill Chi Zengshen with his own hands, just as in the original work, then go alone to Xu Yinian’s grave. Finally, after undergoing gland removal surgery, he would disappear.

The scene they were shooting today was the confrontation between Yu Qing and Chi Zengshen.

“Yu Qing, your emotions here are very complicated. There’s the satisfaction of revenge, but also hatred toward yourself. From the moment you ask Chi Zengshen to meet you, to when you see him, and then when you say those heartless things to him, the whole process keeps shifting.” Ke Wei tapped the script, then noticed Li Xingqing beside her and called her over to explain it.

“Xingqing, the feeling you told me about this morning was very right. Tell them again.”

“Okay, Director Ke.” Li Xingqing took the hint and sat down in the folding chair beside them.

“Actually, both of you should already understand your characters very well. I’ll just add one thing: for Yu Qing, this love-hate feeling toward Chi Zengshen has another important reason—his gland.”

“The gland?” Bai Mo blinked.

What he had originally understood was that Yu Qing hated Chi Zengshen because the other man had hurt Xu Yinian. But hearing Li Xingqing put it that way, he only then began to grasp it.

A script was still a script. No matter how vivid its characters were, they were still fictional. Actors could empathize with them, but no matter what, they could never truly become them.

Just like *Seal the Heart* was set in an ABO world, something that could never possibly exist in reality. So when Bai Mo immersed himself in it, it was easy for him to overlook certain things.

“Yes, the gland.” Li Xingqing nodded. The all-nighter she had pulled the night before hadn’t been wasted; after thinking it through for a long time, she had finally understood why Yu Qing would make some seemingly unreasonable choices.

In the story, Yu Qing had originally been a Beta. It was only after he replaced Xu Yinian’s gland that he became an Omega. It was precisely because of that gland, which had a very high compatibility with Chi Zengshen, that he had been able to successfully attract the other’s attention at the beginning and stay by his side.

So by the end, on one hand, Yu Qing was suppressing his heart and warning himself not to fall in love with Chi Zengshen. On the other hand, he would inevitably wonder whether, if not for that car accident, if Xu Yinian had not died, the two of them might really have become the kind of couple everyone took for granted, a pair made for each other.

From that perspective, the love he could not bring himself to speak of was mixed with too many things. Even his feelings for Xu Yinian were no longer as open and clear as they had once been.

“So at this point, I’m jealous of both Chi Zengshen and Xu Yinian?” Bai Mo finally untangled the mess of it all, only for the conclusion to sound even more startling.

“Yes. To put it another way, Xu Yinian is your youthful first love, while Chi Zengshen is the cinnabar mole of the rest of your life. You can’t accept loving the cinnabar mole, and you also can’t accept the possibility that your first love and your cinnabar mole might end up together.”

Now the logic was much clearer. No wonder the last thing Yu Qing did was go have gland removal surgery.

He had originally thought that for someone like Yu Qing, after finishing off his enemy, he would keep the last piece of his lover on his own body. So it turned out he felt like he had become a substitute?

Bai Mo rubbed his chin and looked through the script again.

Now that Yu Qing’s mindset had been sorted out, Chi Zengshen was actually quite simple in comparison.

Although his scenes were driven by constantly shifting big emotions, compared with Yu Qing’s subtle and elusive feelings, they could be said to be much simpler.

Zheng Yuyu looked like a newcomer, but his acting was good. That was also why Ke Wei dared to hand Chi Zengshen over to him. After all, if this role went even slightly wrong, it would become a complete scumbag.

Although flat characters had their own uses, Ke Wei did not want the only two important male leads in her drama to have nothing worth praising at all. So during the early script polishing, Li Xingqing had also spent quite a bit of effort fleshing out this character’s life and making him more three-dimensional.

After Li Xingqing finished explaining her thoughts, she didn’t keep standing there and instead left the space to the two lead actors.

However, her mind was still stuck on the scene she had just been discussing, and she hadn’t noticed that on the other side of the monitor, Ke Wei had already sat down with Xi Zhen.

The set wasn’t large. Even though there were a lot of people making noise, Li Xingqing’s words had still reached the two of them clearly.

“Where did you find such a treasure?” Ke Wei nudged Xi Zhen with her shoulder, only to find that the other woman was smiling from ear to ear.

“It fell from the sky,” Xi Zhen answered casually, which made Ke Wei sour all over. “Oh? So you want to be Jia Baoyu? And which Lin Daiyu does that make you?”

Hearing the bitterness in her tone, Xi Zhen didn’t answer. She gave her only a cold side profile. “Hurry up and start filming. I don’t know how much longer I can keep the spot for you.”

“Fine, fine, we’ll get moving right away.” Ke Wei stood up and picked up the little megaphone she used all the time. “Everyone, take your positions.”

The stage crew was bustling around in a frenzy; Li Xingqing was the only one sitting in a folding chair.

She had stayed up a little too late last night and gotten up very early this morning, so by now her eyes were already struggling to stay open.

Her hair, which had already grown to her shoulders, was piled messily on top of her head; unexpectedly, it looked rather harmonious.

Leaning back in the folding chair, Li Xingqing buried her face in the script and planned to doze off for a little while.

That was when Xi Zhen came over. Seeing Li Xingqing looking as if she wanted to curl herself completely inside the script, Xi Zhen couldn’t help but laugh softly; then, without changing expression, she sat down beside Li Xingqing.

Li Xingqing was simply too exhausted to notice someone approaching. After all, the extras waiting nearby were chattering endlessly, and the clapperboard snapped from time to time in the distance. Compared with all that, Xi Zhen’s movements could almost be said to amount to nothing.

After she fell into a deep sleep, the script, pulled down by gravity, slid lower and revealed her tightly closed eyes.

Xi Zhen watched her eyelashes flutter and realized she was sleeping very uneasily. She sighed, and in the end still reached out to catch the script before it hit the ground, then left her own jacket with Li Xingqing. Holding the jacket, which weighed almost nothing but still blocked the sunlight, Li Xingqing in her dream was completely satisfied.

After finishing all this, Xi Zhen turned back and noticed the script she had just taken. A gust of wind blew, and the multicolored handwriting inside came into view.

She looked closely twice, then unexpectedly discovered that beneath whatever scene this was, there was actually a stick-figure drawing.

The lines were very simple; with just a few strokes, it outlined a... scene of an embrace?

Looking at the rough shape drawn with those sloppy lines, Xi Zhen grew suspicious, then shifted her gaze back to the content of the script. A curve appeared at the corner of her mouth.

It seemed she really was very good at winning.

On that script, marked in pink highlighter, was a line of dialogue:

—“I think at this moment, you should be thinking of me.”

Li Xingqing slept very soundly. The faint scent on Xi Zhen’s shirt wrapped around her and followed her into the dream.

And, unsurprisingly, she dreamed of Xi Zhen.

Unfortunately, dreams were always strange and unfathomable. Before Li Xingqing had time to sort out the contents of the dream carefully, those things had already fled from her mind like children rushing home.

Only that lingering feeling of loss remained in her chest, with no beginning and no end; it could only make Li Xingqing feel that something was off, without her being able to say exactly what.

Xi Zhen was already no longer beside her. The set was still as usual, noisy and busy, accompanied by the sounds of the crew clearing the area.

Li Xingqing picked up the clothes covering her and tried to remember when she had acquired such a familiar-looking piece of clothing that she had never worn before.

Only when her mind cleared did she remember.

She was still on set, and this piece of clothing belonged to Xi Zhen.

Just then, Ke Wei called cut. Li Xingqing folded the clothing and set it aside on the folding chair for the moment, then went over to see what had happened.

As expected, something unexpected had happened. No matter how professional Bai Mo was, he couldn’t possibly perfectly express Yu Qing’s emotions all at once. Ke Wei could only guide him through the emotional flow over and over, helping him find the point where the feeling began to build.

This had actually been anticipated before filming started, so Ke Wei wasn’t surprised. What surprised her, on the other hand, was Zheng Yuyu’s performance.

Not that he was doing badly; on the contrary, he was doing too well. Since this was a scene driven by strong emotions, shifts that were too precise and too polished would only make it feel stiff.

Actually, this kind of performance would be very popular in other crews. After all, no director doesn’t want someone who seems born to act; it saves trouble and makes things convenient. But that was not what Ke Wei wanted. When false becomes true and true becomes false, what she wanted was a more instinctive emotional response from Zheng Yuyu. That way, not only could he bring his scene partner into the role more effectively, it would also make the finished work more moving to the audience.

But real emotional prompting was never that simple. Zheng Yuyu tried a few times, and the result got worse each time; even Bai Mo was affected a little.

Ke Wei’s head was aching by this point. Then she caught sight of Li Xingqing walking over and immediately decided to treat her as a last resort.

“Xingqing, perfect timing. Explain it to them again; the final emotion still isn’t coming out.”

Li Xingqing took a moment to react, then immediately understood what Ke Wei meant. “That line, ‘using love and hate to describe our relationship is too grand’?”

This was the final shooting section, the part where the gun was fired. Chi Zengshen had excitedly come to see someone he hadn’t seen in a long time, thinking they would finally be able to stay together, only for Yu Qing to press a gun to his head.

In that instant, Chi Zengshen seemed to understand everything. From disbelief to sudden realization, he gave a bitter smile and asked, “Did you love me first, or hate me first?”

Yu Qing’s gaze remained calm as he pulled the trigger. But at the last moment, he still said, “Using love and hate to describe our relationship is too grand.” As his words fell, Chi Zengshen collapsed to the ground, and his gland released wave after wave of bitter almond scent. Yu Qing frowned and said, “I hate bitter almond scent the most.” Yet his own gland still responded to the scent unconsciously.

Author’s Note:

“‘I think at this moment, you should be thinking of me’ is the opposite of what it sounds like!!!”

Little skit:

Xi Zhen: She loves me so much; I’m even in her dreams.

Li Xingqing: I love her so much.

The confession countdown!