When it comes to Jiang Nian, Xu Ke has mixed feelings—both love and frustration.
The love, of course, comes from Jiang Nian’s flawlessly exquisite acting skills.
He brought the character “Yu Huatian,” who only existed on paper, to life so vividly that he stepped right into reality.
The frustration, on the other hand, is because Jiang Nian is just a little too unusual.
He always manages to do things that catch Xu Ke off guard.
Only an hour had passed.
First, he shattered a sword with a short dagger, then he climbed through the air as if defying gravity.
“Mr. Jiang, you’re not ordinary!”
Taking a deep drag from his cigarette, Xu Ke looked at Jiang Nian with a meaningful gaze.
Holding the American-brand Marlboro that Xu Ke had just handed him, Jiang Nian asked in return, “Oh, really?”
Instead of answering, Xu Ke turned to look at Li Lianjie. “Mr. Li, what do you think?”
“Indeed, not ordinary at all.”
Li Lianjie said as he looked at Jiang Nian. “I could tell you had a martial arts foundation when we rehearsed scenes earlier, but I didn’t expect your skills to be this impressive. Mr. Jiang, are you following a traditional martial arts path?”
He himself wasn’t entirely sure.
It wasn’t that his skills as a former champion of martial arts routines were inferior to Li Cheng’s, whom Jiang Nian had encountered before.
Rather, Jiang Nian’s approach was just too unorthodox.
If you were to compare martial arts to running,
in Li Lianjie’s eyes, a Beijing opera martial artist walks, while a traditional martial artist runs.
But Jiang Nian? He neither walks nor runs—he freaking does somersaults, and he does them incredibly fast!
This left Li Lianjie completely baffled.
Hearing this, Jiang Nian remained calm inside. Maintaining his “Yu Huatian” composure, he said concisely, “So?”
“Uh…”
Li Lianjie and Xu Ke exchanged glances, both unsure how to respond.
They had already said everything they could.
What else was there to say?
Shouldn’t you, Jiang Nian, be wondering if you’re a little too dedicated, too deep in character?
Filming is over, yet you still haven’t come out of your role?
Both of them were speechless.
But there wasn’t much they could say about it either.
After all, some actors act this way—fully immersed.
And the deeper the immersion, the better the performance.
They figured Jiang Nian was exactly that kind of actor.
“Better not disturb him anymore.”
Xu Ke and Li Lianjie exchanged a look, reading each other’s thoughts. Xu Ke waved his hand and said, “It’s nothing. Just a sudden curiosity. Mr. Jiang, you carry on. We’ll go shoot the other scenes.”
“Alright,” Jiang Nian nodded, then found a random spot to sit down and rest.
Meanwhile, Xu Ke began directing the others to shoot new content.
But the subsequent filming was far from smooth.
Jiang Nian’s brilliance had shone too brightly.
It not only raised Xu Ke’s expectations but also placed immense, invisible pressure on everyone.
This pressure pushed everyone to give their all and bring their best performance to the scene.
Yet the harder they tried, the more problems arose.
Some overacted, some underperformed emotionally, and some even forgot their lines halfway through and started ad-libbing.
The worst part was that the person who ad-libbed was the big-name star Zhou Xun, and she didn’t even do it well.
With just one line, she completely changed the tone of the scene.
Her performance made Xu Ke so angry he looked like he was about to explode.
He threw off his hat.
“Zhou Xun, are you trying to make me curse you out in front of everyone on the very first day of shooting?”
“Just stick to your lines! If you forget them, just say numbers!”
“Why are you changing the lines?”
“Tell me, why are you changing the lines?”
“You have so many opinions, should I let you be the director instead? Huh?!”
Zhou Xun’s habit of ad-libbing was well known in the industry.
But Xu Ke hadn’t expected her to dare do it in his film.
Did she really think she could do whatever she wanted just because she was a big star?
Hadn’t she bothered to find out who Xu Ke was?!
As for Zhou Xun, being scolded like that by Xu Ke,
she felt wronged but didn’t dare to talk back.
Because this was just Xu Ke’s style.
Perform well, get high praise.
Perform poorly, get cursed out.
On set, no one got any special treatment, except for the financiers.
“I’m sorry… Director Xu, I overstepped. It won’t happen again.”
Pursing her lips and bowing, Zhou Xun apologized sincerely to Xu Ke.
Seeing her attitude, Xu Ke’s expression softened a little.
“Don’t let it happen again!”
Then, looking at the silent and tense crew, he thought for a moment and said, “Considering this is the first day, I won’t say much more. But starting tomorrow, if you still can’t get your act together, don’t blame me for turning nasty and showing no respect for your reputations. Got it?”
Hearing this, everyone nodded repeatedly, without a single objection.
Seeing this, Xu Ke waved his hand. “Meeting adjourned.”
Then he turned and left without looking back.
With the director gone,
naturally, no one wanted to hang around the set.
They went to the dressing room, removed their makeup, changed clothes, said their goodbyes, and left one by one.
On his way home,
following his usual routine, Jiang Nian found a small food stall to buy some takeout.
But just then,
“Big Big Chicken Chop, so big, so big, this chicken chop…”
His phone rang suddenly, grabbing Jiang Nian’s attention.
He pulled it out and saw that it was his mom calling.
Raising an eyebrow, he answered.
“Hey, Mom, what’s up? Running low on money at home?”
Then he heard a gentle cough on the other end. “No, no, we have enough. It’s just that when your father and I went to withdraw money today, we noticed you’d transferred us five hundred thousand. Son, this…”
Before Jiang Nian’s mom could finish, Jiang Nian suddenly shouted angrily, “Hey hey, what are you doing? Think I’m blind? Put it back!”
“Huh?”
His mom was stunned and confused.
Realizing his tone had been a bit too harsh, Jiang Nian quickly brought the phone back to his ear and said softly, “It’s nothing, nothing. The owner of this deli stall wasn’t being honest. While I was on the phone with you, he tried to sneak in extra stuff to jack up the weight. Go on, Mom.”
“Oh, oh, right. Son, where did you get this money? Five hundred thousand… you didn’t do something illegal, did you?”
“Tsk, Mom, look at what you’re saying. Do you really think your son is that worthless? Committing a crime just to make five hundred thousand?”
“Then where did this money…”
“I’m filming and acting now, Mom. Your son finally made it. I earned a good chunk from this project, so I transferred some to you. I did the math. After paying off all the debts and gaps we owe, we should still have about two hundred thousand left. Perfect timing—our house hasn’t been fixed up in years. Get it repaired. Don’t let it stay all shabby and dirty. I’d be too embarrassed to bring a girl home.”
Jiang Nian said a lot in one breath, planning out how to use the money.
But his mom’s next sentence left him completely silent. “Well… son, what if we don’t spend this money and instead use it to send you to college? What do you think?”
