Chapter 14 (2/2)
The opening ceremony for Red Embroidery was on Monday.
Mu Wan’s character was an early cannon-fodder role, which meant she had to join the production from the beginning. On Sunday afternoon, after visiting Datou and Ertong at Liu Qianxiu’s place, she boarded the train to Wencheng.
Wencheng lies to the south of Xiacheng, an old city about four hours away by road. Mi Yu, as the second female lead, would also attend the opening ceremony, but Mu Wan rarely traveled with her. For short work trips, Mu Wan preferred public transport. Why drive four hours when the high-speed rail takes only an hour and a half?
She had already been added to the main group chat for the Red Embroidery production. After getting off at the station, she took a taxi to Wencheng Hotel, where the crew was staying.
Wencheng Hotel was the best hotel in the city.
It was Mu Wan’s first time filming a television drama while staying in a five-star hotel, and she had to admit that with Shen’s money behind the production, the budget had grown bold. When she went to collect her room card, she overheard someone gossiping that the entire hotel had been booked out so the female lead could stay in comfort, and that the rest of them were only benefiting from her presence.
Ah. The female lead.
Mu Qing.
When Gao Mei had mentioned it a few days ago, only a few memories had flickered through Mu Wan’s mind before she let them go. In truth, from the very beginning, she and the Mu family had been only loosely tied together. It was her mother who had held that thread between them.
Her mother died.
The thread snapped.
They each went their own way.
For the Mu family, the best outcome would be for Mu Wan not to exist.
To Mu Wan, the Mu family was no more than a tree glimpsed during a journey, or a gust of wind that had once passed over her and was now gone.
She went up to her room.
It was a standard twin. Inside the entryway, directly ahead, stood a floor-to-ceiling window and a balcony beyond it. The room was large, well-appointed, and decorated in a quietly old-fashioned style. Wencheng was an old city, and Mu Wan had felt its cultural weight the moment she stepped off the train.
That evening, the production held a meeting to discuss the opening ceremony and the next day’s arrangements. The director and producer would only arrive the following day, so the meeting itself remained fairly relaxed. Once it ended, everyone returned to their own rooms.
Gao Mei was sharing Mu Wan’s room.
After they got back, they went over the script together for a while. Then Gao Mei darted off and returned carrying a pile of braised snacks and convenience-store skewers.
“Got them from the props crew,” she announced, setting everything down on the table in a burst of salty-sweet fragrance.
The two of them were sitting at the desk by the balcony. Scripts lay spread across it. Mu Wan picked up a braised duck foot and glanced down at her phone while Gao Mei went on gossiping about the production.
“Mu Qing isn’t coming to the opening ceremony tomorrow. They’re filming everyone else first and waiting for her,” Gao Mei said around the duck foot, her voice full of amazement. “Her backing is incredible. I heard she’s engaged to Young Master Shen Cheng, and she herself comes from a proper old family too. Very much a refined young lady.”
Sweet heat spread over Mu Wan’s tongue.
She lifted her eyes and looked at Gao Mei.
Most of this gossip had probably come from someone who had heard it from someone else. The Mu family had already declined in her grandmother’s generation, and under Mu Qing’s father, the family had long since lost whatever old elegance it once possessed.
Mu Wan said nothing.
She was scrolling through her phone, looking at photos of the cats.
The meeting had run long. By the time it ended, it was already nine-thirty. Liu Qianxiu went to sleep at ten, and Mu Wan did not want to disturb him.
Once she had memorized enough of her script, she finished the duck foot, got up, and went to the bathroom for a shower before bed.
The opening ceremony was held the next day as scheduled.
As expected, Mu Qing did not appear. The second-billed male lead and third-billed female lead, Mi Yu, were filming at the foot of Wenshan Mountain, so naturally, Director Zhang Chengze had gone there as well.
This was a Republican-era medical-and-espionage drama. Mu Wan played a cannon-fodder nurse, and nearly all of her scenes took place at Wencheng Hospital. While the director was shooting the main material elsewhere, the assistant director began filming her scenes at the hospital.
Once the drama aired, it would serve as publicity for Wencheng Hospital, so the hospital had been extremely cooperative. Several rooms in the inpatient ward had been cleared out for the actors to use as changing rooms.
Mu Wan changed into her costume, pinned on her nurse’s cap, and pushed the door open to leave.
The Republican-era nurse’s uniform consisted of a long-sleeved linen underlayer, with a white sleeveless overdress on top, quite different from a modern nurse’s uniform.
She headed toward the small garden behind the hospital, where her scene was to be filmed. But the moment she stepped out of the inpatient building used for changing, she happened to glance across the grounds and caught sight of a small group walking toward the ER building.
Among them, one man stood out at once—tall, spare, unmistakable.
Mu Wan’s heart sped up.
Before she had even fully processed it, she was already running toward him.
“Liu Qianxiu!”
The ER entrance was full of noise and bustle, yet her voice cut through it cleanly, clearly, and sweetly.
After she called out, he turned.
Those quiet brows, that elegant, detached bearing.
The instant he looked back, Mu Wan felt her whole heart coated in sugar.
It beat hard against her ribs.
She looked at him, something flickering in her eyes, and smiled.
Xiao Tan, walking alongside him, looked over as well. Once Mu Wan came close, he glanced over the nurse’s uniform she was wearing and laughed.
“I didn’t expect you to be in the profession too.”
“I’m not,” Mu Wan said.
She had come to stand at Liu Qianxiu’s side. Heat spread from her face outward until she could feel herself burning.
“I’m an actress.”
Then she tipped her head back to look at Liu Qianxiu, her eyes bright enough to glitter.
“Didn’t you say it depended on the arrangements?”
She stood there in her nurse’s uniform. Beneath the white cap, her face looked small and vivid, her lips red, her eyes soft and full of light when she smiled. The brightness in them pulsed like her heartbeat.
Liu Qianxiu lowered his lashes slightly. Beneath them, his dark eyes remained clear and still. His expression did not change, and his voice was low when he answered.
“Mm. The arrangements brought me here, so I came.”
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