Chapter 28: Sister Xian Nearly Failed to Keep Up with Bingbing’s Acting

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Some time later, Miracle Boy officially began filming.

Li Wenyu, Leslie Cheung, and Stephen Chow all stood behind the camera, watching the proceedings.

After filming a family celebration scene in which everyone posed for photographs, director Wai Ka-fai called cut.

“Leslie, Joey, let’s take a break and do it again later? Cecilia, your performance wasn’t quite there.”

The entire creative team relaxed. The usually carefree and highly successful Cecilia Cheung looked embarrassed, wanting to apologize but finding it difficult to open her mouth.

Especially with Li Wenyu standing there watching—and her greatest patron, Stephen Chow, present as well.

Fat Bing put on a bright, animated expression. “Sorry, everyone. Cecilia and I haven’t quite gotten into our sisterly rhythm yet. Let’s take a break and try again.”

Miracle Boy was an exceptionally warm and tender fairy tale for the whole family.

Fat Bing played the third female lead, a girl from a troubled family. Her parents were divorced and cared little about their daughter, so from childhood she had treated the male lead’s family as her second home.

She had grown up with the second female lead’s eldest daughter, and would casually stay over, eat meals there, and so on.

The younger brother, meanwhile, suffered from a congenital illness that had caused repeated failures in reconstructive surgery, leaving his face disfigured. The third female lead loved him like her own little brother. When he grew up and went outside, he always wore an astronaut’s helmet—the very helmet Fat Bing had given him.

After presenting him with the helmet, they took a group photograph together.

The young actor had finished his makeup and was ready to receive the gift. The family portrait scene was simple enough.

With Fat Bing’s acting ability rated at an astonishing ninety points, along with two months spent studying the script in advance, her performances on set had been extraordinary. She had not merely outshone Cecilia; she had even left Joey Wong struggling to keep up.

Joey had been away from the entertainment industry for several years, and her skills had grown a little rusty.

As Fat Bing apologized on Cecilia’s behalf, the entire production crew fell into a somewhat strange mood.

Many people kept stealing glances at Li Wenyu, wanting to say something yet finding themselves unable to. At this stage, many people in Hong Kong’s entertainment industry still looked down on mainlanders.

But Li Wenyu was different. Hadn’t he once helped Leslie earn more than a hundred million? In any case, more than sixty million had already safely reached Leslie’s hands.

A god of wealth was naturally different from an ordinary mainlander. Hadn’t even the famously difficult Stephen Chow been smiling nonstop beside him, looking as delighted as if he had just found a fortune?

Stephen’s emotional intelligence was anything but low. He had struggled for more than half his life. He did not want to go back to displaying his emotional intelligence everywhere, every day, as he had in the past. If he still had to do that, wouldn’t all his hard work have been for nothing?

From the moment Li Wenyu arrived, Cecilia kept drifting over, trying to steal Fat Bing’s man. The two women were overflowing with “sisterly affection,” engaging in all manner of scheming and verbal jabs at each other.

They looked like mortal enemies who had not yet torn off the last layer of civility.

And then, once the cameras started rolling, they had to play the closest of sisters and best friends?

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The contrast was simply too great. Fat Bing could slip into character in an instant, as though she had become Fan Yitiao. Even Leslie and Joey could feel the pressure when acting opposite her.

It was entirely normal for Cecilia to ruin the take.

Once the atmosphere eased, Leslie and Joey began acting as the mood-setters, taking a break and preparing themselves to recreate the proper emotions. Leslie laughed.

“Wenyu, youth is a wonderful thing.”

Stephen was filled with emotion as well. Lowering his voice, he said, “The fairest faces are the hardest to keep, but Wenyu, you should think about the people behind Cecilia. It’s best not to get involved in certain things if you can avoid it.”

He had not opened his heart to Li Wenyu without reason. Anyone with eyes could see that whether Cecilia coveted Li Wenyu’s talent or his looks, once she became involved with him, she would surely whisper into the Xiang family’s ear on their behalf.

If Li Wenyu went off to help the Xiang family plan some massive promotional campaign, Stephen would earn less.

Li Wenyu nodded. “I have no interest in her. By the way, Leslie, when are you taking your concert to Beijing? I need to go back and distribute another batch of tickets. It would be best if they came with your autographed photos.”

“The mainland fan networks have been working hard. Right now, they’re promoting it across the entire internet, drawing netizens to register on Penguin Network, then spreading the campaign into the real world to attract even more young people online and get them involved.”

“They simply didn’t know about it before. Now that they do, you have a great many fans over there.”

After saying this, he glanced at Leslie’s condition. His health stood at fifty-nine points and was no longer falling. Perhaps earning so much money had left him too excited.

After thinking it over, Li Wenyu used six of the twelve free attribute points he had accumulated, adding them to Leslie’s health and raising it to sixty-five.

Leslie nodded. “I’ve made arrangements for four concerts from the eighteenth to the twenty-first—in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. After the twenty-second, I’ll hold several more in Hong Kong. I can handle it.”

After saying this, Leslie remained dazed for several seconds before rallying himself again.

“And besides, whenever I think that my film might make eighty million or even a hundred million at the mainland box office, surpassing Jackie Chan, I feel even more energetic.”

“If I can break Stephen’s record in Hong Kong, my condition will only keep improving.”

His greatest source of health was his mental and emotional state—not his physical strength or build.

While the three of them were talking, Leslie and the others resumed filming after a short break. The take failed again, though this time Cecilia was not the problem. The young boy playing her brother had broken into laughter.

Even so, Stephen applauded in admiration.

“Bingbing’s acting is incredible. Are you telling me she only just moved from television to the big screen after making a single film, Shark Beach? This isn’t merely a matter of having natural talent or being a promising newcomer.”

In his eyes, Fat Bing—acting opposite Leslie, Joey, and Cecilia—did not fall behind any of them in the slightest.

It was outrageous.

Leslie exclaimed, “Exactly. Compared with Shark Beach a few months ago, this is a complete transformation. Wenyu, your ability to train actors is astonishing. You’re almost catching up with Director Wong.”

During the rehearsal period for Shark Beach, Fat Bing had still been performing the scene in which she floated atop a buoy tower in the swimming pool. Leslie had watched it three or four times. Compared with her now, the difference was like night and day.

Li Wenyu politely thanked him and modestly brushed off the praise.

They tried for a third time, but the take failed once again. This time, Cecilia had been unable to keep up after Fat Bing displayed her acting prowess so forcefully that Cecilia lost control of her performance.

Stephen nodded and said quietly, “Bingbing’s acting is flawless. All she needs to do is tone down that aggressive, domineering beauty—make her more innocent, pure, and slender.”

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“She would be more than capable of playing the female lead in my next film.”

Practice was the true test of truth. After watching three takes, anyone who understood the craft could see it clearly.

Fat Bing had effortlessly brought to life the state of a young woman who was not related by blood to the protagonist’s family, yet was closer to them than any true family could be—treating their parents and children as her own.

With a single glance, she could reveal the emotions of a young girl starved of parental love, openly treating Leslie and Joey as her real father and mother. Even Joey felt immense pressure.

A casual expression or gesture was enough to make Leslie—who still had no children of his own—feel the weight of it.

………………

At the same time.

Across the mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, and the rest of the online world, netizens were going wild.

On both the domestic and overseas versions of Penguin Network, photographs of young actresses—beautiful portraits and glamorous snapshots—were attracting enormous numbers of visitors. People followed links to their personal discussion forums, posted comments, and registered to vote.

With the help of the organized fan networks, Fat Bing’s mainland vote count passed one million with ease that morning. The overseas version also crossed the million mark effortlessly, and her commanding lead showed no sign of stopping.

This was only the first twelve hours of the first day of the Asian Most Beautiful Face competition.

Even with organized fans actively supporting her, this overwhelming momentum was simply too fierce.

Of course, many of Leslie’s fans were among those voting. Just the day before, Leslie had praised Fat Bing repeatedly, calling her beautiful, kind-hearted, naturally gifted, and an excellent actress—the finest female star of the new generation with whom he had ever worked.

The fact that Leslie’s new film was about to be released was the greatest boost of all.

With Emperor Entertainment and the Xiang family pushing their campaigns, Gigi and Cecilia Cheung were also rising rapidly. Among the unaffiliated internet fans, Jeon Ji-hyun was surging fiercely as well. After all, the storm surrounding My Sassy Girl had swept through the summer only recently.

At six in the evening, most people were finishing work and preparing for dinner. Fat Bing had more than two million votes on the overseas version, while Cecilia Cheung had 1.3 million and Jeon Ji-hyun more than 1.1 million.

On the mainland version of Penguin Network, Fat Bing had broken through 2.5 million votes.

It was only the end of 2001. There were no serious registration barriers and no real-name verification. The organized fan networks were working nonstop, manufacturing a lead so vast it had become a complete landslide.

P.S. Please vote for me. I only just learned that rankings on the new-book charts are also related to monthly votes. I’m doomed.