REHC – Chapter 42

        The new movie was scheduled to begin production on the second day of the new year. 

        During the new year, Ruan Tian had gone home and told her parents about the divorce between her and Shen Shu. Mother Zhou had been furious and reprimanded her fiercely.

        Ruan Tian just let the scolding go in one ear and out the other, not paying it any mind at all.  

        Then, on the second day of the new year, Ruan Tian quietly packed up her things and headed off to join the crew.

        The film was going to be shot at a certain film and television city on the outskirts of the capital. After finally joining up with the crew, Ruan Tian found out that the male lead turned out to be Qin An, while the female lead turned out to be Li Dong, a woman who had taken the title of International Movie Queen when she was just 30 years old.

        When Qin An saw her, he reacted like he had seen a ghost, “Wait, weren’t you kicked out of the audition!?”

        Ruan Tian was speechless, “I think your brain is the thing that was kicked out.”

        Compared to the last time she met him, Qin An seemed to have put away some of his arrogance. He didn’t just ignore her as if she were beneath him like last time, but instead asked, “So how did you get in? Are you acting as an extra? Heh, in order to get a little closer to me, you’ll really do anything.”

        Ruan Tian stopped moving and turned to face him head on, tilting her chin slightly as she did so. 

        Qin An could practically read the words in her eyes: ‘Look here, sure enough, this is a mentally handicapped person whose brain has already been kicked from his head.’

        The staff who watched the proceedings from the side didn’t dare to interject for either side. They only sighed in their hearts and felt that those rumors online were really true, ah, these two were like fire and water wherever they met.

        ——————-

        On the first day of filming, they were shooting a scene with Ruan Tian and Li Dong.

        The director was sitting behind his monitor and feeling a bit worried. He was afraid that this Ruan Tian might not be able to match Li Dong’s rhythm without a few NGs first.

        But, unexpectedly, Ruan Tian performed very well even though she was acting opposite to Li Dong. She didn’t show any signs of stage fright or starstruckness, and she wasn’t suppressed by Li Dong’s aura at all. As long as the director shouted for the shooting to start, Ruan Tian seemed to be able to instantly transform and fully immerse herself in her role, with numb and indifferent eyes that seemed to hint at a hidden sadness when you looked into her depths. She was even able to make silent tears flow down as the scene progressed, creating a shocking and infectious vibe.

        The director was very satisfied and called cut, passing the scene in one take.

        After a scene was done, Li Dong also looked at this little newcomer with some admiration. She even set aside her aloof Movie Queen aura to offer some rare praise, “Hey, newcomer, you’re much better than I expected.”

        Ruan Tian was weak to praise, so hearing that she was so happy that her little tail almost stood up on end. 

        Eventually, she responded, “Well, I’m not really a newcomer. I have been acting for three years.” 

        Although it had been mostly work as an understudy, or as a stand-in, or in thirty or forty tiny roles that didn’t even have names.

        Li Dong seemed very fond of the self-motivated and modest Ruan Tian, and she patted her head while saying encouragingly, “Well then you’re just very good.”

        Actually, Li Dong’s grades had been very low back then and she had to struggle to even enter film school. Later, during her debut film, she managed to win best actress and she had been slowly climbing up ever since. Very young actors could match her tempo when shooting, so she truly felt that Ruan Tian had done a good job.

        After filming the last scene for the day, Ruan Tian headed back to the hotel prepared for the crew to rest.

        There were no scenes on the schedule for her to shoot the next morning, so Ruan Tian made a rare exception and stayed up very late. 

        The last episode of ‘The Replacement Princess’ was finally being aired that night, so Ruan Tian turned on the hotel TV and watched it out of curiosity. She looked at herself on the screen playing a woman who was sick and crazy with love, wanting to keep him at all costs, and she felt a pang in her heart.

        In the end, the beautiful and vicious princess died in the hands of the man she loved the most when his sword pierced her heart. She fell to the ground, her eyes wide with disbelief, and stretched out a hand to grab his sleeve as bloody tears fell from her eyes. In the end, her eyes slowly closed and she went still. 

        After that, it was a picture perfect ending for the male lead and female lead, a typical ‘happily ever after’.

        The ratings for the finale of ‘The Replacement Princess’ broke records in the whole history of Fruit Channel and it became a well-deserved big hit.

        Unexpectedly, the highest peak of the ratings happened during the scene where Ruan Tian and Xu Jing were killing each other.

        The TianxJing CP suddenly rocketed to the top of the ‘Most Popular CP’ list overnight.

        The fans of the show had wildly scolded the vicious county princess played by Ruan Tian until the midpoint of the show, but as the show reached the ending episodes they surprisingly began to feel sorry for her instead. 

        The character was beautiful, bright, lively, and vigorous, and her only crime was loving someone too deeply. 

        “Compared to the heroine, I liked the county princess character more.”

        “Ruan Tian really embodies a crazy beauty. She’s beautiful whether she’s laughing or crying.”

        “I pity her, she just loved someone too much. If I were a male lead, I would definitely choose the princess. After all, the female lead is not as good-looking as the princess!”

        “Actually, Ruan Tian herself is not so bad, ah. She hardly posts on Weibo, but she’s always getting randomly implicated in things. She’s too unlucky.”

        “The TianTian Group will always be TianBaby’s most loyal backing! We can’t live without TianBaby!”

        “Are you Ruan Tian fans still acting happy? Don’t you know that she’s already been blocked in the movie circle? She will only play small vicious supporting roles like this for the rest of her life!”

        ‘Only play small vicious supporting roles like this for the rest of her life’, Your fart!

        Ruan Tian squeezed her phone and glared at the comment coldly. In life, the one thing she couldn’t tolerate seeing were the words ‘supporting role’**! ! !

        To kill the body, one must first kill the heart**. Vomit. 

        It’s cyber ​​violence. Vomit.

        However, just when Ruan Tian was thinking about whether or not to reply, a string of numbers flashed up on the screen of her phone.

        It was a call from Shen Shu.

        Ruan Tian didn’t hesitate for a second and instantly hung up the call.

Previous TOC Next

*So the words that disgust Ruan Tian are ‘女配’ and I translated it as ‘supporting role’ but it’s an inadequate translation. Basically, she reacts so strongly because she learned back at the beginning that she was a ‘女配’ playing second-fiddle to Zhou Xiaoqiao, so seeing the words makes her unhappy.

**the idiom here is ‘杀人诛心’ and it basically just means that to attack someone it’s best to start from exposing and condemning their motives, thoughts, and intentions. So I believe that she’s complaining about the netizens attacking her character.

…also, those two lines that end with ‘Vomit.’ actually end with ‘哇’ in the raw which according to the sources I checked means ‘a sound of crying or vomiting’. Maybe I should have just gone full onomatopoeia and put ‘blegh’ or something? I dunno.