Chapter 22

Xia Xingcheng felt that it was becoming harder and harder to detach himself from his role, and sometimes he even felt that his body was completely taken over by Fang Jianyuan.

Fang Jianyuan met Yu Haiyang at the age of eighteen. He fell in love with someone for the first time and found out what it was like to be in love. Even when Yu Haiyang wasn't with him, he would think of him anytime, anywhere, and smile without realising.

Xia Xingcheng gradually realised that he and Fang Jianyuan had fallen into these feelings together. Sometimes, when he read the script, he would smile unconsciously whenever he caught sight of Yu Haiyang's name, and then he'd raise his head to look for Yang Youming.

Yang Youming didn't always resemble Yu Haiyang. To say the least, the way Yang Youming looked at him was never like the way Yu Haiyang looked at Fang Jianyuan.

Xia Xingcheng felt that he was in a terrible state.

However, the filming went unexpectedly smoothly. After the scene ended, He Zheng sat in front of the monitor seemingly in a daze.

Xia Xingcheng didn't know what was going on. He went over and asked He Zheng what happened. After a while, He Zheng looked up and gently said, "You look just like him."

He Zheng showed Xia Xingcheng the replay of the scene.

On the screen, Xia Xingcheng saw the smile that he had directed at Yang Youming, and in an instant, goosebumps appeared all over his body. He didn't even know that he could act to this extent. The sweetness and love in his expression was about dense enough to spill out the screen.

It was obviously something that he should be happy about, but Xia Xingcheng only smiled at He Zheng reluctantly and said, "Was that okay?"

He Zheng stood up and patted Xia Xingcheng on the shoulder. "It's great, it's really great."

He didn't know why, but Xia Xingcheng found some comfort in He Zheng's tone. It was probably because He Zheng was also aware that the state he was in wasn't very ideal. When he ought to promptly detach from the role, he once again couldn't pull away.

At this time, Huang Jixin happened to be taking a little newcomer to record a program nearby, so he took two days to stop by and visit him.

When Huang Jixin arrived on set that day, Xia Xingcheng was preparing to shoot a scene in which Fang Jianyuan quarrelled with Yu Haiyang—but this wouldn't be accurate. To be exact, it was a scene depicting Fang Jianyuan's internal conflict.

When Huang Jixin got there, Xia Xingcheng had not yet started filming. He saw Xia Xingcheng at the side, sitting alone with the script. He rolled up the script and held it to his chest. His body swayed on the small chair, and his eyes weren't focused on anything.

Huang Jixin, who hadn't seen Xia Xingcheng for a while, felt that he was like a completely different person.

In this scene, Fang Jianyuan's mother invited Yu Haiyang to have dinner with them.

In their house, the dining room and the kitchen were both in the same room, right behind the first floor's grocery store and next to the storeroom.

The one who played Fang Jianyuan's mother was an experienced actress in her forties, but she was very beautiful and looked no more than thirty years old.

The three of them sat around a square table, and Fang Jianyuan's mother eagerly picked out food for Yu Haiyang.

Yu Haiyang calls her 'Ling jie' because there was the word 'Ling' in Mama Fang's name.

Mama Fang was a woman who had an outspoken and straightforward disposition, her husband wasn't at home, and she ran a grocery store alone while taking care of a son, which was hard but also admirable.

Yu Haiyang was also someone who was good at interacting with people. After a few words, Mama Fang felt that the subject of the conversation was quite agreeable and told Fang Jianyuan to go and get a few bottles of beer.

From the beginning, Fang Jianyuan had remained silent. When he got up, he glanced at Yu Haiyang.

When he returned with the beer, Yu Haiyang reached out to take it and smiled at Fang Jianyuan. "Thank you, Xiao Yuan."

Fang Jianyuan felt Yu Haiyang's fingers on his and immediately withdrew his hand.

Yu Haiyang opened the beer bottle, poured a glass for Mama Fang and himself each, and then asked Fang Jinyuan, "Do you drink, Xiao Yuan?"

Fang Jianyuan shook his head.

Mama Fang said, "He's still a child, what would he drink?"

Yu Haiyang put the bottle on the table and said with a smile, "An eighteen year old is no child."

Fang Jianyuan watched both of them and felt more and more depressed, because for the first time, he deeply felt that there was a distance between himself and Yu Haiyang, not only because of gender, but also because of their large age gap. Yu Haiyang, who was joking together with his mother, was an actual middle-aged man.

In his heart, he still felt like a child.

This was the reason why he felt so distressed. He didn't understand why he and Yu Haiyang were in such an ambiguous relationship. He didn't like an adult who would talk and laugh with his mother at the dinner table, and they were also a man at that. He disliked himself who liked that man even more.

This was the long internal conflict that Xia Xingcheng had written down in his script as he made notes for this scene. He had also discussed the scene with He Zheng, and talked with Yang Youming about Fang Jianyuan's mental state to get to the bottom of why he felt so uncomfortable.

And yet this was a movie with no voice overs of any psychological analysis, only showing close-up shots, emotional lines, and physical expressions.