Chapter 404 - 335: The Main Event

"Princess, be elegant! Be noble!"

Her etiquette teacher had followed her to the set. To help her get into character, he even donned the headpiece of an old nanny, changed into period costume, and now sat on a small stool by the door, hunched over with his hands tucked into his sleeves.

"Chew your food slowly. Five times on the left side, five times on the right."

Back when she was training, Ni Bingyan had never been able to understand it. ’Where did this bizarre rule even come from?’

The etiquette teacher explained that the ancients ate this way from a young age to prevent their masseter muscles from developing unevenly, which could lead to an asymmetrical face.

A symmetrical face was considered dignified and conformed to the aesthetic standards of the ancients.

’Well, who knows what it was really like in ancient times,’ she thought. ’This is how it is in the movie, anyway.’

Ni Bingyan felt she was already doing a great job, but her teacher was an absolute demon, scrutinizing every detail to a hair-splitting degree.

His appearance was quite comical, not only because he was a man dressed as a woman, but also because he wore no makeup.

A man in his thirties, his voice wasn’t particularly deep, but it was a far cry from an old nanny’s, making it impossible not to break character.

At first, everyone came over to watch the spectacle. Ni Bingyan desperately wanted to laugh, but she managed to hold it in.

Because Director Mou was standing to the side, his face grim, staring her down.

"Stay calm. Remain poised even if Taishan Mountain were to collapse before you. You’re playing a master seductress who has faced countless dramatic confrontations with her lovers and gotten through them with immense mental fortitude. Got it?"

"I’m not trying to torture you. Once filming starts, you’ll see how much better the results are because you took a few days to adapt."

"Besides, Jiuli has a madam who is a total ham—she’s the film’s comic relief. If you laugh too easily, you’ll constantly be breaking character during takes."

It was so rare for him to explain himself that Ni Bingyan was practically flattered. ’How could I possibly object?’

"You’re right!"

’So much for my principles,’ she thought.

Life was tough, but at least she wasn’t alone. The other actors also had to adapt to their roles beforehand.

Yin Jing was adapting quite well, which was probably related to the cat he’d brought to the set.

The moment he was out of costume, he would be holding his gray-and-black tabby, patiently stroking it from head to tail.

The way he doted on it, you’d think he was raising a daughter.

A bona fide cat slave.

’Compared to him, I’m a terrible pet owner for leaving Wangcai with the Sang Family all the time.’

When it came to hardship, the production team was fair to every actor, which made things a little more bearable.

Aside from the demanding professional standards, living conditions were actually quite good.

Ni Bingyan had been on many sets, and the living conditions for *Zui Sheng Building* were among the best.

Once she got used to it, life there wasn’t so bad.

「Soon, it was time to officially begin filming.」

Normally, on the day of the opening ceremony, a crew would shoot a couple of simple scenes as a warm-up and for good luck.

But Mou Sanyang didn’t.

In his words, the day of the ceremony was always chaotic. There were too many outsiders, the actors were exhausted after half a day and weren’t in the zone, everything was rushed, and the set could never be arranged perfectly. What kind of quality could you possibly get out of that?

After the opening ceremony, the entire cast and crew took a day off. The following day was spent entirely on preparations, and they didn’t start filming the first scene until nightfall.

This was no simple scene. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it the centerpiece of the entire film.

It was Jiuli’s debut as an Oiran, years after she had secretly returned to her former capital following the fall of the Jiuli Country.

The setting was an exquisite two-story building.

The ground floor featured elegant booths separated by plants, while the second floor had private rooms partitioned by screens. The guests were arranged in a semicircle around a circular stage at the front.

The stage was elevated. A girl in a pink dress descended the stairs, graceful and charming. She held a round fan that partially hid her face, looking both mischievous and spirited.

Though she was modestly dressed, the form-fitting cut of her clothes and her suggestive movements left the guests staring, completely captivated and forgetting to even speak.

Mou Sanyang’s aesthetic sense was truly on another level.

’The atmosphere on set is absolutely incredible!’

Especially behind the stage, where rows of musicians played the score behind a screen of dim, yellow lanterns.

The sophisticated ambiance of the live performance was worlds apart from simply playing recorded music while practicing at the company.

When the dance ended, Ni Bingyan felt that having the chance to perform on such a stage was a true blessing.

The extras playing the guests below waited a few seconds after she finished, then, on the lead extra’s cue, they shot to their feet and applauded wildly.

Gauging the reaction, Ni Bingyan hid her face behind her fan and quickly retreated backstage as the lights dimmed.

The stage design was ingenious. Without any modern equipment, it achieved the lighting effects of a contemporary stage, all thanks to an overhead mechanism that could move a series of gauze-covered lanterns.

As the Oiran made her exit, the lanterns were pulled up by ropes toward the second-floor rooms, causing the stage to darken.

The dance instructor was also on set today. She stood beside Mou Sanyang, and a smile spread across her face as she watched Ni Bingyan perform the dance flawlessly.

This meant her job was done, and done perfectly.

But Mou Sanyang, it turned out, was not satisfied.

"What’s wrong with this costume? We started making this a year ago. How could a pearl fall off mid-dance?"

The Oiran’s attire was modest, but it was full of clever details.

For instance, her waist was adorned with a ring of pearls. As she danced, the pearls undulated on her slender waist, creating an indescribable allure.

In most movies, a single fallen pearl would be no big deal. But in Mou Sanyang’s eyes, it was an unforgivable flaw.

The costume designer trotted over and sewed on a replacement pearl.

Ni Bingyan was finally beginning to understand why people had breakdowns filming with Mou Sanyang.

Once the pearl was sewn back on, she collected herself and began to dance again as the music started.

As she danced, all she could think was, ’Please, let nothing go wrong this time. I’m not even tired, but the musicians have to be exhausted.’

But after that take, he complained that Ni Bingyan’s blocking wasn’t perfect and failed to let the camera capture her from her best angle.

’Thinking I could get away with just one or two takes... I was too naive. I really don’t know this director at all.’

For this one scene, Ni Bingyan filmed from nightfall until midnight. The musicians below were complaining that their jaws ached, and only then did Mou Sanyang finally call out with a frown:

"That’s a wrap for today. We’ll pick this up again tomorrow."

He was still unsatisfied with everything they had shot.

No wonder other directors could wrap a film in one or two months, while he had tentatively scheduled six and still couldn’t guarantee he’d finish on time.

Where did all the time go?

Lost in the director’s endless quest for perfection.

Ni Bingyan’s legs were like jelly from all the dancing. Back in her room, Duanmu Li immediately started massaging her legs with her feet. Otherwise, forget dancing—Bingyan would be lucky if she could even walk tomorrow.

"Starting off this intensely is brutal! I can’t take it. Ugh! Couldn’t he have picked an easier scene to start with?"

Ni Bingyan gritted her teeth until Duanmu Li finished, then let out a long sigh of relief.

"You know what Director Mou is like. He’s probably already got the whole movie edited in his head. He has to film everything in his own sequence. You’d better not say stuff like that. He’ll be furious if he hears about it."

Ni Bingyan sighed heavily and flopped onto the bed.

"Whatever. We have to shoot it eventually, so it doesn’t matter if it’s now or later. Ugh! I’m dying to see just what kind of shot he’s trying to get!"