The next second.
A subtle, tingling sensation slid down Jiang Yue's spine, traveling all the way down to his ankles.
It was as if an invisible hand was gently twisting away all his modern habits, molding his body back to how it would have been a thousand years ago.
His skeleton remained the same,
but his center of gravity and weight distribution completely shifted.
His spine, which he was used to keeping military-straight, slouched ever so slightly.
He looked like someone who had lived under the shadow of imperial power for too long, having long learned to keep his head down and hide every ounce of his sharp edge deep within his bones.
The angle at which his arms hung also changed.
His wide sleeves fell naturally, perfectly concealing his slightly curled fingertips.
His center of gravity shifted backward.
One foot planted firmly, while the other rested lightly on the ground.
It was as if he was ready to drop to his knees and beg for mercy at any moment, or take a terrified step back at a single word.
With just these few subtle adjustments,
the college student who knew how to fix computers in the corner of the grand hall vanished.
Standing in his place was the hostage prince who had scraped by in the cracks of the capital's court for ten years, looked down upon and treated as useless—
Chu Yan.
In the center of the hall,
the scene was still rolling.
The veteran actor playing the prime minister, Li Changming, took a step forward, unleashing his full presence.
The moment he spoke, the atmospheric pressure in the entire hall plummeted to rock bottom.
“If we fight, the treasury will be emptied! Where will the provisions and pay for these thirty thousand soldiers come from?”
The prime minister spun around abruptly, his heavy gaze pressing down hard on the Minister of War.
His sleeves whipped through the air, carving an incredibly oppressive arc.
“Minister, do you plan to personally go and forcibly conscript from the common folk?”
“Or do you plan to throw this mess onto His Majesty to decide?!”
Each sentence was heavier than the last.
Every word slammed directly into the chest of everyone present.
The Minister of War was pressed until his face turned pale, unable to find a single word to retort for a moment.
Behind the monitor,
Xu Pingqiu stared at the primary camera.
Li Changming was incredibly stable.
The emotional progression, the delivery of his lines, the intense gaze—everything showed the solid foundation of a veteran actor.
He was the anchor. As long as he stood there, the foundation of this court scene would never crumble.
Xu Pingqiu nodded to himself.
He originally intended to keep his eyes on the primary camera.
But in the next second, his gaze swept over the second monitor, which showed the wide-angle shot.
The wide shot was slowly zooming out.
In the frame, the hundred officials kept their heads lowered, the atmosphere was oppressive, and the extras were all visibly tense.
Everything looked perfectly normal.
Just as Xu Pingqiu was about to look away, that splash of navy blue in the corner of the screen caught his eye.
Jiang Yue.
The young man playing Chu Yan.
He stood at the very end of the crowd, his head buried low.
Logically speaking, such a marginal position was the easiest to turn into a background prop, easily ignored by the audience.
But Xu Pingqiu understood the camera too well.
Amidst a crowd of extras standing straight and orderly, Jiang Yue's posture carried a strong sense of being “out of place.”
Others were following the rules.
He was afraid.
From his shoulders to his toes, his entire being looked accustomed to shrinking into the shadows.
Timid.
Cowardly.
Fear bone-deep.
But right after,
in a blind spot that no one else noticed,
his lightly resting right toe slowly traced half a circle on the floor.
It was extremely slow.
Yet, Camera 2 caught this exact detail.
It was boredom.
And nonchalance.
While keeping his head down, watching the civil and military officials argue until they were red in the face, he was actually observing coldly from the sidelines.
Hidden beneath that cowardly shell was an outsider trapped in a cage for ten years, who had long seen through all the monsters and demons in this court.
He was watching a play.
A monkey show of officials tearing into each other.
In this instant, the contrast was immediately striking.
What was even more incredible was that Jiang Yue managed to blend these two contradictory states into the very same body.
The shoulders, the sleeves, the toes.
With just these few inconspicuous gestures, he had single-handedly fleshed out the character of Chu Yan from the narrow cracks of the scene.
Xu Pingqiu's hand, holding his thermos, froze in mid-air.
He even forgot to take a sip.
No lines, no clear face.
Even the camera wasn't focused on him.
Yet, relying solely on his posture and a few subtle movements, he had managed to carve out a powerful presence in the wide-angle shot.
Inside the hall,
the prime minister swept his sleeves, turned to face the dragon throne, and fell to his knees with a thud.
“Your servant begs Your Majesty to think twice!”
Behind him, the hundred officials fell to their knees in unison.
Chu Yan was mixed in the crowd.
He knelt faster and more skillfully than anyone else.
His wide sleeves even tripped up his knees slightly, making his movement look a bit clumsy.
But it was clumsy in the most perfect way.
“Cut!”
Xu Pingqiu's voice echoed through the hall via the megaphone.
“That's a wrap on this take!”
“Let's do one more for safety!”
The tense atmosphere in the hall instantly dissipated.
The extras got up one after another, rubbing their sore legs while quietly complaining that kneeling in period costumes was truly torture.
Supported by his assistant, Li Changming stood up, massaged his lower back, and strolled over to the director's booth.
He took a sip from his teacup and asked casually,
“Director Xu, was the emotion in that last part enough?”
“It was plenty.”
Xu Pingqiu pulled up the playback and pointed at the screen.
“Your performance was solid as a rock.”
Li Changming smiled.
He had heard this kind of praise too many times, so it didn't stir much emotion in him.
But when his gaze accidentally fell upon the screen,
which was displaying the wide-angle playback from Camera 2,
the veteran actor's sharp eyes caught something immediately.
After watching for just two seconds, the smile on Li Changming's face vanished.
He stared at the blurry figure in the navy-blue robe in the corner of the frame.
“Who is this kid?”
Xu Pingqiu didn't take his eyes off the monitor.
He casually uttered two words.
“Chu Yan.”
Li Changming froze.
Then he realized that Xu Pingqiu wasn't giving him the actor's name, but the character's.
On the screen,
before Jiang Yue knelt, his entire sequence of pulling in his chest, shrinking his shoulders, and covering his hands with his sleeves was incredibly eye-catching under the playback camera.
Li Changming watched for a moment, then suddenly turned to ask,
“Which agency is he with?”
“No agency.”
Xu Pingqiu's tone was casual, but it carried an inexplicable hint of humblebragging.
It was hard to tell what he was showing off.
“A complete amateur.”
“Never took a single day of acting class.”
Li Changming stared straight at him.
“Bullshit.”
He didn't spare him any face.
Xu Pingqiu almost choked on his water.
Li Changming pointed at the screen, his tone extremely serious.
“This kind of ease, this courtly air rooted deep in his bones, and you're telling me he's a college student who hasn't even graduated yet?”
“His posture adjustments just now, and the way his center of gravity shifted right before kneeling, are more precise than many veterans who have rolled around on the theater stage for over a decade!”
“He really carries the flavor of that era on him.”
With that, he watched the playback once more.
The more he watched, the tighter his brow furrowed.
Not because he thought it was bad,
but because he found it too ridiculous.
A young man with no background and no formal training, standing in a corner where his face wasn't even clearly visible, could actually capture the core of Chu Yan so perfectly.
How the hell could this be explained by mere “hard work”?
Li Changming held his breath for a long while before finally speaking.
“Is this acting instinct... natural-born?”
“What else could it be?”
Xu Pingqiu picked up his thermos again and took a slow, leisurely sip.
But the corners of his mouth were practically impossible to keep down.
“All I can say is, some people are just born to be fed by the heavens.”
Li Changming fell silent for a moment, then nodded in agreement.
Rate on N.U.
