Disguised as a Man, She Has Eight Men Fighting Over Her - Chapter 45
Chapter 45
Lin Cheng cursed inwardly: *A son of a bitch.*
Xie Zhi narrowed his eyes and bent lower. “Cursing me?”
“No!” Lin Cheng stuck out her neck.
Xie Zhi flicked her forehead. “Liar.”
“Ow—you!” She instinctively swung a fist, but Xie Zhi easily caught her wrist. His fingers tightened slightly, one brow rising.
So slender.
He could hold both wrists in one hand.
Lin Cheng yanked free and glared without the slightest intimidation.
Xie Zhi chuckled and sat back down.
“Save your energy. It isn’t even evening.”
“Evening?” Lin Cheng eyed him suspiciously. “What do you mean?”
“There’s an important scene tonight.” Xie Zhi tapped her hat brim with the script. “Won’t a little eunuch like you be running around serving everyone?”
Lin Cheng pouted and reluctantly murmured assent.
Flipping through the script, Xie Zhi seemed to remember something.
“What happened between you and Liu Yang?”
“They insulted you. I overheard and taught them a lesson,” Lin Cheng answered honestly.
She had caused trouble. A mere eunuch could not solve it, so she might as well shelter beneath an emperor.
Xie Zhi froze.
He clearly had not expected her to offend Liu Yang for his sake. A low laugh escaped his throat.
“Such loyalty deserves a reward. Tell me what you want.”
“Give me your throne.”
Xie Zhi: “…”
Lin Cheng ignored him, pulled her hat low over most of her face, and curled up drowsily in a wicker chair.
Darkness fell. A furious roar woke her.
“Liang Zhi, can you act or not? How many NGs has it been? Don’t you understand how you feel about your imperial brother? Again!”
Lin Cheng rubbed her eyes and sat up.
In the lakeside pavilion, Xie Zhi was acting opposite the man called Liang Zhi.
She remembered the scene from rehearsing with Xie Zhi last night.
The plot was absurdly melodramatic: Prince Song Yan secretly loved his imperial brother, while the emperor’s favorite, Consort Li, loved the prince. The emperor therefore bestowed poisoned wine to sever that longing.
They were filming the poison taking effect. Liang Zhi needed to portray unrequited love and the complex explosion of emotion at death’s door. Unfortunately, his performance was mediocre.
“Stop! Liang Zhi, is that the agony of poison? It looks like constipation!” Fu Shan hurled down the script.
“I want love! Despair mixed with release! Can you do it or not? Wrap for the night!”
Xie Zhi rubbed his brow and strode toward the rest canopy, looking tired.
Lin Cheng took water to meet him.
“Brother Xie Zhi, have some water.”
She had slept all afternoon without helping, so she was particularly attentive now.
“Finally willing to wake up?” Xie Zhi drank, and some of his weariness seemed to fade.
Director Fu paced furiously nearby. When he looked up, he saw the two figures under the canopy.
Without her hat, Lin Cheng’s ingratiating eyes sparkled beneath the set lights. Her slender body was swallowed by the costume, giving her a delicate, fragile, almost feminine air.
Fu Shan rubbed his chin.
Feminine. Fragile. And that indescribable emotion in her eyes—wasn’t this the soul Song Yan needed? A man who harbored forbidden love for his imperial brother and died in despair.
Liang Zhi lived up to his name. He was simply too straight.
“You—the promising kid Ji Hanzhou sent. Come here.”
Fu Shan waved his rolled script and shouted as though he had discovered a new continent.
Lin Cheng startled and turned with bewilderment.
Xie Zhi frowned at Fu Shan’s sudden excitement. “What is it, Fu Shan?”
Fu Shan did not answer. He stared avidly at Lin Cheng.
“Yes, exactly that feeling. Why didn’t I see it before?”
He turned and roared at his assistant, “Find a Prince Song Yan costume in his size.”
“Director, you want Lin Chen to try Song Yan’s scene?”
“Of course. If Liang Zhi were half as bent—wonderful—as he is…”
Xie Zhi hooked an arm around the dazed Lin Cheng and leaned lazily toward her ear.
“Hurry and thank Director Fu.”
His body heat passed through the fabric at her back. She instinctively tried to escape, but he held her shoulder firmly and raised a brow in warning.
Lin Cheng had no choice but to bow in that position.
“Thank you for the opportunity, Director Fu.”
The movement inevitably brushed her small backside against the root of Xie Zhi’s thigh, gone almost before it registered. The hand around her shoulder seemed to lose some strength.
Fu Shan no longer hesitated.
“Good. Change and get into makeup. Give him the lines. We’ll test a take immediately.”
Staff took Lin Cheng to the main makeup room.
When she emerged in the moon-white robes of a prince, a silver crown atop long black hair draped over her chest, Fu Shan repeatedly smacked his lips.
“Perfect. Perfect.”
Even Xie Zhi was amazed. It was his first time seeing Lin Cheng with long hair. Though she played a male character, she possessed an androgynous beauty surpassing even many actresses he had worked with.
If Song Yan truly looked like this, he wondered, could Emperor Songhui remain unmoved?
Xie Zhi shook away the absurd thought and approached.
“Memorized your lines?”
Lin Cheng nodded. The ruby on her silver crown glittered with the movement.
They sat in the lakeside pavilion.
Director Fu briefly explained the scene, then asked, “Ready? Need more time?”
Lin Cheng drew a deep breath and shook her head.
“No. Thank you, Director.”
Fu Shan returned to the monitor, cigarette between his lips, and narrowed his eyes.
“Very camera-friendly.”
“Scene One Twenty-Six, Camera S. Action!”
Lin Cheng lowered her eyes, lashes casting shadows beneath them. She slowly grasped the white-jade wine cup, fingertips trembling.
“Imperial Brother, do you remember that great snowstorm at the northern frontier?”
Her gaze rose from the cup to Xie Zhi’s face, resentful yet hiding a humble thread of hope. Xie Zhi’s heartbeat inexplicably stumbled, though he answered evenly.
“We have not forgotten.”
“But what of it?” His tone turned abruptly cold.
Lin Cheng’s eyes reddened instantly. She tilted her head back slightly, fingers whitening around the cup.
“Hahaha… What of it, indeed.”
Xie Zhi watched her, complex emotion and hidden killing intent in his gaze.
“Consort Li is Our woman. Of all the things you should never have done…”
Lin Cheng looked at her imperial brother, finding it both absurd and tragic.
“Enough. This wine—your younger brother will drink it.” She emptied the cup.
Xie Zhi swept his sleeve and turned away.
Lin Cheng braced one hand on the stone table and clutched her chest with the other, eyes closing as tears slid down.
“All my life… I have been trapped by palace walls, trapped by morality.” Her voice held nearly suffocating pain and self-mockery.
Xie Zhi spun, his voice cold with ridicule.
“Oh? Coveting your imperial sister-in-law—is that your morality?”
“Cough…” Lin Cheng coughed blood. When she looked at Xie Zhi, years of buried love had finally broken through the soil.
“Does Imperial Brother know…”
“The one I have always coveted is you.”
Xie Zhi’s brows snapped together. He seized her throat.
“Song Yan, you disgust Us.”
His tone held utter revulsion, yet his thumb caressed the tender skin of her neck with lingering intimacy. Combined with her tear-streaked face, it made his throat itch.
As if possessed, he lifted his hand and wiped the tear from the corner of her eye.
Lin Cheng’s tear-clouded eyes narrowed, her heart jumping.
*Brother, that wasn’t in the script!*
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