Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 611 If I had known, I would have been a scumbag too.
As expected, Irene Schumakova, the Venice Film Festival's film selector, arrived in Beijing after New Year's Day.

Elena is usually in charge of selecting films from Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia, and rarely comes to China. However, because the Asian film selector for the Venice Film Festival left two years ago and has not yet been replaced, she has taken over the Asian section.

Accompanying her was Chen Zhiheng, a native of Lucheng, who had left the Venice Film Festival's Asian film selector two years prior.

A protégé of Marco Müller, he was brought into the Venice Film Festival selection committee by Marco Müller. When Marco Müller's term expired, he also went to the Rome Film Festival. After Marco Müller stepped down in Rome, he returned to his home country. Now he is the director of the Silk Road Film Festival and also has his own film company.

What kind of situation is this, with the ex introducing business to the current partner?

Elena came for the same reason as Jon: to see the quality of "The Butterfly Lovers" and to get Li Qiutang to go to Venice.

Filming for "The Butterfly Lovers" wrapped up in March, and the deadline for submissions to the Venice Film Festival is June. If we work a little faster, there's enough time.

“If that’s not enough, I can extend it to July.” Elena didn’t initially offer to make up for the missed recording.

Li Qiutang thought about it. Under normal circumstances, working overtime would indeed allow him to make it to Venice, but Li Qiutang did not rashly agree to Elena's request because he considered that he had another movie to shoot later.

"The Wandering Earth" will inevitably take up most of his time and energy, so it's easy to imagine that the later stages of "The Butterfly Lovers" will be completed very, very slowly.

Li Qiutang thought to himself, and Chen Zhiheng also tried to persuade him: "Director, Venice is a great opportunity, just agree."

Li Qiutang wanted to agree, but she had to consider the actual situation behind it.

Chen Zhiheng proposed a compromise: "You agree first, and you can continue filming as usual, and do the post-production as usual. If there's enough time, send it to Venice, and Elena will make things easier for you. If there's not enough time, then forget it, there's nothing we can do."

This plan was also agreed to by Elena Schumakova, and neither side would lose out.

Li Qiutang thought about it and agreed.

As Elena left, she shook hands with Li Qiutang and said, "See you in Venice."

"See you in Venice." Li Qiutang nodded, though he was still unsure.

After seeing Elena and the other person off, Li Qiutang returned to the film crew.

One of the tricky issues encountered during the filming of "The Butterfly Lovers" was the timing of the season.

The film is set around 08 and will cover three major national events: the Southern China snowstorm, the Great Earthquake, and the Olympics.

Filming in winter is easy, since it's winter in Yanjing right now.

Indoor scenes are relatively easy to film, but the difficulty lies in outdoor scenes during the summer and autumn seasons.

Winters in Yanjing are very cold. The actors had to film outdoors wearing thin clothes meant for summer and autumn, which was really tough for them.

To prevent their breath from causing continuity errors, the actors had to hold a mouthful of ice water in their mouths to lower their oral temperature before filming began and then deliver their lines.

According to Liu Yifei, she relied entirely on her righteous spirit to film outdoor scenes.

"Take off your down jacket and rush forward, reciting your lines, then quickly put your down jacket back on. You can't even drink hot water."

But Li Qiutang's focus was: "Didn't Bosideng give you a down jacket? Why are you still wearing this one?" Bosideng officially announced Liu Yifei as its brand ambassador after National Day this year, and gave the couple three down jackets each. Li Qiutang is currently wearing Bosideng's new clothes, which are fine and more than enough to cope with Beijing's winter.

But Liu Yifei was still wearing her maroon down jacket.

“You’ve been wearing this ever since I met you, and you’re still wearing it now.”

Qin Hao interrupted from the side, saying, "I've wanted to ask this for a long time. Are you abusing Yifei and not letting her buy clothes? These clothes are so old, they look older than me."

“Look,” Li Qiutang said helplessly, “I ask her to change it every year, and she agrees every year, but then she doesn’t buy it. One year, I bought her two pieces, she wore them once, and then changed back to this one.”

“This one is comfortable and fits snugly.” Every time Liu Yifei talks about her two vintage down jackets, she uses these two words, and she even pulls the jacket over so that others can feel the fabric. “Don’t let its age fool you, it’s incredibly warm.”

Anyway, she had her reasons, so Li Qiutang didn't say anything more. "Once you've rested, let's get filming started." After chatting for a while, Li Qiutang ushered the two out of the director's booth and prepared to start filming.

During the day, Liu Yifei was in good spirits, chatting and laughing. But after work in the evening, especially after Li Qiutang returned from the group meeting, Liu Yifei suddenly clutched her stomach and rolled around in pain on the bed before going to sleep.

Liu Yifei wasn't like this before, but recently she's been filming summer scenes in winter, and with the wind blowing and ice water in her mouth, she caught a cold.

Li Qiutang made her brown sugar water and put a heat pack on her stomach, but Liu Yifei still kept cursing.

They criticized Li Qiutang for being inconsiderate of the actors, insisting on filming summer scenes in winter, and now she's suffering this terrible fate.

Li Qiutang knew that at this time, whatever a woman said was meaningless, and he would ignore whatever she said.

Would you like some more water?

"I'm not drinking anymore." She continued to yell, "You don't love me at all."

"I love you, I love you," Li Qiutang could only coax her now, "If I didn't love you, I wouldn't have married you."

"You love me, yet you make me suffer like this."

"Yes, yes, yes, your husband deserves to die. He made you suffer." Li Qiutang placed the hot water on the bedside table.

“Come up and hug me.” Liu Yifei desperately needed her husband’s embrace.

Li Qiutang climbed into bed, pulled his wife into his arms, and placed one hand on her stomach.

"It's so pitiful to be a woman."

"Mmm." Leaning against her husband's chest, with his comfort and caresses, Liu Yifei felt much better.

Li Qiutang then said, "I have a way to save you from this suffering."

"What can you do?" Liu Yifei looked up at her husband.

Li Qiutang remained silent, but everything was understood without words. Liu Yifei quickly realized what was going on and laughed angrily: "Are you trying to kill me? You still have the mind to think about these things now."

"It's a solution." Li Qiutang wasn't so drastic as to fight to the death; he was just teasing his wife.

Liu Yifei was in excruciating pain, and it can't be said that the production team was entirely without responsibility, so Li Qiutang could only try to appease her with kind words.

Liu Yifei didn't cause any trouble and prioritized the production team. She's been acting for ten years and has experienced similar situations before.

On the other hand, the first big scandal in the entertainment industry in 2017 came from Chen Sicheng.

Chen Sicheng had a late-night rendezvous with two women in the presidential suite of a hotel.

That's right, two!
The entire process was captured clearly by reporters.

In fact, this is not the first time Chen Sicheng has been exposed for "suspected infidelity". In June 2014, five months after Chen Sicheng and Tong Liya got married, a reporter photographed Chen Sicheng meeting a young woman at night. They had a meal that lasted four hours and stayed at one of Chen Sicheng's apartments for two hours, spending a total of six hours alone together.

They were photographed again, but so what?
Chen Sicheng didn't care at all, and Tong Liya pretended not to hear and didn't respond for the time being.

It has to be said that Chen Sicheng's "scumbag" and "greasy man" persona remains strong, and the audience doesn't care what he does.

It's completely collapsed, what else can we do?

"Is being a scumbag so great? I wish I had become one too," Li Qiutang thought.

(End of this chapter)