Reborn Action Star: Starting in Hollywood

Chapter 436 The Fairy's On and Offstage

Seeing Lin Yuan withdrawing money from the till, the assistant director asked curiously, "Did China already have the prototype of a bank during the Tang Dynasty?"

Director Nolan nodded. "Yes. While this cash box doesn't offer the ability to issue loans, it primarily addresses the inconvenience of carrying large sums of money. After all, where there's commercial demand, the financial industry naturally emerges."

"What about the origins of our banks in Europe and America?" the assistant director asked curiously.

"You know, the Mediterranean region is a maritime trading civilization," director Nolan replied.

"What do you mean?" asked the assistant director.

"Since it is a maritime trade civilization, a supporting system will naturally be born. The earliest prototype of a bank can be traced back to Babylon in 2000 BC. At that time, the temples were already engaged in activities such as storing gold and silver, issuing loans, and collecting interest." Director Nolan said.

"The earliest forms of banks can be found in Greece in 500 BC, Athens in 400 BC, and the Roman Empire in 200 BC.

Ancient Rome also gave birth to a series of virtual systems that matched commerce, including property law, the legal person system, and ocean bills of lading. ” Director Nolan continued.

"Well, objective reality determines social systems, and materialism sometimes makes sense," the assistant director said shruggedly. "But since Chang'an's bank prototype isn't particularly advanced, why did Lin Yuan even show it in the film?"

"I think this is confidence and magnanimity. Regardless of whether it is advanced or not, it is presented truthfully. Unlike some countries that like to distort the facts, this is actually a manifestation of lack of confidence." Director Nolan replied.

In front of the big screen, Lin Yuan and Liu Yufei came to Hufang.

There are a large number of Hu shops here, and a wide variety of goods that are different from those in the Central Plains are displayed in front of them.

The two walked to a shop selling aromatic herbs, where various sachets filled with aromatic herbs were displayed.

"Look, that embroidered sachet is so beautiful!" Liu Yufei said with a smile.

"Then buy it." Lin Yuan replied.

"If the boss hears you saying this, how can I bargain?" Liu Yufei said dissatisfiedly.

Lin Yuan was speechless...

If you start by praising the embroidered sachet for its beauty, won't the boss take advantage of you as well?
When women shop, the fun is often not in what they buy, but in how much cheaper they can bargain for.

In the end, Liu Yufei bought the embroidered sachet for 45 wen, which the Persian merchant had originally offered for 50 wen.

She didn't bargain much, but she just kept doing it.

"You bought two? Are you planning to use them alternately?" Lin Yuan asked curiously.

"The other one is for Sister Gao." Liu Yufei replied with a smile.

"Sister Gao?" Lin Yuan felt something was wrong.

"Sister Gao Yuan, I have taken such good care of your life in Yunzhou. I should give you some gifts to express my gratitude." Liu Yufei did not meet his eyes and turned to look at other shops.

"You know her?"

"Of course! We often correspond, and every time you risked your life on a mission, you never told your family. I could only ask Sister Gao."

Lin Yuan no longer had to guess where Liu Yufei's information came from. After all, the entire Yunzhou City was saying that Gao Yuanyuan was his mistress. As long as his wife was interested, she would always be able to find out the news.

Seeing that she was not angry, Lin Yuan immediately felt much more at ease.

"Let's go buy some more jewelry. I heard that the Hu people are good at identifying treasures and are very honest in the jewelry business. The jewelry they sell is of good quality and inexpensive." Liu Yufei pulled Lin Yuan to a jewelry stall.

Lin Yuan smiled and nodded. Hu Shang was indeed quite reliable.

There are a large number of literary works about Hu merchants in the Tang Dynasty. The most famous of them are the "Hu Merchants Recognizing Treasures" series of stories. Among them, "Water Pearls", "Blue Mud Pearls", "Kunlun Slaves", "Li Mian" and other stories are quite famous and can be regarded as masterpieces handed down from generation to generation.

If you look closely at these works, you'll find that they use almost the same story template:

That is, the people of the Tang Dynasty lacked vision and could not recognize that something that seemed ordinary was actually a treasure.

However, Hu Shang saw the rarity of this treasure at a glance, bought it at a high price, and demonstrated the magical uses of the treasure.

Contradictions, contrasts, reversals, and oddities—it has all the necessary elements. No wonder it became a creation story that the ancients enjoyed talking about.

An example will make this clearer.

For example, there is a story called "Water Drops".

The origin of this story is that the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty bestowed a precious pearl named "Water Pearl" on the Da'an Temple, which was said to be worth billions.

However, the monks in the temple who did not know the value of the stone thought it was just an ordinary piece of broken stone. They believed that the emperor was fooling them and that this "water drop" was worthless.

With a try-it-out attitude, the monks took this thing called "water bead", which looked like a broken stone, to the market and sold it for billions.

As a result, all the spectators laughed at the monks, thinking they were crazy about money.

The monks were so angry that they wanted to throw the stone away.

At this time, a Hu merchant from the Western Regions appeared. He stopped the monk who was about to throw the stone and said that he was willing to buy the stone for 40 million strings of cash.

In the Tang Dynasty, one string of copper coins was equivalent to 1 yuan in purchasing power, and 2000 strings was equivalent to 1 million yuan. Therefore, people often describe someone as wealthy as "waisted with a million yuan."

But this Western Region Hu merchant could actually offer a price of 40 million strings of cash?
This is equivalent to 800 billion in purchasing power today, which is obviously an exaggeration in the story.

This is similar to the meaning of exaggerated numbers like billion, trillion, and kilobyte in Indian mythology.

Back to the story, after the Hu merchant bought the "water drop" for 40 million strings of cash, the onlookers were very curious and asked him why he was willing to spend so much money to buy a broken stone?
The merchant replied, "My hometown is the Kingdom of the Caliphate. This 'water pearl' is a treasure from my hometown. I don't know how it ended up here. The King of the Caliphate once publicly announced that whoever finds this pearl will be appointed Prime Minister. So I've made a fortune by buying it."

They asked him again, "What use is this broken stone? Why would the King of the Arabs be willing to trade him for his position as Prime Minister?"

The Arab merchant smiled and said, "Legend has it that the Arab army ran out of water while marching in the desert and was almost dying of thirst. The king dug a two-foot-deep pit in the ground and buried the pearl. Soon, a spring gushed out, enough water for thousands of people to drink."

Everyone expressed disbelief after hearing this. How could such an outrageous thing be possible?
So Hu Shang immediately dug a hole in the ground.

When he buried the pearl in the pit, water immediately gushed out like a spring, and clear, sweet spring water flowed out of the pit.

Only then did everyone realize the magic of this gem. When they went to look for the Hu merchant again, they found that he had disappeared.

The story of "Water Drops" is just one of the stories in the series "Hu Merchants Identify Treasures".

This series of stories are all told using the same template.

In this template, when the Hu people and the Tang people made transactions, they did not take advantage of the Tang people's ignorance of the value of the goods to lower the price and steal the treasures at extremely low prices.

Instead, they bought the treasures at a fairly reasonable price, which reflected the business ethics of honesty and mutual benefit of the Hu merchants.

The fact that such a series of stories can be widely circulated among the people and be generally recognized shows one thing:

In the eyes of the general public in the Tang Dynasty, Hu merchants were indeed not the kind of people who cheated and deceived others, but rather the image of people who operated with integrity.

Therefore, Liu Yufei said: I heard that the Hu people are good at identifying treasures, and they are very honest in the jewelry business. The jewelry they sell is of good quality and low price.

Lin Yuan also nodded in agreement.

This is also the reason why the embroidered sachet that was previously 50 wen can only be bargained down to 45 wen.

Liu Yufei picked out a few more pieces of jewelry from Hu Shang's jewelry stall. She bought two of each, spending less than 400 coins in total.

After a round of shopping, Liu Yufei was already satisfied, but she still spent less than 500 coins.

She smiled and said to Lin Yuan, "We've bought everything we wanted. Let's go eat."

"Okay, let's go to Zuixiaolou now. I hope it won't be full during the Lantern Festival, otherwise we'll have to queue." Lin Yuan said.

Liu Yufei grabbed him and said, "Going to Zuixiaolou is too expensive. I think this restaurant is pretty good!"

She pointed to a Hu people's tavern on the street not far away.

In addition to spices and jewelry, the most popular business among Hu merchants in Chang'an was the catering industry.

Li Bai wrote in "Two Poems of Youth": "Where will I go after stepping on all the fallen flowers? I will laugh and walk into the wine shop of a Hu girl."

He also wrote in "Two Poems to Send Pei Shibatu South on His Return to Mount Song": "Where can I say goodbye? At the Qingqi Gate of Chang'an. A Hu girl beckons with her white hands, inviting guests to drink from golden cups."

From this we can see that the biggest selling point of the Hu people's wine shop is the Hu girls.

You are talking nonsense. You are wrong.

To repeat, it should be fine wine.

But no matter what, watching the high-nosed, deep-eyed, and fair-skinned Hu Ji dancing, drinking sweet and delicious wine, and eating exotic Western cuisine are all a special enjoyment.

This kind of enjoyment can only be felt during the powerful, open and inclusive Tang Dynasty.

Seeing that Liu Yufei was indeed not interested in "Zuixiaolou", Lin Yuan did not insist on going there to waste money.

So the two of them walked into this Hu people's tavern.

At this moment, director Nolan, who was behind the camera, said with emotion: "I was always worried that the filming of this scene would not go smoothly, but I didn't expect the progress to be beyond my imagination."

The assistant director said with emotion: "Yes, it is so difficult to gather extras for this scene. If I were suitable, I would have done it myself." The extras the two directors were talking about were of course not the Chinese extras who played the role of Tang Dynasty civilians, but the foreign extras who played the role of the Hu people.

It is not easy to gather these extras, because in Director Nolan's requirements:

Persian merchants must be played by Iranians, Arab merchants must be played by Arabs, and Western Region merchants must be played by people from the Stan countries in Central Asia.

This is not because Director Nolan is too picky.

For Chinese audiences, all foreigners look the same. As long as you find a few people with high noses to play these Western merchants, there won’t be much difference and you can’t tell the difference anyway.

However, "The Legend of Tang Dynasty" will be released worldwide. Chinese audiences may not be able to see it, but the same may not be true for European and American audiences.

If you find a German to play a Western merchant and a British to play a Persian, European and American audiences will see through it at a glance.

The images of Chinese people in many Hollywood movies seem very standard to foreigners, but they seem weird to domestic users.

Therefore, Director Nolan tried his best to avoid this situation and must strive for excellence and do his best.

This scene took so long to prepare because it was really hard to find extras for Hu Shang.

But this problem was finally solved, thanks to Lin Yuan's appeal.

When the crew of "The Legend of Tang Dynasty" issued a notice to recruit extras in the name of Lin Yuan to foreigners working and living in Nanyue City and Guangdong Province.

A large number of extras who met the requirements immediately appeared.

They all said they didn't need performance fees, they just wanted to take photos with Lin Yuan and get his autograph.

Thus, the problem that had troubled director Nolan for a long time was solved.

Director Nolan couldn't help but sigh that Lin Yuan's popularity and appeal are now truly invincible!

In short, this Lantern Festival scene in Chang'an was very difficult to shoot and required overcoming various difficulties.

However, no matter how difficult it is to shoot, Director Nolan insists on completing it with the best quality, so as to show the splendor of Chang'an, the capital of the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and show the world audience the majesty of the world's largest city at that time.

In front of the camera, Lin Yuan and Liu Yufei walked into this Hu people's tavern.

They immediately saw Meng Tao sitting not far from the door.

He was drinking alone.

"Why are you drinking here alone? Where is your sister-in-law?" Lin Yuan and Liu Yufei sat down.

"Huh? What a coincidence, we meet." Meng Tao was a little dazed after drinking.

He said vaguely, "Your sister-in-law said she had an appointment with another woman and was going out to get her hair done. So I came here to drink alone."

Do your hair?
What hairstyle should I do during Lantern Festival?
Although Lin Yuan felt something was wrong, he still said, "Then let's have dinner together."

"As long as you don't mind me being an eyesore." Meng Tao smiled and poured another glass of wine into his mouth.

"No, it's more fun when it's more lively." Lin Yuan replied with a smile.

After saying that, he called the waiter and ordered a bunch of food and drinks.

Soon, various delicacies with Western characteristics were served on the table:

There is no need to explain the three classic dishes: wine, Hu pancakes, and mutton in a basin.

New specialties have also been added, such as naan wrapped meat, pepper chicken, spicy lamb trotters, and tripe wrapped meat.

The three of them ate and drank while watching Hu Ji's graceful dance, feeling very happy.

But as he was eating, Meng Tao's smile suddenly froze.

His eyes were blazing as he stared at the door, his eyes full of sorrow and a hint of relief.

Lin Yuan and Liu Yufei followed his gaze.

Meng's wife, played by Zhang Ziyu, was seen walking into the tavern arm in arm with a handsome monk.

Looking at Zhang Ziyu's eyes full of peach blossoms, she seemed to wish she could hang them on the monk. Anyone would know what happened.

"bass!"

Meng Tao stood up and rushed to the door.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Lin Yuan and Liu Yufei followed.

"You bitch! You tricked me and my female companion into getting my hair done, but ended up cheating on me with another man!" Meng Tao said coldly.

He was not angry at this moment, because he had a premonition that his wife would turn against him.

Although he thought he had let it go long ago, his heart still felt like it was being stabbed by a knife.

Zhang Ziyu was caught in an affair, but she didn't feel guilty at all. Instead, she asked loudly, "You coward! So what if you saw me? Are you going to divorce me? Or report me to the police?"

As we all know, the Tang Dynasty was a time when all nations came to pay tribute.

In this prosperous era, people will naturally be more open and tolerant.

Therefore, the Tang Dynasty law stipulated: "Those who commit adultery shall be sentenced to one and a half years in prison for both men and women, and two years for those who are married."

The "heterosexual" here should mean that the woman takes the initiative to cheat, and the adulterer is punished with the same crime.

"I'll kill you!" Lin Yuan stepped forward angrily.

"Ah! This matter has nothing to do with me." The handsome monk was so scared that he hid behind Zhang Ziyu, completely lacking the responsibility of a man.

Meng Tao grabbed Lin Yuan and said, "Don't be impulsive. It's not worth it for a cheap woman."

"I'm cheap? You've been away from home all year, and all the burdens fall on me alone. Have you ever thought about how I feel?" Zhang Ziyu roared angrily.

"I'm not afraid to tell you, you wimp, that I've been married to you for ten years, and I haven't had as much fun as three nights with him!"

"Whatever you want, I'll take it! I've had enough of this!"

Hearing his wife's roar, Meng Tao's face turned pale.

He whispered weakly, "Go away. We are done with each other now."

Zhang Ziyu stared at Meng Tao intently. After a while, she grabbed the handsome monk, turned around and walked out of the tavern, disappearing in the crowd.

At this point, Lin Yuan asked, "Are we just going to let them go like this? If we report them to the police, they'll definitely be in big trouble."

Meng Tao shook his head and said, "Forget it, I'm tired, let it be."

"You guys take your time eating, I'm going to go back and rest first." After saying that, he patted Lin Yuan's shoulder and walked out alone.

The back figure is so lonely that it is hard to imagine that this is a brave and fearless general charging into battle.

"Cut!"

Director Nolan shouted with satisfaction.

"It's perfect. I'm very satisfied with this scene tonight. We can call it a day," said Director Nolan.

"I'm going to take a break. I'm a little tired." Meng Tao looked a little lonely. It was obvious that he was too involved in the scene just now.

He walked aside and sat down alone.

No one disturbed him, leaving him space to adjust his mood.

Lin Yuan was surrounded by a group of foreign extras, and was busy taking photos with them and signing autographs.

Liu Yufei stood alone in the center of the field, looking around with a smile.

In fact, she also felt the same way about tonight's scene.

She can fully feel and understand all the heroine's mental states.

But after restraining herself all night, she was not in a bad mood at this moment, on the contrary, she was in a good mood.

Because, after she put herself in the shoes of the heroine tonight, she experienced a Lantern Festival date that spanned a thousand years. This feeling was so good that it diluted all her melancholy.

Ever since Lin Yuan became famous, it was no longer possible for her and Lin Yuan to go shopping together, nor could they go on dates in public. This was the price of fame.

Although they were just acting tonight, Lin Yuan accompanied her shopping, watching performances and eating delicious food. Isn't this much different from a real date?
What’s more, the experience is a date during the Tang Dynasty, which is a completely different experience.

Liu Yufei is such a person who does not fight or compete and is easily satisfied.

This night was filled with joy and sorrow.

(End of this chapter)