Uneasy daily life

Huh? Lately, it seems like I've been the one giving orders?

Bai Ying chuckled: "Director! The investors just sent someone over to ask about the progress!"

Mikawa was shocked: "They're already urging us?!"

Uesugi Taro grinned maliciously, "That's right! I'll send you to work!"

Mikawaki instantly lost the ability to resist. He calculated his work schedule, thought about the existence of the investors, and looked at the two screenwriters who had suddenly joined forces...

Is there really a monarchy that lasted only two days?

"...Sister, isn't the film crew you're on a bit strange?"

The two screenwriters dragged the director to the set and yelled at him with strange things like, "Shift the camera 2 millimeters to the left," "Your spatial sense isn't refined enough," "It's too stream-of-consciousness, the scene is too stream-of-consciousness," and "Mediocre shots, no highlights."

Feng Bin and Hua always felt that there was something wrong with this production team.

"Perhaps it's because of the charisma of the haters?" Mai Sakurajima thought for a moment, "Anyway, it's all good."

"what?"

Feng Bin and Hua's cheeks twitched slightly.

"Wahana, did Yukinoshita ask you to help write the script?" Mai Sakurajima suddenly asked.

“She did ask, but I can’t write scripts, so I can only play a supporting role at best,” Feng Binhua said happily. “I’ve already prepared to ask for leave on the day of my sister’s school’s cultural festival.”

"Then let's go to Yukinoshita's house together later..."

Mai Sakurajima was speaking when she was suddenly interrupted by a sound coming from the set.

Although he was a screenwriter, just like in previous production crews, he inexplicably took on the role of acting instructor, giving pointers on the actors' performances.

"The fourth episode is about the taste of a wanderer. What does it mean to be a wanderer?" Bai Ying asked the actor, who was nearly thirty, with her hands behind her back. "What should a wanderer miss when he is away from home?"

The actor hesitated and said, "My parents and my hometown..."

Bai Ying asked again, "Then the question is, why do you miss your parents and hometown?"

The male actor looked at the director, seeking help from off-set.

"I miss the environment at home, the local customs and traditions, and my parents whom I can only communicate with every now and then..." San Chuanmu tried to regain some of the director's power, "From this perspective, it is the feeling of a wanderer away from home."

"Nonsense!" Bai Ying retorted. "Of course, people miss their hometowns because they're not doing well!"

Mikawaki: "?"

Male actor: "?"

"Think carefully, recall!" The white figure circled the male actor, describing him softly and ethereally, "You were born in the countryside, and naturally longed for the more prosperous and convenient life in the big city. So you packed your bags and came to the big city full of dreams, but life here is very difficult for you—life is constantly chasing you, your dreams are long gone, and when your family writes, you always have to pretend that everything is fine and answer that everything is well..."

"Those who cross the mountain peaks are always a minority, while those in similar circumstances always gather under the pull of gravity. When you look up, the difficulties are like a thousand mountains, with no road in sight. When you look down, the figures are like duckweed, occasionally forming clusters. The high spirits have long been worn away, leaving only a little longing for the past, pointing far away to the hometown."

The male actor suspected that the screenwriter was reading his resume aloud.

"You're not doing well. You can neither return home in glory nor reunite with your family." Bai Ying's voice turned cold. "It was easy to come here, but hard to leave. All that's left is longing, only longing, nothing but longing."

"In the stillness of the night, loneliness suddenly awakens. You see a restaurant and spot a dish from your hometown on the menu outside, so you go in and order. As you eat the food from your hometown, the more you eat, the more you feel that the taste is not right, and it feels very unfamiliar. So you can't help but comment - in the end, the chef from another place can't make the local food taste like it. It's not authentic enough and can't reproduce the taste of home."

The actor nodded in agreement, saying, "That's true. I occasionally order Ishikari Nabe, but I can hardly taste the authentic flavor."

"However, those are authentic raw materials, authentic cooking methods, and authentic flavors. In today's world with advanced transportation and information, is it really that difficult to achieve these?"

Bai Ying asked incisively, "Is it possible that it's not that the hometown cuisine in other places is strange and unfamiliar, but that the hometown cuisine no longer recognizes you after wandering for so many years?"

actor:"?"

The actor lost control of his emotions slightly. Bai Ying was punished for disrupting the filming. The director took back his right to give instructions, settled his wages, and drove him aside.

Perhaps it's because he's getting older, but Uesugi Taro sighed with some emotion: "The feeling of a wanderer lost in his hometown is somewhat like asking a stranger where they come from... But the third episode that's already aired has the taste of home, doesn't it?"

Bai Ying nodded: "Yes, I did it on purpose."

The third episode is very positive, using food to evoke memories of one's hometown and creating a gentle warmth. The fourth episode, on the other hand, brings the taste of a wanderer's journey, still evoking the feeling of a wanderer lost in their homeland...

Malicious intent, malicious backstabbing!

An old man and a young boy stared at each other, sparks flying and lightning crackling.

"I'm just an outsider player, I've already received my salary, and I'm all set." Bai Ying flicked the banknotes she had just received. "Screenwriter Uesugi still needs to work harder and rack his brains more."

Uesugi Taro's eyes twitched slightly, stung by the sudden thought, and he couldn't help but feel a surge of jealousy—Damn it! Seeing his colleague escape the torment of stunts was even more painful than his own stunts!

"The Taste of a Wanderer, This One Is Truly Excellent."

Looking at the film set where they were shooting, Uesugi Taro glanced at the young man who had been counting money with him for two days and couldn't help but reminisce: "When I was young and impetuous, I also left my hometown without hesitation and wandered around for ten years. The farther I went and the longer I was away, the more difficult my life became, and the heavier the burden on my heart became... Turning to screenwriting felt like a joke of fate."

"Mr. Uesugi changed careers?" Bai Ying raised an eyebrow. "From bricklaying to writing?"

“I was an actor when I was young. I even worked as an extra in several well-known classic movies,” Taro Uesugi laughed. “Once I accidentally injured myself and was hospitalized. I realized that my body seemed to be unable to fight anymore, and I couldn’t even get a proper explanation… When I thought that my body was no longer good, my spirits were also broken. While recovering from my injury, I picked up a pen by chance, and that’s how I ended up here today.”

Bai Ying said knowingly, "A wanderer has no roots, but in the end, a foreign land becomes his home, and he takes root and sprouts."

“Yes, after seeing my parents off in their old age, I finally lost my roots in my hometown. But without realizing it, I took root in other places. Humans are not plants or trees, and they are not without feelings. Humans are like plants and trees, and their feelings are like their roots…” Uesugi Taro gave Bai Ying a strange look, his tone quite complicated. “Is this piece by Bai Ying inspired by the sentiment of ‘Difficult passes and mountains, who will mourn the lost traveler; chance encounters, all strangers in a foreign land’?”

Bai Ying laughed and said, "The capital is hard to enter; everywhere you look, you see people from other places. Homeland is easy to lose; looking back, there is no way back."

The nearly sixty-year-old man sighed. He had once switched careers to become a screenwriter and often read to enrich his knowledge. Whenever he read the famous works of ancient people who were able to be passed down through the ages in their youth, he couldn't help but feel longing and admiration. It was as if there was a young man in front of him who looked just like him, which made him feel a little fond of talent.

"What projects does screenwriter Bai have coming up? Perhaps we'll have another collaboration."

"I'm planning to write a light novel recently."

"Oh, a new genre developed in this era? What kind of subject matter is Screenwriter Bai planning to write about?"

"The lewd kind."

"?"

The two screenwriters, one older and one younger, once again erupted into criticizing each other's work.

"Sister, is that bastard alright?"

Not far away, Feng Bin and Hua thought it was a typical scene of senior and junior colleagues fighting, but something just felt off.

"That's normal, all screenwriters are like that."

"is it?"

"Alright, focus on understanding your characters, it's our turn now."

The filming process went exceptionally smoothly. Mai Sakurajima and Kazuka Toyohama played a restaurant owner and a woman delivering an umbrella, respectively. Watching the male actor's exceptionally immersive performance and superb acting skills, the filming of one episode, "The Taste of a Wanderer," was completed. The fact that it managed to get through this week's schedule meant that the director escaped being exploited by the investors.

Mai Sakurajima, accompanied by Kazuha Toyohama, said goodbye to the people leaving the film set and walked outside.

"Huh? It seems much simpler than the last movie we filmed."

Feng Binhua was still somewhat unsatisfied: "Could it be that I've become an actor too?"

"The acting ceiling for this drama is in the supporting roles of each episode. Although I'm the lead, I'm more like a resident supporting actor. The main characters in each episode are the actors playing guests." Mai Sakurajima offered some advice on employment issues. "Good scripts aren't easy to come by, and even if you do, a good script doesn't necessarily demand a lot of acting skills. It's a multi-faceted issue..."

The two of them came out onto the street and suddenly stopped in their tracks.

The white figure held his hands like knives in front of him, his face full of vigilance, looking around and being glanced at by passersby from time to time.

Hmm? Why does the hater look so wary? Could it be... that Bai Yinghua from the Scarlet Theater Troupe, who's been spotted lately, is nearby?

Sakurajima Mai sensed something was wrong and stopped in her tracks, before she could even call out to her sister...

"What's wrong with you...?"

Feng Bin and Hua had already stepped forward, but before they could finish speaking, Bai Ying interrupted them sharply.

"The child is not mine!"

The white figure glared angrily, its face filled with grief and indignation.

Wow!

Several pedestrians stopped and turned to look.

"what?!"

Feng Binhua froze on the spot, feeling her blood boil and a series of question marks rushing out from the top of her head.

A hand reached out from behind, grabbed Toyohama Kazuka's shoulder, and moved her aside. Sakurajima Mai stepped forward calmly: "The child is mine, I am yours, and isn't the child yours too?"

Wow!

This bustling melon field is about to produce delicious melons!

More pedestrians stopped in their tracks; those who reacted slowly simply looked around and listened, while those who reacted quickly had already taken out their phones.

"Since it's my child, I have the right to know who the father is!"

Bai Ying was enraged by this seemingly joking explanation and questioned him sharply, her face flushed.

"it's me."

Several onlookers looked around and made way for a young man to walk over.

He looks like a white shadow, dresses like a white shadow, and has a voice like a white shadow…

"Son, I'm so sorry."

This melon actually has another melon embedded inside it?!

The pedestrians were subtly restless.

The person resembling the white figure looked remorseful. He walked towards the other person step by step, reciting in a sorrowful tone, "It's all my fault. I mistook her loneliness for poetry and presumptuously filled in the blank space in her heart. When I came to my senses, I wrote the story of the accident."

He confessed as if in a theatrical performance, already close to the white figure, as if they were looking in a mirror, unable to distinguish who was the reflection.

The pedestrians were bewildered; how did this melon, which they were just enjoying, suddenly start to take on a different flavor?

"?"

Feng Bin and Hua were dumbfounded. It was Shiroei, wasn't it?!

"White nightshade?"

Sakurajima Mai frowned and muttered to herself, "Is the hater deliberately trying to lure Shiro Eika out?"

Could it be the kind of plot that often appears in shonen manga?

The spirit of the Scarlet Theatre Company... that neither men nor women will refuse an invitation to perform?

"Don't try to fool me! You're not my dad at all, Mom has already told me!"

Bai Ying suddenly took two steps forward, grabbed the other person's collar, and her expression was as angry as people subconsciously imagine. She accused him clearly and forcefully: "You deceived her, tricked a woman into giving her love, and the marriage you formed with your devilish claws is a chain that imprisons her! You, who cannot have children, have humiliated her one-sided love. I am not your child, but a face painted on your face!"

Turn the tide and launch an offensive!

Uh... this melon is starting to taste weird.

The pedestrians watching the play realized that they seemed to be really watching a play.

“My child! Time is the deepest bloodline, and resonance is the most sincere bond!” The white figure grabbed the other’s arm in return, shifting its feet to hold him back, and shouted passionately, “Whose behavior cannot be excused? Who cannot righteously twist evil? Who has not used mistakes to cover up mistakes? Ragged people always want to strip others naked, as if they themselves are elegant, clean, and superior.”

“My father! Aren’t you just like the other person you’re talking about? You calculate gains and losses, right and wrong, and put her down to the dust to elevate your own glory! When did your love become so petty and despicable? Is she your enemy, or the one you deeply love?”

The white figure moved.

The white shadow was shifting.

Two similar voices sang in harmony, as if they were arguing, or debating poetically. One was cold and indifferent, mixed with gloomy resentment, while the other was passionate and impassioned, filled with sincere questioning.

After wandering around for a while, it suddenly seemed like no one could tell who was who anymore.

Why do you, the one closest to me, choose to turn your back on my heart?

"You're facing away from the mirror, and the reflection is of yourself facing away from yourself—when do you ever look at me directly, and at yourself?"

The two figures, who had been intersecting, suddenly turned their backs to each other. Accompanied by a poetic recitation, the two white figures turned around at the same time and faced each other.

"Marriage is the child of love. From joy and happiness to conflict and disputes, please turn around and remember your sincere and passionate self from the past, and gently wipe away the discordant notes..."

A white figure retreated backwards, as if admonishing or singing like in an opera. After retreating a distance, it skipped and hopped away, disappearing into the crowd of pedestrians in the blink of an eye.

Another white figure stood still, his face flashing with thoughts, anxieties, and sudden realizations. He straightened his expression and walked seriously toward Mai Sakurajima, as passionately as protagonists in a story expressing their love for each other: "My anxieties, my hesitations, my questions... To the one I love deeply, this is a love poem for you."

Mai Sakurajima's expression was subtle as she controlled her emotions, quickly thinking of what lines to use in response.

This performance is full of stream of consciousness...

A man, noticing a change in his feelings for his wife, becomes increasingly suspicious and harbors malicious speculations. So, the older version of himself has a conversation with his younger self, which awakens the sincere feelings he once had.

What the heck? A large-scale family drama suddenly turns into a lovey-dovey dog ​​food distribution center?