“You must have misheard.”

Cheng Youran denied it without missing a beat, his expression calm and unwavering. “My voice is pretty common. Back in high school, nine out of ten people said I sounded like one of their old classmates.”

“Is that so?”

Yan Junze watched him quietly, his gaze sharp and scrutinizing, his tone unreadable.

Feeling a little guilty, Cheng Youran averted his eyes.

“The second scene! We’re rolling!”

The assistant director’s voice echoed through a megaphone in the distance. Cheng Youran let out a breath of relief, quickly bidding farewell to his senior before dashing toward Director Zhang.

The blue school uniform flapped in the wind, and for a fleeting moment, it truly felt like being back in high school.

“The next scene is the one with you and Tang Yuan at the flag platform. Go over your lines again.”

Seeing Cheng Youran approach, Zhang Ping gave her a quick rundown of the scene before heading off to check the camera angles.

Directors with a background in cinematography tended to have an almost obsessive attention to detail when it came to framing shots. By Cheng Youran’s estimate, most of the budget had likely gone into perfecting the visuals.

“Let me touch up your makeup.”

The makeup artist dabbed a powder puff lightly on Cheng Youran’s face, then praised her with a hint of envy, “Your skin is so much better than most actresses’.”

At first, she had been worried about how to create a natural and translucent look for Cheng Youran’s high school character. But the moment she saw her in person, she realized she had worried for nothing.

Under the sunlight, Cheng Youran’s fair skin practically glowed, her eyes were clear and bright, and in her school uniform, she looked as if she had stepped right out of a novel.

Tang Yuan walked over, slipping off her lightweight cardigan and handing it to her manager. Hearing the compliment, she lowered her voice and asked, “Is my skin that bad?”

“Not at all, not at all,” her manager reassured her warmly.

After the makeup artist finished the touch-up, Cheng Youran leaned against the flagpole, flipping through her script. This scene was a dialogue between her and Tang Yuan.

The more she read, the deeper her frown became.

“What’s wrong, Sister Youran?”

Xiao Su walked over, holding her jacket, and cautiously asked, “Are you having trouble remembering your lines? I bought a teleprompter online—it’s in the car. I can go get it for you.”

“A teleprompter?”

Cheng Youran’s voice shot up in surprise, but when she noticed a few people glancing her way, she quickly lowered it. “Can you guys have a little faith in my professionalism? Cough—did Lu Zixiao tell you to buy it?”

“No, I bought it myself,” Xiao Su said, shaking her head like a rattling drum.

At least he had some conscience.

Cheng Youran tightened her grip on the script.

The filming schedule was tight. On days off, she would stay up late memorizing lines at home—only for Lu Zixiao to “accidentally” misplace her script, forcing her to go to bed earlier.

One night, she couldn’t take it anymore and confronted him. Lu Zixiao, lounging on the sofa with a newspaper in hand, tapped his forehead with a curled finger and said, “There’s only one explanation.”

“What explanation?”

Without looking up, he flipped another page and replied in an utterly serious tone, “The script ran away on its own.”

—And yet, somehow, it always reappeared beside her pillow the next morning, right on time. (｀⊿)

Honestly, the fact that she managed to memorize her lines under Lu Zixiao’s interference was nothing short of a miracle.

But the next second, Xiao Su shattered her previous assumptions.

“Because President Lu already hired a voice actor for you.”

He said it so casually, completely unaware of the bombshell he had just dropped.

Cheng Youran: ………She knew it.

“Scene two, get ready!”

The cameraman, lighting crew, and extras were all in position. The once-bustling set fell into silence in an instant. Cheng Youran patted Xiao Su on the shoulder before striding toward the filming spot.

“Action!”

“A single hand can’t clap on its own. If one classmate ostracizes you, that’s their problem. If everyone ostracizes you… well, then the problem is you.”

By the flag platform, Tang Yuan, playing the third female lead, brushed past Cheng Youran and sneered.

Cheng Youran, dressed in a loosely fitting school uniform, grabbed Tang Yuan by the collar. “You want to know if a single hand can clap? Then today, I’ll make sure you hear exactly how loud it can be.”

Tang Yuan’s face twisted in fear as she struggled. “Let go of me!”

…

“Cut!”

“Cut!”

“Cut!”

Three consecutive cuts in a row—an obvious contrast to the first scene.

Zhang Ping stared at the footage on the monitor, his expression dark enough to wring water from.

Cheng Youran’s performance was even better than before, but Tang Yuan was completely stiff, too afraid to make any exaggerated expressions for fear of looking unattractive on camera.

He addressed Tang Yuan directly. “Don’t hold back your expressions just to look good.”

That was a harsh criticism.

Tang Yuan’s eyes instantly turned red. She murmured, “Director, I wasn’t…”

“If there’s nothing wrong, then good. Everyone, take a break—we’ll continue in ten minutes.”

Zhang Ping’s tone remained even. Red-rimmed eyes? Tears on set? Hardly anything out of the ordinary.

For someone known as one of the more mild-tempered directors in the industry, he wondered how Tang Yuan would fare under stricter ones. There wasn’t much more he could say, so he simply shook his head.

Tang Yuan sat down on a nearby bench, her manager settling beside her. She glanced toward Zhang Ping, who was chatting easily with Cheng Youran, then lowered her head. “Director Zhang doesn’t seem to like me.”

“I told you before,” her manager murmured, keeping her voice low. “Do you really believe Cheng Youran had no idea about what happened to you?”

Tang Yuan bit her lower lip.

At first, she had never intended to assume someone else’s identity. When people asked on Weibo if she was the struggling Bilibili streamer making a living online, she had earnestly denied it.

After all, a lie like that was as fragile as a sheet of windowpane paper—one poke and it would shatter.

But what she hadn’t expected was how quickly things would spiral. Her fanbase snowballed from just a few thousand to over three hundred thousand, bringing her opportunities she never would have dreamed of.

Almost as if fate itself was on her side, the real streamer never came forward to refute the claim.

“When the fans came to visit the set today, I wanted to say something,” her manager muttered. “They only think they can push you around because they see you as an easy target. Now, if it were Yan Junze’s fans, do you think they’d dare?”

Tang Yuan remained silent.

“Listen to me,” the manager leaned in closer, voice low. “If you want to get ahead, you have to strike first…”

Tang Yuan’s expression gradually hardened.

“Alright, back to work!”

Zhang Ping’s voice rang out through the megaphone.

Cheng Youran had been keeping an eye on Tang Yuan out of the corner of her eye. The moment Tang Yuan returned, her demeanor had noticeably shifted—there was a hint of unease in her expression.

“Sister Youran, what was up with you earlier? You looked so worried reading the script,” Xiao Su asked, taking the opportunity as soon as Zhang Ping walked away. She had been agonizing over this question for more than an hour.

Cheng Youran shoved the script into her hands. “In novels, any scene involving a slap in the script should be treated with extreme caution.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s practically guaranteed to trigger drama within the crew. There are usually two scenarios: one, you get slapped so hard you start questioning your entire existence; or two, you get falsely accused of slapping someone and abusing your power.”

She said it with the utmost seriousness—despite making it up on the spot.

Xiao Su clearly believed her. Looking a little dazed, she asked, “So… which one are we dealing with?”

“Probably… the second one?”

Cheng Youran cast a subtle glance at Tang Yuan.

The director was already urging them to get into position, so she made her way toward the flag platform.

“Action!”

Filming resumed. In the scene, Cheng Youran grabbed Tang Yuan by the collar. Her next move was to slap her across the face—hard.

Of course, actually hitting her was out of the question. Most actresses relied on their looks to make a living; slapping someone’s face was like smashing the storefront sign of their career.

So Cheng Youran had planned to simply fake the motion, a light swing that would look convincing enough. The editors could add a sound effect in post-production to make it work.

But just as she raised her hand, she caught a flicker of something in Tang Yuan’s expression—an eager anticipation.

So she was trying to set her up.

Without hesitation, Cheng Youran dodged to the side, swiftly retracting her hand.

What the hell was going on?

Zhang Ping stared at the footage on the monitor, a headache forming. He had been worried about Tang Yuan before, but now Cheng Youran had decided to improvise out of nowhere.

He quickly pieced together what he wanted to say.

“Cheng Youran, I’m deeply disappointed in you.”

That would definitely make him sound like a prestigious director—except he was pretty sure that the moment those words left his mouth, he’d be packing his bags and heading home.

How could he phrase his criticism more delicately?

Zhang Ping was stumped.

Most actresses merely brought funding into a project, but Cheng Youran? She owned the whole production.

He cleared his throat and carefully rephrased, “Your movement to the side was a flawless expression of the character’s frustration, and the way you retracted your hand really took me back to my childhood… But perhaps, just perhaps, sticking to the script might be a better choice, dear…”

There were too many people watching.

Zhang Ping regretfully dismissed his carefully worded critique.

Meanwhile, Cheng Youran had moved too fast—so fast that Tang Yuan hadn’t even processed what had happened. Caught off guard, she clutched her face tightly, dropped to her knees, and looked up at Cheng Youran with teary-eyed grievance.

“Sister Youran, why did you hit me?” Her voice trembled as if she were on the verge of tears.

Her words snapped Zhang Ping back to reality. He stared in stunned silence.

Because according to the footage on the camera… Cheng Youran was standing a whole meter away from Tang Yuan.

If she could land a slap from that distance, forget filming a drama—might as well shoot a horror movie instead.

=^_^=