Wei Ming had never thought of himself as a chicken thigh before.

Lu Cheng burst out laughing. He was laughing so hard he went to the side of the room and beat his fist against the wall. He didn’t like going on Weibo, but he did know that Wei Ming and Yu Yaoyao had once acted in a court drama together. Wei Ming had been the emperor and Yu Yaoyao had been a concubine deep in the palace, or something like that…

Drumstick!

Big drumstick!

The concubine regarded the emperor as a chicken thigh…

Lu Cheng carried on laughing. “Sorry, Brother Wei. This is so funny! I can’t do this anymore. Oh my god, you have to stop being so funny!” He only needed to think a little on the matter. The concubine had shown her courtesy to the emperor, just by wanting to eat chicken thighs… The more he thought about it, the harder he laughed.

Next to him, Cai Fang reacted a little slower. But the moment she understood, she slapped her hand over her mouth. Her shoulders shook with laughter. Knowing that she was going to be working with Wei Ming and Yu Yaoyao in this drama, she’d watched their “The Queen of the Flourishing Age.”

Cai Fang had watched several scene that had Yu Yaoyao in them and she had thought her acting was superior.

“You guys… are laughing and laughing. I also want to laugh,” Wei Ming’s square face couldn’t remain serious for long. He changed his mind and didn’t return the script to Yu Yaoyao. Instead, he continued reading.

He read through a hazy scene that appeared later.

Her interpretation of every line was bizarre but logical, making the corners of his mouth twitch.

“Little Yu, can I take a picture of your script?” Wei Ming asked as he struggled to contain a smile. “Your way of thinking has given me some… Inspiration.”

Lu Cheng paused in his laughter, then he continued. Both hands hammered the wall, “I want to take a picture, too!”

Cai Fang’s shoulders shook, and she weakly raised a hand, “Me too.”

They all leaned over the script and noticed that Yu Yaoyao’s feelings of grief were actually taken from her husband, Shen Yichong. The levels of sadness in the lines were almost all marked with things such as, “losing one Shen Yichong” and “losing two Shen Yichongs.”

They admired each comparison.

Yu Yaoyao apparently thought nothing of it, “Hey, don’t you guys also have notes? If you want it, you should take it.” She had used this method of association before in the previous cast and had taught it to the fresh meat that had taken up filming.

But these were senior, veteran actors. Everyone had filmed together for a long time and she had never thought she could teach them anything.

Once she had finished removing her makeup and returned to the hotel to rest, Wei Ming and the others looked at each other and smiled half-heartedly.

“Brother Wei, do you mind if I call you Brother Drumstick later? Or Brother Thigh, or Brother Chicken, or Brother Meat?”

“Get lost!” Wei Ming said.

The next day, the script was returned to Yu Yaoyao.

Director Qi Hang was surprised when he saw that the two male actors had improved drastically: from the tension in their performance to their facial expressions. He only yelled “cut” once or twice. Although they were sometimes a bit too over the top, they would be able to adjust until it was perfect.

It was quite a comparison from when they’d been bound to the script and their performance had lacked flavor. Now, when Wei Ming and Lu Cheng were in front of the camera, their integration with the characters was near perfect.

They were all veteran actors, and their acting skills were superior, but they each had their own habits that came from many years of acting. It was easier for them to fall back on their tried-and-true acting methods. With some of Yu Yaoyao’s distinct and strange ideas, they were even more believable. No matter what the scene was, their interpretation and actions were more natural, and there was no trace of the previous roles in their voices and bodies.

The pace of filming got faster and faster.

Qi Hang was just about smiling from ear to ear.

Wei Ming had even got a new nickname among the cast: Brother Roast Chicken. At first, it was only Lu Cheng who called him that, but in the end, everyone in the cast caught on.

Qi Hang had no idea what was going on. “What do you mean? Old Wei, are your barbecue skills that good?”

Wei Ming looked desperate, the other two actors covered their mouths and laughed.

***

At the gate of a remote nursery school in City A, an unremarkable car stopped.

Donning a mask and a hat, Chen Jiao looked around vigilantly before speaking to the girl next to him, “Get out of the car. I will go to the crew later, and you will call a car to go back tonight.”

“Brother, not even the birds would sh!t here. The hotel I stay at is so dirty and bad, I can’t even sleep properly,” Ling Shuang pouted.

Chen Jiao frowned when he heard what she said. He turned his head and looked at her. “Didn’t you stay in a dorm at school? If the conditions are better than that, just treat this as a new experience. Bear with me.”

Earlier when she’d spoken to him, she’d said the school dormitory was very dirty. She had never lived in such a place. But she knew life held different experiences, she would just have to be patient.

“Brother, please. The conditions at our dormitory were better! Every day a woman came to clean the toilets…” Ling Shuang blurted out. In the middle of her sentence, she paused suddenly when she remembered something. She glanced at Chen Jiao nervously and then added quickly, “Ah, yes, yes. The dormitory I used to stay in in middle school was rather poor. But it was so long ago, brother. If you hadn’t reminded me about it, I would have forgotten about it entirely.”

She squeezed her bag with both hands, turned her head, and stuck her tongue out at him, but her expression was extremely unnatural. She grabbed his sleeve, shook it and changed the subject. “Brother, those kids are so annoying. They give me a headache. I will go back next week, okay? I’ve pretty much experienced a teacher’s life and know their attitude. I am confident I can play the role of the mountain teacher. I don’t want to go to the nursery school anymore,” Ling Shuang said with a frown.

When she was a child, she had wanted to become a preschool teacher or one day work in animal husbandry. She felt that she was not smart, not the type to study. Her only advantage was that she had a good temper and worked well with children and small animals.