Chapter 11

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Meng Kaiyan only received the full script on the day filming began, though she had the character biography a week earlier. How to put it? It was indeed a bit complicated.

This time, she was playing a character named Ji Ping, a sixteen-year-old girl, exactly matching her own age.

Ji Ping was born into a family that was ordinary yet far from ordinary.

Ordinary in the sense that her family consisted of a typical setup: parents and child. But extraordinary because her father was murdered—by her mother.

When Meng Kaiyan attended the script reading at Chen Yu’s house a few days ago, she was shocked by the storyline. Not by the fact that the wife killed the husband—that was quite common in women’s prisons—but by the gruesome detail that the wife dismembered the body with her daughter.

Her role, Ji Ping, was not merely involved but actually the mastermind behind the dismemberment, while Chen Yu played the mother who committed the murder. No wonder Chen Yu had advised her not to fully immerse herself into the character.

Chen Yu, both lead actress and director, was busy flying around the set on the first day of shooting.

Although Meng Kaiyan had no scenes that day, she had a task. Chen Yu, worried that she might not fully grasp the role, arranged for her to go over the script thoroughly with the screenwriter.

Tao Heng was relatively unknown in the industry; Meng Kaiyan hadn’t known her at all before the reading.

Apparently, this script was Tao Heng’s first independently written film script. Meng Kaiyan admired Chen Yu’s courage—if it were her, she definitely wouldn’t dare take the risk. After all, filmmaking was an expensive endeavor; one careless mistake could lead to total loss.

Tao Heng was young, and due to long hours of writing on the computer, her glasses had very thick lenses.

She tapped Ctrl+S twice, pushed up her glasses, and looked at Meng Kaiyan, asking, “What do you think about the character Ji Ping?”

Without hesitation, Meng Kaiyan answered, “I think she’s sick.”

After pondering the character biography for seven or eight days, Meng Kaiyan came to the conclusion that the character was literally ill.

“Oh?” Tao Heng seemed interested in continuing the conversation and got up to break one of the stacked plastic stools for Meng Kaiyan. “What do you mean by ‘sick’?”

Meng Kaiyan sat down and took a few seconds to organize her thoughts. “Mentally ill. She seems to have dissociative identity disorder. In her daily life, she has one personality, but when triggered, another emerges. One is timid and dull; the other is bold and cold.”

Tao Heng crossed her arms and lowered her head, unconsciously leaning closer to Meng Kaiyan. “Go on.”

Meng Kaiyan hesitated. Chen Yu had asked her to read through the script, but neither the character biography nor the script explicitly stated that Ji Ping was mentally ill. Now, was she just rambling after letting her imagination run wild?

“Go ahead, it’s fine. I don’t mind,” Tao Heng encouraged.

“…” Meng Kaiyan pursed her lips and after a moment said, “I think Ji Ping’s second personality didn’t first appear at the moment of the dismemberment; it actually surfaced much earlier.”

“When do you think that was?”

Meng Kaiyan twisted the hem of her shirt, feeling frustrated. “I don’t know. I’ve only read the script once.”

She was supposed to be reading the script—just reading!

Tao Heng either didn’t notice or didn’t sense Meng Kaiyan’s inner turmoil and pressed on, “Then why do you say her second personality appeared early?”

Meng Kaiyan felt speechless. “Because in the character biography, her early reactions to events resemble dissociative identity disorder: severe mood swings, insomnia, and hearing her parents argue at night—that’s sleep disturbance. It also mentions mild depression, all symptoms that accompany the emergence of split personalities.”

Tao Heng suddenly slapped her thigh. “You’re right! She must have dissociative identity disorder. That makes everything make sense!”

Meng Kaiyan felt like fainting.

Who was the real screenwriter here? She felt she couldn’t communicate with this writer at all.

Tao Heng ignored her and started typing feverishly on the computer. Meng Kaiyan was good-natured—though she had some reservations about the screenwriter, she didn’t leave. Mainly because she knew the writer’s importance on set far outweighed her own at this moment.

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Tao Heng worked for over half an hour straight. Meng Kaiyan watched her type, delete, and retype, growing increasingly impressed.

Outside, the set was being constructed. Meng Kaiyan heard Gao Qingjian’s voice—he played Ji Ping’s father—so it seemed the first scenes they were shooting involved him and Chen Yu.

Soon, the area outside cleared, and even inside the room, silence fell, leaving only the sound of keys tapping.

“Hey, why haven’t you left yet?” Tao Heng suddenly asked. Meng Kaiyan, afraid of breaking her concentration, stayed still even though her legs were going numb.

Meng Kaiyan sighed inwardly. “Tao, the director asked me to go over the script with you.” She felt like an NPC, repeatedly performing this fixed task.

Tao Heng paused. “Oh, alright, then let’s read.”

Finally, they were about to start. Meng Kaiyan sat up straight and put the paper script on the table. “Tao, I don’t understand—”

“Wait, just call me Tao, not ‘teacher.’ I don’t like that,” Tao Heng interrupted.

“Okay, Tao.” Meng Kaiyan quickly corrected herself. “After reading the first part, I’m puzzled. Ji Ping and her mother committed murder and dismemberment together, but when faced with threats from Ji Ping’s uncle later, why did she immediately choose to compromise instead of taking the chance to kill him as well?”

Tao Heng seemed surprised by her imaginative reasoning. “Do you think killing is as easy as killing a pig? The mother and daughter’s crime was impulsive. Once the adrenaline subsides, fear sets in.”

Meng Kaiyan shook her head. “No, maybe the mother was scared, but not the daughter.”

“Because she’s sick!” Meng Kaiyan stated firmly. “Being sick means her thoughts are abnormal. She wouldn’t consider those things. Applying the mother’s reaction to the daughter feels... forced.”

Meng Kaiyan continued, “Besides, Ji Ping is definitely very action-oriented. She suggested the dismemberment and held the knife. If her mother hadn’t stopped her in time, she would have started dismembering first. If she chose to spare Uncle Ji that night, there must have been an unavoidable reason.”

Tao Heng pondered, resting her head on her hands. “What do you think that reason is?”

Meng Kaiyan’s expression froze. “Tao…”

“Hm?”

“Tao, you’re the screenwriter.”

Meng Kaiyan suddenly worried if the filming schedule was off today.

Tao Heng waved her hand. “I only handle the big picture. For details like this, I need someone to brainstorm with me. Just tell me, if you were Ji Ping, why would you spare Uncle Ji?”

Meng Kaiyan scratched her head and thought hard. “If I were Ji Ping, I’d kill Uncle Ji first because he knows my secret, and the sooner, the better. But... if for some reason I had to delay killing him, the reason could only be...”

After a long pause, she guessed, “Maybe because the body is hard to deal with?”

Killing’s easy, but dismembering is difficult.

Suddenly, her thoughts cleared. “What if the pigs haven’t digested the body yet? After the pigs ate Ji Ping’s father’s corpse, they hadn’t digested it in time, so Ji Ping temporarily spared Uncle Ji, not because she was scared.”

Tao Heng considered this. “That’s a great idea. Ji Ping is indeed sick, so she wouldn’t be afraid. We can’t apply normal logic to her. I’ll add a scene for you.”

Meng Kaiyan inexplicably felt happy.

Tao Heng was startled. “Why are you happy?”

Meng Kaiyan’s smile vanished instantly, and her expression stiffened. “I’m happy to have more scenes.”

Tao Heng resumed typing, adjusting her glasses. “I thought you were excited because of your deduction. No wonder Chen Yu warned me to keep an eye on you during this script reading—to prevent you from turning into a little weirdo.”

Meng Kaiyan: “...”

She could tell Tao Heng was leading her into the character while pretending otherwise.

—

Meng Kaiyan wouldn’t have scenes until the third day, but she hadn’t wasted the first two days and had been memorizing lines intensively.

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Chen Yu seemed to have obsessive tendencies. Watching Meng Kaiyan muttering while memorizing lines continuously made her uneasy.

Unable to bear it any longer, she said, “Hey, little Meng, is this how you memorize lines?”

Meng Kaiyan stood up, unsure. “Isn’t it?”

Chen Yu: “You never took any diction classes?”

“No,” Meng Kaiyan thought and corrected herself, “Actually, I did. Yang Suye from the Shanghai Theater Troupe once coached me on rhythm and variation.”

Chen Yu patted her palm with the rolled-up script. “Tony Ball once said, ‘Remember the character, not the lines.’ His model of stimulation, absorption, influence, and reaction—you can look it up online. Memorizing like you do is so hard, it’s making me anxious.”

Meng Kaiyan wanted to say it wasn’t hard at all but just nodded in agreement.

She grabbed her phone to search, but soon decided to stick with her own method for now.

Tony Ball’s lecture was too verbose; she couldn’t focus when overly excited.

Meng Kaiyan felt increasingly influenced by Ji Ping—the deeper she understood her, the more affected she became.

Tao Heng said this kind of role had a “contaminating” effect and that shaking it off would take effort. Meng Kaiyan seriously suspected Tao Heng herself was currently “contaminated.”

On the third day of filming,

Meng Kaiyan had memorized the lines for the earlier scenes perfectly and even rehearsed multiple times with Jian Zhenzhu, hoping to nail the first take.

The makeup artist examined her face, clicking her tongue twice. “Your face is a bit large, rounder, and your brows and eyes give off a strong, heroic vibe—not at all gloomy. That’s tough for makeup.”

Meng Kaiyan felt awkward. “Not thin enough?”

The makeup artist pinched her cheek. “You’re quite thin. It’s your bone structure; losing more won’t help. But don’t go thinking about bone shaving—if the surgeon is careless, you might never act in movies again, maybe not even in TV dramas.”

Meng Kaiyan quickly shook her head. “No, I’m afraid of pain.” She had seen bone shaving videos—they were terrifying.

Makeup artist: “Pain’s not so bad, but the risks are high.”

She began applying makeup on Meng Kaiyan.

What kind of person was Ji Ping? She couldn’t be summed up in one word. As always, it was because of her dissociative identity disorder.

But the personality appearing in today’s scene was the first one: sensitive, timid, and fearful.

The makeup artist did not apply foundation but reshaped her eyebrows with powder and added some blemishes.

“Your sun protection is really good,” the makeup artist praised. “What sunscreen do you use?”

“Lancôme’s Little White Tube.”

“Just that?”

Meng Kaiyan nodded. Mainly because her mother used the same brand, and with system help, she couldn’t judge its quality herself.

The makeup artist used a tiny lip brush to pale her lips, saying as she worked, “I’ll try this next time.”

Meng Kaiyan’s makeup and styling took less than half an hour but looked remarkably effective.

Looking at herself in the mirror after the transformation, Meng Kaiyan felt she was staring at someone who had been oppressed from childhood and suffered from severe depression.