The director raised the megaphone to his mouth again. "Ji Yi!"
The director's voice was already loud, but with the megaphone, he was deafeningly loud.
Ji Yi was so shocked that her body shivered and she suddenly snapped back to reality.
She was in a daze for a few seconds as she noticed the director, who was originally standing beside her, discussing the scene with the other actors in the vicinity. That was when she realized it was almost time for her to start shooting, so she quickly rushed over to her position.
After Ji Yi got in position, the director cried, "Get ready! 3, 2, 1 - Action!"
This scene featured several characters, but most importantly, it was a scene Ji Yi had with the male lead.
In the drama, the male lead left mid-banquet.
The character Ji Yi played had been paying attention to him all along. When she saw him leave the Imperial Hall, she found an excuse to follow him.
In the back garden, the two of them stared at each other in silence for a long time before the male lead said goodbye. Ji Yi shouted out to stop him then asked if they could go back to how things were before...
Because of He Jichen, Ji Yi was in a poor state of mind; she couldn't focus and she was particularly distracted while acting. A simple scene such as the banquet scene could've been done in one take, but because of her emotional state, she made two mistakes.
After finishing that scene with much difficulty, Ji Yi used her break to reread the lines she acted so poorly earlier.
Maybe Ji Yi really did reset her state of mind during the break because when it came time to shoot the scene outside in the back garden, Ji Yi seemed a lot more focused. She strode over to the male lead's side.
The male lead sensed someone coming closer and turned his head slightly. When he saw her, his brows appeared stunned for a moment, but he didn't utter a word.
The two of them stared at the Japanese roses in front of them for a while. After the director cried out "good," the male lead turned, keeping a respectful distance from Ji Yi, and bid her farewell.
Even though Ji Yi didn't respond, the male lead turned around, ready to head back to the palace through the winding path.
Ji Yi stared at his back silhouette with pursed lips. Her expression changed slightly to show that she just stopped herself from speaking her mind. Then when the director repeated "good," she cried out for the male lead.
The male lead stopped in his tracks but didn't look back at her.
Ji Yi stared at his back with a deeply complex look in her eyes. The corners of her lips trembled incredibly and she tried hard to spit out her lines. "Can we really not go back to how things were before?"
As those words fell, Ji Yi suddenly heard He Jichen's voice in her ear: "...Can we go back to how things were before?"
Ji Yi suddenly forgot she was on camera and stood frozen like that on set.
After disappearing all of a sudden at her birthday party last year, she found He Jichen alone on the balcony. Those were the words he said to her.
He even said, "Back to when you were seventeen and I was eighteen."
"Go back to that summer; go back to that summer when we were best friends at Sucheng Yizhong; go back to when I could call you Xiao Yi and when you weren't scared of me like other people. That same summer you dared to call me He Jichen without holding back…"
After the male lead finished his lines, there was a long string of dialogue that followed afterward.
As Ji Yi was suddenly frozen, the director was stunned, assuming she was improvising. However, after waiting a while without her showing any signs of keeping up her act, he raised the megaphone and screamed her name.