When Ning Xi went in, she heard the few judges discussing. It looked like they were very satisfied with Jiang Xinyi's performance. However, Jiang Xingzhou, who sat right in the middle, did not say a word at all. When he saw Ning Xi come in, he then looked up to say, "Begin!"
"Okay." Ning Xi nodded.
"Already out of breath...," the staff member read out the script.
Ning Xi's face was blank. There was no expression on her face at all.
A few seconds later, it was as if she suddenly fathomed that person's words. She walked slowly towards the child step by step, then carried the child in her embrace.
Her blank and lifeless eyes widened. She looked at her child as if she had been removed of her soul. For minutes, she just continued to look on expressionlessly.
She just sat there without moving as if she was a weathered statue.
She had not actually done anything. There was even no expression on her face. However, in a split second, the atmosphere in the entire audition room was suddenly stifled to an extreme point. Initially, those judges, who thought Ning Xi was just someone who would not pass, instantly straightened up. Their spines tensed up as they held their breaths and stared straight at the girl who sat motionless lay on the cold floor.
Jiang Xingzhou did not seem to have a change in expression, but his hand which held a pen had obviously tightened quite a bit and his thin lips had tensed into a firm line.
Like the stifling air before a rainstorm, the entire sky was covered by haze and dense clouds.
Finally, when this atmosphere had been repressed to the extreme point, the girl lowered her head and her shoulders started to subtly tremble softly. Her arms that hugged her child tightened bit by bit...
Suddenly, the girl embraced the child firmly to her chest.
"Ah!!!" Her screaming and crying started to ring through the air.
"Ah—"
A sense of urgency, hopelessness, and of falling apart overwhelmed her.
Her entire world was crumbling before her eyes...
Her child...
Her child, whom she had beared for 9 whole months... They had relied on each other. He had still been lively the previous second, yet now he had become a cold, dead body...
Her only kin in this world, her only spiritual sustenance...
She had nothing now...
It was not sure how long had passed.
As if the rainstorm had just come to a halt, the girl's emotions finally started to calm down a little. She embraced the child and remained sitting in the same posture as before.
However, everyone did not know that it was no longer the same inside her. She could no longer go back. All of the life in her had been drained with the loss of this child. Only an empty shell was left right there...
"Director Jiang..." In the end, it was Song Lin who had spoken up to call for everyone's attention. Only then did Jiang Xingzhou and the rest of the judging panel come back to their senses as if they had just woken up from a dream.
Ning Xi's scene had ended.
The producer's widened his reddened eyes as he blankly stared at her. He took a deep breath and mumbled in awe, "This girl... is truly remarkable..."
While the scriptwriter on the side had tears streaming down her face right from the start, hurriedly, she took out a tissue to wipe her tears away.
She finally understood why Jiang Xingzhou had persisted.
Even she herself had initially felt that Jiang Xinyi's performance was the pinnacle of excellence.
However, when she saw Ning Xi, she finally knew what real acting was.
The last time, after Ning Xi had finished acting, she had immediately removed herself from the scenes. This time, despite having already finished acting, she remained seated blankly on the floor, the child prop still in her embrace.
"Quickly get up. The floor's cold." Song Lin stood up and walked over to help Ning Xi up.
Ning Xi's expression remained a little stunned as she robotically turned her head to look at Song Lin.
That look made Song Lin feel a pang of heart ache. This girl was staking it all!
Even if she wanted to immerse herself in the scene, she should leave some leeway in any case.
She was an actress too, so she understood the aftermath of completely immersing oneself in such a story line.