79 Playing 2 Roles

 

After hearing what Sister Long had to say, Han Fei accepted it calmly but an emotion slowly surfaced in his mind. Starting from his graduation, to his days working behind the camera, and then from having his own stage to losing everything, the memories floated up in his mind. Han Fei slowly raised his finger to point at himself. “Me? The main character?’

“Yes, after considering everything, we’ve decided that you’re the most suitable candidate to play the movie’s main character!” Director Jiang nodded affirmatively, then he patted Han Fei encouragingly on his shoulder. “When you reach the height of stardom, don’t you dare forget about me!”

His lifelong wish was fulfilled in that moment. It all seemed like a joke. When Han Fei poured every bit of his soul to fight for the spotlight, he ended up losing everything. However, just as he considered taking a break from acting and decided to focus on crime-solving, the role of a main character fell right into his lap.

“This is the script that we’ve specially written for you, take a look at it.” Sister Long handed the script to Han Fei. “You are the main character in this movie, basically you’ll be playing yourself.” Han Fei was not blinded by the sudden joy. He looked through the script seriously and everyone else waited for him to finish. After about 10 minutes, Han Fei put down the script and said, “This script is too fictional, I’m not as remarkable as it makes me out to be. Honestly, the main reason the human jigsaw case can be solved 10 years later is all thanks to the Xin Lu law enforcement and Meng Changxi.”

“Meng Changxi?” What Sister Long and Director Jiang knew of Meng Changxi was through the livestream that the latter did.

“He is the elder brother of the real murderer, the key evidence that I gave to the police came from him.” Han Fei sat down and summarized the whole story for the group. “In this case, I am more like a middleman. If there has to be a main character, I feel like they should be either Meng Changan or Meng Changxi. One of them is light in the darkness and the other is darkness in the light.” A normal actor would not have intervened so openly with the script but Han Fei was a unique case, after all, he had participated in the solving of the murder himself.

“Personally, I’d suggest for Meng Changxi to be the main protagonist and Meng Changan to be the main antagonist. That will be the closest adaptation to reality.” Han Fei stared at the script and shared his thoughts.

“We also wish for the movie to be as close to the real event as possible, but can you hold up the role of Meng Changxi? This character is incredibly complicated and we don’t know too much about his background.” Sister Long was an experienced producer, she too voiced her concern.

“If there is a person who can truly understand Meng Changxi in this world, it’ll be me. I’ve seen the man without his disguise and I’ve heard all about his childhood from his mother as well.” Han Fei was confident that he would be able to bring Meng Changxi to life on the silver screen.

“Okay, but who is there to play Meng Changan? These two characters will be in direct contradiction against each other, so if one’s acting skill is too disproportionate to the other, then it’ll cause the movie’s flow to become severely imbalanced.” Sister Long shook her head. “Running through the available actors that we currently have, I do not think there’s anyone in the crew who can really act out the deeply-hidden, twisted mind of Meng Changan.”

“Perhaps I can play the role of Meng Changan as well.”

“You want to play 2 roles?”

“I wish to give that a try, after all, I believe I am the only person who knows the real versions of these two individuals the best.” Han Fei thought back to everything he had researched on Meng Changan, drawing inspirations from the books that the young Meng Changan read as well as the stories told by Meng Si. His facial expressions changed rapidly as different characters flashed across his mind. First Han Fei took on the expression of the blood-crazed murderer from the 6th floor, and then came the unbridled desire and sickness observable on Xu Qin’s face. After that, he manifested the sadistic brutality of the two scarred men, before ending with the venomous glare of the feminine man. In a short amount of time, Han Fei went through the performance of four sick individuals with distinctive personalities. It stunned everyone in the room.

But that was just the beginning. Neither of these four personalities really matched Meng Changan’s. The latter was a very rational, and talented criminal. He was a good citizen and a good worker, no one questioned his qualification as a manager at a company as big as Immortal Pharma. No one would have tied him to the terms, ‘crazed’ or ‘murderer’. However, Han Fei was privy to his real nature. Meng Changan grew up torturing small animals to vent his frustration. This was a man who would stop at nothing to search for his obsession, the butterfly.

His madness and lunacy might be evident when he was young but as he grew older, Meng Changan knew how to better disguise them. Fury, bloodlust, desire, suppression, these emotions cultivated a demon inside the man’s heart.

The frightening expressions on Han Fei gradually faded away but the demon grew as he feasted on these negative emotions. The more normal he appeared on the surface, the crazier he was inside. When the last trace of ghastliness disappeared from Han Fei’s face, the demon inside his heart had assumed a total takeover.

His eyes flew open and Han Fei studied everyone in the room. A unique kind of oppressive tension swept through the room. The others felt like they were being sucked into a dark abyss.

Taking in a light breath, this was the first time Sister Long encountered such a scary actor in her career. Han Fei acted so well, it was beyond even her wildest imagination. “Remarkable.” Sister Long grabbed the script and tossed it into the trash can. She walked towards Han Fei. “I rarely see such impressive acting skill, much less in an actor so young. We are right to choose you as the main character. Young man, you are destined for stardom.”

Han Fei needed some time to extricate himself from Meng Changan’s character. When he did, he said, “This is my first time carrying such a big role, I promise not to disappoint but I hope that the producing company will try to respect the truth and those who have been wounded by this case.”

“No problem, we promise to stick as close to the facts as we can.” Sister Long turned to Jiang Yi. “Go and get the scriptwriters. Han Fei, you’ll be part of the script-writing process as well. When the new script’s done, resume the shoot as fast as possible. We’re seriously lagging behind in schedule due to the long break we’ve taken.”

“Of course.” Director Jiang took out his phone to call the scriptwriters. Sister Long had the female actor come over, “Han Fei, this is a new actor who has just joined our company. I’ll be honest, we are sponsoring this movie mainly to promote her. I hope that you’ll give her pointers in terms of acting.”

Studying the female actor’s slender arms, Han Fei slowly stood up. “She’s supposed to be a female officer in this movie?”

“Yes, in the original script, she would be helping you with crime solving. You two were supposed to be partners.”

“Knowing how to act is indeed important but compared to that…” Li Xue’s image appeared in Han Fei’s mind. He walked towards the female actor and asked, “Do you know how to fight?”