Caught in Affairs with Superstar

Chapter 450: Chapter 354: The End of Time

The first forty minutes of the film are as beautifully shot as a prose poem.

It looks like it’s a boyfriend’s perspective recording all the wonderful times spent with his girlfriend.

Eating meals together, watching movies together, shopping together, playing games, sleeping together... they argue, then reconcile, laugh, then hug, fall sick, and lean on each other.

It’s as if everyone has entered a period of memories, these scenes filled with so much private emotion; it’s like watching a documentary, with a sense of reality lingering in the hearts of each viewer.

Until the two of them erupted into an unprecedented conflict.

This conflict focuses entirely on Zhou Yun in a ten-minute long take, captured in one go.

Zhou Yun looks directly into the eyes of every viewer, sitting on the sofa, slightly lifting her eyelids, and says, ”I thought you would be different from other men!”

Wen Bing’s voice says, ”What’s wrong with you now?”

Impatience has already crept into his voice.

These days, the two of them had been arguing frequently, for nearly two weeks.

Zhou Yun smiles with disappointment, her eyes reddening.

”I’m fine, let’s go to sleep.”

He Yun, can you please clarify what exactly you want? I’ve been working overtime every day for a while, incredibly busy, I’m really tired, and I don’t want to come home and have to guess your mood, can’t we speak straightforwardly?”

With tears in her eyes, Zhou Yun suddenly smiles and asks, ”Do you still remember what you first told me?”

”What did I say?”

Zhou Yun says, ”You said you would be the person who understood me best in this world.”

Silence.

Zhou Yun gazes into the camera in silence, her eyes seemingly piercing through the screen and reaching the very depths of the viewers’ hearts.

At this moment, her features seem to slowly blur into a painting.

When Zhou Yun was originally filming this scene, she had done a lot of preparation and had many ideas. But after filming five times, Wen Bing still wasn’t happy. Zhou Yun was about to break down, completely at a loss about what Wen Bing really wanted, and Wen Bing couldn’t articulate what he was looking for either.

The two sat on the set, staring at each other.

Silently confronting each other for ten minutes.

Wen Bing says, ”Let’s drink.”

Zhou Yun nods: ”Drink.”

The two of them started drinking.

Then, Wen Bing began to tell Zhou Yun the story of him and his ex-girlfriend. The story really wasn’t anything remarkable, not novel or anything particularly notable—just like any ordinary romance where, in the heat of love, one could almost fetch the moon for the other, but after that phase, only the drag of waning passion and petty arguments remain.

”Loving someone is so easy, but why is it so difficult to keep loving the same person?”

Suddenly, it was as if an opening was chiseled into Zhou Yun at that moment, and a beam of light shone through.

That light fell upon her.

Suddenly, she understood that this scene, where He Yun gets angry, cries, sheds tears, has nothing to say, turns her head in silence, these various transformations, were all in fact asking that very question.

At that moment, the question entered into her entire emotional state.

So, she acted out an angry scene, Wen Bing approved, she performed the scene with restrained emotion, Wen Bing also approved.

In the end, Zhou Yun sat in front of the camera, running out of words.

She didn’t know why Wen Bing hadn’t called cut, so she just kept sitting there.

When she finally turned back, she saw Wen Bing sitting behind the camera, his face covered in tears.

Zhou Yun’s gaze flickered, and she smiled helplessly, as if blessed with a revelation.

A layer of accommodating, gentle, caring light seemed to suddenly appear on her face.

She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but in the moment her mouth opened, she zoned out, lost in thought for several seconds, and when she came back to herself, she said nothing more, stood up, and left the frame.

Wen Bing kept this scene.

At this point, everyone knew what story the movie was telling.

Following right after this scene was a long monologue.

In the monologue, Zhou Yun packs her things, leaves the apartment, looks for a new place, communicates with the landlord, goes running, works... scene by scene, each one, whether she was alone or in the company of others, captured a fleeting moment of absent-mindedness in her gaze.

”I know I haven’t fulfilled my promise, but regrettably, I no longer wish to fulfill it.” This was the last line of Wen Bing’s long monologue.

At the time this monologue was spoken, He Yun was happily playing a game with a group of friends, Truth or Dare, and she drew Dare. Everyone asked her to pick the most handsome guy in the room and kiss his cheek.

She boldly chose a guy and completed the dare amid screams and cheers of the crowd.

The beach.

A dawn when the sky hadn’t yet brightened.

It looks like the beginning of the movie.

Zhou Yun walks alone on the beach.

The sea breeze blows her long hair into billowing waves.

As she walks, the camera moves with her.

Then, slowly, the camera can’t keep up with her pace anymore.

Gradually, she gets farther and farther away in the frame, farther and farther away.

The figure of the boy she kissed in the Truth or Dare game walks into frame from the left, he runs a few steps to catch up with Zhou Yun.

Zhou Yun turns her head, sees him, and starts smiling at him.

As for what kind of smile it was, it’s unclear—they’ve walked too far away.

The movie has finished showing.

The end credits music starts to play, and the production staff’s names begin to roll.

Zhou Yun sits in her seat, her eyes reddening once more. It was her second time watching this film, and unlike the first time, she was no longer as excited, nervous, or uneasy about the unknown. She knew what the movie would be like, and instead was fully immersed.

She gained a new understanding of this ending segment.

When she was filming, she thought this boy was He Yun’s new boyfriend after their breakup.

Their figures receding into the distance on screen represented He Yun’s life moving away from the narrator of this movie, Wen Bing, beyond his reach.

He Yun and her new boyfriend completely left his life.

She thought that was all there was to it.

But actually, the story had already ended with the line ”I no longer want to fulfill it.”

Zhou Yun turns her head and asks Wen Bing in a whisper, ”Director, the boy that He Yun kissed during the Truth or Dare game, that’s you, isn’t it?”

In the darkness, Wen Bing doesn’t speak.

Suddenly, the lights in the theater came on.

Zhou Yun sees Wen Bing’s face wet with tears once again.

—I no longer want to fulfill it.

—I’m sorry.

Zhou Yun hears thunderous applause suddenly erupt around her; she sees everyone around her rustling as they stand up, their smiling faces so sincere and radiant.