The costumes were all changed; the three people in Mu Qiu’s group were all in ancient outfits—she was in white, Cheng Zhirang in black, and Shi Yuhuai in a red female outfit.
In Shu Ran’s group, Shu Ran wore a pale red ruqun, dressed as a noble young lady; Li Yang was dressed as a young general, and An Zhou looked like a modern programmer.
Guan Yu was dressed as a modern old man, looking like an old geezer who strolls in the park every day drinking tea and playing cards with others; Xu Jihua was an eunuch, and Song Weili was a pure, rich second-generation from ancient times.
"The span of the story is a bit big," Mu Qiu looked at everyone’s costumes and sighed, "we even have time-travelers."
"This is hard to write," Guan Yu scratched her head and asked the director behind the camera, "is the timer starting now?"
The director nodded: "From now on, within three hours everyone must decide their group’s story. You can go out and look for inspiration; the environment in the story also has to be considered. Also, Brother Huai, you should hit the road now."
Hit the road...
Shi Yuhuai spread his arms and surrendered: "Hurry it up, I want to go into the little black room."
They had never seen anyone so cooperative; the staff, both amused and helpless, went up to grab him and led him out.
No one rushed to think about the plot; they all followed behind, just wanting to see where he’d be locked up.
The giant red-robed beauty was paraded around; after visiting several ancient buildings that all looked like little black rooms, he was finally locked into a ruined temple.
There was a stone Guanyin statue with a broken arm in the ruined temple, cobwebs everywhere, dried straw spread on the ground, and a dusty cushion in the middle of the straw.
Shi Yuhuai was forced to kneel on the cushion, head lowered, long hair hanging down, his hands bound and chained with black chains.
The chains were soft and wouldn’t hurt his skin.
It was just that this damned pose was looking more and more like a toy imprisoned, urgently waiting for a hero to rescue the beauty.
Sinful, sinful, Mu Qiu squatted in front of Shi Yuhuai and said sincerely, "Brother Huai, although your sense of participation is doomed not to be that strong, I still think we should consult your opinion on the main storyline.
Do you think it’s better if Brother Cheng descends from the heavens to heroically rescue the beauty, or if it’s a story where we sisters share a deep bond, I risk my life to save you but fail?"
Shi Yuhuai: "...The third one."
"All right, then it’s the story where you cross-dressed and deceived Brother Cheng’s feelings and got imprisoned by him. I, your pure and kind little sister, refuse to believe that my older sister has turned into an older brother; I risk my life to save you but fail, and in the end decide to take revenge on Brother Cheng."
"..." He really wanted to cover his ears, but the staff had tied his hands rather tight; he couldn’t cover them, so he could only squeeze his eyes shut, pretending his five senses had all shut down.
Li Yang and the others were listening at the side, utterly delighted, squatting in a row in front of him and all offering suggestions.
Li Yang: "Actually I think a better story is you cross-dressed for revenge, then got captured, and your comrades all think you’re dead."
Shu Ran’s tea-scented attack was, as always, right on time: "I think it’s better if you cross-dressed to survive and joined an ancient dance troupe, but then the high officials and nobles saw through you, imprisoned you here and tortured you in all kinds of ways. Your brothers and sister think you’re dead, so they can only elope and forget about you. That story is a bit more exciting."
Guan Yu: "You’re all so ruthless. Doesn’t Brother Huai deserve at least a villain identity who’s killed by the righteous path? Everyone takes joy in killing him."
An Zhou couldn’t hold back his laughter: "You really are pretty ruthless."
Shi Yuhuai couldn’t bear it anymore and made a request to the accompanying director: "Can you make them leave?"
The accompanying director was already laughing himself silly behind the camera and didn’t hear a word he said.
Shi Yuhuai got even more pissed.
"All right," in the end it was the only person with any conscience left who spoke up, "let’s go out and check the locations and paths we’ll need. We’ll come back later if we have time."
They still had to give that person face; everyone stood up and waved goodbye to Shi Yuhuai.
"Brother Huai, you hang out by yourself for a bit; we’ll come back later."
"You don’t have to come back."
Li Yang: "Hahahahahahahaha Brother Huai, don’t be scared, we’ll definitely come back!"
He was scared of nothing, Shi Yuhuai looked up at Li Yang’s back and suddenly asked the director loudly, "Shouldn’t the MVP be putting on the red armband?"
Li Yang froze.
Guan Yu said lazily, "See, karma. That’s what you get for laughing so loud."
Li Yang closed his eyes, full of regret, but regret was useless. With several people from the director’s team eyeing him like hawks, he could only take out the wrinkled red armband from his pocket and put it around his arm, bitterness all over his mouth.
Just now he’d been a high-spirited young general; now he’d turned into the guy under the city gate supervising people picking up trash.
To deflate a young general, all you need is a red armband.
Shi Yuhuai had won back a round and felt much better. Especially when he watched the group of them leave his line of sight, his mood lifted even more. He tugged at the soft chains, then knelt sitting on the soft cushion, asked the staff to get him a bottle of water, and started openly slacking off.
But he didn’t expect that their "come back later" would be that soon.
After Mu Qiu and Cheng Zhirang went out, they followed along the water channel for a while. They kept feeling it was wrong to leave Shi Yuhuai alone in the temple, so once they got an idea, they ran back and squatted in front of him, chattering.
"Brother Huai, we just thought of another story—xianxia. A genius of the righteous path is deceived by a big demon lord who’s cross-dressing as a woman. In a rage, he cuts the demon lord’s tendons and hamstrings, imprisons him, and then finds a female stand-in from outside. The two of them begin a life-and-death angsty romance.
What do you think? You’d be the Bai Yueguang, only appearing once or twice in flashbacks. The rest of the time you can openly slack off."
Shi Yuhuai looked up at Cheng Zhirang’s expression—that was very clearly a "this story was not approved by me" expression.
So he expressionlessly refused to play the role of "Bai Yueguang of the righteous-path genius."
Mu Qiu left in disappointment and walked off again with Cheng Zhirang.
"What do we do, my head is now full of that storyline; I can’t think of any other inspiration. Brother Cheng, what do you think of the story I just came up with?"
Cheng Zhirang matched her pace, walking slowly and unhurriedly as he said, "I think we still have time; we don’t have to cling to this. My character doesn’t necessarily have to be some ’righteous-path genius.’"
"But with your looks, you obviously scream righteous-path genius at first glance. Ah, you mean you want to change the story into the big demon lord being so pissed at the righteous-path genius that he cross-dresses and deceives your feelings, then imprisons you?! That does fit the character setting better!"
She looked thrilled and wanted to run back again to tell Shi Yuhuai. Cheng Zhirang, quick-eyed and quick-handed, grabbed her, his tone slightly strained:
"Can we not have any plot where I imprison him because I got my feelings deceived?"
Mu Qiu was forced to stop; the hem of her moon-white skirt swayed in a wave shape from inertia.
"You don’t want to play that kind of plot? That’s fine, then it’s that his cross-dressing makes me feel there’s an emotional crisis, so I imprison him, and then discover he’s a man. That logic also works..."
Guan Yu, who had been sitting by the "Scholar Mansion" gate the whole time, spoke up faintly, cutting off their discussion.
"Discuss all you want, but can you not act like we don’t exist? Why are you holding hands? From what I see, you don’t want Brother Huai in your story at all. The two of you might as well make your own standalone angsty romance."