Lu Yinbing frightened her. Shaolin Temple is Shaolin Temple, but the person she was looking for was not someone from Shaolin Temple, but the person who was currently discussing Zen with Zen Master xx in Shaolin Temple—Li Xiuyi.
The person she was looking for answered the phone. Lu Yinbing spoke to him very briefly and asked him if he was free recently. She said that a friend of hers was going to act in a TV series and needed to learn kung fu, so she asked him to teach her and would be paid well.
Even hermits need to eat. Li Xiuyi was trying to resist, saying that he was cultivating himself and didn't want to get involved in worldly affairs. Lu Yinbing gave him a number, and the other party said, "Let me know when you come, and I'll pick you up."
Lu Yinbing said there was no need to answer the phone, they would go there by themselves.
After hanging up the phone, Lu Yinbing explained to Xia Yitong that Li Xiuyi was a lay disciple of the Shaolin Temple. Of course, he did not graduate from the Shaolin Temple martial arts school. He studied martial arts under the senior monks in the temple decades ago, and later traveled around the world, living a life a bit like an ancient knight-errant. He is 63 years old this year, but he is in good health and sometimes does part-time jobs, such as being a martial arts director for a film crew.
He was the one who went to find others, and no one else went to find him. He didn't have a mobile phone, only a fixed mailing address to write to, but his whereabouts were uncertain, and it would take half a year to get a reply. Fortunately, he spent some time every year in Shaolin Temple to practice Zen. The last time Lu Yinbing met him was five years ago, when she went to Shaolin Temple to visit him.
Qin Hanlin was busy selecting actors, Zhou Yiwen was working day and night to revise the script, the script doctor was always on hand, and they often had meetings all night long. Taking all factors into consideration, the drama should be officially launched in three months at most, so Xia Yitong had to speed up.
The next day, at dusk, the two flew and drove to Dengfeng, Henan, and arrived at Shaoshi Mountain. Songshan Shaolin Temple is a 5A-level scenic spot. The scenes of learning from a master in the movie were shattered into dust when they visited this place in person. The two bought two tourist tickets first to make it easier to move around inside.
After passing the mountain gate, entering the corridor and passing the forest of steles, we finally entered the heart of Shaolin Temple. The trees blocked out the sun, and the solemn feeling of the ancient temple came to us. At dusk and morning bells, Xia Yitong looked at the bell-ringing master standing in the pavilion from afar and took a deep breath of the air with the scent of incense.
They and Li Xiuyi agreed to meet outside the Great Hall of the Buddha, a landmark building that was easy to find. Lu Xia and the others walked all the way to the back of the Heavenly King Hall, clasped their hands together, and bowed their heads slightly to salute the monks.
At 6 pm, Shaolin Temple refused to allow tourists. Before 6 pm, Li Xiuyi took the two "tourists" away and took them to a quiet meditation room. He asked Xia Yitong to bend down and do splits to check her muscles and bones, and wrote on a piece of paper to ask her: What have you practiced
Xia Yitong said: "Taekwondo."
Li Xiuyi shook his head, then nodded, and wrote: See you at the backyard of the temple gate at five o'clock tomorrow morning. I will deliver tomorrow's clothes later.
After he left, facing Xia Yitong's puzzled gaze, Lu Yinbing hesitated and said, "I guess he is practicing silent meditation?"
Whether he kept his mouth shut or not did not stop Li Xiuyi from doing his job and training people in a rigorous manner. He first asked Lu Yinbing about the requirements he wanted to achieve, then went back to his room and wrote a three-month training plan, first training his light body and lower body, then his fists and upper body, and finally his swordsmanship.
At 4:50 in the morning, she was wearing a snow-white training suit, with 3kg leggings tied on each foot. Her clothes were fluttering in the wind. Lu Yinbing was filming her with a DV. In the mountain breeze, Lu Yinbing's deliberately low voice could be heard: "It is now September 7, 2017, 4:51 in the morning, at the back door of Shaolin Temple, not open to tourism. For the filming of the TV series "Mei Qi", our lead actress Xia Yitong decided to come to Shaolin Temple for three months of devilish training. Although the time is a bit short, I believe she can do it."
"She is wearing a white training suit, with a narrow waist and long legs. At first glance, she looks thin and weak, but when she exerts force on her arms, she shows the muscles she has developed through years of training. Miss Xia, please lift up her coat. Okay, can you see it? It's too dark to see? It doesn't matter. I've touched it anyway. She has mermaid lines and abdominal muscles. Our Miss Xia is laughing again," Lu Yinbing turned the camera towards herself, "Frontline reporter Lu Yinbing brings you the latest report."
She looked over Xia Yitong's shoulder, put away the DV and put it in the bag on her back. In the morning light, she could see that she was dressed the same as Xia Yitong, with her long hair tied into a ponytail, which made her look younger.
Li Xiuyi walked closer from a distance and asked, "Do you see the stairs going down?"
Xia Yitong nodded. She was now standing at the top of the stairs.
"Jump down, jump up, and back and forth counts as one, a total of three times."
Xia Yitong turned around and looked at the countless stairs: "!!!"
This is how her nightmare began.
I jumped from 5:00 to 10:00 in the morning, eating a steamed bun with pickles for breakfast. In the afternoon, I did horse stance, my legs were shaking so much that I knelt on the ground several times, and my knees hit the bluestone slabs, making a dull sound.
The next morning, I woke up to the sound of my own unconscious howling, as if all my bones were broken. Li Xiuyi came over to take a look, waved his hand, and gave me a morning off, and continued as usual in the afternoon.
Lu Yinbing felt distressed, but there was nothing she could do, so she could only try not to look. She stayed with Xia Yitong for two days and one night, and then returned to the capital to work on her own business.
It's not that Xia Yitong can't endure hardships. She can be asked to shoot all night long, but shooting is not like this. Every minute and every second is torture. She endured for five days and lost weight at a speed visible to the naked eye. Li Xiuyi saw her doing horse stance that day. Her eyes were almost closed. He sighed and walked up to her. For some reason, he muttered, "I used to train Lu Yinbing like this. Why are kids nowadays getting worse and worse?"
After he finished speaking, Xia Yitong's eyes suddenly opened as big as light bulbs, which scared him.
From that day on, Xia Yitong practiced martial arts with all her might. She imagined that the eighteen-year-old Lu Yinbing had jumped over the stairs in the same way. She was immediately filled with endless motivation. She would adapt to the situation and further imagine that the eighteen-year-old Lu Yinbing was running in front and she was chasing behind.
Lu Yinbing said: "Come chase me, if you catch me I will let you hehehe."
Xia Yitong chased very enthusiastically. Li Xiuyi once saw her dancing and laughing, and there was an inexplicable strange aura in her smile. He thought that this child had been trained crazy.
She was doing very well in the Shaolin Temple. Her leggings were changed from 3 kg to 5 kg, but the total time of step jumping was not extended, but gradually shortened. She would not take off her leggings except when she was taking a shower, running or doing horse stance training, and even when she was sleeping. She did horse stance every day without fail, from the original few minutes to an hour later. She was sweating profusely but still energetic. Li Xiuyi pushed her when she was not prepared, but her upper body tilted slightly, and her lower body did not move at all. Li Xiuyi said "Oh" and gave her a thumbs up. Xia Yitong grinned at him. Her white skin was tanned to wheat color by the wind, sun and rain every day, which was in sharp contrast with her teeth.
Xia Yitong would kick and punch in his sleep, and rolled under the bed several times, but he would pat his butt and get up to continue sleeping.
Lu Yinbing came here once every half a month, staying for two or three days at most, or just one day at least. Every time she came back, she would see a new Xia Yitong who was a bit darker, but in better spirits. Of course, she couldn't do those kinds of things in the quiet Buddhist place, and she was too depressed to hold it in. On the day Xia Yitong received the notice to join the group, she immediately returned to Beijing, allowing Lu Yinbing to feel the results of her three months of training, which was very... significant.
Of course, that's a story for later. The current situation is that Xia Yitong is still in Shaolin Temple, practicing martial arts wholeheartedly. He dares not post selfies on Weibo for fear of exposing his location. He occasionally writes about his feelings and experiences. During this period, he also participated in two video conferences because the finalization of the script requires the opinions of the director, producer, screenwriter, preliminary actors, etc. What we know is that Zhou Yiwen's adaptation went very smoothly. The original novel is very visual, and Zhou Yiwen is a master in this field. His ideas flow freely, and the required cycle was greatly shortened. After two months, he had produced a high-quality finished product that included character biographies, plot outlines, episode plots, and so on.
The male lead has been chosen. He is not a popular star, but an actor who has been suppressed by traffic for many years and can only play the second male lead. His acting skills are recognized as good. The second female lead Cen Xi passed the audition and was confirmed. The third female lead was given to Lai Ying, who claimed to be a guest star for Ai Lai. Most of the other candidates and supporting roles have been finalized, but the guest list is too strong. If it were an ordinary director, he would probably be scared. Qin Hanlin will not do that. He will take one after another. He is not afraid of you coming, but he is afraid of you leaving.
Lu Yinbing's impromptu guest appearance never came to fruition. After nearly half a year of waiting, she finally picked a suitable script. Xia Yitong heard a few words from her on the phone and knew what she was busy with recently. She worked on the script with the director and screenwriter every day, and she was busy until the middle of the night when she was with Xia Yitong.
When Xia Yitong had finished most of her training, Lu Yinbing probably had made up his mind and told her about it.
The name of the movie is "Adoptive Mother", which tells the story of a mother with mental illness and her adopted daughter. The plot is not complicated and is extremely challenging for acting skills. Just by listening to the name, you can tell that the audience is not wide, and even with Lu Yinbing, the box office will not be high. This kind of title and character setting are aimed at winning awards.
Lu Yinbing said with guilt that she would spend the next six months preparing for the film, four months observing patients in a mental hospital, and two months cultivating a mother-daughter relationship with the young actress in the play. She might not be able to meet her often.
Xia Yitong was very open-minded, as they were all in the same business. She was already content with the two months that Lu Yinbing had been with her almost all the time, and she would not let Lu Yinbing sacrifice his artistic career for her. She knew that Lu Yinbing had been extremely gentle and considerate to her when they were together, and that this was also a form of compensation, as she didn't know when she would be unable to take care of her because of filming. It was the same for her, as she should be good to each other when they were together, and not hold each other's hands and feet when they were apart.
The only thing that worried her was that Lu Yinbing would get hurt every time she filmed this kind of movie.
The scar on Lu Yinbing's leg is still vivid.
Will she get too immersed in the role again and it affect her mental state