2ndchances 8: Blue Bird Photoshoot Theme 1

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Chapter 8: Blue Bird Photoshoot Theme 1

“Xinyi, there you are.”

Rong Yan walked into the staff break room in search of her agent and assistant, Fu Xinyi. The two had been together for a long time, and sometimes Rong Yan wondered if Fu Xinyi remembered she was an assistant.

Not that it really mattered.

Rong Yan had the privilege of being an entertainer with her own capital and status that could dwarf just about anyone else in the circle, so why should she care about how Fu Xinyi’s tendency to wander off on set?

Anyway, she was keeping Fu Xinyi onboard more for her abilities as an agent than an assistant.

Bodyguard Chu-ge didn’t seem to mind being treated as an assistant in her stead – or more precisely, Rong Yan was never short of people to answer to her beck and call.

Not that she cared to, but if she said ‘Jump’, most people in the entertainment industry would have to reply, ‘How high?’

For Rong Yan, she didn’t mind having an airheaded agent/assistant who was less servile by her side, so Fu Xinyi had kept her job all these years despite her unprofessional side.

“Oh, Yan! Sorry, I got distracted. Meet my new friend, Lanlan!”

Fu Xinyi grinned cheekily as she introduced the little girl sitting on the break room’s sofa to Rong Yan.

If you told Rong Yan she was a child actor, Rong Yan would have believed it.

The little girl was extremely beautiful and extremely charming.

Rong Yan raised an eyebrow.

The Rong Family didn’t actually have much of a footing in the entertainment industry, but the Scotts on her mother’s side certainly did.

And while the Scotts have no need to use Rong Yan’s influence, with their own weight being quite significant in the circle, Rong Yan was more than willing to keep her eyes open for good potential investments on their behalf.

The Rongs take care of their own, after all, and the Scotts were allies by marriage and blood.

“Hello Lanlan, it’s nice to meet you.”

“H-hello, it’s nice to meet you.”

The little girl bobbed her head shyly in response to Rong Yan’s greeting.

“She’s here with her uncle, isn’t she cute? Lanlan, how old are you? Are you in school yet?” Fu Xinyi asked, cooing at the four or five year old girl.

Really, this agent of hers should just get married and have kids already. Rong Yan was tired of watching baby-crazy Xinyi about lose her mind every time she saw a child under the age of ten. The woman’s biological clock has ticked and the alarm has clearly rung.

As the little girl looked uncertainly at the crazy woman, with Rong Yan’s sympathy, the door to the break room suddenly opened.

“Little Uncle!”

Rong Yan narrowed her eyes a little as she saw the young photographer’s assistant walk in, freezing slightly at the sight of Rong Yan and her entourage before walking over to the little girl.

He swept the little girl up in his arms.

“Lanlan, are you being good? You aren’t bored, are you?”

Rong Yan noted that he glanced apprehensively towards her and Fu Xinyi, with Bodyguard Chu standing quietly behind them.

She chuckled, saying, “Our apologies. My agent really likes troubling children, it seems.”

“No, not at all, I’m sure it’s boring for Lanlan to be by herself,” the assistant, was his name Chen Yijun? Said.

“N-no… Lanlan isn’t bored…” the little girl said, shyly hiding her face in Chen Yijun’s shoulder. She might have been a little bored before Fu Xinyi showed up…

“Isn’t there someone who can watch her for you? It would be more fun than sitting in a break room all day, right Lanlan?” Fu Xinyi asked, but contrary to what she expected, Lanlan shook her head furiously, rubbing her face against Chen Yijun’s shoulder.

Chen Yijun patted the little girl’s head soothingly, as his attitude became obviously awkward.

He continued to pat his niece’s head as he said, “It’s just me and her for now…”

Fu Xinyi gasped sharply, then her eyes watered as she quickly said, “O-oh… I see…”

Rong Yan sighed a little on the inside, but she wasn’t going to bail her foolish agent out. Fu Xinyi is so good at accidentally poking at others’ sore spots that Rong Yan’s surprised she hasn’t been beaten up yet.

Even Bodyguard Chu was secretly rolling his eyes behind their backs.

Luckily for Fu Xinyi, a distraction soon appeared.

“Ah, there you are. Little Yi, Rong-laoshi, we’d like to shoot your solo shots first, if that’s alright with you.”

Wei Mingxin suddenly appeared at the door, making Chen Yijun feel kind of guilty.

As the photographer’s assistant, he was the one who should be running errands and conveying messages on the photographer’s behalf, but he ended up making Wei Mingxin have to hunt for him instead.

He quickly set Lanlan down and patted her on the head with a, “Then Little Uncle has to work now, be good,” before following Wei Mingxin and Rong Yan and the others back out towards the studio set.

As they walked down the hall, Wei Mingxin was explaining the setting again.

“… And so we’re going for that kind of a feeling. A luxurious look from the first or second millenium, AD.”

Chen Yijun had a lot of conflicting feelings towards the broad ‘somewhere between the years 1000 to 3000 AD’.

That was a reaaaaaally big time frame, okay!? Although it’s true that a range of two thousand years was nothing compared to the decamilleniums between the end of the AD era and the current time (AFS era).

But still, 1000 AD was the Middle Ages and 3000 AD was something Chen Yijun hadn’t had the hopes of ever seeing!

Well, if you asked Chen Yijun, the furniture on the set was a mashup of styles from the Victorian age and his previous world’s modern age. That’s a gap of, what, 3 centuries? Then these interstellar people really couldn’t be blamed for not being able to keep track.

… Although Chen Yijun didn’t even know if the world was similar enough to his previous one to even be able to assume the culture in this world’s past was the same.

At least the fashion was still similar to what Chen Yijun knew from his previous life – sure the trends here or there might be different (bald heads were a lot more common these days), but the human form hadn’t changed much, nor had the basic requirements for clothing (warmth and comfort), so everyday clothing was still familiar to him.

On the other hand, the requirements for many uniforms (military, medical, etc) had changed due to required defenses or additional utilities needed for the job they were needed for or the environments they would be used in, so those were quite different from what he remembered.

And costumes were … well, costumes could be crazier and appear to defy the laws of physics with even more incredible designs thanks to the new technology of the interstellar era.

And all of that meant … a dark brown, pinstripe, three piece suit with a black tie and pocket chain still gave a feeling of class and elegance.

Chen Yijun couldn’t help but discreetly survey Rong Yan’s form from the side.

She was all slender waist and long legs and looking like a tall glass of water.

Rong Yan was a woman who looked good in a suit, and this particular suit was cut perfectly to elongate her bodyline, avoiding the mistake of making her look short and squat.

However … There was nothing wrong with the austere allure when a person is properly dressed up in a suit, but Chen Yijun felt that this feeling of being untouchable due to an appeal of ‘abstinence’ wasn’t allowing Rong Yan to display her full appeal.

Chen Yijun’s fingers twitched a little.

He wanted to loosen the tie and unbutton the top two buttons of her dress shirt.

Rong Yan’s very temperament made her both extremely attractive and yet extremely untouchable already, so there was no need to create a feeling of abstinence to make her feel untouchable.

Instead, in Chen Yijun’s opinion, it just made her feel TOO abstinent.

But it’s not like he was going to say anything… the costumes were from a minor luxury brand that had been predetermined, and he wanted to see what Wei Mingxin’s own image for the shoot was.

As they walked past the changing rooms, now occupied with the younger artists, angry voices spilled out of a barely closed door.

“An-an, you can’t be so selfish!”

“I’m not upset that you brought a trainee for exposure, Sister Xiu! I’m asking why you decided to sneak her in behind my back! And in the first place, Fan Li is also your artist and she was the other debutee who was being considered for this job, so why didn’t you bring her instead?”

There was only Wei Mingxin, Rong An, Fu Xinyi, Bodyguard Chu, and Chen Yijun in the hall, but it was enough people to make things somewhat awkward.

In the silence that fell over the hall, Ann·Xia’s agent’s voice rang through clearly.

“An-an, just because you debuted and got a little bit of fame, you can’t bully your juniors!”

There was silence for a moment before Ann·Xia finally spoke, a voice full of disbelief.

“Sister Xiu, you really did this all in good conscience, eh? You seem to have your own intentions for this shoot, but let me remind you; do not play games here. I know I’m just a shrimp and you can play me as you wish, but Wei Mingxin and Rong Yan are not people you can cross. Do not drag me into whatever suicidal thoughts you have.”

The rough sound of a chair scraping backwards could be heard, and before Ann·Xia could stomp her way out of the room, Wei Mingxun quickly coughed, sweeping everyone through the photo studio door and out of sight of the hall.

“Well… there are things like this that happen from time to time. It’s better to act like you didn’t hear anything,” Wei Mingxin said, shaking his head as he instructed Chen Yijun.

Rong Yan chuckled, “It’s really too bad when new artists like to play little tricks. Miss Xia seems to have bad luck to have such an agent.”

Wei Mingxun shot a side glance towards Rong Yan.

He knew the rumors, that Rong Yan disliked these sort of underhanded tricks, but that she would also lend a hand to artists who had gotten stuck in bad situations.

Was she …

Noticing his look, Agent Fu Xinyi just laughed, somewhat darkly, and said, “It remains to be seen whether Miss Xia has the ability to be noticed.”

Wei Mingxin understood and said nothing more.

There was no point to step in for someone who wouldn’t be able to last in the entertainment circle, after all. If Ann·Xia didn’t have talent, it was better to just let her fade out here.

Chen Yijun: ? – he was completely out of the loop.

Wei Mingxin, Rong Yan, and Agent Fu Xinyi quickly stopped talking about the subject, opting to pretend it had never occurred, and quickly went to shoot Rong Yan’s solo shots.

Chen Yijun was stunned as he watched Rong Yan posing.

His worry from before, that the fully buttoned, pristinely worn suit and tie would make her look too frigid, was completely shot out of the sky as her eyes, expression, and posture were passionate and alluring. It completely offset the ascetic feel of her outfit.

For the first time in his life/lives, Chen Yijun finally understood what his girl friends had meant when they said a perfectly worn suit on a handsome man just felt like it was inviting you to mess it up.

So this is the power of a top supermodel; the ability to wield her sex appeal like a weapon.

Rong Yan – what a frightening woman!

Between a good photographer and a good model, there was little trouble and Rong Yan’s solo shots were soon done.

The trouble came from the group shots.

Du Lingyu and Ann·Xia were wearing demure dresses that gave off the feel of innocent, rich young ladies.

Rong Yan was wearing a prim and proper three piece suit.

Together they were … hm.

It wasn’t dissatisfactory, but that overwhelming ‘abstinence’ feeling was back.

Because Rong Yan had to suppress her aura considerably for the two new artists, it just felt very … bland.

The contrasting feeling that Wei Mingxin had wanted between Rong Yan and the two younger girls was also lacking.

He clearly intended the difference to be shown in the masculine stoicism of Rong Yan and the feminine innocence of Ann·Xia and Du Lingyu, but Rong Yan’s appearance wasn’t particularly masculine, and Ann·Xia was rather tomboy-ish with her bobcut and brazen posture, so with Rong Yan holding back her temperament, there wasn’t much of a difference at all.

Du Lingyu? She was actually rather good at mixing in with Ann·Xia’s atmosphere as needed, so although she looked quite girly by herself, the effect was much reduced when posing with two strong women.

A few shots in, Wei Mingxin reviewed the photos he had taken.

It was just a little, but his mouth underneath that moustache was set in a dissatisfied line.

The photos were good – who could say they were bad when a distinguished photographer took them seriously? – but he also thought they were a bit… lacking.

Lacking what, though?

Wei Mingxin couldn’t say right away, and it was such a faint feeling that he’d normally just say, ‘Good enough’ and just roll with it, but right now…

“Little Yi, what do you think?”

Wei Mingxin held some expectations towards Chen Yijun.

The boy wasn’t very good at hiding his expressions, so although Wei Mingxin would normally just move on, he knew that he wasn’t imagining that these shots could be better just be the slight grimaces that Chen Yijun had.

“Wha- me?!”

It would be good if the boy was more aware of himself. If he didn’t want Wei Mingxin to call him out on it, he should control his expressions better.

Wei Mingxin chuckled.

“Yes, you. I hired you so you could give me your opinion, you know.”

A strange look appeared on Chen Yijun’s face before he turned serious.

“Then… since you’re asking me…”

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