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Luo Ding’s flirtatious gaze fell on Duan Xiubo.

Even if he had long been prepared, Duan Xiubo still could not hold back a feeling of suffocation when he faced Luo Ding’s eyes.  

Luo Ding’s facial features were not exactly charming. It was enough to say that the lines of his eyebrows, lips and nose were all very clean and tidy and displayed a clear and handsome temperament. However, he simply used his forthright eyes to express his unwillingness and yet his careless expression and the positioning of his upper body lent this interpretation a completely different feeling that no one would find offensive.

Duan Xiubo has always been praised for his superb acting skills. Many people have expressed admiration at the difference between his actual personality and that of his characters. As the recipient of this praise, Duan Xiubo simply accepted all these words as a matter of course, but he did not really know whether the compliment was sincere or whether it was offered out of politeness.

Today, Luo Ding’s interpretation gave him insight into what this praise meant.

It turned out that those people were referring to this kind of feeling. Obviously, his face and body had not changed but the Luo Ding at this moment, and the person Duan Xiubo was familiar with, even the version of Luo Ding he saw in the “Tang Zhuan” crew, had nothing in common and could be described as independent individuals.

Luo Ding’s lips moved. He leaned back into the sofa, stared at Duan Xiubo and uttered softly, “Yu Er.”

Duan Xiubo was stunned. The voice was low, and smooth, with a special magnetism and a vague articulation which caused a slight grating sound in the ear canal. It fit perfectly with the role of Guangling Wang.

Luo Ding actually knows how to change voices?

He was really surprised!  Different characters in a film naturally need different speech patterns. Each sentence has a slightly different pronunciation, speed, accent, and tone. When displayed on the big screen with the clearest sound equipment, these variations will give people a different feeling. Many actors were unable to meet this requirement by themselves, so they could only request voice actors for post-production. However, no matter how professional and excellent voice actors were, a discerning person could tell the difference.

Duan Xiubo had studied with the industry’s most senior voiceover artist for nearly a year in order to perfect his vocalization. After fully grasping the use of line delivery as support for his roles, his acting skills were elevated to another level.

He could therefore tell that Luo Ding’s current way of changing his voice was definitely professional.

“Yu’er.” Luo Ding uttered again, waiting for Duan Xiubo to answer and smiling gently, like a spoiled lover, “What are you afraid of. No matter how bad it gets, I will still be here.”

Duan Xiubo’s high-speed brain quickly distinguished that Luo Ding was currently acting out the scene where Yu Guifei appears.

As if he could hear the other party’s frustrated words, Luo Ding frowned. The smile at the corner of his mouth turned into a sneer and he snorted coldly: “Sit down for me!”

As these four words landed the aura emanating from his whole body suddenly intensified. For a moment, as Huo Xie focused on watching Luo Ding’s demonstration he subconsciously straightened his back and he noticed that Luo Ding had stretched out his hands to support his forehead. His fingers, strong and slender, had almost covered his entire face.

Yet, even without the help of facial expressions the arrogant and unyielding temperament of Wang Guangling could clearly be felt.  

“How can he escape?” His tone was calm and casual, as if he wasn’t talking about a living person, “kill him as soon as possible.”

For a short moment a creepy and sinister atmosphere could be felt. Luo Ding put down his hand and from his face you could not perceive any aura belonging to Wang Guangling at all.

“Director Huo,” with a little smile, his eyes clear and warm, Luo Ding stood up and nodded to Huo Xie, politely and respectfully, “What do you think?”

Huo Xie was holding a tea cup, and when he lowered it, he realized that his arm muscles had become sore because he had held the tea cup for too long.

After calming his emotions, Huo Xie opened his mouth and felt like he was a desperate lost traveler who had found the main road. He was excited! There was no other word to describe his feelings except happy.

Luo Ding’s interpretation was even more accurate than that of Chen Xufeng and more suitable for the role’s characterization. At that moment, he had seen a living Wang Guangling standing before him. The imposing manner and the convincing charm were captured by Luo Ding and displayed. This is was the truest depiction of Wang Guangling that he had envisioned!

Thinking of his earlier attitude towards Luo Ding, Huo Xie blushed while touching the edge of the tea cup. He was too embarrassed to speak.

Duan Xiubo was a little dazed by Luo Ding just now. He had been absorbed by the demonstration and his throat was still a little bit dry. He coughed to clear his throat. “Huo, I think Luo Ding is really suitable. We are in the middle of shooting and it’s best for the crew to settle this as soon as possible. Besides, occasionally you should also give young people a chance. “

Huo Xie took advantage of Duan Xiubo’s opening and nodded solemnly, “You make sense.”

********

On Weibo’s real time hot topics, people had still not been able to completely break away from the storm created by Pan Yiming’s MV and Luo Ding’s casting in “Tang Zhuan”. The top three trends were refreshed and another post that caused great controversy appeared.

1. Duan Xiubo: “Luo Ding, happy cooperation. Although you are young, you have a promising future. I hope everyone will support the newcomers and give them encouragement.”

2 The film crew: “Because actor Chen Xufeng was accidentally injured during filming, the role of the third leading actor has officially been replaced by the actor Luo Ding. Please stay tuned for future announcements of changes”

3. Director Huo Xie: “Sure enough, talented people come from all over the world and they can be fearsome. Luo Ding is great, come on!”

Suddenly, Weibo exploded.

This month was really lively. There was explosive news appearing every once in a while. What kind of movie was this? This was expected to be the winner of the New Year box office! A blockbuster movie that will be shown in cinemas abroad! A giant production that can compete with Hollywood commercial blockbusters! There are no more than two of such films produced domestically in a year!

It was not positive news for any production team to change actors, but the crew of “Wolong” had advertised this change with posts from three big V’s[1], and also deliberately promoted the replacement actor. Who is Luo Ding?!!

Many people who clicked on the link and jumped onto Luo Ding’s page quickly discovered that this was the same actor who had won the role of Fu Zhu and had endured a lot of scolding some time ago?!!

What kind of streak of good luck was this? First, he took over the biggest production of the year in the television circle and then less than a month later, He entered the movie circle and is collaborating with Duan Xiubo? How many actors have been struggling in the entertainment industry for decades and don’t dare think about such opportunities. Without any hidden rules how is this possible?!!!

For a while, Luo Ding’s weibo page was bustling. The few photographs posted were dug up again and analyzed. Each photo was enlarged to explore the details. Everyone sought to find out his background.

“You see, the sofa on which he sits is actually Chinese style, he must be lying about his background!”

“I have the same shirt. It’s only fifty-five yuan on Taobao. Is it genuine?”

“What’s the lie? Can a small-time star join such a film? There must be a godfather behind him!”

“How many white-water armies[2] did this guy hire? Why are all the trends related to him?”

“What a Joke, you want Duan Xiubo to advertise on your behalf? A small “blue V “using a big yellow V[3] as a white-water army?”[4]

All kinds of remarks emerged in an endless stream. Luo Ding stood in the eye of the storm and in just a few days the number of fans following his weibo doubled and doubled, quickly breaking through the one million mark. The number of comments and reposts on his latest bland message climbed to as high as 30,000. Everyone left messages on his homepage “ If you are going to act in this film, please dig deeper”.

The news around the “Wolong” crew overlapped with the publicity for “Tang Zhuan” Almost half of the popular trends were related to Luo Ding and even major media magazine articles had also been published.

While the news was still hot the crew of “Tang Zhuan” finally released its set makeup photos.

It was unknown who was the first to start reporting on this release but a group of “FBI” who were investigating Luo Ding’s origins rushed to the official blue v account of “Tang Zhuan”. In just four hours, the number of reposts of the still photos exceeded 50,000, and the number of comments were over 100,000.

For about half an hour, everyone was speechless.

In total there were ten photo stills, two for each starring male and female actor, one for the grand scene, while other actors occupied four. The remaining four stills were all related to Luo Ding.

The retouched pictures were even more perfect than the original shots. Four photos. In one, Fu Zhu was dressed in white while standing upright in front of the city wall, facing the wind. In another Fu Zhu was standing in the main hall and looking at the dragon throne with a complex look in his eyes. The other was a photo of Fu Zhu kneeling and facing Li Shimin who was slightly bent over while wearing his armor. In the last photo, Fu Zhu was holding a dagger and smiling quietly.

In each picture the young man on the screen reached another level of beauty. The static picture gave the impression that if one could not grasp him at that moment he would be lost forever.  

The first thing that people noticed was always his eyes. Without much change to his facial expression, you could still deduce everything he wanted to say from his eyes. Sad, hateful, contradictory, relieved.

His eyes were sad and desolate.

The commentary of the official blog was very brief and concise: “All controversies will be settled in the future.”

After a short half-hour, a new round of butchering began on the front page.

After the set makeup photo came out, “Luo Ding’s fastest and most unsparing account “Fu zhu Support Club” posted the latest four makeup photos stills, and expressed his excitement with a large number of exclamation marks—

— “Fu Zhu, ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah !!! The screen is dirty, I’ll lick it !!!!!!”

This Weibo post quickly reached the top of the hourly trend list with more than 20,000 reposts.

After clicking on the comments, the response immediately below was

“Ahhh, don’t look at me like that !!!”

“Ah, ah, my husband is lying on his back !!!”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

“Ah, ah I’m Li Shimin’s hand, I’m Li Shimin’s hand !!”

While the female fans of Fu zhu boiled, the male fans were angry.

“Why are you all so superficial! I have lost all hope in this face-seeking world!”

[1] verified celebrities

[2] A white-water army refers to marketers or bots that are paid to comment in support of someone the opposite is a black powder army that is paid to troll or tarnish a celebrity’s image

[3] Weibo appears to have levels of verification small blue V’s are verified “celebrities” with small followings, a big Yellow V is for the truly big stars.

[4] I must note that the netizen comments are unbelievably hard to translate and probably not accurate. A lot of slang is being used here and the Chinese speakers I asked seemed to have difficulty putting the comments into words.

T/N Gotta say I am basically all the female fans screaming and licking the screen on a daily basis lol.

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