Your Rival in Love Gets Prettier Every Day

Chapter 62: The Death of Zhou Jing

Bai Qingquan was melancholic today. After filming for a few months, he established a deep bond with the East Palace crew. This was the longest and most attentive drama he had filmed, and he gained a wealth of experience from being in this crew.

He had known about Zhou Jing's death two days ago and those scenes was going to be filmed today. He was surprised at first, since in the original work, he, as emperor, would've lasted a few more years, but the screenwriter had asked him to receive his lunch box* two episodes early.

*Lunch box = referring to you get a lunch box/bento after your parts are finished. Extended meaning refers to when someone in the movie dies and leaves (AKA goes offline).

Last week, they received rumors from directors and screenwriters that the finale would be somewhat different from the original work, especially the endings of the main characters, which parts have more or less already been changed. The producers have been meeting to discuss this matter for a few days and yesterday decided that they would shoot according to the ending planned by the adaption.

This was in consideration to the ratings. The ending of the original work had long been known by everyone. With an adaptation, the audience attention to the characters in the play, especially the popular Li Xu's final ending, would push ratings to a new high.

After Li Xu goes offline, there would be a few more episodes in the future focusing on the heroine and the new emperor. If the drama stuck to the original plot, it's estimated that the audience viewership will fall off. In order to prevent this, the last few episodes were all originally made by the screenwriter Meng Xiaosheng.

Though melancholic, Bai Qingquan was still jubilant. Zhou Jing's death was written very touching. He also got a flying page that added a story about Zhou Jing and the others when they were young. He thought this fitted well.

He recalled how despite being the male protagonist, he endured massive scolding during the middle and second half of the series, although not as much as Yang Lizhi.

He had to hand to Meng Xiaosheng. With a turn of the pen, his character immediately changed. He felt that the relationship between him and Li Xu had become more moving.

Zhou Jing's life had been hard. Since the death of his birth mother, he has lived under the nose of Empress Xiao. His life had been rough since he was a child. When he grew up, he became ambitious and wanted to seize the throne. Experiencing many life and death situations, he was finally able to sit on the emperor's throne. Through multiple internal and external strife, he managed to firmly secure his power but was on the verge of death.

He started as the second prince pretending as drafting clouds and wild storks*, to an ambitious scheming prince, then eventually emperor. Now when Bai Qingquan dons on his costume, he felt as if he was Zhou Jing.

*Drafting clouds and wild storks [Xianyun Yehe] (闲云野鹤) = idiom referring to people who live idle and free from world affairs.

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Zhou Jing beckoned slightly: "Come to me."

Li Xu got up again, knelt down in front of him, and held Zhou Jing's hand.

Zhou Jing grabbed him. He was so weak and out of breath. Li Xu leaned forward and put his ears to his mouth, and listened to Zhou Jing say: "A'Xu, I'm going to die."

Li Xu flushed as tears almost burst out. At this moment, Guo Rui shouted from behind the monitor: "Li Xu, you can't cry."

You could no longer tell the difference between Shen Jintai and Li Xu, and Bai Qingquan and Zhou Jing.

After Li Xu listened, he didn't move for a long time. He only lowered his eyes slightly, his adam's apple bobbed, and the blue veins appeared faintly on his neck. When he raised his head again, the tears had faded leaving only traces of red in his eyes. He said: "You won't be alone."