Ghosts Know What I Experienced

Chapter 42 Part 2

While he was resting the next day, Xi Jia recalled what Ziying had said yesterday. He opened “Ghosts Know” that he hadn’t read in a long time. Scrolling through the history logs, he actually found an article——

《Cengxiu-zhenjun praises that he is a formation genius rarely seen in 500 years, the Mausoleum is indestructible because of him! 》

Xi Jia tapped it open to take a look, and it was actually an acquaintance: Qishan-daoren.

【 Editor: Qishan-daoren, a few days ago, you have smoothly merged 100 formations together, deciphered a difficult problem of the Xuanxue world of many years, and made the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor even safer. Senior Cengxiu has acclaimed that you are a formations genius rarely seen in 500 years. I’ve heard that you have failed once a week ago. May I ask what you think of this failure? Why did you think you could succeed this time? 】

【 Qishan-daoren: Hahahaha, Cengxiu has overstated. 500 years is too exaggerated. This old man is only at the level of 300 years. The failure that time was because this old man wasn’t careful and slipped when arranging the last array. The second fusion has been successful. This small failure is not worth mentioning. As for why it is successful……Hahaha, this old man will not say it, you all understand. 】

【 Editor: Senior Qishan is really modest……I’ve heard that on the day of your failure, a 100 year old tree in front of the Qin Shi Huang Terracotta Army Museum suddenly broke, and even a fake Terracotta Army Museum was destroyed by someone. Do you think this is related to your failed formation? 】

【 Qishan-daoren: That tree might have been affected by the aftermath of my formation and accidentally broke. That is this old man’s fault. As for the fake Terracotta Army……Wait a minute? There’s even a fake Terracotta Army? Isn’t there only one Terracotta Army in this world?! 】

The editor gave Qishan-daoren some enlightenment.

【Qishan-daoren: ……MF! The one that this old man went to see three months ago was actually the fake Terracotta Army! Where are those bastard peddlers, this old man will lightning bolt them to death!!! 】

Xi Jia, “……”

Although the Xuanxue world was acting like they’re done for just like always, Xi Jia found out about the truth from the interview news article. It turned out that Qishan-daoren had already set those enchantments in place. No wonder Ziying’s ears were clear and in peace, and he could study at ease.

While shooting during the afternoon, Xi Jia got a bag of small walnuts from an actress. Ye Jingzhi was carrying Song Song while he made tea for Xi Jia. Xi Jia walked over with the walnuts, placed them on the table, and started to peel them. He smiled, “Master Ye, these walnuts taste pretty good. They’re a specialty of Sister Wang’s hometown. She brought a lot here and gave us some. Eat some.”

After Ye Jingzhi finished making the tea, he picked up a small walnut and started to peel it. His movements were very clumsy. After peeling for a long time, he finally opened the outer shell. However, once he used a little more effort, the majority of the walnut kernels inside actually fell to the floor. Ye Jingzhi blankly glanced at the walnut on the ground. He could only fish out the remaining quarter of a walnut and place it in his mouth.

He looked at Xi Jia, “Delicious..”

Xi Jia looked at him in a daze.

His eyes watched Master Ye spend quite a while to break open a walnut. Then dropping the majority of the kernels, he only ate the remaining little bit. Xi Jia said out loud, “Master Ye, open your mouth.”

Ye Jingzhi subconsciously opened his mouth, and Xi Jia immediately put the walnut that he had just peeled into his mouth.

Ye Jingzhi, “!!!”

Xi Jia smiled as he said, “I’ll help peel it for you. It’s very good, you should eat more.”

Ye Jingzhi blankly looked at Xi Jia. At first, he hadn’t even returned to his senses when Xi Jia told him to open his mouth. When he did, he ate a sweet walnut. Afterwards, Master Ye’s face became red. Xi Jia’s fingertips constantly brushed against his lips. When Xi Jia wanted to feed him again, he suddenly reached out and blocked the walnut.

Xi Jia was stunned, and Ye Jingzhi said, “I-I can peel it myself.”

Xi Jia didn’t even think, “But, I want to peel for you to eat.” Saying this, he continued to peel the walnut and feed him, “Master Ye, eat.”

Ye Jingzhi’s face became really red, “!”

Wife wants to peel for me to eat……

My wife is the best in the universe!!!

They ate and ate. Xi Jia kept on peeling walnuts for Ye Jingzhi and only occasionally ate some himself. He said, “When I was roughly three or four years old and didn’t have the Mt. Tai stone yet, my father took me to see a folk master. The master said that the reason why my yin energy was so strong was because there’s a crack in my skull that didn’t fuse properly and wanted my father to give me more walnuts to eat to supplement my brain.”

Ye Jingzhi said, “I’ve never heard of the theory of yin energy in relation to having a crack in the skull. This thing is a bit hard to peel. Master is afraid of inconvenience and doesn’t like to eat. Later when Master was gone, I practice magic everyday and don’t have time to eat these things.”

Xi Jia silently curved his lips up: So it’s like this, no wonder Master Ye doesn’t really know how to peel walnuts.

Being fed more than twenty walnuts by Xi Jia, Ye Jingzhi was extremely happy today. No matter what, he wouldn’t let Xi Jia cook late supper when they got back. He personally cooked and made two dishes and one soup that were much more delicious than the crew’s chef.

Xi Jia had very few scenes these days and had it quite relaxed, allowing him to often chat with Ye Jingzhi and find out about his past. However, The Hard Roads to Shu’s male lead, Fang Moting, returned not long after. The one Xi Jia shared the most scenes with was this Film Emperor Fang, and he started to become busy with shooting once again.

Xi Jia once said that even though he was always in suspenseful horror movies, he liked to watch comedy. Life was already so hard so he wanted to watch more comedy to make himself happy. So Xi Jia’s impression of this Film Emperor Fang was limited to entertainment news and the female ghost that kissed Fang Moting’s poster that he had encountered in Chang’an Movie City a couple months ago.

Probably because he didn’t really understand this film emperor, Xi Jia didn’t have a good or bad impression of him. It wasn’t until they started to shoot their shared scenes and the director called out “Action,” Xi Jia hadn’t even snapped back to his senses when a powerful aura enveloped him, and he dumbfoundedly followed the other’s performance.

Without a doubt, this scene was passed by Old Li in one take.

Xi Jia finally understood what level a film emperor was. His impression of Film Emperor Fang completely changed. Although like was out of the question, it was absolutely admiration.

During dinner, Xi Jia emotionally said, “It turns out that a true actor is this awesome. Master Ye, you don’t know but when I was filming with Fang Moting, I suddenly felt like I was acting very well. He carried me into that state of mind. It’s too amazing. Truly worthy to be the current popular film emperor!”

When Xi Jia said this, Master Ye was concentrated on helping him peel shrimp. Today’s boxed meals for the crew were excellent. Fang Moting had just returned to the crew and invited everyone for a meal, and it was a big seafood meal. Hearing this, Master Ye raised his head to look at Xi Jia and saw that his wife’s eyes were filled with admiration and excitement. His mouth kept saying words of praise.

Ye Jingzhi lowered his head and peeled shrimp while feeling wronged, “Is……is he that great?”

Xi Jia nodded, “Yes, Master Ye. Before I didn’t feel anything for him and I’ve never had any interest in his movies. But, I have to admit that his acting is really good. It’s no wonder he could earn awards. Being able to stand in that position, he truly knows how to conduct himself. Today, when we’re filming together, his attitude is pretty nice, and he has even treated us to a meal right now.”

Master Ye felt extremely wronged, wronged to the point a spoon could be hung on his mouth!

However, Xi Jia’s praise for Fang Moting was only limited to his acting and his smooth way of handling things.

If you want to climb up in the entertainment circle, good acting was more important than a good-looking face, and conduct was more important than good acting. Xi Jia knew that he himself wasn’t very good at interacting with others. After all, he had little contact with others since he was young, and he wasn’t good at those complicated interpersonal relationships. Likewise, Ye Jingzhi was the same. Ye Jingzhi wasn’t as good as Xi Jia since he even had a nickname like “Hell King Ye.”

However, this was how he thought, but Ye Jingzhi didn’t know at all.

Every time he saw Xi Jia and Fang Moting act together, Ye Jingzhi would hold Song Song and watch while feeling wronged. His heart felt very unwell. Once he thought of how much his wife liked this actor (not at all), Master Ye felt wronged to the point he really wanted to make a huge pile of fine food to make wife praise him again. Anyway, he needed to be praised more than this person!

Being partial to those that fed it, Song Song was infected by Ye Jingzhi’s mood and also didn’t have that much of a good attitude towards Fang Moting.

It was reportedly said that Film Emperor Fang was discharged from the hospital three days ago. After he was discharged, he went to pay respects to the famous Leshan Giant Buddha in C Province before returning to the set. These few days consisted of shooting shared scenes of him and Xi Jia, and they interacted quite a lot. When he saw Song Song, he also smiled and wanted to pet it.

Seeing that he was coming over to pet Song Song, Master Ye who was holding Song Song felt so wronged that his eyes widened. However, Film Emperor Fang didn’t even get to touch Song Song since Song Song swiped a claw at his hand before turning around and burrowed into Ye Jingzhi’s arms.

Fang Moting was slightly stunned. After a moment, he looked up at Ye Jingzhi. After seeing Ye Jingzhi’s face, he promptly froze as he never expected that this small actor’s assistant to actually have such an outstanding appearance and temperament. However, Film Emperor Fang quickly smiled as he said, “Xi Jia, your cat is really cute.”

Song Song turned its butt towards him: Cute, but the cuteness is not for you to see, humph!

Xi Jia merely had a work relationship with Fang Moting. He politely sent the film emperor off. Once he turned back around, a man and a cat were both pitifully watching him.

Not sure why, Xi Jia opened his mouth and said, “He’s too eloquent and careful. I don’t like him.”

Ye Jingzhi’s and Song Song’s eyes shined in unison——

The one wife/owner likes is still me!

Xi Jia looked at the man and cat. His heart became warm, and he faintly smiled.

Because he had previously guessed that it was Fang Moting who was raising a child ghost, Xi Jia’s favorable impression of him didn’t go up. They worked together for three days. With this crew, Xi Jia’s scenes had already reached the end. He only needed to finish tomorrow morning’s scenes. Then, he would be done, and he could go to Chang’an to visit Ziying with Ye Jingzhi.

What they needed to shoot tonight was a battle scene. Film Emperor Fang had many years of filming experience and dance training, and the fighting scene filmed was very spectacular. Originally the person who was supposed to film with him was another Jinyiwei actor, but the director thought highly of Brother Jia’s rich experience of “tearing ghosts apart with bare hands.”¹ He felt that Brother Jia was clean and direct while he was fighting. It was also very beautiful so he switched him to shoot this scene.

In this scene, the male lead would bring a comrade and find evidence for the corruption case for the first time. The two people would get discovered on the roof by the corrupt officials’ guards in the middle of the night. Both sides would fight. In the end, they would escape. During post-production, they would photoshop a bright moon in. With a full moon over the roof and fierce fighting, the visual result would be very good.

Knowing that this was the very last shared scene Xi Jia had with Fang Moting, Master Ye’s mood was very good. Song Song was obediently lying in his arms, and its mood also seemed to be not bad.

The lighting and camera crew were all in position. Ye Jingzhi held Song Song and stood outside of the set, earnestly watching Xi Jia.

As long as Xi Jia needed to do wire scenes, Ye Jingzhi would feel exceptionally nervous, and he kept watching with concentrated attention. If something happened to Xi Jia, he would be able to rescue at any time.

However, the shooting for this fighting scene went quite smoothly. It took one take and was over without any accidents.

Because that scene was shot very well, the director ended work early for the day. At 9 o’clock at night, Xi Jia removed his makeup, changed out of his costume, and prepared to go back to the hotel with Ye Jingzhi.

Translator’s Addition:
Mirror: 【quietly brewing vinegar】Must get more praise than him! 【cooks a feast】
Song Song: 【copycat】Baby doesn’t like him either, humph! 【Turns butt towards him】

Translator’s Notes:
¹ I don’t think the director literally saw him tearing the ghosts apart. More figuratively since the first part of the paragraph is talking about Fang Moting’s past experience to make the fighting scene pass smoothly. Xi Jia’s past experience with fighting mostly lies in “tearing the ghosts apart with bare hands.” ↵