Chapter 23: The End of the Play

  The TV series stars Jeon Kwang-ryeol, who debuted in 1980 and is also a veteran of the film and television industry. He has appeared in many popular dramas, although he is no longer considered a top-tier actor compared to younger stars who rose to fame within five or six years of their debut. However, Jeon Kwang-ryeol does not complain about this and instead works even harder. This time, being able to film a large-scale historical drama like "The Great Doctor", he cherishes it greatly. Therefore, after finishing the filming of the medicinal herb scene, although he was exhausted and vomited repeatedly, he only rested for one night and continued filming on the mountain the next morning as if nothing had happened.

  This made Zhang Chengyuan extremely respectful.

  Today, the main content to be filmed on this Wisdom Mountain is: After the protagonist Xu Jing went up the mountain to collect medicine, he got lost in the deep mountains and was chased by wild beasts at night. He fell down a slope in a panic and fainted. The next morning, Xu Jing woke up due to hunger and thirst, but had nothing with him, so he ate the stems of the medicinal herbs he collected, but accidentally ingested poisonous herbs and fainted again. At this time, Zhang Chengyuan, who played the role of mountain boy Zhang Lie, returned triumphantly after killing a tiger and passed by, finding Xu Jing still breathing, so he rescued him back to his dwelling cave and fed him the antidote that was circulating in the mountains, temporarily stabilizing Xu Jing's life. Later, a wandering doctor who often came up the mountain to treat leprosy patients was found to detoxify Xu Jing, who turned danger into safety and realized through this experience that to become a true doctor, one must have a compassionate heart.

  These scenes are divided into day and night, and the crew first shot the daytime scenes.

  Among them, Zhang Chengyuan's shots are not many, but he said a few lines.

  "Oh no! There's someone on the ground!" with a very surprised tone.

  "Still good! Still a breath left." Showing a delighted expression.

  "You're awake!" with a delighted expression.

  "Why should I save you? Do I need to ask? I'm human, you're human, of course I'll save you!" This is the longest sentence and also the last one, showing a kind-hearted and innocent mind of an ignorant young man.

  No matter the gaze, expression, or demeanor, Zhang Chengyuan performed every detail to perfection, portraying a brave, simple yet kind-hearted young man with such vividness that it moved everyone. With his clear and genuine eyes, unpretentious and unaffected, he touched the hearts of all who saw him. In this corrupt society, even slightly older children know how to fight for power and gain, rarely showing their true innocence. If Zhang Chengyuan hadn't cultivated a pure heart in his past life, free from worldly attachments and uninfluenced by his environment, he wouldn't have been able to maintain such an innocent state of mind, and today's scenes wouldn't have passed so smoothly.

  Perhaps this kind of innocence is also one of the reasons why Zhang Chengyuan easily gained the favor of Fin.K.L's four girls. And manager Park Byung-ryul was able to see that Zhang Chengyuan would never forget his gratitude, so he would always follow Zhang Chengyuan's wishes and maintain a good relationship with him in order to gain long-term benefits.

  Due to Zhang Chengyuan's good performance, which was both time-saving and cost-effective, the director rarely praised him a few words and had a deeper impression of Zhang Chengyuan, no longer just seeing him as a decorative young vase for beautifying the audience's vision.

  After finishing the daytime scenes, eating a simple dinner, and waiting for it to get dark, they started filming the scene where the main character Xu Jiong is chased by wolves and rolls down the hill at night. This had nothing to do with Zhang Chengyuan, but he still stayed behind to watch, in order to gain some experience filming nighttime scenes, especially outdoors, which isn't something you can easily get.

  Night scenes are indeed more difficult to shoot than daytime ones. Even with Quan Guanglie's 20 years of experience, there were still several mistakes made during filming. The mountain road was already rugged and uneven, and while running, Quan Guanglie had to constantly look back, revealing a terrified expression as if being chased by wolves, which often caused him to run out of the camera's shooting range, requiring multiple retakes to get it right. On the other hand, the physically demanding scenes of rolling down didn't require Quan Guanglie to perform himself, but were instead acted out by a stunt double. This wasn't because Quan Guanglie was afraid of getting hurt and didn't dare to act, but rather because the production team absolutely wouldn't let him take this risk for the sake of future episodes, which is also one of the reasons why stunt doubles exist.

  Shoot a completely bright mirror, and shoot a wild wolf rushing towards the full light. Of course, it's impossible to let the full light take risks and be chased by wolves, nor would they really go to the zoo to get a wolf to film, in fact, just rent a well-trained wolf dog, on this dark night In the mountains, run along the path that Quan Guanglie ran first for several laps. As long as it's processed later, no one can tell whether it's a wolf or a wolf dog. Although not very realistic, now it's not filming a movie, and the audience will definitely not watch TV dramas with the eyes of appreciating movies, for the crew, as long as it doesn't hinder the overall situation, saving money is the hard truth.

  For the next few days, there was no scene for Zhang Chengyuan. Originally, Zhang Chengyuan wanted to stay and watch others act, so as to improve his own acting skills. However, he is still a high school student, and with the final exams approaching, his head teacher strongly requested that Park Byung-ryul let Zhang Chengyuan return to school to prepare for his studies. In order to make it easier to ask for leave in the future, neither Zhang Chengyuan nor Park Byung-ryul dared to ignore the head teacher's words, so he had to temporarily leave. It wasn't until the weekend that Zhang Chengyuan rushed back to the Jiyisan drama team to continue filming.

  It just so happened that it was his turn to film today, and he didn't have many scenes. If the filming went smoothly, they might be able to finish all of his shots by the end of the day. This wasn't because the crew was going out of their way to accommodate him, but rather because Zhang Chengyuan's character, a brave young man from the mountains, was about to make the ultimate sacrifice.

  This morning's scene, although Zhang Chengyuan also appeared, was purely as the background of the protagonist Xu Jiong, without even a line of dialogue, just following behind Park Byung-ryeol honestly as an assistant, occasionally protecting him in front and serving as a bodyguard, so that this young hero who can kill tigers in the play had no chance to show off his skills. Park Byung-ryeol watched with anger in his heart, thinking that the screenwriter was blind and stupid, and sighed: "I wasted so much money on PR for that guy."

  However, the screenwriter must have had his own difficulties. After all, Zhang Chengyuan's role, Zhang Lie, was not in his original script outline. If he wasted too much ink on him, he might have to make major changes to the rest of the script, which would definitely affect the shooting schedule and he wouldn't be able to take responsibility for it. Moreover, from a normal perspective, a small role like Shan Ye's would originally be dispensable and probably wouldn't have a significant impact on the TV drama's ratings.

  In the evening, Zhang Chengyuan and others came to his last shot in this play:

  Xu Jun climbed up the high cliff to pick a rare life-saving medicine, but accidentally fell off. Zhang Lie rushed out and grabbed him in time. Although he managed to grab Xu Jun, they were still in danger. At this moment, the two of them were only suspended by Zhang Lie's one foot hooked on a branch of a pine tree on the cliff edge. The pine tree was not big, the branches were not thick, and the two people swayed precariously.

  Xu Jun shouted loudly from below: "Let go! Release me quickly, or you will also lose your life!"

  Zhang Lie naturally wouldn't agree and shouted: "Don't worry, Big Brother Xu, we'll be fine."

  Xu Jun's face turned red with anxiety, and he cried out: "That tree is going to break, put me down! For the sake of my humble birth as a lowly person, you're not worth doing this. Let go quickly, or it will be too late! Zhang Lie, I beg of you." He struggled to free himself from Zhang Lie's grasp, but was held firmly in place.

  Zhang Lie turned his head and took a look, seeing that the pine tree was about to break at any moment. However, he turned his head back to look at Xu Zhu with a smile and said: "Brother Xu Zhu, you will become a doctor who saves people sooner or later. In the future, you can save one hundred, one thousand, countless lives. It would be such a pity if you died! Using my life to exchange for so many lives is well worth it!" He smiled with great purity and radiance.

  As soon as the words fell, a "crack" was heard, and the branch broke. The two of them fell down together. At this critical moment, Zhang Lie exerted himself to twist his waist, using all his strength to throw Xu Ju up onto the high cliff, while he himself fell even faster, leaving behind his last words: "Brother Xu Ju, you must become a doctor!"

  Xu Jiong had just landed and hurriedly got up, rushed to the cliff edge and looked out, but where could he still see Zhang Lie's shadow? He could only cry out in sorrow, wailing: "Zhang Lie! My brother! Ah! Ah!" I suppose this scene will definitely have its sound effects enhanced in post-production, with a deafening roar that moves people to tears.