Li Cheng led Jiang Yue through the cluttered equipment area.
The crew was setting up the afternoon's outdoor location.
Stagehands carrying reflectors bustled back and forth, and the crew members walked in a hurry.
On the open ground ahead,
Old Cui was warming up with four of his stunt brothers.
Today, they were playing low-level thugs who would be silenced by Duan Rui after pocketing stolen money.
Old Cui was in his forties, with a stocky build, and had started out as a lay disciple of the Shaolin Temple.
He was quite famous in the industry, specializing in action choreography for all kinds of action movies.
Li Cheng walked over and introduced Jiang Yue to Old Cui.
Old Cui stopped stretching his legs and sized Jiang Yue up from head to toe.
The young man before him was tall with a clean, refined aura.
This look was perfect for the male lead in a campus idol drama, but to play a mercenary who had crawled out of a pile of corpses, his appearance was indeed a bit too clean.
The surrounding stuntmen also exchanged glances and conversed in low voices, their eyes showing a hint of disdain.
“Director Li, we aren't playing games here.”
Old Cui didn't hide the skepticism in his tone as he pointed at the props on the ground. “Duan Rui has to fight four people at once. The guys are holding weighted rubber batons. Even though they're specially made props, it still hurts like hell when they hit you. He looks too thin; I'm worried he won't be able to handle this intensity.”
Just as Li Cheng was about to guarantee Jiang Yue's abilities, Jiang Yue interrupted him directly.
“Choreographer Cui, time is tight. Why don't we just run through a couple of moves to test it out?”
Jiang Yue looked directly at Old Cui.
Old Cui raised an eyebrow.
This kid certainly had some guts.
“Sure.”
Old Cui nodded, giving a loud shout as he fell into a stance. “I'll attack your upper body. See if you can deflect it.”
Before his voice could even fade, Old Cui suddenly exploded with power.
With a sliding step, he closed the distance and threw a straight right punch directly at Jiang Yue's face.
It was incredibly fast and packed with explosive power.
Faced with such force, Jiang Yue didn't retreat even half a step.
He raised the back of his left hand, sliding it against Old Cui's wrist bone to redirect the force, deflecting the attack outward.
At the same time, Jiang Yue took a heavy step forward with his right leg, sinking his shoulder as he leaned directly into Old Cui's centerline.
Baji Quan—Iron Mountain Lean.
He shattered Old Cui's balance, raising his right elbow in one smooth motion and stopping it steadily an inch away from Old Cui's chin.
If the blow had actually landed, Old Cui would have been out of commission for quite a while.
The entire exchange took less than a second.
The stuntmen watching nearby were completely stunned.
In that split second, they hadn't even seen clearly how Jiang Yue countered.
Cold sweat broke out on Old Cui's forehead. He could sense the destructive power contained in Jiang Yue's move just now.
This was absolutely not a flashy show; it was a move meant for real combat, yet Jiang Yue had forcefully pulled it back at the very last second.
If this had been a real fight, he would already be lying on the ground waiting for an ambulance.
Old Cui took a step back and solemnly cupped his fists toward Jiang Yue.
“I was blind. With this reaction speed and power, barely anyone in the entire crew can take you on. Teacher Jiang, you've got real skills.”
Jiang Yue withdrew his stance and nodded politely in response.
In the world of stuntmen where fists did the talking, communicating through strength was always more efficient than a thousand words.
At two in the afternoon.
In the makeup tent.
Jiang Yue sat in front of the mirror.
The stylist held a pair of clippers, trimming Jiang Yue's hair slightly shorter to make him look sharper and more capable.
Then, Jiang Yue changed into a black leather jacket, tactical pants, and heavy tactical boots.
A makeup pencil drew a dark red scar across Jiang Yue's left eyebrow, tracing down to his cheekbone.
Contour powder enhanced the sharp angles of his face, masking his original handsome features.
The moment the styling was complete,
Jiang Yue looked up into the mirror.
He adjusted his breathing. His gaze turned vacant, and the warmth in his eyes rapidly faded.
The makeup assistant nearby was about to grab a towel. The moment she met Jiang Yue's gaze, her fingers trembled, and the towel dropped straight to the floor.
A chill ran down her spine, and she instinctively took half a step back.
Once she recovered, she found it unbelievable.
Did makeup really have such a transformative effect?
Or had the makeup artist's skills suddenly reached a whole new level?
The effect was so obvious that he seemed like an entirely different person.
The young man who had a clean aura just moments ago had transformed into a ruthless thug in the blink of an eye.
Jiang Yue stood up and pushed the door open.
The shooting location was set at the bottom of the abandoned No. 1 steel furnace inside the industrial park.
Rust-spotted steel frames crisscrossed above, and the ground was filled with puddles of black water.
The overhead lights were dimmed.
Old Cui handed out weighted rubber batons equipped with blood bags to the four stuntmen.
Li Cheng sat behind the monitor, wearing headphones, his expression tense.
“All departments, get in position.”
Li Cheng spoke into his walkie-talkie, his voice broadcasting across the set through the speakers. “Jiang Yue, this is a one-versus-four scene with no lines. Hit according to the designated marks, be ruthless, but stay safe. Get ready to shoot!”
Jiang Yue stood alone in the shadows at the center of the steel furnace, his head lowered.
Four fierce-looking stuntmen approached from four directions, holding their batons and surrounding him.
The clapperboard snapped shut.
“Action!”
Jiang Yue didn't opt for any flashy opening stance.
Digging his toes into the ground, his black tactical boots splashed through the puddles, sending water spraying.
Abandoning any unnecessary defense, he charged straight into the swinging baton ahead of him with a fearless, savage momentum.
Bang!
The rubber baton slammed solidly against Jiang Yue's left shoulder.
With thin protective padding under his clothes, he tensed his muscles to absorb most of the impact, taking the blow without even blinking.
Using the momentum of the swing, he slipped past the guard and closed in.
Gathering the strength of his entire body into his right elbow, he slammed it precisely into the stuntman's chest padding.
The blood bag burst instantly.
The stuntman grunted in cooperation with the impact, falling backward into the muddy water and sliding several meters, splashing up a large sheet of black water.
The remaining three were stunned.
Jiang Yue's movements were too fast; it didn't feel like a choreographed routine at all.
The three quickly snapped out of it, immediately surrounding him from behind and both sides.
Jiang Yue reached out with his left hand, grabbing the baton swinging from the side.
The stuntman tried to pull the baton back, but Jiang Yue twisted his wrist, using the man's own momentum to violently yank him forward, baton and all.
The stuntman lost his balance, and Jiang Yue swept his right leg, knocking him over and seizing the rubber baton.
With a flick of his wrist, he swung the baton horizontally, striking the third man's leg guard.
The third man cried out as he collapsed to the ground.
Seeing this, the last man raised his baton to strike the back of Jiang Yue's head.
Jiang Yue backhanded the baton, thrusting it backward with measured force to jab the man's abdominal padding.
Spinning around, he delivered a front kick that sent the man flying into a rusty iron pillar.
In just forty seconds,
four burly, battle-hardened stuntmen were all left sprawling on the ground, unable to get up.
The scene flowed without a single hitch; every strike carried the raw ruthlessness of real combat.
Jiang Yue casually tossed aside the prop baton stained with red fake blood.
The built-in weight hit the concrete floor with a dull thud.
He slowly stood up straight and tilted his head, cracking his neck.
The dim overhead light cast a glow over his newly added dark red scar.
“Cut!”
Old Cui immediately rushed onto the set, tapping the protective gear of the four stuntmen one by one.
“Are you guys okay?”
“We're fine.”
“No problem, the padding took all the force.”
The four stuntmen gave hand signals one after another.
Once Old Cui confirmed no one was injured, he turned and nodded to Li Cheng.
Behind the monitor, Li Cheng had already stood up.
His headphone cord was pulled taut, but he didn't even care.
He stared at the playback on the screen, the walkie-talkie in his hand almost slipping out of his grasp.
Back when he was searching everywhere for a replacement actor and consulting other directors, Xu Pingqiu had been one of them.
When Xu Pingqiu recommended Jiang Yue, he had said that it would be hard to find anyone more suitable.
It wasn't that Li Cheng didn't believe him.
He just hadn't expected that Jiang Yue could capture the ruthlessness of Duan Rui's character so accurately.
Rate on N.U.
