Chapter 119: Continuing the Filming
Zheng Xiao ultimately didn’t manage to join the Lives Beyond Death the Chivalry crew, mainly due to scheduling conflicts.
Of course, his personal image didn’t align with a eunuch-type role at all. If he actually appeared in the series, people might think he was still full of vigor—or even suspect that, besides being a eunuch, he might have other side gigs.
Zheng Xiao: “?”
Lu Xu and Shao Yao had become way too good at roasting people.
Zheng Xiao’s persistent desire to play a eunuch in Lives Beyond Death the Chivalry also faced opposition from his manager, who sincerely suggested that next time, Zheng Xiao should play an emperor and let Lu Xu and Shao Yao act as the palace eunuchs.
[This is the price you pay for not inviting me!] Zheng Xiao was still clamoring.
Lu Xu & Shao Yao: “…”
They couldn’t stand this childish guy.
But objectively speaking, it wasn’t easy for Lu Xu and Shao Yao to collaborate on the same project. Once actors’ statuses rose, they entered a “kings never meet” dynamic, where they inevitably needed to establish their rank. In fact, when Shao Yao took on Lives Beyond Death the Chivalry, some mocked him as being Lu Xu’s “eternal second lead.”
How the public defined them wasn’t something actors could control. All they could do was try to avoid such narratives.
…
Lu Xu had already been filming Lives Beyond Death the Chivalry for half a month when, one day, he suddenly received a call from Yue Hui. “You’re filming Liu Chunfeng’s drama?”
“Yeah.”
“I just found out.” Yue Hui sighed heavily. “I have a historical drama over here that I wanted to invite you to, but I’m half a month late. Ugh.”
Not long after Lu Xu hung up, he saw Liu Chunfeng approaching with a broad, satisfied smile, waving at him. “Yue Hui contacted you?”
Lu Xu nodded.
“As the saying goes, ‘the early bird catches the worm.’ If he’s late and still blames me, isn’t that unreasonable?”
Though he grumbled, Liu Chunfeng’s smugness was impossible to hide.
He was exactly the type of director who combined vision with skill, which was why he could collaborate with Lu Xu time and again.
“The drama Yue Hui recommended should be good. Both the director and screenwriter are reliable,” Liu Chunfeng said. “Yue Hui isn’t acting in it himself. The director was simply struggling to find a suitable lead, so he came looking for you.”
Liu Chunfeng had heard more details from Yue Hui.
It was said that the main character of that drama was somewhat similar to the powerful prime minister in Son of Heaven. The story revolved around a young scholar from a humble background who passed the imperial exams, rose through the ranks, and eventually became the prime minister. However, amidst the shifting tides of the political arena, he lost sight of his original ideals.
The protagonist wasn’t exactly a villain. The rights and wrongs of historical figures are often subject to the biases of later generations. A historical figure’s decisions might not have been wrong at the time they were made. Modern audiences, with the benefit of hindsight and centuries of perspective, can see the outcomes, but those who lived through the events often could not.
Still, it was a poignant story. A man from humble beginnings who once held great aspirations eventually became the very type of person he once despised. Such a tragic ending was inevitably thought-provoking.
The role was relatively complex, so naturally, the director preferred actors with strong acting skills. Moreover, the character’s younger years occupied a significant portion of the story. From his entrance into officialdom to his rise to prime minister spanned only about twenty years. Since Lu Xu had previously portrayed characters with significant age ranges, when the director asked Yue Hui for a recommendation, Yue Hui naturally thought of him.
Lu Xu touched his nose and asked, “Am I really that in demand?”
Not only did Liu Chunfeng and Qin Yu gave him a side eye, but even Shao Yao silently handed him a peach, telling him to eat it and stop talking.
Lu Xu: “…”
What was this strange feeling of being subtly ostracized?
…
The filming of Lives Beyond Death the Chivalry continued smoothly.
Before the crown prince ascended to the throne, Nie Yunzhang was his confidant, a loyal subordinate, and a kindred spirit. After the turmoil in the palace, the crown prince seemed to mature overnight, becoming more cunning and calculating.
The crown prince was the rightful heir to the throne. The favored concubine, seeking to seize power, saw the best way forward as having the crown prince killed. Unfortunately for her, she failed that day, and after that, any chance she had was gone.
After the emperor’s death, the crown prince successfully ascended the throne. Nie Yunzhang became the sharpest arrow in his quiver, defending against invasions and conquering vast territories for the empire.
Once this part of the filming was completed, the next segment focused on Nie Yunzhang’s illness and death.
His sudden illness didn’t strike him on the battlefield but occurred after he had returned triumphantly to the capital.
In just a few days, everything changed. Not long ago, he had been laughing and chatting with the emperor in the palace. Since Nie Yunzhang’s return, the emperor’s once-furrowed brows had finally relaxed, and rewards were being sent to Nie Yunzhang’s residence cart after cart.
The emperor’s favoritism toward Nie Yunzhang was so pronounced that some took the opportunity to spread slander, claiming that Nie Yunzhang’s achievements now overshadowed the emperor’s and that he no longer observed proper decorum.
The emperor harshly rebuked those who tried to defame Nie Yunzhang.
Yet, not long after, he received the news of Nie Yunzhang’s critical illness.
To do justice to this scene, Lu Xu arrived at the set early and had makeup applied to portray someone on the brink of death. It ended up being one of the longest makeup sessions of his career, so long that he was losing patience as he waited.
Though the preparation took time, the actual scene wasn’t very long.
By this point, Nie Yunzhang had already realized that his time was running out.
When the emperor rushed from the palace to Nie Yunzhang’s residence, all he saw was a man on the verge of falling into unconsciousness.
Although Shao Yao had already seen Lu Xu in his sickly makeup before filming, Lu Xu had been full of energy earlier, bouncing around the set. Shao Yao hadn’t thought much of it. But when Lu Xu transformed into the dying Nie Yunzhang, lying there motionless, Shao Yao was genuinely startled.
Looking at Lu Xu’s face, Shao Yao clearly understood the emotions his emperor character should feel in that moment.
“I’ve thought about my end many times, but I didn’t expect it to come so soon.” Facing the emperor he had known for years, Nie Yunzhang revealed his true thoughts. “I thought I would die on the battlefield.”
Nie Yunzhang didn’t cry. The one crying was the emperor, who had become ruthless and seemingly devoid of warmth after ascending the throne. “I will heal you,” he declared.
“You will live. You will live to be eighty.”
Tears and snot streamed down Shao Yao’s face as he delivered his lines.
“Alright, I’ll live to be eighty,” Nie Yunzhang agreed for once, not contradicting the emperor. “I only regret that, despite the vastness of the grasslands, I couldn’t drive away the bandits who raided the borderlands. I couldn’t expand the borders of our Great Chu.”
“Your Majesty, this subject has a wish.”
With those words, Nie Yunzhang used the formal term “this subject”, signaling that he had something he hoped the emperor would fulfill.
“You’re not allowed to say it. You won’t die,” the emperor interrupted.
Nie Yunzhang’s pale, sickly face showed a trace of helplessness.
In a way, although the young emperor had matured and grown steady, even as the crown prince he had been level-headed. But having been born into his role as heir and raised to stand above all others, he still allowed himself moments of childish stubbornness.
Nie Yunzhang, on the other hand, though he appeared carefree, was now the representative of his family in court and the empire’s most favored minister. If anyone couldn’t afford to be capricious, it was him. He bore the heavy weight of his family’s expectations—his parents, siblings, nieces, and nephews—all relied on him. He couldn’t allow himself to falter.
“After I’m gone, I hope Your Majesty will send troops to continue the campaign westward. The nomads are treacherous and ambitious. I’ve seen too many of our people at the border suffer. Men cut down by blades, women ensl*ved and humiliated—I can’t swallow this indignation. I may enjoy wealth and privilege in the capital, but at the border, the people can hardly survive…”
He didn’t even ask for anything on behalf of the Nie family.
The emperor asked him why.
“If I were still alive, of course, I would plead for them,” Nie Yunzhang said in a hoarse voice. “But if they still need the protection of a dead man despite having lived this long, then what’s the point of their existence?”
“Besides, they’ll live longer than I will.”
Nie Yunzhang didn’t want to die. He carried resentment in his heart, but all he could express was this.
What good was wailing? What good was power that stretched across the empire? In the end, no one could escape death.
In this scene, the script depicted both Nie Yunzhang and the emperor revealing sides of themselves rarely seen by others. Nie Yunzhang remained composed, showing no despair even in the face of death, while the emperor, typically calculated and distant, was wholly consumed by grief—a vulnerability he hadn’t shown since ascending the throne.
When this scene wrapped up, the entire set was eerily silent.
It felt as though they were truly standing there, silently witnessing Nie Yunzhang’s funeral.
Even the weather seemed to align with the story, shifting from the blazing midday sun to the soft hues of dusk… Nie Yunzhang had finally reached the sunset of his life.
Qin Yu didn’t speak for a long time. When Liu Chunfeng glanced at him, he saw the screenwriter’s eyes were red, clearly immersed in the performances of Lu Xu and Shao Yao.
If the set had this kind of impact, Liu Chunfeng could only imagine how breathtaking this scene would be when it was finally broadcast.
Shao Yao, evidently still caught up in the emotions of the scene, seemed noticeably subdued when he moved on to shoot subsequent scenes.
Liu Chunfeng ended up treating him to two consecutive meals.
The director had already observed that Shao Yao, despite being quiet most of the time, became even more so at the dinner table—focused entirely on eating.
The reason he only treated Shao Yao was that Lu Xu had already completed his filming at the studio. For the upcoming battle scenes, the crew would be moving to the grasslands for on-location shooting.
…
Liu Chunfeng had made up his mind early on—money could be saved elsewhere, but this was one area where they absolutely couldn’t cut corners.
Still, even in areas where expenses couldn’t be spared, the director managed to find creative ways to save money.
This story, oddly enough, traced back to a show Lu Xu had previously worked on, My Baby Prince.
The protagonist of My Baby Prince, Pan Lingfeng, was known as the “Horse-racing Prince,” but the production team had been so broke that they couldn’t afford to rent luxury cars. Instead, they had sent someone to the grasslands to film a clip of horseback riding, which they then looped repeatedly.
And now, the Horse-racing Prince’s grasslands were the filming site for Lives Beyond Death the Chivalry.
Lu Xu was too exhausted to complain anymore—he had no idea how the production team even managed to find such a place.
“Didn’t Son of Heaven have battle scenes filmed elsewhere?”
Liu Chunfeng replied, “That filming location was already booked by another crew. This place is cheaper anyway.”
Lu Xu sighed. “…Fine.”
Why was it that he’d never worked on a production with a decent budget?
Every set seemed to be scraping by, so much so that people online had started joking that he was providing “poverty relief” for film crews.
Despite his grumbling, Lu Xu gave it his all once filming officially began.
This segment was his moment to shine. Shao Yao had already wrapped up his scenes and gone home, while Lu Xu stayed on to complete the upcoming sequences.
For this portion of the story, Qin Yu had written a highly detailed script, aiming to ensure the audience fully understood the events unfolding onscreen.
When Lu Xu was a child, he had watched a drama called The Art of War and the Thirty-Six Stratagems, which depicted the rivalry between Sun Bin and Pang Juan. Lu Xu no longer remembered who starred in it, but he vividly recalled the stories—strategies like Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao and Create Diversions to the East While Attacking the West had been explained in detail. The actors weren’t handsome, nor was there any romantic subplot, but he had been completely captivated.
Similarly, Qin Yu’s script made the battle strategies engaging and easy to grasp while also dedicating substantial space to showcasing Nie Yunzhang’s magnetic personality.
Nie Yunzhang’s status as a legendary “God of War,” whose story had been passed down for centuries, was not solely because of his untimely death in youth. It was also because of his extraordinary skill in warfare, his bravery on the battlefield, and the remarkable military achievements he secured.
Such a character was far from one-dimensional.
Nie Yunzhang’s ability to earn the emperor’s trust wasn’t merely due to the bond they had formed in their youth. It was also because a monarch with grand ambitions needed capable ministers to help him realize his vision. Nie Yunzhang was undoubtedly one of those rare individuals.
Although Lives Beyond Death the Chivalry wasn’t a long series, the battlefield scenes alone would span nearly ten episodes. On the battlefield, the soldiers under Nie Yunzhang’s command faced not only enemy attacks but also harsh weather, snowstorms, and unfamiliar terrain. During filming, Liu Chunfeng insisted that the actors deliver realistic performances. He refused to gloss over the war scenes or focus solely on Nie Yunzhang’s heroics.
This segment was grueling for Lu Xu. Despite the weather still being warm, he had to wear heavy armor every day. By the end of each shooting day, he felt like he smelled… rotten.
By the time this section of filming wrapped up, Lu Xu had lost 15 pounds. The weight he had gained during Feather of Youth was completely gone.
Shao Yao, meanwhile, was openly envious. Playing the role of a pampered emperor, he had gained 10 pounds instead.
Manager: …
…Who are you trying to fool?
After all, the manager was well aware of Liu Chunfeng’s frequent dinner invitations.