Three hours into the actual shoot, Ding Jia had nearly given up hope of keeping her sanity intact. The shutter sound bled into every gap between real camera clicks, relentless even against the wide-open desert wind that should have swallowed it whole.
She was one comment away from snapping at someone entirely undeserving of it, saved only by Xiao Chan's impressively well-honed instincts for managing her boss's moods before they detonated. Her assistant had no idea why she was so on edge but handled the fallout expertly regardless.
She's getting a bonus this month, Ding Jia decided grimly, somewhere around hour four.
By the time they wrapped after five hours under a relentless sun, the phantom shutter had finally, mercifully, gone silent. She nearly wept with relief.
Changing and reapplying sunscreen inside the tent, she idly watched the other actress through the canvas window. Pacing back and forth outside for a solid ten minutes, seemingly unbothered by the heat ruining what was presumably an expensive skincare routine. The woman kept raising a hand to rub at her ears, brushing her hair back repeatedly, lips moving in a constant, silent mutter Ding Jia couldn't make out from this distance.
Either she's worrying about something, Ding Jia thought, or her ears are bothering her too.
She filed the observation away without much further thought, distracted by Yu Xia calling that they were wrapping and needed to move to the next location.
It was nearly ten at night by the time she finally got home, exhausted enough to seriously consider crawling the last few feet to her own front door. She showered on autopilot, collapsed into bed the second her pajamas were on, and was unconscious before her head fully settled against the pillow.
...
"Not... time..."
"...happy... we... together..."
"I... stay. Promise."
...
Her eyes flew open.
Ding Jia sat up sharply, breathing hard, one hand pressed to a chest that ached with some emotion she couldn't name and didn't remember earning. The room felt cold, though her back was damp with sweat, and a strange, lingering pain sat lodged somewhere behind her ribs.
Strange. She couldn't recall a single detail of whatever she'd just been dreaming.
Once her pulse settled, she got up, grabbed sparkling water from the mini-fridge, and let the cold fizz clear her head. The clock read well past nine. She'd slept through her usual alarm entirely, though thankfully today was a rare day off.
A message from her assistant confirmed breakfast was already waiting. She found two boiled eggs, a tuna sandwich, and fresh apple juice on the table — the same rotation she'd been eating for nearly a month now, while her stomach quietly rebelled in favor of literally anything fried.
She allowed herself thirty seconds of fantasizing about fried chicken before remembering filming starts soon, and her costumes were tailored to the exact measurements she currently had. No room for negotiation there.
So she ate her sandwich while pretending, with mixed success, that it was something far more exciting, then changed into workout clothes for a light jog — repeating her usual mantra under her breath out of habit more than conviction.
The second she opened her door, a happily wagging tail greeted her.
She crouched automatically, charmed despite herself, and looked up to find a familiar pair of crimson eyes waiting.
"Good morning, Mr. Luo."