NABC Chapter 57, Development
Chapter 57, Development
The hotel is located near the Champs-Élysées and is a long-established five-star hotel. The doormen wear dark blue uniforms and top hats, and bow slightly when they open the door, their movements so precise that they seem to have been measured with a ruler.
The lobby was adorned with crystal chandeliers, and the floor was made of light gray marble that shone like a mirror. A faint, indescribable scent, whether of flowers or aromatherapy, filled the air.
Yangyang Jin checked in and gave the room keys to two people.
Gao Huan was in the penthouse suite, while Yang Yangjin and Zhang Ruonan were on the executive floor.
"Brother Huan, make sure you stay somewhere nice; the brand will cover the cost."
Yangyang Jin handed him the room key, her tone casual.
Gao Huan took the room key without saying anything.
When Zhang Ruonan took the room key, her fingers clenched slightly.
She glanced at the floor number on her room card, then at Gao Huan's, said nothing, and put the room card in her pocket.
She felt that everything before her eyes was so dreamlike. Flying to Paris in business class, staying in a five-star hotel, and taking pictures of Dove chocolates—three months ago, she wouldn't have dared to dream of such things.
But she couldn't help but glance at Chen Duling, whose hands were empty.
It's a bit sour.
The sourness is like that of a green apple. You take a bite and find that it's raw and astringent inside, but you can't bear to spit it out, so you just hold it in your mouth and wait for the astringent taste to slowly dissipate.
……
It was 1 p.m., at the hotel entrance.
The hotel's chauffeur-driven car was a white, extended Mercedes. The driver was an elderly Frenchman with gray hair and gold-rimmed glasses, who looked like a retired university professor working part-time.
Yangyang Jin sat in the passenger seat and spoke a few words to the driver in French.
Her French wasn't very good, but it was enough. The driver understood, nodded, and started the car.
Gao Huan sat in the last row, Chen Duling sat next to him, and Zhang Ruonan sat in the middle row.
The car drove out of the hotel and headed towards the filming location of GG.
Yangyang Jin turned around from the passenger seat and looked at the three people in the back seat. Gao Huan was holding Chen Duling and watching her scroll through her phone, while Zhang Ruonan was looking out the window.
She thought for a moment, took out her phone, and sent Gao Huan a WeChat message.
"Brother Huan, have you really thought it through regarding Xiao Zhang?"
Gao Huan's phone vibrated.
He glanced at the screen and typed back: "I've made up my mind. Let her drop out of school and take the entrance exam for the Beijing Film Academy next year; it will be good for her future development."
Yangyang Jin glanced at the message, a slight smile playing on her lips, and typed:
"What, want to raise your own little girlfriend? Looks like she's your favorite girl lately."
Gao Huan stared at the line of text, his finger pausing on the screen for a moment.
Then he typed a line of text and sent it.
"I like you the most, Yangyang."
When Yangyang Jin saw the message, she blushed slightly, but her expression remained unchanged.
She placed her phone face down on her lap, took two deep breaths, then picked up her phone, glanced at the message again, and didn't reply.
But she took a screenshot of the message and saved it to an encrypted album on her phone. The album was called "Work Records".
Gao Huan closed his eyes, and the corners of his mouth curled up slightly.
He knew that Yang Yangjin would blush.
She always blushes.
Ever since she started following him in 2013, she would blush every time he said something like that.
It's the kind of red that adults wear, restrained but can't hide.
Starting from the neck, it slowly spreads upwards, like a flower blooming in time-lapse photography. It blooms very slowly, but you can see it if you stare at it.
The car turned into a small alley, lined with old-fashioned French buildings. The ground floors were shops, including a bakery, a flower shop, and a stationery store that looked like it had been open for a long time.
There was a queue outside the bakery, with several locals carrying baguettes. The tops of the paper bags revealed the golden-brown tips of the bread, which looked like inverted swords in the sunlight.
Looking out the window at the people queuing up, Gao Huan suddenly remembered a sentence he had read online in his previous life: "There is no love in a French baguette, only life."
He felt something was wrong.
Life is love.
But for most people, love has evolved into the shape of life.
……
The location for the GG shoot wasn't in a studio, but on the banks of the Seine.
After all, we had traveled thousands of miles to Paris, and although seeing it for ourselves was somewhat disappointing.
In late March in Paris, the spring breeze had not yet completely dispelled the bleakness of winter.
The sycamore trees along the riverbank were bare, their branches drawing dense lines against the gray-blue sky, like an uncolored sketch.
Dove began preparing for the location shoot a week in advance. They spent a considerable amount of money to have the Paris municipal authorities conduct a thorough cleanup of the selected riverside area – sweeping fallen leaves, removing garbage, washing the ground, and trimming the green belts.
Several white swan boats were even placed on the river, making it look like a postcard from a distance.
However, the scope of the cleanup is limited.
Looking to the left from the shooting point, you'll see a clean and tidy riverbank, neatly trimmed shrubs, carefully arranged wrought iron benches, and artificial cherry blossom trees.
Looking to the right reveals a completely different scene.
The dog poop on the sidewalk hadn't been cleaned up properly, and the smell of urine lingered at the base of the wall. Several homeless people were huddled under a bridge in sleeping bags, and a pile of black garbage bags lay uncollected not far away, with a few seagulls rummaging through them for food.
Chen Duling stood on the riverbank, looking around. The expression on her face changed from expectation to confusion, and then from confusion to a kind of inexplicable disappointment.
"Is this Paris?" she asked softly, her disappointment barely concealed.
Zhang Ruonan stood next to her, also looking at those less-than-ideal corners.
The Paris she saw in magazines and movies was the city of romance, with fallen leaves on the Champs-Élysées, cafes along the Seine, and bookstores and galleries on the Left Bank.
But what she saw reminded her of the trash cans in Hangzhou that hadn't been emptied after a summer rain, the smell of rotting garbage mixed with cleaning agents.
The difference is that in Hangzhou, the streets are cleaned by hardworking sanitation workers the next morning.
"It's not like that in the promotional video," Zhang Ruonan said softly, as if talking to herself.
Yangyang Jin stood to the side, holding an itinerary. Hearing their whispers, a slight smile curved her lips. "What do you think Paris is like? Like in those TikTok filters?"
Neither of them spoke.
What puzzled them even more were the pedestrians on the road.
On the way from the hotel to the filming location, they saw almost half Black faces and half White faces.
They're everywhere—in the subway, on buses, in supermarkets.
It's not that there's anything wrong with it, it's just that it's completely different from the "blonde-haired, blue-eyed Paris" they imagined, which makes them a little confused.
Chen Duling couldn't help but take out her phone to check, and then whispered to Zhang Ruonan, "The internet says that the proportion of blacks in downtown Paris is over 35%, and even higher in the suburbs."
Zhang Ruonan nodded but didn't reply.
She didn't know what to say because her knowledge of the city before today came entirely from movies and social media.
Gao Huan was standing behind the monitor, communicating with the staff about the camera positions.
He showed no surprise at all, after all, the Western filter of later generations was completely shattered in the eyes of Dong Daren after his spiritual vision was enhanced.
But he didn't say anything. Some things don't need him to say; they will see them and process them on their own.