Wen Run only took two days off, and the next afternoon, he was ready to go back to the set. Ye Hansheng sent him to the airport, although he didn’t say anything, his face was full of dissatisfaction. He had always been a man of few words, he knew that Wen Run couldn’t freeze his life for him, so he quietly exuded a “I’m not happy but I won’t speak” aura.
The airport was crowded, so Wen Run didn’t dare do too much out of the ordinary action, he could only go closer to appease him: “I’ll video call you tonight.”
Ye Hansheng’s cold expression eased, his finger touched his lips, watching his loving gaze, then Wen Run smiled, and turned toward the boarding gate to go.
When Wen Run’s flight took off, Ye Hansheng finally returned to the company.
Wen Run rested for two days before returning to the set, he was naturally busy again. He shot during the day, the night after the scenes, he would secretly hide in the quilt as he spoke to Ye Hansheng, sometimes Ye Hansheng was busy with work, so Wen Run would just look at his side profile, but it still felt like his heart was wrapped full of sugar, it was sweet.
His busy shooting schedule had continued until the middle of July, Wen Run was about to usher in the first horse scene, for this horse scene, Director Yuan adjusted the shooting schedule, so that Wen Run first followed the professional equestrian to learn horseback riding.
Wen Run hadn’t had to ride a horse in any of his scenes so far. But the scene he faced next required a lot of horsemanship from the actor. The young general rode a warhorse and swept thousands of troops with a long spear. Wen Run not only had to learn how to ride a horse, but also had to master several difficult horse maneuvers to portray this famous battle perfectly.
Director Yuan had strict requirements, from the start of shooting so far the cast and crew basically didn’t use a body double, so during this period of time, Wen Run unknowingly became strict towards himself. He refused the assistant’s suggestion to use a body double and decided to go on his own.
Knowing that he didn’t know how to ride a horse, Director Yuan gave him time to learn.
Wen Run put on his defense gear and familiarized himself with the horse first under the equestrian’s guidance. This was a black mare, with thick fur, black eyes watery and gentle, seeing Wen Run come over, it flicked its tail, and its ears that stood up flicked.
“She’s called Treading Ink and has a good temperament, try to touch it.” The equestrian held the reins.
Wen Run tentatively reached out his hand and lightly touched the horse’s wet nose. Treading Ink seemed to like him, blinking its eyes and rubbing its wet nose against his hand.
One person and one horse soon became familiar with each other. The equestrian began to teach him the main points of horseback riding again, and after keeping it in mind, Wen Run mounted the horse with the help of the equestrian.
The horse underneath him snorted, its hooves stamping in place. Wen Run stroked it soothingly, stirrup foot lightly clamped the horse’s belly, and commanded it to move forward.
For the whole morning, Wen Run tried to get familiar with it, he mastered it quite fast, and was already able to ride it for a trot after detaching from the equestrian, but when filming he had to wear armor and make more difficult movements. It was much tougher than practicing in full armor in his current defense gear. So after two days of dedicated learning, he was just able to trot his horse in his armor. It was still a bit difficult to make fancy maneuvers on a horse.
When Huo Guangzhi came to see him after the scene, he saw him sitting on a horse practicing wielding a long spear. The props were finely crafted, and although the long spear wasn’t a solid, heavy weapon, it wasn’t a lightweight weapon to hold in the hand. Wen Run was just getting started, and he had to control the horse underneath him while pulling out a turn with the long speak, but he looked a bit clumsy.
“Brother Wen you’re doing the movement wrong here.” The corner of Huo Guangzhi’s mouth curved up. Hiding the arrogance in his eyes, he stepped forward, “When you pull out the spear, your waist has to be pressed back, so that the movements look good.”
He had specialized in horsemanship and was naturally more proficient than Wen Run. Wen Run followed his words and tried to press his waist back as the spear was pulled over his head. However, before he could straighten his waist and sit up, the horse underneath him took a few steps forward, and Wen Run lost his balance. He narrowly grabbed the horse rope before stabilizing his body.
“Why don’t I give you a demonstration.” Huo Guangzhi pursed his lips proudly and smiled, “Follow my movements.”
Wen Run looked to the equestrian and saw that the equestrian had no objections before dismounting and saying to Huo Guangzhi, “Then I’ll trouble you, be careful.”
Huo Guangzhi answered faintly, and without changing his costume, he sharply rolled over and mounted his horse, then looked at the spear in Wen Run’s hand, “Give me the spear to use.”
Handing it over, Wen Run stepped back a bit, giving him room to play.
Seeing that everyone, including Wen Run, was watching him, Huo Guangzhi smiled arrogantly, glancing at Wen Run with hidden contempt. He had been suppressed by him for so long, this time he would let him taste what it was like to be suppressed.
“Watch this.” Huo Guangzhi clipped the horse’s belly and softly shouted “ride”, and the horse ran forward on command. As his body rose and fell, he moved his wrists, leaned back at the waist, and pulled his spear over his head, then straightened his waist and closed the spear in a sweeping motion.
The staff onlookers gasped in amazement, and even the horsemen complimented Huo Guangzhi on his riding skills. Delighted, he grabbed the reins and was about to turn back, when the horse underneath him suddenly neighed and raised its forelegs, throwing Huo Guangzhi off his feet like a madman, kicking its hooves back in place in a furious manner.
The onlookers were so stunned by this sudden change that no one reacted for a moment. The black horse was neighing agitatedly and its hooves were treading restlessly, while Huo Guangzhi was less than a meter away from the hooves, struggling to get up, and if the black horse had moved forward any further, it would have stepped on his body.
“Hurry up and save him!”
The one who reacted the fastest was Wen Run. He shouted and then quickly rushed forward, pulling the immobile Huo Guangzhi out from under the horse’s hooves. The black horse, however, was once again frightened and kicked its hooves restlessly in the arena until the equestrian went up to pacify it and led it away before it barely calmed down.
“How are you?” Wen Run laid Huo Guangzhi flat on the ground, but saw that one of his arms was hanging limply. By this time, others had gathered around, his manager crowded up, screaming, “Ambulance, call an ambulance!”
Someone hurriedly called 120, and in no time at all, the semi-conscious Huo Guangzhi was put on a stretcher and pulled away.
A good equestrian practice suddenly turned into an accident scene, and Director Yuan, who heard the news, looked around with a solemn expression, “What’s going on? The horses were checked, what went wrong?”
The equestrian calmed the agitated black horse and was also somewhat baffled, “Treading Ink has always had a good temper, today I don’t know what’s going on, he suddenly lost his temper.”
He checked the horse and the grounds at the first opportunity but didn’t find anything wrong. In the end, it could only be attributed to the horse being timid and being frightened before suddenly going berserk.
As Huo Guangzhi had already been sent to the hospital and the people present were also in shock, it wasn’t too early in the day, so the scene was wrapped up early, allowing everyone to go back to the hotel for a rest, while the assistant director went to visit Huo Guangzhi.
Later that night, the topic of Huo Guangzhi’s fall from a horse while filming a movie hit the hot search search list.
As a popular actor, he had many fans. When they heard that he had been injured, they all flocked to his studio and the crew’s official blog to ask about the situation. The cast and crew quickly responded, confirming that Huo Guangzhi had indeed fallen off his horse and had been sent to the hospital. The condition of his injuries would have to be diagnosed by the hospital.
However, his studio never came out to respond. Fans who were worried about their favorite actor could only keep praying for him under the studio’s Weibo page, hoping that he wasn’t seriously injured.
Wen Run was also a bit worried, as Huo Guangzhi’s fall wasn’t a light one, and when he returned to the hotel, he contacted the assistant director who had gone to the hospital to inquire about Huo Guangzhi’s condition.
When the assistant director arrived at the hospital, he had already been pushed out with a cast on, his left hand was fractured, and his body had a lot of bruises, but fortunately, the armor he was wearing provided some protection. It didn’t cause any more serious injuries. It was just a fractured left hand, he had to recuperate for a while to recover.
Wen Run was relieved, and only then did he go to wash up and rest. He was going to visit Huo Guangzhi tomorrow. Although the kid was a bit unpleasant, he was a bit upset that the other had been injured just for the sake of giving him a demonstration.
Not long after he rested, under the comments of fans praying for Huo Guangzhi’s well-being, someone claiming to be an insider of the cast and crew suddenly posted a long comment analyzing the “truth” of Huo Guangzhi’s injury.
Claiming to be a person with knowledge of the matter, the person first said that he was injured because Wen Run didn’t know how to ride a horse, and that he fell off his horse as a demonstration for Wen Run. He then turned around and said that the horse was fine when Wen Run rode it, but how did the horse “go crazy” when he rode it?
The blogger who posted the comment was evasive, saying that the strange thing about Huo Guangzhi’s “horse fall” was that he had been robbed by Wen Run of the endorsement he had previously lost, and that he had only been able to play a supporting role for Wen Run this time around. All of these words implied that Wen Run and Huo Guangzhi didn’t get along, that he snatched his resources and roles, and then he set up Huo Guangzhi to fall off his horse.
The long comment seemed to be a reasonable analysis, but in fact, it was all about inciting the fans. Originally, Huo Guangzhi and Wen Run clashed in terms of style and positioning, and their positions in the industry weren’t far apart, making them “rivals” who must die in the eyes of their fans. Both fan bases had long been at odds with each other, and had torn each other apart in several fights.
Now by the conspiracy theory of incitement, there were fans that couldn’t hold back, they tagged the crew’s Weibo username to ask for the “truth and justice”. What was more, they also flocked to Wen Run’s Weibo page to troll.
[Go to hell, bit-ch! If anything happens to my brother, you will be buried with him!]
[Are you happy stealing endorsements and roles? You act like a white lotus flower all day long, what’s the point of pretending?]
When Huo Guangzhi fell off his horse, Wen Run’s fans didn’t gloat but they didn’t care much either. They just left messages asking Wen Run to be careful when filming. But they didn’t expect to be scolded just like this, the fans looked confused. They quickly understood the situation and, unwilling to be outdone, launched a counterattack.
[It was his bad luck to fall off a horse, why involve Wen Run?]
[Don’t you have brains? There’s no evidence and you’re barking, do you know that?]
[He hasn’t even died yet, and they are already in mourning? Then I can only wish them a good journey.]
The two fans battled for a while, it didn’t take long to attract to attention. Even some marketing accounts followed the line of the initial long review and conducted a decent analysis of who was most likely to design a plot to assassinate Huo Guangzhi, implying in and out of the words that the culprit was Wen Run.
The Weibo page of this analysis was bought all the way to the top by Huo Guangzhi’s fans and went straight to the top of the hot search. No matter how much Wen Run’s fans chased after the evidence, Huo Guangzhi’s fans who believed in the conspiracy theory refused to pay any attention to it, and only frantically attacked Wen Run personally.
What was more, they even scolded the crew, saying that the crew was harboring Wen Run, Wen Run had a backstage to bully others, and so on.
When Wen Run woke up and prepared to go see him, then he realized that the atmosphere on the set was a bit off. His assistant quietly told him about the scolding on Weibo, which dumbfounded him.
Director Yuan called out the entire crew to find out who the “insider” was that popped up on the post. However, after half a day of searching, they couldn’t find the person. The atmosphere at the scene was low, and the staff members were all looking at each other, not even daring to utter a single breath.
Director Yuan, who had always been most annoyed by this kind of bullshit, coolly swept his gaze over everyone and said in a loud voice: “Many people were present at yesterday’s incident, and after the accident, we immediately inspected the horse and the scene and confirmed that the fall was a complete accident. If I find out who is behind this rumor, I will not only get him off the set, but I will also make it impossible for him to stay in the industry! You guys weigh yourselves and keep your mouths shut.”