Part 2 of Chapter 83
Please Always Love Her – Main Story Finale (Second Part)
<Salvation Plan> is undoubtedly the box office champion of the Lunar New Year period. Not just the Lunar New Year movies, there is no movie in the next half year that can compare with it.
The six billion box office made Yue Qi believe that his movie is the annual champion, almost a nailed-down matter, until <Evil> officially premiered on National Day’s holidays.
Song Zeqian didn’t spend much money on publicity, but he always chose powerful actors. This time, it was almost a lineup of all popular actors, which had already captured the audience’s appetite.
Song Zeqian was bold enough, without arranging any previews, choosing to release directly and facing the real audience directly.
On the first day of the movie’s premiere, almost all the self-media filmmakers were unwilling to miss such good traffic and were eager to be the first batch of audience to evaluate <Evil>.
Shang Lu also saw the complete film for the first time. Unlike <Salvation Plan>, Song Zeqian brought them to the cinema just to observe the live reactions of the audience, without any interactive promotion. They were just ordinary viewers. Everyone was still present, sitting in the middle rows, quite close to the front, not the best viewing position.
Song Zeqian’s reason was simple: “I forgot to keep the tickets, they were snatched too quickly, so… But it doesn’t matter where we sit.”
Everyone : “…”
This is very much in line with Song Zeqian’s style.
The seat is somewhat close to the screen, but even the front row is filled with the audience. Compared to others, they should be content.
Shang Lu pulled Song Zeqian’s sleeve, handed him the her phone, with memo app on the screen where she wrote : [ An Qing is behind us. ]
An Qing is the one who appeared on their show before as Jiang Jing’s fake friend. She is a well-known film critic who harshly criticized Song Zeqian’s previous film.
Song Zeqian doesn’t mind, just saying, “Let’s watch the movie.”
The movie begins with a close-up shot. Five fingers fall like playing a piano, and the camera zooms out to reveal that the “piano keys” played by the girl’s fingers are actually pebbles on the ground.
Xiao Mi, playing Young Wang Can, squats on the roadside. The sound of her father scolding and beating her mother comes from the house behind her, and glass products fall to the ground.
She doesn’t speak, just quietly lowers her head, and her hands continue to play on the pebbles.
The scene shifts, and slender fingers fall on the piano keys.
Shang Lu, playing Wang Can, finishes playing the piece, stands up to accept the teacher’s praise, smiles gently, and walks to sit next to her brother in the corner.
Ye Lu, playing the rebellious teenage boy, is like a school bully himself, impatiently asking, “Why are you coming over? Didn’t we agree to pretend not to know each other at school?”
The two talk about their mother’s health issues for a few sentences, but because of disagreement on when to go home, they immediately separate when a classmate looks over.
Next, there are certain scenes introducing the current lives of each of the other children.
The hardworking older sister, the older brother who almost lives in the laboratory, the second sister who is a female star full of superiority under the spotlight, they all have their own lives.
These seemingly unrelated five people, until June received the news of their mother’s death, all rushed back home.
The funeral was quite grand, clearly the funeral of a wife, but the father only focused on showing off his successful children to relatives and friends, as if he had completely forgotten that his wife had passed away.
The faces of those relatives were full of envy, each holding a wine glass to compliment him.
Clearly, it was a funeral banquet, but those unaware would think it was a joyous occasion from the lively atmosphere. Except for the five children, no one felt sorrow for the deceased woman.
According to local customs, the funeral banquet lasts three days to send off the departed peacefully. On the first night, the father eagerly discussed future retirement arrangements with them. The eldest son, usually silent, now quarreled with his father.
After the three-day banquet, the father’s body lay outside the door, frightening the relatives who were about to leave.
Soon, the police arrived, focusing their investigation on the eldest daughter and eldest son—their prime suspects.
One, who had long been ‘sucked blood’ by the family1, and the other, who had recently argued with the deceased.
The second son was widely acknowledged by villagers as the child closest to the father. As for the second daughter, she cried, claiming innocence, pleading not to be implicated which would affect her professional career.
The youngest daughter, played by Shang Lu, appeared the most innocent, shedding continuous tears. Even a female officer had to console her emotions. No one suspected her involvement in the murder.
The investigation continued.
New evidence repeatedly overturned the police’s assumptions of the imminent truth. They were well aware that none of these children were entirely innocent, yet they had no idea who the real killer was.
But the wounds and past sufferings they exposed deeply moved everyone.
These police officers were parents themselves, also someone’s sons and daughters.
Despite their constant exposure to the dark side of the world due to their jobs, witnessing the scars on these children and hearing about their past hardships still stirred their emotions.
The eldest daughter once knelt in the rain at the village doctor’s door to beg for assistance for her mother, who had just had a miscarriage. The eldest son argued with his drunken father about whether his sister should go to school, getting kicked to the ground and enduring it all. The second daughter shared the candy rewards she received during her school days with her mother. The second son, seemingly distant from his sister at school, secretly beat up a classmate who had ill intentions towards her and remained silent when the school disciplined him. The youngest daughter, with a timid personality, protected her mother with her body when her father beat her mother and locked her mother in chains.
Growing up in such a hellish environment, each of them was loved by their siblings and, in turn, wanted to protect their siblings.
Hardship might erase many things, but the love between them did not diminish a bit.
As the movie reached this point, the sound of sobbing from the audience in the theater continued to echo.
Among them, Ye Lu cried the loudest.
Until the movie finished playing, he wiped away tears and said, “Why did I lie to you? You all are so miserable… “
Shang Lu looked at Song Zeqian, lips twitching, and asked, “He still doesn’t know the truth?”
Song Zeqian : “…”
Forget it, let’s keep watching.
As the movie reached its conclusion, a silent, long shot was added, revealing the panoramic view of the village. The camera gradually focused on the midst of the flock of sheep.
One particularly clean ewe was led away by the owner, and then a wooden bucket was brought to milk it.
Milk continuously flowed, filling the entire bucket, even threatening to overflow.
However, the owner was not satisfied, continuing to repeat the motion of milking the eweuntil drops of fresh blood fell into the bucket filled with sheep’s milk, accompanied by theewe’s wails off-screen.
A fat pig walked over, lowering its head to drink the sheep’s milk from the bucket.
The scene shifted, showing scattered sheep wool on the ground, cleaned sheep meat hanging at the door.
In the corner, a few lambs were led to the wooden bucket, and the pig stood by the bucket, seemingly waiting for something.
A lamb kicked the wooden bucket, running around, while the pig lowered its head to drink the remaining sheep’s milk from the bucket.
Finally, a plate of fragrant pig’s head meat was brought to the table, and at the door, instead of hanging lamb chops, there were sausages stuffed with pork.
The screen went completely dark, as if the sky was gradually darkening, until it was completely black.
Then the title appeared again—
<Evil>
The ending song played, and the movie ended completely.
By the way, because Ye Lu participated in the movie cast, the OST was sung by Ou Yi.
No one in the cinema got up to leave, and then applause thundered.
Ye Lu cried even louder, and Xu Ze, feeling disgusted, reached out to create distance between them.
Shang Lu turned around to sneak a glance at An Qing, seeing that she had taken off her glasses and was secretly wiping away tears.
She looked at Song Zeqian, smiling, and said, “We won.”
Song Zeqian, rarely showing a gentle smile, closed his eyes and said, “Yes, we won.”
- meaning she had been working hard for so long only to have her earned money taken by the family ↩︎