Chapter 33 Escape from Death
Others only heard the sound, but Wang Baoqiang and Li Yixiang, who were walking in the front, saw with their own eyes a stone bigger than their heads suddenly fall from less than one meter in front of them.
After the stone fell to the ground, it rolled again and stopped only 20 centimeters away from Baoqiang's feet!
The air and time seemed to have frozen at this moment. Li Yixiang opened his mouth and looked up, while Wang Baoqiang stared at the ground with wide eyes. They all froze on the spot like clay or wooden sculptures.
"Hmm~"
At this moment, a voice suddenly came from behind: "What are you standing there for? Run!"
Then the two men were grabbed by the arms and staggered backwards involuntarily.
After retreating five or six steps, Li Yixiang was the first to react and quickly turned around and ran away.
Baoqiang was being coerced by the man in a daze until he got on the elevator. Then he slowly came to his senses, grabbed the man's wrist with his backhand, and said in a trembling voice: "Kun, Brother Kun, what just happened was..."
"It's in the past."
Xu Kun raised his hand and pointed at the gradually expanding light above, saying: "Look, it's almost..."
Before he could finish his words, the elevator suddenly shook. Although the vibration was not large, it still made everyone's heart jump to their throats.
In the chaos, no one knew who was chanting "Amitabha". Baoqiang was also busy praying to the Buddha for protection. At the same time, he held Xu Kun's wrist tightly and refused to let go no matter what.
Fortunately, this time it was still safe.
After an unusually long half minute, the elevator successfully broke out of the ground.
Wang Baoqiang followed Xu Kun onto the solid ground like a conjoined twin. Suddenly, he felt as if everything below his waist was made of cotton. If Xu Kun had not pulled him up in time, he would have fallen flat on the spot.
He was still considered lucky. The stage manager and sound engineer collapsed directly on the elevator, with a large wet spot on his crotch. In the end, he was carried down by two people hand and foot.
Li Yang's face was also pale. He had stayed in the mine the longest, so he was most familiar with various situations. If nothing unexpected happened, the abnormal vibration of the elevator just now should have been caused by a large-scale landslide in the mine below.
In other words, the seven people who went down the well to film this time were just a little bit away from being buried forever!
At this moment, someone suddenly patted him on the shoulder.
Li Yang looked up and saw Xu Kun laughing broadly and saying, "Director Li, those three animals you bought were not in vain."
Infected by his smile, Li Yang also forced out a bitter smile and said in a bitter voice: "It's a pity that you can still laugh."
"Well, if it's not the case, when a person dies, his eggs will face the sky, but he will live for thousands of years."
As Xu Kun spoke, he asked the stage manager to return his cigarette and distributed it to everyone who was lying limp on the ground.
At this time, a confused voice sounded weakly behind him: "Brother Xu, what's wrong with you?"
Xu Kun turned around and saw Zhou Qiqi carrying a furry pink backpack and looking at everyone with a puzzled look on her face.
"on vacation?"
Seeing the little girl nodding obediently, Xu Kun laughed and said, "Then you are in for a treat. We have just escaped death, so we must have a good meal at noon to calm down."
Then he patted Li Yang on the shoulder and asked, "Director Li, isn't that right?"
Li Yang could only respond with a wry smile.
At this time, assistant director Lao Zhao came up and whispered, "Director Li, is it really collapsed down there?"
Li Yang nodded: "It is 99% likely to have collapsed, and the area of the collapse is not small."
"collapse?!"
Li Yang did not lower his voice deliberately, and Zhou Qiqi was shocked when she heard it. Only then did she realize that Xu Kun was not joking, but had really just escaped death.
"Is filming so dangerous?"
The little girl's voice was trembling slightly, and her eyes kept looking into the mine. It was obvious that she was imagining in her mind what it would be like if she was buried down there.
"Then when..."
In front of the little fan girl, Xu Kun wanted to say a few nonsense words, but when he looked at the stage manager who was curled up on the ground with tears streaming down his face, he swallowed the words that were on the tip of his tongue.
People were so frightened that they probably wouldn't dare to go down the well again. It's really inappropriate for me to keep talking about art being above everything else.
Assistant Director Zhao also looked at the mine with fear, and then hesitated and said, "Director Li, what should we do with the next shoot?"
Hearing this, Li Yang's face became even uglier, but he still said firmly: "It's almost the New Year, many mines will be closed, let's contact another one to continue filming!"
“Still filming?!” The script supervisor, who had just stopped crying, sat up all of a sudden and said excitedly, “Whoever wants to go can go. Anyway, I’m not going down. It’s not worth risking my life for a few thousand or eight hundred!”
With someone taking the lead, another staff member immediately followed.
Therefore, the only ones willing to go down the well to shoot were Li Yang and his personal cameraman.
As for the three main actors...
Baoqiang opened his mouth stammeringly, then looked at Xu Kun for help: "Brother Kun, what should we do?"
"You make up your mind."
The cigarette in Xu Kun's hand seemed alive, shuttling back and forth between his fingers. Although he really wanted to have a cigarette, his only little fan girl was right next to him, so he still had to behave like a gentleman.
He would definitely continue filming, as only the last few important scenes were left. His luck wouldn't be so bad that he would encounter two mining accidents in a row.
But it is one thing for Xu Kun to want to shoot the film, but he does not want his choice to affect Bao Qiang's choice.
After all, this is playing with your life!
But Baoqiang had already seen Xu Kun's choice from his state, and then thought of what Xu Kun had said in the private room of the restaurant: I am not looking for death, but I am not afraid of death either.
Brother Kun did what he said, but what about me?
Baoqiang took a deep breath and gritted his teeth and said, "I want to finish the filming!"
But after he finished speaking, he was like a deflated ball, and stammered, "But you have to let me wait for two days before going down the well."
"As it should be. It takes some time to contact new mines."
Li Yang nodded and his expression eased a lot. There weren't many scenes left in the mine, so he and the cameraman shared the workload and could barely support the work of the others.
Li Yixiang took a long puff of his cigarette and said decisively, "I don't have any objection either. You have to finish what you start."
"That's enough!"
Xu Kun laughed and pulled Li Yixiang and Wang Baoqiang up from the ground with one hand each. He said to Li Yang, "I think Baoqiang's current condition is just right for the scene where he runs away from the massage parlor. Director Li, what do you think?"
The easiest way to get rid of fear is to focus on doing other things.
Upon hearing this, Li Yang also got up and carefully observed Baoqiang's condition. He found that his frightened look, as if he was in another world, could be integrated into the plot with a slight modification.
So he waved his hand and said, "Load the things in the car, and let's go back to the county to shoot!"
I saw the crew working in an orderly manner under Li Yang's command.
Zhou Qiqi just felt that all this was so unbelievable. She tugged at the corner of Xu Kun's clothes and whispered, "Brother Xu, you, you really want to continue filming? What if we encounter danger again..."
"Pah, pah, pah! Children's words are careless and will be blown away by the wind!"
Xu Kun interrupted her immediately: "We haven't done anything against the law, how could it happen twice in a row... Bah, bah, bah, you almost brought me down with you."
"But is it worth it?"
Zhou Qiqi still couldn't understand everyone's choice.
Xu Kun thought for a moment, pointed to the adobe houses not far away and said, "See those shacks? There were originally more than 20 miners living in them. They were given a few days off in advance to make time for us to film. Just imagine, if we hadn't come and the mine had continued to operate as usual, what would have happened?"
Zhou Qiqi's face turned pale as he asked, "Will someone be buried underneath?"
"That's for sure."
Xu Kun was not trying to fool her. The crew encountered a landslide when they were halfway there, so they still had time to escape. But if the miners had encountered this landslide while working in the innermost part, they would probably not have had time to escape from the mine at all.
"Although this was just an accidental result, the purpose of making this film was to warn and help more miners. Maybe this is God's will."
As Xu Kun spoke, he extended his black hand towards the little girl's shoulder, as if he wanted to pour something spiritual into her brain.
The little girl was obviously frightened, and she was still a little dazed when she left the crew at noon.
She never came to the crew again after that, probably because she was stopped by her family.
It was not until two years later, when Zhou Qiqi went to Beijing to take the art examination, that Xu Kun heard from her parents that since returning home that day, the little girl seemed to have some misunderstanding about the acting profession. Every time she went to the acting training class in the provincial capital, it was as if she was going on a martyrdom pilgrimage.
(End of this chapter)
