novellhall Chapter 62: Turns out they were all drug addicts
Chapter 62: Turns out they were all drug addicts
The next morning.
Midtown Manhattan.
In a top-tier studio that VOGUE has a long-term partnership with.
The shadowless lamps were arranged in a matrix, softboxes were suspended in two rows, and equipment boxes were stacked from the corner to the ceiling.
Several white photography assistants had already set up the camera positions, and the tracks were laid out meticulously.
The room was warm and cozy. Wei Yi, wearing the Beijing Film Academy T-shirt, walked around the shed.
Half a minute.
"No." He stopped.
Anna stood beside the monitor, raising one eyebrow: "What's wrong?"
"The lighting isn't right. This isn't the kind of lighting I want."
"What kind of light do you want?"
Wei Yi thought for a moment: "I can't explain it. But I can find out."
Anna glanced at him for two seconds, took off her glasses, wiped them, and put them back on. "Then let's go find them."
After leaving the studio, the convoy began to drive around the streets of Manhattan.
In the mornings in New York, the skyscrapers slice the sky into strips of blue.
A summer movie trailer was playing on the giant screen in Times Square, and the sound was so loud that you could hear the booming noises from two blocks away.
Everywhere there are people, everywhere there are cars, everywhere there is the smell of money and desire mixed together.
Chow Yun-fat leaned against the car window and muttered in Cantonese, "When I was little, I thought America was heaven from the movies, but now I know it's also hell."
Wang Baoqiang stared out the window at a woman walking briskly down Fifth Avenue in heels over ten centimeters high, and clicked his tongue: "Doesn't her foot hurt?"
No one responded.
The women, in particular, didn't want to pay any attention to him.
Please, they've worn heels that high before!
Wei Yi kept his skill active while looking at the light.
Look at the sliver of sunlight filtering through the gaps in the tall buildings, and see the colors it creates as it hits the glass curtain wall and bounces off the brick wall opposite.
As the car drove to the edge of Harlem, a scream suddenly came from the roadside.
A young Black man rushed out from the street corner, clutching a handbag that was clearly a woman's.
A middle-aged white woman chased after him for a couple of steps, twisted her high heels, sat down on the ground, and started swearing.
The young Black man disappeared into the alley in the blink of an eye.
The entire incident lasted no more than twenty seconds from start to finish.
Fan Binbin pressed himself against the car window, his eyes wide open: "Holy crap! Robbery!"
Wang Baoqiang leaned out from the back seat: "What were you fighting over? Where are they?"
Wei Yi was also taken aback.
This was the first time in his life—no, in both his past and present lives—that he had ever witnessed a street robbery.
Chow Yun-fat cleared his throat somewhat awkwardly: "New York, well, it's not like this every day."
Anna sat in the passenger seat, and her posture remained unchanged from beginning to end.
She didn't even glance out the window.
"This is already very good." Her tone was as flat as if she were talking about the weather. "In the 1980s, even on the Upper East Side, nobody dared to go out after nine o'clock at night. In the mid-1990s, I was robbed twice on this street. Once for my wallet, and once for the coffee I had just bought."
There was a two-second silence in the car.
Gong Li, who had been silent in the back row, suddenly blurted out, "So you guys are used to it?"
Anna turned around and glanced at her.
He didn't say anything.
Everyone understood that look in his eyes.
Yes, I'm used to it.
Wei Yi shrugged.
It's a beautiful sight.
He doesn't like it, but he understands it.
After all, the United States has its own unique national circumstances.
11:00 AM.
The convoy turned into an old industrial street in Brooklyn.
Wei Yi suddenly slapped the back of the driver's seat: "Stop."
He opened the car door and stood in front of an old warehouse.
The red brick walls were badly mottled, and rusty steel beams peeked out from the cracks, like the skeleton of the building itself.
He went inside.
The ceiling is twelve meters high. The high windows face south, and the midday sunlight shines down through the dusty glass, making the entire brick wall look as if it has been set on fire and turned a dark red.
Wei Yi stood in that light, looking up at it for a long time.
"That's it."
Fan Binbin followed him in, her high heels clicking on the concrete floor.
She glanced at the dusty walls and the rusty steel beams overhead, opened her mouth, but swallowed back the words, "Can we film this?" that were on the tip of her tongue.
Anna stood in the center of the warehouse, turned around, and then looked at Wei Yi: "Is this the light you wanted?"
"Not yet," Wei Yi said. "Let's seal it off first."
Anna didn't ask why. She gestured with her chin toward the photography assistant, Collier, and his team.
Ten minutes later, all the high windows were covered—with a layer of black cloth and then a layer of tin foil.
The warehouse darkened, so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, with only a thin white line leaking through the crack in the door.
Standing on the ladder, Collier couldn't hold back any longer: "Dear Wei, you've blocked out all the natural light, how are you going to take the pictures?"
"lamp."
"How many?"
"One lamp."
The ladder wobbled. Collier looked down at him, his mouth opening and closing repeatedly, like a fish being pulled from the water.
A tungsten filament lamp was suspended from the roof, twelve meters high.
Wei Yi had someone turn the power down to the lowest setting.
Snapped.
The lights came on.
A cluster of orange-red light hung above the warehouse, like a sun about to go out.
The light was very weak, so weak that it could barely outline a person's silhouette.
The observer sent by LV was French, and he stood in the corner without saying a word the whole time.
At this moment, he moved half a step closer to Chen Chen and asked in a low voice with a very heavy French accent, "Are you sure? Is this guy crazy?"
Chen Chen looked at the orange-red mass and recalled the events in the Beijing Film Academy's film studio.
He ignored the Frenchman.
The first match.
Gong Li as Nuwa.
When Gong Li came out of the dressing room, the entire warehouse was silent for a moment.
It must be said that Gong Li's appearance is indeed very sophisticated, the kind that can be appreciated by both Chinese and foreigners.
But she had everything prepared.
Wei Yi, however, made no move at all.
The device is not powered on.
There were no new instructions.
Even closed his eyes.
This prompted Collier to whisper to Chen Chen from behind the monitor, "What is he doing?"
Before Chen Chen could answer, Wei Yi spoke up: "Don't turn it on now. Let the light bulb burn a little longer."
He looked up at the orange-red mass.
He was actually waiting for the light bulb to age.
When the color temperature of the light bulb drops below 2,800, a very faint trace of gold will appear in the orange-red color.
That kind of gold is almost indistinguishable to the human eye, but machines can detect it, and only after his system has enhanced it can it be detected.
When you press the shutter at that moment, the skin is no longer "an object illuminated by light." It becomes a luminous entity.
He only found out after he started using cheats.
Even if others knew, they wouldn't be able to wait for it.
But he couldn't say it out loud. He casually explained the principles of color temperature and skin reflectivity.
It was made up on the spot.
It's made up.
After listening, Collier remained silent for a long time.
He spent over a decade in the American photography scene, his work hanging in galleries in Chelsea, and his photos have been featured in Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Rolling Stone.
He had learned every principle that the Chinese man in front of him mentioned, but he put these principles together and waited for the light bulb to age to a certain precise color temperature before pressing the shutter.
This was the first time he had ever heard of such a technique.
It wasn't shocking.
It's that kind of mental blankness you feel after something hits your head.
Is there such a saying?
The light bulb had been worn out for more than three minutes.
A layer of gold seeped out from the orange-red.
Wei Yi picked up the camera. Gong Li opened her eyes. The shutter clicked.
The moment the monitor lit up, Anna Wintour took off her glasses and wiped the lenses with her sleeve.
She stared at that image for a long time.
"This isn't a photograph." She put on her glasses, her voice lower than usual. "This...this is archaeology."
Wei Yi didn't pay attention to what she was saying.
Because a "ding" sounded in my head.
[Warning: High levels of demonic energy detected.]
[Several fallen demons—members of the overseas Immortal Alliance—are currently within the area, deeply addicted to the Mirror Flower Illusion Technique, their minds corrupted.]
[The "Mirror Flower Karma Technique" possessed by the host has an extremely strong pull on those who have fallen into demonic possession. It is advised that the host use it with caution to avoid causing the fallen to suffer a mental breakdown due to excessive absorption of illusions.]
Wei Yi was taken aback.
He turned and glanced at Anna.
This fashion queen was staring intently at the monitor, her eyes glazed over, her lips slightly parted—completely unlike the cold and ruthless female tyrant she usually was.
Her voice trembled when she said "this is archaeology".
Then look at the Frenchman sent by LV next to him.
He rubbed his fingers repeatedly in the corner, as if something on his body was itchy.
And then there's Collier. Collier's expression wasn't one of amazement, but rather one of craving.
The kind of craving that comes from smelling meat when someone who has been starving for days finally gets a taste of it.
system.
What is demonic energy?
He inquired about the sand sculpture system.
[The demonic energy that causes cultivators to utterly perish on the lower paths.]
Listening to the system's explanation, and looking at the Western fashion industry bigwigs in front of him, who seemed to be on drugs, he realized that they were a group of people.
Wei Yi suddenly understood.
In China, people find their photos "amazing," "somewhat addictive," and "worthy of looking at again and again."
That's because people in the domestic fashion industry haven't touched those things before.
They are normal people.
In the perception of the sand sculpture system, they are ordinary people, or low-level rogue cultivators.
In the West, especially in the fashion industry, he had long heard that these people were notorious for their drug use.
And it's even more outrageous than Hollywood.
and so--
He glanced down at the machine in his hand.
So what he took wasn't a photograph.
It is spiritual opium.
Moreover, it has a double effect on this group of people who have been absorbing Western fashion trends for half their lives.
Anna was still watching the monitor.
Her assistant called her twice, but she didn't hear him.
Wei Yi placed the machine on the table and touched the Xuanhemen in his pocket.
Damn it.
Why do I feel like I'm peddling toothbird photos to the Western fashion industry?