Lin Momo accompanied Grandpa Lin to watch this episode together.

In the afternoon, Lin Cheng took Lin Momo to visit Liu Cuifang.

Liu Cuifang didn’t go online much, and she rarely used electronic devices, so she didn’t watch the livestreams of Lin Cheng and Lin Momo this past week.

When Lin Momo came to see Liu Cuifang, she chattered all about the interesting things that happened to her and Lin Cheng during this week, and how she used what her grandmother taught her, making use of soybean dregs to make money.

They were so excited chatting that Lin Momo forgot the time.

Lin Cheng saw that it was getting late so he said to Lin Momo, “Let’s go back home.”

“Ah, I haven’t finished talking yet,” Lin Momo muttered unwillingly.

“We have to go to the filming crew tomorrow,” Lin Cheng reminded again.

Hearing this, Lin Momo nodded and reluctantly said ‘goodbye’ to Liu Cuifang.

——

The next morning, Lin Cheng brought Lin Momo to the Lin Mansion in N city.

Walking all the way in, looking at the huge garden and the beautiful and old-fashioned structure not far away, Lin Momo tugged at Lin Cheng’s hand and asked, “Is this where great-grandpa lived before?”

While talking, Lin Momo looked around curiously—she had already learned from Grandpa Lin about the relationship between ‘Lin An’nan’ in [Against the Grain] and their family, and she also knew that the Lin Mansion was lent by Grandpa Lin to the crew for filming, and that the Lin family had lived here before moving to C city.

“It’s here,” Lin Cheng responded, pointing around and introducing places to Lin Momo.

“This is the front garden of the mansion. There is another garden on the east and west sides. There is also a larger garden behind the house. There are storehouses of the same size under each garden.” 

“Why do you need so many storehouses?” Lin Momo asked puzzled.

“To hide supplies,” Lin Cheng replied.

During the years of fighting with the enemy, the Lin Mansion was not only where Lin An’nan and his family lived, but also a secret transit point for tons of supplies—Lin An’nan would secretly hide the supplies here first, and then use the Lin family’s freight business to send them to the front line in batches.

Then, Lin Cheng pointed to the side of the house not far away and introduced it to Lin Momo, “Your great grandfather lived on the east wing when he was a child. The descendants of our Lin family all lived on the east wing…” 

There were still traces of the enemy troops burning, killing, and looting on the west wing. When the previous generations of the Lin family restored the Lin Mansion, they only restored the outside, but kept the marks of war inside, preserved as memento on the west wing of the mansion. It was no longer a place to be lived in but had become a piece of history.

Lin Cheng explained the reason to Lin Momo as simply as possible. As for whether Lin Momo understood everything, Lin Cheng was not sure.

However, seeing that Lin Momo listened seriously and nodded from time to time, Lin Cheng simply said a few more words to her, “The layout of the mansion at the time was different from that of ordinary houses. The rooms on the first floor of the mansion were empty, but there were many valuable items displayed in them. The purpose was to divert attention and hide the storehouses below it, in case people came in who want to cause trouble. The second floor was where the living room was, and in the third and fourth floors were the bedrooms…”

As they talked, the two of them had already reached the front door of the mansion.

At this time, the crew of [Against the Grain] had already set up the shooting sites inside and outside the mansion.

Grandpa Lin lent the Lin Mansion to the crew for filming and also completely opened the west wing of the mansion for their use.

At this time, the important items inside the mansion were carefully handled by the crew, and some of the furniture and ornaments were temporarily replaced with similar looking custom props. Despite this, when one walked into the Lin Mansion, one could still feel the strong aura of historical heritage, which was incomparable to a shooting studio that were naturally built much later.

… … translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com

On the set, seeing Lin Cheng and Lin Momo, Director Liu and several other veteran actors on the set seemed very happy.

Especially Zhou Haihua—when he saw Lin Momo, his eyes almost bent from smiling.

“There are several scenes that should be filmed on-site, outside the Film and Television City. Some other parts have already been completed. But this portion is still left. 

“Time is limited, so I set up the crew here first. I wanted to take advantage of the weekend break in your recording of your dad and daughter variety show. I was thinking about whether to schedule all the shooting time in one go, working through the night. As it turned out, your agent told me that your variety show will be on a week-long break. Isn’t this quite a happy coincidence hahaha,” Director Liu said with a smile. 

There was no nonsense in his words, nor any ‘concern’ about whether Lin Cheng and the others were tired or needed a rest.

Sure enough, Director Liu was still Director Liu, and his style was still so casual.

“I gave the script to your agent, for you and Xiao Momo. Have you both read all of it?” Director Liu asked, looking at Lin Cheng and Lin Momo.

“I have read it,” Lin Momo replied, and then added, “Three times.”

“That’s good, it will go faster when I talk about the scenes later.”

Director Liu had just finished speaking when two actors arrived, so he introduced them to Lin Cheng and Lin Momo.

These were the two actors that the crew had hired to play the roles of Lin An’nan’s wife and eldest son.

The actress was not very famous, but her acting skills was one of the few that had been praised by the bigwigs in the entertainment industry. The actor who played Lin An’nan’s eldest son was a child star, and his acting skills was also good.

In addition, there were several supporting roles this time, all of which were actors that the audience would be familiar with.

Seeing that all the main actors were present, Director Liu began to talk about the scenes.

“You all have the scripts. There are three main scenes to be shot in the Lin Mansion. All three scenes take place when the country has already fallen. The Lin Mansion was able to catch its breath under the protection of the Y-country Bank through their business dealings, but it was still in danger. Therefore, the overall tone of the scenes is actually tense and heavy. However, because this is Lin An’nan’s home, with his family and children here, it still has the same daily routines and warmth as in the past. This is what you need to grasp.”

“Did I make it clear?” Director Liu asked, looking at everyone in turn.

Seeing that everyone nodded, Director Liu continued, “Then I will briefly go over each of your roles in these few scenes…” 

There were three main scenes. One was when the Lin family’s trade channel was blocked. In order to open up a new supply channel, Lin An’nan invited various major chambers of commerce and ‘hosted a feast’ for many wealthy businessmen in order to seek support.

The second scene was when the Lin Mansion helped an intelligence officer who was being hunted by the enemy to hide and avoid being tracked down, and then finally send the other party out of the city safely. 

The third scene was when the enemy—in an attempt to find a list of donors to the war cause that Lin An’nan possessed—violated the agreement with Country Y and rushed into the Lin Mansion. Lin An’nan and his wife pretended to escape to divert the enemy from searching the mansion.

As the main actor in this part, Lin Cheng needed to complete the shooting of the three scenes.

As Lin Haiying, Lin Momo needed to film the eight-year-old girl’s life with her family, playing with other children of the same age who also lived in the mansion. 

She also had to film two more scenes: one was a conversation between Lin Haiying and Lin An’nan’s compatriot as the latter was leaving the mansion; and second, a scene where the enemy army broke into the west wing attic where Lin Haiying had been taken by her father to hide.

“If it’s all right, we’ll start in a moment. We won’t shoot the three main scenes yet. Let’s shoot some of Lin An’nan’s family’s life here first. You can get a feel for it first. Once you get into the right feeling, we’ll go into the three scenes…”

Serve as Contrast Team in a ‘Dad with Baby’ Show translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com

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Chapter 95.1 — Filming
Chapter 95.2 — Filming
Chapter 96.1 — Not That Simple
Chapter 96.2 — Not That Simple
Chapter 96.3 — Not That Simple