Chapter 17: Dated

Wanning sent one message to the cast group chat before nine.

It said: Does anyone have anything from me with a date on it? I need to know before noon.

By two o'clock a minibus had pulled up at Gate Four.

Eight of the twelve actors climbed out and stood in a row, in sunglasses, being searched by two very embarrassed sentries.

The actor who played the sergeant came last, with a coat over his arm.

"We didn't want to put it in the chat," he said. "Fang's assistant is in it."

Captain Ji took them to the staff kitchen, where the steel counter was long enough for all of them.

Wanning stood at the end of it with a pen and a sheet of army paper.

The sergeant actor went first.

He laid his phone on the counter and pressed play.

A man's voice filled the kitchen, warm and friendly and a little tired.

"Hey, it's Wen Zhe. I'm stuck on forty. Could you improvise the sergeant for me, anything, the watch scene? I'll tidy it up."

Everyone heard the small, careless laugh at the end.

"Dated the Tuesday before the table read," the actor said. "I did the scene for him. I said it into my phone on the way home."

"He said he wrote it on a bus," said the woman who played the recruit's sister.

"I said it," Wanning answered. "He wasn't on the bus."

The recruit's sister stepped up next.

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