With this unexpected incident, they didn't manage to shoot the scene that morning. All the crew members were bustling around in a hurry, and Ren Qingzhou returned to his RV.
Around noon, the assistant director of the crew came to apologize, saying that they couldn't shoot in the morning. The director planned to reshoot this scene later, but didn't specify when. Li Momo knew it wasn't the crew's fault, so she didn't make things difficult for them. After the assistant director exchanged a few more polite words, he went back to his own business.
Ren Qingzhou finally got a precious vacation, the first one since he joined the crew.
Ren Qingzhou was thinking about spending some quality time with Su Tang. They definitely couldn't go to a scenic area because there would be too many people, and there didn't seem to be any interesting places around the film base either.
Ren Qingzhou decided to ask Li Momo for advice.
Li Momo enthusiastically offered a suggestion, "There's a county under the jurisdiction of the film base. It's newly developed and supposed to be really nice. You guys can go check it out and have some fun."
"Will there be a lot of people there?"
"Since it's just been developed and the facilities aren't fully complete yet, there shouldn't be too many people," Li Momo replied. "Be careful not to get photographed."
Ren Qingzhou felt like he was a criminal, always sneaking around whenever he went out.
But there was nothing he could do about it. What could he do?
Especially in recent years, with the rise of the paparazzi industry, it had brought more inconvenience to the stars in the entertainment circle.
They were almost everywhere, like ghosts. They could really disrupt your life.
If you ignored them, they might not say anything nice about you. But if you confronted them, they would surely scold you. Ren Qingzhou really hated it when his private life was disturbed.
He drove Li Momo's car and went to the county she had mentioned with Su Tang.
The Jiangnan water town was naturally picturesque. The government might have had the idea of investing in the tourism industry, so they had done some special renovations on the scenery in the small town. But due to the lack of publicity, there weren't many tourists in the town yet.
That was exactly why Su Tang finally felt the real life atmosphere of the Jiangnan water town. She was originally from the north and had been living in big cities in the south. In fact, there wasn't much difference between the south and the north in big cities, except that the climate in the south was a bit more humid and rainy.
At this moment, she finally felt the scene described in Dai Wangshu's "Rainy Lane", the bluestone-paved paths, the long alleys, the small bridges and flowing water everywhere, and the soft dialect of the locals.
Everything in this small town seemed so gentle. They were just like an ordinary couple, holding hands and walking on the bluestone paths.
Su Tang couldn't help but ask Ren Qingzhou, "Are southern girls more gentle than northern girls?"
Growing up in such an environment, one should develop a gentle and delicate personality.
"Li Momo is also from the south. Do you think she's gentle?" Ren Qingzhou said with a smile.
Li Momo was an impatient person and did things in a rather decisive way. She definitely didn't fit the description of "gentle and delicate".
As they were talking, Ren Qingzhou suddenly felt a little hand tugging at his coat.
The little girl was even shorter than Ren Qingzhou's legs. She could only reach up and grab the bottom of his coat. She opened her mouth and called out clearly, "Daddy."
Ren Qingzhou was startled to suddenly have such a big "daughter". He squatted down and looked at the little girl, asking, "Little girl, did you mistake me for someone else?"
The little girl was only two or three years old. She could only call people but couldn't say much else. She was extremely cute, but all she could do was pull at Ren Qingzhou and call him daddy. She couldn't say anything else clearly.
The little girl must have gotten lost. Ren Qingzhou didn't know what to do for a moment. He could only think of taking her to the police station and asking the police to help find her family.
Su Tang wanted to squat down and pick up the little girl, but as soon as she touched her, the little girl started to cry.
Su Tang laughed and said, "It seems she only recognizes you."
"Then I'll carry her," Ren Qingzhou said as he picked up the little girl. Su Tang turned on the navigation, and they headed towards the nearest police station.
When they got to the police station, Su Tang tried again to coax the little girl to go with her. "Be a good girl, baby. Come with sister, okay?"
She reached out her hand, but the only response she got was the little girl's crying. The little girl clung tightly to Ren Qingzhou's neck and refused to let go. She cried and called out "Daddy" at the same time. Su Tang felt like a human trafficker.
Ren Qingzhou had no choice but to try to calm her down while pointing at the door of the police station. "Forget it. I'll go in."
"But..." Although Su Tang didn't know much, she still felt that it might not be a good idea for Ren Qingzhou to go into the police station.
"There's nothing we can do about it, right..."
The little girl's tears and snot were all over Ren Qingzhou's coat. As a person with a slight case of mysophobia, he didn't say a single word. Su Tang somehow felt that he would definitely be a good father in the future.
The two of them entered the police station, and a young female police officer received them.
She stared at Ren Qingzhou for a long time, as if lost in thought.
Then she finally came to her senses and remembered she was at work. "Hello. What can I do for you?"
"This little girl seems to have gotten lost," Su Tang explained the situation on Ren Qingzhou's behalf.
The female police officer looked at the little girl who was playing with the tassels on Ren Qingzhou's coat. "So you don't know each other?"
"That's right. I don't know why she insists that I'm her daddy."
Recognizing a daddy on the street... that was something!
"Okay. Please wait a moment," the female police officer said and then went out, leaving Ren Qingzhou and Su Tang in the meeting room.
It was Su Tang's first time in a police station meeting room. She felt it was different from what she had seen on TV, so she couldn't help but look around.
"I thought we would be taken to the interrogation room like they show on TV," she said.
Ren Qingzhou looked at Su Tang as if she were a silly child. "We're not suspects. Why would they take us there?"
How many innocent girls had been poisoned by TV dramas? Ren Qingzhou thought his girlfriend was a bit naive for the first time.
"Just now, someone came to report that their child was missing. Our police officers have gone out to look for her. It will probably take a while for them to come back. You'll have to wait a bit longer," the female police officer said as she came back.
For the next while, Su Tang always felt that the female police officer seemed to be organizing some documents, but in fact, her eyes were always stealing glances at Ren Qingzhou.
Ren Qingzhou was playing with the little girl seriously. After calling him daddy, the little girl had really gotten familiar with him. He lowered his head and was telling some kind of joke, making the little girl laugh non-stop.
After waiting for about an hour, the police officers finally came back one by one, and the little girl's mother finally showed up.
She was obviously extremely worried. She rushed into the meeting room, hugged her child, and started crying.
Finally seeing the child's mother, Ren Qingzhou and Su Tang finally let out a sigh of relief. After the mother and child had calmed down, they finally found out what had happened.
It turned out that this young mother had taken her child out to buy something. Who would have thought that in just a moment, the child had disappeared.
She had immediately gone to the nearby police station to report the case, and the police officers had also helped to look for the child for a long time.
"Thank you so much. If it weren't for kind people like you, the consequences would have been unimaginable," the mother said.
"You have to be more careful when you take your child out alone," the female police officer who had been there all along was consoling her, while another male police officer who had gone out to search with her said seriously, "Your child is still too young. She can't even speak clearly and doesn't remember the exact location of home. For a child this young, if she were abducted, it would be very difficult to find her again."
Fortunately, it had all turned out okay. It was a happy ending. The police officer in the station saw that the mother was still very shaken up, so they didn't say anything too harsh. "Both of you come here to fill out the police record, and then you can go."
The female police officer took out a record book as a matter of routine and asked, "Name?"
"Su Tang. Su as in the city of Suzhou, and Tang as in the Tang Dynasty."
"What about the gentleman?"
"Ren Qingzhou..."
Before he could finish speaking, he felt two pairs of eyes staring at him.
The female police officer tried hard to calm herself down and told herself that it might just be a coincidence. "Which Qingzhou?"
"Qing as in the color green, and Zhou as in the continent Asia."
The little girl's mother had finally recovered a bit from her fear. She said in a rather disorganized way, "Are you that Ren Qingzhou?"
Well, he really was.
Ren Qingzhou instinctively touched his nose, not knowing how to answer.
"I knew you looked really familiar," the female police officer couldn't help but sigh.
After the three of them had finished filling out the records, the little girl's mother finally recovered from the day's ups and downs. "I really like your songs..."
Well, she might still be a bit excited.
Judging from her reaction, Su Tang was sure that she was a fan of Ren Qingzhou's.
So was that the reason why her little girl had called Ren Qingzhou daddy? Was it like this?
Ren Qingzhou instinctively reached out to hold Su Tang's hand, but Su Tang quickly stepped back in surprise and gave him a warning look with her eyes.
Then they saw his hand awkwardly freeze in mid-air. He then bent it back at a strange angle and stroked the little girl's head. "Don't be so careless in the future."
He had already adjusted his state, while Su Tang quietly turned herself into an invisible person.
It was better not to draw attention to herself at this time.
Today's events had been so strange that they still hadn't fully recovered even after saying goodbye to the woman.
It was already afternoon when they left the police station. Su Tang sighed and said, "I think you'll definitely be a good father in the future."
This incident had disrupted their original travel plan. They could only find a random restaurant in the city for dinner and then walked back to the hotel.
Ren Qingzhou had originally wanted to book a local characteristic homestay, but for various reasons, he finally had to book a local hotel.
It wasn't much different from the hotel at the film base, except that the environment was a bit more basic.
In the evening, they received a message from Li Momo, saying that the crew had decided to reshoot the scenes they had missed the next day. So they had to set off early the next morning to return to the film base.
Ren Qingzhou and Su Tang's first trip had ended in such an imperfect way.