I Gave Him a Dream

Artists, especially young idols, were usually kept under tight control by their agencies when it came to dating.

Most agencies would rather have their managers help them hire prostitutes than let them date.

Especially not another idol of the opposite sex from the same company. Otherwise, two careers would collapse at once—who could take that?

But most of the time, company bans were useful, just not very useful against young people overflowing with hormones.

Especially since anyone who could become an idol had already been carefully selected for their looks. Put a group of handsome men and beautiful women together, let them catch each other's eye, and something like that was perfectly normal.

Bai Youlou didn't have a proper girlfriend, but he did have someone he was involved with ambiguously.

They followed each other on Weibo, interacted from time to time, and privately sent each other messages almost every day.

That kind of relationship was basically the beginning of a romance once someone pierced through the paper-thin barrier.

It was just that their identities as idols made them maintain a certain degree of restraint. In the face of their futures, some risks simply couldn't be taken.

She probably hadn't expected that Bai Youlou, who had always managed to remain restrained, would suddenly pull off something this huge.

As for the "legacy" this ambiguous partner had left the current Bai Youlou, it amounted to no more than a few gorgeous pictures saved on his phone.

They weren't explicit pictures, but she was dressed rather revealingly. They were private, custom-made shots that she hadn't posted on Weibo and had sent only to him.

Bai Youlou had admired them several times already. The girl's tiny waist and defined abs, courtesy of her girl-group background, were truly something else.

Old Zhou's question was a good one, though. How was she doing now?

Bai Youlou really wanted to contact her, preferably to borrow some money.

But she wasn't answering him~

She might even have felt a little relieved. Thank goodness they hadn't actually dated.

Otherwise, an ex-girlfriend would have become a criminal record. Who could take that? Dating someone and ending up with a "record"!

So, looking back, he didn't feel it was much of a pity that he hadn't bothered with An Luning or gone further in figuring out how to live off her.

With Bai Youlou's current reputation, trying to pick up a girl from the entertainment industry was incredibly difficult.

Just how badly would he have to PUA her before she was willing to throw caution to the wind and get together with him?

Even his ambiguous partner probably wished they had never met.

No matter how stupid An Luning looked, she was still a major celebrity, with a proper manager and team.

How could she possibly let a notorious scumbag like Bai Youlou pull some shady stunt?

--

"Name?"

"Long Ziqiang."

"Age?"

"Th-thirty."

"You're thirty? Who are you trying to fool?!"

"I really am thirty. No, wait, why are you interrogating me like a criminal?"

Bai Youlou looked Long Ziqiang up and down. With his shiny bald head and intimidating face, he looked like a real gangster. Even his name was thunderous, carrying the feel of a mobster from films and television shows of the last century.

But that only made the contrast with his somewhat timid temperament all the more striking.

The contrast.

What a find!

His age was genuinely hard to determine. Saying he was in his thirties would work, but if someone claimed he was in his forties, people would probably believe that too.

The guy had a deeply deceptive face. It was impossible to tell his exact age.

Besides a gangster, he was also perfectly suited to play a psychopathic serial killer.

Meanwhile, the older young man Long Ziqiang was also sizing up Bai Youlou. The information on Bai Youlou's side was far more complicated.

Mainly because Bai Youlou was too famous.

The King of Flirty Talk, Living Cao Cao, a popular idol—when all those labels were put together, they had somehow produced the title of director.

Life really was more surreal than fiction.

Clearly, both men thought the other was utterly absurd.

Old Zhou stepped in to smooth things over and introduced him to Bai Youlou. "This is our junior disciple. He's a third-year student this year."

Great. There was another absurd point.

Unexpectedly, Bai Youlou didn't ask any more questions. Instead, he held out his hand to Long Ziqiang. "Welcome to our film."

His straightforwardness left Long Ziqiang somewhat surprised. He rubbed his shiny bald head. "Wasn't there supposed to be an audition?"

Old Zhou was puzzled too. Exactly. Shouldn't they at least see whether the man could act?

Bai Youlou offered a brief explanation. "An audition is for choosing the most suitable person from among several actors."

Long Ziqiang nodded in agreement. No problem there!

Then came the explosive part. Bai Youlou said sincerely, "You're our only candidate. At least your appearance fits the role. What the hell else would I be choosing?"

Old Zhou had cast a wide net at the film academy and pulled Long Ziqiang out of it. They weren't expecting anything else. The main point was that his appearance fit.

After all, if he couldn't find anyone else, Bai Youlou had been prepared to shave off his hair and force him to play the role himself.

That was why Old Zhou had displayed such tremendous potential when it came to finding people.

But Bai Youlou's blunt sincerity instead made Long Ziqiang, who had prepared a whole pile of words and conditions, lose his composure. "Oh, I see~"

Bai Youlou patted him on the shoulder. "We'll start filming in the next couple of days. It's fine if you have no experience. We'll jump straight into actual combat!"

"I've never acted before!" Long Ziqiang became sincere too and hurriedly revealed his shortcoming.

"Aren't you a student at the film academy? You must have learned something in class."

"I-I'm in the dubbing program."

Brilliant!

A disgraced idol turned director, a producer who was useless at everything, and an older student in a dubbing program. This makeshift crew was enough to make anyone despair.

Director He was certainly rather despairing. He felt that Bai Youlou's script was good, but whether a film could be made well depended on far more than the script.

Even now, he still had no idea how capable Bai Youlou was as a director. Oh right, he also had to train the actors.

The more he thought about it, the more hopeless it seemed.

But Director He was an educator, so he didn't pour cold water on them at a time like this.

After asking Bai Youlou and the others when exactly they planned to begin filming, he offered a few words of encouragement.

They were along the lines of, "Today, you take pride in the school. Tomorrow, the school will take pride in you."

Unfortunately, not a single person took it to heart.

With his appearance, Long Ziqiang looked as if society had already beaten him black and blue. He was only making a guest appearance, so he didn't take it very seriously.

Old Zhou was already calculating how much the crew would spend each day and whether they could order boxed meals from the school cafeteria.

As for Bai Youlou, he was thinking about how to fool Long Ziqiang. That was right—after being sincere, he had to start fooling him!

Otherwise, why would he have been so blunt about not having any other candidates?

He was merely laying the groundwork for what came next.

Someone like Long Ziqiang, who was thirty and still taking the entrance exam for the film academy's dubbing program, definitely had all sorts of messy ideas about "dreams," "youth," and the like in his heart.

Sure enough, after taking the guy to a bar that evening and having a couple of drinks with him, Bai Youlou didn't even need to coax anything out of him. The guy spilled everything himself.

He wanted to become a singer, wanted to form a band, hadn't gotten into a music academy, and so on and so forth.

At first glance, this guy's life seemed full of unfortunate twists and lingering regrets.

He hadn't managed to become a proper singer. Although his voice was pretty good, he had only ended up as a resident singer at a bar.

He did manage to form a band, but it lasted less than a year. Unable to make any money, they disbanded outright.

As for applying to the film academy, that was purely because he hadn't gotten into a music academy. He had no idea which expert had given him the advice, but he had decided to take a roundabout route to salvation.

What the hell did dubbing have to do with being a singer?

The only thing the two had in common was that both required using your mouth.

If that was enough to count as a connection, then the girls singing and dancing at commercial karaoke clubs were your colleagues too. They used their mouths as well.

Of course, Long Ziqiang wasn't entirely a failure. The fact that he could get into the film academy at his age proved that he had some real ability.

Look, even after drinking, he hadn't forgotten to ask one very important question.

"Director, how much will I be paid for this film?"

Good question!

Bai Youlou smiled and held up one finger.

"Ten thousand? Fine." Long Ziqiang thought it over. It was a little low, but he could treat it as some extra income.

He hadn't dared dream of a hundred thousand. He knew his own worth and understood that he wasn't worth that much.

But he was still playing the second male lead. It definitely wouldn't be as little as a thousand.

Old Zhou now knew Bai Youlou's ways far too well. He leaned close to Bai Youlou's ear and asked in a low voice, "How much are you actually planning to give him? A thousand?"

Bai Youlou shook his head. "Not a single cent."

Old Zhou: ???

Seeing the confusion all over his face, Bai Youlou didn't keep him in suspense. "If he can meet my passing-grade requirements, I'll give him a dream."