Contest

"Care to show me what you've got?"

Yang Chu looked toward the young man named Hong Ye; he naturally caught the provocative tone in the other's voice.

Although it was their first time meeting, Yang Chu had already heard Hong Ye's name when he overheard Fish Head Xu talking to Jia Le on the phone, and Jia Le had given him a rundown on the way over today.

Still, for Hong Ye to set up such a scene upon their very first meeting was a bit beyond his expectations.

Yang Chu quickly understood, however. He had heard Fish Head Xu mention things about the film crew and the entertainment industry, whether intentionally or not—to climb the ladder, everyone was constantly fighting for opportunities.

He hadn't been around, and Hong Ye had been filling in as the stunt double for the lead actor, "Wu Zai." Now that he was back, the other man was clearly unwilling to step aside.

Furthermore, judging by the sword dance he had just witnessed, Yang Chu could see that Hong Ye was indeed talented; he had impressed many people present and even earned a look of high regard from the director, San Bao.

Young, proud, and arrogant—such behavior was only natural.

Yang Chu glanced at Director San Bao standing nearby and saw that instead of speaking up, the man wore an expression of keen interest.

"I wonder what you'd like to see?" A smile suddenly appeared on Yang Chu's face.

"I heard that since you arrived, the stunts you've performed have been even more intense than Brother Jia Le's."

Hong Ye lifted his chin slightly, standing amidst the crowd with a sharp, piercing aura. He pointed toward the upper floors of the abandoned factory. "I was just telling Big Brother San Bao that we could design a sequence where the lead character infiltrates the building by climbing from the first floor to the fourth. How about it? I wonder if I could see you try that?"

"Climb from the first floor to the fourth?"

Yang Chu looked up at the spot Hong Ye indicated, then turned his gaze back to the man and asked with a smile, "Shall we see who gets up there first?"

"Exactly!"

Hong Ye planted the long sword he had been holding behind his back into the ground and strode toward the front of the factory, where various scaffolds and water pipes lined the exterior.

"Whoa, we've got a show!"

The many stuntmen and crew members present began to clamor excitedly.

"Is anyone taking bets? Let's see who gets to the fourth floor first, A-Chu or Hong Ye!"

Among the crowd, a stuntman with a gambling streak shouted out loudly.

"Big Brother, looks like you're the only one who can open this book?" Stunt coordinator Jia Le looked at the rowdy crowd and shouted toward Director San Bao, who was standing in the center.

"Fine."

Director San Bao deliberately made a show of rolling up his sleeves, walked over to a simple small square table, and patted it. "I'm opening the book. Minimum bet is ten bucks, cap at one thousand. Place your bets, everyone—let's see who climbs to the fourth floor faster, A-Chu or Hong Ye."

"I'm betting on Hong Ye."

"It's obviously going to be A-Chu."

The stuntmen, who loved to gamble whenever they weren't working, grew even more interested. Some bet ten, others a hundred, and they all began to place their wagers. The prop, makeup, and set design staff further away saw the commotion and crowded over as well.

"Don't get messy! Jia Le and A-Fa the accountant, you two are in charge of the tally."

San Bao stood in the middle of the crowd, watching the noisy, bustling crew, and laughed with a sense of genuine joy. "I haven't felt this in ten or twenty years."

He could naturally see that Hong Ye was competing with Yang Chu. He had seen this kind of thing plenty of times—young people with talent always acted this way; it was perfectly normal.

Back when they were filming, it was the same. One person would pull off a high-difficulty stunt, and the other would want to outdo them, leading to all sorts of death-defying feats.

This was the competition among stuntmen on a film set; it was this kind of fighting spirit that made martial arts films look good.

As for the crowd egging him on to act as the bookie, he didn't mind.

There were few here who didn't know that Director San Bao loved to gamble. It wasn't the first or second time he'd used his mobile phone to order people to place horse racing bets while on set. Today's work wasn't heavy—it was just scouting and setting up—and since the filming had gone smoothly so far, even the meddlesome investors had backed off. He couldn't have been in a better mood.

"Have you two picked your spots?"

As the crowd squeezed in to place their bets, Director San Bao shouted again toward Yang Chu and Hong Ye, who had walked to the front of the factory.

In the eyes of Director San Bao and many of the stuntmen, jumping from the fourth floor was undeniably dangerous. But climbing up? With all the exterior water pipes, scaffolding, and iron bars to grab onto, it really wasn't much. Even if they fell, as long as they didn't die, a few injuries were just a light drizzle.

"I'm ready!"

Hong Ye, having found a spot on the factory's exterior wall, answered loudly, his gaze flickering toward Yang Chu not far away, flames faintly rising in his eyes.

He had practiced martial arts since he was a child, and his skills were only a hair's breadth away from his master's. He hadn't entered the film industry just to be a stuntman; he was here to make a name for himself, become a big star, and make money.

His repeated displays on set were all to win the appreciation of Director San Bao and the rest of the crew, so he could get more opportunities in the future.

He had come to the set to fill Yang Chu's position. Now that Yang Chu was back, if he wanted to secure his spot, he naturally had to show his strength and outshine the other man.

"A-Chu, what about you?"

San Bao shouted toward Yang Chu on the other side.

"I'm in."

Yang Chu stood before the factory and gave his consent.

He didn't really feel much about Hong Ye's provocation, but the act of controlling his body to perform such high-difficulty movements held a certain appeal for him; it allowed him to see his body's potential and its shortcomings even further.

However, Yang Chu wasn't about to just leave it at that. He called out to San Bao, "Big Brother San Bao, I'm betting one thousand."

"I'm betting one thousand too."

Hearing Yang Chu's words, Hong Ye called out from the other side.

"Good, you're both betting one thousand. Then, get ready—"

Director San Bao arrived not far behind the two men and called out for them to get ready.

The stuntmen who had placed bets, along with the various crew members of the production team, all ran to the front, filled with anticipation.

Quan, the man in charge of the camera, even switched it on and found an angle to begin filming.

"Action!"

San Bao assumed his director's stance and gave a grand wave of his hand.

Hong Ye was the first to move, lunging forward a few steps before kicking off the outer wall of the abandoned factory. He vaulted upward, grabbed the ledge of the second-floor platform with both hands, and flipped up in one motion. Following that, he kicked off a water pipe on the second floor, using the momentum to climb toward the third.

His movements were fluid, with his hands and eyes perfectly coordinated. The foundation of martial arts he displayed immediately drew gasps of admiration from many of the stuntmen.

Yet, on the other side, Yang Chu's performance made everyone's eyes nearly pop out of their sockets.

Starting from the ground, Yang Chu barely used any leverage. With a single leap, he grabbed the second-floor ledge, pulled himself up, and without even pausing, stepped onto the ledge to reach for the third floor. With another grab and leap at the third floor, he was already at the fourth, sitting right at the window opening.

His movements were extremely concise, devoid of any flashiness. He had started half a beat later than Hong Ye, but by the time Yang Chu reached the fourth floor, Hong Ye had only just touched the third-floor ledge.

Yang Chu's explosive jump, his arm strength, and his nimble agility were truly shocking.

It is no exaggeration to say that not a single person in the stunt circle could replicate such a climb.

When Hong Ye finally reached the fourth floor and saw Yang Chu already waiting there, a surge of intense shock and unwillingness welled up in his heart.

He considered his own skills far superior to any ordinary stuntman, but the fact that Yang Chu had climbed faster than him left him feeling both astonished and resentful.

But before he could let that emotion manifest, a fresh cry of alarm erupted from below the factory.

From the fourth-floor window where he had been sitting, Yang Chu suddenly stood up and jumped down.

His body landed lightly on an iron bracket on the outer wall of the third floor. He then sprinted across a ten-meter-long iron pipe only as wide as a palm, leaped over a gap in the middle, landed on the second-floor platform, and finally finished with a backflip to the ground.

Whoa—

The stuntmen and crew members below erupted into another round of applause and cheers after seeing Yang Chu descend.

Climbing to the fourth floor was something many of the stuntmen could achieve by relying on their physical fitness.

But jumping down from the fourth floor was a completely different matter.

This required more than just physical ability; it required nerve.

Jumping from the fourth floor to the iron bracket on the third might not look high, but the bracket was tiny. Sticking the landing required immense courage.

The subsequent tightrope walk across the iron pipe, maintaining balance at such a height, and then leaping two meters across a gap to the second floor—that required both guts and technique.

Everyone present was in the same line of work; they knew the difficulty of such a move was immense, and it would be an incredibly eye-catching scene in any film.

More importantly, Yang Chu had done it all in one breath, without any prior rehearsal, completing it with such ease right before their eyes.

"Chu, you, you are really..."

San Bao looked at Yang Chu, who hadn't even changed his expression after landing the backflip, and found himself momentarily speechless.

"This level of nerve—it's even greater than Big Brother's or De's."

"He's got the guts of a leopard!"

Many of the stuntmen looked at Yang Chu with eyes full of admiration.

The "Big Brother" they referred to was another of Director San Bao's fellow disciples, a true international superstar. Yet, even for him, they didn't believe he could pull off such a move with such effortless grace; at the very least, it would require multiple rehearsals and safety checks.

As for De, he was another fellow disciple of Director San Bao and that same superstar. He once had the experience of falling straight backward from the third floor onto an icy surface; they were all men of astonishing courage.

Even among stuntmen, they were second to none.

For Yang Chu to display this, and not even during a shoot, was truly a feat of incredible nerve.

"It wasn't that hard."

Yang Chu brushed the dust off his palms and replied with a calm smile.

"For a move like this, I can pay you ten thousand—no, twenty thousand for today's work."

San Bao steadied his nerves, patted Yang Chu's shoulder excitedly, and looked at him with growing appreciation.

He had naturally been startled by Yang Chu's impulsive stunt, but having come from the stunt world himself, he was a pragmatist: if you have the skill and the ability, there is nothing else to say.

"Hey, Hong Ye, don't jump!"

Just as the two were talking, Jia Le, the action director nearby, looked up and shouted loudly at Hong Ye on the fourth floor.

The many stuntmen and crew members standing below seemed to remember only then that Hong Ye was still on the fourth floor and hadn't come down.

"Don't jump, just come down," others chimed in.

Four stories—twelve or thirteen meters—was one thing to climb up, but coming down was a completely different level of difficulty.

Having seen Yang Chu's incredibly nimble descent, they weren't egging him on; instead, they were actively discouraging him.

They were afraid that if Hong Ye got carried away and tried to jump like Yang Chu, a single slip—without any crash mats or cardboard on the ground—could easily lead to a disaster.

Standing in front of the fourth-floor window, gripping the wall with one hand, Hong Ye's face changed the moment he saw Yang Chu land. He didn't have the slightest confidence in his ability to jump down as gracefully as Yang Chu had.

Even if he didn't fall to his death, sustaining an injury would be completely not worth it.

Hearing the shouts from below, Hong Ye hesitated for a moment before finally crawling back through the fourth-floor window and running down the factory stairs.

The moment he emerged, Hong Ye's face was ashen. Ignoring everyone else's gaze, he walked straight up to Yang Chu and Director San Bao and said in a stiff tone, "Brother San Bao, I want to spar with Yang Chu."