Beer, Soft Drinks, and Bottled Water

Shen Qi wasted no time.

After calling to confirm the audition time, he packed his bags and headed north.

He had been getting lost a lot lately, so he had to ask people for directions more often.

He first took a bus to Yiwu, then transferred to a train bound for the Capital City.

He waited over two hours in the Yiwu station waiting room before finally boarding.

To save money, he chose a hard seat on a regular train. The entire trip cost just over a hundred yuan.

They called it a hard seat, but he didn't actually have a seat.

Buying a ticket at the last minute during summer vacation, he was lucky just to get aboard.

Shen Qi squeezed onto the train with his heavy luggage and found a spot by the aisle where he could barely stand.

Clackety-clack~

The train slowly pulled out of the station.

After deciding that afternoon to head to the Capital City and spending the rest of the day getting there, Shen Qi was starving.

He took out a cold steamed bun and gnawed on it with a lump of dark pickled vegetables.

The jumble of smells in the carriage did nothing to dampen his appetite.

Of course, some of those smells were delicious.

A man and woman nearby tore open a packet of roast chicken and ate until their mouths shone with grease.

The bun in Shen Qi's hand suddenly lost its appeal.

Sigh...

Still broke!

Even if the thousand yuan from Legend of the White Snake came through, Shen Qi still couldn't afford roast chicken.

After all, he wanted to send some money home next month.

It had been a year since he graduated from university.

Reality had long since shattered the ambitions and hopes he'd had as a student.

Make money!

I have to make money!

Only someone who had been poor knew how a single coin could bring a hero to his knees.

Struggling through the mire of poverty, Shen Qi wanted more than anyone to make something of himself.

At first, Shen Qi had wanted to become a teacher with a secure post.

It had been his dream since childhood.

Then he had been fired for reasons that didn't hold water.

After that, he'd planned to work as a gym trainer, become a manager, and finally open a gym of his own.

Unfortunately, he'd been fired from the gym after only a few days.

That route was closed.

His best friend from university had painted him a new future:

Become a gigolo. Become a good gigolo. Become the king of gigolos, then run the whole show and open a gigolo agency of my own!

To hell with that!

Shen Qi didn't want to wake up in a different rich woman's bed every day!

Now he had a new direction.

Become a star. Become a huge star. Become a rich, huge star.

Eat all the roast chicken I want. Eat one and throw another away.

Fly whenever I want—and always in first class!

"Beer, soft drinks, bottled water! Peanuts, sunflower seeds, eight-treasure porridge! Legs in, up ahead—make way, please!"

It was hard to eat well on the train, and harder still to sleep soundly.

Someone sold toothbrushes, someone sold roast duck, someone sold dried blueberries...

They kept shouting, "Last round!" and "Once they're gone, I'm off!" and "Buy now or miss out!" along with "Ten yuan—you can't go wrong!"

But in truth, they made the same rounds every few dozen minutes.

As the train chugged through the night, Shen Qi eventually crawled under a hard seat, curled up, and slept for a few hours.

He didn't have to worry about his money being stolen—he'd stuffed it all into his anti-theft underwear.

When he reached the Capital City, Shen Qi took his luggage and went to stay with an old classmate.

There had been six people in his university dorm room. Two had made it into graduate school, and Huang Qidao, the one he was visiting now, had stayed on at Beijing Sport University for his graduate studies.

Huang Qidao was a burly northeastern man, six feet tall.

He welcomed Shen Qi with open arms. They hadn't seen each other in quite a while.

The graduate dorms at Beijing Sport University were a little better than the undergraduate ones.

The undergraduate rooms housed six in bunk beds; the graduate rooms had loft beds with desks underneath and housed four.

Shen Qi didn't want to put Huang Qidao in a difficult position, so he volunteered, "Dao, I'll spread something out and sleep on the floor tonight."

"Come on, Your Excellency, don't insult me." Huang Qidao tossed Shen Qi's luggage onto his own bed. "You take my bed. I'll sleep in a roommate's. Two of those bastards went home for the summer."

He helped Shen Qi put his things away, then asked curiously, "Wei Jianguo's doing pretty well. Why didn't you go to him?"

He'd heard Wei Jianguo rented a two-bedroom apartment with a living room and dining room all to himself.

It had to be more comfortable than cramming into a student dorm.

"Don't even mention him." Shen Qi looked disgusted. "That bastard messages me every day, trying to get me to become a gigolo with him. If I stayed at his place, I'd be afraid he'd drug me."

"Haha! I'll ask Old Wei what you go for these days. We can split the money fifty-fifty and make a quick buck!"

Huang Qidao burst out laughing.

Some classmates brought trouble just by crossing your path.

During his years at university, Shen Qi had run into plenty of people who wanted to keep him.

His classmates alone had witnessed seven or eight such incidents.

To keep anyone from taking advantage of him, he never casually ate food from outside.

He was afraid someone would drug him and send him to a rich woman's bed.

"Remember, don't tell Wei Jianguo I'm back."

Shen Qi made a point of repeating it.

Wei Jianguo made him a little nervous now.

He'd heard gigolos didn't only take female clients. They took men too, if the money was good enough.

Who knew whether Wei Jianguo had switched teams by now?

"Haha, I've always wondered whether he uses his real name with those rich women." Huang Qidao put on a strange voice. "Jianguo's screwing—oh, fuck! Hahaha!"

"That's fucking disgusting. I've decided to kick Jianguo out of Room 302."

Talking trash about Wei Jianguo instantly swept away the slight awkwardness of not having seen each other for a year.

The next day, Shen Qi went to audition for My Own Swordsman. It was a long way off, and no public transport went there.

Huang Qidao borrowed a motorcycle to take him. Once they arrived, he waited outside and didn't leave until Shen Qi had secured the role.

For university classmates who had gone their separate ways after graduation, that was more than anyone could ask.

The audition itself was simple.

Shen Qi used one of the Howling Celestial Dog's performance records and easily met director Shang Jing's requirements.

But the production team did something unexpected and hit him with a bombshell right away:

"Our budget isn't big, so we probably can't pay you much. It'll be almost like working for free—some roles are being played by crew members for nothing."

Opening with a plea of poverty was disheartening, especially since Shen Qi badly needed money himself.

But he also knew a star had to think about the future.

Only by grabbing every opportunity that might turn his life around could he reach the glitz and glamour of stardom sooner.

For that glamour, Shen Qi was willing to endure the hardships before fame and the emptiness afterward.

So he declared without hesitation, "As long as food and lodging are covered, I'm in!"

Director Shang Jing happily accepted this cheap labor.

Screenwriter Ning Caishen, however, saw things differently.

He made no effort to spare Shen Qi's feelings, raising his doubts right in front of him:

"With that look, is he really right for Ji Wuming?"

Shen Qi wasn't angry.

That look? What look?

He just means I'm handsome. It was an advantage for a gigolo, but it limited the roles an actor could play.

"You never wrote what Ji Wuming looks like, and this kid can act."

Shang Jing wasn't too concerned.

Ning Caishen snorted. "Ji Wuming could look like anything, but he definitely can't be more handsome than Old Bai."

He had to admit the newcomer had a face he envied.

Ning Caishen had originally intended to look like that too, but things hadn't worked out. Now he had to make a living on talent alone.

"Of everyone who's auditioned these past two days, he's one of the better ones. And... he's really cheap!"

Shang Jing got to the point.

Ning Caishen had nothing to say to that.

He had spent several years trading futures, all of them ending in failure, before switching careers to become an online writer.

Later, Shang Jing had discovered him by chance. Since 2002, the two had worked together on Urban Men and Women and Health Express, but neither had made much of a splash.

This time they were making the period sitcom My Own Swordsman.

It had no defining trait except one—poverty!

An actor who didn't cost anything suited this production better than one who could act well.

Assistant director Yang Qing led Shen Qi around the tiny set, explaining his scenes along the way.

"You're... shooting my scenes today?"

Shen Qi could hardly believe his luck.

Last time, with Legend of the White Snake, he'd simply lucked out.

The actor originally cast had backed out.

Otherwise, a minor role like the Demon Dao Sage Lord would have been lucky to get in front of the camera after ten days or more.

This time, Ji Wuming appeared in only three episodes out of the entire eighty-episode run. The role wasn't much bigger than the Demon Dao Sage Lord's.

Yet he didn't even have to wait until tomorrow.

They were starting today!