You're Good at Fighting. Do Me a Favor (Please Vote)

After Shen Qi's makeup was done, he was seated amid a cloud of smoke—the haze left by the explosion.

His face was... a terrible sight.

"Little Ji!"

Sha Yi rushed over, wailing as if he were performing opera.

As though he hadn't been the one who'd sealed Shen Qi's acupoints and thrown the Thunderclap Bomb at his feet.

Once his acupoints were released, Shen Qi slumped to the ground.

At the right moment, he picked up the knife on the ground and tried to kill Tong Xiangyu.

But Mo Xiaobei cracked him over the head with a stick.

To be honest, Wang Shasha, who played Mo Xiaobei, had misjudged the blow.

She'd hit a little too hard.

The director and cameraman both sucked in a sharp breath.

The scene had originally called for a blow to the back. Whether it landed hard or soft, the actor wouldn't get hurt.

It just would have been difficult to explain why he lost his memory and turned simple-minded—that was the sort of thing a blow to the head would cause.

Shen Qi had asked to be hit on the head himself, which was how Wang Shasha's strike had come about.

To their surprise, Shen Qi took it.

Without making a sound, he toppled straight over.

"You still dare to cause trouble? See if I don't..." Yan Ni came up and kicked Shen Qi, then picked up the knife, ready to stab him a couple of times for good measure.

That was when the kick woke Shen Qi up.

He gave Yan Ni a goofy grin and said, "Ma!" Then he scrambled to his feet and lunged toward her, calling for his mother all the while.

He was just about to wrap his arms around her.

This was a major turning point for the character, and Shang Jing had already braced himself for another take. He hadn't expected Shen Qi to carry the scene through.

That vacant, goofy look hardly seemed like acting...

"Do you even know who you are anymore?"

Sha Yi kept up with him.

"I want candy! Ma! Ma!" Shen Qi grinned foolishly and let loose. As he struggled with Sha Yi, the Jade Pendant fell from his clothes.

"Ji, Ji, Ji... Ji Wuming!"

Constable Xing, played by Fan Ming, picked up the Jade Pendant, so excited he could barely get the name out.

He was lost in the joy of catching the most notorious outlaw in the land. No amount of explaining from Bai Zhantang could stop him; he ran off laughing.

All that awaited Ji Wuming now was a prison cell.

With the final scene done, all of Ji Wuming's and Ji Wubing's scenes were complete. Shen Qi had wrapped.

The shoot had taken a little over six days.

He finished that morning, and at noon the crew held a small wrap-up meal for him.

They added a few dishes to their usual boxed lunches.

The director even let everyone have a little to drink.

As he put it, worst came to worst, they could shoot the drinking scenes that afternoon.

"I admit I underestimated you. You're a promising newcomer!"

Shang Jing could hold his liquor.

Unfortunately, the crew was filming in the mountains, shooting from daylight into the night. There was never time to get together for a meal.

And, well, there was no money for it either.

"Thank you, Director. I learned a lot working with you!"

Without formal acting training, Shen Qi could only learn by doing.

He was deeply grateful to the crew and director for giving him the chance.

He had neither an acting-school background nor financial backing. All he could do was hope that every director he worked with would remember him when casting future projects.

"I have to admit something too, brother. I was wrong to call you Little Ji. You're not little..."

Sha Yi's remark set everyone off.

"Oh, you have to tell us more!"

As a married woman with a child, Yan Ni showed no trace of a female star's self-consciousness.

After all, she had already started playing an innkeeper.

She was firmly in the "mother" category of actresses.

"Ahem..."

Shen Qi had always thought people in show business were careful about what they said and did, living as they did under the public eye.

But after entering the industry and meeting celebrities, he'd found they weren't much different from anyone else.

"What are your plans next?"

Xiao Jian got along reasonably well with Shen Qi, though they weren't especially close. They'd only known each other a few days.

Besides, Shen Qi was so handsome that it was hard for the others to feel at ease around him.

One look at Shen Qi and then at themselves was enough to make them curse their luck.

"No real plans yet. I'll keep visiting productions and auditioning."

Shen Qi didn't mention Yin Zhiping.

Plans succeeded when kept quiet; talk could ruin them.

Whether anyone here was competing with him, and whatever they thought of his audition for Yin Zhiping, none of it would actually help him.

In fact, there was little any of them could do for him.

They could only encourage him to give it his best.

Most of the actors here had suffered setbacks of their own.

Their careers hadn't gone well, which was why they'd ended up in a sitcom. If they'd had an opportunity, they would have taken it themselves.

After the modest wrap-up meal, Shen Qi packed his things and left the set.

The crew arranged for a car to take him down the mountain.

It wasn't a special trip; they went down every day to buy supplies.

The mountain road wound upward from the valley, like a great dragon coiled across a green sea.

Before long, the film set vanished behind that sea of green.

Every production was a little world of its own.

But in the end, everyone went their separate ways.

During his days filming, Shen Qi had found a copy of the original The Return of the Condor Heroes and read it whenever he had time.

My Own Swordsman drew on plenty of Jin Yong's martial arts fiction, so a book like that wasn't hard to find.

Shen Qi's copy came from the director's collection.

Whether Yin Zhiping was a good role or not, Shen Qi had decided to audition for it. That meant preparing as thoroughly as he could.

Knowing the original novel well would give him a real advantage.

To improve his chances further, he contacted a junior from Beijing Sport University after finishing his shoot on My Own Swordsman.

"Jingrou, I know you're good at fighting. Do me a favor..."

"Who do you want dead?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake..."

They agreed to meet at Beijing Sport University.

At Beijing Sport University, sports students were treated like royalty. Everyone in the other majors might as well have been beggars.

Physical education majors in particular were known as "sports laborers."

Still, Shen Qi, a "laborer" who had graduated just a year ago, had been something of a campus celebrity.

He was handsome!

Even at Beijing Sport University, which had no shortage of good-looking men, Shen Qi stood out.

The last time he'd visited, it had been around five or six in the morning, and hardly anyone had noticed him. At midday, there was no hiding.

"Senior Shen! Senior Shen!"

A girl with a tennis racket on her back ran over.

A few other girls in the distance were looking his way, probably her friends.

"Hey. Off to class?"

Shen Qi had no choice but to stop.

The other girls ran over too. They were all tennis players.

"We're going to practice. Senior Shen, what have you been doing lately?"

The girl leading them clearly knew something about Shen Qi.

According to the story going around Beijing Sport University, Shen Qi had gone back to his hometown to teach, but quit soon afterward.

No one knew exactly why.

Then he'd returned to the capital to work at a gym. Everyone knew that part—plenty of Beijing Sport University graduates became gym trainers.

Dance majors performed in bars; sports majors sold gym memberships.

Jobs perfectly matched to their degrees!

Everyone knew how that had ended, too.

The fitness industry would be telling tales of Senior Shen for a long time.

There was a rich woman who'd supposedly wanted to leave her family for him.

There was a wealthy man who'd supposedly considered bending his preferences for him.

There were even tales of a rich woman and a wealthy man wanting to invite Senior Shen to join them both.

Poor Senior Shen!

Now that she'd seen him in person, the girl who'd once had a crush on him couldn't help checking on him.

"Lately..." Shen Qi smiled. "Maybe you'll find out in a while. Don't worry, I'm doing fine."

That smile nearly made the young admirer forget to breathe.

"Senior Shen, I know you'll succeed!"

"Thank you. Let's all do our best. Train hard and bring glory to the country!"

Shen Qi spotted the person he was waiting for and couldn't help breathing a sigh of relief.

He really didn't know how to deal with these younger girls.

"Come on, come on, we're going to be late." The newcomer grabbed Shen Qi and pulled him away, calling back to the tennis girls, "Bye! I'm taking him with me."

Shen Qi obediently followed.

The tennis girls could only watch the two of them leave.

"Please, Your Handsomeness, can you stop attracting admirers everywhere you go?"

Wen Jingrou let go of Shen Qi.

She, too, had once had a crush on Shen Qi. Later, she'd discovered that the real Shen Qi was nothing like the perfect man she'd imagined.

He couldn't even beat her in a fight!

Once the infatuation wore off, she wasn't even interested in holding his hand.