Cao Baoping Chewed Me Out

"Wow, you're so handsome! Are you a celebrity?"

"Same as you. Just an extra."

"Where are you from? I'm from Jiangxi. I go to school in Capital City, and I came here for summer vacation..."

"Focus on the scene!"

This "scene partner" was giving Shen Qi a headache.

As wedding guests in the background, they didn't have to stay silent the whole time, but they couldn't steal the spotlight either.

Sure enough, director Cao Baoping's roar exploded across the set a second later:

"Cut! What are you two chatting about? Want me to clear the set and throw you a tea party?!"

Shen Qi's heart sank. Trouble had found him after all.

Every director had a different style.

Shang Jing, who directed My Own Swordsman, had been gentle and easygoing. Even when Yan Ni broke into laughter several times, he let her finish before resuming and patiently talked the actors through their scenes.

But Cao Baoping looked like a man nobody should mess with. He was plainly the "tyrant on set" type.

And tyrants like that didn't just yell at people. They liked to make examples of them.

Sure enough, after he chewed out Shen Qi and the female extra, everyone on set worked a little faster.

Shen Qi didn't argue.

That was real life.

When you were nobody, people were quick to give you the cold shoulder.

What he hadn't expected was for his "scene partner" to be so reckless.

When the newlyweds came over to greet them, she wrapped herself around Shen Qi's arm and rested her head lightly on his shoulder.

They looked sweeter than the newlyweds.

Granted, weddings brought out all sorts of behavior. Different guests acted differently, and a little improvisation was fine as long as it didn't disrupt the wedding.

The problem was—

She had stolen the scene!

Background extras needed to remember they were background extras. They couldn't draw more attention than the leads.

"Cut! What are you doing? Do you not know how to act, or are you causing trouble on purpose..."

After that tirade, the whole set fell silent.

Fortunately, the hotheaded director had at least some professional standards. He knew who was responsible, and this time the female extra took the brunt of it.

Shen Qi had only been caught in the backwash.

Even so, being blamed by association stung, especially since it cost him his chance to show his face on camera.

The director took away his role as a guest visible in the leads' shots. Now he was just a faceless figure in the background.

Once they finished those shots, Shen Qi's work for the day was done.

But finishing his work didn't mean he could clock out. The crew had booked him for the whole day. Even if he found a corner to nap in, he had to stay close enough to be called over at any moment.

Otherwise, the crew might need extras at short notice and be unable to find them.

After finally discouraging the persistent female extra, Shen Qi quietly took out his "precious treasure."

You came to experience life. I came to make a living.

Being pretty doesn't give you a pass!

And you're not even that pretty.

He took out his magic book and began recording the leads' scenes.

This time, he had his eye on Xu Yajun.

Xu Yajun had started out as a child actor. In The World We Found Again, he appeared with long hair and Bell-Bottoms, his strong features and rebellious air winning the hearts of countless young women.

He was practically a pioneer of the idol-actor type.

The man's love life had been quite a story, too. He had divorced He Qing just last year, making it his third return to singlehood.

These days, he mainly starred in urban romances, working alongside one beautiful actress of his generation after another.

He certainly had no shortage of luck with women.

But the plots of those shows... they were absurdly melodramatic.

Take Ten Months of Pregnancy, for example. The heroine stole the hero's bid proposal and gave it to the second male lead because she thought the hero didn't love her.

When the hero found out, she threatened to kill herself if he dared divorce her.

Better yet, she initially took birth control pills because she didn't want children. When the hero discovered this, he got angry and no longer wanted a child with her. So she underwent artificial insemination and got pregnant with a child whose father she didn't even know...

Most absurd of all, no matter what happened along the way, the show would still end with everyone happy.

"Ridiculous" didn't begin to cover it!

Hearing the crew complain about it now and then made Shen Qi feel as if his entire worldview was being battered.

All he could do was marvel.

He patiently tried recording it more than a dozen times before finally succeeding once.

After using the book for so many days, he had learned more about how it worked.

Magic book upgrade = recording quality + number of recordings + improvement in Shen Qi's own acting

Successful recording = the subject's underlying skill + the material performed + the quality of their performance on set

In other words, if he wanted the book to level up, he needed to record often and keep using it.

Of course, if Shen Qi's own acting remained stagnant, the magic book wouldn't level up either.

As things stood, those three factors seemed to determine whether a recording succeeded.

This time, for instance, his subject was Xu Yajun.

As a veteran of urban romances, Xu Yajun wasn't a top-tier actor, but he was good enough and dependable.

In this scene, during his wedding to Niu Li's character, the second male lead played by Wu Gang arrived with Xu Yajun's character's ex-girlfriend. Seeing each other again after years apart left the two with complicated feelings. Their acting was subtle but not outstanding, and even Cao Baoping hadn't approved the take.

Perhaps it was precisely because the take hadn't passed that Shen Qi had found an opening.

After more than a dozen attempts, he had finally done it!

This time, he had recorded it through his own efforts. He hadn't needed Xu Yajun to break the performance down for him.

Naturally, Shen Qi was delighted.

His delight showed plainly on his face.

He smiled!

At the other end of the set, Cao Baoping had just called "NG." He had barely stopped himself from swearing at Xu Yajun, a popular star, when he turned and saw an extra nearby grinning from ear to ear.

His blood rushed straight to his head...

Tear him apart!

I'm going to tear him apart!

"What are you laughing at? Tell me. Let everyone hear it."

Cao Baoping's voice was calm. He wasn't even shouting like before.

But anyone who knew him knew that was the sign he was truly angry.

"It's nothing. I just thought... Mr. Xu Yajun's performance was especially good. I learned something from watching him, and I was so happy I couldn't help smiling."

As Shen Qi explained, he quietly put away the magic book.

It wasn't as though no one else had ever seen his magic book.

Shu Chang had seen it and found notes on what he'd learned from watching other people perform.

Wen Jingrou had looked at it yesterday and found quick sketches of actors' movements.

Shen Qi called it a "magic book" because it really did have a touch of magic.

He wasn't worried Cao Baoping would see anything he shouldn't. He was worried the hotheaded man would destroy it in a fit of anger.

After all, magic books... generally didn't hold up well against physical attacks.

He wasn't about to gamble his "precious treasure" on that.

"You're saying you learned something from watching him?"

Cao Baoping laughed in exasperation.

He had a bad temper, but he wasn't about to hound an extra for no reason.

He just couldn't stand someone stubbornly making excuses.

Why couldn't the kid simply stay quiet? Why insist he'd "learned something"?

"Yeah. I'm still not very good at it, though. I need to keep working."

Shen Qi deliberately kept his tone humble.

"Enough. Stop putting on an act. Who are you trying to impress? I'm not buying it! If you really want to act, put in the work and learn the craft."

Cao Baoping's impression of Shen Qi was terrible.

He had given the kid a chance to appear on camera, only for him to flirt with his scene partner.

Later, Cao Baoping had seen him go watch the leads perform and thought perhaps he had some ambition. But then the kid had pulled out a little notebook and made a show of taking notes...

Who the hell was that performance for?

Amateurish!

Painfully amateurish!

"How about..."

Shen Qi wanted to do something about it.

If he left without a word, wouldn't that confirm Cao Baoping's impression of him as a scheming poser?

It would be terrible for his career if word got around. It probably wouldn't, but what if he became a joke people passed around?

"Hey, are you done yet? Pay him and send him home!"

Cao Baoping waved a hand impatiently.

Ever since taking on this "masterpiece," he had been ready to explode. The beautiful screenwriter's bizarre worldview made him want to smash the script every other minute.

The trouble was, the screenwriter had more clout than he did. He was the director, yet he couldn't even change the script. All he could do was grit his teeth and keep filming that melodramatic mess.

"I mean, how about I perform the scene Mr. Xu Yajun just did? Take a look, director, and you'll know whether I really learned anything."

Shen Qi laid it out calmly.

He had studied sports, and most people couldn't beat him in a fight. What did he have to be afraid of?