Stop Talking Nonsense

"Ah..."

Zhang Jizhong clearly understood that too.

Back when he had been sent to work in a Shanxi village, he had fallen hard for a woman there. He thought about her day and night and could barely sleep.

That feeling of life bursting forth, of everything coming into bloom, was still vivid in his mind!

But when he returned to the village years later and saw her again, he found that he felt nothing at all.

"President Zhang's feeling nostalgic. Let's eat something that takes us back. How about Pot Chicken? I remember..."

That came from Zhao Guangbin, the assistant director and casting director.

He and Zhao Jian had been part of Zhang Jizhong's team from the early days. They had been through the hard times with him.

"When we filmed The Legend of the Condor Heroes, the Beggar's Chicken we had was the real deal."

Everyone chimed in.

When the boss grew nostalgic, his underlings naturally played along.

Shen Qi knew it too.

He had Yin Zhiping in the bag!

They chatted for a while before anyone seemed to remember that they had yet to announce whether Shen Qi had passed the audition.

"As for the role of Yin Zhiping..."

With Zhang Jizhong there, Zhao Jian wasn't about to make the decision for him.

"Can he really pull it off?"

Zhang Jizhong wasn't entirely convinced.

Being handsome wasn't a problem, and being young wasn't necessarily one either. What mattered was whether he could carry the role.

He had barely any credits, and he had graduated from a sports school.

None of that inspired confidence.

"His acting was solid, he knows martial arts, and he has a pretty deep understanding of the character."

The speaker was casting director Zhao Guangbin.

His standing wasn't as high as Zhao Jian's, but he was the one overseeing casting.

"From Shandong, are you? Come on, let's hear a couple of lines in your local dialect!"

Zhang Jizhong narrowed his eyes and looked Shen Qi over.

Shen Qi hadn't done himself up at all that day. He wore no makeup and had even deliberately chosen clothes that made him look older.

He was auditioning for a thirty-year-old character, after all.

But a seasoned veteran like Zhang Jizhong saw through him at a glance: he was a country kid who had known plenty of hardship.

"Quit putting on a show. Stop talking nonsense. You sure think you're something..."

Shen Qi gathered himself, then rattled off several lines in his dialect.

"Doesn't that sound just like the Xuzhou dialect?"

Lü Haixia from the production team burst out laughing beside them.

"Where I'm from is really close to Xuzhou. There's just a river between us."

Shen Qi had often gone to Xuzhou for fun.

"That sounds pretty authentic! I happen to have a rural drama in the works, and I need an actor who looks the part. Interested?"

Zhang Jizhong looked just like a contractor hawking jobs by the roadside and hoping for free labor.

In truth, the idea wasn't entirely spur-of-the-moment.

After the "three rural issues" policy gained momentum in 2002, rural dramas had suddenly become the hot new thing in film and television.

Scripts were ready-made, shoots were simple, and subsidies were generous. Best of all, actors were as cheap as scallions sold by the bunch at a market.

What rising star wanted to get covered in dust playing a farmer?

Actors in war dramas even wore hair gel to stay handsome!

Zhang Jizhong had already worked it out: while holding auditions for The Return of the Condor Heroes, he could scoop up a down-to-earth young man for a "friendly appearance."

Getting him to work for next to nothing?

That sounded awful!

Put another way, it was "giving a young actor a chance to gain experience."

"I'm in!"

Shen Qi answered without hesitation.

He realized he had fallen into the Concorde fallacy—the sunk-cost effect.

When he first decided to audition for Yin Zhiping, he had needed to talk himself into it.

He had hesitated over whether to audition at all.

But given his circumstances, he hadn't wanted to let this opportunity slip by.

For the audition, he had read the original novel of The Return of the Condor Heroes and learned swordplay from Wen Jingrou.

He had also used two pages of the Magic Book.

During the thirty-minute audition, he had already given it everything he had.

He had come close to conjuring an iron griddle with his bare hands so he could make flatbread for Zhang Jizhong.

At this point, as long as they didn't ask him to act in a softcore film, he would agree to anything.

A young man from the countryside...

Wasn't that just asking him to play himself?

"You're ambitious, young man... You've got a bright future ahead of you."

Zhang Jizhong laughed in satisfaction.

He took the pen from Zhao Jian, swiftly added "2,000 yuan per episode" to the audition form, and signed his name with a flourish.

To secure Shen Qi's commitment, he even handed the form straight to him and told him to take it to the finance office to sign an acting contract.

"Doesn't he need to attend the training camp?"

Zhao Jian wasn't particularly surprised by the two-thousand-yuan rate. Everyone knew Zhang Jizhong liked to skim a little off the top.

If he gave more here, he would give less somewhere else.

In any case, Shen Qi's scenes would add up to four or five episodes at most. That amount of money would barely register in the production's accounts.

How actors' pay was calculated was a mystery in itself. Some were paid by the series' total episode count, some by the number of episodes they appeared in, and some had it worse—their screen time was converted into a fraction of an episode.

Shen Qi had evidently landed that third "lucky package."

"Didn't you just say he was good at martial arts?" Zhang Jizhong waved a hand. "Then he can skip training and go help Old Kang shoot Migrant Workers!"

Zhang Jizhong said it as though it were nothing.

Having settled another matter in passing, he was in high spirits. His wife happened to have gone back to Hangzhou, so he began thinking about getting some people together for a night at Heaven on Earth.

Meanwhile, Shen Qi walked out of the finance office in a daze, clutching a pay slip for eight thousand yuan. It was almost ten thousand!

Compared with the thousand yuan he had earned from Legend of the White Snake and the seven hundred from My Own Swordsman, this was a leap into another social class.

When he had worked as a teacher the year before, he had just started and didn't have a permanent post. His monthly salary back in his home county had been only 711 yuan.

Tutoring?

Who got tutoring for PE?

Even with a permanent post, he would have earned little more than a thousand a month.

Any misgivings he'd had about playing Yin Zhiping vanished.

So what if the role carried risks?

Worst case, he could specialize in playing perverts from now on.

If he could make tens of thousands a year, he was willing to become the childhood nightmare of generations!

Of course, he wasn't fooling himself.

He was still a long way from establishing himself in the entertainment industry. Right now, he couldn't even afford an assistant.

As for becoming famous...

Still, with the role of Yin Zhiping secured, Shen Qi could finally breathe a little easier.

The production told him to report on October 8. Filming would take twenty to thirty-five days, and he wouldn't need to stay with the crew the whole time. It wouldn't interfere with his plan to snag a role in Cao Baoping's film.

As for Migrant Workers, they had told him over the phone to report on August 12. He could sign the contract then.

Figuring he had a week free, Shen Qi took out his phone and called Shu Chang.

He had to thank the person who had opened this door for him!

Without Shu Chang, even if he had sent in his résumé, it would probably have vanished without a trace.

That was what had happened to most of the résumés he had sent out.

He didn't even know how to repay her.

She was too young for him to say any of the flirty things that came to mind.

After ending the call with Shu Chang, Shen Qi thought for a moment and called Fei Yang, the production manager of Lotus Lantern.

First, he thanked him for introducing him to Legend of the White Snake, then told him he had landed the role of the Demon Dao Sage Lord. Finally, he asked whether Fei Yang had returned to the capital and offered to treat him to a meal when he had time.

This, in fact, was how you built connections.

Shen Qi was finding his way through the entertainment industry blind, with no agency or manager to handle things for him.

Even if Fei Yang was only a production manager, Shen Qi had to take the relationship seriously.

Of all the roles he had landed so far, Shu Chang had introduced him to the audition for Yin Zhiping. Every other opportunity had taken legwork on his own part.

Fei Yang had almost forgotten Shen Qi.

Besides, he had only recommended him for a tiny bit part. A few minutes of screen time and a couple of lines would have been plenty.

The Demon Dao Sage Lord? Where had that come from?

"Hmm, we can talk about dinner later. There's a... music video that needs someone. Interested?"

When Fei Yang thought of Shen Qi, the thing he remembered most was how handsome he was.

Wasn't that perfect?

A music video needed a handsome guy.

"I'm in! Thanks, Brother Fei! Just tell me when and where!"

Shen Qi was extremely glad he had made the call.

He was also glad he hadn't mentioned Yin Zhiping.

Who the hell would want the man playing "Dragon Rider" in their music video?

Viewers would wonder if some crucial scene had been cut from it.

The music video shoot was three days away, right there in the capital.

Fei Yang offered him two thousand yuan.

Two thousand yuan for two days of shooting.

That money was practically lying on the ground waiting to be picked up!

Shen Qi finally understood how Wei Jianguo had felt after earning six thousand yuan in a single night's work.

It really paid to keep reminding your contacts you existed!

The next day, Shen Qi waited outside the Beijing Film Studio, but his luck was poor. He couldn't find any work.

Shouting "I'm six feet tall," "I have acting experience," "I'll work for free," and even "Eighteen centimeters" did him no good.

This was the norm for extras.

Most of the time, there was no work to be found.

To survive, some had to work on construction sites, wash dishes, or even collect scrap.

Shen Qi had no choice but to go practice swordplay at the school.

In his spare time, he also browsed a bookstore.

He immediately bought An Actor's Self-Cultivation, along with Performing Arts Tutorial: Actor's Handbook, Fundamentals of Film and Television Acting, and The Art of Interpreting Lines in Performance.

Now that he had some money, he could at least put a few books on display to look the part.

After filming The Return of the Condor Heroes, Shen Qi planned to rent an apartment in the capital.

For now, there was no point.

In a few days, he would go shoot Migrant Workers, followed by The Return of the Condor Heroes.

He wouldn't be staying in Beijing long.

It wasn't until the following day that Shen Qi managed to squeeze onto a van taking extras to a set.

This time, he was working purely as an extra.

The crew spent the whole day directing him where to stand in the background. Shen Qi didn't even have time to log the job.

There was no chance of another unexpected stroke of luck like meeting Cao Baoping.

In the end, he earned just twenty yuan.

But when the production van dropped the extras off outside the Beijing Film Studio, someone grabbed Shen Qi.

"I'm not buying! I don't want your porn DVDs!"

Shen Qi had seen plenty of people like that.

The porn DVDs they sold were overpriced, for one thing.

And the damn things barely had any porn in them!