Protecting Your Virtue

Fortunately, Shen Qi knew how to handle people.

When a director was throwing his weight around, it was best not to undermine him. Otherwise, he would make you pay for it later.

"You'll be working in the fields alongside the locals and experiencing what farmers' lives are really like... No objections, right?"

Kang Honglei wasn't asking for opinions.

He was just letting them know.

"Sure..."

Everyone mustered what enthusiasm they could and responded to his pep talk.

For the rest of the journey, Shen Qi had no chance to speak to Kang Honglei.

There was no doubt about it now.

The guy really was giving him the cold shoulder.

Kang Honglei finally gave Shen Qi a proper look after everyone had settled in and gone to the wheat fields together.

Apparently, they had originally planned to shoot the film in Henan and had made arrangements there in the first half of the year.

For some reason, the shoot had moved to Shanxi.

The locals had even set aside dozens of mu of farmland for the production.

Some plots held ripe wheat, while others had young corn plants still growing and waiting to be hoed.

Dozens of mu might sound like a lot, but it only amounted to a few tens of thousands of yuan.

Besides, the land would still produce a harvest, just not as much as it would if everything were gathered at the usual time.

The actors' so-called hands-on experience meant harvesting wheat and hoeing fields.

"A small patch each. Finish it today, or you don't eat!"

Holding a little red flag, Kang Honglei assigned everyone their tasks.

The actors were dumbfounded.

Some of them had never even seen a ripe wheat field before.

They hadn't had time to wax poetic about the golden wheat stretching across the fields before they heard the bad news.

And Kang Honglei didn't look like he was joking.

Clutching their assigned sickles, they stared blankly at the sea of gold, with no idea where to start.

"Come on, I'll show you how to use a sickle..."

A farmer whose Mandarin was a little rough picked up a sickle and explained how to grip it, where to stand so they wouldn't cut their legs, and how to bend while harvesting to save effort...

Kang Honglei saw everyone studying carefully and nodded in satisfaction.

Wait. Where was Shen Qi?

Of the actors gathered around the local farmer to learn the "technique," Shen Qi was the only one missing.

Was he really that unwilling to follow instructions?

Defying me on the very first day!

He soon spotted Shen Qi—already in the middle of the field.

Shen Qi had cut more than half the rows assigned to him.

By the time Kang Honglei reached him, Shen Qi had made it to the far end of the field.

He had just finished.

Too bad there had been so little. He had barely warmed up.

"Did you grow up in the countryside?"

Kang Honglei finally looked Shen Qi in the eye, with a hint of admiration in his gaze.

They might have been making a rural drama, but none of the actors in the cast actually came from the countryside.

There were hardly any rural actors in the entire entertainment industry.

It couldn't be helped. For people in the countryside, having enough to eat was an achievement in itself.

Go back a little further, and they would have been working to earn labor points.

Where would they have found the money to send their children to study the arts, especially acting, which looked like such a risky pursuit?

"Yeah... Look, this is the work I did."

There was no point in Shen Qi hiding what he could do now.

Instead, a different worry occurred to him.

Ju Shuangyuan might have failed his university entrance exams several years in a row, but he had always been pampered. There was no way he could be as practiced at farmwork as Shen Qi.

Kang Honglei had noticed the problem too. He said with a headache:

"You're more practiced than the 'instructor' I hired!"

"Don't worry, Director. Doing farmwork well takes practice, but making a mess of it is easy."

Shen Qi hurried to reassure him.

Just don't swap his role with Zhang Yi's.

Brotherhood was brotherhood.

But roles and wives were not things you gave away.

"Then show me how you'd play someone who's bad at it."

Kang Honglei pointed to a row beside them.

Without another word, Shen Qi started doing a terrible job.

The truth was, nobody liked hardship or enjoyed wearing themselves out.

Before his father fell ill, Shen Qi hadn't wanted to work either. Ask him to do a chore, and he'd act as though it would kill him.

As a child, he had liked fishing with earthworms and digging out crayfish and catching eels.

He had liked running wild with his friends.

Then his father got sick.

Only then had he become the man of the house.

To help his family, he had chosen the sports track at school. During high school, he often skipped class to go home and help bring in the harvest.

Now he cast off all those burdens and rediscovered his old laziness.

Kang Honglei watched him transform from an old hand in the fields into a hopeless brat who couldn't tell one crop from another—the kind who couldn't even get to a steaming pile of shit before it went cold.

"Actors with experience really are better!"

Kang Honglei's eyes lit up.

This wasn't acting you could teach.

This was lived experience!

"Thank you, Director."

Shen Qi breathed a sigh of relief. The director was finally taking him seriously.

Zhang Jizhong had sent him to act in "Migrant Workers" without telling him what role he would play or how his contract would be handled.

Even if he was working for free, they should at least sign a contract.

Without one, they could send him packing whenever they wanted.

"You don't need to practice this. You... help the instructor train the others."

Just like that, Shen Qi went from trainee to trainer.

"Stick your butt out. Come on, stick it out! Relax!"

Shen Qi gave Zhang Yi a kick.

"I... think I'll let that farmer teach me."

Zhang Yi moved his backside away.

With Shen Qi standing behind him, he didn't feel entirely safe.

"Tsk, tsk, Zhang Yi," Shen Qi said regretfully. "This won't do. If your acting's this bad, nobody will even notice you when the drama airs."

"Enjoy yourself while you can." Zhang Yi suddenly called toward Pan Yuchen, "Pan Yuchen! Liu Siyan! It's too crowded over there. Come over here—Shen Qi will teach you how to harvest wheat!"

"Coming!"

Pan Yuchen and Liu Siyan ran over at once.

The farmer's Mandarin might have been considered pretty good in the village, but he still kept using words they couldn't understand.

Many people from the countryside could speak excellent Mandarin when they went away, but a few days back home and their old way of speaking returned.

Shen Qi watched his good friend flee, then glanced at his even better friend—Huang Qidao, who was sitting in the shade of a tree at the edge of the field, chatting with a few crew members.

He could only accept his fate.

"Harvesting wheat is pretty simple. Find a comfortable way to hold the sickle. Not too tight, not too loose—just naturally. Then bend over... Don't squat, and you definitely don't need to kneel. Tie your hair back. Just bend your waist a little and grab the wheat. That's it..."

Shen Qi had been a teacher, after all.

Besides the long jump and shot put required for entrance exams, he had taught his students table tennis, soccer, basketball, and military boxing in PE class.

It was his first time teaching anyone to harvest wheat, but he picked it up easily enough.

"Did you go to Beijing Film Academy?"

Liu Siyan's cheeks were slightly flushed. She had attended the Central Academy of Drama, getting into university at fifteen.

After graduating this year, she had gone straight into the Air Force Political Department.

"I went to Beijing Sport University..."

Shen Qi felt helpless. She was playing Zhang Yi's love interest, so if she wanted to build chemistry, she should go find him.

He was becoming more and more glad he was playing Yin Zhiping.

He wondered whether these shallow women would still be so taken with his face after The Return of the Condor Heroes aired.

If women pestered him everywhere he went, life would be bleak indeed!

"Beijing Sport University? So you were on the sports track. Li Lianjie, Wu Jing, and Wu Yue went there too, I think. Are you an athlete?"

Liu Siyan thought Beijing Sport University sounded pretty good too.

"No, I studied physical education. Don't stick your butt up so high. And don't grab the wheat so low down—you could hurt your hand."

Shen Qi had no desire to make small talk with her.

"Don't stick your butt up so high... Haha..."

Pan Yuchen burst out laughing.

"You too. This isn't a runway. You don't need to show off your curves!"

Teacher Shen wasn't about to go easy on her.

Pan Yuchen stopped laughing at once.

But she couldn't bring herself to be angry, either.

Good-looking people always got a little more leeway.

Besides, Shen Qi wasn't singling anyone out.

He even taught everyone how rural people walked, talked, and sat down on the ground.

Those details mattered more than people might think.

Even Fan Ming listened in amazement.

That evening, Shen Qi finally got his contract.

The director's assistant told Shen Qi to go see Kang Honglei so they could sign it.

Kang Honglei's attitude toward Shen Qi had changed completely.

He had assumed Shen Qi had gotten the part through Zhang Jizhong's connections, so naturally he hadn't thought much of him.

But after seeing that Shen Qi came from the countryside and fit the role so well in his farmwork, dialect, and everyday habits,

he realized Shen Qi hadn't joined the cast through connections at all.

Zhang Jizhong had chosen him for his genuine ability.

Only then did Kang Honglei ask about Shen Qi's situation.

And that was when he learned Shen Qi still hadn't signed an actor's contract.

That was unacceptable!

"I'm coming with you!"

Huang Qidao tossed aside his book and sprang up, looking ready for a fight.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Shen Qi had intended to take him along anyway, but Huang Qidao's attitude seemed off.

"To protect your virtue! A director calling an actor to his room at night? He's definitely up to no good!"