No Wonder You're Xu Xian!

As soon as Shen Qi arrived on set, a crew member led him inside.

He took a discreet look around.

The production was well equipped, with sets and gear that were both up to standard.

Besides Liu Tao, he spotted Pan Yueming.

In the world of extras, Pan Yueming was practically an inspirational legend.

He had started with bit parts, worked with Lu Xuechang on Very Hot Summer and The Lease, and starred opposite Yuan Quan in Blue Love...

More recently, it had been officially announced that he would headline Moment in Peking alongside Zhao Wei and Chen Baoguo.

He was a bona fide leading man!

What drifter trying to make it in Hengdian or Beijing hadn't dreamed of becoming the next Pan Yueming or Wang Baoqiang while chewing on a steamed bun late at night?

Shen Qi even spotted some familiar faces.

There was Liu Xiaofeng, who had played Chenxiang's father Liu Yanchang in Lotus Lantern; Xie Ning, who had played Zhu Bajie; and Tian Erxi, who had played the Taibai Star Lord.

A few faces behind the scenes looked familiar too.

The two dramas were probably made by the same company.

Shen Qi was brought before the director.

"You're the one Old Fei recommended?"

The director spoke with a strong Taiwanese accent.

"Yes. Fei asked me to audition."

Shen Qi hadn't expected to be cast on the spot.

"Audition?"

The director looked impatient. Why would a minor role with barely any lines need an audition?

Wasn't that a waste of time?

"Director, why not let him play the Demon Dao Sage Lord?" Liu Tao had been watching Shen Qi since he walked in. Now she chimed in with a smile. "If he can do it, we won't have to move locations tomorrow."

Were rookie actors this handsome these days? He looked so... delicious!

"Fine. Let him try."

The director glanced at Liu Tao, his expression turning peculiar.

Ever since she had worked with Hu Jun on Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, rumors about them being "a couple on set" and "spending nights together in a tent" had never stopped.

Perhaps those rumors weren't entirely baseless.

Look at her, offering a handsome guy a chance the moment she saw him.

The director's assistant handed over a page of the script.

It said Xu Xian was moved by Bai Suzhen's self-sacrificing spirit and shed a tear of genuine feeling.

That tear somehow melted the great sword in the Demon Dao Sage Lord's hands.

The Demon Dao Sage Lord stared at his empty hands in shock:

How could this happen!?

There were pitifully few words, and the plot was absurdly simple, but ten thousand expletives were already stampeding through Shen Qi's head.

The Demon Dao Sage Lord!

With a title like that, he had to be one of the biggest figures in the demon dao. It was practically on par with calling the Jade Emperor an old geezer and declaring himself the Great Sage Equal to Heaven!

And all because of one mortal's tear!

The divine weapon he relied on in battle just melted.

How the hell did that make sense?

Was there no justice? No heavenly order?

Worthy of Xu Xian!

The man who dared to screw a giant snake!

Even Orochimaru would have to scurry away with his tail between his legs if he saw you.

Despite the furious rant in his head, Shen Qi didn't let any of it show.

Picking scripts?

That was a privilege for big stars.

For a nobody at the bottom like him, landing a role with lines was already an unexpected delight.

He slipped a hand into his pocket and gently pressed the parchment in the little book.

That page held a record of Cao Jun's performance.

In an instant, it was as though Cao Jun had possessed him. A flood of information filled his mind.

There was Cao Jun's understanding and analysis of the role beforehand.

There were also all the approaches he had tried and put into practice during the performance.

And his assessment of his own performance afterward.

The whole process felt like he had experienced it himself.

The sensation was strongest in the first few minutes. If asked to perform Cao Jun's scene, he was confident he could reproduce it exactly.

But using Cao Jun's acting to portray the Demon Dao Sage Lord was somewhat outside its intended purpose.

Still, it was surely enough for an audition.

And if it wasn't, there was nothing he could do.

Shen Qi had no foundation in acting, and his theoretical knowledge was practically nonexistent. Unless the director's standards were low, he stood even less of a chance on his own.

"Everyone, I'll begin!"

Shen Qi wasted no time.

He bowed politely, then looked at the great sword that wasn't there in his hands, as though he could really see it melting.

Then he raised his eyes to the sky.

He didn't know it was a tear, but he knew something terrible had happened to his great sword.

Shock, confusion, anguish...

"How could this happen?"

"How could this happen!"

The same line, but with a clear shift in emotion.

The first was more bewildered; the second, more furious.

Just then, Liu Tao suddenly struck his chest with her palm and gave a sharp "Ha!" Shen Qi leaped backward with the blow and hit the ground with the practiced ease of an old man staging an accident for compensation.

"Not bad. That'll do. The role is yours!"

It was better than director Wu Jiatai had expected.

The performance was still a little overblown, but at least Shen Qi showed a decent grasp of acting.

No more than three minutes had passed between reading the script, preparing, and auditioning. Doing this well in that time was impressive.

Before Shen Qi could get up,

Liu Tao offered him her hand.

If a woman was pretty, her hands were rarely ugly, especially if she was an actress.

Liu Tao's fingers were slender and well proportioned, her nails neatly rounded and clean, with a faint pink tint.

Shen Qi took her hand. It was warm and soft, like a piece of warm jade in his palm. With a little help from her, he stood up.

"Congratulations~"

Liu Tao hadn't expected the handsome young man to have real ability.

"Thank you, Liu Tao! Thank you, Director!!!"

Shen Qi's thanks were heartfelt.

She might have made the suggestion in passing, but to Shen Qi, it was an enormous opportunity.

People often began to grow stronger only after setting aside their pride.

Shen Qi wasn't about to shake off Liu Tao's hand and draw a line between them.

Still, once he was on his feet, he politely let go.

"Go find the producer and sign your contract. Our line producer is Wang Xuping, the one in the yellow T-shirt."

Director Wu Jiatai looked at Shen Qi, then at Liu Tao.

Fuck, they've hit it off already?

Just like that?

Then I...

Shen Qi found Wang Xuping and got his contract.

Contracts like this were prepared in advance. Pay was determined by the role's screen time and the actor's fame and standing.

Role: Demon Dao Sage Lord (Purple Bat Spirit)

Actor classification: Supporting actor

Filming location: Hengdian

Episode: 3

Schedule: 5 days

Pay: 1,000 yuan

Shen Qi checked only the key details. There was no need to read the contract line by line.

He was a little disappointed that the character appeared only in episode three.

But the role had an impressive title, and he would get to act opposite Liu Tao. That more than made up for it.

One thousand yuan!

For an established actor, that fee would be nothing worth mentioning.

But to Shen Qi, it was a fortune!

When he first arrived in Hengdian, he had worked only three days out of seven, earning fifteen yuan twice and twenty-five yuan once.

The extra ten yuan was for an overnight shoot.

Later, he had earned 270 yuan over nine days on the Lotus Lantern production.

That averaged out to thirty yuan a day.

Without a group leader taking a cut, he naturally earned a bit more.

But not that much more.

To find a production paying fifty yuan a day, he would either have to shoot through the night or play a corpse or someone getting beaten up.

It was much the same for extras in Hengdian and Beijing. Extras in the capital also made around twenty or thirty yuan a day.

If Shen Qi could finish filming this role in five days, the thousand yuan meant he was being paid at the rate of a featured extra.

Nice!

A person needed goals to keep pushing past his limits.

Now that he had earned a thousand yuan, he could aim for a ten-thousand-yuan fee next time.

The director's assistant brought over the full script. He could memorize his scenes in ten minutes, but they were crucial to the plot.

The scenes were also concentrated in one location, so he would probably wrap in three to five days.

It was nearly noon. If he left now, he certainly wouldn't find another production to work on.

So Shen Qi stayed put.

He found an apple crate, sat down, and studied the script, trying to get a feel for the character.

The performance he had "borrowed" gradually faded. Half an hour later, it was completely gone, leaving only traces of knowledge behind.

Those traces were useful. The next time he encountered a similar scene, he would at least have some experience.

He could also revisit them carefully in his spare time.

They would be invaluable for improving his acting.

The Magic Book had helped Shen Qi land the role, but that didn't mean he had to rely on it forever.

A man had to rely on himself!

So Shen Qi began analyzing the Demon Dao Sage Lord and even devised a character biography for him.

He was the Demon Dao Sage Lord, ruler of the demon dao, and he had a younger sister...

Why did he make trouble for the protagonists?

The script said it was to "harvest yang energy to replenish his vitality." That was just about plausible.

The Black Mountain Demon in A Chinese Odyssey absorbed yang energy too.

So, to drain Xu Xian and the big-bearded man, he fought the two snake demons.

While reading the script, Shen Qi also recorded Liu Tao's performance, replacing the page he had used for the audition.

He never hoarded uses. As long as he was on set, he could record another performance whenever he wanted.

The cast of Legend of the White Snake couldn't compare with that of Lotus Lantern, and he could record most of the actors' performances.

Shen Qi wanted to run an experiment.

He wanted to find out what would happen if he recorded a female actor's performance and then used it.