Turn a Blind Eye

If acting like an actress was going to make Shen Qi effeminate, he would stop recording actresses' performances.

In fact, after using one, he felt nothing particularly strange. He didn't feel as if he'd lost anything below the waist or gained anything on his chest.

Liu Tao's performance had proved useful, though.

Shen Qi had to admit he'd learned quite a bit from using it.

Liu Tao wasn't a brilliant actress, but she wasn't bad either.

Most of her roles never pulled viewers out of the story. That made her a competent actress.

Watching someone else act, people often thought, I could do that. Put them in front of a camera, though, and they'd make a complete mess of it.

Plenty of people couldn't even find the camera.

That was exactly the sort of basic knowledge Shen Qi needed right now.

Using the performance had filled in the gaps at once.

It was a process of "leveling up."

Besides the five pages he could currently use, the magic book had plenty more stuck to its back cover.

Perhaps if he used it enough, he could unlock new pages.

Shen Qi looked forward to that.

Five pages were nowhere near enough!

He wanted to store more powerful performances for auditions for difficult roles, or for scenes that posed a greater challenge.

Besides, those five pages could only record performances.

Shen Qi couldn't shake the feeling that something this incredible shouldn't be limited to acting.

At noon, he ate on the production's dime.

He'd signed a contract. Why shouldn't he get a boxed lunch?

"Hey, handsome! Over here!"

"Shen Qi!"

As Shen Qi picked up his lunch, he heard someone calling him in a tone remarkably like a woman soliciting customers three streets over.

He turned and saw Chen Zihan, who played Xiaoqing, waving at him. Liu Tao was smiling beside her.

How could he turn down such a warm invitation?

Shen Qi carried his boxed lunch over.

Only when he got there did he discover the two enchantresses had their own special meal.

Hengdian's actors came in all ranks, and so did its boxed lunches.

The one in Shen Qi's hand was the standard meal for extras and crew.

One meat dish, two vegetable dishes, and rice.

The meat was a chicken leg, which already made it a fairly generous meal.

There were no rare delicacies on the little table in front of the two actresses, but they had more dishes, and everything looked more refined.

"Why aren't you eating in the van?"

Shen Qi had spotted the nanny van nearby. On a big production, the crew would usually rent one for a female lead like Liu Tao.

"It's not too hot today. Come eat with us. We're both dieting, and there's no way we can finish all this."

Liu Tao's invitation sounded perfectly natural.

Shen Qi didn't make a fuss. He pulled up a chair and sat down.

They were just sharing a table.

They had treated him as an equal. He wasn't going to act beneath them.

He might be at the bottom now, but that didn't mean he would stay there.

That afternoon, he continued the cycle of "record, use, record again."

If using it too much hadn't made his head ache, Shen Qi could have worked the magic book nonstop all day.

When he got back that evening, Shen Qi remembered to update his résumé.

Adding his experience on Lotus Lantern and his role as the Demonic Lord in Legend of the White Snake would greatly improve his chances of hearing back when he sent it out.

The Demonic Lord role in Legend of the White Snake would be especially useful.

Before the drama aired, no one would know how much screen time the character had.

It would be easy for them to think of Demon Lord Seven Nights in A Chinese Ghost Story.

Nie Yuan had stolen the show from male lead Chen Xiaodong with that role.

After printing several copies of his résumé, Shen Qi walked out of the print shop and knew he was in trouble.

What went around came around!

Shen Qi had to admit that when he'd kicked the thief, he'd taken some of his anger out on him.

He'd treated the blond guy as if he were the one who had stolen his phone.

Then again, stealing a phone right in front of him had been a provocation in its own right, hadn't it?

And there was something else that was disturbing when he thought about it.

The blond guy had stolen three phones worth over ten thousand yuan, been arrested in the morning, and been released that evening?!

Where was the justice in that?

No wonder so many people lost their phones.

"What? Don't recognize me?"

The blond guy, his face swollen like a pig's, blocked the print shop entrance with hatred in his eyes. Two scruffy-looking buddies stood on either side of him.

"Come on, man. If we keep taking revenge, where does it end? Why don't we let bygones be bygones?"

Shen Qi took stock of their surroundings.

The print shop was tucked away in a spot as out of the way as the internet café. Hardly anyone passed by at night.

It wasn't that he was afraid of a fight.

He'd entered Beijing Sport University as a sports recruit. Even though his major was physical education, his build alone was enough to overpower these three punks.

But he was officially joining the production tomorrow. If he showed up with a bruised face and they sent him packing...

Fuck. That's a thousand yuan in acting pay!

He wasn't Superman. Getting through a fight without a scratch wouldn't be easy.

Of course, if they refused to listen to reason, this former teacher knew a little about throwing punches too.

"What are you blocking the entrance for? Can you let me through?"

The sudden voice interrupted the three punks, who were itching for a fight.

They looked toward it and saw a young man in a camouflage T-shirt holding a folder. He appeared to be heading into the shop to print something.

He was of average height, with a long face and small eyes.

He wasn't particularly good-looking.

"Fuck off. Can't you see I'm busy?" the blond guy snapped at him.

These days, the more vicious you acted, the less people dared mess with you.

"Oh, he's insulting you, man!" Shen Qi's eyes lit up, and he promptly began stirring the pot. "You're going to take that? If you're a man, get them! You're wearing camo—were you in the army? You can't just stand by and let me get beaten. Do right by that shirt..."

"Shut up!"

The young man in camouflage and the blond guy spoke in unison.

The young man was annoyed, but Shen Qi had backed him into a corner.

He had... principles!

"Look, guys, it's two against three now," Shen Qi continued, trying to win them over with "reason." "He's a soldier, and I train in kickboxing. You don't stand a chance. Why don't you turn a blind eye and pretend you never saw me today..."

Having been a teacher, Shen Qi preferred not to fight if he could help it.

"Fuck! You're dead!"

Rather than backing off, the blond thief charged at him like a stray dog whose tail had been stepped on, his eyes flashing with menace.

Shen Qi retreated, then darted forward and caught him off guard with a kick to the back of the knee.

The blond guy hit the ground and rolled twice.

Class, assuming there's no friction, what path would our blond-haired student continue to follow...?

Even while fighting, Shen Qi's mind was running through a physics lesson.

Unfortunately, he taught PE. He could make someone roll a few more times, but he wasn't qualified to analyze the forces and motion involved.

The young man in camouflage didn't hesitate either.

He caught one punk from behind in a chokehold and took him down, then helped Shen Qi deal with the other.

The three punks never stood a chance. They scrambled up and fled without even daring to make a threat.

The blond thief limped along, one uneven step after another...

Like a dog whose leg had been struck by a rock.

"Why did you have to tell him to turn a blind eye?"

The young man in camouflage picked up his folder, looking exasperated.

They probably could have settled things peacefully.

But Shen Qi had insisted on rubbing salt in the guy's wounds!

His face was so swollen he could only open one eye, and Shen Qi had gone and told him to turn a blind eye.

It was a blatant provocation!

No one could have swallowed that!

And now look at him.

He wasn't just struggling to open one eye—he could barely walk straight.

"Slip of the tongue. Honest mistake."

Shen Qi shook out his wrist without a trace of sincerity.

For every action, there was an equal and opposite reaction.

His hand hurt a little.

"Why were they after you? Did you hit on someone's girlfriend?"

The young man in camouflage wanted to know what he'd gotten himself into.

"That blond guy's a thief..."

Shen Qi told him what had happened.

Once he heard that Shen Qi had landed in trouble for trying to stop a theft, the young man finally held out his hand.

"I see. I'm Zhang Yi. Yi as in 'translate.'"

"Shen Qi. Qi as in 'miracle.' Were you really in the army?"

"I'm with a military district theater troupe..."

As they chatted, Shen Qi was surprised to learn that Zhang Yi was also working as an extra.

Because of his "distinctive looks," Zhang Yi had applied to acting schools several times and been rejected. In the end, he'd paid his own way to study with the Beijing Military District's Comrades Theater Troupe.

But his big break never came. Instead, he placed in the troupe's top three for "ugliest member" and earned the nickname "Donkey Face."

When the troupe staged Elna Assault, he was Yuan Lang's understudy. If the lead got sick, Zhang Yi could step in.

Unfortunately, not a single actor in the play ever fell ill, so he never got onstage.

With no roles to play, he could only do odd jobs for the troupe.

Later, he tried writing scripts. The troupe asked him to write a twenty-episode series, then told him they didn't want it when he was almost finished.

The political commissar couldn't bear to watch any longer and urged him to try his luck auditioning elsewhere.

So Zhang Yi took his headshots and résumé from production to production. Whenever one turned him down, he moved on to the next.

He'd come to Hengdian this time to try his luck at auditions too.

"Which productions did you audition for? How did it go?"

Shen Qi was usually shunned by the other extras. Now that he'd met someone who'd fought beside him, he was eager to talk.

"Moment in Peking, House of Pink Ladies, The Young Warriors... Four or five, I think. I don't expect anything from any of them."

Zhang Yi answered frankly. None had worked out anyway.

"Holy shit. How did you hear about so many auditions?" Shen Qi was stunned.

He hadn't even heard of two of those projects.

His main way of finding auditions was through a few industry QQ groups he'd joined.

Every so often, a production would post an open casting call in one of them.

But since he was in Hengdian, most of the notices were for productions shooting nearby.

"The troupe gets audition notices sometimes. Most are in the capital, but these few were in Hengdian."

After Zhang Yi explained, Shen Qi returned the favor. "You could try Legend of the White Snake. I just landed a role in it."

"Legend of the White Snake?" Zhang Yi rubbed his chin. "Isn't that the Chinese version of Anaconda...?"

Shen Qi perked up. "Ha! Exactly. The man I admire most is Xu Xian. Even a snake wasn't off-limits for him."

Zhang Yi replied without missing a beat. "Then you've got to include Ning Caichen!"

The two men immediately burst into knowing, dirty-minded laughter.

That was probably the fastest way for men to bond.