[Host confirmed to have passed actor verification. The entertainment industry can now be unlocked as a primary profession.]
Song Shi'an shot upright.
He could finally unlock it! Before this, the system had barred him from anything in the entertainment industry. Part-time work was forbidden, verification was forbidden, and even posting an everyday video required extreme caution.
Suppressing his excitement, he opened Weibo. He had resubmitted his actor verification a while ago after that trash company canceled it, and sure enough, it had gone through today.
The yellow V badge sat neatly beside his name.
He opened D Station too, changed "Has Shi'an Eaten Today?" to "Song Shi'an," and submitted an application for actor verification.
Then he deleted all the dog-walking and food-delivery videos he had posted before, dug a wrap photo taken on the set of The Emperor's Ambition out of his phone's photo album, and posted it.
In the photo, he wore Meng Zhen's black yesa robe, with light makeup still on his face and the dressing room's warm strip lights behind him.
He captioned it with two words: "Filming wrapped."
After posting it, he looked over his profile with satisfaction. It was clean and tidy, just as a proper actor's should be.
Although a cannon-fodder actor like him probably wouldn't attract much attention, he still had to spruce up the facade.
With all that done, he tossed his phone beside his pillow and went peacefully to sleep.
He had completely overlooked one thing.
Ying Qi's thirty-seven-second battle-damaged scene was breaking out beyond its usual audience at an exponential rate.
Plenty of people who didn't normally watch costume dramas had been stunned by those thirty-seven seconds. They found his name in the credits, then followed it to his newly verified D Station account.
That "Filming wrapped" post was the only content on his profile.
Night owl Chi Xun lay in bed scrolling on his phone, watching the likes on that post leap from dozens to hundreds, then from hundreds to thousands.
More and more people flooded the comments, some from Weibo, some from D Station's recommendations page, and some sent by friends' recommendations.
Several times, Chi Xun wanted to lean out from the top bunk and wake Song Shi'an, but seeing him sleeping so deeply, breathing steadily with half his face buried in his pillow, Chi Xun gritted his teeth and held back.
The numbers kept soaring. His followers passed fifty thousand at one in the morning, a hundred thousand at three, and two hundred thousand at five.
Chi Xun stared at his phone without sleeping all night.
As dawn began to break outside the window, Song Shi'an rolled over.
Sunlight slipped through a gap in the curtains. He opened his eyes groggily, only to be greeted by Chi Xun's face.
His dark circles were so heavy he looked as if someone had punched him twice. His glasses sat crooked on his nose, his hair was a bird's nest, and he sat bolt upright opposite Song Shi'an, staring straight at him with bloodshot eyes.
Song Shi'an recoiled in fright, nearly knocking the back of his head against the wall.
"You got up this early just to scare me?"
Chi Xun's voice was hoarse, carrying the exhaustion of a sleepless night. "I haven't slept all night."
"What happened? Insomnia?" Song Shi'an scratched his head.
"Please open your D Station."
Baffled, Song Shi'an fished out his phone.
It even froze as he opened the app, leaving the screen white for several seconds before it loaded. It really was time to replace this phone.
Then the account notifications page popped up.
Song Shi'an stared at the number for a good while before slowly raising his head. "Chi Xun, is this number real?"
"Two hundred and sixty thousand," Chi Xun said expressionlessly. "I watched it climb myself. I didn't sleep a wink all night. You now have the fastest-growing actor account on D Station. This week, at least."
He had casually posted a single wrap photo last night. Just one, with a two-word caption, and then gained two hundred and sixty thousand followers.
Wasn't this world a little too forgiving toward good-looking people?
Song Shi'an scrolled through his private messages. The heaviest bombardment came from entertainment companies.
At the very top was "Stars Entertainment." The name sounded familiar.
He turned to ask Chi Xun, only to find him bent over the desk, writing furiously, his pen tapping against the paper.
"Chi Xun, is Stars Entertainment famous?"
"The biggest entertainment agency around right now," Chi Xun replied without looking up. Then he set down his pen, leaned close to Song Shi'an's ear, and lowered his voice. "It's also a company owned by Pei Zhiyan's fiancée."
It clicked for Song Shi'an. Shen Lingshu, the one from the Shen Group. Jiang Ye had mentioned her once in the dorm. No wonder the name sounded so familiar.
He opened the private message and read it again. They wanted to meet him on Saturday, discuss terms in person, and would make their most sincere offer.
Song Shi'an leaned back in his chair and mulled it over. Signing with a company should make getting acting jobs easier.
But he only played cannon fodder. If the company arranged a whole bunch of lead-role auditions for him, he would have a hard time answering to the system.
Still, there was no harm in taking a look. He could hear their terms first.
He replied, "Thank you for the invitation. Could we meet on Saturday at a café near Jingchen University?"
The reply came instantly, so fast it seemed someone was stationed in front of the screen twenty-four hours a day. "Certainly. Thank you for replying. See you Saturday."
Song Shi'an muttered, "Do people at big companies never get off work?"
What he didn't know was that, at that very moment in Stars Entertainment's office, the assistant Xiao Zhou was holding her phone, so excited she nearly sprang out of her chair.
She swiftly switched to another chat window. "Boss!!! He agreed to meet!! Saturday, at a café near their university!!"
Shen Lingshu was in a meeting when the messages arrived. Her phone vibrated repeatedly on the table. She picked it up with a frown, glanced at it, and her brow smoothed again.
"Send me the address and have the contract ready. I'll go myself on Saturday." She put down her phone and looked up at everyone in the meeting room. "Continue."
After sending his reply, Song Shi'an paid it no more attention. He shouldered his backpack and headed out to class.
The class was Fundamentals of Thermodynamics, held in a large lecture hall with around two hundred students.
As usual, he slipped in through the back door and sat in the window-side corner of the last row.
Within five minutes of sitting down, he felt uncomfortable all over. Someone in front pretended to stretch while turning to sneak a look at him. A girl two seats to his left held up her phone, tilting it toward him. The angle was discreet, but the reflection from the lens gave everything away.
Song Shi'an propped up his textbook to hide his face. Was this really necessary...?
During the break, he lay over his desk, hoping to doze for a bit, when someone behind him tapped his shoulder.
He raised his head. A boy in glasses stood behind him, clutching a photo and looking nervous.
"Hey, man, um... could I get your autograph?"
Song Shi'an blinked. He was just an extra who played cannon fodder. Why was someone asking for his autograph?
"My girlfriend wants it." The boy handed him the photo sheepishly. "She's in another department. After she found out we were in the same class, she pestered me for days. Said I shouldn't come back to see her without an autograph."