But the people bullying him did not stop after being stopped once. They discovered that he never told on them, never fought back, never even dodged, so they grew worse.
From shoving to insults, from rifling through his schoolbag to demanding money, Xia Yu buried everything in his heart and never said a word to anyone.
He had a black-covered notebook he wrote in every day, his tiny handwriting densely packed together. No one knew what he wrote inside.
The final scene came quickly.
On an afternoon as ordinary as any other, the dismissal bell rang, and students left through the school gates in twos and threes.
He leaped from the rooftop on the other side, leaving this world without even a single line of dialogue.
After reading all of Xia Yu's scenes, Song Shi'an stuffed the beef jerky in his hand into his mouth and chewed for ages without swallowing.
Chi Xun passed by him, saw him staring blankly at the desk, and asked, "What's wrong? Is the script no good?"
"It's good." Song Shi'an swallowed the beef jerky. "It just makes me want to hit someone."
"What kind of character?"
"A boy who gets bullied. He has depression and autism, and jumps off a building at the end."
Chi Xun was quiet for two seconds. He did not ask anything else, simply pushing his own bag of beef jerky back onto Song Shi'an's desk.
Song Shi'an smiled at the bag of beef jerky and nudged the system in his mind.
"System buddy, does this character meet the criteria?"
[Assessment complete. The character Xia Yu's scenes amount to no more than one-twentieth of the protagonist's, meeting the criteria for cannon fodder.]
Song Shi'an picked up his phone and sent Shen Lingshu a message.
"President Shen, I've finished reading the script. I'd like to play Xia Yu."
It took Shen Lingshu a while to reply, and her response was brief: "All right. An agent will contact you shortly. He'll be handling you from now on."
Song Shi'an stared at the word "he" for two seconds. Before he could imagine what sort of agent this would be, a friend request popped up on WeChat.
The profile picture was a side-profile shot taken by the sea. The composition was meticulous, the lighting carefully considered, and it had clearly been selected with care, yet for some reason it kept reminding him of a poster of a property sales office's top salesperson.
He tapped accept.
The other person replied instantly, so fast it was as though he had been camped out in front of his phone waiting specifically for Song Shi'an to accept. "Hello, I'm your agent, Ji Shuyao."
Song Shi'an replied politely, "Hello, hello. I'm Song Shi'an."
"I look forward to working with you. President Shen told me you want to play Xia Yu in the new script." After typing that line, Ji Shuyao immediately added, "Why not consider the male lead? To put it plainly, this script was tailored for you."
Song Shi'an looked utterly bewildered. What did he mean, tailored for him?
He hurriedly typed, "What do you mean, tailored for me?"
Ji Shuyao replied quickly. "From the moment you replied to us, the company started screening scripts suited to you. This is one of them, an S+ project adapted from one of the hottest youth campus novels lately."
Song Shi'an stared at the screen. The little figure inside his heart had already started biting a handkerchief.
What had he done to deserve a big company tailoring an S+ script specifically for him, only for him to open by saying he would only play supporting roles?
It felt like someone inviting him to a Manchu-Han imperial feast, only for him to say, no, no, just give me a steamed bun.
Through his tears, he typed, "I didn't realize you valued me so highly, but I'm truly sorry. Right now, I can only take supporting roles. Once I graduate, I'll consider making a full-scale move into film and television."
That was not exactly a lie. Once he finished playing a hundred cannon fodder characters, he would be completely free. With ten billion in hand, he could play whatever he wanted, take a male lead role and toss one aside, and even sing all the ending themes himself.
At his current pace, four years of university should be just about enough.
Ji Shuyao fell silent for a while before replying, "As long as you've thought it through."
Song Shi'an breathed a sigh of relief, thinking this agent was quite easy to talk to. He had not taken turns trying to talk him around the way Director Wang and Director Zhang had before.
Little did he know that, over in the Stars Entertainment office, Ji Shuyao was sitting at his workstation with a thoroughly cold coffee in front of him, yet he had no attention to spare for drinking it.
He gripped his phone, staring at those few lines of conversation on the screen, waves surging through his heart.
After so many years in this business, what kind of artist had he not seen? Those who stopped at nothing to get famous, those who took any job for money, those who claimed they did not want fame but wanted it more than anyone.
But someone like Song Shi'an, who did not even blink before saying "supporting roles only" when the company handed him the male lead in an S+ script on a silver platter-he had genuinely never seen anyone like that.
Especially not someone who looked like him.
Ji Shuyao recalled the ID photo in his file. At first, he had thought it had been retouched, until he scrolled to the tennis-class smash video and confirmed that the man himself was even more striking than his ID photo.
Top-tier looks, a top-tier physique, top three in his energy storage major at Jingchen University, and acting skills that ranked among the best of his peers.
With those qualifications, he was a nuclear bomb in the entertainment industry, yet this particular nuclear bomb only wanted to play corpses on set.
But that was fine. Even if he only played supporting roles, Ji Shuyao was clinging to this money tree for good.
When President Shen assigned Song Shi'an to him, the gazes of the dozen or so ace agents in the office could have bored holes through him.
He had originally thought such a good opportunity would never fall to him. After all, he was not the most senior, and none of the artists under him were particularly formidable.
Yet Shen Lingshu had specifically named him, and he still did not know why.
Whatever. He had him now, anyway.
That evening, Stars Entertainment's official account posted a new artist announcement with a crisp, concise caption: "Welcome Song Shi'an to Stars Entertainment." The accompanying image was a silhouette. His face was indistinct, but his proportions and the outline of his broad shoulders and narrow waist were enough to set imaginations running.
At first, the comment section was fairly normal, filled with polite remarks such as "Welcome to the newcomer" and "Looking forward to your work," until someone posted a high-resolution photo.
The photo captured the instant of a smash during tennis class. The wind lifted his white short-sleeved shirt a little, revealing a small stretch of firm waist and abdomen. His arm was drawn back, his wrist held straight, his entire body forming a fluid arc in midair.
Sunlight fell from the side, outlining the sharp angles of his brow bone and jawline.
The moment that photo appeared, the comment section exploded.
"Wait, who is this?? That silhouette from just now???"
"Isn't Song Shi'an the guy who played Ying Qi!! The masked guard!! I cried for three days after he took off his mask!!"
"And Meng Zhen!! That crazy eunuch who got stabbed to death!! He played him too!!"
"That tennis smash video was him too?? I watched it over a dozen times back then without getting a clear look at his face, and now you're telling me he looks like this???"
"Three seconds. I want every detail on this man."
Immediately afterward, all kinds of on-set candid photos and drama stills were posted in the comments one after another.