Chapter 405: The red underwear blew everyone away!
“Riiip—”
The sound of tearing paper money was especially piercing in the small theater.
“Stop acting! Chen San! We’re not doing this anymore!”
Chen Yi roared, making a move to tear the remaining half of the bill in her hand.
“No! Ancestor! Have mercy!”
A figure lunged forward.
Jiang Ci rushed to Chen Yi’s feet.
“Piaopiao! That’s money! That’s real money!”
Jiang Ci’s voice trembled.
He carefully “picked” the fifty-yuan note, already torn with a gash, out of Chen Yi’s hand.
Then, he performed an action that silenced the entire room.
He knelt on the floor, spread the money flat on his grimy suit pant leg.
While forcefully smoothing out the wrinkles with his palm, he turned his head and shouted towards the wings:
“Tape! Props! Is there any clear tape? Hurry!”
Little Zhang from the Props Team, staying in character, threw a roll of tape up.
Jiang Ci caught the tape, lying flat on the floor.
The dim, yellow hanging lamp swayed above his head, stretching his shadow long.
He squinted, his tongue pressing against his cheek, completely focused on aligning the tear.
“Riiip.”
Tape torn, applied.
Jiang Ci held up the repaired fifty-yuan note, examining it against the light.
After confirming it was still spendable, he let out a long sigh of relief, flashing a grin at Chen Yi who was still standing there dumbfounded.
“Piaopiao, don’t mess around.”
Jiang Ci waved the money in his hand, his tone light: “Fifty bucks. That scare just now was worth it.”
“Go to the market, catch those stalls about to close, you can buy two pounds of pork ribs.”
Chen Yi stood there, looking at the man on the floor.
Her original full-blown anger had cooled into a heart-wrenching ache.
Behind the monitor, Gu Zhiyuan, who had already left the scene, bit down on his cigarette holder, forgetting to inhale.
Chen Yi bent down, pulled out a crumpled newspaper from that worn canvas bag.
It was the one Liu Piaopiao picked up in the script, originally intended to cushion the boxed lunch.
“Smack.”
The newspaper was slapped onto the cement floor in front of Jiang Ci.
Chen Yi pointed at the inconspicuous small ad in the corner of the newspaper, her finger still trembling slightly.
“I don’t want rib soup.” Chen Yi’s voice was serious. “I want you to look at this.”
Jiang Ci was taken aback.
He followed that red, swollen finger.
[The Third Capital International Film Festival Public Service Short Film Call for Entries — Theme: “Finding Perseverance in the Ordinary”]
[Director: Sister Juan (Renowned Film Director)]
[Requirement: Not concerned with traffic, not concerned with background, only seeking actors with “life experience.”]
When he saw the words “Sister Juan,” Jiang Ci’s gaze sharpened.
That was the benefactor who had given Chen San hope, yet was forced to abandon him in the face of capital, also the hand that pushed him to his hardest fall.
Jiang Ci instinctively shrank back.
He raised a hand, touched his own face.
His face still bore the ridiculous lipstick marks, his body clad in a sweat-stained, worn-out shirt.
“What’s the point of looking at this?” Jiang Ci averted his gaze, went back to fiddling with that fifty-yuan note.
“Jobs from big directors like that, what do they have to do with us? That’s a place for the big stars…”
“You’re still scared?” Chen Yi asked coldly.
“Not scared.” Jiang Ci kept his head down. “I just think… it’s unnecessary.”
Chen Yi suddenly erupted.
She grabbed Jiang Ci by the collar, her strength so great she yanked him straight up from the floor.
“Chen San! Are you a man?!”
Those cold eyes blazed with twin fires:
“You can turn a lightbulb exploding over your head into a comedy, you can eat sweet potato jerky hard as rocks and still smile saying it’s delicious…”
“What? Now, asking you to go see an acquaintance, to fight for a chance, you chicken out?!”
“Where’s your ‘the play is greater than heaven’? Did a dog eat it?!”
Jiang Ci was forced to tilt his head back.
He looked at Chen Yi.
Looked at this woman who put on a smiling face for survival at the nightclub, yet dared to defy the whole world for his dream.
His Adam’s apple bobbed several times.
Jiang Ci suddenly laughed.
It was Chen San’s laugh, a bit roguish, a bit all-or-nothing.
“Who’s chickening out?”
Jiang Ci pushed Chen Yi’s hand away, straightened that utterly un-straightenable frayed collar.
“Fine, let’s go!” Jiang Ci stuck his neck out. “It’s just an audition, right? I’ve even played a dead man, why should I be afraid of the living?”
“Let’s go!”
Without another word, Chen Yi grabbed Jiang Ci’s hand and ran outside.
“Hey! My money! I haven’t bought the ribs yet!”
…
“Change of scene! Quick! Follow them!”
Gu Zhiyuan waved his arms like a madman, directing the camera crew hauling equipment in a frantic run.
Cut.
On the main thoroughfare of Yingshi City.
Two figures sprinting.
Surrounding them were towering replica ancient palaces,
background actors in dragon robes and phoenix crowns coming and going,
film crews shouting through megaphones.
Those grand backdrops all blurred into hazy light and shadow now.
Only those two people remained, painfully clear.
Chen Yi, wearing ill-fitting high heels, stumbled as she ran;
Jiang Ci, dragged by her, his tattered shirt billowing with wind.
They ran through the crowd, through the mockery, through that false prosperity.
Disheveled, yet fiercely, overwhelmingly alive.
“Cut! We’re here!”
Scene change.
The office building housing the Film Festival Committee, an imposing modern structure.
At this moment, a long line had already formed at the building entrance.
Men in crisp suits, hair gel applied so thick a fly would slip;
Women with immaculate makeup, just the mingled scent of their designer perfumes enough to knock someone over.
Everyone held meticulously crafted model cards,
discussing which investor recently poured hundreds of millions into what.
When the sweaty, dust-covered Chen San and Liu Piaopiao rushed over.
The line fell silent.
Immediately followed by undisguised sounds of disdain and hushed whispers.
“Where did these beggars come from? Wrong set?”
“Stay away, don’t dirty my rented designer suit.”
“These days, even panhandlers want to act? Every stray cat and dog dares to dream.”
Countless scornful gazes pierced them.
Jiang Ci’s originally straight back instinctively hunched slightly.
He ducked his head, trying to tuck that frayed cuff into his pants pocket, only to find the pocket had a hole too.
“Um… Piaopiao.” Jiang Ci’s voice wavered. “Maybe… we should just go back? This place doesn’t seem right for us…”
A hand tightly gripped his hand that wanted to hide.
Chen Yi’s hand was cold, her palm slick with cold sweat, but her grip was astonishingly strong.
“We’re not going back.”
Chen Yi gritted her teeth, her tone resolute. “Who says you have to dress up to act? Chen San, lift your head up for me!”
Jiang Ci froze for a second.
He felt the warmth transmitted through their palms.
He gripped Chen Yi’s hand back.
Lifted his head.
His eyes were frighteningly bright.
…
Finally, it was their turn.
The interview room was large, the air conditioning cranked high,
blowing on their sweat-drenched bodies, raising goosebumps.
Three people sat at the judges’ table.
The Assistant Director sitting in the middle was a middle-aged man with gold-rimmed glasses,
spinning a pen in his hand, not even looking up.
“Next. Leave your resume, talent showcase, one-minute limit.”
His tone was perfunctory.
Jiang Ci released Chen Yi’s hand, walked alone to the center of the room.
He had no resume.
“Hello, teachers.” Jiang Ci bowed. “I don’t have a resume. My name is Chen San. I’m a cannon fodder extra.”
The Assistant Director frowned, finally looking up to scan him.
Seeing Jiang Ci’s appearance, impatience practically overflowed from his eyes.
“No resume? Then what can you do? Sing? Dance? Or a bit of Shakespeare?”
A few staff members around chuckled lightly.
Jiang Ci, playing Chen San, stood there.
He remembered the hard-to-chew sweet potato jerky in the theater just now,
the lightbulb that nearly cracked his skull,
Chen Yi’s hand gripping his tightly, refusing to let go.
“Teacher, I can’t do any of those.”
Jiang Ci shook his head, then suddenly smiled.
It was a strange smile.
The corners of his mouth pulled up hard, but the corners of his eyes drooped.
“But I can perform for you…”
Jiang Ci paused, his voice calm:
“Perform the laugh of someone who’s been clobbered by life, yet still has to smile and say ‘feels great.’ Would that work?”
The Assistant Director’s pen-spinning hand stopped.
He narrowed his eyes, finally looking properly at this disheveled man.
“Interesting.” The Assistant Director put down the pen, leaned back. “Alright, please begin your performance.”
The room fell silent.
All eyes focused on Jiang Ci.
Jiang Ci adjusted his breathing.
Settled his qi into his Dantian.
He didn’t start laughing immediately.
Instead, slowly, towards the empty air in front of him, he performed a deep ninety-degree bow.
This was an actor’s highest respect for the stage before stepping onto it.
However.
Just as he bent to the lowest point, the atmosphere reaching its peak of solemnity and reverence.
“Rrrrriiiippp—!!!”
A crisp sound of fabric tearing.
The final swan song of Chen San’s suit pants, worn for three years, already fragile beyond belief.
A conspicuous split, right down the center of Jiang Ci’s rear, exploded all the way to the top of his thigh.
Revealing the pair inside…
the one Chen Yi bought from a street stall to ward off evil during his zodiac year,
printed with the four large golden characters: “Great Luck and Great Profit.”
The golden “Great Luck and Great Profit,” under the cold lights, shimmered with a bizarre, absurd glow.
The Assistant Director’s jaw dropped, his pen clattering to the floor.
Chen Yi covered her face, despair seeping through her fingers.
Jiang Ci remained frozen in his bowing posture.
A cool breeze rushed in through the split, making those four golden characters shine even more brilliantly.