On a dim street corner, the young man wearing a suit held hard and cold steamed bread, his cheeks bulging from them. Fortunately, he was beautiful and didn’t look ugly despite such a sloppy appearance. It would only make people sympathize with his bitterness and depression.
Maybe God didn’t think he was embarrassed enough. At this moment, it suddenly started to rain. The young man quickly shrank back under the eaves of a shelter and hurriedly put the remaining half of the bread into his mouth. Water drops fell down his cheek. It was unknown if it was rain, sweat or tears he couldn’t resist.
“Okay, supplement two more camera shots and then we’ll finish!”
The moment the director shouted to stop, the sprinklers turned off and the crew’s assistant quickly walked to the wet actor.
“Teacher Li, spit out the bread into the garbage bag…” The crew’s assistant hadn’t finished when he saw Li Zhao’s mouth move and he actually swallowed the dry bread that the crew had prepared.
The assistant stood stiffly. Their crew might be poor but they could still afford meal boxes.
“Thank you, I’m fine.” Li Zhao stood still and took the warm hot water delivered by the crew’s assistant. He drank two mouthfuls and waited for the stylist to fix his appearance, so that there weren’t any errors when shooting the supplement scenes.
“You’re welcome.” The assistant laughed hollowly before taking the cup from Li Zhao’s hand and retreated to the director’s side.
The director was sitting on a stool with lame legs while holding a plastic fan in his hand. The word ‘Infertility’ appeared as the fan moved. It was a crew that exuded a sense of poverty. Even the usual fans were free fans obtained by street advertising.
“Li Zhao just performed well. Director Liu, shall I give him a chicken leg tomorrow at noon?” The assistant director sat down next to Director Liu, looking at the scene that he just been shot.
Director Liu touched his belly fat and laughed. “What is delicious about chicken legs? Young people should have a plain and simple style in order to make more contributions to the future of the motherland.”
“You are too rigid.” The assistant director glanced around and whispered in Director Liu’s ear. “Song Yu’s scenes are coming up. He hasn’t finished with the styling?”
Director Liu strongly fanned himself. “Wait a bit before giving him a reminder.”
This actor was arranged by the management’s father and couldn’t afford to be offended.
Song Yu had some slight fame in the circle. Originally, the crew had set him as the number one male and the contract was even signed. Unexpected, they had just started shooting when he said he didn’t want to play the protagonist. He wanted to challenge the role of the number two male lead.
How was the role of the second male challenging? Wasn’t he a handsome, rich and gentle person obsessed with the female protagonist?
This type of character was the standard configuration for male leads in other idol dramas but their crew was different from those gorgeous on the outside. The other dramas had a prince and Cinderella while they had a princess and poor boy.
The domineering and rich female protagonist and the hard-working and indomitable pretty boy male protagonist was a good match.
Unfortunately, Director Liu himself was no longer satisfied with the role setting. Not only did Song Yu want to play the role of the second male lead, he also named the original second male lead, Li Zhao to play the male protagonist.
Director Liu was an ‘unyielding’ director. Thus, once he heard Song Yu ask his father to add millions more in investment, he agreed on the spot.
In the circle, there were often actors who asked their connections to throw money to raise their role. It was rare for an actor to throw money to reduce their role. Sure enough, he had been in the circle for a long time and there were really outlandish things. As a director, the most important thing was to be open-minded. No matter Song Yu’s intentions, he was doing charity for the crew.
After finishing the shot, Li Zhao dried the water on his face and found that many staff members didn’t have good expressions. He looked around and didn’t see Song Yu’s figure. The heroine was sitting on her chair and playing with her mobile phone and had an ‘it has nothing to do with me’ expression on her face.
He shook the water off his clothes and wrapped a dry towel around himself. Fortunately, it was a winter drama being shot in summer instead of the other way around, or he would be frozen on the spot.
He might be the first male lead but he was still a newcomer with the lowest star power in the crew. Li Zhao’s mood was very stable when seeing such a thing. In any case, he would still receive money for the filming.
“Teacher Li, you sit down and rest for a while. Teacher Song will come soon.”
The crew’s assistant looked sympathetically at Li Zhao. The next play was an opponent play between Song Yu and Li Zhao. The currently wet Li Zhao was sitting here waiting for Song Yu to come and shoot the scene. It was a bit like bullying.
Their group was poor and the first male lead was also poor. Don’t talk about eating the meal box every day. He lived an even more frugal life than the crew. He didn’t have an assistant around him and only one agent came to see him every other day.
Tonight, they had been shooting a night scene for nearly six hours. In order to film the effect, Li Zhao deliberately didn’t eat any dinner. From noon to now, he only had some dry steamed bread used in the filming. At this time, Song Yu didn’t come. The crew couldn’t call it a day and Li Zhao could only wait.
Facing the crew assistant’s expression that said ‘Although I sympathize with you, I can’t do anything about it’, Li Zhao just lay down on the chair. He wrapped himself in a blanket and closed his eyes.
After five minutes of lying down, he heard a loud greeting.
“Teacher Song is here. Teacher Song, good evening.”
“Teacher Song, this side has some spilled water and the ground is slippery. Please be careful with your feet.”
Hearing the movement, Li Zhao opened his eyes and met Song Yu’s gaze. Song Yu’s footsteps paused slightly before he raised his chin proudly and walked past Li Zhao.
Li Zhao raised an eyebrow and didn’t take Song Yu’s attitude to heart. Since the start of filming, Song Yu had rarely looked at him. Even if he did look, there was a slight pity and contempt in his eyes. Li Zhao suspected the fact that he was poor was known to the whole crew.
“Li Zhao, get ready. We will shot the next scene in 10 minutes.” Director Liu yawned and called for Li Zhao to come.
Li Zhao dropped the blanket and went in front of the camera. HE let the make-up artist fix his makeup while waiting for Song Yu’s body double to held Song Yu find the perfect position.
Since filming started, Song Yu had interrupted the shooting for various reasons. By the time they finished all scenes, it was already three in the morning.
Li Zhao returned to the makeup to remove the makeup and heard a makeup assistant cursing Song Yu in a low voice. However, once Song Yu’s assistant brought a midnight snack to the room, all the people in the dressing room were smiling and couldn’t see any impatience.
“Teacher Li, Brother Song heard that you didn’t eat tonight so he asked me to prepare more food for you.” The assistant handed Li Zhao large food containers and said with a smile, “Once you finish eating then go and rest early.”
“Thank you.” Li Zhao took the food containers and opened the lid to find a cup of milk tea, two pieces of cake and delicious barbecue. He took a deep breath to scent the deep aroma of the midnight snack and then took a big sip of the milk tea.
This was the main reason why he never complained about Song Yu making him stay up all night to film. Song Yu might love to be late, acted like a bigshot and had ordinary acting but he was generous.
As long as Song Yu was in the crew, he would give midnight snacks every day. This was already half of Li Zhao’s bread and butter. Who would think that their bread and butter wasn’t good?
The makeup artist removing Li Zhao’s make up saw the contents of the box and was hesitant. In particular, she saw Li Zhao drinking the milk tea and couldn’t help sighing.
‘Xiao Li, you should eat lightly. Song Yu, that heartless man is feeding you to make you fat!’
In his room, Song Yu saw his assistant come back and immediately asked, “Did Li Zhao eat those things?”
The assistant nodded. “He ate it.”
“That’s good.” Song Yu’s face showed a satisfied smile. According to this eating speed, Li Zhao would definitely become fat. Once the drama was shown and the audience paid attention later, they wouldn’t see the pretty face but the fat body. Who would become fans of such a celebrity?
“Brother Song, Li Zhao’s company has no resources and no one is behind him. He can’t threaten your position. Why are you spending so much to deal with him?” The assistant couldn’t understand. If Brother Song fears Li Zhao so much, why did he give the male lead role to Li Zhao?
“What do you know?” Song Yu lowered his eyelids to conceal his guilty conscience. A few months ago, he dreamt that he took the male lead in a small network drama. The crew was poor and broken. After receiving the script, he hadn’t intended to act. Who knew that after the show aired, there was a boom on the Internet and it boosted the careers of many actors. In particular, the role of the second male lead was popular through the entire network. Only he was different. He played the male lead who had a poor person set up. Not only was he poor, he was also stubborn. This caused resentment among many viewers and some even went to the crew’s official Weibo to scold the female lead for being blind to like so a male lead. They also scolded the screenwriter for writing such a plot, etc.
He didn’t take this matter seriously after waking up. Unexpectedly, someone handed him a script two days later and the script content was exactly the same as his dream. He suddenly understood that maybe this was a chance given to him by God. Thus, he had to trample on Li Zhao and eliminate this threat.
Li Zhao was eating in his room when he received a video call from his agent Zhang Xiaoyuan.
“Li Zhao, why are you eating again?” Zhang Xiaoyuan saw Li Zhao sitting cross-legged on the bed and eating pig trotters and the blood vessel on his forehead started swelling.
“Today I shot for 10 hours in a row and had no time to eat. Fortunately, there was Brother Song.” Li Zhao wiped the oil from the corner of his mouth and smiled. “You know my physique. I don’t have to worry about getting fat no matter how much I eat.”
“I’m not worried about you gaining weight. I’m worried that you will get into the habit of eating late at night and later no one will treat you to eat.” Seeing Li Zhao grab another skewer, Zhang Xiaoyuan gulped and spoke in a solemn tone. “Zhao ah, Brother has to tell you something bad.”
“What’s the matter?” Li Zhao looked up at the mobile phone lens.
“Our company went bankrupt and the boss ran away. We are out of a job.” After finishing this sentence, Zhang Xiaoyuan saw that Li Zhao holding the skewer didn’t respond and couldn’t help asking, “Do you… have no thoughts?”
“Oh?” Li Zhao blinked and expressed deep regret.
The two men looked at each other through the mobile phone lends and didn’t say anything.
A long time passed. Li Zhao saw that Zhang Xiaoyuan’s expression was too heavy and comforted the other person. “Brother Xiaoyuan, don’t be too sad. Why don’t you come to our crew for some meals? Brother Song also gives extra meals and it will save us a lot of money.”
Although eating for free was shameful but who would dare maintain their dignity in the face of eating and drinking well? Fortunately, in their poor crew, there was the generous Brother Song. It was very lucky.
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The author has something to say:
Song Yu: Don’t talk, I want quiet.