A Contemptuous Beauty

Asking an actor “do you want to be a lead actor” was like asking Fan Jin if he wanted to pass the provincial exam.[1]

“A soldier who doesn’t want to be a general is not a good soldier,” Cheng Yan turned around and faced Xia Shaoqian, “An actor who doesn’t want to be a leading actor is not a good actor.”

Xia Shaoqian didn’t speak, opening his mouth to suck on Cheng Yan’s upper lip, biting lightly with his teeth.

Cheng Yan responded unconsciously to this warm and soft flirtation. Soon, their lips and tongues became entangled, and a feeling of numbness and total satisfaction spread through his body from his mouth.

The bedside lamp cast a soft, ambient light. The fierce and tempestuous storm had passed, and Cheng Yan floated gently amidst the dregs of lust. Thoughts about a “starring role” gradually left his mind, and he fell asleep in this comfortable exhaustion.

The next morning, Cheng Yan was shaken awake. Xia Shaoqian was sitting beside him on the bed, already dressed. He handed a tie to Cheng Yan. “Help me tie it.”

Cheng Yan hurriedly sat up, grabbed a bathrobe and put it on, and took the tie. Xia Shaoqian had already lowered his head, so Cheng Yan wrapped the tie around his collar.

Tying someone else’s tie wasn’t the same as tying your own. Cheng Yan fiddled with it clumsily, wondering how Xia Shaoqian was so good at being waited on hand and foot.

“Yesterday, we were talking about a starring role.” Xia Shaoqian didn’t seem to be in a hurry, watching Cheng Yan’s actions patiently.

“Oh…” Cheng Yan calmed himself, “I will follow Mr. Xia’s arrangement.”

Xia Shaoqian hummed and said nothing more.

After tying his tie, Cheng Yan adjusted it a bit to make it lie smoothly. Xia Shaoqian scooted over unexpectedly and left a kiss on his lips.

Until Xia Shaoqian left, Cheng Yan was still a little confused.

In acting, it’s also important to know the enemy and know yourself.[2] He was still groping in the dark, trying to get into character, but Xia Shaoqian had already gotten into the role. He seemed relaxed and confident.

Cheng Yan pondered the matter for a while and finally became dejected — if the two changed positions, if he was the one paying, then perhaps he would also become bold and unrestrained, playing however he liked.

His scenes as the unfortunate constable in the martial arts drama had ended. After that, Cheng Yan only had some miscellaneous work scheduled. Xiao Hu accompanied him to record two talk shows.

As soon as he came out of the TV station that day, he encountered a squatting fan[3]–although they were few in number, Cheng Yan also had fans.

The young girl happily approached him, took a photo with Cheng Yan, and asked, “Have you already finished shooting Jade Dragon Art?”[4]

Cheng Yan replied, “My role is over.”

The little girl fidgeted a little, opened her mouth a few times, and finally asked, “Someone said on the Internet that you were ostracized… and all your later scenes were deleted. It’s not true, right?”

Before Cheng Yan even opened his mouth, Xiao Hu quickly interrupted, “How could Cheng Yan be ostracized? Everyone in the crew praised him for being a great guy and having great acting skills. This time it was originally a small role, with only so many scenes. We can’t just ignore the plot and forcefully ask to add more, right? You can’t believe what you read online.”

He had a simple and honest face, and his words sounded very sincere.

The young girl immediately looked at Cheng Yan for confirmation, eyes sparkling. Cheng Yan only nodded.

When he got into the nanny van, Xiao Hu suddenly said, “This is my carelessness. I have to go talk to the Jade Dragon crew. They can make news for PR however they like, as long as they don’t do it on you.”

“There’s no way, right?” Cheng Yan felt that he had nothing to create a scandal with, unless the affair between him and Xia Shaoqian was revealed.

Xiao Hu retorted, “Why not? What if you have a big role afterward? It just happens that Jade Dragon Art is about to be finished. You think they won’t drag you to make headlines as much as they can? It’s not impossible that they’ll say you finished in a rush with Jade Dragon to take your next job.”

This is basically the truth. Cheng Yan remembered Xia Shaoqian hugging him and asking “do you want to be a lead actor” two days ago.

“There’s really a big role?” He asked.

Xiao Hu smiled: “I only heard a hint from my master. It seems like there’s something adapted from a novel. As for the exact details, he will definitely tell you in person, when the time comes.”

Generally speaking, scripts adapted from novels were more solid, and their plots were deeper.

When Cheng Yan regained his senses, he realized that he was clenching his hands tightly, and trembling a little.

That night, Yang-laoshi actually asked him to meet at the company and talk.

There were two other people who came with Yang-laoshi, and he introduced them. “This is Director He. He directed two dramas and the ratings of both are very good. Everyone has heard of them.”

Cheng Yan laughed along twice, but inside, his doubts deepened. Director He was not an unknown person in the circle, but his specialty was playing the youthful purity card. He liked using young actors who had just graduated.

They had just sat down with a cup of tea each. Yang-laoshi went straight to the point. “Director He is going to shoot Daisy and Silver Fir this time, and there’s a role that suits you very well.”

“Daisy and Silver Fir?” Cheng Yan guessed it was the title of the novel, but he hadn’t read it.

Director He’s assistant immediately took out a copy from his bag and handed it to him. “It’s a new best-selling young adult novel. The official version has already sold nearly 100,000 copies, which is quite an impressive number. Our company had to fight to get the adaptation rights.”

The bright blue cover was beautifully done. Cheng Yan turned to the first page of the text and at a glance, saw the words “second year of high school”.

“This… protagonist is a high school student?”

The small conference room instantly fell silent, and the atmosphere suddenly chilled. Cheng Yan raised his head to look at the group. Yang-laoshi was smoking with a relaxed look, and Xiao Hu was diligently writing something in a small notebook. Director He hadn’t spoken from the beginning, and now he had even less intention of saying anything.

If this was a manga, there should be a lightning bolt with a sound effect like “Boom!”. Cheng Yan laughed bitterly in his heart.

In the end, it was Director He’s assistant who broke the awkward silence. “…the novel ends with their university graduation.”

Even a university graduate was still only twenty-one or twenty-two. Cheng Yan was twenty-nine this year, and he would be thirty when they finished shooting the show and started broadcasting.

In fact, he didn’t look old at all. His skin and figure were good, and not much had changed from when he was twenty years old. But the biggest difference between twenty-year-olds and thirty-year-olds was temperament.

In the end, Director He half-heartedly made an appointment with Yang-laoshi for an audition. They called it going to audition, but in fact, everyone knew it was running through a scene at most. Sure enough, they immediately began discussing the schedule. Several people were smoking. Cheng Yan, who had quit his smoking addiction a long time ago, was finally tempted, and he asked Xiao Hu for a cigarette.

As the warm and slightly spicy smoke filled his nose, Cheng Yan gradually calmed down.

[1] Refers to “范进中举” (“Fan Jin Passes the Provincial Exam”) from a satirical novel by Wu Jingzi, Unofficial History of the Scholars. The story is about an unfortunate scholar who doesn’t pass the provincial exam (which would give him a civil service post and special rights) until his fifties. The difference in how his father-in-law treats him before and after passing the exam reveals how people treat each other differently based on status.

[2] Comes from a quote in Sun Tzu’s Art of War. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

[3] Fans that stake out somewhere (such as by TV stations, film sets, hotels) to see their favourite celebrity.

[4] This last character which I translated to “art” is kind of hard to translate into English. I think it means a secret technique or secret jutsu.