In the name of nourishing health, Tao Mu’s recent days were spent quite blissfully. When he stepped on the scales, he saw that he had gained three pounds, and his cheeks were visibly rounded. In the words of the three roommates, just after the Chinese New Year, he had started raising autumn fat.
“You are just jealous.” Tao Mu sat cross-legged on the bed in the dormitory, peeling an orange in his hands, and smirking as he bantered with everyone: “Can you call it fattening when it comes to the entertainment industry? It’s called energy storage——”
But before he finished speaking, he saw the TA of the ’08 Drama Department appear at the door panting and shouting loudly: “Tao Mu, why didn’t you turn on your phone! Hurry up, go to our department office. The head of the department is looking for you.”
Tao Mu was stunned when he heard the words, and subconsciously pulled out his phone from the bed——the screen was pitch black, and it was indeed out of power.
“What does old Bai want from me this evening?” Tao Mu asked as he crawled out of the bed.
Old Bai was the head of the Beijing Film Drama Department. His surname was Huang, but because his skin was very pale, his classmates called him old Bai (TN: old white) in private. No one knew exactly who came up with the nickname but that was what every student called him anyway. According to rumors, it could be traced back to old Bai’s student days.
“It seems to be because of an audition.” The TA said, looking at Tao Mu with envy.
Because Tao Mu brought money into the crew “The Great Wall of Flesh and Blood”, and also gained the reputation of being willing to suffer in order to interpret a character role well. Recently, there have been many film crews asking to talk to Tao Mu about investment. In order to win over Tao Mu, some crews even promised to wait until the summer vacation to start filming. However, Tao Mu lacked interest and did not relent at all. Those crews had no choice, they either sent their scripts to the headquarters of FlyNews.com, or tried their best to connect with him through a teacher at Beijing Film.
So recently, Tao Mu had been called to the office a lot of times. Basically, each time it was a crew asking a Beijing Film teacher to connect them with Tao Mu, wanting to invite Tao Mu to invest in their film. As for the role, so long as Tao Mu was willing to invest money of course everything was negotiable. In this situation, in the eyes of everyone, it was like a group of beautiful concubines taking off their clothes and waiting for the emperor to come favor them. But the emperor felt that his dragon body was not feeling well, and insisted on sleeping in the imperial study by himself.
“There are so many beautiful beauties undressed and waiting for you, but you don’t even bat an eye. In this situation, how can you ask us bachelors to accept such injustice.” Wen Bao, who was eating melon seeds with his legs crossed, sighed and put on a pretentious pose. With a Peking Opera pose, he shook his head and sighed, “How can we accept such injustice~~!”
“Rtight?!” Du Kang also shook his head, disapprovingly: “I say, don’t go overboard. So many crew directors have come to you. And if they can have the teachers in our school introduce them to you, it is likely that the script is also good. You could at least choose a few. Even if you don’t want to act yourself, you can recommend it to us. Don’t just keep silent and unrelenting. If one didn’t know better, one would think your kidneys are not good!”
What did this have to do with my kidneys? Tao Mu looked at Du Kang speechlessly: “Don’t worry about my kidneys. My kidneys are fine!”
Always maintaining a gentle and elegant demeanor in front of outsiders, in fact, Chu Sui’an, who was very devious inside, also shook his head and sighed: “Sure enough, capital daddy is not like us ordinary folks. We little common people are still in school and studying hard. While some people have already enjoyed the pleasure of being chased by directors waving scripts. People really can’t be compared!”
“Then why don’t you hurry up and bow to this capital daddy, so that when you do take on filming and join a crew in the future, you could enjoy the pleasure of having a backer behind you.” Tao Mu snorted particularly arrogantly and entered the bathroom with his cell phone that had just been charged. In the bathroom, he didn’t forget to say to the TA, “Wait for me a bit. I’ll go there right away.”
Du Kang followed capital daddy directly to the bathroom door, closed the door, turned off the light, and waited for capital daddy, whose kidney function was particularly good, to relieve himself, before scaring him in a sinister tone: “Actually wanting someone behind you in this dark night. Don’t you feel a chill down your spine. Aren’t you afraid to walk through this long corridor alone? Looking at the pale face reflected in the glass window, do you feel ahhhh——”
The bathroom door opened, and Du Kang was caught off guard when he came face to face with a big white face, almost scaring all the hair on his body to stand at attention. The tall fellow, who was nearly 1.9 meters tall, jumped three feet high, and scolded in shock, “Tao Mu, you are mental. It’s like the middle of the night, do you have to put on a face mask?”
“You’re such a coward, yet you dare to come and scare me.” Tao Mu sneered and took off the face mask: “You just wait until midnight tonight. I will definitely stand by your bed with the mask on and sing “Black Friday” to you.”
After Tao Mu finished speaking, without waiting for Du Kang’s reaction, he put on a down jacket and jeans and ran out. Running all the way to the drama department office. The head of the department, old Bai, was sitting right there.
Seeing Tao Mu knock on the door and come in, he immediately smiled and said, “You’re just in time. There’s a script here, you should read it first.”
Tao Mu didn’t read the script, but put it on the edge of the desk. He picked up the big thermos of tea that old Bai had nearly finished, and went to fill it up with hot water.
Old Bai took the thermos with a smile and took a sip. No wonder he liked Tao Mu. Not only because Tao Mu had ability and capital, but also because this child was too good at presenting himself. Moreover, he respected his teachers, and spoke and did things in ways that made people very comfortable.
“Sit down.” Old Bai said with a smile while holding the big thermos: “This script is not the same as the crews from before. It’s a movie co-produced by our mainland and Hong Kong. The total investment was 50 million yuan, and the male leads will be Zhou Yanqing from Hong Kong, and Yan Sheng from the mainland. Many supporting roles are also filled with A-list superstars from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Even the small supporting roles that only have a few scenes are filled with the hottest young actors and actresses in the circle.”
“They want you to play an undercover cop role.” When old Bai said this, he suddenly laughed: “It just so happens that the director of this movie, Xu Musen, was said to have seen you dancing in a nightclub in H Town. Back then he already thought that your appearance and temperament were very consistent with this character. But he never found you. After searching for more than half a year, he almost gave up. Later, he accidentally saw the dance video you uploaded on FlyNews.com, and “The Great Wall of Flesh and Blood” promotional video that he finally recognized you. At that time, he tried every means to inquire about you, and finally sent the audition invitation directly to Beijing Film.”
Old Bai smiled and said: “This film has been in preparation for several years. It was planned to start filming in Hong Kong in June this year. You don’t have many scenes, so you can join the crew during the summer vacation. And after joining the crew, most of your scenes will be with Yan Sheng, Zhou Yanqing and also several A-list big names. For new actors, this is a very good opportunity.”
Tao Mu’s face darkened slightly as he looked at the script without expression. On the white cover were huge bold words – “Black and White”.
Even without opening the script, Tao Mu knew what the movie was about. The male protagonist played by Yan Sheng was an undercover cop sent by the police to a mafia gang. He lived in the gang for seven or eight years, from a small fry to finally gaining the trust of the gang boss and becoming the confidante of the gang boss. However, in an anti-drug operation, another undercover cop who cooperated with Yan Sheng was killed and his body was thrown into the sea.
In order to complete the task, the police must send another undercover cop to cooperate with Yan Sheng. In order to gain the trust of the mafia gang, the undercover cop must have a clean background and be able to withstand verification. Therefore, after thinking about it, the police finally decided to select students who have not graduated from the police academy. The undercover cop candidate selected in the end was the police academy student that Tao Mu would be playing.
In the script setting, the police academy student Zhou Yuanting to be played by Tao Mu was a person who loved to play and fool around, liked to fight and cause trouble, was impulsive but had a strong sense of justice. On the eve of graduation, Zhou Yuanting was pushed by a friend to sneak out of the school to go to a nightclub. In the end, because he offended the nightclub owner by dancing with the proprietress, and got into a fight with the gangsters watching the venue, he was arrested at the police station together with everyone on the scene.
According to school regulations, Zhou Yuanting would be punished for skipping class without permission to go to a nightclub. What was more, he was arrested at the police station for picking quarrels and provoking trouble. Originally, Zhou Yuanting was going to be expelled from the school according to the school rules. The police, however, have been choosing undercover cops. Zhou Yuanting, who had fought with the nightclub owner, came into the higher ups’ sight. Because the nightclub owner who fought with Zhou Yuanting happened to be one of the high ranking gangsters of the mafia gang where the male protagonist was undercover.
So the police conveniently negotiated with Zhou Yuanting and wanted to convince Zhou Yuanting to be an undercover cop. Zhou Yuanting had studied hard at the police academy for four years, so of course he refused. However, if he did not agree, then the police academy would expel him. But if Zhou Yuanting agreed to go undercover, after the undercover operation was over, Zhou Yuanting would be able to return to the police force and be promoted directly. With coercion and inducement, Zhou Yuanting had no choice but to agree.
So under the deliberate arrangement of the police, Zhou Yuanting, who was expelled from the police academy, went to the nightclub to take revenge. Zhou Yuanting became good buddies with the nightclub owner after the fight and was recommended to the gang. However, Zhou Yuanting’s actions were not understood by his good friend and brother Yan Yu. He and Zhou Yuanting were classmates of the same year who were admitted to the police academy, and they were even roommates.
Yan Yu’s character was morally black and white, and what he hated most was the underworld and gangsters. He didn’t expect that Zhou Yuanting would actually degenerate into that after being expelled from school. Every time he saw Zhou Yuanting, he either persuaded him to leave the gang with righteous words, or made all kinds of reprimands. The good brothers who were originally like-minded soon parted ways.
Zhou Yuanting joined the mafia gang as an undercover cop, and he originally had a huge responsibility. Usually, he had to be careful about the intrigue in the gang, and he had to endure the incomprehension and even verbal abuse from relatives and friends. Even his father, who had always had high hopes for him, severed their father-son relationship. Zhou Yuanting was like a stuntman walking on a tightrope every day. He was not sure when he would be discovered as an undercover cop and fall to his death at that time. The only thing that made him feel gratified was that his immediate superior Yan Li rescued him several times when he was almost exposed. In the end, Yan Li practically became the only pillar of support that could sustain Zhou Yuanting.
However, what made Zhou Yuanting collapse mentally in the end was when he accidentally discovered that Yan Yu was actually Yan Li’s younger brother. The undercover cop candidate the police originally wanted to select was actually Yan Yu. However, this decision was stopped by Yan Li.
There were only two children in the Yan family, and Yan Li had already embarked on this path. He didn’t want his own younger brother to have such a hard life as well. So at Yan Li’s insistence, the police changed their initial thinking and replaced the undercover cop candidate with Zhou Yuanting. In Zhou Yuanting’s opinion, he was the one who took on all this for Yan Yu, while Yan Yu could stand in the sun in a police uniform and reprimand him like he was an unruly dog…..
Even after a lifetime, Tao Mu still had a fresh memory of this movie. Because he also acted in this movie in his previous life. And it was in this crew that he saw best actor Yan Sheng for the first time. Thus began a difficult career of being suppressed by the other in acting for six to seven years. And the person who played Yan Yu in the movie also happened to be Shen Yu.
Tao Mu still remembered that in his last life, how he had gone to such effort, and even used a lot of means in private to win the role of Zhou Yuanting. After the film was released, both his and Shen Yu’s roles were well received by the industry, and were nominated for the Golden Crow Award for Best Newcomer in one fell swoop. It was a pity that at the awards ceremony, because his acting was too suppressed by Yan Sheng, he ended up losing to Shen Yu, who just “played himself”.
In this life, Tao Mu never even recalled this part of his previous life once. But unexpectedly, after going around in circles, the crew actually found him by themselves.
Tao Mu hooked the corners of his mouth upwards into a smile that was not a smile. It should be said that the halo of the plot was indeed really powerful. He already went to such lengths to avoid the center of the plot storm yet it still insisted on having him carry on the plot.
Then should he also follow the plot master’s wishes just this once? It must be known that in his previous life, he was severely suppressed by Yan Sheng in this movie!
In this life however, he wondered if Yan Sheng still had the ability to suppress him in acting.
AN: Small skit——
Tao Mu: My head has become so swollen, I actually dare to fight with the plot halo! ! !
In the name of nourishing health, Tao Mu’s recent days were spent quite blissfully. When he stepped on the scales, he saw that he had gained three pounds, and his cheeks were visibly rounded. In the words of the three roommates, just after the Chinese New Year, he had started raising autumn fat.
“You are just jealous.” Tao Mu sat cross-legged on the bed in the dormitory, peeling an orange in his hands, and smirking as he bantered with everyone: “Can you call it fattening when it comes to the entertainment industry? It’s called energy storage——”
But before he finished speaking, he saw the TA of the ’08 Drama Department appear at the door panting and shouting loudly: “Tao Mu, why didn’t you turn on your phone! Hurry up, go to our department office. The head of the department is looking for you.”
Tao Mu was stunned when he heard the words, and subconsciously pulled out his phone from the bed——the screen was pitch black, and it was indeed out of power.
“What does old Bai want from me this evening?” Tao Mu asked as he crawled out of the bed.
Old Bai was the head of the Beijing Film Drama Department. His surname was Huang, but because his skin was very pale, his classmates called him old Bai (TN: old white) in private. No one knew exactly who came up with the nickname but that was what every student called him anyway. According to rumors, it could be traced back to old Bai’s student days.
“It seems to be because of an audition.” The TA said, looking at Tao Mu with envy.
Because Tao Mu brought money into the crew “The Great Wall of Flesh and Blood”, and also gained the reputation of being willing to suffer in order to interpret a character role well. Recently, there have been many film crews asking to talk to Tao Mu about investment. In order to win over Tao Mu, some crews even promised to wait until the summer vacation to start filming. However, Tao Mu lacked interest and did not relent at all. Those crews had no choice, they either sent their scripts to the headquarters of FlyNews.com, or tried their best to connect with him through a teacher at Beijing Film.
So recently, Tao Mu had been called to the office a lot of times. Basically, each time it was a crew asking a Beijing Film teacher to connect them with Tao Mu, wanting to invite Tao Mu to invest in their film. As for the role, so long as Tao Mu was willing to invest money of course everything was negotiable. In this situation, in the eyes of everyone, it was like a group of beautiful concubines taking off their clothes and waiting for the emperor to come favor them. But the emperor felt that his dragon body was not feeling well, and insisted on sleeping in the imperial study by himself.
“There are so many beautiful beauties undressed and waiting for you, but you don’t even bat an eye. In this situation, how can you ask us bachelors to accept such injustice.” Wen Bao, who was eating melon seeds with his legs crossed, sighed and put on a pretentious pose. With a Peking Opera pose, he shook his head and sighed, “How can we accept such injustice~~!”
“Rtight?!” Du Kang also shook his head, disapprovingly: “I say, don’t go overboard. So many crew directors have come to you. And if they can have the teachers in our school introduce them to you, it is likely that the script is also good. You could at least choose a few. Even if you don’t want to act yourself, you can recommend it to us. Don’t just keep silent and unrelenting. If one didn’t know better, one would think your kidneys are not good!”
What did this have to do with my kidneys? Tao Mu looked at Du Kang speechlessly: “Don’t worry about my kidneys. My kidneys are fine!”
Always maintaining a gentle and elegant demeanor in front of outsiders, in fact, Chu Sui’an, who was very devious inside, also shook his head and sighed: “Sure enough, capital daddy is not like us ordinary folks. We little common people are still in school and studying hard. While some people have already enjoyed the pleasure of being chased by directors waving scripts. People really can’t be compared!”
“Then why don’t you hurry up and bow to this capital daddy, so that when you do take on filming and join a crew in the future, you could enjoy the pleasure of having a backer behind you.” Tao Mu snorted particularly arrogantly and entered the bathroom with his cell phone that had just been charged. In the bathroom, he didn’t forget to say to the TA, “Wait for me a bit. I’ll go there right away.”
Du Kang followed capital daddy directly to the bathroom door, closed the door, turned off the light, and waited for capital daddy, whose kidney function was particularly good, to relieve himself, before scaring him in a sinister tone: “Actually wanting someone behind you in this dark night. Don’t you feel a chill down your spine. Aren’t you afraid to walk through this long corridor alone? Looking at the pale face reflected in the glass window, do you feel ahhhh——”
The bathroom door opened, and Du Kang was caught off guard when he came face to face with a big white face, almost scaring all the hair on his body to stand at attention. The tall fellow, who was nearly 1.9 meters tall, jumped three feet high, and scolded in shock, “Tao Mu, you are mental. It’s like the middle of the night, do you have to put on a face mask?”
“You’re such a coward, yet you dare to come and scare me.” Tao Mu sneered and took off the face mask: “You just wait until midnight tonight. I will definitely stand by your bed with the mask on and sing “Black Friday” to you.”
After Tao Mu finished speaking, without waiting for Du Kang’s reaction, he put on a down jacket and jeans and ran out. Running all the way to the drama department office. The head of the department, old Bai, was sitting right there.
Seeing Tao Mu knock on the door and come in, he immediately smiled and said, “You’re just in time. There’s a script here, you should read it first.”
Tao Mu didn’t read the script, but put it on the edge of the desk. He picked up the big thermos of tea that old Bai had nearly finished, and went to fill it up with hot water.
Old Bai took the thermos with a smile and took a sip. No wonder he liked Tao Mu. Not only because Tao Mu had ability and capital, but also because this child was too good at presenting himself. Moreover, he respected his teachers, and spoke and did things in ways that made people very comfortable.
“Sit down.” Old Bai said with a smile while holding the big thermos: “This script is not the same as the crews from before. It’s a movie co-produced by our mainland and Hong Kong. The total investment was 50 million yuan, and the male leads will be Zhou Yanqing from Hong Kong, and Yan Sheng from the mainland. Many supporting roles are also filled with A-list superstars from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Even the small supporting roles that only have a few scenes are filled with the hottest young actors and actresses in the circle.”
“They want you to play an undercover cop role.” When old Bai said this, he suddenly laughed: “It just so happens that the director of this movie, Xu Musen, was said to have seen you dancing in a nightclub in H Town. Back then he already thought that your appearance and temperament were very consistent with this character. But he never found you. After searching for more than half a year, he almost gave up. Later, he accidentally saw the dance video you uploaded on FlyNews.com, and “The Great Wall of Flesh and Blood” promotional video that he finally recognized you. At that time, he tried every means to inquire about you, and finally sent the audition invitation directly to Beijing Film.”
Old Bai smiled and said: “This film has been in preparation for several years. It was planned to start filming in Hong Kong in June this year. You don’t have many scenes, so you can join the crew during the summer vacation. And after joining the crew, most of your scenes will be with Yan Sheng, Zhou Yanqing and also several A-list big names. For new actors, this is a very good opportunity.”
Tao Mu’s face darkened slightly as he looked at the script without expression. On the white cover were huge bold words – “Black and White”.
Even without opening the script, Tao Mu knew what the movie was about. The male protagonist played by Yan Sheng was an undercover cop sent by the police to a mafia gang. He lived in the gang for seven or eight years, from a small fry to finally gaining the trust of the gang boss and becoming the confidante of the gang boss. However, in an anti-drug operation, another undercover cop who cooperated with Yan Sheng was killed and his body was thrown into the sea.
In order to complete the task, the police must send another undercover cop to cooperate with Yan Sheng. In order to gain the trust of the mafia gang, the undercover cop must have a clean background and be able to withstand verification. Therefore, after thinking about it, the police finally decided to select students who have not graduated from the police academy. The undercover cop candidate selected in the end was the police academy student that Tao Mu would be playing.
In the script setting, the police academy student Zhou Yuanting to be played by Tao Mu was a person who loved to play and fool around, liked to fight and cause trouble, was impulsive but had a strong sense of justice. On the eve of graduation, Zhou Yuanting was pushed by a friend to sneak out of the school to go to a nightclub. In the end, because he offended the nightclub owner by dancing with the proprietress, and got into a fight with the gangsters watching the venue, he was arrested at the police station together with everyone on the scene.
According to school regulations, Zhou Yuanting would be punished for skipping class without permission to go to a nightclub. What was more, he was arrested at the police station for picking quarrels and provoking trouble. Originally, Zhou Yuanting was going to be expelled from the school according to the school rules. The police, however, have been choosing undercover cops. Zhou Yuanting, who had fought with the nightclub owner, came into the higher ups’ sight. Because the nightclub owner who fought with Zhou Yuanting happened to be one of the high ranking gangsters of the mafia gang where the male protagonist was undercover.
So the police conveniently negotiated with Zhou Yuanting and wanted to convince Zhou Yuanting to be an undercover cop. Zhou Yuanting had studied hard at the police academy for four years, so of course he refused. However, if he did not agree, then the police academy would expel him. But if Zhou Yuanting agreed to go undercover, after the undercover operation was over, Zhou Yuanting would be able to return to the police force and be promoted directly. With coercion and inducement, Zhou Yuanting had no choice but to agree.
So under the deliberate arrangement of the police, Zhou Yuanting, who was expelled from the police academy, went to the nightclub to take revenge. Zhou Yuanting became good buddies with the nightclub owner after the fight and was recommended to the gang. However, Zhou Yuanting’s actions were not understood by his good friend and brother Yan Yu. He and Zhou Yuanting were classmates of the same year who were admitted to the police academy, and they were even roommates.
Yan Yu’s character was morally black and white, and what he hated most was the underworld and gangsters. He didn’t expect that Zhou Yuanting would actually degenerate into that after being expelled from school. Every time he saw Zhou Yuanting, he either persuaded him to leave the gang with righteous words, or made all kinds of reprimands. The good brothers who were originally like-minded soon parted ways.
Zhou Yuanting joined the mafia gang as an undercover cop, and he originally had a huge responsibility. Usually, he had to be careful about the intrigue in the gang, and he had to endure the incomprehension and even verbal abuse from relatives and friends. Even his father, who had always had high hopes for him, severed their father-son relationship. Zhou Yuanting was like a stuntman walking on a tightrope every day. He was not sure when he would be discovered as an undercover cop and fall to his death at that time. The only thing that made him feel gratified was that his immediate superior Yan Li rescued him several times when he was almost exposed. In the end, Yan Li practically became the only pillar of support that could sustain Zhou Yuanting.
However, what made Zhou Yuanting collapse mentally in the end was when he accidentally discovered that Yan Yu was actually Yan Li’s younger brother. The undercover cop candidate the police originally wanted to select was actually Yan Yu. However, this decision was stopped by Yan Li.
There were only two children in the Yan family, and Yan Li had already embarked on this path. He didn’t want his own younger brother to have such a hard life as well. So at Yan Li’s insistence, the police changed their initial thinking and replaced the undercover cop candidate with Zhou Yuanting. In Zhou Yuanting’s opinion, he was the one who took on all this for Yan Yu, while Yan Yu could stand in the sun in a police uniform and reprimand him like he was an unruly dog…..
Even after a lifetime, Tao Mu still had a fresh memory of this movie. Because he also acted in this movie in his previous life. And it was in this crew that he saw best actor Yan Sheng for the first time. Thus began a difficult career of being suppressed by the other in acting for six to seven years. And the person who played Yan Yu in the movie also happened to be Shen Yu.
Tao Mu still remembered that in his last life, how he had gone to such effort, and even used a lot of means in private to win the role of Zhou Yuanting. After the film was released, both his and Shen Yu’s roles were well received by the industry, and were nominated for the Golden Crow Award for Best Newcomer in one fell swoop. It was a pity that at the awards ceremony, because his acting was too suppressed by Yan Sheng, he ended up losing to Shen Yu, who just “played himself”.
In this life, Tao Mu never even recalled this part of his previous life once. But unexpectedly, after going around in circles, the crew actually found him by themselves.
Tao Mu hooked the corners of his mouth upwards into a smile that was not a smile. It should be said that the halo of the plot was indeed really powerful. He already went to such lengths to avoid the center of the plot storm yet it still insisted on having him carry on the plot.
Then should he also follow the plot master’s wishes just this once? It must be known that in his previous life, he was severely suppressed by Yan Sheng in this movie!
In this life however, he wondered if Yan Sheng still had the ability to suppress him in acting.
AN: Small skit——
Tao Mu: My head has become so swollen, I actually dare to fight with the plot halo! ! !
