C68

Meng Chuan’s “handsome”, wasn’t about his appearance, in fact, it referred to his temperament.

Modern special effects makeup was so advanced, it could change a person’s appearance easily, but changing a person’s temperament, was very difficult.

Although Zhou Yuhe’s family was average, his mother was a professor of ancient Chinese, with a good family education, he grew up with a strong bookish aura.

After that, he entered the flashy and extravagant entertainment industry, and under the strict star-making system of I.S Entertainment, his temperament became more and more unique and outstanding, and later on he ushered in the burst of his career and became a super first-tier superstar in China.

His manner of speech couldn’t hide his strong, unique aura.

This aura, in his years after the disfigurement in his former life, was became depressed.

But after his rebirth, it undoubtedly returned to his body.

And also because his experiences, it became even brighter, making people fall into the light.

It was so obvious, that even at night, even with a hat, even sitting quietly in the corner –

He could instantly capture the attention of the crowd.

Such a person, even if he wore rag, he would still stand out.

Even if his face was dirty, the audience would also see his potential from his delicate and perfect features, they would believe that he could be a model, a star, or do all the things that could be achievable with his face.

The only thing they couldn’t believe was that he would be poor for the rest of his life.

*********

Zhou Yuhe was sitting on the sofa in his living room, and the drizzling rain fell outside the window.

He carefully recalled that night in Tokyo, Meng Chuan stood in the crowd and showed him that smile.

That smile with three parts scrutiny, three parts mockery, and very distrustful.

Zhou Yuhe was very reluctant, but couldn’t refute it.

What was more convincing than the truth?

In the streets of a foreign country, wearing a duck-tongue hat that even his own mother wouldn’t recognise him at a glance.

The standard of his performance wasn’t even as good as some high school students.

But the reality was so jaw-dropping.

When Meng Chuan said those words, it was as if he was instantly poured a basin of ice water over his head.

All the enthusiasm for “Cat” and for An Xue was frozen.

Zhou Yuhe began to calm down.

He leaned his head on the sofa, listened to the sound of rain outside the window, and began to think carefully about the roles he had played before.

Indeed, in his twenty-year-long acting career, it wasn’t that there weren’t times when his acting skills exploded, and it wasn’t that there weren’t times when he played minor characters. After his disfigurement, playing the Canon Fodder, playing the bad villain, these had become his daily routine.

But.

There were many different categories of minor characters, and it was true that he hadn’t played such a precarious and vulnerable person.

And as a supporting actor, Zhou Yuhe had played those minor characters on screen for no more than twenty minutes at most.

His experience, his ability to figure out the character, could be satisfactory with less than twenty minutes of performance.

But it couldn’t hold up a two-hour-long literary film.

This not only required superb acting skills, but also required the actor to truly imprint the hardship on his soul, in order to perform that desperation of being forced by poverty to go nowhere.

If you hadn’t really been poor and lived in the slums, you simply couldn’t act out a convincing performance.

“I can tell you clearly, your acting is very good, but what I need is not ‘acting’.”

“For commercial movies, I can’t make too many demands on the actors’ acting skills, natural and vivid is fine, but not for literary movies.”

“Literary films represent a director’s artistic pursuit and spiritual desire for his production career, I can’t accept that you have a hint of incongruity in the big screen, nor can I accept that the audience only notices your face instead of the film itself, believe me, a director’s harshness towards art and actors will exceed your imagination.”

“It’s not that I don’t agree with your acting skills or hate you as a person, but when I say you can’t act, you can’t act, unless you can prove to me -”

“How far can you, a 20-year-old famous star with millions of fans, sacrifice for this movie?”

“Don’t be in a hurry to refute, you better …… think it through.”

……

Meng Chuan wanted him to think clearly.

In fact, he did need to think clearly.

The sound of rain outside the window, continued.

It came into Zhou Yuhe’s ears and gradually overlapped the sound of rain he heard the day before when he was in Yang Yu’s office.

“Meng Chuan is right, I can fully understand his concerns. He is a good director and ‘Cat’ is a good script, but you may not be a ‘good actor’ under his standards. How far can you sacrifice for this film? Time? Energy? These are often the most luxurious things for a first-rate actor. He told me that he expected a seven-month shooting period, and that you have to take three months to learn and experience life. A full ten-month vacuum. With that time, you could have made two movies. He must be crazy.”

Yang Yu added with an annoyed frown, “We approached him to make a movie, but he wants to make artwork. The time is too much, and Cai Yuan and I decided after further consideration that we should find a new director for Cat.”

Zhou Yuhe sat on the swivel chair with his head bowed.

“Yuhe?” Yang Yu saw that something was wrong with him.

“…… I’ll think about it again.” Zhou Yuhe’s voice was very soft, and no emotion could be heard.

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10 Replies to “C68”

  1. Some people have fought in wars so they have first-hand experience but they can’t convincingly portray the emotions of a person caught up in such a momentous and tragic event. Some have never had to live through a war, yet they are still able to convey a soldier’s feelings and thoughts… Meng Chuan’s arguments seem flimsy to me.
    Thank you for the chapter <3

    1. Honestly, yeah. It’s not like all great actors have lived through hardships and that’s why they play their roles so well.

    2. While that is true, the point is that Zhou Yuhe is still not good enough yet. As you said, “some”, and only some. I’m actually glad that Zhou Yuhe didn’t meet Meng Chuan’s expectations, because it shows he’s not a perfect acting god yet, and there’s more room for development. It’s always nice when the MC is powerful but not too OP.

      1. Honetsly agree. I find it boring when the MC is already perfect from the start, there’s no such thing as a “perfect” actor, there’s always room for improvements, there are always more outstanding performances and new roles unlike what you have acted previously, even with over 20 years of experience. I look forward to seeing ZYH resolve this hurdle.

    3. I agree, if you have to have first hand experience to act well, sorry, there’s no actors with such wide experience, no actor would be a good actor. Or at least, they’d be stuck with a small handful of types of characters.

  2. Thanks for the update

  3. Thanks for the chapter! 💕

  4. But he does have first hand experience…in his first life. He was disfigured and beaten down and raised back up on his own so not sure why the MC is not confident in himself

    1. I think it’s because even though he has experience, the insecurity he felt when he was disfigured carried over, especially after the mean comments and everything else.

    2. I guess his experience is being ridiculed for being ugly, not poor, very different things. Also this is the type of poor of being very hopeless and aren’t even deemed human by others. Whatever it is, our MC never lose hope until the end in his last life. He fought hard.

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