17
Li Mu denied it, and Qiu Ming waved his hand: “I understand, I understand. By the way, I saw something good in the hot search and I sent it to you. Take a look.”
Li Mu took out his phone and a message from Qiu Ming popped up with many pictures.
Qiu Ming said, “He also went to a red carpet event yesterday afternoon, and finished in the evening.”
In the picture was the child who auditioned with him.
He wore a shirt and coat and stood in the middle of the red carpet with a smile on his face. His eyes looked round when opened and were shaped like a crescent moon when he smiled. The narrow lines looked deeper and harder, diluting the softness of his features.
It looked good but not as good-looking as the real person. Probably only 30% like the real person.
Qiu Ming said: “You have to see the raw pictures and the two videos. You might be tempted!”
Li Mu: “What’s a raw picture?”
Qiu Ming grabbed his phone and pointed it out to him: “Raw pictures aren’t fine-tuned. They are fan shots, I’ll show you.”
Li Mu looked down.
In the picture, Zhuang Qin seemed to be surrounded by a few bodyguards and was probably talking to the actor next to him and only had his side face exposed. His side face was very clear, his forehead was full and his nose was straight, his jawline was also exquisite. The whole body was surrounded by a noble temperament that was incompatible with the surrounding crowd.
Turning back, he seemed to notice the fan. His face turned sideways and then to the front with a smile.
Clicking on the moving picture, the whole action of looking back was slowed down: as he talked with his head down to looking back with a bright smile and then turning back around. At less than twenty years old, his whole body seemed full of vigor and youthfulness. There was an overall temperament of being between a boy and a man.
Li Mu watched for a few seconds and then put the phone down as if saying: there’s nothing good to look at.
Qiu Ming didn’t stop him, he only said: “When you guys start filming, I’ll go visit the set every day. How can pictures look better than real people?”
Li Mu didn’t say anything and his face remained expressionless. After eating, he went back to the hotel, took a shower, and went to bed. With his head resting on the pillow, he opened his phone and then returned to the chatbox with Qui Ming.
He didn’t know what was wrong, but he clicked on those pictures one by one, finally selected one, and then long pressed to save it.
………………………………
Zhuang Qin was reading the script and taking notes when Sister Min’s message suddenly popped up on his phone screen.
“Did you buy a hot search?”
“No, Sister Min, why?”
Sister Min sent a screenshot to him: “I asked around, the company didn’t buy it for you. your hot search package for the year was withdrawn.”
Zhuang Qin looked at the screenshot, [Zhuang Qin looks back] Tag was in the first position.
Below were the regular 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th actors who dominate the hot search all year round. The keywords on his tag were red carpet, raw picture, and fairy.
Zhuang Qin replied, “Xiao Lian sent it to me this afternoon to see. Then, it was in fifth place.”
Sister Min sent another screenshot to him: “If I remember correctly, this is your black1anti fan fan?”
Zhuang Qin said he didn’t remember.
Looking at the screenshot, Sister Min had an impression of the black fan’s ID and posted under the account: “Who is this? Zhuang Qin? This blogger you sent the wrong picture, I don’t believe it! He is really so good-looking? Did you do something??”
It was followed by the reply: “Indeed, he feels so different ……”
“[Shy] this is our brother’s raw picture. He didn’t fix it. Thank you all for paying attention to our brother [picture]”
“Upstairs, the video can be photoshopped, so the raw picture wasn’t photoshopped as well? You sent a refined picture to fool your father!”
“Fix your mother’s face*! This is nature’s magic work!”
t/n: a curse
“If you don’t believe me, look at the picture I just cut from Visual China. It looks 100,000 times better than the refined one! [picture]”
Now seeing these defending fans and the black fans who were showing signs of reversal*, there was both long-lost joy and soreness in his heart and his eyes were full of tears.
t/n: coming around (to be fans)
Sister Min sent him a few more pictures: “This time it’s out of the circle!”
In fact, a large part of Zhuang Qin’s traffic was from marketing accounts. He had as many black fans as normal fans, but there were only a few black spots that went around and half of them were made up of rumors.
“Holy shit, who is this. Is this the one who acted “Sword Like a Rainbow???” Why doesn’t he look the same? This shape is too amazing!”
“U1S1*, Although the Top-brand is uneducated, his face value is really too good.”
t/n: u1s1: speaking logically”; “it makes sense”
The “top brand” is Zhuang Qin’s black name.*
t/n: hate name
In his first role in the ancient drama series “Sword Like a Rainbow”, there was an episode where he dressed up as a flower* girl and appeared as a top girl in a brothel. Although his features were mild and delicate, he was still a man, and his profile was different from the actresses. His eyes and brows looked harder, plus the red skirt style in that episode was ridiculous and his lines were also ridiculous. The shots were also photoshopped and edited. It was really too eye-catching.
t/n: flower girl = courtesan
“I’m laughing to death. This is the top brand? the one everyone wants to pay for one night? Are all the extras blind!!”
Thus, the black name appeared.
Since his rebirth, Zhuang Qin has avoided the entertainment news and even his own news; whether good or bad.
Sister Min thinks this was also good because in the past Zhuang Qin looked at those negative things the black fans posted and was often angered to tears by those rumors.
Now he simply doesn’t look at it and she doesn’t have to enlighten or comfort him: “You, don’t look at the bad ones, just look at the good ones”.
Even so, Sister Min will still send him a little news from time to time, so that he will not be out of touch with the circle.
What she doesn’t know was that Zhuang Qin doesn’t look, not because he doesn’t care, but because he cared too much.
At a young age, he was picked up by the master and his wife*. Although he bore the surname Zhuang, he knew in his heart that he was only just an adopted apprentice. From childhood, the master was strict with him. He did not dare to fight nor want anything and never complained.
t/n: Shifu and Shiniang. Shifu = teacher/master. Shiniang = wife of one teacher or female teacher. I’ll alternate between that and master & mother.
Since then, he accumulated a very deep desire. He acted as a stand-in for Zheng Fengbai and finally got the lead role. The crew finally gave him an episode pay of 40,000. His account suddenly increased by more than two million and he ran to the supermarket that day, wildly buying thousands worth of snacks to take home.
Last year, when the drama was broadcast, he became a hit and many people liked him.
When his agent approached him to sign with her, Zhuang Qin asked Sister Min: “I want to shoot a movie, If I sign a contract with you, will I be able to shoot a movie?”
Sister Min said: “We signed you so that we could give you a movie to shoot.”
After the accident, Zhuang Qin returned from the United States after attending his mother’s funeral, and when he got off the plane, he saw a large number of media blocking the airport.
This time, however, it wasn’t to pick him up or was deliberately arranged by the company.
Countless microphones pointedly poked him in the face: “Zhuang Qin, why are you trying to get people killed?”
“Did you know that the stand-in’s sister is your fan?”
“Your company issued a statement saying that it will compensate 150,000. Are you still a human being?”
Zhuang Qin couldn’t answer a single question.
There was a passerby around who shouted out: “He is a murderer!”
One of the paparazzi who was known for their unscrupulousness was stopped by a bodyguard for pushing him. The bodyguard acted even more rudely and pushed back and the paparazzi fell to the ground. he started shouting that he had been hit, that the big star had hit someone.
Zhuang Qin tried to bend down to help him but several other paparazzi surged forward to crowd him. The bodyguards protected him and told him to leave it alone while escorting him to the car.
No one will dislike fame and fortune, but after losing it once, he finally climbed out of the quagmire of desperation and accepted everything. He was afraid that he would lose this bet and lose everything again, so he forced himself not to care.
The materialistic circle was always rapidly changing and like countless other people, he had been reduced to a grain of sand in the torrent of the times.
There were not many days left in March. Director Guo had gone to Thailand for a week and Zhuang Qin finished his work and applied to add Li Mu as a friend.
More than a week ago, Director Guo said in the group chat that it would be more efficient for them to talk and rehearse together rather than memorizing the lines alone
The result was that a week had passed, and the two did not even add each other as friends.
After a while, Li Mu’s side agreed.
Zhuang Qin found an animated picture of a cute cat from his emoji package and sent it over.
“Are you in the capital?”
Li Mu, who was back home in Hebei, answered: “No.”
Before the message was sent, the other side replied: “Director Guo said that if it was okay we can act rehearse together in advance.”
Li Mu: “Yes.”
The author has something to say.
Li Mu: no one saw me save the picture, just pretend as if I didn’t do it
