The Deadbeat Gambler

On the Clear Water Bay set, a martial arts film by a big director like Zhang Che naturally needed stuntmen.

But TVB's serial dramas were not that luxurious. They basically used extras, and very rarely did dedicated stuntmen appear in action scenes.

A good stuntman could make over a hundred dollars a day. Extras earned at most 30 a day, and with TVB's penny-pinching style, dramas naturally used extras.

So although his uncle had wanted to get Kang Jianfei apprenticed under Li Jiading and work stunt jobs, during the filming of Chu Liuxiang, Kang Jianfei could only be an extra, pretending to be a corpse or a background passerby.

Of course, when Li Jiading was directing the action scenes, Kang Jianfei could stand nearby and steal a bit of craft. Sometimes Li Jiading would point out a thing or two to him, but how much he could learn depended entirely on Kang Jianfei's own talent.

Before he knew it, Kang Jianfei had been running errands as an extra at the Clear Water Bay set for a week, and in his spare time he also wrote a little fiction.

At the urging of his cousin Wu Ruiqing, The Legend of Qin quickly passed 200,000 characters.

During that time, he also made a few friends, like Huang Minyi, Tang Zhenye's classmate from the TVB training course, A Kun the set hand on Chu Liuxiang, and a few extras scraping by on the production.

As for the big-bellied director Wang Tianlin, and stars like Zheng Shaoqiu and Zhao Yazhi, Kang Jianfei had no real chance to get close to them. At most he helped carry things for them and exchanged polite greetings.

...

Another morning, Wu Chenggang called anxiously from the living room, "Ah Fei, hurry up!"

Kang Jianfei rubbed his face and, still half-asleep, said, "Coming, coming!"

He buckled his belt and headed out the door, only for his aunt Zhou Mingfang to catch up and shove a youtiao into his hand, nagging, "You don't eat breakfast when you're young; wait until you're older and you'll know what hurts!"

"Thanks, Auntie." Kang Jianfei chewed on the youtiao as he went downstairs.

Walking along, Wu Chenggang scolded him, "These days the shoot is tight, so we have to get up early every day. You stay up so late writing novels every night, then do nothing but nod off on set. Careful Boss Ding doesn't take you on as an apprentice."

Kang Jianfei said while eating the youtiao, "If he doesn't take me, he doesn't take me. His whole approach is outdated. If I followed him into stunt work, I'd end up starving sooner or later."

Wu Chenggang snapped, "What the hell do you know? You've only been in Hong Kong a few days. Whether stunt work has a future is not for you to talk nonsense about. Do you know how much your uncle suffered when he first came to Hong Kong? I nearly starved to death in Kowloon Walled City! You show up and don't even have to worry about finding work, and you still don't appreciate your good fortune!"

Kang Jianfei raised an eyebrow and couldn't be bothered to argue with the old man.

The two of them went downstairs. Wu Chenggang went to fetch the bicycle, and Kang Jianfei waited at the door. Then he saw someone sitting on the stone steps in front of the building.

The man's back looked familiar. Looking again at the shoes he wore, Kang Jianfei was sure it was Hu Juncai, the cousin who had gone to Lantau Island to stay with relatives.

So he kicked him in the lower back and asked, "Hey, Ah Cai, what are you doing here?"

Hu Juncai had been dozing while crouched there. After the kick woke him up, he looked up and saw Kang Jianfei. Instantly looking miserable, he said, "Ah Fei, I'm here to throw myself on your mercy. If you don't take me in, I'll only starve to death."

Seeing his eyes practically fill with tears as he spoke, Kang Jianfei hurriedly asked, "Talk properly. Why are you crying? What happened?"

Hu Juncai said, "My cousin on Lantau is a live-in son-in-law, and his wife saw that I was handsome and came on to me. Tell me, how could someone as honest and upright as I am possibly do something to betray my cousin?"

"Stop, stop!"

Kang Jianfei looked at his high cheekbones, his face skinny as a dried-up corpse, and the huge clump of eye gunk at the corner of his eye, and said, "Your claim that you're honest and upright still needs proving. As for being handsome, what kind of situation are we talking about? How miserable does your cousin have to look for your cousin's wife to get so infatuated and come after you?"

Hu Juncai swore up and down, "She really did come on to me!"

Kang Jianfei asked, "And then? You ended up getting with your cousin's wife?"

Hu Juncai looked embarrassed. "No, not exactly. It was just that my cousin's wife kept trying to seduce me and telling me to hold her, to touch her. I held out several times, but the last time I really couldn't take it anymore. When I saw no one in the room, I hugged her once..."

Before Hu Juncai could finish, Kang Jianfei cut in, "And then when you hugged her, she screamed that you were trying to rape her, right?"

"How did you know?" Hu Juncai looked at Kang Jianfei in surprise.

Kang Jianfei laughed. "What's so hard to guess? You don't have money, you're not handsome, and you're skinny as a pole. If she wasn't setting you up on purpose, why would she seduce you?"

Hu Juncai slapped himself hard across the face. "I really lost my head. The moment I hugged her, she clung back to me and started shouting that I was trying to rape her. After that my cousin kicked me out and said he wouldn't acknowledge me as family anymore..." Then Hu Juncai said furiously, "Tell me, isn't that woman absolutely rotten? If she didn't want to take me in, she could have just said so. Did she really have to do it this way? My aunt and uncle died young, and my cousin grew up in my house from childhood. He was practically my own brother, and now this woman has turned us against each other. My cousin even said if he sees me again, he'll hack me to death with a knife!"

At that moment, his uncle Wu Chenggang came over pushing the bicycle. Seeing Hu Juncai there too, he asked in surprise, "You got here this early, Ah Cai?"

Hu Juncai said awkwardly, "I came in the middle of the night last night. It was too late, so I didn't dare go upstairs and disturb you."

Kang Jianfei briefly explained what had happened to Wu Chenggang, and Wu Chenggang slapped the bike seat in anger. "That kind of woman is as vicious as a snake. Don't worry, Ah Cai, you can stay here from now on. I'll take you to the set to work today."

Hu Juncai was overjoyed and hurriedly bowed. "Thank you, Uncle! Thank you, Uncle!"

Fine. Uncle Wu's chronic do-gooder disease had flared up again!

...

By the time they got to the Clear Water Bay set, Wu Chenggang had said a few words to the production staff with Hu Juncai in tow and settled everything, leaving Hu Juncai to work as an extra for the time being.

As soon as Hu Juncai arrived on set, he was like Granny Liu entering the Grand View Garden, marveling at everything he saw. "So Chu Liuxiang was really filmed here at night. Ah Fei, does that mean I'm going to be on television?"

Kang Jianfei said, "Maybe. But when you see yourself on TV later, you probably won't even recognize yourself."

Hu Juncai was holding a prop sword and was about to ask why it wasn't made of iron when Tang Zhenye and Huang Minyi came over, ready to get the fight props from Kang Jianfei.

Kang Jianfei introduced them, "Brother Ye, Minyi, this is my friend Hu Juncai."

"Hello." Tang Zhenye took the initiative and shook Hu Juncai's hand.

Seeing that they were both real Hong Kong locals, and that Huang Minyi was a Hong Kong beauty to boot, Hu Juncai immediately felt a little outclassed. He bent over slightly as he shook Tang Zhenye's hand and said, "Hello, hello. Just call me Ah Cai from now on."

Huang Minyi, like Tang Zhenye, had just graduated from the TVB training class. By then she was already a grown woman, and although she wasn't on Zhao Yazhi's level of beauty, she was still enough to make Hu Juncai stare.

Hu Juncai was usually a chatterbox, but in front of the two strangers, Huang Minyi and Tang Zhenye, he became much quieter, as though he couldn't find the right topic.

Not long after, the rest of the main cast arrived too.

Today Zheng Shaoqiu seemed to be in especially bad shape. His two dark circles were visible from far away, and even the way he walked looked unsteady.

Wang Tianlin sensed something was off and asked, "Brother Chiu, want to take half a day off?"

Sitting in a chair with a hand over his forehead, Zheng Shaoqiu said, "No need. There are only two days' worth of scenes left. I can hold out."

"All right, then get some rest first. I'll call you when we start shooting." Wang Tianlin actually didn't want Zheng Shaoqiu to rest either. There were only two days of scenes left; if they could shoot them all in one push, everyone would be relieved.

"Boss Ding, bring that horse over and let Ah Chuen get familiar with it. Ah Lok, move that folding screen over there..." Wang Tianlin dragged his fat body around the set giving orders, then suddenly darkened. "Where's Wu Mengda? Where is Wu Mengda?"

The production assistant A Jian hurried over and said, "Uncle Tianlin, Wu Mengda hasn't arrived yet."

"What is he doing! The shoot is about to start, and he isn't here for such an important scene!" Wang Tianlin's face went black in an instant, and his opinion of Wu Mengda dropped straight to the bottom.

Back then, Wu Mengda had graduated fifth in his class from the TVB training course, so his acting had actually been pretty good. But when it came to filming, he was often late. Many times the cameras were already rolling and he was still nowhere to be seen, which made plenty of directors hate him to the bone.

Now that Chu Liuxiang had aired, the actor who played Hu Tiehua, Wu Mengda, had suddenly become a big star too.

After getting famous, Wu Mengda became even more arrogant. He was late every few days, and it was said he often took other actors out gambling.

Wu Mengda had a heavy part in today's scene, and without him they couldn't film at all. The entire crew stopped and waited for a full hour before he finally rushed into the set in a panic.

Seeing the whole crew staring at him with strange looks, Wu Mengda probably knew things were bad. He ran up to Wang Tianlin, forced out a smile, and begged for mercy: "Director, there was something urgent at home this morning, so I ended up being a bit late..."

"Fine, get to work at once!" Wang Tianlin waved him off irritably, telling him to get his ass to makeup already so he could stop seeing him and stop being annoyed.

Anyone who knew Wang Tianlin's temper knew that Wu Mengda was finished.

If Wang Tianlin had exploded and cursed him out, that would have meant he still had hope for him.

The fact that Wang Tianlin said nothing at all meant he had already given up on Wu Mengda. After Chu Liuxiang was finished, Wu Mengda could forget about landing any important roles at TVB.

At that moment, his uncle Wu Chenggang came over and said to Kang Jianfei and Hu Juncai, "Remember this: no matter how famous you get in the future, never get carried away. Never try to be clever, and absolutely never touch gambling."

Wu Chenggang pointed at Wu Mengda. "This man has all three of those problems. He's completely beyond saving."

Kang Jianfei thought to himself: Not necessarily. Some people only reach true enlightenment after going through huge highs and lows.