Chapter 7: You Have to Seize Your Own Chance

"Cut!"

"Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut... Start over, all of it!"

Wang Tianlin jumped to his feet in anger. Wu Mengda had already made him furious by arriving an hour late, and after that, the shooting went from bad to worse until Zheng Shaoqiu and Wu Mengda finally pushed him over the edge.

Zheng Shaoqiu’s problems were understandable. He had been filming at high intensity for a full month, sleeping only three or four hours a day, and the lack of rest had left him mentally drained.

Wu Mengda was a different story. He was only the second male lead, and his rest time was more than enough, yet on set he kept yawning and forgetting his lines, taking one pause after another.

Zheng Shaoqiu could at least be excused. Wang Tianlin could only vent his rage on Wu Mengda.

Everyone on the crew consciously stayed more than three meters away from Wang Tianlin, afraid of catching the director’s bad mood and getting caught in the blast radius.

A Kun walked over and said quietly to Kang Jianfei, "I just heard someone say that bastard Wu Mengda played mahjong all night last night and lost at least twenty thousand. I figure he came straight from the mahjong table to the set."

A Kun’s real name was Chen Bingkun, and he was a stagehand doing odd jobs on the crew.

The kid was quick-witted, but his mouth was too big. He wanted to know everything, and once he heard something, he spread it everywhere.

Over the past few days, Kang Jianfei had talked with A Kun whenever he had time, and through him he had learned a lot of gossip about the stars.

"What? Twenty thousand!" Hu Juncai was so shocked that he nearly jumped up when he heard Wu Mengda had lost that much in one night.

At the time, an ordinary worker in Hong Kong made about 1,200 to 1,800 dollars a month, and only a few in hot occupations could earn more than 2,000.

Twenty thousand dollars was already the equivalent of a normal worker’s entire income for a year and a half.

An experienced lighting technician like his cousin-in-law Wu Chenggang had once made a monthly salary of 3,000 when he worked at Jade TV.

But after transferring to TVB, he could only work temporarily as a lighting assistant for about 2,000 a month.

Seeing that his words had shocked Hu Juncai, A Kun felt even more accomplished and laughed. "Twenty thousand is nothing. I heard Wu Mengda lost more than fifty thousand in Macau last time!"

Kang Jianfei suddenly asked, "Where did he get all that money?"

A Kun wore an expression that said, You don’t even know that? and replied smugly, "Borrowed it. He goes around borrowing from everyone. Don’t let that guy fool you just because he’s hot right now playing Hu Tiehua. He’s actually buried in debt."

...

Before long it was noon. Because of Wu Mengda and Zheng Shaoqiu, they hadn’t shot much in the morning, and Wang Tianlin’s face was completely black.

After being dragged around for what felt like forever, Wang Tianlin angrily threw down the megaphone and said, "Break for lunch. We’ll keep shooting this afternoon!"

Hu Juncai quickly got up from the ground. He had already "died" twice that morning, and the rest of the time he was just background scenery, an extra in ancient costume walking back and forth in front of the camera.

Everyone left the studio to collect their boxed lunches. Hu Juncai could smell the food from far away, and it seemed to be braised pork. He smiled and said, "Didn’t expect the TV station to feed people this well."

Kang Jianfei poured cold water on his enthusiasm. "The Shaw family is stingy as hell. Don’t expect to eat anything good here."

Hu Juncai asked, "How do you know that?"

Kang Jianfei glanced at the people queuing ahead for lunch, leaned against the wall, and dozed off as he said, "We’re temporary extras here. We only get twenty-five dollars a day. If that’s not stingy, what is?"

Hu Juncai said quite contentedly, "Twenty-five dollars is a lot. Workers back on the mainland only make a little over thirty dollars a month. What we earn in a day here is about the same as a month’s pay back there. What more do you want?"

Kang Jianfei was speechless. "Come on. The mainland is the mainland, and this is Hong Kong. Right now, medium- to high-end flats on Hong Kong Island cost five hundred dollars per square foot, and even the cheapest places on the Kowloon side are at least four hundred a foot. If you wanted to buy a 3,000-square-foot place in Kowloon, you’d need at least 1.2 million dollars. We can make at most nine hundred a month right now, which comes to only a little over ten thousand a year. At that rate, we’d have to work more than a hundred years without eating or drinking before we could save up 1.2 million."

Hu Juncai was stunned. "Why would you even want a 3,000-square-foot place? How many people would live in something that big? If I could have a 300-square-foot place in Hong Kong, my life would already be worth it."

Kang Jianfei said in exasperation, "No ambition."

Hu Juncai quickly brought back his lunch box. Today’s dish was braised pork with soybeans. There wasn’t much pork to be seen, but there were a mountain of soybeans.

That hopeless fool Hu Juncai ate the beans until his mouth was greasy, and in the end he even licked the oily grains of rice stuck to the lunch box, still not feeling satisfied.

After lunch, Hu Juncai sat beside Kang Jianfei and counted on his fingers. "Fei, right now we make twenty-five dollars a day. If I keep five dollars for myself and give another five to your cousin-in-law for food, I can save fifteen dollars a day. That’s more than five thousand a year. Once I’ve saved enough, I’ll go back to Bao'an, build a house, and marry a wife..."

Kang Jianfei scared him on purpose. "You’re an illegal stowaway. If you make money and dare go back, be careful they arrest you as a spy and shoot you."

Hu Juncai really got frightened and stared wide-eyed. "N-no way. Then we can’t go back?"

Kang Jianfei said, "Of course we can go back. Once we make big money, we can return to Bao'an, invest a few million, start a factory, and become patriotic overseas Chinese."

Hu Juncai said a little dejectedly, "A few million? That’s easy for you to say. I’ll never earn that much in my whole life."

"It’ll come fast enough, as long as you catch the chance," Kang Jianfei said with a smile.

Hu Juncai asked, "What chance?"

While they were talking, commotion suddenly broke out on the other side of the crew. Zheng Shaoqiu was eating and rehearsing lines with Zhao Yazhi when he suddenly collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

The whole crew erupted into chaos, but Kang Jianfei smiled and said, "The chance is here."

...

"Press the philtrum! Hurry, press the philtrum!"

"Careful, don’t bump into Chiu Kwan’s head!"

"Da Fei, go get the car ready now!"

"A Jian, call the hospital immediately!"

"..."

Several crew members pressed Zheng Shaoqiu’s philtrum. Ten-odd seconds later he came to, but his face was still deathly pale and his whole body weak. He could barely speak clearly, and it looked like he would have to be taken to the hospital.

Filming on a schedule was important, but if they pushed an A-list star like Zheng Shaoqiu so hard that something serious happened, they would lose far more than they gained.

Kang Jianfei suddenly rushed over. Without saying a word, he grabbed Zheng Shaoqiu and hoisted him onto his back, then said to Wang Tianlin, "Director, I’m strong and I can run faster carrying him!"

At a time like this, Wang Tianlin couldn’t care less about who carried whom and hurriedly said, "Good, good, you carry him!"

Kang Jianfei quickly carried Zheng Shaoqiu out to the sedan parked outside the studio, and he got in too, refusing to get out.

But everyone’s attention was on Zheng Shaoqiu, so nobody cared that a temporary extra had squeezed into the car.

The sedan was Wang Tianlin’s private car. He was in the front passenger seat now, slapping the dashboard over and over, urging the driver to go faster.

Kang Jianfei was in the back seat holding up the half-conscious Zheng Shaoqiu, and on Zheng Shaoqiu’s other side was Zhao Yazhi, who nobody knew when had climbed in.

Zhao Yazhi was wearing a pink ancient-style dress. Because of the lingering summer heat, the car was stifling, and she kept fanning Zheng Shaoqiu with his script, afraid he would pass out and then suffer heatstroke on top of it.

Kang Jianfei smelled the wave after wave of fragrance from her fan and couldn’t help turning to look at her.

Before his transmigration, Kang Jianfei had spent time in the entertainment industry and knew its many hidden corners all too well, so he would never blindly idolize any star.

That did not mean the stars were all dirty.

The entertainment world was like any other circle: some people got to the top by trading on backroom deals, and some kept themselves clean and held the line. It was just that stars were under the spotlight all the time, and since they were mostly beautiful men and women, the gossip about their love affairs and scandals came out with startling frequency.

Kang Jianfei’s fondness for Zhao Yazhi came entirely from watching The New White Snake, a beautiful memory from his youth.

Back then, in the orphanage, every summer vacation they would show The New White Snake and Journey to the West. Kang Jianfei, who was thirteen or fourteen at the time and just beginning to awaken sexually, had jerked off countless times to the White Snake on television.

In a sense, Zhao Yazhi had been Kang Jianfei’s sexual awakening.

As if sensing his gaze, Zhao Yazhi looked up. Kang Jianfei quickly smiled and said, "Sister Zhi, Chiu Kwan is definitely fine. He probably just fainted from exhaustion."

"Mm, thank you for carrying Chiu Kwan into the car," Zhao Yazhi said, looking at Kang Jianfei and feeling that the man was oddly familiar, as if she saw him around the crew all the time. She asked, "By the way, what’s your name?"

Kang Jianfei was speechless. Only two days ago, when he had met Zhao Yazhi on the set, he had introduced himself to her, and now she had forgotten it in the blink of an eye. All he could do was smile and say it again: "My name is Kang Jianfei. Sister Zhi can just call me Fei."

"Hello, Fei," Zhao Yazhi said, reaching out her hand.

While they were talking, three cars from the crew were already chasing one another in front and behind them, racing toward the nearest hospital.

With something this serious, there was no way they would be able to film this afternoon. The temporary actors either wrapped for the day and went home, or headed to other crews to look for new work.

Outside the studio, Wu Chenggang, who was just about to go home, saw Hu Juncai come out alone and asked, "Where’s Fei? Why isn’t that kid here?"

Hu Juncai said, "Fei took Chiu Kwan to the hospital."

Wu Chenggang asked in surprise, "He went with them after carrying him into the car?"

"Yeah, I saw him get in myself," Hu Juncai said with a nod.

Li Jiading somehow came up behind Wu Chenggang and said with feeling, "A Cheng, your cousin-in-law’s nephew is no ordinary guy. Out of everyone on the crew, he reacted the fastest. He rushed up and fought to carry Chiu Kwan into the car, and now he’s gone to the hospital with them too. After this, Chiu Kwan will have to remember his favor one way or another, and he’ll also leave an impression on the director."

Wu Chenggang said skeptically, "Did that kid really think that far ahead?"

Li Jiading said, "Everyone has countless chances slip past them in life. It all depends on whether you can seize them. A Cheng, you’re a good man and your lighting skills are excellent, but you never know how to seize an opportunity, which is why things have only gone downhill for you. Your cousin-in-law’s nephew is different. He usually does things halfheartedly, but he’s always thinking about how to get along with the people on the crew. How many days has it only been? From temporary extra to crew worker, he’s already become sworn brothers with at least seven or eight people. Forget about him being a mainlander who only just stowed away into Hong Kong; even veteran slick operators who have been in this business for decades aren’t as good at making themselves at home as he is."