Chapter 9: If No One Envy You, You’re Mediocre

Back at his aunt's place in Shek Kip Mei, Wu Chenggang was reading a trade magazine while Hu Juncai was curled up on the sofa flipping through old newspapers.

Aunt Zhou Mingfang was at home looking after the younger cousin, while the other aunt, Liang Ying, was making braised beef offal to take to the night market later and sell.

The moment Kang Jianfei came in, Wu Chenggang put down the magazine and asked, "How's Chiu Kwan? I just got a call from the crew saying tomorrow's shoot is still on as planned."

Kang Jianfei said, "Zheng Shaoqiu still can't overexert himself, so tomorrow he'll need a stand-in. He'll only shoot a few frontal dramatic scenes himself."

Wu Chenggang nodded. "That's a good solution. Producer Wang is definitely an old hand."

Then he got straight to the point. "By the way, Afai, have you talked to Producer Wang, Chiu Kwan, and the others? This is a great opportunity."

Kang Jianfei said, "I'm the one doubling for Chiu Kwan, and I just got back from having afternoon tea with Sister Zhi."

"What?"

Wu Chenggang was stunned. Seeing how calm Kang Jianfei sounded, he couldn't help suspecting him. "Afai, you're saying Producer Wang had you double for Chiu Kwan, and you even had afternoon tea with Zhao Yazhi? You're not kidding, are you?"

Kang Jianfei shot back, "Do I look like I'm joking?"

Hu Juncai had heard him too. He threw down the newspaper and leaned over, enviously saying, "No way, you really had afternoon tea with Su Rongrong... no, with Zhao Yazhi? Just the two of you, or were there a lot of people?"

Kang Jianfei gave him a blank look. "Why are you asking so much?"

Wu Chenggang didn't say anything else. Instead, he studied Kang Jianfei all over again with complete seriousness, and only then did he realize just how capable his cousin's son actually was: because of one accident, Kang Jianfei had seized this opportunity that wasn't even supposed to be an opportunity. Not only had he become Zheng Shaoqiu's stand-in, he'd even had afternoon tea with Zhao Yazhi...

Wu Chenggang felt as if he'd wasted twenty years in Hong Kong. He couldn't even afford to buy a house, and maybe in the future he'd really have to rely on this cousin's son, Kang Jianfei.

Kang Jianfei pulled out paper and pen and kept writing The Legend of Qin. This time Wu Chenggang didn't curse him for being lazy and unambitious anymore; instead, he watched him write with great interest.

But after only a few minutes, Wu Chenggang was forced to retreat by Kang Jianfei's ugly handwriting and terrible writing style, and he lost all interest in watching.

After spending half the afternoon writing the novel, his cousin Wu Ruiqing came back from school and immediately took out a stack of brand-new manuscript paper from his schoolbag. He said happily, "Cousin, this is The Legend of Qin that I revised for you and then copied out again. How does the revision look?"

Kang Jianfei took it and flipped through it, finding that his younger cousin's handwriting was actually pretty good.

The simplified characters and typos in the manuscript had all been corrected. The plot was basically unchanged, but many details and turns of phrase had been revised, and at the very least it looked much better than what Kang Jianfei had originally written.

Kang Jianfei nodded in approval. "Not bad. You might as well just help me revise novels from now on. I'll give you ten percent of the royalties."

Wu Ruiqing grinned. "Ten percent is too little. How about twenty?"

Kang Jianfei tapped him on the forehead and laughed, "This novel is at least going to be 1.5 million characters. The royalties come to 150,000, and ten percent of that is already more than 10,000. You're still not satisfied?"

"More than 10,000?" Wu Ruiqing's eyes went wide. His two mothers were both very frugal, so not to mention 10,000 dollars, he'd never even touched a HK$100 bill more than a few times.

Kang Jianfei asked, "Not enough?"

Wu Ruiqing swallowed hard and nodded quickly. "Enough, more than enough. Cousin, you're amazing. I worship you!"

Hu Juncai stuck his head over and asked, "What are you two whispering about?"

Kang Jianfei pushed his head away. "You'll know when the time comes."

...

At the Chu Liuxiang set, a group of crew members were chatting while waiting for work to start. Because Zheng Shaoqiu still hadn't arrived, everyone was getting anxious, afraid they'd wait in vain for half the day and still not be able to start shooting.

Kang Jianfei had come very early today, mainly because his aunt had urged him to come, telling him this was his first time taking on an important role and he absolutely couldn't be late.

Just after he arrived on set, he saw the young Chow Yun-fat and Chen Yulian walking over.

Kang Jianfei walked over as if by accident, and when he reached the two of them he suddenly held out his hand. "Hello, Brother Fat! My name is Kang Jianfei."

Chow Yun-fat had already shot to fame two years earlier with The Bund. Although he couldn't yet be called the "divine Fat," his name recognition was far greater than that of Wu Mengda, who was best known for playing Hu Tiehua.

Seeing a stranger suddenly pop out in front of him asking to shake hands, Chow Yun-fat froze for a moment, then extended his own hand and said, "Hello."

At that moment, Wang Tianlin suddenly called out from over there, "Afai, come here for a second."

"Excuse us." Kang Jianfei nodded to Chow Yun-fat and Chen Yulian, then ran toward Wang Tianlin.

After Kang Jianfei left, Chow Yun-fat asked Chen Yulian in confusion, "Who was that? Your friend?"

Chen Yulian had played a supporting role in the Chu Liuxiang crew half a month earlier, and today she was here as an extra, so she had never met Kang Jianfei.

She scratched her head and said, "He seems pretty close to Uncle Tianlin. He should be a TV station employee, maybe even Uncle Tianlin's relative."

"Oh." Chow Yun-fat nodded, then asked, "What did he say his name was?"

Chen Yulian said, "I think he was called... Long Jianfei?"

If Kang Jianfei had heard that, he would probably have spat out blood on the spot - Long Jianfei was the name of the male lead in The Buddha's Palm, a hit from the 1960s.

Back when Chow Yun-fat was trying to break through, he used to wait every day at the elevator entrance of the TVB building just to leave an impression on the station executives coming and going, and it really did win him acting opportunities.

After becoming a major star through The Bund the year before last, Chow Yun-fat kept getting roles, but signs of a decline had already begun to appear.

Chen Yulian said Kang Jianfei might be Wang Tianlin's relative, so Chow Yun-fat naturally made sure to remember the name. You never knew when it might come in handy. He had remembered the name all right, just mixed up the surname.

Leaving Chow Yun-fat and Chen Yulian to their confusion aside, after Wang Tianlin called Kang Jianfei over, he met with a group of cinematographers, lighting technicians, and martial arts directors.

Wang Tianlin pointed at the script and said, "Here, this set of shots needs to use a stand-in. We only need to add Zheng Shaoqiu's frontal close-ups in post-production. When the stand-in appears, use more long takes, obscured framing, foreground compositions, and the like; that makes it easier to get past the audience..."

From those words alone, you could tell that Wang Tianlin didn't lack the skill to play with camera technique. He just shot things roughly because he needed to save time and keep the budget down.

On that point, his son Wong Jing was cut from the same cloth. In later years, almost every film Wong Jing produced was of high quality, but the films he directed were full of trash.

There was only one reason, and that reason was money.

Kang Jianfei mingled with the main creative staff and listened to Wang Tianlin's directing notes. Boss Ding wasn't surprised at all, because he'd already learned yesterday afternoon that Kang Jianfei would be doubling for Zheng Shaoqiu.

The other crew members, however, were shocked, and quite a few of them were envious and jealous, especially the extras.

Because this was a great chance to climb upward: not only could he make a name for himself with Producer Wang Tianlin, he could also get more contact with Zheng Shaoqiu, Zhao Yazhi, and the others.

Kang Jianfei had been on the crew for more than a week, and many people already knew he was a Mainland kid; plenty of them looked down on him.

If it had been a Hong Kong man doing Zheng Shaoqiu's stand-in work, maybe those people could have accepted it. But what right did this Mainland kid Kang Jianfei have?

"I knew this little punk wasn't honest the moment I saw him. He's always running around acting like he's brothers with everyone, scheming all the while."

"Just a bootlicker. Didn't you see how yesterday when Chiu Kwan fainted, this kid ran all the way from the studio gate to the backdrop and carried him out?"

"Exactly. If I'd been the one to carry Chiu Kwan to the hospital yesterday, I'd definitely have gotten the stand-in job this time!"

"Stop daydreaming. You're only as tall as Chiu Kwan's shoulder. Unless the audience's eyes are blind, how could they not notice?"

"..."

A bunch of extras were gossiping over there, and Hu Juncai listened from the side, his face going from dark to red and back again. He wanted nothing more than to go up and beat those bastards up.

But this was only his second day on set. Afraid that a fight would get him thrown out of the crew, he could only swallow the anger down.

"All right, don't take it to heart. They're just jealous."

Tong Zhenye patted Hu Juncai on the shoulder and said that, though in truth he was a little jealous himself. He just got along well enough with Kang Jianfei that he was embarrassed to show it.

Huang Minyi also said, "If nobody envies you, you're mediocre! Producer Wang does everything by the book, and he's very strict on set. If he let Afai double for Chiu Kwan, that means he values Afai's ability. It's nothing like those people say, as if Afai just got lucky."

"Thanks for understanding."

Hu Juncai hadn't expected those two Hong Kongers to stand up for Kang Jianfei. He immediately felt that they were kind and decent, and already regarded Tong Zhenye and Huang Minyi as friends worth making.

As for Kang Jianfei becoming the stand-in for a major star, Hu Juncai was a little envious, but more than anything he was happy for his good friend, and also somewhat worried that Kang Jianfei might botch the performance.

A good half of the extras on set were waiting to see Kang Jianfei make a fool of himself, waiting for this rough Mainland kid to screw things up and get chewed out by the director.

Clearly, Kang Jianfei disappointed them.