Having snagged a featured extra role, Jiang Lechen’s back suddenly stopped aching, and his legs no longer felt weak. He bounced over to the makeup artist to get ready.

On a film set, anyone who breathes is called “teacher.” The person doing makeup is the Makeup Teacher, the one handing out boxed lunches is the Logistics Teacher, the person driving for the crew is the Driver Teacher… An outsider would think the entire industry was founded in Shandong province.

Someone like Jiang Lechen was now called a Featured Extra Teacher.

Since it was a featured role with lines, the makeup artist had him sit in front of the mirror and carefully study his face for a few minutes. Seeing he had already applied foundation and drawn his eyebrows, the artist thought for a moment and then pulled out a dark brown… lipstick—er, a lip-black.

Jiang Lechen was horrified. “Makeup Teacher, you absolutely can’t! I’m playing a featured extra, not a featured tomboy!”

The makeup artist: “Is there a difference? Your character doesn’t like the opposite sex anyway.”

“…” That actually made a lot of sense. Jiang Lechen couldn’t refute it.

He grumbled as he applied the dark brown lipstick, followed by a matching smoky eyeshadow. In just a few minutes, a sunny little flop idol was transformed into an androgynous… little flop idol.

Honestly, only someone like Jiang Lechen could pull off this look. He has excellent bone structure and a commanding presence, so even such dramatic makeup couldn’t “overpower” him. Instead, it accentuated a unique kind of beauty.

Since it was a look he’d never tried before, Jiang Lechen snapped a few selfies in the mirror. After carefully selecting and meticulously Photoshopping them, he sent his favorite one to Wen Gui.

Lil Jiang Hates Ginger: You there?

Lil Jiang Hates Ginger: Get out here and appreciate my beauty.

Wen Gui: ?

Wen Gui: Is this you?

Lil Jiang Hates Ginger: …

Wen Gui: Jiang Lechen, did you really think that transitioning into a tomboy would change your fate of being topped by me?

Lil Jiang Hates Ginger: …

Fuming, Little Jiang (temporarily) blocked Wen Gui.

A little later, the assistant director came back with a thin sheet of paper filled with dense lines of text. Jiang Lechen was very familiar with this paper. On set, it was called a “flying page”—a last-minute script change from the screenwriter that they didn’t have time to bind properly.

Little Jiang had just received a flying page. He quickly scanned it and understood the main plot: the female lead helps a student who is being bullied at school. Unexpectedly, when the female lead later faces tough times, the very student she helped starts gossiping about her and mocking her.

Jiang Lechen was playing this bullied student, who was picked on for being different in his dress sense (and his sexuality).

Jiang Lechen finished reading the whole thing in a minute and said dismissively, “Such a cliché plot. Did the screenwriter even use their brain when they wrote this? And the director approved this flying page?”

Assistant Director: “I forgot to mention that our director wrote and directed this show himself. He’s both the director and the screenwriter.”

Jiang Lechen did an immediate 180. “Oh, my! The director is truly a visionary! In just a few short lines, he has fully captured the complexity of the human heart, grounding the story in the issue of school bullying to explore the inner worlds of students!”

The assistant director clicked his tongue. “You know, kid, I think you’d be a great assistant director.”

Jiang Lechen: “?”

The assistant director said with feeling, “How are you even better at brown-nosing than I am?”

…

Those who are skilled at brown-nosing always survive to the final episode.

Jiang Lechen shamelessly accepted the assistant director’s “praise,” then took the flying page and prepared to find a corner to hole up in.

On a film set, “waiting” was always the most time-consuming part. Looking at the call sheet, a crew that managed to schedule eight scenes in one day was seen as highly efficient.

The actors’ actual time on camera was rarely that long; most of the hours were spent on prep work. Adjusting lights, finding angles, switching between wide shots, close-ups, and establishing shots, testing the sound, actors changing costumes and touching up makeup…

During these hours, the extras could only find a nearby place to rest.

When Jiang Lechen had filmed The Overbearing King of Hell Fell in Love with Me, he was more or less the fourth male lead, with a significant role and many lines. He had to wake up at four in the morning every day, scarf down a quick breakfast before getting his makeup done, and then begin the long wait.

If he was lucky, he would get to shoot by ten. If not, it might be delayed until the hottest part of the afternoon before he could stand in front of the camera.

Hengdian World Studios was extremely hot in August, and the sun was blazing. After a month of filming, Jiang Lechen had lost about eight pounds, and his skin tone shifted from the White Impermanence to the Black Impermanence.

A low-budget mobile drama with a five-minute episode didn’t pay much. Since he’s not famous, he contracted 150,000 yuan for thirty episodes. The company took a 70/30 split, with him receiving 30 percent. His final take-home pay was 45,000 yuan (before tax).

Was 45,000 yuan (before tax) a small amount? It was pitifully low in an entertainment industry where “a daily salary of 2.08 million” was trending on social media.

But Jiang Lechen knew that in many places, many people didn’t even make 45,000 yuan (before tax) in an entire year.

He didn’t possess any of that silly vanity and always considered himself a part-time idol. So, earning 45,000 for a month of hard work made him quite happy. Getting a thousand dollars for this featured extra role today also made him quite happy.

Besides him, there were other extras on set, all students from his university who had come to join in on the fun. It was everyone’s first time being an extra, and they were all excited, thinking they would see celebrities as soon as they arrived. They never expected to be greeted by a long, endless wait.

Some idly pulled out their phones to scroll through short videos, while others pulled books from their bags. A glance at one cover revealed it to be Veterinary Medicine, Volume II…

…Damn it, where did this king of the grind come from? Can someone kick him out? Don’t taint the unscholarly world of entertainment.

Not daring to wander too far, Jiang Lechen circled the set. He wanted to find a shady tree to cool off under, but every patch of shade was already taken by people. The only empty spot was already occupied by three dogs.

Jiang Lechen squatted down and tried to negotiate with the dogs. “Senior Brothers and Sisters, could you make some room for me?”

The PAW Patrol didn’t even glance at him, continuing their sweet slumber.

Jiang Lechen: “…” Fine, be so high and mighty. I’ll remember you. You’ll definitely be on the neutering list next month!

After a moment’s reflection, he decided to head to the nearby academic building to find some peace and quiet.

The first and second floors were crowded with people coming and going, and the air conditioning wasn’t strong enough. Jiang Lechen headed up to the third floor. He remembered there was a window at the turn of the stairwell, from which he could overlook the set. No change would escape Little Jiang’s watchful eye.

His plan was perfect. He just didn’t expect to see another figure there when he rounded the final corner of the stairs.

A young man in a white shirt and jeans was leaning against the window, gazing at the film set below.

The window was pushed open a crack. A gentle summer breeze blew in, lifting the young man’s slightly long, brown hair. The shadows of the trees danced on his white shirt, bathed in sunlight.

Jiang Lechen hadn’t expected anyone else to be here. His footsteps came to an abrupt halt in the stairwell. Hearing the sound behind him, the figure turned to look.

The next second, their eyes met.

Jiang Lechen felt a jolt go down his spine, as if he had instantly fallen into a vortex.

Unfortunately, the other person was wearing the standard-issue black mask of the entertainment industry, revealing only a pair of deep-set eyes.

His presence was calm and quiet, yet carried an air of profound melancholy. This unique aura blurred his age.

Jiang Lechen could tell he was probably a bit older than him, likely around thirty.

Little Jiang mentally reviewed his memory and confirmed there was no one like this at his school.

After all, you couldn’t even count the number of handsome guys at the College of Animal Medicine on one hand. As the campus heartthrob for several years, Jiang Lechen was well aware of the quality of men at his school.

“Hey, handsome. You with the film crew?” Jiang Lechen, after a brief moment of blankness, immediately launched into conversation like the social butterfly he was.

The young man, surprised by Jiang Lechen’s immediate familiarity, paused briefly before giving a slight nod. He examined the dramatic makeup on Jiang Lechen’s face and spoke. “Are you a student at this school? I heard the assistant director found a featured extra. Is that you?”

Although he was speaking Mandarin, his accent had a strong Hong Kong flavor.

“Bingo!” Jiang Lechen bounded up the last few steps, squeezed in right next to the young man, and brazenly stuck out his hand, enthusiastically introducing himself. “I’m Jiang Lechen, from the College of Animal Medicine. And you?”

“Lin Kairan.”

Jiang Lechen silently repeated the name a couple of times. It sounded familiar, but for his life, he couldn’t place it.

After they exchanged names, the young man named Lin Kairan fell silent.

Jiang Lechen’s mind was racing, trying to remember where he had heard that name before. Was he a supporting actor in some drama? No, probably not an actor. The reason was simple—Lin Kairan wasn’t wearing any makeup (or at least, his eyebrows weren’t drawn).

So, was he a behind-the-scenes crew member?

With the man himself right there, Little Jiang felt too embarrassed to just pull out his phone and look for him. He could only rack his brain, digging deep into his memory.

Down below, the crew bustled about. The assistant director flitted around like a butterfly, never stopping for a moment.

Jiang Lechen clicked his tongue and muttered, “Filming is really tough. There are only a few actors, but dozens of people running around doing prep work.”

Lin Kairan let out a low “mm” in agreement. “Fifty-five.”

“What?”

“There are fifty-five people in this crew, including the camera, lighting, sound, makeup, production, and logistics teams. And that’s not even counting temporary hires. Two units are shooting simultaneously. The one here is the B-unit. The A-unit is at another location, five kilometers away.”

Jiang Lechen was stunned and subconsciously started calculating. “A crew makeup artist’s salary is… the package price for the camera crew is… the cost of renting the equipment is… I also saw a few drivers just now… whoa!”

His mental arithmetic was superb. For a second, his mouth rattled off numbers like a calculator, and he immediately figured out the crew’s daily expenses.

Jiang Lechen’s mother was an accountant and had cultivated his excellent sensitivity to numbers from a young age. When their family of three went out to eat, his mom’s eyes would scan the room, calculating everything from the shop’s rent to employee salaries, from utility bills to equipment depreciation. Then she’d check the menu prices. In under a minute, she would know the exact markup percentage on the dish in front of them.

Little Jiang had inherited his mother’s fine tradition and loved to crunch the numbers.

Seeing his money-grubbing muttering, Lin Kairan found it quite amusing. He reminded him, “Instead of spending your time here calculating the crew’s expenses, you might want to use it for something more important.”

Jiang Lechen: “What’s more important?”

Lin Kairan pointed to the flying page, folded into a square in his hand. “We’re about to start filming. Have you memorized your lines?”

“Do I even need to memorize this?” Jiang Lechen waved his hand. “Bro, have you seen today’s flying page? This is total filler. A web novelist could churn out thirty thousand words of this stuff a day. There’s zero substance to these lines.”

Lin Kairan raised an eyebrow. “Kid, have you ever heard the phrase ‘loose lips sink ships’? Aren’t you afraid I’ll tell the screenwriter what you just said?”

“Would you?” Jiang Lechen blinked. “Besides, the director wrote and directed this himself. You think he doesn’t know he’s writing filler?”

“…”

Jiang Lechen talked on and on. “The screenwriter writes filler, the director shoots filler, the actors act out filler… There’s only one possibility: this show was never intended to be made well from the very beginning.”

Jiang Lechen once read an industry white paper. Over 400 television series are greenlit for production in the country each year, but less than half of them ever reach an audience.

With at least twenty episodes per series, that means at least five thousand episodes of television go unseen. Before these five thousand episodes were filmed, did the creative teams know viewers would never see their work?

They probably did. Just like elementary school students doing their summer homework, knowing the teacher would likely never grade it, but still sitting at their desks and sloppily going through the motions.

When Jiang Lechen got the flying page, he knew this would be another piece of sloppily done summer homework.

If the television industry was like this, the film industry’s deep-rooted problems were even more severe. Film and television occupied the top of the entertainment hierarchy; the downstream industries dependent on them for survival were already a muddy swamp.

After hearing him out, Lin Kairan wasn’t annoyed. He actually laughed. Though the mask covered most of his face, his slightly curved eyes were undeniably smiling.

“You’re right,” Lin Kairan said. “C-ent is already finished.”

“…” Jiang Lechen was horrified. “I didn’t, I never said that, don’t you dare pin that on me!”

He had said 1, 2, and 3, but Lin Kairan jumped straight to 10. Heaven was his witness, Lin Kairan had completely made up that reading comprehension answer all by himself!

---

Author’s Note:

Little Jiang: Being a T is my destiny, I get it now 🙂