Chapter 0466: Roles

Carrying his luggage, Zhao Fusheng stepped out of the taxi and stood on the road opposite the Central Academy of Drama, feeling conflicted.

He would be staying here for about a month, and staying in a hotel every day seemed a bit wasteful.

Although Zhao Fusheng was not short of money now, waste was still a shameful thing.

It had nothing to do with being rich or poor; he simply believed that money should not be spent on meaningless things. Doing so only satisfied the merchants and had no practical significance.

After thinking for a moment, Zhao Fusheng dialed Fan Baobao's number. When the call connected, he said directly, “I’m at your school, but the problem is, where do I stay?”

A dozen minutes later, Zhao Fusheng stared at Fan Baobao in astonishment: “You said you’ve already rented a place?”

Just now, Fan Baobao had proudly told him that she had rented a decent apartment near the school—two bedrooms, one living room—perfect for the two of them.

“Yeah, I asked the landlord. He was also renting from someone else, with two months left on the lease. Because he had to go for an internship, he sublet it to me.” Fan Baobao said smugly to Zhao Fusheng, her face beaming with a “praise me” expression.

Zhao Fusheng laughed and nodded: “Good job, but did you have the money for the rent?”

Fan Baobao looked at Zhao Fusheng as if he were absurd: “Do you think I’m like you, earning that fixed salary? I’m someone with endorsement fees now, you know.”

Zhao Fusheng was speechless, then remembered that this girl was actually a little rich woman now—at least richer than he appeared to be on the surface.

There was no helping it; her reputation as the “Qingzui Girl” still lingered, and Wang Jinghua was a capable agent. Recently, although Fan Baobao hadn’t taken any film or TV roles, she had landed several commercials and earned a considerable amount.

Originally, Fan Baobao planned to send all this money home to her mother and sister, but Li Yuan told her to keep it. In Li Yuan’s words: “The family doesn’t need your little money now.”

To this, Fan Baobao said she just wanted to enjoy the happiness of supporting the family, but unfortunately, her mother didn’t seem to want to give her that chance.

“Alright, you two, hurry up and go in. What’s the point of standing here?” Zhou Yun’s voice sounded behind them, full of impatience.

That’s right, Fan Baobao wasn’t alone; Zhou Yun was also there, planning to stay for the summer vacation.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s head in.” Zhao Fusheng didn’t waste any more words and walked in with his suitcase.

The three of them went in and started cleaning the place. Although the previous tenant had left quite a few things, it still needed a thorough cleaning.

Fortunately, neither Fan Baobao nor Zhou Yun were the type of girls who couldn’t do any housework. Although Fan Baobao’s cooking was a disaster, that didn’t stop her from being a domestic expert.

So Zhao Fusheng barely lifted a finger, just watching as the entire room was transformed.

“How is it?” After cleaning the room, Fan Baobao asked Zhao Fusheng, showing off.

Zhao Fusheng smiled and nodded: “Mm, Zhou Yun did a good job.”

“Hey!”

Fan Baobao’s eyes instantly widened. This guy Zhao Fusheng always had a knack for making her blood boil with just a few words.

“Alright, alright, you did a good job too.” Zhao Fusheng laughed and praised Fan Baobao, then pointed at her face and said, “Looks like your makeup is smudged. Want to go fix it?”

Fan Baobao was horrified. For women, their face is arguably the most important thing. Hearing that her makeup was smudged, she rushed to the bathroom to touch it up.

Zhou Yun watched this scene from the side and smiled: “You two have such a good relationship.”

“Can’t help it, we grew up together.” Zhao Fusheng shrugged. “But are you really planning to stay in Beijing for your career?”

Zhou Yun was different from Fan Baobao. Fan Baobao had entered the entertainment industry to make a living, but Zhou Yun had always had a good family background—her parents were in business. In other words, if she didn’t develop well, she would have to go back and inherit tens of millions of assets.

So in Zhao Fusheng’s view, Zhou Yun didn’t need to participate in such auditions at all; she could just wait until graduation.

But Zhou Yun had followed Fan Baobao out anyway, which really surprised Zhao Fusheng.

“Yeah, I love acting.” Zhou Yun smiled and replied to Zhao Fusheng.

Zhao Fusheng was taken aback. He could tell that this answer came from deep within Zhou Yun’s heart; she truly loved the profession of acting.

When a person genuinely likes doing something, they radiate an energy that makes others look at them in a new light. There was no doubt about it. That was the feeling Zhou Yun gave people now.

“Alright, then you two will play maids together. Just thinking about it is amusing.” Zhao Fusheng said with a laugh.

Zhou Yun rolled her eyes: “Do you think I have the same good fortune as Baobao? I don’t have an agent.”

“Ah?”

Zhao Fusheng was startled, then laughed. It seemed Zhou Yun had misunderstood something.

“You’re overthinking it. Sister Hua hasn’t gotten her any roles either.” Zhao Fusheng explained to Zhou Yun: “Sister Hua can only give her some information at most—like which crew is recruiting. As for the roles themselves, do you think you two can handle any role well now? Even if you were offered a second or third female lead, would you dare to take it?”

Zhou Yun hesitated but didn’t answer Zhao Fusheng immediately.

If she were an ordinary girl, she might have boldly claimed she could do it. But Zhou Yun wasn’t that kind of casual girl. She understood that Zhao Fusheng wasn’t asking this to look down on her or Fan Baobao, but because he was seriously considering things for them.

As Zhao Fusheng said, with their current abilities, let alone the second female lead, even a third female lead might be beyond their grasp.

This wasn’t about lacking acting skills to compensate for character limitations. Some roles simply couldn’t be made up for by acting alone. Many times, young people could play old people through acting, but no matter how hard an old person tried, they couldn’t play a young person—unless you were Liu Xiaoqing.

The same went for roles. Fresh graduates were simply too inexperienced. Unless it was a specific type of role, they would struggle to handle ordinary roles.

Of course, if you had the ability to have award-winning actors and actresses supporting you at every turn, that was a different story.

That was the power of capital backing, not the actor’s own skill.

And neither Zhou Yun nor Fan Baobao were that kind of person, so they could only start from the most basic minor roles to hone themselves.

Just like Stephen Chow back in the day.

This was truly “when Heaven is about to place a great responsibility on a person.”