Chapter 1: The Little Prince of Hengdian

  "Kill!"

  The two armies clashed together on the battlefield, with Wen Taishi representing the Yin Shang and Jiang Ziya representing the Western Zhou commanding the battle from a distance. After about seven or eight minutes of fighting, a large number of soldiers from both sides had fallen to the ground. He Mu was relatively lucky, as he was still standing, so he continued to wield his weapon with all his might, showcasing the great combat strength of the Yin Shang soldiers.

  "Cut!" Seeing that the filming was almost done, the director of the TV series "The Legend of Deification", Jin Guo Zhou, timely shouted "cut". This scene of battle had been filmed five or six times, and this time it was barely passable. Now it's already noon, and it's time to take a break. August is the hottest month in Hengdian, and just now two extras fainted from heatstroke.

  "Alright, let's have lunch." Director Jin called Liu Dekai (playing Jiang Ziya) and the other actors to return to the hotel for lunch. The hundreds of extras on the empty ground also removed their armor and prepared to receive their boxed lunches. This afternoon's scene is Zhou Jie (playing Ji Fa) and Liu Dekai's confrontation in the military tent, so many extras are not needed, and they will have to find other things to do this afternoon.

  He is particularly eye-catching among the extras, not only because of his handsome appearance and good figure, but also because he is different from those tired-looking extras. He always has a smile on his face, his eyes are shining brightly, even the unpalatable boxed lunch can be chewed with relish, he is the perfect embodiment of vibrant youth and invincibility, in his eyes you can't see fatigue, all you can see is his passion for acting and his yearning for the future.

  This is He Mu, a young man who has been in the industry for over a year and calls himself "Little Prince of Hengdian".

  He took a boxed lunch and pushed through the crowds of people to get to Chang Dabao's side, calling out "Brother Bao, Brother Bao" with great familiarity.

  Chang Da Bao is a veteran extra, from the 1990s when Hengdian World Studios was first built on a large scale, Chang Da Bao, who was an ordinary farmer at that time, started his career as an extra. He has been doing this for ten years and even stopped farming his land. If you look closely, you can see Chang Da Bao's figure in famous films and TV series such as "The Emperor and the Assassin", "Hero", "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" and "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils" (starring Zhang Jizhong), although he only appears in a few scenes with one or two lines, which is already enviable for He Mu.

  After doing extra work for several years, the commercially-minded Chang Dabao gathered a group of extras who were rooted in Hengdian but had no way out. He transformed himself into one of the big bosses of Hengdian Film and Television City. Just like today's large-scale war scene, among the hundreds of extras, half of them are Chang's people. In the eyes of the grassroots actors at the bottom of the entertainment circle, Chang Dabao is already a remarkable figure.

  He's a big shot with hundreds of people under him, but whenever there's a play to be performed, he always has to run around and make an appearance. As he puts it: "Bao Ge isn't doing it for the money, Bao Ge loves performing arts."

  Before coming to Hengdian, He Mu was with the crew of Zhang Jizhong in Xiangshan Film Studio shooting "The Legend of the Condor Hero", where he played about ten roles such as soldiers, beggars and Taoist priests, but unfortunately they were all unnamed roles, which was a bit regrettable. Later, he felt that Hengdian might have more development opportunities, so he plunged into Hengdian alone again. On the first day of his arrival, he was arranged by Chang Da Bao to play a small role, and from then on, he became the most handsome and stylish extra actor under Chang Da Bao's command.

  Although the reputation of the group head is not very good, Chang Dabao is still a decent person. Compared to some group heads who are ruthless and exploitative, although Brother Bao is also greedy for money, he has principles and is willing to provide accommodation for his group actors. The commission is not that harsh either. Most importantly, Chang Dabao has many connections and can provide more performance opportunities, which means the group actors can earn more money.

  He Mu, who didn't take money too seriously, valued those rare performance opportunities even more. If he could get a few lines of dialogue, it would be even better. Who knows, maybe he'd be discovered by some director and set foot on the path to stardom from then on.

  He Mu Gang came over, and Chang Da Bao knew what this kid wanted to do. He must be looking for himself to play a joke. Usually, seeing this kid dressed in bright and beautiful clothes, he didn't seem like someone who lacked money. Could it be that he had the same addiction to pranks as himself?

  "Brother Bao, I'm eating," He Mu smiled with a sunny face. "I've been losing weight recently, or you can help me deal with this piece of meat." He Mu kindly picked the only piece of meat from the boxed lunch and handed it to Chang Dabao.

  "Go, go, go!" Chang Dabao covered his own boxed lunch. "You want to lose weight, don't you think I need to lose weight looking at my appearance?" Chang Dabao said while shaking his belly, which could be described in four words: turbulent waves!

  "Speak your mind!" Chang Dabao said bluntly after swallowing a mouthful of rice.

  "Brother Bao, it's like this. Look at how handsome I am. Can't you arrange a role for me to show my face? Of course, if there are lines, that would be even better." He Mu looked at Chang Da Bao with expectation.

  "Xiao Mu, isn't it you who doesn't know what the first rule of Longtou Village is?" Chang Dabao asked with a serious tone.

  "What?" He Mu had been running for so long and still hadn't heard of such a guardian.

  "The first rule is: a handsome extra is not a good extra," Chang Dabao said with a smile. "Don't be proud, I'm not complimenting you. In the world of extras, being handsome is probably not as good as being an old man like me. According to this principle, you will have a hard time in the world of extras, so I advise you to do something else while you're still young, why bother wasting your time in this line?"

  "So you're saying I'm more suitable for the leading role." He Mu's eyes sparkled as he said.

  He Mu's external conditions are not bad, and can even be said to be very good. The title of "Little Prince of Hengdian" is not called in vain. Just now, Chang Da Bao's words were comparing him with Zhou Jie, the protagonist of "The Legend of Deification", it is obvious that he is more handsome and has a stronger idol temperament than Zhou Jie, and he also thinks that after two years of tempering, his acting skills have improved greatly. What he lacks is just an opportunity.

  "Is the protagonist someone who can act just because they want to? Those high-achieving students from Central Academy of Drama and Beijing Film Academy who manage to become leading actors at a young age are extremely rare, while most others remain unknown for their entire lives. Do you think you're more excellent than them?" Chang Dabao said bluntly, only offering these words because he appreciated He Mu's diligence and thoughtfulness. As someone who had been rooted in the industry for a long time, he had seen too many young people with starry dreams recklessly enter this circle, only to end up achieving nothing. Among them were boys even more handsome and clever than He Mu.

  Chang Da Bao said that he was not deaf to the advice of his seniors, but he had his own plans. He loved acting and yearned to become a brilliant star, but he also knew how difficult this path was, and not all extras could become Wang Baoqiang. Timing and luck were sometimes crucial, so he set a goal for himself: if by the time he was 24 years old, he still hadn't landed a role as a male supporting actor in a film or television production, he would pack up his bedroll and return home to get married and give up on this dream.

  Chang Dabao finished speaking, and He Mu also finished eating his boxed lunch. With a proud face, he asked again: "Can you give me a role with some screen time? No lines is fine too."

  All his efforts were in vain, Chang Dabao was depressed. He thought for a moment and said, "This afternoon's task is to pretend to be a dead body, consider it as your punishment."

  "Can I lie down?"

  "Not good, get down! Face downwards." Chang Dabao thought, I won't let you show your face.

  After dinner, Da Bao chose several dozen extras and took them to the neighboring crew of "The Legend of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" (He Rundong version), which naturally included He Mu. In a little over an hour, they would collectively "die in battle". Although this play was not auspicious, it was much more relaxing than the war scenes that morning.

  He Mu saw the drama director directing a few laborers to set up the scene, so he ran over to help, hoping to establish a relationship with the drama director and open up the deputy director's door. If he could mention one sentence in front of the director and give him a role with lines, that would be even better.

  Unfortunately, He Mu's charming eyes were all wasted on the blind man, and the director didn't show any gratitude at all. Instead, he treated him like a prop and kept yelling at him to "hurry up, don't dawdle". This made He Mu feel very frustrated, as he had already done this kind of silly thing countless times before. But he still held onto the mentality that he might get lucky and repeatedly showed off his diligence in front of the crew members. Chang Da Bao watched with a smile on his face, but felt a bit sour in his heart.

  In the end, Da Bao still let He Mu get his wish and lay on the ground pretending to be a corpse. With his eyes closed, He Mu felt that the camera seemed to have a close-up shot of him, which made his heart beat faster, but he still held it in without revealing any flaws. Even as a corpse, he had to act professionally, this was one of He Mu's mottos as an extra actor.

  "After filming the 'dead body' scene, He Mu and others changed into other costumes to film a few scenes of living people, but the camera only swept by quickly, without any room for performance."

  After all the scenes were finished, Chang Dabao led his team to leave. Today was considered an early finish, but if there was a night scene, Chang Dabao and his team would still appear on set on time whenever they were called.

  He Mu did not follow behind Chang Dabao's butt and leave, nor did Chang Dabao call He Mu to walk together. He had already gotten used to the fact that every time they finished work, He Mu would always blend into the crowd and watch how those real actors filmed their scenes. He said he was learning from their acting skills. As a non-professional actor without any acting opportunities, he could only rely on his daily observations and guesses to accumulate his own acting skills.

  In the accommodation provided by Chang Da Bao, he often bursts into acting skills in front of his fellow actors. He can instantly enter Ma Jingtao's roaring mode and also perfectly imitate Huang Xiaoming's pose with his chin up. Of course, Zhou Jie's way of expressing complex emotions and deep psychology through actions like "gazing up at the sky and showing off his nostrils" is a bit harder to grasp, He Mu said he has been learning.

  The sky gradually darkened, and our little prince He Wu from the horizontal shop was also preparing to go back and rest. On the way, he bought a large pancake with rolled meat, which served as dinner.

  Back in his own five-square-meter small room, He Mu fished out a mobile phone from under the quilt and lay down.

  He never brings his mobile phone when going out to act, this habit originated from the first time he was an extra actor, a friend's phone rang during filming and was severely criticized by the deputy director and the group leader, after that he never appeared in that crew again.

  There are five or six unconnected calls on the phone, a text message, all of which were made by Li Wen Hua, and the text message was also sent by him. The content is very brief: "Call me as soon as you see this message, something's up!"

  From eleven in the morning to five in the afternoon, almost every hour he called once, it seems that he really had an urgent matter, He Mu didn't delay either and directly dialed back.

  ……

  (The Buddha said: Fresh first chapter, old Buddha is back, should I express it with recommendation tickets or something?)