Chapter 4

Chu Qing fell onto the bed, with the script that had been bothering him lying beside him. The script was thin, only about ten pages long, with the title "Xiao Wu" printed on the cover page.

He had just flipped through it and found it particularly uninteresting and boring. He forced himself to finish reading it, and suddenly felt as if he were back in high school, in a math class.

As for movies, apart from the patriotic films organized during school, he had never been to a cinema.

Chu Qing preferred watching TV dramas, especially when he could cuddle with his wife on the sofa, cook a plate of soybeans, or braise some tofu, and watch those romantic, melodramatic TV series.

Most of the movies he watched were on TV, and a few were pirated DVDs. He loved action movies, where cars burst into flames and fly into the sky, and tall buildings crumble into rubble. He also enjoyed watching tough guys save the world and the girls.

These were his entire concept of movies.

Therefore, when Jia Zhangke gave him this script about a sleazy thief's daily life, he found it extremely boring.

Chu Qing graduated from high school and had not dealt with books since. Fortunately, he could recognize all the words in the script.

The story was about a thief who wandered around the county town, stealing chickens and dogs.

His former brothers in crime had become private entrepreneurs and considered him a social blemish, refusing to accept his wedding gift.

Later, he fell in love with a nightclub girl, took her shopping, and bought her things, but she ran off with a rich man.

He gave the ring he bought for the girl to his mother, who then gave it to her future daughter-in-law, leading to a family quarrel.

Finally, he was caught stealing by the police, handcuffed to a utility pole, and surrounded by onlookers like a dog.

No friends, no lovers, no family, not even able to masturbate, he was a love-starved, miserable person, as cold as could be.

Is this even a movie?!

Chu Qing read through the entire script and only saw the words "tragic" and "miserable."

He thought his taste was quite normal and felt sorry for the director with the drooping eyebrows.

What a waste of money!

He heard that the film had a budget of 200,000 yuan, but how many tickets would it sell? Tsk, tsk, what a waste.

Chu Qing sighed but didn't have any other thoughts. He had to do his job well since he had taken the money.

So, in the days before departure, he stayed at home, reading the script and memorizing the lines. He knew his mind wasn't sharp, and even after being reborn, he was still a poor student. So, he decided to study like he did for exams, marking key points with a pen and memorizing line by line.

Chu Qing's memory was average, but he could always pass tests because he strictly followed the comprehension memory method taught by his Chinese teacher. He would read the text until he knew it by heart, understand each sentence, and then combine the context to memorize the entire passage.

It took him two to three times longer to memorize a text than others, but no one remembered it as well as he did. Even years later, he could recite "Yueyang Tower" and "Chibi Fu" without hesitation.

The script was not long, and after a few days, he had read it thoroughly and started to understand it line by line.

Without a dictionary or reference books, he could only rely on his own understanding.

To his surprise, he found that he could understand the meaning of the script.

It made sense; the texts in school were classic articles that had been passed down for thousands of years, while a script written by a student with drooping eyebrows clearly didn't reach that level.

But later, things got strange. As he read, he suddenly found it hard to understand.

For example:

"Gengsheng: Xiao Yong is doing really well these days. I saw him on TV again yesterday!

Xiao Wu: Hmm!

Gengsheng: I heard he went to Korea!

Xiao Wu: What Korea, North Korea.

Gengsheng: Well, I heard he went abroad."

The few lines were simple, just saying that Xiao Yong had gone abroad, which Chu Qing understood. But when placed in the context of the entire script, he couldn't understand it, feeling that there was some other meaning, but he couldn't figure it out.

Not just this part, many other sections were similar.

Chu Qing scratched his head, feeling frustrated. The more he couldn't understand, the more he tried to figure it out, which made his mood worse and slowed his progress in memorizing the lines.

His stubbornness kicked in, and he approached it with the same spirit he used for reading comprehension in Chinese class, trying his best to understand the author's (or rather, the question setter's) intention.

Not only did he read his own lines, but he also read the descriptions of camera angles, scene settings, synchronized sound, lighting, music, and more, several times. He didn't understand what synchronized sound, long shots, or wide shots were, so he could only interpret them based on the words.

Later, he started drawing on paper, following the script's descriptions, drawing little figures and his understanding of the camera angles, one by one, enjoying the process.

If Jia Zhangke saw this, he would probably think it was a supernatural event, a clueless rookie somehow creating a set of makeshift storyboards.

Chu Qing drew about ten pages and was surprised to find that when he connected these drawings, they formed a complete story, like a picture book.

This discovery excited him.

In the past, whenever they studied prose in school, the eccentric teacher would always ask the students to close their eyes and feel the author's described atmosphere.

Especially for Zhu Ziqing's "Moonlit Lotus Pond," the teacher said, "Imagine this scene in your mind: the moonlight flows like water, quietly spilling onto the leaves and flowers. A thin mist rises from the lotus pond. The leaves and flowers seem to have been washed in milk; they are like a dream wrapped in a light veil..."

Maybe he was a bit slow, but he had never successfully imagined the scene the teacher required. He could sing a few lines of a song: "I am a fish in your lotus pond, just to keep you company under the bright moonlight..."

But at this moment, these images opened a window in Chu Qing's mind, revealing a world he had never seen before.

He felt these images, felt the story in the script, and felt the joys and sorrows of the thief named Xiao Wu.

After a long time, Chu Qing rubbed his sore eyes and lay back on the bed.

The small county town of Fenyang, which he had never been to, now felt incredibly real.

A broken bus rolled over the dusty road, loudspeakers on the street played popular songs, and crooked utility poles were held up by steel cables, with Xiao Wu handcuffed to one, squatting on the ground.

A crowd surrounded him, watching him coldly, and he watched them coldly in return.

It felt like something he had experienced, and Chu Qing felt an indescribable pain in his heart.

He suddenly wanted to cry, for this Xiao Wu.

In acting, there is a famous saying: "The highest realm of an actor is to turn their face into a mask."

Many actors follow this path, with a typical example being the versatile Hong Kong actor, Liang Jiawei, known as the "Thousand-Face Emperor."

But Dao Ming, a mainland actor, commented: "I think an actor who can play a thousand characters is not a good actor, because they only achieve a three-tenths likeness."

Liang Jiawei, of course, was more than a three-tenths likeness. Each of his roles could reach eighty points, but few reached a hundred.

What is the highest realm of acting?

Dao Ming's answer was: "Silence."

A very profound concept, but in simple terms, it means being natural.

Acting is not just about showing strong dramatic tension; it's also about being able to relax and control your performance, making it seem effortless.

For example, Ge You, with his natural ease, is unmatched in the industry.

And Jiang Wen, who exudes a commanding presence but also has a perfect sense of relaxation. In "Furong Town," his performance of sweeping the street with a broom in a waltz-like motion is a perfect example of returning to simplicity.

Many people have categorized acting into levels, with different descriptions but similar essences.

In simple terms, it's like the saying in martial arts novels: "When you see a mountain, it's a mountain; when you see water, it's water. When you see a mountain, it's not a mountain; when you see water, it's not water. When you see a mountain, it's a mountain again; when you see water, it's water again."

Chu Qing was just starting his journey as an actor.

...

The sky was clear, and the clouds were white.

The vast land stretched out in all directions, empty and desolate. To the west, the faint outline of the green-gray Luliang Mountains was visible.

A crooked yellow line, like a poorly sewn seam, cut across the barren land.

"Vroom vroom vroom!"

"Vroom vroom vroom!"

A loud noise came from the dirt road, followed by a dilapidated tractor. The front and back of the tractor swayed in different directions, moving slowly and struggling to keep going.

Behind it, a gray minivan followed.

Chu Qing sat on the edge of the tractor, half of his buttocks hanging in the air. No matter how the tractor swayed, he remained steady, much to the envy of the other three passengers.

Besides Jia Zhangke and Wang Hongwei, there was another person named Gu Zheng, who was also their classmate.

"Director, that cameraman is no good. He's too delicate; he started vomiting after just ten minutes," Chu Qing said, holding a cigarette and taking a puff, looking at the vast, empty fields, which still retained the solemnity of winter.

This made him feel very familiar, as he had grown up in such an environment. He took another deep puff, and with the tobacco, a few strands of cold, dry air entered his lungs.

"Those in Hong Kong have never seen a tractor; ten minutes is already quite good," Jia Zhangke laughed.

Gu Zheng had a straightforward personality and had quickly become friends with Chu Qing. "Exactly! He left Hong Kong to shoot a movie in this poor, remote place. That's dedication!" He gave a thumbs up.

The funding for "Xiao Wu" came from a Hong Kong company, and the cinematographer was also from Hong Kong, named Yu Liwei. The entire crew, including the main actors, consisted of only about ten people.

Chu Qing naturally played Xiao Wu, while Wang Hongwei, who was originally supposed to play Xiao Wu, now played Xiao Yong, Xiao Wu's former good friend who later became a private entrepreneur.

The role of Hu Meimei, the nightclub girl, was played by a student from a normal university named Zuo Wenlu, and the assistant director was Gu Zheng.

These six people were the core of the production team.

Since the entire film was shot in Fenyang, depicting the story of this small county, most of the actors had to perform in the Fenyang dialect.

Zuo Wenlu didn't need to, as Hu Meimei was originally from another place, and speaking Mandarin was understandable. Jia Zhangke had also considered having Chu Qing speak Mandarin, but Chu Qing said it wasn't necessary.

He couldn't match the multitasking abilities of smart people; he could only focus on one thing at a time and do it well before moving on to the next.

Since they were shooting a movie, they had to do it to the best of their ability. So, on the way, he had Jia Zhangke chat with him in the Fenyang dialect, and he practiced the script in response.

Dialects, unlike foreign languages, have similarities and can be learned by imitation. Chu Qing had a good talent for languages and could speak it quite well.

Human settlements in the same cultural background, regardless of the period, are largely the same.

In China, county towns in the 1990s were almost identical, with dirty and chaotic streets, vendors coming and going, low and uneven houses, and occasional tall buildings.

Later, with economic development, by the time Chu Qing was reborn, the county towns had changed, but they were still similar, just with a different mold.

Moving from one place to another, the environment didn't become unfamiliar; it was the change in mindset and confusion that made it feel different.