Chapter 6

Zhou Xiao entered the dressing room, his face showing no signs of relief. He had been at the theater since the morning, and the most important thing he had yet to resolve was what he would do if he had to go on stage!

In his mind, the hard drive mostly contained songs from Japanese drama concerts, nothing that he could really use. And in his true memories, although there were some crosstalks by Guo Degang, crosstalk and Japanese manzai were quite different. The biggest difference was that crosstalk had a relatively slower pace, while manzai was much faster. Guo Degang's crosstalk often lasted for over forty minutes with countless encores, while most manzai on TV would end a long segment of dialogue in about five minutes, with one or two people talking rapidly like a chef chopping meat.

Moreover, Guo Degang's crosstalk was performed by two people, but Zhou Xiao was alone now.

Perhaps if he had a day or two, Zhou Xiao could really transform Guo Degang's or some other crosstalk into a solo manzai, but with less than an hour until the afternoon performance, it was unrealistic to achieve this.

What to do? For the next few minutes, Zhou Xiao's mind was filled with this question.

Moreover, time always seemed to pass quickly at such moments. Zhou Xiao, hiding in the corner of the dressing room, felt that it was only a short while before a staff member came to inform him that the performance was about to begin.

With no choice, Zhou Xiao had to walk out of the dressing room with a stiff upper lip.

"If it doesn't work out, I'll just use those old segments to get by. After this performance, I'll explain everything to Uncle Jingshang and find something else to do," Zhou Xiao thought.

There were five groups of comedians performing, and apart from Zhou Xiao and Sakaguchi, the other three were all manzai duos. In the performance order, the first three duos would go on stage, followed by Zhou Xiao, and finally, Sakaguchi would close the show.

Zhou Xiao came to the backstage and, through the curtain, saw that the audience in the theater was almost full, with an occupancy rate of about 80%, which was quite good. Zhou Xiao wasn't nervous about performing in front of people; his anxiety and tension mostly came from the fact that he didn't have any good segments to perform.

"Zhou Xiao, come here for a moment," someone tapped him on the shoulder while he was peeking behind the curtain.

Turning around, Zhou Xiao saw that it was Uncle Jingshang.

"Zhou Xiao... you see... can we switch the order of your and Sakaguchi's performances?" Jingshang asked.

"Switch the order?" The current order was Zhou Xiao first and Sakaguchi last, but it seemed Sakaguchi wanted to go on stage first.

"Why switch the order?" The order had been decided long ago, and Zhou Xiao was puzzled.

"Well, he's been quite popular recently... and your situation hasn't been good, so..." Jingshang hesitated.

Hearing this, Zhou Xiao nodded in understanding. That made sense.

As mentioned before, Sakaguchi's recent situation was good. Ten years of accumulation plus recent TV appearances had brought in many more viewers specifically for Sakaguchi. On the other hand, Zhou Xiao's recent situation wasn't great. After the initial freshness wore off, many of his segments had become boring to the audience. The previous Zhou Xiao's creative ability wasn't strong, and the initial burst of creativity was the result of years of accumulation. If the previous Zhou Xiao had faced the Sakaguchi of ten years ago, he might have had a chance, but now, the young Zhou Xiao was no match for the experienced Sakaguchi.

If the order of their performances was changed, it would be a disaster for Zhou Xiao. His comedic skills were already lacking, and performing after Sakaguchi, who was in top form, and being the last act among the five groups would put immense pressure on him. Even the previous Zhou Xiao would likely mess up in such a situation.

"I have no choice... he knows the person in charge here. I'm just a manager, but I have no real say. He's also a pillar of the theater, so I can't ignore his requests..." Jingshang explained, somewhat ashamed.

"It's fine, we can switch the order!" Zhou Xiao said without much thought.

"Eh? Is that okay?" Jingshang asked.

"It's fine, it's just the order of performances!" Zhou Xiao reassured him, though in his heart, he thought, "I'm not really interested in being a comedian anyway. This is my last performance, so being the last act is fine."

While they were talking, the first manzai duo had already taken the stage. It was a pair of one fat and one thin, and Zhou Xiao watched for a few minutes. Their segments mostly revolved around the fat man's physique, and the punchlines came from the thin man's embarrassment, with the occasional comeback from the fat man, which was quite funny.

Watching their performance, Zhou Xiao felt he learned a lot, even though he no longer wanted to be a comedian. These experiences would be useful in any field.

The performances of the first three groups passed quickly. After their performances, the theater entered a short intermission, leaving only Sakaguchi and Zhou Xiao to perform.

In Japan, manzai segments are usually limited to three to seven minutes, but in small theaters, it's rare for an act to perform only one segment.

The reason is simple: on TV, the station might not give you much time because there are many people waiting to appear. But in a small theater, there isn't much money to hire many acts, so with fewer acts and more time, each act gets more time on stage. However, more time doesn't mean longer segments; most acts perform three to five segments in about 20 minutes.

After the first three acts, over an hour of the two-hour performance had already passed. The audience is always more critical of the later acts, as they have already been sitting for over an hour.

During the intermission, Sakaguchi also came to the backstage.

Sakaguchi walked to the backstage and glanced at Zhou Xiao with disdain, "Hmph! Watch me when I go on stage. I'll show you what a comedian is, but I doubt you'll learn anything!"

Sakaguchi's provocation no longer affected Zhou Xiao. He turned his head away, seemingly indifferent.

However, when Sakaguchi went on stage, Zhou Xiao didn't stubbornly avoid watching. He watched Sakaguchi closely, as if trying to learn all his experience.

Sakaguchi's solo act had a bit of the feel of a solo crosstalk. With his comical appearance, Sakaguchi often portrayed a hardworking but somewhat bitter office worker, wearing a slightly worn suit and looking like he had been up for days. Zhou Xiao thought, "The audience probably never realizes how arrogant and domineering this cautious guy is off stage."

True to form, Sakaguchi's 20-minute performance, while not groundbreaking, clearly entertained the audience, and laughter often echoed back to the backstage. Don't assume that comedians in theaters always make the audience laugh uncontrollably. Those who can do that consistently are already famous and don't need to waste their time in small theaters. Most segments in small theaters don't elicit loud laughter.

But such laughter was enough and could be considered a success.

When Sakaguchi finished his performance and walked off the stage with a haughty expression, Zhou Xiao was already ready to go on.

At this point, he had no other choice but to perform the segments he remembered.

PS: Thank you, Kunsha, for your first reward. Also, thank you, Mengchu, for your support.