Huayu: This director is so eager to improve.

Chapter 79 A Passerby

Along the dusty provincial highway, Zheng Peng dragged a woven bag printed with faded peony flowers.

For the first time, I felt a wavering in my resolve to "pursue my dreams at all costs."

He is a boy from Northeast China, and his home is in a small county town near Tieling.

I've loved watching TV since I was a child, and I would imitate the characters on TV. I always felt that there was something different about me deep down.

After graduating from high school, he didn't get into any decent university. His parents wanted him to learn a trade or work as a truck driver with relatives to make a stable living.

But he wouldn't have it; the fire in his heart burned brighter and brighter—he wanted to go to Hengdian and become an actor!

Isn't that how it's always portrayed on TV? Wasn't Wang Baoqiang also started as an extra?

This caused a huge argument with his family. His mother, wiping away tears, said that he was unfamiliar with the area and there were many scammers there.

My dad got so angry that he threw down his chopsticks and scolded him for "not doing his job properly and daydreaming."

In the end, he took the two thousand yuan his family had secretly given him, along with the more than one thousand yuan he had saved from working as a waiter at a barbecue restaurant during the summer vacation, and bought the cheapest hard-seat train ticket, heading south.

The train rattled for two days and one night, and my bones felt like they were about to fall apart.

After finally getting off the train at Yiwu Station, the humid and hot air hitting him made this Northeastern man a little breathless.

According to the travel guide I found online, I should take a bus to Hengdian after leaving the train station.

But he was unfamiliar with the area and was bewildered by the huge crowd and complicated signs when a tanned middle-aged man with a heavy accent approached him.

"Hey buddy, going to Hengdian? Hop in and we're leaving, cheap!"

Zheng Peng glanced warily at the dilapidated three-wheeled motorcycle the other party was driving, his heart pounding:

"How...how much?"

"It's not far, just a few miles! Since you're a new student, I'll only charge you twenty, it's a great deal!"

Twenty yuan?

Zheng Peng did the math and realized that the bus fare was a bit more expensive than what he had read online, but it would take him directly there, saving him the trouble of going through the hassle.

He glanced at his enormous woven bag, then at the other person's "honest" smiling face, and gritted his teeth:

"OK!"

He loaded his luggage onto the truck bed and squeezed in himself.

The tricycle sputtered and drove away from the hustle and bustle of the train station.

At first, he looked out the window at the unfamiliar southern scenery with great curiosity.

But as I looked at it, I realized something was wrong.

There are fewer and fewer houses, the roads are getting more and more remote, and there are farmlands and wastelands on both sides. It doesn't look like a film and television city at all.

"Master, have we gone the wrong way? This doesn't look like Hengdian!" he asked loudly, clinging to the edge of the truck bed.

"That's right, that's right, we're taking a shortcut! We'll be there soon!" The driver said without turning his head.

This "immediately" lasted for an hour.

As the tricycle wound its way through the dusty country roads, Zheng Peng's heart sank lower and lower.

Even if he had no experience, he knew he had been scammed.

Finally, the tricycle stopped at a fork in the road, in the middle of nowhere.

The driver jumped out of the car and pointed to a narrower road ahead: "Look, just follow this road, and you'll be in Hengdian soon. Here's the money, two hundred."

"Two hundred?!" Zheng Peng's eyes widened, a surge of anger rising to his head.

"Wasn't it supposed to be twenty? And where have we gotten this far?!"

"Twenty is a straight-line distance. I've taken you this far, doesn't that cost money on gas? Stop talking nonsense and hurry up!"

The driver's "honesty" had long since vanished, replaced only by impatience and rudeness.

Looking at the other person's arms, which were much thicker than his own, and then at the desolate wilderness, Zheng Peng felt both angry and afraid.

His face flushed red, and he pulled out crumpled bills from his inner pocket, counted out two hundred, and practically threw them at the person.

The driver took the money, grinned, jumped into the tricycle, and sped off, kicking up a cloud of dust that made Zheng Peng cough.

"You fucking..."

Zheng Peng wanted to chase after it to argue, but how could two legs catch up with three wheels? He could only watch helplessly as the broken-down vehicle disappeared at the end of the dirt road.

He stood there, his chest heaving violently, not from exhaustion, but from anger.

Two hundred yuan! That's enough for him to eat well for half a month! What's even more frustrating is the feeling of being treated like a fool.

Looking around, there was only one asphalt road that seemed to stretch endlessly, with sparse trees and fields on both sides, and occasionally a car would whiz by.

He was completely bewildered. Where was he? How did he get to Hengdian?

The online guides didn't tell him how to get from the wilderness to the film studio!

Dragging his heavy woven bag, Zheng Peng could only walk along the road, in the general direction the driver pointed out, his steps uneven.

The straps of the woven bag were digging painfully into my shoulders, and my cheap T-shirt was soaked with sweat.

He began to doubt whether he had been too naive. Was Hengdian really a place where he could make it big?

Just as his mouth was dry, his steps were getting heavier, and he was almost in despair, he heard the sound of a car behind him.

He didn't pay much attention and continued walking with his head down.

A somewhat old-looking bus slowly slowed down and stopped beside him.

The driver's side window rolled down, and the driver leaned out, glancing at him and his conspicuous woven bag.

"Where to?"

Zheng Peng paused for a moment, looking at the other person with some wariness.

Having just experienced the unlicensed taxi incident, he was wary of unfamiliar vehicles that approached him unsolicited.

But looking at this desolate place, far from any village or shop, he still held onto a sliver of hope and said in a hoarse voice:

"Go...go to Hengdian."

The driver nodded and glanced back into the carriage.

"Director Guo is also going to Hengdian."

"Let him come up."

Zheng Peng hesitated. Getting into a stranger's car? Was it safe?

He gritted his teeth and decided to take a gamble. At least this bus looked more legitimate than those three-wheeled vehicles.

"Th...thank you." He struggled to drag the woven bag up the steps to the car door, and then followed.

The carriage was full of people, both men and women, most of them dressed casually but with refined features. Some carried bags and had different expressions; some were resting with their eyes closed, while others were talking in hushed tones.

A faint scent of smoke mixed with perfume filled the air.

The driver was a quiet, middle-aged man, focused intently on driving.

Guo Fan pointed to the empty space above the hood of his car.

"Sit here, it's safer."

The car restarted and drove smoothly on the highway.

Zheng Peng sat down stiffly, his hands on his knees, his back ramrod straight, barely daring to breathe.

"Young man, what are you doing in Hengdian?" Guo Fan asked, sizing him up.

Zheng Peng was a little embarrassed, but he still mustered up his courage and, with a slight Northeastern accent, said in a low voice:

"I...I want to be an actor. Brother, what...what do you do?"

As soon as he finished speaking, he heard a burst of laughter, neither loud nor soft, coming from the back of the carriage.

A man leaning against the window, with a short stubble and a somewhat rugged appearance, laughed loudly and said:

"Young man, what kind of question is that! Everyone on this bus, except the driver, is an actor!"

Zheng Peng suddenly turned his head and looked at the various faces in the carriage.

I hadn't looked closely before, but now that I'm taking a closer look, I can see that some people still have traces of light makeup on their faces, some have folding chairs with the crew's name printed on them next to them, and some are holding scripts or call sheets with curled edges...

"Actors"? These people... are all actors? The kind of actor he dreams of becoming?

He was stunned, and for a moment he didn't know what to say.

The unease I felt from getting into an unfamiliar car was replaced by a larger emotion, a mixture of curiosity, bewilderment, and a hint of excitement.

Hengdian seems to be quite different from what he imagined.