Chapter 1: Weird Dream
11:00 AM in the morning, inside the headquarter of Starbright entertainment.
Amidst the crowd of people entering the lobby, a particular young man stood out from the crowd. His frantic apologising while trying to squeeze past the crowd to get into the closing elevator doors coupled with his anxious expression drew looks of distain from the onlookers.
"It's over! I'm an hour late to the interview!" Jin mumbled to himself. He blamed it on having a terrible nightmare last night that made him missed the ringing of his alarm clock on such an important day. He woke up sweating like a dog and immediately rushed to Starbright building as fast as he could. Although he had missed the interview time by an hour, he still tried his best to get to Starbright hoping to make it in time as he was determined to be a star despite the foreshadowing from his nightmare.
In his dream, he was a fairly successful comedian in the beginning of his career because of his ugly looking face.
Just by standing still wearing a solemn expression, the audiences would uncontrollably break into fits of laughter. That was how hilarious looking his face was.
In his dream last night, he was frequently invited to join variety shows as a guest initially after debuting. His whole purpose of getting invited was to showcase his funny and fugly face to the television audience, inducing them to laugh.
However, as time went by, the effect had dwindled as the audience got tired of the gag. And soon, he was casted out from the entertainment scene. For the next ten years, he tried his hardest to break into the scene again but to no avail. No one was willing to give him another chance, not when there were many more fresh bloods that would do anything to enter the entertainment industry every single year.
He lived in poverty and isolation while taking on low-paying part-time jobs that wouldn't interfere with his dream. He went to interviews after interviews, practicing on his performance and other variety shows. Fully aware of his efforts, his parents were actually supportive of his dream, but he failed their expectation miserably ultimately. The nightmare finally ended when he died and that jolted him awake back to reality.
The dream was so surreal that he could only hope that the nightmare wasn't an omen of failing the interview. He could still remember everything in his dream vividly and the experience of failure.
After the elevator arrived at Jin's desired floor, he walked towards to the receptionist and stated his purpose.
In a short while, the human resource manager emerged and decided to give Jin a chance as there were still several other interviewees waiting for their turn.
"Name… Age… Experience… And have you ever joined any other agency before?" The manager in her thirties asked.
"Xiao Jin"
"Twenty-two years old"
"I have no experience under my belt currently, but I graduated from SH Theatre Academy, and I have not joined any other agency before."
After answering the simple questions, the manager told him to line up at the end of the queue before leaving. During this time, several more interviewees had entered and left the interview area. Some with a dejected look, while some of them showed a gleeful smile on their faces.
"Relax a little, you will probably be accepted into the agency. Afterall, this is a world where face matters." The manager consoled Jin seeing that he was a bit tense. But her words left him speechless. He looked around his surrounding and at the other interviewees, and found that he indeed had a good chance with his hilarious looking face, but he wasn't happy about it.
"…"
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Following the signages, Jin proceeded to the interview room with a heavy heart when it was finally his turn. The words from the manager lingered in his mind. Nevertheless, before he could ponder any further, he had reached the interview room of Starbright Entertainment.
Looking up, Jin saw a bunch of dazzling European styled crystal lights hanging from the false ceiling. Several posters from famous movies, televisions dramas, variety shows were pasted on the walls showcasing the works of their artistes as well, giving Jin goose bumps all over his body.
When he entered the room, he was greeted with a panel of interviewers in front of him, consisting of a total of 4 man and 1 woman in office suits.
As Jin entered the room, he was surprising undeterred by the intimidating aura emitted by the 5 interviewers. This caught him by surprise as this was the first time where he had gone to an interview.
"Good day to all of you, I'm interviewee number 129…"
"Brilliant! Finally, someone with comedic effect!" The man in the middle of the five boomed with laughter as he clapped his hands together, interrupting Jin's introduction.
Jin was awkward as he doesn't know how to react to the man's outburst.
"Young man, you have an impeccable face. The job of a comedian is designed for you specifically! I couldn't help but laugh when I saw your face, hope you don't mind that. Tell you what, the company have a guest spot for Big Brother Friday Night, and this resource can be allocated to you if you agree to sign an agency contract with us. Don't worry, even though it's a show hosted by one of the two greatest host Li Yuanda, you don't have to do anything other than to show some funny expressions." The man continued.
Hearing the man's words, the rest of the interviewers nodded their heads, wholeheartedly agreeing with him. But, Jin was frowning the whole time since the interview begun.
Time and time again, it was his face.
Although he knew that the role of a comedian in a variety show was to be ridiculous and funny as much as possible and make the audience laugh, this wasn't the path that he wanted to take, not when he'd discovered a whole new path in his dream.
Furthermore, being the comedic role of a variety show would defeat the purpose of his dream of becoming famous. In fact, that would cut his career short as evident in his strange dream. Once the image of him being just an ugly and funny face settled into the minds of the audiences, that would mark the end of his career. He wanted to be a famous MC, and not just some pointless comedic character.
Getting laughter out from TV audience shouldn't be so cheap like this. He knew that there were much more to making people laugh and tune in to the TV. He could still remember vividly the variety shows that he had in his dream about the future.
Gathering his courage, he replied with resolute eyes. "I believe that I can utilise my talent more as a host, and I feel that using ugliness to induce audience to laugh is a rather low-level way of comedy."
Though his reply may appear to be rude to the interviewers, and he didn't know what came over him that day, but it wasn't something Jin could compromise on.
At the end of his sentence, the room became totally silent.