บท 17: Favor
บรรณาธิการ: EndlessFantasy Translation
The students here all had dreams of making it into the entertainment industry and becoming stars. Needless to say, there were many handsome and beautiful people. Jiang Se stood there for a moment before adjusting her backpack straps and walking into the academy.
She did not hurry about to ask if the "Pretense to Reality" crew was here to do their casting call in the film academy. Instead, she walked around the campus to familiarize herself with the surroundings.
After finding out about the rough locations of the various faculties, she felt slightly tired. From the corner of her eye, she saw a marble fountain nearby.
The fountain was beautifully crafted. Jiang Se walked up to it, removed her backpack, and sat at the edge. Then, she took out a bottle of mineral water that she had bought and drank it.
The fountain behind her was spouting water into the air and a few drops of water occasionally splashed on her face. It provided her with some cool relief on this hot night.
While she took a paper towel and wiped the sweat from her forehead, she caught a fragrant scent in the air. Someone had sat beside her. Soon after that, she felt something sting her nose.
She turned to look. A girl in a short red dress sat a meter away from her. Her long, fair legs were especially eye-catching in contrast to her red dress.
With an open bottle of nail polish beside her, the girl had her legs crossed. She was painting her toenails.
"Oh, is the smell bothering you?"
Jiang Se's gaze seemed to have caught the girl's attention. After she finished painting her big toe, she looked up and revealed her delicately made-up face which had been half-covered by her wavy auburn hair moments ago.
Her eyebrows were raised, but she did not stop painting her toenails.
Jiang Se looked at her for a long while. The girl snorted before reinserting the brush into the bottle to get some fresh nail polish and was about to paint her other toe when Jiang Se spoke, "I can see your black undergarments."
As the girl's hand jolted, the red nail polish splattered onto her toes. She hastily returned the brush into the bottle and retrieved some tissue paper from her bag.
Jiang Se took two pieces of her own tissue paper and extended them toward her. The girl hastily took them and started wiping off the nail polish without thanking her.
"We're both girls. It's nothing."
The girl finished cleaning her toes, but she did not close her legs. Instead, she leaned forward, causing her already-short dress to slide further upward. She teased Jiang Se, "Would you like to have another look?"
"No, thanks. I don't swing that way."
Jiang Se stuffed her pack of tissues back into her backpack, clearly unfazed by the teasing.
Her reaction made the girl burst out in laughter. She then screwed the cap for the nail polish on and inched closer to Jiang Se.
"Hey, which faculty are you from?" When the girl asked her question, she reached up and tucked her long hair behind her right ear. "You're from the Performing Arts Faculty, aren't you? You're pretty. In fact, you look much prettier than that Liu Yuchun who just joined the department this year."
That name rang a bell in Jiang Se's mind.
"I heard that there's a casting call here, so I came to have a look."
The girl's hand paused halfway through her own hair. Shortly after that, she said with a smile, "As expected of the powerful media. Everybody knows about it now that it's on the news."
She inched closer, her heavy perfume assaulting Jiang Se's nostrils.
"But I'm afraid that you've come all the way for nothing," she sneered, "You're talking about Gu Jiaer's 'Pretense to Reality', aren't you?"
Jiang Se nodded.
"The academy has a partnership with the crew. There won't be an opportunity for you to land an important role. The teachers are the ones who will be suggesting names for the tryouts." As she ran her fingers through her hair again, she turned and wanted to lean on Jiang Se.
"Do you have a backer? Do you have a sugar daddy? Do you have money?"
Every time she asked a question, Jiang Se would shake her head. In the end, the girl rolled her eyes.
"Yet, you want to make it into the entertainment industry? You must be out of your mind from all the dreaming about becoming a star!"
The girl's body was soft and well-rounded with the peaks on her chest towering over the rest of her body. Jiang Se seemed young and inexperienced in comparison.
Although the girl seemed to be a born socializer, Jiang Se was not used to being this close to other people, so she gently pushed the girl so that she was sitting upright and moved further away from her.
"I just want to be an extra."
Unlike the original Jiang Se, she had no ambitions of making it big in the entertainment industry.
Feng Zhongliang's disregard for actors had influenced her somewhat. At the moment, she merely wanted to land a role to cope with her current predicament.
If this was her life from now on, she would have to be more responsible about it, at the very least.
"An extra?"
When Jiang Se pushed her away the first time, the girl had stubbornly leaned back onto Jiang Se, not wanting to be pushed away.
However, when Jiang Se expressed her interest to be an extra, she was stunned and straightened up on her own. "Did you come all the way just to be an extra?"
She gave Jiang Se an appraising look, seeming puzzled. "Are you out of your mind? Do you know how much extras get paid daily and how much you can get by being a supporting actor with lines?"
Jiang Se shouldered her backpack and stood up. She had walked around the academy today and familiarized herself with the locations of the different faculties. She also noticed that there were no signs of enhanced security which would have accompanied the presence of the production team.
The Imperial Capital Film Academy had an open-door concept, so it was easy to go in and out of the campus.
If the production team was here, the reporters would have used everything in their arsenals to slip in and keep an eye out.
She felt that she had made this trip for nothing. This girl's words merely confirmed her guesses.
Since she gained nothing and had her revision waiting for her at night, she decided to head back.
The girl was holding the tissue with which she had wiped the spilled nail polish off her toes. She looked at Jiang Se and frowned.
"Do you have…"
She seemed to want to say something but appeared gloomy in the end. She ran her fingers through her auburn curls as she thought about something and lowered her hand.
"Forget it. There are no auditions on campus. The teachers will recommend students and direct them to the casting call location." She licked her lips and reached for her satchel to take out a small mirror. "I heard that it'll be on the 12th of June on level 13 of the Yijing Building in the outer circle of the imperial capital. You can go and try your luck then."
The girl looked at her own reflection in the mirror. Then, she took out her lipstick and patched her makeup. "But I'll have to warn you that the roles of the lead and important supporting characters have already been determined. Even if you make it, you'll only be an extra, at best."
Jiang Se committed the address she said to memory and thanked her.
"There's no need to thank me. I just don't like owing other people favors." She waved the tissues in her hand and did not continue chatting with Jiang Se after that. She lowered her head, unscrewed the nail polish bottle, and began painting her nails again.
Jiang Se reminded her again before she left, "You're exposing yourself again."
The girl kept a straight face and ignored her. When Jiang Se was some distance away, she closed her legs and could not help but laugh.
When Jiang Se returned to the school, Lu Baobao was still copying the English words.
Upon seeing Jiang Se, she flung her arms with a forlorn expression on her face as she asked nervously, "Sese, have you been to the film academy? Did you see Xu Xiaoying? Did you see Zhou Jingxuan?"
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