A cold wind blew past. Gu Xiao hunched his neck, feeling that life was truly absurd.
The illustrious Beijing Film Academy had nearly six thousand applicants, and he had somehow run into Luo Jin?
Before he could come back to his senses, Luo Jin, his face looking awful, leaned in close and lowered his voice to a whisper:
“Uh… brother, I—I’m feeling a little sick to my stomach, and I left in a hurry. Could you lend me some tissues?”
Gu Xiao’s expression stiffened.
No wonder Luo Jin had locked onto him so accurately in the crowd—everyone else had parents accompanying them. Only he was alone.
Silently, he took the packet of tissues from his pocket and handed it over.
Luo Jin thanked him profusely, then clutched the tissues and bolted, vanishing into the crowd in a rush.
Gu Xiao did not know whether to laugh or cry. Before he had fully recovered, a sudden commotion rose ahead.
The school gates slowly opened.
The crowd surged inside like a tide.
Several current students in school uniforms stood at the entrance maintaining order. From time to time, someone raised a sign to guide the examinees to their respective exam rooms.
An atmosphere of nervousness, excitement, and unease filled the air.
Infected by that mood, Gu Xiao could not help growing tense as well.
As he walked, he glanced around. Seeing that none of the current students were future celebrities, he felt a little disappointed, but quickly came to terms with it.
Aside from the acting department, Beijing Film Academy also had literature, cinematography, fine arts, directing… There were only so many who would become famous in the future. Not seeing them was normal.
“Applicants for the acting department, follow me! Make sure you have your admission ticket!”
A girl with a high ponytail shouted while holding a list. The crowd began to stir, and a dense mass of examinees followed her toward the auditorium.
Gu Xiao followed silently, unable to keep from sighing inwardly.
In his previous life, he had been utterly unrelated to the arts. The only tenuous connection was that in high school, he had once learned drawing in order to chase a girl.
And now, after crossing time and space, he had actually entered this top-tier art academy directly. It was simply outrageous.
The campus of Beijing Film Academy was extremely plain. There were none of the glass curtain walls or grand, imposing high-rises common in later universities, only old-fashioned buildings of five or six floors.
On the bare tree trunks along both sides of the road, a few sparrows perched and chirped nonstop.
“So noisy, so noisy!”
“People! So many, so many people!”
“There’s a nice smell here, a nice smell!”
A nice smell? Gu Xiao twitched his nose and looked around, but did not notice anything unusual.
Wait. Why am I trusting a bird?
Gu Xiao resisted the urge to cover his face. Staring straight ahead, he continued following the main group toward the auditorium.
……
……
The auditorium was more spacious than he had imagined.
Hundreds of tiered seats were quickly being filled by the tide of people. The stage and the huge silver screen at the front drew every examinee’s gaze.
The senior student in charge of guidance stood before the lectern, her voice coming through the microphone:
“Please keep quiet. The staff will verify your admission tickets and identity documents. After verification, the large screen will display exam numbers in batches, and senior students will lead you to the designated exam rooms.”
The venue instantly fell silent.
A wordless tension fermented in the air. Sitting in the back row, Gu Xiao saw a girl in the front row breathing deeply over and over, while the boy beside her moved his lips slightly, silently reciting his prepared piece.
After spending a few minutes searching, he found Luo Jin.
At that moment, Luo Jin was lowering his head and tidying his clothes. He smoothed out that dark gray sweater again and again, completely unaware of the slightly disgusted look from the girl beside him.
Seeing this, Gu Xiao also took out his prepared script and began reading it.
Although he had come with the mentality of simply going through the motions, out of respect, he had still studied the rules of the art entrance exam.
In general, the acting department exam at Beijing Film Academy was divided into the preliminary exam, the second exam, and the third exam.
The elimination rate for the preliminary exam reached 80%. Of six thousand art examinees, only about one thousand could make it to the next round, yet the content of the assessment was extremely simple—self-introduction, recitation, and a group skit.
Judging from the exam items, the first two mainly tested the examinees’ bearing and verbal expression.
As for the group skit, with less than a minute of coordination time, it was impossible to polish anything brilliant. As long as the performance was natural and logical, that would do.
“Daring to act is more important than knowing how to act,” Gu Xiao summarized silently to himself.
After thinking that, he could not help mocking himself.
He was just here to be cannon fodder. Why was he worrying so much?
Time ticked by, minute by minute. There were fewer and fewer people in the auditorium, and the atmosphere grew increasingly restless. Quite a few art examinees had already begun fidgeting.
Gu Xiao, who had experienced many job interviews, understood it very well.
That feeling of waiting for judgment could make even adults tremble, let alone these boys and girls, most of whom were only seventeen or eighteen, their faces still carrying traces of immaturity.
Each time a list was announced, it drew a wave of suppressed gasps and countless focused gazes.
Those whose names were called seemed as if they had received amnesty. They left with light footsteps, following the guide. Those left behind, after a brief stir, sank into deeper silence and anxiety.
“Tsk, youth really is nice.”
Gu Xiao sighed inwardly with an air of age and experience.
For someone like him, who had been tortured half to death by the workplace and had ultimately been forced to give up and join the army of civil service exam takers, such immaturity was not laughable. Instead, it stirred an indescribable envy.
Just as the tension continued to brew, the staff member behind the lectern picked up another list.
“Examinees whose exam numbers are read next, please follow me to Exam Room Three.”
“0208103, 0208115, 0208120…”
Gu Xiao listened absentmindedly, until one number drilled into his ears.
“…0208127.”
It was his exam number.
Gu Xiao stood up, straightened the hem of his clothes that had become slightly wrinkled from sitting for too long, and walked toward the door together with several dozen other examinees whose numbers had been called.
When he passed Luo Jin’s row, he noticed the look Luo Jin cast at him, a mixture of encouragement and sympathy that said, “It’s your turn.”
Gu Xiao gave him the slightest nod, then followed the instructor toward the Performance and Directing Building.
……
……
It was a small classroom. Several wooden desks had been pushed together into a long table, behind which sat five examiners.
Thick stacks of documents were piled on the table. Each examiner had paper and pen in front of them, and the rich fragrance of tea drifted through the classroom.
Of the five examiners, the one in the center was a middle-aged man in a turtleneck sweater, his expression stern. Occasionally, he lowered his head to write.
The man and woman on either side of him appeared slightly younger. The man wore square-framed glasses, his gaze cool, giving off an imposing air without needing to show anger.
The remaining two were even younger, their expressions relatively amiable. From time to time, they exchanged quiet words.
Bulky cameras stood in the corners on both sides, their lenses coldly aimed at the center of the exam room.
With a knock on the door, the guide led a dozen boys and girls into the classroom, and the five examiners immediately looked over.
It would have been fine if they had not looked. But the moment they did, more than half of the students who came in averted their gazes. Some even showed unnatural stiffness in their hands and feet.
The examiners shook their heads inwardly. The chief examiner, Huo Xuan, had already sentenced several of them to death in his mind.
No matter how talented they were, if they did not even have the courage to face an audience, then they were naturally unsuited for acting.
At the recorder’s order beside the long table, the exam officially began.
The entire process moved extremely quickly. After a one-minute self-introduction, they immediately proceeded to recitation. Most examinees were basically stopped after reading two or three sentences, and even the one who read the most only got through five.
An awkward atmosphere filled every corner of the classroom. The sound of ballpoint pens scraping across paper was especially grating.
Just as the examinees were on the verge of collapse, a young man in a white crewneck sweatshirt stepped forward. His confident, composed voice echoed through the classroom:
“Good day, teachers!
I am examinee number 0208127, Gu Xiao. I’m seventeen this year…”