Chapter 1 (1/2)

Screen Partner Chapter 1

Xu Zheyi knew that his acting career was coming to an end. He debuted ten years ago, but only the first three years were fairly good. At that time he was still a fresh college student. Almost every popular magazine displayed his figure, and in the industry he was a fairly well known male model.

Later, a start-up brokerage company found him. He didn’t think much about the signing since from the start he was a star. At first, his income was really good. He played supporting roles in several idol dramas, commercials and was even a regular guest on some variety shows.

Although he couldn’t seem to make it to A-list, being a B-list star really wasn’t that bad either. Xu Zheyi had always been quite well off.

He liked stylish clothes and tried to save money in order to open a clothing shop in the future. He had a friend who had the same idea as he did. With two people taking out their savings and then borrowing some money from the bank, they were able to rent a small shop in the east district.

His friends flew to South Korea and Japan several times, in order to bring back items of the highest quality and with the best style. Xu Zheyi also specially requested his former magazine editor friends for favours; he asked them to help publicize the store in their magazines.

Everything seemed to be on the right track until that fateful day when he suddenly wanted to see the store on a whim. Strangely, when he arrived, the door was shut tightly.

He opened the door with a spare key and found that the whole store had been emptied. At first, he thought that he had been robbed. He soon realized, after many unsuccessful attempts to contact his friend, that he had been swindled. Xu Zheyi never asked about the things in the shop. He did not understand the accounts, and looking at them gave him a headache, so he left it all to his friend to deal with.

Because of this, when the bank called to collect the loan, he found out that his friend had borrowed a large sum of money under his name.

It was the darkest period of Xu Zheyi’s life. He had to take full responsibility for the debt owed, and the police couldn’t provide any help—even though they were alarmed. All of his accounts were frozen, with only a few thousand yuan in cash at hand.

Although a couple of good friends pooled together a sum of money so that he can live for a while, he still needs a lot of money to pay off his debts. Towards that end, he took several low-budget film in Hong Kong. Some of them were not only low budget but also of low character, and the director didn’t even treat the people there nicely.

All of his enthusiasm for acting was completely worn out at that time. The profits for the low budget piece were more than the general announcement, but Xu Zheyi’s image was ruined. He did not receive calls for other projects anymore. The results of acting in low-budget film are severe; directors think he is too wooden, with no flexibility.

Xu Zheyi didn’t know that from beginning to an end, his friend wore an innocent face, but in fact the frog in the mirror1 was a total scum. What was this kind of acting?

A while ago, his contract ended and the brokerage firm did not offer a renewal.

They reached the end of the contract termination and they just sat there for a minute. After he hesitated for a while, his agent handed him a contract. “You go back, read through this, and think about it. If you want, I can help you and the film dealer get in contact. I won’t inform the company about this contract, nor will I take a cut. I’m doing this as a friend to help you.” When Xu Zheyi heard these words, he knew that the contract was not quite right.

He returned home, sat down to read through the contract carefully, and could not help laughing bitterly.