Chapter 95 The moon was so long that Xia Huanming fell down.

The basement was damp and cold, with water droplets condensing on the mottled walls. A rusty water pipe was leaking continuously, and the water drops hitting the cement floor made a hollow echo.

Under the flickering incandescent light, a man leaned lazily on an iron chair, playing with a small knife with his slender fingers.

The man was wearing a faded earthy orange jacket, a grey lining, black sweatpants, and sneakers the same brown as his hair.

The top light outlined his face, which looked very young. If it weren't for the cold sparkling light in his big, beautiful eyes, one would almost think he was just a passerby.

His sight fell on a sturdy man lying on the concrete floor right in front of him.

The sturdy man's clothes were torn, his exposed back muscles were stained with blood and dust, and his tied hands were rubbed red from struggling.

Tick-tock, tick-tock…

"Bang——"

The rhythm of the leaking water pipe was interrupted by the sound outside the iron gate.

The man on the ground raised his head with difficulty, revealing a face that was handsome even though it was stained with blood.

He panted heavily and cursed through his teeth: "If he knew you did this, he would definitely hate you!"

The man on the chair slowly raised his eyelids, his lips curled up nonchalantly: "Thank you so much, I just want him to hate me."

"Huo Sizhou! You lunatic! You shall not die a happier death!" The man on the ground had veins bulging on his neck and stared at the man named Huo Sizhou with bloodshot eyes.

Huo Sizhou paid no attention to his curse, instead he chuckled and stood up.

The woman approached slowly through the puddles in sneakers, squatted in front of the man, and the cold back of the knife moved along his cheek, finally resting against his chin.

His voice was calm, as if it had nothing to do with him: "If you want to blame someone, blame my brother. He took away everything from me. He made me like this."

The man on the sword sneered, "Bullshit! All of this is just your excuse. You are the one who is disgusting. You just want to push all these things onto Sihan so that you can continue to play the innocent person! Even if Sihan is not here, we will never have any contact with a lunatic like you."

Before he finished speaking, a cold light flashed across Huo Sizhou's eyes, but then turned into a creepy smile: "I know who you care about the most, and I have plenty of ways to deal with you."

"You dare to touch her!" The man suddenly became anxious and struggled with the ropes: "You dare to touch her?!"

"Haha, didn't you say that I would not die well? I really don't want to die well, but it's boring on this road, I can just find someone to accompany me, right?" Huo Sizhou stood up. He stood against the light, looking down, and his shadow completely covered the person on the ground.

He was smiling gently and innocently, but it made people feel dangerous.

Just like a snake disguised as a rabbit, already dismantling the natural enemy he had tricked.

"Huo Sizhou!!" The man roared in place, trying to break free from the ropes, but no matter how hard he struggled, it was of no avail.

He could only watch Huo Sizhou open the door. The daylight filtered in, illuminating a small bloodstain on the tip of Huo Sizhou's shoe.

In despair, the other party looked back and smiled: "Don't worry, I won't do anything to her yet. After all, she still trusts me. Bye, I will take good care of her."

"No!!"

As the iron door closed heavily, the man's wailing and the sound of dripping water pipes mixed together.

"Huo Sizhou...that madman..."

“Tick-tock.”

“Tick-tock.”

The water continued to vibrate.

All was quiet.

"Okay! This part is passed!" Director Yu's shout broke the suppression.

The lights suddenly came on, and the sinister "Huo Sizhou" poked his head out from the door frame: "Is this part over?"

"Come here, Chen Xing and Xia Huanming, come and take a look." Director Yu called Chen Xing, "You should also take a look. This one should be passable."

Standing next to Director Yu was a seldom-seen person—Zhang Jinan.

Zhang Jinan, wearing a simple almond-colored short-sleeved shirt and black trousers, looked very refined and agreed with Director Yu: "This one is really good."

Three days into the filming, Zhang Jinan suddenly came to visit.

This was also the first time Chen Xing met Zhang Jin'an on the set. He subconsciously wanted to perform better, but somehow he made two mistakes in his opening lines.

When everyone heard Chen Xing say the wrong lines, they were not angry. Instead, they were worried, thinking that something had happened to Chen Xing, and their attitude became better.

After all, in the past seven episodes, Chen Xing's lines only had problems with rhythm, and he never had any problems with memorizing them incorrectly.

Chen Xing did not hide it and said frankly that he was too nervous when he saw Zhang Jin'an coming. Afterwards he made some adjustments and never missed a line again.

"The sinisterness in the latter part is shown, but the tone of the lines still needs to be changed. It's the same as singing. Even if the amount of information is huge, you have to give the audience time to calm down," said Zhang Jin'an.

Chen Xing reviewed his performance carefully and found that he was indeed faster in some places.

He nodded thoughtfully: "I think I understand what you mean by feeling."

"Chen Xing, you have made great progress." Zhang Jin'an did not forget to praise Chen Xing at the end.

Chen Xing said embarrassedly: "Thanks to everyone for taking the trouble to teach me."

Director Yu interrupted, "That's because you have a high level of understanding."

Zhao Xingyu also said: "That's right, we just gave you a few suggestions, the most important thing is still up to you."

Xia Huanming nodded: "Yes, we just did what we could, and you listened to us."

"Alas, I'm not as good as you say." Although Chen Xing was so humble, the corners of his mouth were harder to suppress than AK, and he would be exposed in the next second.

Zhang Jin'an looked at Xia Huanming again: "As for Xia Huanming, you performed very well as always. There is nothing much to say. If I only looked at the picture, I would have thought you were really tied up."

"Thank you." Xia Huanming replied politely.

In fact, the rope tied around Xia Huanming's body was a slipknot, and those red scars were also makeup effects.

After all, if that kind of mark was really left, Xia Huanming's hands and feet would have been numb long ago, let alone standing up.

Xia Huanming stared at the images played back on the monitor, especially when Chen Xing was talking, he was completely fascinated.

Today is the first rivalry between Xia Huanming and Chen Xing. He didn't expect it to be so exciting right from the start. He could actually see such a cold Chen Xing.

Chen Xing seldom gets angry. Even if he does, he just frowns and can be appeased in a dozen seconds. However, this performance showed a different Chen Xing.

Colder, crueler and darker.

Especially when Chen Xing lifted his chin with the back of the cold knife, the fierceness in his eyes made his heart beat faster. He couldn't help but think of what would happen if he was in bed... Chen Xing pulled his rope like this and stared at him from a condescending attitude.

The darkened Xingxing...it’s so exciting just thinking about it.

So while putting on makeup, Xia Huanming hooked his finger at the corner of Chen Xing's clothes as he was reading a script next to him.

Chen Xing felt the tug and immediately looked up: "What's wrong?"

Xia Huanming asked: "Can we have more content like this in the future?"

Chen Xing looked at him in confusion: "What do you want?"

Xia Huanming leaned forward slightly and whispered a few words in his ear in a voice that only the two of them could hear clearly.

Chen Xing's expression changed from bewilderment to shock. He hurriedly picked up the script to cover half of his face, and his voice was muffled behind the paper: "Why did you suddenly think of such a thing... Let's talk about it when we get back."

After Xia Huanming finished touching up her makeup, Zhang Jinan explained a few key points for the next scene and the filming continued.

Two hours later, the last scene was filmed in the basement.

It’s like this when shooting at the same location. For the same scene, you might just finish shooting a kidnapping one moment and then you’re going to shoot a rescue the next.

They are the same here.

Chen Xing and Xia Huanming had just had an argument, and then they were filming the finale, and everyone came to save Xia Huanming.

The iron gate was forcibly pried open, and a group of people rushed down. Among them, the sister that "Xia Huanming" was concerned about rushed to him. Because his sister could not speak, she could only make whimpering sounds.

Xia Huanming asked Zhao Xingyu who came to untie him: "Huo Sizhou, how is he...?"

"The man who stabbed someone has been arrested by Sihan and handed over to the police," Zhao Xingyu quickly untied Xia Huanming's ropes, cursing angrily, "Damn it! If I had known he was that kind of person, I would never have introduced you to him."

Xia Huanming touched his sister's head, turned her wrist, and asked softly, "Where's Sihan? Is he okay?"

"Not good," Zhao Xingyu said with a serious expression, shaking his head, "Knowing what his brother did to his friends, he said he was too ashamed to see you."

"...I understand. Let's go." Xia Huanming took the little girl's hand and said gently, "Qiaoqiao."

Qiaoqiao nodded and made an awkward sound: "hao..."

The actress who played Qiaoqiao was the guest of the seventh episode, her name was Wang Luhua.

The setting of the seventh episode is different from the previous ones in that it is no longer about the male and female groups helping each other, but instead each group is given one extra.

And these extras have one thing in common: they all graduated from special education schools.

For example, the actor who came to the lunch box without a lid was a person who was deaf and mute later in life.

When the performance ended, Director Yu not only had to shout, but also had to ask the script supervisor to walk up to Wang Luhua and make a gesture to her that the filming was over, otherwise Wang Luhua would remain in the play.

Director Yu raised his thumb and bent it, praising Qiaoqiao for doing a good job.

Director Yu scratched his hair and called out to Chen Xing who was waiting: "Hey! Wake up! Come quickly and help me translate. Tell her that she just needs to make up another move."

Chen Xing immediately walked over and gestured to Wang Luhua. Wang Luhua immediately understood, gestured "ok" to the director, and then gestured to Chen Xing.

To this group of outsiders, the two men's conversation sounded like they were forming hand seals, and their hand movements were so fast that it seemed as if they could create sparks.

Seeing this, Zhao Xingyu said to Xia Huanming: "Fortunately, our Xingxing knows sign language. If he hadn't told me, I wouldn't have known that my aunt was actually deaf-mute."

When Wang Luhua appeared, Chen Xing raised his hand enthusiastically and said that he knew sign language and could serve as an interpreter.

The sign language interpreter also breathed a sigh of relief and asked him how he knew sign language. Chen Xing then told her that his mother was deaf-mute.

Xia Huanming looked at Chen Xing and said softly, "If this clip is broadcast in the future, his fans will definitely express regret."

Zhao Xingyu nodded: "Yes, it's a pity to think that Auntie can't listen to her son's singing. If she knew that Chen Xing's singing was so beautiful, she would definitely be very pleased."

Xia Huanming did not answer. Chen Xing only said that his mother was deaf-mute, but did not mention that his parents had passed away. Except for him, everyone present seemed to think that Chen Xing's mother was still alive, but it was a pity that she could not listen to her son sing.

Chen Xing’s regrets extend far beyond this, but he will not dwell on regrets forever.

But like now.

"Hahahaha——" Chen Xing and Wang Luhua were chatting when they both suddenly burst into laughter.

Zhao Xingyu quickly walked over and asked, "What are you talking about? Share it quickly."

"She said that if she was asked to cry, what if her crying sounded bad? I said that was nothing, some people's laughter sounded like the sound of geese."

“Hahaha—gee, goose, goose…” Zhao Xingyu laughed with a nasal sound before he reacted. The corner of his mouth twitched, “Oh my god, you are talking about me.”

Zheng Qi and Wang Baiyue, who were watching, laughed the loudest.

"Ha ha ha ha."

"My silly son finally reacted."

Now it's everyone's turn to laugh.

Zhang Jinan and Director Yu also laughed happily, and even the staff lowered their heads and laughed a few times.

The originally dark and damp basement was particularly joyful at this moment.

After everyone laughed, Wang Luhua and Xia Huanming re-shot the walking and crying scenes as required.

Chen Xing stood behind Director Yu, staring at Xia Huanming, who was showing his muscles on the monitor. He couldn't take his eyes off Xia Huanming's half-exposed chest muscles, and had no intention of reading the lines.

When he was acting opposite her, he was thinking, how can she have such a good figure? I really want to touch it.

Not long after the filming started, the retake was over.

Xia Huanming and Wang Luhua stood there putting on makeup, while Chen Xing watched the surveillance footage replayed by Director Yu.

At this time, Zhang Jinan next to him suddenly asked him: "You have been with Xia Huanming for such a long time, do you think he has changed a lot?"

"Yes!" Chen Xing nodded affirmatively, "I have become more optimistic."

"Yeah, I think so too." Zhang Jin'an said with a smile, "Like when you guys told jokes just now, if it was Xia Huanming from the first term, he definitely wouldn't have laughed, he would have just lowered his head and read the script. But when he came to class in the sixth term, whenever anyone told a joke, he would laugh out loud."

"Brother, you really care about the contestants," "You are such a responsible mentor. How come I haven't seen you as a mentor in other variety shows before?"

"I came here because I don't want excellent actors to be buried," Zhang Jin'an showed a meaningful smile, "Sometimes, it's not that you act badly, but you just lack a channel to be exposed."

Chen Xing understood instantly.

With Zhang Jinan's qualifications and influence, he can still be successful without appearing on this variety show. He came here to use his influence to promote "Acting First" and let more outstanding actors be seen.

Zhang Jinan always does things according to his heart, but he always silently supports others.

Just like the unpopular variety show "Friday Morning" back then, because of his joining, the ratings soared and eventually became a national program, with many artists vying to be on it.

After this season of "Acting First" is aired, there will surely be countless people looking forward to the second season. And how many actors will change their career paths and receive their dream scripts because of it?

At least he himself has been deeply affected - he has received so many invitations to OST for TV dramas recently that Lu Qing can hardly accept them all.

"Thank you, brother." Chen Xing thanked from the bottom of his heart.

Zhang Jinan was slightly startled, then smiled and said, "You are really smart. You understood it right away."

"That is..."

"Ah!" Cuicui in the distance suddenly screamed.

Chen Xing turned his head suddenly and saw Xia Huanming sitting on the ground, holding his ankle.

There were fine beads of sweat on his forehead, which glowed faintly under the light, as if they were emitted from pain.

Chen Xing's heart suddenly sank.

What happened?! Fell down?!

Before anyone could think about it, Chen Xing had already rushed over and squatted beside Xia Huanming, asking Wang Luhua and Cuicui, "What happened to him?"

Cui Cui shook her head in panic: "I went to get a towel, and this is what happened when I came back."

"I accidentally fell down." Xia Huanming explained softly, "Fortunately I don't have to shoot later, otherwise it will delay the progress."

Why are you still thinking about the progress at this time?

"How did you fall down suddenly?" Chen Xing held Xia Huanming's hand tightly and asked anxiously, "Are you okay? Did you sprain anything?"

Xia Huanming lowered his eyes and looked at his ankle, frowning slightly: "It hurts a little."

Zhang Jinan came over and suggested, "Since the filming is over, let's send him to the infirmary."

"Yeah." Chen Xing quickly helped Xia Huanming up and let him lean on him.

Wang Luhua looked at the two people's backs as they left and tilted her head.

But she just saw that Xia Huanming sat down by himself. She thought it was necessary for the next filming.

Why did you go to the infirmary suddenly?