Global Film Emperor

Chapter 529 One who stays near ink gets stained black.
Crossing the wide road where luxury cars drive by, on the other side of the street are alleys shaded by greenery. Further in, you'll always see the difference between cement roads and asphalt roads. The bustling city has shed its glamorous facade, and you might accidentally discover that this "goddess" dressed in expensive clothes never wears underwear.

Walking through the crowds is difficult, and in this urban village, tens of thousands of migrant workers rely on a few ordinary "commercial streets" for their daily necessities.

Stepping on the mud mixed with the soil that had fallen from the roots of fresh vegetables and the foul-smelling, dirty water thrown out of the fishmonger's basin, the supermarket, despite its exterior walls covered in duct tape and its faded rectangular pink tile walls looking very old, still had light shining from the inside out, illuminating part of the street.

At the supermarket entrance, a children's rocking horse with a long-yellowed plastic shell was still in use. A child with stained clothes sat on the horse, swaying back and forth while listening to nursery rhymes. Several of the neon bulbs on the rocking horse were broken, and only the green light was still flashing, shining on the child's face and reflecting the dirty little face and the candy clutched in the equally dirty little hand.

A woman in a pilling nightgown stood beside a rocking chair, her wet hair wrapped in a stiff towel. She chatted with several other women dressed similarly, hands on her hips. Occasionally, a familiar man would pass by, and her laughter would become even more unrestrained.

There are no streetlights in the alleys on both sides, and the small Western-style buildings on both sides block the remaining sunlight. Men always gather in the dark, shirtless, and sit down wherever they can to use the WIFI of the shops. They occasionally swat mosquitoes off their bodies or rub the tattoos on their chests, which are mostly just lines. If passers-by do not notice the flickering cigarette butts on their lips, they will hardly be able to spot them.

Further in, the food stalls gradually become denser, and accents from all over the country make up the main part of this noisy environment. There are always a few women with good figures and sexy clothes who attract a lot of attention. They are scattered in front of various stalls, drinking a few drinks with the men they are with, becoming unstable fuses and the root cause of most bloodshed and injury incidents in this chaotic place.

The fly-infested restaurants are hidden behind small stalls. The exhaust pipes of their range hoods always blow hot air with a strong aroma of spices directly at the people sitting on the roadside eating. The first breath fills your nostrils with the aroma, but then your brain immediately associates it with a nauseating smell of grease, making the place a vacuum.

Deep in the alley, the colorful lights became the last lingering echo of ordinary life. However, there were no random people standing at the door soliciting customers. After all, everyone knows that these days, you have to go to a shop to get a haircut, and you have to go to the residential building behind the shop to get your hair done.

However, in the aisle of the internet cafe sandwiched between two hair salons, stood several men whose appearances were completely different from all the other residents of the urban village. They were dressed in clean and tidy brand-name sportswear and carried expensive cameras, which made the passers-by not curious and dare not approach them. Instead, they walked faster, afraid of being photographed.

“Xiao Peng has been playing in there all day. Gu’er, go and call him out. If he keeps going like this, he won’t be experiencing life anymore; he’ll really become useless.”

The man surnamed Gu nodded, trying to avoid speaking, and quickly entered the internet cafe. Less than two minutes later, Peng Kuo, who had been living there for almost three weeks, followed him down.

He was still wearing the cheap knock-off designer clothes that Lu Ze had prepared for him when he boarded the train. The sweat mixed with the smell of cigarettes was suffocatingly unpleasant. At this moment, he was in a very bad mental state. He looked particularly numb, and his eyes were glazed over. His originally handsome face was covered with a lot of oil, and no matter how the camera filmed him, it would always show a layer of oiliness, which combined with his equally greasy hair.

"Xiao Peng, you've basically spent this week in internet cafes. Putting aside our filming, can your body and mind handle this? You're such a smart person, I don't want to criticize you, but just think about why Teacher Lu sent you here. Is it appropriate for you to go back like this?"

"Ok, I know."

There was no outburst of anger, no attempt to defend himself. At this moment, Peng Kuo was completely different from the eloquent and exceptionally clever man he had been in the capital. Wearing blue rubber-soled slippers he bought for ten yuan, his feet covered in mud, he sat on the steps of the internet cafe, gave a dejected reply, and then fell silent. He simply spat on the ground and buried his face between his legs.

The PD who was filming Peng Kuo had nothing to say about this, after all, he had been watching Peng Kuo's changes over the past few days. It was not Peng Kuo's fault for being unambitious, but entirely due to the influence of his environment.

It was evening again. The sky was always a gloomy blue after the rain, as if God had put a gloomy filter on the world. Peng Kuo's mind was in chaos. For the past few weeks, he seemed to have forgotten about time, or rather, in this state of life, time no longer mattered.

He spent his days sleeping and playing, eating whenever he was hungry. The lack of a normal routine was torture for him. He wanted to do something to make his life more fulfilling, but what could he do? On his fifth day here, he lost his wallet. Although the man was caught, his ID card and other documents had been thrown into the river. The biggest problem was that he hadn't registered his fingerprints, and they couldn't be replaced in a different city.

You have to understand, this is not the Sanhe of more than ten years ago. You need an ID card to work here, and you even need to show your ID card to enter the labor market. Under such circumstances, what can he do besides wasting time?
His past life values ​​made him feel regretful for wasting time, but he was helpless about his idleness. The contradiction tore him apart, and the psychological pain became more and more intense. In the end, he could only choose to kill his time by letting time pass by as quickly as possible, so that his heart would become completely numb.

Have you eaten yet?

"No, I'm out of money. Can you lend me ten yuan to have something to eat, Uncle?"

Is this still the rich young master from the capital? PD looked somewhat dazed, a strange feeling growing in his heart... It was as if Peng Kuo had been shattered, and no matter how hard he tried to piece him back together, he probably could never be the same as before.

The first time he borrowed money from the film crew, he felt ashamed and secretly borrowed the money from the PD. However, he became more and more used to it and would even borrow from the film crew whenever he was short of money. The film crew had acted as a guarantor for him and found him a part-time job, but after he earned the money, he never mentioned repaying the money.

You know, Peng Kuo's dad came in a Rolls-Royce to sign the contract for him back then, but now it's turned out like this. The PD couldn't help but complain that Lu Ze was the culprit, turning such an optimistic and confident kid into this.

"Don't even think about it. I know you still have money, enough for you to eat. You have money to go online but not money to eat? Why don't you just go hungry? I'll find you another job tomorrow. You can eat whenever you earn money."

Despite his complaints about Lu Ze, he still had to follow the rules and procedures and couldn't easily help Peng Kuo. In Lu Ze's words, he hadn't created an environment where Peng Kuo could connect with the situation. Before, they had no other choice; Peng Kuo was on the verge of a breakdown, and the production team was afraid of unforeseen problems if they didn't help him. But now Peng Kuo was completely numb, and even if they refused his request, he wouldn't do anything outrageous. "I really have no money left. Look in my pocket, I only have two yuan left. I just bought a bottle of water. Uncle, please lend me some, I'm really hungry."

He still didn't give up, pestering the PD to lend him some money for a meal, but no matter what, the PD still didn't help him. In the end, he realized that doing so was just a meaningless waste of breath.

Just as the PD said, he did have some savings, but he was reluctant to spend them. However, he couldn't stand being hungry, so he had no choice but to give up on pleading with the production team and head towards the small stall he often ate at.

Peng Kuo didn't care that there was still some dust on his buttocks that he hadn't brushed off. He was no different from some of the young people in this urban village, wandering the dilapidated streets like a stray dog ​​with festering sores under the cover of night.

Occasionally, he would encounter a familiar Sanhe "god" and stop to chat for a while. There was no distance between them; they treated each other as one of their own. After the cleanup, there were really not many "gods" left in the area; they truly had nowhere else to go.

Undeniably, Peng Kuo's dramatic transformation in such a short time was definitely related to these holdout residents of Sanhe. They were a group of people who had completely abandoned life. As the saying goes, "One is influenced by one's company," and Peng Kuo, who was trying to find his footing by following Lu Ze's arrangements, could hardly help but be influenced by these people.

The two tacitly avoided discussing anything related to money, since neither of them had the financial means to spend even a single penny on the other. So they could only tacitly stop there and then parted ways.

When Peng Kuo arrived at his usual stall, he looked around but found that the stall owner was not open today, so he had to give up and just randomly picked a stall that looked clean enough to have a bite.

But the sight of the film crew with their long lenses following behind Peng Kuo aroused the suspicion of the stall owner, who frowned, looked Peng Kuo up and down, and asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm eating, what am I doing?"

"No, no, let's go, let's go."

After only a few words of exchange, the stall owner chased Peng Kuo and the entire film crew away. This was not the first time Peng Kuo had encountered such a thing, and he was already used to it. Many locations in Sanhe were unsuitable for filming, as it would affect the values ​​of ordinary viewers. In addition, the people here were also very resistant to being filmed.

After this incident, most of the nearby vendors dared not do business with Peng Kuo anymore. So he could only resort to his old method: he would ask the film crew to stay a little further away, buy a takeout meal, and then slip on his slippers and go back to his residence to eat a bite.

A few days ago, the film crew saw that he had been sleeping on the streets for several nights and felt so sorry for him that they had to rent him the most basic and cheap room. There was only a quilt and a table in the room. The room was so dark that even if the lights were on, the camera had to turn on night vision mode. He sat on the edge of the bed and ate his food. The only sound coming from the room was the sound of chewing. After a while, he turned the quilt over, put the plastic lunchbox on the table, and lay down on the bed. Soon after, he started snoring softly.

……

“Professor Lu, I still want to talk to you about Peng Kuo. If all else fails, we should transfer Peng Kuo back. I feel that his mental state is not very good right now.”

Looking at Peng Kuo, who had fallen asleep on the monitor, and seeing that Peng Kuo was becoming more and more dejected, the PD decided to call Lu Ze again.

"what happened?"

At this moment, Lu Ze was writing a proposal, hoping to further modify the event process for the audio film. After receiving the call, he put down his pen, leaned back in his chair, and listened to the PD recount Peng Kuo's recent experiences until the PD finished reporting. He then smiled.

"Isn't this great?"

"Good……?"

"Yes, that's good. That's exactly the feeling I wanted him to find. The role Peng Kuo got is different from others. Others need to adapt to a different kind of life, but Peng Kuo has to compromise with life. What I want is for him to feel the pain of wanting to change but being unable to change his current situation and only being able to waste time. That's the essence of the role he got. Now that's the feeling. Keep filming. Keep an eye on him and make sure he's safe. Okay, that's all."

"..."

I wasn't feeling well, so I wrote less.

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(End of this chapter)