Huayu: I'm reborn, but you still force me to be a scumbag?

Chapter 125: Worldly Affairs
The clown coughed quite awkwardly, and Zhao Liying also realized that she shouldn't have said that.

She apologized, "I'm sorry for saying bad words. It's mainly because Chen Nuo's crazy fans are so hateful and overbearing. Chen Nuo's popularity has been ruined by them."

"My friend actually advised me not to sign up for the group of Director Zhang Yiyi and Director Zhang Jizhong, because nothing good would come of being associated with Chen Nuo. His fans are a bit crazy and they are sure to do anything. But I didn't listen to her, and now I regret it to be honest."

Captain Su laughed and said, "I can't believe it, Xiao Zhao, you look like a junior high school student, but you're actually quite fierce."

Zhao Liying said embarrassedly: "It's mainly because it's too irritating. I'm sorry, Captain."

Huo Xiaosi said thoughtfully: "Chen Nuo, is he the one who plays Yang Guo in the upcoming The Return of the Condor Heroes?"

"Yes, that's him."

Huo Xiaosi asked, "What does your talent show have to do with him?"

Zhao Liying said: "Because people on the Internet said that the commercial directed by Zhang Yiyi was shot with Chen Nuo, so they came. They didn't really want to film with Director Zhang Yiyi."

Captain Su smiled and said, "Do you really want to film with the director? Why?"

Zhao Liying was stunned, hesitated for a moment, and said, "Because I want to be an actor in the future."

She stared at the table in front of her, her face slightly red, and her shy look was like the spring light hidden in the winter, whose curtain had been lifted a little bit, so even in the cold winter, she seemed to see the scene of flowers blooming.

It seemed as if time had stopped in the room. Huo Xiaosi looked at her with his eyes wide open.

Captain Su held a piece of potato shreds with chopsticks, and was stunned on the spot. Finally, he put the potato shreds into his mouth and asked, "Well, being an actor... hehe."

Looking at Captain Su's expression, Zhao Liying asked cautiously, "Captain Su, what's wrong? You think I'm not capable, right?"

Captain Su shook his head and said, "It's a good thing for young people to have dreams."

Zhao Liying's expression was very serious, and the light in her eyes was as firm as a piece of stone.

Once a person takes things seriously, no matter how corny or childish the words are, she won't feel it.

Just like Zhao Liying now.

The clown heard her say in a very light voice: "This has always been my dream, Captain Su. I know it's not easy, but I will definitely not give up."

Director Su drank a glass of wine in silence. After a while, he suddenly said, "I have been in this business for six or seven years. Every girl I recruited wanted to be an actress. Before you, there was a girl in my troupe who wanted to be an actress just like you. I advised her many times that the path of an actress is not easy, but she didn't believe it."

"Over the past two or three years, she went to meet many people, including directors, assistant directors, bosses, and producers, but none of them worked out. Not once, at most she was asked to play a minor role, and the money she earned was not enough to cover the round-trip fare. During this process, I watched her change from someone who looked like you now to someone who was completely unrecognizable."

"Before the Lunar New Year, she went to another troupe in our city without saying anything. The reason was that the troupe leader said he could introduce her to a role. Haha."

Captain Su poured another glass of wine and drank it all in one gulp. With a little drunkenness, he continued, "Actually, I have no right to say anything about her, because I had the same dream. I went to Beijing, Zhejiang, Shanghai, and worked in various crews for nearly ten years. During this period, I got married and had children. But at that time, I was like a demon. I didn't care about my family and children at all. I just thought I could do it and I could be famous."

"As a result, in the end, I wanted to go back, but it was too late. My wife divorced me and my child left with her. Now I have nothing left."

Captain Su talked a lot, drinking as he spoke. By the time he finished, he had almost finished his bottle of Erguotou.

Captain Su has a good alcohol tolerance and he didn't look very drunk even after one bottle of Erguotou. He went to the front desk to pay the bill. During the Spring Festival, the four of them spent more than 110 yuan on such a home-cooked meal.

When paying, Captain Su's facial muscles were twitching, as if he was in pain.

Finally, at the entrance of the hotel, Director Su said, "Gather at the entrance of Langfang Department Store at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning. There will be performances tomorrow morning and afternoon. I have received a large order from a department store. Everyone will work hard in the next week. In fact, it is easy to make money in the city. After a while, when there is no business in the city, we will go to the countryside. By then, all the money we earn will be hard-earned."

Everyone nodded.

After that, the four of them left.

Holding the 30 yuan in his hand, the clown hesitated again and again, and finally decided to take the bus in the cold night wind.

This time, he brought a total of 1000 yuan with him. After renting a house and buying daily necessities, he only had more than 200 yuan left, and now he has to eat four meals a day.

He really couldn't bear to take a taxi.

It wasn't too late now, but it gets dark very early in winter, and it was already dark at 7 o'clock. There was no shelter from the wind along the way, and although he wore thermal underwear, his suit couldn't withstand the night wind at all, so he shivered with his arms folded all the way.

It took more than ten minutes to walk to the bus stop.

In fact, Zhao Liying had been following the clown. She looked at his back as he walked alone and wanted to call him several times, but she always felt a little embarrassed.

It was not until then, when they arrived at the bus stop one after the other, that she pretended to have just noticed and said, "Hey, you're here too."

The clown turned around, also a little surprised, "Ah, you're taking the bus here too?"

"Well, where are you going?"

"Tongbai Village. What about you?"

"Me too!"

The two people compared the addresses and found that the house they rented was not far away, only about 50 meters away. But it is not surprising, Tongbai Village itself is the first choice for renting houses in Langfang, mainly because the rent is cheap, so many young people rent houses here.

At this time, the bus came and the two got on the bus quickly. The bus was bright and the air conditioning was sufficient. The clown couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief and sat in an empty seat in the middle of the bus with Zhao Liying.

There was a woman holding a little girl in the row in front of them.

The girl was about 5 or 6 years old, very cute, with bangs. She seemed very curious about him, staring at him with her bright big eyes.

He looked at the little girl for a while, and suddenly made a face at her.

The little girl giggled.

But her mother turned around, looked at him warily, and walked to the front of the bus with the child in her arms.

Zhao Liying couldn't help but laugh and asked curiously, "Do you wear this makeup every day when you go out?"

The clown nodded and said, "Yes."

"Maybe many people are a little afraid of you, just like they were just now."

The clown smiled and said, "Actually, I don't. My drawings aren't scary, right?"

Zhao Liying suddenly realized that the clown might be younger than she thought.

At first, she thought he was about 26 or 7 years old, but now that she was closer, she found that the wrinkles on his face seemed to be painted on, and his laughter just now was clearer than his voice.

She asked, "By the way, what's your name? I heard Su Tuan and the others call you Xiao Wang."

"Oh, my name is Wang Xiang."

"Wang Xiang, um, my name is Zhao Liying."

"I know. I've heard you say that before."

Zhao Liying felt that his tone was a little intimate, as if he knew her. This strange feeling flashed through her mind, but she didn't care. She asked, "Where did you dye your hair? I think it looks good."

"Barber Shop."

Zhao Liying said with a smile: "Of course I know it's a barber shop. Which barber shop is it? I think the hair is dyed very well. I want to dye my hair when I have money someday."

The Joker thought about it.

He had his hair dyed before the Lunar New Year in Beijing. Qi Yuntian found a barbershop that specializes in hairdressing for celebrities and is open even during the Lunar New Year. He spent several thousand yuan to dye his hair like this. He really didn't pay attention to the name of the shop.

"I forgot the name." The clown said everything.

Zhao Liying said "oh" and then asked, "What about the makeup on your face? Did you put it on yourself?"

The clown nodded and said, "Yeah."

Zhao Liying sighed: "It must be troublesome to remove makeup every day."

Really troublesome.

He asked Li Er for help and found a teacher in Beijing to learn makeup techniques. The teacher was said to be the best makeup artist in the National Peking Opera Troupe. During the Chinese New Year, he took two days off to learn from him. He learned from him for more than a day and can now do a passable clown makeup in an hour. But it takes almost an hour to put on makeup every day, which is very troublesome.

The clown sighed and said, "Yes."

Zhao Liying asked again: "How long have you been working in Mingming Comedy Troupe?"

He calculated and said, "I came here on the eighth day of the first lunar month, which is exactly one week."

"Oh."

The two chatted for a while, with Zhao Liying mainly asking questions and the clown answering, and then they got off the bus at the same stop.

After walking for a few minutes, Zhao Liying waved goodbye and went up to a small building on the roadside. The house that the clown rented was in a village in the city.

The three-story building had its second and third floors converted by the owner into very small, dark single rooms, which cost 150 yuan a month, including heating. There was a wooden bed, a portable wardrobe and a table in the rooms.

Apart from that, toilets and kitchens are shared.

He went to the bathroom before entering the room and sitting at the table.

He took out a brown notebook from the drawer and began to write something on it. After writing for perhaps 10 minutes, there was a knock on the door.

"Dong dong dong."

"Xiao Wang, is Xiao Wang here?"

He put away the notebook, put it back in the drawer, walked over and opened the door. It was the landlord, a man in his 50s named Zhou Shuwang.

Zhou Shuwang was a little surprised and asked: "Hey, Xiao Wang, how did you become like this?"

He said with a smile: "I just went on stage to perform and didn't have time to take off my makeup. What's going on? Uncle Zhou."

"It's something."

Zhou Shuwang naturally walked past him into the house, walked around the cramped room, looked around, and then sat down on the brand new bed sheets he had slept on for only a few nights.

"When you rented my house a few days ago, you said you were looking for a job?" Zhou Shuwang said.

He nodded and said, "Yes, Uncle Zhou."

"You look so tall and strong, so you must be quite strong. I have a job that suits you. My relative runs a sanitation company and is looking for a sanitation worker to collect garbage on the street every morning for 800 yuan a month. The job is easy, just go around the street at 6 o'clock in the morning, empty the garbage in the trash cans into the car, and take it to the garbage station. You can leave work at noon at the latest. Do you want to do it?"

The clown said, "Uncle Zhou, I have found a job."

Zhou Shuwang said disdainfully: "What are you doing now? What's the future of being a clown? The job I introduced to you is really good and stable. But I have to make it clear in advance that you have to give me 500 yuan as an agency fee. After all, it's such a good job, right? It's only right that I charge a little introduction fee. What do you think, Xiao Wang?"

"Thank you, Uncle Zhou. It's really not necessary."

Zhou Shuwang's smile faded, and he said with a straight face, "500 is too much? This kind of work is easy and comfortable. Where can you find it without some connections? Why don't you ask Xiao Zeng upstairs? I found him that sales job. He only graduated from high school and is so handsome, but his monthly salary is only 1000 yuan."

Before Zhou Shuwang came, he had a very simple idea.

The new tenant came to rent a house from his family before the new year was over.

Although he was wearing a mask and couldn't see his face clearly, he seemed quite honest. The house price of 150 was considered expensive in this area, but he didn't bargain, so I should be able to take advantage of this opportunity to make some more money from him.

As a result, after finishing his words and looking at the other party's expression, Zhou Shuwang knew that there was no hope at all. He snorted unwillingly and said, "Forget it. If you don't do it, there are plenty of people who will do it."

Before leaving, Zhou Shuwang took the roll of paper on the table, put it in the pocket of his cotton coat, and said, "Xiao Wang, can I lend you a roll of paper?" Then he left with his hands in his pocket.

The clown looked at the empty table for a long while before he began to remove his makeup.

While removing my makeup, I heard a man and a woman arguing. In this kind of rental house, the sound insulation is very poor, so it is not surprising that the sound is everywhere.

After a while, Chen Nuo removed her makeup with makeup remover.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I looked left and right and found that my cheeks had become a lot rounder.

This was the actor's weight gain secret that he heard when he watched an interview with Zhang Songwen in his previous life. It said that in addition to three meals a day, eat a pack of instant noodles before going to bed, and after eating, don't do anything else, just fall asleep, it will definitely work.

He tried it during this period of time, and sure enough, his weight was increasing.

He opened the door and prepared to go to the bathroom to wash his face again. The faint sounds of quarreling outside suddenly became clear.

A very sharp female voice yelled: "Zeng Wei, give my bag back to me, or I'll call the police!"

A man was begging, "Aqiu, can we talk it out? As long as you don't leave, I'll agree to whatever you want."

The woman's voice was like nails scraping across a blackboard: "I don't want anything. I just want you to stop pestering me and let me go. Is that okay?"

The man muttered something under his breath.

Chen Nuo walked to the middle of the corridor and couldn't hear clearly, but soon the woman's voice became louder. The residents in the small building should have heard it, because people upstairs and downstairs opened the doors and walked out.

The woman's voice continued to come: "I know you are a good person, but I am really tired. I am too tired, do you know that? Zeng Wei!"

"You spend three whole years calculating every day, eating and buying. I've been with you for three whole years. Have I ever complained since I graduated from high school?"

"I really can't stand it now. I know Li Qiangdong doesn't have a good temper like you, and he doesn't care about me as much as you do, but I feel very relaxed when I'm with him, you know?"

"I don't have to worry about being fined for being late today, or filling my face cleanser with water when it runs out, and I can eat KFC anytime I want, without having to check if it's Madness Thursday!"

"Zeng Wei, I beg you, please let me go, okay? I know I have let you down, you can scold me and hate me, but for the sake of our relationship over the past years, can you please let me go?"

There was a sudden silence, and then the woman screamed, "Don't use this trick to scare me, think about your parents, put the knife down!"

At this time, the neighbors who were watching upstairs and downstairs realized that something was wrong and that someone was about to die. There was a sudden panic. Chen Nuo even heard Zhou Shuwang's shouting.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Chen Nuo washed his face and quickly walked back to the room, but he did not close the door tightly, leaving a gap, because he wanted to hear what happened next.

Actually, there was nothing good to hear, because nothing unexpected happened. In the end, the woman left, and the man named Zeng Wei did not really do anything with the knife.

Just like most love affairs between men and women in this world, it seems like a separation of life and death, and a mess, but in the end, there will be a future for each of them. No matter where they go, whether they run towards light or darkness, they will find a way out in the end.

Chen Nuo didn't turn on the light.

He sat in the dark room, the light from the corridor reflected in his eyes, and it looked like a small fire was burning.

He came for seven days.

Every day, something happens in this crowded and dilapidated building.

These things are like dust.

negligible.

They come from the lowest level of the world, from the lives of the most insignificant people, and from the dust under our feet.

They are not sensational, nor are they as memorable as the glorious deeds in the news.

These things are so ordinary and small.

It is so ordinary that it cannot be reported in any social news, and so insignificant that perhaps no one will be substantially harmed by it.

They are like tiny particles of dust, invisible to the naked eye, floating in the air, and even we ourselves don't pay much attention to them.

However, they will dye a pure white person into a gray appearance and quietly erode everyone's innocent heart.

They will make the originally innocent eyes become sophisticated and the originally light steps become heavy.

They will make people smoke a whole pack of cigarettes on the balcony late at night, but they don’t know who to scold. They will make people drink a whole bottle of wine, but they don’t know who to hate.

I can only say "Pooh" and curse.

This damn world.

The flame in Chen Nuo's eyes was stained by such dust. There was a shadow as black as ink, dancing wildly, as if it couldn't wait to grow claws.

After sitting for a long time, he turned on the light and sat down at the table to continue writing the diary that was interrupted by Zhou Shuwang.

This was the second diary he wrote after coming to Langfang, and its title was "Dusty Affairs".

When I finished writing, it was already past 10 o'clock.

After that, I made a bowl of White Elephant instant noodles, turned off the lights and went to bed.

The next morning, when he got up and finished putting on makeup, he came to the meeting place at the back door of Langfang Department Store and found that Zhao Liying, Su Mingming and Huo Xiaosi had already arrived. However, the atmosphere was particularly depressing.

"what happened?"

"Chen Senlin and his team are also going to perform here today, just across the street from us."

　What do you say about this chapter?

　　If you feel like you're being fed shit, just curse me here.

　　But I had to write it ah wow.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)