This director is vindictive.

Chapter 422 Who dares to be more miserable than me! Others have umbrellas, but I have a big head!
Ge Si's side is the easiest to deal with.

Of course, in fact, all the candidates that Chen Mo selected were quite suitable.

Apart from Ge Si, the other three are all old acquaintances.

Huang Bo goes without saying, and Shen Teng is the same; they've been friends for a long time.

There's another person I've worked with, Lei Datou.

Chen Mo attacked each of the three men one by one, and as expected, there were no problems.

Although Chen Mo's request was a bit strange, they accepted it without hesitation.

To be honest, they really don't have much of an idol image to maintain; they are all talented actors.

Once the actors were secured, the rest was up to them to perform.

Chen Mo's job is to get this activity started.

Soon after, Chen Mo issued an announcement on his personal Weibo account.

[Announcement Regarding the Casting of Deserter Lu Shisi]

After consultation with the four candidates, the third round of casting will adopt an "immersive misery contest" format:
Candidates: @Huang Bo @Lei Jiayin @Shen Teng @Ge Si
The final winner will be decided by a vote from netizens—whoever acts the most pitiful will win!
As soon as Chen Mo posted his Weibo, the comment section exploded.

"Here he comes, he's here again, he's finally here, hahaha! It's a contest of who has the most tragic story, come on, tell us your story!"

"Finally, more juicy gossip! Now, let the show begin!"

"I suspect Chen Mo is putting on a 'who's more miserable' contest in this talent show, hahaha!"

"Huang Bo + Lei Datou + Shen Teng? Is this lineup going to turn a tragedy into a comedy?"

"Go, Teacher Ge Si! I've read the original version, you are Lu Shisi Ben Si!"

In less than half an hour, the hashtag #Deserters'MiserableContest# trended on social media.

Before the four candidates could make a move, netizens started having fun on their own.

Their respective fanbases immediately began to compete.

Huang Bo's fans directly posted stills from the film "Cow," showing him covered in dirt and grime, with the caption "Professional Tragedy Actress for Twenty Years." They added the comment: "In 'Cow,' to better portray the character, my brother Bo had to wear five different kinds of adhesive every day, have watermelon juice poured on his head for the cows to lick, and run for hours on end, wearing out 37 pairs of shoes. In a later interview, he said it wasn't just ordinary hardship; the physical and mental exhaustion brought him to the brink of collapse! I just want to ask, who dares to be more miserable than my brother Bo?"

Some of Huang Bo's fans also shared stills from the movie "Crazy Stone" showing his character, Hei Pi, being locked in a sewer.

"Brother Bo is a tough guy. He doesn't need many words to describe his misery. In short, he's miserable!"

Other movie fans, seeing this, also began to take action.

Lei Jiayin's fan club worked overnight to create a nine-grid long image titled "Lei's Tragic Learning Showcase".

The first picture is a still from the TV series "The Human World" where he is curled up on a kang (a heated brick bed), wrapped in a tattered cotton-padded coat and eating frozen potatoes, with the caption: "In Northeast China, where it's minus thirty degrees Celsius, Zhou Bingkun's only way to keep warm is to shiver!"

The second picture is a screenshot of him kneeling in the snow, crying with his face covered in blood scabs, with the caption: "Life beat him so badly that even his own mother wouldn't recognize him."
The last picture was a GIF of him getting soaked in the TV series "The First Half of My Life," with netizens adding a snow effect and captioning it: "His big head makes him look even more miserable."

However, things got a little awkward when it came to Shen Teng.

His fans went through all the roles he played, and wow, it seems that apart from Charlotte, none of them could be considered tragic!
But thankfully, there's still Charlotte!
Soon after, fans released a picture of Shen Teng eating instant noodles in a school uniform in "Goodbye Mr. Loser," which was labeled "the first person to find humor in misery."

One fan commented, "This is the most tragic reborn person I've ever seen! A classic case of trying to show off but getting screwed over! Isn't that tragic enough?"

These three are, after all, veteran actors and award-winning actors in the film and television industry.

They are all top-tier celebrities!

In contrast, Ge Si suffered the most.

Because he doesn't usually play leading roles, people are relatively unfamiliar with him.

However, some netizens also directly said: "Does it need to be said who is the most miserable? They are all actors. Huang Boye is good, Lei Datou is good, and even Shen Teng has a most miserable rebirth, Xia Luo, who is the number one person who is miserable yet smiling. But our Teacher Ge Si, except for "The Last Transfer in the Northern Desert of the Tang Dynasty", has no fans to help him share his misery!

This is truly tragic!

This casting process, even before the actors have started, has already stirred up a storm of "misery competition"!

Of course, the actors' performances are still the most anticipated part.

Although this was a set topic, it didn't bore netizens at all; on the contrary, it made them even more excited.

Ge Si was the first to make a move.

He really came prepared this time. Seeing fans spontaneously showing everyone the most tragic roles they had ever played gave him inspiration.

He quickly posted a nine-grid long image on Weibo titled "The Invisible People I've Played Over the Years," with the caption: "After acting for eighteen years, the worst thing is—the audience remembers the characters but not my face!"

He has acted in quite a few dramas, but many netizens have discovered that he has acted in "The Man Who Crossed the River of Women", "The Story of Ice City: The Wind and Thunder", "Love's Domino", "Young Marshal", "A Tree of Peach Blossoms", "Waiting for You in Yanjing", "Stone Blossoms", and even "The World"!
However, apart from a few exceptions such as "Young Marshal" and "The World," many people were seeing the titles of the other shows for the first time.

"Holy crap, this is truly 'tragic'! At least compared to the other three, haha!" "Now that's the real king of misery!"

"If you hadn't told me, I really wouldn't have known he'd acted in these shows!"

"All I can say is that Ge Si represents many unknown actors; they are the ones who are truly pitiful!"

However, he soon ceased to be "invisible" and quickly reaped the first wave of traffic benefits.

His actions directly propelled #GeSiTransparentHuman# to the top of the trending searches.

Netizens even spontaneously launched a "Find Ge Si" campaign, turning screenshots of his past roles into a "spot the difference" game.

Some netizens have counted that he has played "that person" 32 times, "passerby" 18 times, and the most outrageous one is that he played a shot-headed corpse in a certain anti-Japanese war drama. The short review on Douban reads: "This corpse was played with great depth."

However, Ge Si is still very good at interacting with netizens.

When netizens started playing the "spot the difference" game, he posted a video saying, "You guys have gone too far!"

In the video, he looks up and pulls out a yellowed actor's certificate: "Look, I'm a proper professionally trained actor!"
The camera suddenly shifts to the original poster of "The Last Transfer in the Northern Desert of the Tang Dynasty" on the wall. He points at Lu Shisi: "This extra, oh my god! This is me! The original Lu Shisi!"

However, this move only made netizens happier.

"What a pitiful actor. Both of you have been in the industry for twenty years, but Chen Mo has become a billionaire, Huang Bo and Shen Teng are both billion-dollar box office kings, and Lei Datou is a TV king. But you, the only role that people can name is Lu Shisi?"

"Haha, in this contest of who's the most miserable character, you're way ahead!"

"What does this prove? Well, it does prove you're the worst off!"

However, these are just appetizers.

The real main course: an actor cosplaying Lu Shisi in a contest of who's the most miserable.

Shen Teng was the first contestant to apply to compete. After all, he had always played comedians, so he maintained his comedic style this time as well.

They just threw out a video.

In the video, he's wrapped in burlap, squatting in a corner with a chipped ceramic bowl in front of him. A caption pops up: "Deserter Lu Shisi, begging online." Suddenly, the camera zooms in, revealing a QR code on the bottom of the bowl, accompanied by a sleazy voiceover: "Scan the code to sponsor naan bread; spend 20 and get a free Shen Teng screaming voice pack~"

This video made many netizens burst into laughter the moment it was released.

"Uncle Shen's move is hilarious! He's even added QR codes. Is he going to start live-streaming sales of naan bread next?"

"I suggest Shen Teng directly link to the post-credits scene of 'Goodbye Mr. Loser'—'Rebirth: I Beg for Food in the Northern Desert.' His acting, which is both tragic and humorous, is absolutely unparalleled!"

"The other candidates are so pitiful it's heartbreaking, but Shen Teng's situation is so dire it makes you want to crowdfund a bowl of plain noodles for him (scanned payment of 20 yuan, voice message coming soon!)"

"@Huang Bobo, you should learn from this! Even beggars are using the 'Internet Plus' approach, while you're still eating raw potatoes in 'Cow' (doge)"

"Professor Shen, this isn't just about comparing misery, it's a complete annihilation! You should just award him the 'Best Business Model Misery Award'!"

Of course, Shen Teng was really just going along with the promotion. He didn't really have any confidence in the role. Although he could play it and the style did seem to lean towards comedy, he knew that Huang Bo was definitely more suitable for it.

So this whole "misery contest" is just for fun!
However, the results were quite good.

After all, he's the man who broke a boulder on his chest at the premiere!

Soon, the second contestant, Lei Datou, applied to compete.

This time he really went all out, taking a risky approach and posting a "deserter VLOG"!
Interestingly, the video starts with "Big Head Son and Small Head Dad," but Big Head Son's face has been photoshopped to look like his own.

Then the scene shifts, and he, with his hair a mess, cries to the camera, "My superior said my head is too big and will give us away."

Then he suddenly pulled out a tape measure from his pocket, measured his head circumference, and then clutched his head in despair: "58 centimeters! No wonder I was reported three times for desertion!"

The video went viral instantly.

"Holy crap, this is a master! This is a master! Men who dare to expose their weaknesses are ruthless!"

"Wait, don't you guys think something's off? This isn't some man exposing his weaknesses. 58 centimeters, is that right? That's clearly not right! I remember measuring it before, and it should be 61 centimeters, right? So, it looks like he's playing the victim, but he's actually trying to clear his name, isn't that right?"

Some netizens went even further, directly posting photos of him with female celebrities, such as Tong Liya, and other "small-headed" female stars.

Lei Datou's face inside was ridiculously large.

"Only 58? Lei Datou, you're really something else! How can you defend this?"

"Hahaha! This comparison picture is just too cruel! Goodness, they have an umbrella, and I have a big head, huh?"

Some netizens even photoshopped Lei Datou's face onto a still from the TV series "Journey to the West" featuring the Golden Horn King, adding the caption, "Reporting, sir! We've caught a gourd spirit that escaped from the Western Regions!"

Even more sarcastic netizens created a GIF—the measuring tape he used to measure his head circumference suddenly turned into a headband, shrinking while accompanied by the background music of "Cloud Palace Melody".

Some netizens even posted a poignant photo of him from his early film "The Golden Era": "Back then, his head circumference was enough to play a young boy from Northeast China, but now he can only play a gourd-shaped character from the northern desert!"
Even more unscrupulous netizens photoshopped text bubbles next to stills from the TV series "The Human World": "Bingkun, if your head were any bigger, it could roll a snowball all the way back to Jichun!"

(End of this chapter)