I'm not mentally ill, I'm a master of a thousand faces!

Chapter 136, People Born in a Dark Age

"I just want to kill either of you, or be killed by either of you."

Li Yun's script reading.

It went fairly smoothly.

Of course, the smoothness was mainly due to the fact that most of the dialogue scenes were with Yuan Hua and Yuan Qiu, the landlord and landlady, a golden duo.

Yuan Hua and Yuan Qiu were also somewhat surprised by Li Yun's performance during the reading session. This young actor seemed to have more to offer than he appeared.

That feeling of 'madness'.

Kill both of them.

Or be killed by the two of them; there is no other choice.

The underlying madness that shone through his eyes and brows.

This young man is something else.

No wonder Stephen Chow chose him as the "Fire Cloud Evil God".

While they were there, Yuanhua and Yuanqiu were actually a little more at ease.

Li Yun's current performance is actually inferior to Yang Xiaolong's.

They are equally impressive.

Unfortunately.

He's a bit handsome.

Even if you try to look ugly, you can't achieve the humorous kind of ugliness that Yang Xiaolong has.

Is this a disadvantage of being handsome?

After completing one round of reading.

Stephen Chow held the script and looked at Li Yun calmly.

Li Yun was also looking at Stephen Chow.

His eyes held a hint of madness, a tendency toward self-destruction.

This is Li Yun's complete imitation of the Fire Cloud Evil God, copied by the eccentric youth.

His "self-destructive tendencies".

Faced with such acting skills, Stephen Chow simply said...

"On the surface."

"Stephen Chow didn't swear this time," Yang Xiaolong said, slightly surprised.

This kind of superficial evaluation is not appropriate for Stephen Chow.

That's already a very mild evaluation; if things really didn't go well during the reading session...

He is at least a Cantonese speaker.

At this moment, Yuanhua stroked his chin and said, "After all, Stephen Chow brought him in from outside, so he must have something special about him."

"That's good, keep it up."

Yuanhua patted Li Yun on the shoulder to encourage him.

At this moment, Li Yun smiled.

But I still remember Stephen Chow's comments.

Floating on the surface

That hits the nail on the head.

However, Stephen Chow's attitude also shows that Li Yun's performance was at least as he expected, without any surprises or shocks.

So be it.

at this time.

Li Yun sat in a corner of Pig Cage Village.

The marks of time emerge here.

This is a massive slum modeled after the Kowloon Walled City.

It's a bit different from the real Kowloon Walled City, since this is a fictional place, and it also has gangs like the "Axe Gang" that appeared in history, like the one from the famous Shanghai-Tianhai area.

The two are intertwined.

But overall it still retains the characteristics of Kowloon Walled City.

cramped and impoverished.

Although the oppressive characteristics of Kowloon City have been removed.

But it still gives us a glimpse into the state of things in this era.

The environment in which poor people live.

What kind of era is this?

The background of Kung Fu.

It's likely a fictional setting created by combining Shanghai and Hong Kong during the Republican era.

In an era of extravagance and debauchery, the protagonist of Kung Fu actually started out wanting to become a superior person.

But these extravagant and decadent things don't belong to the main characters, nor to the people in the walled city.

So he wanted to use the oppression of the stronghold as a pledge of allegiance to the Axe Gang, hoping to rise above others.

In the end, however, Ah Xing was still kind at heart.

but.

this era.

Are there really many people who maintain their so-called kindness?

There's still some time before it's time to power on.

The reading session is still ongoing.

Although Li Yun is the number one villain.

But as a 'comedy'.

Li Yun's role is not to bring out the comedic effect in this film.

The comedic effect and jokes are mainly provided by the early plot, and are delivered by characters like Jenny, Sauce Explosion, the Landlord, and the Landlady.

Even the members of the Axe Gang provided the laughs.

Li Yun's performance was mostly a one-man show.

A madman with a one-man lens.

This is actually why Yuan Hua and Yuan Qiu initially felt that Li Yun was not a good fit for the role of Fire Cloud Evil God. He has many solo scenes—alone, without any co-stars, presenting himself on screen, which is a considerable test of an actor's skill.

But now.

The fact that he is a madman with self-destructive tendencies is evident.

That's already the standard for "Fire Cloud Evil God" to be made on screen.

I won't say how good it can be.

But at least, this is a way of expression that won't be criticized once it's on the big screen.

Li Yun's presence gradually diminished.

Many times I stare at my thin script, reading it until it's worn out.

What's so interesting about these few thin pages of script?

"What can you possibly find by turning things upside down?" Jiang Bao whispered to Jenny next to him.

Before she played an ugly character, Jenny even resembled Joey Wong a bit. She was definitely a rare beauty in the cast.

After all, the only female characters are the landlady and Jenny.

Huang Shengyi filmed a few scenes and left without participating in the script reading. His character didn't even have any lines, so there was no need for script reading.

But for someone like Huang Shengyi, who has connections, no one would dare to even dream of such a thing.

"He's the villainous male lead in the show, how can we supporting actors compare to him? He'll definitely do things differently from us!"

To be honest, Jenny was a little envious.

So young.

He ended up playing the villain in Stephen Chow's films.

How lucky!

At this moment, Li Yun made a decision: he would probably stay in Pig Cage Alley tonight to get a feel for the place.

A few thin pages of script are not enough to properly portray a character.

We must give full play to our subjective initiative.

At this moment, Yuanhua was surprised to hear Li Yun's request.

Aren't you going back?

"I'll stay here for a while; it'll make me feel more at home."

"Okay, be careful."

"Take care on your journey, Mr. Yuan."

At this point, Li Yun was left alone in the newly built Pig Cage Fortress.

A cold wind howled through the vast Pig Cage Village.

Li Yun looked around.

What kind of person is the Fire Cloud Evil God?

How this era gave rise to the Fire Cloud Evil God.

This led to the creation of the Axe Gang.

Li Yun held the thin script in his hand.

"Yetianhai, Yetianhai."

When Li Yun opened his eyes.

But he found himself standing in front of a nightclub.

In stark contrast to Pig Cage Alley, beauties in cheongsams come and go in this brightly lit, bustling place.

There was a beggar's den nearby, and I was hoping to get a little food and a piece of clothing to survive the winter.

In the nightclub, men and women wore coats and scarves made of genuine animal leather, and lit their cigars with money.

Not far away, the Axe Gang, dressed in black suits and carrying axes, were fighting with the Canal Gang for territory.

In this small place, there are three types of people.

The poor, the rich, and the wicked.

The poorer people were better off and could live in pigsty villages, while the poorer people had to endure wind and rain and go hungry.

The wicked run rampant, and their followers include both the poor and the rich. The poor are responsible for fighting and killing, while the rich are responsible for sitting back and watching the fight.

The poor are like dogs, fighting each other for the interests of the rich.

Use your own weapons to disembowel your opponent.

Occasionally.

The rich would also spend a dollar or two to gamble on which person or gang would win, doing so for fun and to win a smile from a beautiful woman.

This is the era we live in.

The Republican era, a time when people were universally disliked.

At this moment, Li Yun was still very clear-headed.

The self is still there.

"I used to have some naive and unrealistic fantasies about the Republic of China era, thinking that I was a rich young lady or a warlord's wife, and that I could meet a devoted warlord or a gang leader, tsk tsk tsk."

At this moment, Li Yun looked at himself.

I also found it amazing.

This time, while I was imitating the Fire Cloud Evil God, I was surprisingly able to maintain a clear mind.

I was able to appear in the dream from the perspective that I was Li Yun.

It's really a strange feeling.

I don't know why.

But at this moment, Li Yun lifted his foot and walked out.

"Get the hell out of here, don't try to take my territory." At that moment, Li Yun suddenly felt a powerful force coming at him, and a foot kicked him away.

After kicking Li Yun away, the man was still not satisfied and continued to beat him until Li Yun was in so much pain that he could not stand up.

By the way, who am I now?

I was the Fire Cloud Evil God when I was a child.

Standing at the crossroads of life.

Look at the poor, look at the rich, look at the wicked.

He was wearing a logo-branded tank top and shorts, which were already rotten, blackened, and smelly.

I don't belong to the rich. The rich only play with people like me from their high and mighty position. Li Yun heard this. The rich man in the nightclub was trying to win a smile from a beautiful woman. He pointed at himself and said that he was betting a whole dollar with his friend whether this kid could survive the night.

They don't even belong to the poor, because they don't even qualify to be poor, they can't become laborers, and they can't even compete with others to be beggars.

He's not a bad person yet. How could someone who struggles even to be a beggar possibly become a bad person?

I'm about to become a dead person.

A person who starved to death.

At this moment, Li Yun was looking at himself in the glass mirror by the roadside.

A gaunt figure.

Three hairs on the top of the head.

Sunken eye sockets.

Wandering the streets, without parents, with no one to care for him, he could clearly feel death gradually approaching.

This feeling is so amazing.

Yes, it's the feeling of being on the verge of death.

My broken body is gradually approaching death.

The feeling was so realistic, so intense.

And the indifference of others is so real; he truly exists here.

It exists around Li Yun, it exists in this era.

"So this is what it feels like to be about to die? No, haven't I already died once? This feeling shouldn't be so familiar to me."

Li Yun murmured, savoring the feeling, and even recalled the time when he was on the verge of death in his previous life.

"Here it comes, here it comes, it really feels right, that's exactly how it should be. How can I play him well if I don't understand the character's suffering and the feeling of his death?"

The approaching sense of death even made Li Yun somewhat excited.

The feeling of death and the will to survive lingered before my eyes, while the icy, biting wind tore and convulsed against my skin.

Death and the will to survive.

Both feelings were very strong.

Under this feeling.

Li Yun felt that he was capable of anything.

This is the most primal desire.

What do you want to do now?

All the desires in my mind, everything, everything, everything, everything.

It all turned into the will to survive.

The biological instinct for survival.

"Do you want to live?"