Chapter 8
Song Jixing looked at the long line of people queuing up at the crawfish stand, and touched her campus card in her bag. At 18 yuan per jin, she couldn’t even afford crawfish!
She was so poor.
Song Jixing went to the snack stand, got 2 jin worth of salted egg yolk rolls, buns, red bean cakes, and several jin of braised cold dishes, all vegetable dishes of course. In total, she spent less than 50 yuan!
Carrying all these things, Song Jixing happily walked out of the cafeteria! Dinner was settled for today!
-
Song Jixing was looking into registering for the city marathon when she suddenly received a call from her agent at the company.
"Yeah, I went to the hospital to get checked out," she said.
"No major issues. Okay, I got it...nothing else, I'll hang up first. Bye."
Song Jixing hung up the phone with a very calm expression on her face.
She was not very familiar with her current agent, extremely unfamiliar in fact.
When the company first signed her, they intended to promote her as a big star. But to their surprise, Song Jixing was self-sabotaging, not cooperating properly with promotions and using her studies as an excuse to brush them off.
Over a year later when Song Jixing was neither hot nor cold, her previous agent cited being too busy to manage her anymore as a reason for the company to assign her a different one.
Song Jixing knew very well what the real reasons were. As people move up in the world, she could understand all this.
As for Song Jixing's other agent, she had met her even less frequently than her college advisor.
Most of their communication about work happened over WeChat.
Every now and then her agent would push her some jobs over WeChat, saying they were contractually obligated appearances that she must attend. Song Jixing would then hustle over to them.
The fees she earned were usually just a few thousand or a few hundred yuan, sometimes even nothing.
Compared to those top stars easily raking in hundreds of millions per movie, Song Jixing was living at a level lower than the body hair on those stars.
The message from the company was that as long as she didn’t have any major issues, she should hurry up and get the filming done.
In recent years, small web dramas have become very popular. They have low production costs, arbitrary casting of actors, and as long as the storyline and actors' looks are moderately good, they stand a very good chance of going viral and profits increasing tens of folds. Song Jixing’s recent jobs were to play supporting roles as the third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh female roles that appear for only three to four episodes in various web dramas. After compression, she would have less than 10 minutes of total screen time for the entire drama.
Sometimes her face makes it in. Other times not...
When her face doesn't make it in, she usually plays female ghosts, zombies, plaster mannequins, sometimes even just the shadow of the female protagonist in flashback scenes.
The intentions of the company were very obvious.
Song Jixing still had over a year left on her contract. They wanted to squeeze out all her remaining value during this last year, using her however they could.
So why does Song Jixing still do jobs for this company? For the following reasons:
One, the penalty for contract breach is expensive, more than she can afford.
Two, there is a base pay of 3,000 yuan per month. As long as she works every month, she gets paid. During busier months she can earn 20-30k yuan. It was this money that allowed her to fully pay for her second-hand apartment.
Three, her college major was a less common language. Other than going abroad, there were no money-making career paths for these majors. Right now the economy was bad and all majors were faring poorly. It was basically graduate then immediately become unemployed.
Given her family’s current circumstances, going abroad was even more impossible.
Compared to classmates preparing to become teachers at primary or secondary schools after graduating, Song Jixing felt her situation wasn’t too bad and at least she still had ways to earn money.
Although acting in web dramas was risky, like that suspended wire today, and a bit tiring with her changing drama crews every month now, barely remembering all the directors’ names, as long as she worked hard, she earned more.
“Senior apprentice sister...” A gentle and clear male voice sounded from the sofa.
Song Jixing turned her head to look at her junior apprentice brother and smiled, “Yes, what’s the matter?”
“Senior apprentice sister, is my being here causing you a lot of trouble?” Feng Juechen looked somewhat dejected.
“How could that be?” Song Jixing’s eyes curved into crescents.
“I’m so happy to see all of you that I can hardly contain my excitement. I thought I would be spending my time here all alone,” Song Jixing said emotionally.
Over a hundred years from her previous life to reincarnation, she often missed the people she met in the immortal cultivation world after returning to Earth.
She thought she would remain lonely until her death. She didn’t expect to have the chance to meet everyone again.
“Senior apprentice sister, I will help you!” Feng Juechen said solemnly.
Yu Qing and Shen Feixian also chimed in, “Junior apprentice sister, we will help you too!”
Since they were from the same sect, they would face things together here.
“Great! Then let’s work hard together!” Song Jixing said with a laugh. She conveniently used her phone to sign up for all the marathon races in Y City that didn't have conflicting times!
It was time to go earn some money!
- The next day when Song Jixing reported to the drama crew, she received blessings and well wishes from the entire crew. Song Jixing politely returned them one by one with smiles.
Under such a harmonious and friendly atmosphere, Song Jixing finished the majority of her scenes in two days.
On the last day, the director even personally poured her a cup of tea, reluctantly saying, “You’ve got good potential!”
“Hardworking and resilient. You filmed action scenes beautifully. If you were born 30 years earlier, you could have definitely made it onto the big screen!”
Song Jixing smiled and thanked the director for his compliments, “Thank you for your praise, director. I will work hard!”
After hearing her response, the director looked up and wailed, “Working hard is useless! I’ve been working hard filming all these years without any success!” After saying this, the director realized he lost composure. He turned to reassure Song Jixing, “Don’t lose heart. It’s because I didn’t have any luck and am too old now. You’re different since you’re still young. You can still persist! A suitable big production will definitely find you in the future!”
Song Jixing nodded earnestly. With her total age adding up to over 200 years old, she could certainly persist.
The next morning, the big production arrived right on time.
Song Jixing received a new job notice from the company to play the college-aged younger sister of the accidentally deceased third male lead in a movie hitting theaters...
Upon hearing this, Song Jixing blinked.
It was a big production and fit perfectly with her current college student persona.
But what was this girl's number again?
Oh well, whoever pays is boss.
-
Since this role had very few scenes, Song Jixing directly joined the crew without an audition due to her looks. After receiving the company’s notice, she went to the drama set to take one portrait shot for her posthumous photo and completed most of the tasks already.
The remaining tasks had to wait until the third male lead joined the crew to continue. It was just shooting a few family life photos with him, very simple.
The crew was very satisfied with Song Jixing’s cooperation and gave her a red envelope.
There were rules in this profession. Having contact with the deceased inevitably contaminated you with ill fortune. Crews would usually give actors a red envelope after wrapping up so they could eliminate the misfortune.
Song Jixing opened up the red envelope after taking the photos, standing outside the film and television city.
There were 20 yuan inside!
Not bad!
Way better than the 1 yuan she previously got for playing a zombie! Sure enough, it was a big production!
These red envelopes were meant to be spent the same day!
Song Jixing happily used this 20 yuan to buy a tray of eggs to add some variety to her family’s meals!
There were still two days before filming started for the big production. She could take this chance to participate in some marathon races while commuting to work!