Studio Superstar

The backstage of the show.

Old Gao stared at Xue Xiao’s camera and thought, ‘Control! Control! Hey, why are you still puffing up? Hey hey, you are about to explode. This kid…’

Suddenly, the chief director of the show, Director Zhang asked, “Who was responsible for the live rehearsal of their group yesterday?”

He pointed to Fan Xue’s group of three who were still performing on the monitor with a subtle expression on his face.

Someone replied in a low voice, “I’m in charge.”

“Did they act like this yesterday?”

The man hurriedly said, “No, they were quite normal yesterday. They practiced back and forth several times!”

“They are just nervous.”

“It is the first time I’ve seen someone like this on a variety show…”

“Hush!”

Old Gao suddenly wasn’t in a hurry about Xue Xiao’s side. He slowly raised his eyes to look at Director Zhang on the side. The latter was silent for a moment. He leaned over, pressed a button and said to a certain cameraman on the field, “Pay attention to Shen Tingyan’s expression.”

Everyone immediately looked at each other.

Old Gao secretly cursed. ‘F*k. This is really ruthless!’

He knew that the agent on Fan Xue’s side had already talked to his Old Zhang and it was because he wanted Old Zhang to protect a person!

It just so happened that the leader of Guantian attached great importance to this old guy surnamed Zhang and delegated a lot of authority to him, allowing him to decide which participants to highlight.

Now Fan Xue looked so ugly and he asked the cameraman to sweep over Shen Tingyan’s expression. Could the expression look good? Once this material was cut in, wouldn’t Fan Xue be more humiliated?!

Old Zhang was thinking about doing things. He wanted to pull Fan Xue’s image to the bottom in the early stage so he could counterattack later, right?

This was too ruthless, too ruthless. It was worthy of being the best guy in the entire department at stirring up topics!

However, when the camera on the field really swept to Shen Tingyan, everyone was stunned.

Director Zhang was confused and Old Gao was also stunned.

The handsome man in the camera wasn’t looking straight ahead at all. He was casually looking to his lower left and had a vague smile on his lips.

Um? Um??

What was he looking at and smiling at?

—

On the big screen, the three actors continued to perform intensely.

Shen Tingyan suddenly heard a light cough from the left. His gaze shifted and he glanced over lightly.

Su Shijin didn’t squint.

Shen Tingyan withdrew his gaze and looked at the big screen again.

Then it started—

He watched the big screen for a few seconds and felt that his eyes were hurting, so he looked to the bottom left to the actor seats to see the little spiny fish again. Then he looked at the big screen and his eyes hurt, so he went to find the little spiny fish again…

The little spiny fish’s anger had been filled to the limit and his entire body was as round as a ball. His face had completely changed from anger to expressionless to numbness.

On the big screen, Fan Xue held Wang Minghai hostage at the end of the corridor of the unfinished building and staggered. Xue Xiao looked like he wanted to go on stage, grab Fan Xue by the collar and throw him out of the gap!

Shen Tingyan laughed.

Su Shijin and Feng Wei on his left and right, ‘Had he gone crazy? He could still laugh at this?’

Once the performance ended, the audience paused for a full eight seconds before remembering to applaud.

Fan Xue, Wang Minghai and Hu Lang walked to the stage with pale faces and Jiang Quan looked at the mentor seats. “Uh, can the four mentors comment?”

Guan Ruoying, Feng Wei and Su Shijin looked at Shen Tingyan again.

Fan Xue and the others looked up cautiously—and were surprised.

Shen Tingyan’s expression turned out to be normal!

Not only was it normal but he even seemed to be in a good mood!

Fan Xue’s group was confused and the three people exchanged looks. Could it be that the effect of their performance was okay?

Shen Tingyan leaned back against his seat with his arms crossed. He told Feng Wei and the others, “The three of you come first.”

Seeing that Feng Wei didn’t seem to plan to speak first, Guan Ruoying and Su Shijin looked at each other.

Guan Ruoying sat up straight. “Fan Xue, Wang Minghai, Hu Lang, the three of you are all actors from professional backgrounds and rich experience in acting. I looked at it and out of all the two-person groups and three-person groups, it should be your group with the strongest configuration. Everyone was looking forward to your performance. How on earth did you… make it like this?”

The characters were pretentious and the positioning was chaotic. In the later plot, it could even be called a mess.

In the morning, Zhang Jiaqing’s crying scene could still be watched. At most, it was just a scene that caused their toes to curl up. Meanwhile, the performance presented by these three was annoying, impatient and even a bit ridiculous.

Hearing Guan Ruoying’s words, the three of them immediately knew that the ‘effect isn’t bad’ was their illusion.

Hu Lang’s eyes immediately turned red, Wang Minghai blushed and Fan Xue gritted his teeth.

At first, they felt that they were acting quite smoothly. They didn’t know they were full of thoughts and ‘acted hard.’ Then as soon as they came to the scene of going up the stairs, they were completely messed up and then it got out of control.

Su Shijin asked, “Are you all silent? Then how about you step down now and forget about it?”

Fan Xue immediately bowed, his voice choked up. “I’m sorry to the mentors!”

Hu Lang and Wang Minghai hurriedly followed him.

Su Shijin asked, “Why are you sorry to us?”

Fan Xue bowed to the audience with tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry to the audience and my fans!”

Su Shijin smiled. “Why are you sorry for the audience?”

Fan Xue looked at her blankly.

“We all spared a day to come here to watch your performance. There are also today’s assistant actors and the teacher who helped you rehearse before. They spared a day and a half to earn a salary. If you aren’t sorry for them then who are you sorry for?”

Su Shijin’s ruthless words gradually made Fan Xue’s group understand.

The three of them stood frozen on the stage like they had been slapped on the face, unable to move.

Su Shijin called them out by name. “Hu Lang, do you know what type of person Li Xueming is?”

Hu Lang was stunned and quickly said, “He is a righteous policeman, mature in character and decisive in his work—”

Su Shijin interrupted, “Did he come to the police station to be an uncle?”

Hu Lang shook his head repeatedly. “No, of course not!”

“Then why did you call out and shout at your subordinates? For those who didn’t know anything, they would think this is a master and slave in ancient times.”

Hu Lang’s face turned white.

Su Shijin asked again, “Wang Minghai, has no one told you that there is a problem with your acting method?”

Wang Minghai was stunned. “Huh?”

“Still saying huh? You don’t think that you started having problems with the scene of going up the stairs, do you? Haven’t you realized that you acted weirdly at the beginning? You were always hunched over and looked like a patient with a spinal problem, you know?”

Wang Minghai was dumbfounded.

Su Shijin turned to Fan Xue again.

Fan Xue was as stiff as a stone and his face was completely pale.

“Fan Xue, you are very popular, right?”

Once Su Shijin became ruthless, she could be more ruthless than Feng Wei and Guan Ruoying.

She smiled and said, “I was curious at first about how Guantian came up with such a variety show and spent so much effort to invite me and Director Feng, Teacher Guan and Teacher Shen over.”

“I almost forgot.”

“Now the circle is full of artists like you. When I want to find actors, I often feel that I have nowhere to start. If it is all this type of acting, how can I give my script to such an actor?”

The audience was stunned the moment these words came out.

It wasn’t just the audience. A gasping sound also came from the actor seats under the stage.

Fan Xue looked at Su Shijin in disbelief.

“There were so many performances today. I want to ask the audience, how many people almost doubted the word ‘acting school’?”

“Huh? Acting like this? Why can amateurs act normally while those from professional backgrounds act so strange? What are the things taught in those colleges?”

“But is this really a problem with the acting school?”

“We also have actors from professional backgrounds who do well on this stage. It might be few but there are some, right?”

Offstage, Jiang Lianlian clenched her fists.

“Teacher Shen is from a professional background and there are many with professional backgrounds among the extras. Everyone is acting steadily so what is the difference?”

Su Shijin asked, “Let me ask, for artists like you, do you think that the resources you have are easy to come by? Even if you haven’t won the leading role so far, there are quite a lot of supporting roles and the money earned is still much more than ordinary people. How many people want to get on this show, Studio Superstar, but aren’t you also on it? So the ‘opportunity’ actually isn’t worth much to you, right?’

Fan Xue, Wang Minghai and Hu Lang’s eyes widened. These words were too damaging. They quickly shook their heads and defended themselves. “That isn’t—”

Su Shijin asked, “Are you in awe of this stage? If so, why did you act like this?”

The three of them said, “Teacher, we—”

“At the same time, how many people in the industry can’t even touch the resources you don’t like? Even if they play a passerby, they have to cherish it and think about it over and over.”

“It isn’t surprising that some people want to hold onto this variety show. It is a chance to look at beautiful shells on the beach that people usually can’t see! Even so, you still have to climb onto this new horizon we have found and occupy everyone’s attention, forcing everyone to see you spoil the stage, right?”

Hu Lang and Wang Minghai were stunned. Both of them were scolded to the point of crying and tears fell down from their eyes.

Fan Xue also got goosebumps.

Seeing that Su Shijin was about to speak, he felt numb and boldly interrupted, “Teacher Su, we don’t despise the stage! Everyone has been rehearsing very hard these last two days!”

He swallowed his saliva fiercely and felt that his brain was spinning. He had to work hard to organize his language. “I… I feel that I was a bit too smart when choosing a play. Before I started rehearsals, I didn’t expect that I wouldn’t be able to control the role of Chen Tao. In addition, two days is too short. Our group is the only group that has a lot of moving scenes but we didn’t have a chance to get in touch with the rehearsal scenes until last night…”

In the audience, the expressions of the fans started to become anxious.

Why was he even starting to quibble?

He shouldn’t make excuses for himself at this time!

Fan Xue also wanted to explain but at the mentor table, Shen Tingyan suddenly laughed.

His laughter was very light but it attracted the attention of the audience. Even Xue Xiao, who was sullen in the cast, raised his head in a daze.

In the midst of all the attention, Shen Tingyan withdrew his gaze from the audience without a trace.

He thought to himself, ’As for being angry until now?’

He lazily raised his eyelids, glanced at Fan Xue on the stage and asked Jiang Quan, “Isn’t there a total of two groups who selected the Praying Mantis repertoire? What was the duration of the live rehearsals of the two groups last night?”

Jiang Quan was stunned for a moment.

He raised his head against the headset in his right ear, presumably waiting for someone backstage to tell him the answer.

After a moment, Jiang Quan said, “The duration of this group is two and a half hours. The other group only rehearsed for two hours in the end because it was very late and the actors had to rest.”

The venue started to become noisy.

In fact, the play ‘Praying Mantis’ was indeed visibly the most complicated one among all the plays.

Two and a half hours of live rehearsal time might be a bit tight, but they said two and a half hours wasn’t enough. Then the other group only practiced for two hours. What type of performance would they have?

Guan Ruoying said that Fan Xue’s group was the strongest group in configuration. The other group couldn’t be more powerful than them, right?

The audience instantly became a bit tired.

Did they still have to watch another farce?

Shen Tingyan heard Jiang Quan’s answer and said, “Then it is better to watch the other group perform first.”

Everyone was stunned.

Offstage, Xue Xiao, Zhao Dong and Jin Xiaochen were also stunned.

It came to them so suddenly?

In the mentor seats, the man smiled lazily and told Fan Xue’s stunned group, “Don’t you think your rehearsal time is too short? Then let the other group perform. I also want to know if there is a problem with the arrangement of the show.”

“Wait until the next group finishes performing. Then you will go on stage with them and we will continue the next commentary.” Shen Tingyan’s lips slowly curled up. He squinted and smiled. “You have no objections, right?”