The performance ended and the audience fell silent.
It wasn't until five seconds passed that applause broke out.
Under the stage, Xue Xiao pinched his right hand with his left hand. and his left hand with his right hand. His back was covered with fine sweat.
How could this be…
How could it be like this?
Many actors didn't cry well. He knew this but he had never seen something like this before…
Xue Xiao couldn't find an adjective for a while.
He looked at Shen Tingyan, who was always smiling in the mentor seats, and his mind was full of '????'
Why???
...
The screen went up and Jiang Quan led Zhang Jiaqing out.
Zhang Jiaqing didn't seem to feel that anything was wrong. He looked shy and after standing still, he bowed again to the mentor seats and audience seats.
Jiang Quan coughed lightly. "Everyone has finished watching the performance. Four mentors, can you comment on it?"
Unexpectedly, Shen Tingyan was the first one to speak.
He asked a question with great interest, "Does your head hurt?"
Zhang Jiaqing: "?"
The audience: "?"
Next to Shen Tingyan, Feng Wei cleared his throat and took a sip of tea. He had brought his own.
Su Shijin and Guan Ruoying instinctively sat up straight and tightened their faces.
In the audience, Xue Xiao emitted light waves of seeking knowledge with eyes full of doubt among the crowd.
Shen Tingyan's question made Zhang Jiaqing feel stuck. "Huh? My head?"
He smiled and touched his head. "What's wrong with my head?"
Shen Tingyan's gaze fell on his black hair and a slightly playful voice flowed out of the microphone.
"If you didn't pick at it and instead dug in with your nails, or simply grabbed your hair and pulled it out, you might be more likely to cry."
"So I asked you if your head hurts. If it doesn't hurt very much, why didn't you do it a bit harder just now?"
The moment these words landed, Zhang Jiaqing froze in place.
The audience and actors off-stage were stunned before finally reacting.
—F*k, Zhang Jiaqing was using the method of picking at his scalp to force tears just now?
The audience was in an uproar.
Shen Tingyan hadn't finished speaking.
The man was still thinking.
No one could tell whether he was really thinking or was pretending to be thinking. In any case, he put on that interested smile and said, "Besides, rather than opening your mouth forcefully to create pain in the mandible, it is better to close your mouth and bite your own tongue. Perhaps you might not be able to cry but it will cause physiological retching and your hands, teeth and throat will work together at the same time. I think it won't be difficult to produce a tear in three seconds.
Zhang Jiaqing's face turned blue.
The audience was in an uproar again.
Shen Tingyan!! This mouth is indeed worthy of you, Shen Tingyan!! It is too poisonous!
The corner of Su Shijin's mouth twitched. "Teacher Shen, are you serious?"
The man said slowly, "Why not?"
"You… No." Su Shijin asked sincerely, "How did you come up with the trick of biting your tongue?"
A slightly cold, joking voice echoed throughout the studio.
"I've heard of actors who use this method to induce tears before but I've never seen it with my own eyes. I really want to see it."
As he spoke, Shen Tingyan raised a hand, propped his elbow on the armrest of the chair and supported his cheek with his palm.
He looked at Zhang Jiaqing and smiled slightly. "How about you try it on the spot?"
The audience: "..."
For a moment, everyone was in a mess. They couldn't tell if this man was serious or joking. But one thing was certain, if they were Zhang Jiaqing then they would definitely be crying right now!
Offstage, Xue Xiao listened to Shen Tingyan's words and suddenly realized.
So it turned out that Shen Tingyan had been studying Zhang Jiaqing's crying performance technique just now. That was why he looked enthusiastic.
If Shen Tingyan hadn't said anything, Xue Xiao wouldn't have found that Zhang Jiaqing was acting in this way to force tears. Then it was no wonder that his expression was so distorted. People's expressions would definitely be hideous when they used force!
Jiang Lianlian and Zhao Dong were on his left and right. Both of them lowered their heads and supported their foreheads with their hands.
Jiang Lianlian thought, 'It is so cold. Teacher Shen is so cold.'
Zhao Dong thought, 'Xiao, how can you worship this man?'
On the stage, Zhang Jiaqing's expression couldn't be uglier.
He froze there completely and murmured, "I… I won't…"
The audience was numb with embarrassment. They couldn't breathe the air in this studio!
In order to not let the scene continue to be scary, the host Jiang Quan subtly controlled the scene.
He coughed lightly and said, "Yes, today's recording rhythm is tight. In order to not delay time, Zhang Jiaqing steps down… he can communicate more with Teacher Shen. Let's take a look at the comments of the other three mentors."
"Teacher Guan?"
Guan Ruoying cleared her throat and tried to speak more tactfully. In the end, she sighed and said, "Zhang Jiaqing, your initial performance was actually okay. The feeling that your heart is empty and you don't know where to start was interpreted well by you. How can your crying scene be like this?"
"You graduated from an acting school and you actually wanted to use this… method to force tears? Do you usually act like this on the set?"
Feng Wei replied to her, "If it was the real set, the director must've stopped it before the actor acted like this."
Guan Ruoying coughed.
That was indeed the case.
Feng Wei took over the conversation. "After stopping, we will either let the actor brew their emotions again. If this really doesn't work, just use eye drops. That is all there is to it, right? That is why a large number of actors can't act in crying scenes at all. What I don't understand is how you had the confidence to choose this play."
Zhang Jiaqing's eyes were red. He gritted his teeth and explained, "Actually, I usually don't act like this. I can cry normally during rehearsals but as soon as I went on stage…"
"You were nervous as soon as you got on stage, right"?" Feng Wei said flatly. "Then you had better assess your psychological quality. We won't eliminate participants in the first round but it will start from the second round. So pay attention to yourself."
"In addition, the confident state you had when finishing your play was very bad. You knew that you performed abnormally but you thought your plan B was very good, right?"
"I'm sorry, I…" Zhang Jiaqing lowered his head deeply.
Su Shijin said, "I don't have anything to comment on. To be honest, I really don't have any feelings about this type of acting."
Seeing that Zhang Jiaqing was about to feel ashamed, Su Shijin continued, "Fortunately, our program's nature is about teaching. We have to teach all of you well. You should remember what you lack now. Listen carefully in class later and don't make the same mistake in the future, you know?"
Zhang Jiaqing nodded quickly and choked out, "Thank you, Teacher Su."
Once Zhang Jiaqing stepped down, Feng Wei joked, "I never thought Teacher Su was so gentle."
Su Shijin said with a smile, "You guys already showed your poisonous tongue. Shouldn't I be the candy behind your whip?"
However, the real ghost story came after Zhang Jiaqing went down.
What type of ghost story was it?
It was that for this crying scene, there were still four people to perform…
Zhang Jiaqing was the first one and the other four participants were already going crazy offstage. They couldn't wait to rush out of this studio and never come back.
Everyone watched them leave one by one and couldn't bear to watch them perform on stage.
No matter how good their rehearsal, normal people could easily become overwhelmed under such a psychological impact. This caused the performances of the participants to become a rollover scene one by one.
The second one who appeared on stage was also a signed artist. It wasn't known if he was scared by Shen Tingyan but before he walked to the chair, he couldn't hold back his tears. He cried so much that it could be called a collapse. It was full of fear and heartbreak.
It wasn't like his wife had just filed for divorce. It was more like he just learned he was terminally ill.
Once the performance was over, Shen Tingyan asked, "Is your performance the same play as the one just now?"
The 1.8 meter tall strong man's blood directly exploded.
The third person to perform trembled all the way to the chair. After sitting down on the chair, he was stunned for a while. It wasn't known when he was thinking but he suddenly retched.
Then he froze.
The audience froze as well.
After the performance, the moment Shen Tingyan opened his lips, Su Shijin stopped him and told the actor bitterly, "Listen to me. After I go back today, I want to forget the words 'pinching the scalp', 'pulling hair', 'biting tongue' and 'retching' from my mind!"
Then the fourth…
The fifth…
By the time this play finally ended, Su Shijin and Guan Ruoying were already hollowed out and had lost their souls.
Guan Ruoying said weakly, "I have never felt that watching people cry is such a painful thing."
Then what about Shen Tingyan?
This guy had always been very interested.
Guan Ruoying couldn't understand, "Teacher Shen, why do you like to watch crying scenes so much?"
Shen Tingyan replied, "Isn't it interesting to watch your peers dying on stage?"
Feng Wei: "..."
Su Shijin: "..." Good guy, dying…
Guan Ruoying: "..." Good guy, even I can feel the malice in this wave…
But the participants in the audience were stunned. They muttered in their hearts one by one, 'Teacher Shen actually said that we are peers…'
Therefore, little flowers that no one could see floated out from the actors' seats.
...
The second play arranged by the show was still a solo play.
The theme of this play was 'anger.' There were two actors who picked it and each one had an assistant actor.
At first glance, anger seemed much better than crying.
From time to time, the roars and growls of actors came from the stage.
During the whole process, everyone carefully paid attention to the mentor seats, especially one of them…
However, the man seemed unconcerned. Most of the time, there was no expression on his face. He only frowned slightly when the actor on stage would occasionally roar.
Everyone noted it down in their hearts. Then the next second, the man's brow loosened again and his eyes looked a bit distracted.
The phone in his trouser pocket vibrated.
Shen Tingyan pulled it out to look in an upright manner.
Old Gao: "Are you distracted?"
Shen Tingyan: "They are acting too noisily."
Shen Tingyan: "I need to be distracted."
At 11:30 in the morning, the recording of the morning performances finally ended.
—
Once he sat down in the cafeteria, Chang Yun said in a flustered voice, "I don't know why but I feel like I have lost my life even though I haven't performed yet."
Zhao Dong sighed, "Fortunately, there are a few people later who acted well or this wave…"
They would all be killed in battle!
They were different from other acting competitive variety shows. The participants' experience wasn't rich but it would be too embarrassing to have everyone wiped out. They would just become a joke when it was aired.
"Don't talk," Chang Yun muttered while hurriedly eating the rice. "I'll quickly finish eating and go to the dressing room to review my script."
Jin Xiaochen came over and said, "Did you see it just now? Teacher Shen was distracted when those of the second play were performing on stage."
Jiang Lianlian said, "Actually, it wasn't just Teacher Shen at that time. I looked at the audience and found that many people were distracted."
'Distracted' sounded a bit disrespectful to the actors but thinking about it, what did it actually mean?
Didn't it mean that the performance on stage was too boring?!
The even scarier thing?
At that time, the performance on the stage was a solo play and the total duration was only around three minutes!
It was already hard to watch even though it was only three minutes!
Thinking of this, everyone felt a bit unable to eat. Their faces were solemn.
Jin Xiaochen hesitated. "If the audience doesn't have the patience to watch the performance then how can they remember us? Thinking about it this way, perhaps acting like the people in the crying scene is more impressive…"
Xue Xiao was the only one among them who delivered food to his mouth at a steady speed from beginning to end.
Hearing Jin Xiaochen words, he raised his head and said in a very gentle voice, "You can make the audience remember you for a while through absurd acting skills but can you rely on absurd acting skills to make the audience remember you for a lifetime?"
Jin Xiaochen was taken aback.
Zhao Dong smiled helplessly. "Xiao is right. We are actors. What is more terrifying than the label of ridiculous acting?"
It was okay if they were really bad but if they deliberately acted badly for the sake of traffic, was this what an actor should do?
Chang Yun had already quickly finished eating. His cheeks were bulging as he said vaguely, "You can't take shortcuts. You have to be down-to-earth when acting."
Don't be afraid to go on stage and act hard.
Perform as far as possible and they could catch the audience's eyes one more time.
Everything else didn't have to be thought about. It was all false.
After eating, everyone hurried back to the dressing room to touch up their makeup.
The makeup that Xue Xiao and the others required for this play wasn't complicated. The three of them were acting almost without any makeup so the makeup artist had nothing to do.
After that, Zhao Dong and Jin Xiaochen nestled in a corner of the dressing room to review their lines. Xue Xiao read the script for around half an hour. Then he stood up and moved the muscles of his lower body. He thought about it before informing the other two and going out for a walk.
The backstage area of the small theater was very nosy. No one was taking a lunch break even at noon and the staff were coming and going.
Xue Xiao walked through the corridor with his hands behind his back. He looked like a grandfather walking around as his eyes kept shifting around.
Many actors liked to keep quiet before going on stage and some even closed their eyes.
Xue Xiao was the opposite of this type of actor.
The closer it was to his performance, the more he wanted to get in touch with people.
They were either in a hurry or had a leisurely pace.
Some people were drinking coffee and leaning against the wall to chat and laugh with his colleagues. Others were frowning and talking on the phone.
Some people looked so sleepy that they were about to pass out and others looked like they could fight for a hundred years.
It was very interesting.
No one cared about Xue Xiao. Occasionally, a staff member from the show who recognized him would greet him with a smile and tell him not to be nervous. Xue Xiao jumped up on the spot and said it was okay. He originally came out to relax his body.
Then he passed by and kept walking.
It wasn't until he passed a corner and almost bumped into two people head-on that Xue Xiao quickly took a step back. He stopped observing the 'various situations in the world' and looked straight ahead.
He saw the person in front of him clearly and froze in place.
The pores all over his body seemed to open instantly and his blood flow accelerated.
...
Old Gao was talking to Shen Tingyan.
After the recording in the morning, Shen Tingyan laughed and said, "This is the performance you told me to look forward to?" It broke through Old Gao's defense directly.
To speak plainly, he didn't say that all 50 participants were natural talents. Many of them were still waiting to be discovered.
However, he was a bit depressed. Among the students who came to the stage in the morning, there were more signed artists. They were all graduates of acting school and had participated in major film and television works. In theory, they should be stable. As a result, they overturned one after another. Meanwhile, the performance of the amateurs and extras wasn't bad. This was really…
Old Gao cheered up. "You just continue to look down. Can you stop speaking in such a scary and eccentric manner? Can't you just be straightforward?"
"Are you sure you want me to be straightforward?"
Shen Tingyan stared at him as if asking as if he wanted to insist on making such a request.
Old Gao: "..."
He imagined the consequences. Before he could choke out an answer, the two of them turned a corner and almost collided with a person.
"Xue Xiao?"
The young man's height of 1.78 meters just happened to stand face to face with Shen Tingyan, who was 1.89 meters.
The height difference of 11 centimeters was actually a gap of half a head. Xue Xiao had to tilt his head slightly.
He looked at Shen Tingyan with wide eyes. He looked stunned, as if he hadn't expected a chance encounter with them here and was completely dumbfounded.
Xue Xiao opened his mouth and said in a low voice, "Teacher… Teacher Shen!"
Then he said to Old Gao in a panic, "Director Gao."
Old Gao said kindly, "Hey, why are you here? Shouldn't you hurry up and rehearse with the people in the same group?"
Xue Xiao was a bit nervous and his voice was dry. "We just got our lines right and stopped rehearsing. Brother Zhao and Xiao Jin are finding the right state by themselves."
As he spoke, he couldn't help looking at Shen Tingyan. The uncontrollable light in his eyes was shaking and it was indeed like a fan meeting his idol.
Old Gao secretly poked Shen Tingyan with his elbow.
Shen Tingyan put his hands in his trouser pockets and looked at Xue Xiao thoughtfully as soon as they met each other.
His gaze was direct.
Xue Xiao didn't know why Shen Tingyan was looking at him but he felt that his brain was about to be dried up by Shen Tingyan's gaze and his soul was going to evaporate completely. The temperature of his body was soaring.
It wasn't until he felt Old Gao's small action that Shen Tingyan's lips curved up and he said lazily, "Jiayou for your performance in the afternoon."
The man's voice was low and cold. The simple words entered Xue Xiao's ears and made him fiercely excited.
The afternoon recording was about to start. There was no time to talk nonsense so Old Gao said goodbye to Xue Xiao before leaving with Shen Tingyan.
Xue Xiao took two steps but couldn't help looking at the backs of the two people.
He clenched his hands and his heart thumped. His whole body seemed like it had been hit by a force and he felt hot.
Meanwhile, Shen Tingyan was gradually moving away and wasn't listening carefully to what Old Gao was saying next to him at this time.
He thought to himself—
It was definitely 100 watts.