Of course, she couldn’t betray the trust Chu Feiliang had in her.
Even if she didn’t know where Chu Feiliang’s current trust and affirmation of her acting skills came from.
Could it be the impression she left at the last audition?
It was hard to say.
Rong Guang’s eyes were filled with gratitude. She smiled at Chu Feiliang with her watery eyes, “Thank you, Teacher Chu.”
Then, she began to think.
When she thought, she subconsciously furrowed her brow, concentrating deeply.
Telephone, two people.
The prompt was simple, a scene that could occur frequently in daily life. Anyone might do this every day.
But something so ordinary was definitely not what the director’s team, or Chu Feiliang, was looking for.
Who could the two people on the phone be?
Lovers, family, classmates… or even a superior and subordinate?
But that was still just making a phone call.
And with only two empty prompts, it was difficult to use emotions, lines, or other elements from a script to build the scene, nor was it possible to add many details.
The only thing a performer could do was to draw on their own abilities as much as possible. This was also one of the most common exam questions in professional acting schools.
Rong Guang hadn’t attended a professional academy, but she had her own experiences.
Experiences that were different from the vast majority of actors in the entertainment industry, who were born already standing at the finish line.
At a time when many people were unfamiliar with landlines that had to be plugged in, Rong Guang was already running a long way to and from school every day, saving her allowance to call her father, who worked far away, from a public phone booth.
And in a rural place like that, next to the public phone booth, there was no shortage of drama and grievances.
At that time, Rong Guang had just gone to town to buy a box of candles for her grandmother, who had trouble walking, and it started raining on her way back.
She didn’t have an umbrella, so she could only take shelter from the rain in a nearby phone booth.
The rain was so heavy that even after getting inside, Rong Guang was soaked and looked particularly miserable.
It was winter then, so she could only quickly shake the rainwater off her body, shivering in the small space.
She picked up the phone, but only after her hand touched the keypad did she realize that only her grandmother was at home.
Glancing at the one-yuan coin that had already been swallowed by the machine, destined to be wasted, Rong Guang could only claw at it reluctantly before giving up on her original plan.
Not long after, a woman holding an umbrella came to the booth to make a call.
Rong Guang came face to face with her and felt a bit awkward. Everyone knew that making a phone call was a rather private matter, and no one would want an outsider to overhear.
Rong Guang said at the time, “Auntie, you go ahead. I’ll wait outside.”
“No need,” the woman said. “It’s too cold outside. It’s nothing important, you can just wait here.”
Rong Guang smiled and nodded, took out her MP3 player, and waved it at the woman, saying with a smile, “I’ll listen to music in here, so I won’t hear your call. Thank you for letting me take shelter, Auntie.”
Rong Guang couldn’t hear any outside sounds, and she consciously kept her gaze away from the woman, watching the heavy rain outside instead.
It was at that moment that she saw a news interview with Chu Feiliang playing on a TV in the supermarket not far from the phone booth.
At that time, Chu Feiliang was saying, “I hope my existence can become a beam of light for some people as they continue on their life’s path.”
Rong Guang was still young then, filled with the bewilderment of losing her parents and a sense of helplessness about the future.
She just felt that, for her at that moment, Chu Feiliang was like a beam of light that had suddenly appeared in her life.
She was mesmerized for a moment, but in her peripheral vision, she saw the woman squat down, cover her face, and seemingly burst into tears.
Just then, the interview ended, and she didn’t get to see the rest.
So Rong Guang became curious about why the woman was crying.
But she also knew that as a child, there was nothing she could do at that time.
So she could only watch as the woman bravely stopped crying, left the phone booth without even taking her umbrella, and slowly walked into the curtain of rain.
She waited a long time for the woman, but she never came back.
The umbrella was still left in the phone booth. A young Rong Guang, with her still very childish handwriting, wrote the words, ‘Auntie, keep going. Life is gentle. I hope you can also find the beam of light in your life,’ and placed the note there.
When she passed by again later, the umbrella was gone. She didn’t know if someone had taken it.
Rong Guang made some modifications to that scene and then recreated it.
In the end, she hugged her knees, shivering from the cold, curled up in a small corner. She opened the umbrella to block the cold wind blowing through the crack in the door, occasionally wiping the condensation from the glass wall.
Rong Guang’s acting is very good.
This was the thought that simultaneously occurred to everyone after watching this short performance.
She didn’t deliberately act out the other woman on the phone, nor did she even mention the person on the other end of the line, yet she had already given people infinite room for imagination.
Who was the person on the phone? What had she encountered? Why did Rong Guang look at her with such a surprised and slightly panicked expression?
And what was the object left in the corner at the end?
A single performance showcased all these things, and even left a perfect blank space for the imagination.
If the person standing before him had been Chu Feiliang, or even any actor whose skills were highly acclaimed, Zhang Nanchuan wouldn’t have been so surprised at this moment.
But the person before him was Rong Guang.
This was the Rong Guang whom that bastard Sun Yuzhi had dismissed as having ‘only ever played Nezha once’!
Turning back to look at that old bastard Sun Yuzhi, Zhang Nanchuan proudly straightened his back!
That grandson’s face was filled with an amazement, surprise, and satisfaction that he couldn’t possibly hide!
He had unearthed a treasure!
This joy made Zhang Nanchuan want to rub his hands together!
A very smug smile appeared on his face as he said, “Rong Guang, please explain the content of your performance.”
Rong Guang nodded and explained her performance from the perspective of an observer as much as possible.
She deliberately left things unsaid, only explaining the parts she had performed: a rainy day, a public phone booth, and a person making a call.
The questions left by the performance were first voiced by Zhang Nanchuan, who had been taking detailed notes. He considered his words carefully and said, “I noticed that during your performance, you mimed a few props. That last one, the thing you stared at for a long time, what was it?”
“It was an umbrella.” Rong Guang smiled, bringing her performance to a perfect conclusion. She explained, “Because the person I was portraying was a woman who had experienced an emotional upheaval and was so distraught that she forgot her umbrella.”
If a man had come in, even a young one, Rong Guang, as a girl, would never have chosen to share a small phone booth with him.
And when Rong Guang looked at the umbrella, her gaze also moved slowly from above the woman’s head down to a fixed point.
These minute details, which almost no one would notice, were precisely what Zhang Nanchuan loved most, as they further enriched the character’s existence.
Moreover, Rong Guang’s performance had a beginning and an end. In just a few short minutes, she delivered a brilliant interpretation, perfectly capturing the posture and expressions of an eight-year-old child. It was even a complete story.
Zhang Nanchuan was the first to applaud, saying, “Excellent!”
Chu Feiliang was somewhat surprised by Rong Guang’s performance, but she immediately joined in the applause, looking very satisfied, yet also with a hint of wistfulness.
“You can go wait outside for a bit,” Zhang Nanchuan said with a sigh. “We’ll let you know once we’ve discussed it.”
Rong Guang showed no airs at all. She responded good-naturedly, stole a glance at Chu Feiliang, bit her lip, and still bowed, saying, “Thank you, Teacher Chu.”
Chu Feiliang paused for a moment, then smiled. After a thought, she said to Zhang Nanchuan, “I’ll step out with her for a moment.”
When Rong Guang heard this, she was stunned.
Chu Feiliang wanted to go out with her… to do what?
