novelraw Chapter 59 Wang Churan sees through it all!
Chapter 59 Wang Churan sees through it all!
"Playing a spy? Going undercover?"
Tian Xiwei stammered for a moment, and the prescription sheet covered with writing in her hand was almost crumpled into a ball.
Song Ze crossed his legs and leaned forward abruptly.
"Infiltration? You, the top student from the Shanghai Theatre Academy, have such a low level of vision?"
"This is the ultimate test of your pantomime acting and your sense of conviction. Stanislavski could recite it all, but you can't use it in real life?"
Tian Xiwei stood there, stunned.
"Completely immerse yourself in the role of a passionate theater enthusiast. Deconstruct her daily life, engage with her soul. Do you even understand what experiential learning is?"
Song Ze tapped his finger forcefully in the air a few times.
"You messed up, which means you're only good for rote memorization in school to get a good GPA; you have zero practical skills."
These professional titles rained down on Tian Xiwei, instantly evaporating any subconscious resistance she might have felt.
She suddenly straightened her back and slapped her hands tightly against the seams of her pants.
"Got it. This isn't about being a spy; it's about immersive theatrical practice."
On the hospital bed, Bai Lu rolled her eyes and twitched the muscles in her face.
The leader of a pyramid scheme can present his deceit and fraud in such a refined and sophisticated way.
Song Ze didn't even look at her.
"Go ahead and carry it out. Infiltrate the enemy—"
"No, penetrate your partner's heart."
The academic superstar's terrifying execution ability was immediately unleashed.
Tian Xiwei returned to her dormitory, turned on her computer, and typed a series of afterimages on the keyboard.
Log in to the Shanghai Opera Affiliated High School's campus forum and use the advanced search function to filter all old posts mentioning "Wang Churan," "drama," and "whereabouts."
Hundreds of fragmented information were extracted and archived: unsociable, extremely aloof, never ate with classmates after school, and always carried a faded canvas bag to run to the back street of the school.
Switch to Weibo and search for the same name's pinyin abbreviation and various obscure related terms.
She stayed up until 3 a.m. and finally found an account without a profile picture.
The latest update is a picture of a tattered book page, accompanied by a single period.
Tian Xiwei used image recognition for comparison.
The earliest out-of-print Chinese translation of "Waiting for Godot".
The target location was instantly identified: the "Bookworm Secondhand Bookstore" on the back street of the affiliated high school, which specializes in old magazines and out-of-print scripts.
The next afternoon, Tian Xiwei changed into a loose white tracksuit, put on black-rimmed glasses, and pushed open the glass door of the bookstore.
The first day was a disaster; the goal hadn't materialized.
The next day, after finishing a tattered copy of "Teahouse," the target still hadn't arrived.
At six o'clock in the evening on the third day, the wind chimes on the lintel rang.
Wang Churan walked in, her face bare, her hair casually tied up behind her head with a wooden hairpin, and carrying an old canvas bag.
Without glancing to the side, she went straight to the innermost section of the opera and drama category and pulled out a yellowed collection of scripts.
Tian Xiwei pinched her thigh, forcing herself to get into the zone.
She walked to the same bookshelf, picked up a copy of "Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land," and muttered to herself.
"This version is too densely packed, with a serious lack of white space. It's far less compelling than 'Rhinoceros in Love'."
Wang Churan stopped turning the pages of the book.
She turned her head and looked Tian Xiwei up and down.
Tian Xiwei's heart pounded like a drum. She suppressed the urge to look away and stared straight back.
"Have you seen the first version of Malu and Mingming?"
"More than that. Duan Yihong's version pushed absurdity and despair to the extreme, which today's popular actors simply cannot match."
Tian Xiwei speaks fluently and got the highest score in the entire department in the film analysis class at the Shanghai Theatre Academy.
The resonance was established extremely quickly.
Two theater fanatics crouched in the narrow aisle between bookshelves, debating everything from Ionesco's absurdism to Brecht's alienation effect.
An hour later, they walked out of the bookstore side by side and added each other on WeChat.
The progress bar is moving too fast.
On the fifth day at noon, they each ordered a bowl of mixed noodles at a Shaxian snack shop next to the school.
Halfway through the meal, Wang Churan put down his chopsticks and carefully wiped the grease from the corners of his mouth with a cheap napkin.
She looked at Tian Xiwei.
"Xiwei, you won the gold medal for individual performance at the National Middle School Drama Festival, right?"
Tian Xiwei's action of picking up noodles froze in mid-air, and the noodles slipped into the bowl, splashing scallions.
"In the past two years, the number of my agency members who have come to block my entrance at the affiliated high school is too many to count on two hands."
Wang Churan crumpled the paper in her hand into tiny pieces and threw them onto the greasy table.
"So the coincidences you've been creating these past few days are too purposeful."
She paused for a moment.
"Are you a talent scout?"
Tian Xiwei's mind went blank, and the hundreds of lines she had prepared were stuck in her throat, unable to utter a single syllable.
Wang Churan was amused by her appearance.
"He was quite honest and didn't continue making up stories to lie to me."
She picked up the canvas bag and slung it over one shoulder, without getting angry or jumping up and down.
"Want me to meet your boss? Sure. This weekend at 2 PM, the Shanghai Youth Drama Club is having an unscripted improvisational drama battle. If you win, I'll go with you. If you lose, don't come to the bookstore again."
He turned around, pushed open the plastic curtain, and left.
At 9 p.m., Song Ze turned on speakerphone on the sofa in his apartment in Shanghai.
Tian Xiwei sounded like she was about to cry on the phone.
"I messed up! She saw right through me! She even challenged me to an impromptu battle! She's a gold medalist, and I haven't even taken my first-year final exams, how am I supposed to win?"
Song Ze peeled an orange and threw it into his mouth.
"What's the rush? This self-proclaimed genius is arrogant; you have to curb her pride to get her to sign obediently."
"But I have no experience with improvisation!"
"Get back to the company rehearsal room tomorrow, and I'll have Bai Lu fly over to be your special training partner."
"Senior Sister Bailu still has a cast on her leg!"
"She can rehearse lines even while in a wheelchair. She's about to join a production team to perform a tragedy, and you'll be a perfect opportunity for her to get into character."
Song Ze hung up the phone.
Two days later, in Changsha, at the Hunan TV building.
The top-floor corridor was long and air-conditioned. Zhang Juan, wearing high heels, followed closely behind Song Ze, clutching a black leather document bag, her whole body tense.
"Brother Ze, the Ministry of Justice just issued an ultimatum. A 35-page confidentiality agreement; the penalty for leaking even half a word starts at ten million, plus a complete internet ban and immediate replacement."
Song Ze kept walking with his hands in his pockets.
"Director Hung has been planning this for so long, of course he's going to cause a stir. Stay calm."
The two walked to the end of the corridor and pushed open the conference room door. The music director was already sitting behind a long table with two heavy documents in front of him.
"Thank you for your hard work, Professor Song. The process is rigorous, please understand. Please review each item before you write anything."
Zhang Juan felt as if she were facing a formidable enemy, frantically pulling out her reading glasses to prepare for a word-by-word check.
Song Ze pulled out a chair, sat down, picked up a pen, removed the cap, and flipped directly to the last page where the second party's signature was located. He then signed and pressed his fingerprint.
The entire process takes three seconds.
The music director's hand, poaching tea, hovered in mid-air, a single drop of water clinging to the spout.
Zhang Juan's glasses frame had just been put on one ear.
"Is it all signed already?" The director swallowed hard.
"Otherwise what? Hunan TV has a reputation to speak of; they wouldn't stoop to cheating a newcomer like me. Let's get straight to the point."
The director gave him a deep look, locked the agreement in the safe, took a big gulp of strong tea, and opened the unmarked black notebook.
"Teacher Song is straightforward, so I'll be frank. In the first episode of this year's 'Singer,' the initial lineup didn't have any bottom-ranked cannon fodder or any trial run viewers. Everyone was at max level."
The only sound in the conference room was the hissing of the humidifier.
"Lin Yilian".
Zhang Juan's knees went weak, and she pressed her hands against the edge of the table.
"Tan Jingjing".
She stopped breathing.
"Dimaxi, a national treasure-level soprano from Kazakhstan. Du Lisha. Xiao Jingteng. Yuan Yawei. Guangliang."
The director closed his notebook and fixed his gaze on Song Ze.
"Including you, that makes eight starters, no fluff whatsoever."
Zhang Juan's thermos cup rolled out of her bag and landed on the carpet.
Her once-proud managerial skills have completely collapsed.
This isn't a music competition; it's a battleground between the Chinese music scene and world-class singers, where any one of them could crush the new generation of singers.
What can Song Ze use to fight?
She turned to look at Song Ze.
Song Ze sat calmly in the chair, his breathing steady and his heartbeat unwavering.
He had studied this list countless times in his previous life, and could recite the order of appearances with his eyes closed.
His mind had already started working.
Lin Yilian's graininess is impeccable, Tan Jingjing's technical skills are flawless, and Dimash's "SOS 'A Sad Man'" spans five or six octaves, a pinnacle of technical prowess.
What are the odds of winning if you go head-to-head with "Left Finger Pointing to the Moon"?
Or they could simply unleash another trump card, letting these max-level players experience firsthand what it means for times to change.
The director stared at him for a full minute.
Based on his extensive experience in judging people, a newcomer with no background would be terrified upon hearing this list and would then humbly express his willingness to learn.
The person in front of me was calm to the point of arrogance.
The director couldn't contain himself any longer, so he leaned forward and pressed his hands together on the table.
"Teacher Song, after hearing these names—"
"You seem very confident in this lineup?"