Chapter 15

The host spoke faster, "Will the brand new track of this season be broken today?"

Song Jixing focused ahead and continued to sprint forward. In front of the stage, she lightly leapt, without using any of the tools hanging over her head, and directly jumped over the two meter wide suspended platform!

"Wow!" The two hosts let out cheers in unison.

"She jumped over! She jumped over directly!"

Amidst everyone's exclamations of surprise, Song Jixing climbed up the slope with the rope and pressed the timer button at the finish line.

"Congratulations to our contestant for winning, a Bright Pearl brand air conditioner worth three thousand yuan sponsored by the famous air conditioning brand Bright Pearl..." The host at the finish line fluently read out the lines.

Song Jixing stood at the finish line holding the award certificate, smiling brilliantly. She cooperated with the staff to take a picture.

Song Jixing changed her clothes backstage, left her contact details, and continued rushing to the next venue.

-

Go take a family portrait with the Third Male Lead.

Song Jixing sat in the dressing room with an obedient look on her face as the stylist set her hair.

In the plot, Song Jixing was going to play a student role, so the styling would be relatively simple. The stylist simply tidied Song Jixing's hair into a high ponytail and pushed over a cart of clothes, taking out a white shirt and gray pleated skirt, very plain looking.

“Try this set?” The stylist took the clothes to dress Song Jixing.

Song Jixing: "I can wear anything."

She wasn't picky, after all this was just a temporary job. But after the clothes were put on, Song Jixing didn't give off a student vibe at all, instead it was like she was walking down a runway.

The stylist was an artistic young man with long hair. Seeing Song Jixing's outfit, his eyes lit up at first, then he shook his head, "No, this won't work. Let me change your hairstyle!"

With that said, he pressed Song Jixing in front of the dressing table again, undid her high ponytail, gave her hair a slight perm, and clipped a pearl hair clip onto her head, wiping off the lipstick on her lips.

After this makeover, the stylist was much more satisfied.

Facing Song Jixing, he exclaimed, “This looks much better! What a waste! Such a good look only for taking pictures!”

Song Jixing smiled without responding. After finishing the crew's boxed lunch and drinking fruit tea that other actors treated her to, the Third Male Lead Zhao Zhichu arrived leisurely late.

"Where is Song Jixing? Zhao Zhichu is here! Come quick to take pictures!" The crew staff shouted at the dressing room door.

Song Jixing responded and hurried over.

At lunch sitting in the crew, Song Jixing overheard from casual chats that the male lead actor she was taking pictures with was a wildly popular idol star this year.

Led by the staff around a few turns, she saw the "brother" in this movie of hers, a male actor with a gold flattop hairstyle and wearing shiny leather clothes. There was also a pair of scholarly middle-aged husband and wife standing next to him. They were probably here to play his parents.

This third male lead role seemed to be a prodigal son who realized his mistakes. With this look, it could barely be considered natural casting.

But...

The director standing on the side admonished: “You came into the crew today without tidying up? Your hair isn't even permed back yet. Did you come here to act or to dance?”

The man with glasses in his thirties next to him fawned with an ingratiating smile, “Director Zhen, our Tong Jie just came down from the variety show filming. He came straight here after coming down.”

The assistant waiting by the door considerately closed the door to the break room. The room had excellent sound insulation, only muffled sounds reached outside the room. The crew members who were peeking for drama dispersed.

Song Jixing had keen hearing and could hear the voices inside.

Director: “Which actor here doesn’t have multiple schedules? Tong Jie’s filming has already been postponed...”

Song Jixing: She didn't have any!

Song Jixing lost interest in listening to the idle talk that followed. She focused on sitting by the door waiting to take pictures.

Fortunately, the staff worked very quickly. In half an hour they got Third Male Lead’s makeup and hair done.

Without the yellow hair and flashy clothes, the Third Male Lead looked quite delicate.

However, Song Jixing didn't have much intention to socialize. Following the instructions of the photographer and crew, she kept changing poses, cooperating to take a few family portraits.

In the process, they changed several sets of clothes. She also took a few photos alone with the Third Male Lead.

"Good! Great, that's it!" The photographer said while looking through the photos in the camera.

Song Jixing immediately stopped smiling professionally. She changed clothes and got off work swiftly.

That was it for her scenes today. Filming for the next crew wouldn't start again for a while. However, the company would probably cram her schedule with other jobs to fill her time, plus her fellow trainees had uncertain schedules. So currently Song Jixing was not anxious about finding work herself.

In her industry, she logically shouldn't seek jobs herself. She debuted under contract with an entertainment company. According to the contract, the company would take eighty percent of all her earnings. Even if she earned a dollar, she would have to pay eighty cents of it to the company, but only for various entertainment industry activities.

If she went out to do manual labor or street cleaning herself, she wouldn't need to hand over that salary. In order to tightly bind the artists, these types of contracts usually lasted a very long time, eight years being common.

Although the contract wasn't very equitable, most newcomers silently accepted it.

Because each person felt they were unique, and would definitely become a big star.

There were countless beauties and handsome guys in her industry. Relying on looks alone was very difficult to succeed.

Signing with a company had its benefits. The company would allocate some resources to the artists. But what kind of resources depended on each company's conscience.

If an artist encountered a company with bad conscience, or the company felt an artist had no future, it was likely to send them out to various high-end commercial dinner parties.

Even top stars could not avoid attending these kinds of dinner parties.

When she first entered the industry, Song Jixing received her fair share of hints from agents. She played dumb, acting like she didn't understand, and didn’t go. The agents couldn't force her there.

It was after that Song Jixing positioned herself precisely as an actress, surviving through acting skills, not anything else.

Many newcomers relied on their companies’ ability in the early stages to make themselves popular. After gaining enough fame and earning thousands, they would negotiate renewal terms with the company.

Those who had great skills and found good new agencies could pay liquidated damages and switch companies.

Those who lacked skills or wanted to save money often waited until the contract expired before renegotiating, and would discuss better salary and benefits with the company at the same time.

As a very unknown contracted artist signed to the company, Song Jixing naturally didn’t have the capability to do so.

The company she signed with wasn't considered a big company in the industry, but it had a good public reputation without any bad internal or external news circulating.

Song Jixing was above average among her peers. Compared to peers who only wanted to become big stars, her singing and dancing weren't great, but her acting was passable.

She didn't get any big productions, but there were some small ones. Relying on her own looks and decent acting skills, Song Jixing could still get invitations to some crews.

As for why she couldn't get into big productions, it took more than just having the looks and acting skills. You also needed money and power.

Some companies couldn't even buy roles for their artists with money, let alone those who brought funding into crews. Plus Song Jixing's contract was almost up, the company wouldn't spend effort to promote her or arrange big productions for her.

Just when Song Jixing was about to go find her agent, who she hadn't contacted in days, to ask for some work, she suddenly received a call from her mentor.

"Hello, teacher," Song Jixing smoothly answered the call.

"Yes, it's me, it really is me. I can assure you. Weibo? I don't check it, alright, then let me go take a look..." Song Jixing hung up the phone and went into the app store to download Weibo.

Her mentor called to ask if Song Jixing had participated in and broken the record for the city marathon.

Now Weibo was abuzz about this!

Originally Song Jixing didn't use social media much. After transmigrating back from the cultivation world, she followed rules like a primitive human being. Only eating on time and working, all other social entertainment was nonexistent. Hearing Weibo being suddenly mentioned, she was confused for a moment.

Song Jixing vaguely remembered having a Weibo account. What was the account and password again?