Chapter 12 Now we’re starting from scratch After dinner, while it was still early, Xu Kun wanted to accompany Baoqiang to pack up and move into the newly rented house overnight. But Baoqiang planned to say goodbye to his roommates in the evening and move out early tomorrow morning. So the two of them went their separate ways near Xueyuan Road. Considering it's Saturday. Xu Kun was not going that way, so he deliberately took College Road; Bao Qiang was going that way, so he deliberately bypassed College Road. Looking at the young and beautiful figures walking in twos and threes on the street, Xu Kun really couldn't understand what Baoqiang was thinking. Just based on these beautiful girls, it was worth making a special trip to see them, not to mention that it was on his way. The guards tried to avoid it as much as possible and had to take a detour. Could it be that the person he has a crush on is among them? hmm~ Given Baoqiang’s current situation, he can only be a secret crush. After many twists and turns, I arrived at the Erli Bridge construction site, but still no sign of Sixth Brother. He must have gone out to collect debts again.
However, he left the 30,000 yuan to Scarface Brother, and also prepared a second-hand DVD player, which was said to be a ready-made product bought from a nearby video hall. It came with more than 30 discs, most of which had naked covers. Considering that he wanted to watch the movie with Baoqiang, Xu Kun finally reluctantly left the DVD to Scarface Brother. After agreeing to treat Scarface Brother and Sixth Brother to a meal in two days after settling down, Xu Kun took the DVD player and found his new home, which he had never seen before, according to the address. Since it is in a small alley, the place is really hard to find, but the surrounding environment is okay. The front facade is a small two-story restaurant, and behind it are two tiled houses. In the middle is a courtyard about four meters wide and more than seven meters long. There is a persimmon tree in the middle of the courtyard. There is a unisex toilet in the southwest corner, which is back-to-back with the private room of the restaurant. The tile-roofed house near the courtyard gate was locked, but it looked like someone was living there. Xu Kun rented the room at the back, which was about ten square meters in total. There was a washbasin and a sundry rack on the left side of the door, and a large wardrobe with a mirror on the right side. Further in are two single beds, each against the wall, with a aisle in the middle. At the innermost position against the wall there is a low table with a large CRT color TV on it. Overall, the location and environment are barely worth the monthly rent of 650 yuan. This is not a small amount of money. In Beijing in 01, a waiter with free food and accommodation only earned two or three hundred yuan a month. Baoqiang worked as a laborer on a construction site, and he only earned seven or eight hundred yuan a month, not to mention that he might not have work every day. Being a stunt double earns more, but you may not be able to get many orders in a month. At this price, he could definitely find something better if he looked around, but Xu Kun was too lazy to bother. Besides, he was not used to cooking for himself, so it was quite convenient for him to just run a restaurant. Xu Kun casually placed the DVD player on top of the TV and walked to the front to get to know the restaurant owner. Upon hearing that the tenant was a new tenant and was planning to stay in his store for a long time, the restaurant owner was very attentive and personally took Xu Kun to a nearby grocery store to buy various daily necessities and a small folding table. The boss was also an open-minded person. Since he and Xu Kun had a very good chat on the way there, he simply cooked a few dishes himself in the evening and brought out two Yanjing restaurants, saying that he wanted to welcome Xu Kun. So he left the restaurant to his wife, and the two of them set up a folding table in the yard, drinking wine, eating food, and chatting about stories, and they had a great time. At about half past nine, a young couple walked in hand in hand from outside. They saw two shirtless strong men drinking in the yard. They didn't dare to go up to them to provoke them. They just shouted "Hello, Boss Lin" from a distance and hurriedly hid in the house. Boss Lin saw the young couple trying to avoid him, so he pulled the vest on the chair, wiped his sweat, and said firmly: "Don't think that these two are in love now, they will break up after the new year at the latest!" "What?"
Xu Kun was a little puzzled. Those two people were obviously not familiar with Boss Lin, but why did he speak so decisively? Boss Lin laughed and said, "The young man just passed the exam and joined China Construction. I have a friend there. He said they have a big job in Gansu at the end of the year. The new young man will definitely be at the forefront. After working for two or three years, can the girl still give up her job and follow him to that poor mountain and bad water to eat sand?" After hearing this reason, Xu Kun did not ask any more questions. The reason why steadfast love between people separated by distance is worthy of praise is not because few people can persist in it. …………The next morning. Xu Kun got up from the bed and originally planned to contact Baoqiang after washing up. However, when he was squatting next to the tap brushing his teeth, he saw Wang Baoqiang walking in with a roll of bedding and red eyes. Xu Kun spit out the white foam in his mouth, looked up and asked, "So emotional? If you hadn't told me, I would have suspected that your roommate was a woman." Baoqiang just stood there silently without saying a word. Xu Kun cleaned the enamel pot and toothbrush, stood up and said, "Come on, follow me to take a look at our base." Baoqiang followed Xu Kun into the house and saw a newly bought mosquito net hanging over the bed, as well as double towels, washbasins and other items. The sadness in his heart was finally dispelled a little. Placing the bedroll on the empty bed, he muttered, "He's given up, too." "Oh." Xu Kun sat on the bed opposite and responded like a supporting actor, motioning Baoqiang to continue. Wang Baoqiang clenched his hands tightly together and continued in a depressed mood: "At the beginning, there were eight of us renting a house together. We all wanted to be stars, directors, and screenwriters. We also pooled our money to buy a pager and agreed to make movies and blockbusters in the future, but later..." "嘁~" Before he could finish, Xu Kun said disapprovingly: "What do I think? You are the one who is insisting. How about we make an agreement from now on that we can fall behind, but we can't give up! If you don't trust me, we can swear an oath of blood, or even tattoo it on our bodies if that doesn't work." "No, no, I definitely trust you, Brother Kun!" Wang Baoqiang waved his hand to refuse, but Xu Kun took the opportunity to pull him up and said, "Then don't waste time. Let's go to the nearby audio-visual store first and have breakfast. Then we'll go to the training class recommended by Brother Chen. If it's suitable, sign up. When we come back at noon, I'll take you to taste Brother Lin's cooking." "This……" Bao Qiang was embarrassed when he heard this. The video store was fine, but the actor training class was not cheap. Although he had wanted to learn acting systematically for a long time, but... "Look at your ink." Xu Kun pulled out three bundles of 100-yuan bills from under his pillow and patted them on Baoqiang's chest: "You can't bring this stuff with you when you are born, and you can't take it with you when you die. You can't live without it. It's even worse if you earn money without spending it. Besides, we're not going here to eat, drink, gamble, or have sex. We're going here to learn some skills!" Baoqiang was not convinced by these words, but he could not persuade Xu Kun. After all, when Xu Kun dragged the shovel and stood in front of him yesterday, he had already accepted this brother from the bottom of his heart. When Xu Kun arrived at the video store, he slapped three hundred yuan on the table and said proudly, "Boss, bring out any good movies you have." The boss looked into his eyes, as if they had exchanged secret signals, and he poked his head out the door and whispered, "Let's go to the back and talk." As he said that, he took out the key from the drawer and was about to take the two of them to the backyard. "No, no, no!" Xu Kun knew it was a misunderstanding and said, "We are serious people and we want serious movies!"
The boss froze, then put the key in his trouser pocket and said with a wry smile: "I was just joking with you guys. I'm doing a serious business, so there's no such thing as something dishonest." Because the purpose was to hone their acting skills, the two of them carefully selected some classic feature films, including "Farewell My Concubine", "Red Sorghum", "To Live", "Qiu Ju Goes to Court", "That Mountain, That Dog, That Man", "Comrades: Almost a Love Story", and "Days of Being Wild", mainly based on mainland China and supplemented by Hong Kong. Then Baoqiang selected several kung fu films, such as "Swordsman", "The White-Haired Witch", "Iron Monkey", "Drunken Master" and so on, basically all produced in Hong Kong. Xu Kun thought that Baoqiang would act in comedy films in the future, so he picked "Party A and Party B", "If You Are the One", "See You Tomorrow", "Endless", as well as the complete works of Stephen Chow's classics and the "Lucky Five" series. Finally, with the recommendation of my boss, I also took away Wang Jiawei's "In the Mood for Love", Jiang Wen's "Devils on Doorstep", and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", which just won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film this year. (End of this chapter)
