Creak—
Li Boda sat up abruptly from the bed.
The wooden bed let out a creaking, agonizing groan.
Li Boda's face was deathly pale, covered in a cold sweat. He clutched his throat with both hands, gasping for breath continuously.
His eyes held the lingering terror of death, but that terror quickly transformed into sheer joy.
"I—I had the dream again! I finally had the dream again!"
Joy surged wildly in Li Boda's heart.
Following the character named Zhang San from The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, he had now dreamed of the life of another character named Zhang San in Ode to Gallantry.
In Ode to Gallantry, Zhang San came from an impoverished family and joined the Iron Fork Gang during his youth.
The Iron Fork Gang was essentially nothing more than a criminal syndicate. After joining, Zhang San followed the others in learning a set of iron fork techniques. This fork technique was hardly refined; in fact, it was utterly mediocre, useful only for putting on airs in front of ordinary people. Against anyone even slightly skilled in the martial arts world, his fork technique was completely unpresentable.
Compared to the Hengshan Sword Technique learned by Zhang San in The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, it was simply incomparable.
Of course, upon waking from the dream, Li Boda retained only about fifty or sixty percent of the fork technique, having forgotten most of the rest.
Even so, nothing could dampen Li Boda's wonderful mood.
The harvest this time was not what mattered; what mattered was that he had verified the existence of his Golden Finger.
After his wild euphoria subsided slightly, Li Boda began to ponder the underlying patterns of his Golden Finger.
"Up to now, I've had two dreams in total. Both dreams involved characters from Jin Yong dramas. So, is dreaming—is the triggering of the Golden Finger—related to whether it's a Jin Yong drama?"
"If I switch to other television dramas, will it fail to trigger?"
"Or is there something else to it?"
"If only Jin Yong dramas can trigger it, does that mean I'll have to find ways to play extra roles in Jin Yong dramas from now on—"
"Well, it doesn't necessarily have to be an extra. If I could secure an actual role, that would be even better. If I could play a named character, I wonder if the dream would feel more real and the rewards would be greater."
"However, there don't seem to be all that many Jin Yong dramas in total. Producers aren't going to keep filming Jin Yong stories forever. If nobody shoots Jin Yong dramas in the future, won't my Golden Finger become useless?"
"It shouldn't be limited exclusively to Jin Yong dramas. Other works should work too; I just don't know the exact conditions yet."
"I need to think this through carefully. While taking on as many extra roles in Jin Yong dramas as possible, I should also try other shows whenever I can. If Jin Yong's martial arts dramas work, what about the martial arts dramas of Liang Yusheng or Gu Long?"
"Apart from martial arts dramas, what about contemporary dramas? Mythological dramas? I'll have to try all of them."
Li Boda pondered for the better part of the day, generating plenty of ideas, but the specifics would still need to be verified through future experimentation.
Afterward, Li Boda began inquiring about which production crews were filming Jin Yong dramas.
And as it turned out, Li Boda actually managed to find one.
Zhang Jizhong, the producer of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer crew where Li Boda had previously worked as an extra, was currently shooting The Legend of the Condor Heroes.
To be honest, compared to Ode to Gallantry, The Legend of the Condor Heroes enjoyed a far greater level of fame.
Consequently, Li Boda began plotting how he could sneak his way onto the crew of The Legend of the Condor Heroes.
Mainly, Li Boda was hoping to see if he could snag a role with lines.
After all, simply playing an extra yielded very few rewards, even if it did trigger the Golden Finger.
Right now, his mastery of the Hengshan Sword Technique was quite impressive.
Even though he hadn't practiced the Hengshan Sword Technique himself beforehand, the memories of Zhang San—though initially hazy and veiled behind a layer of distance—gave him a strong sense of familiarity when he practiced the sword technique anew.
Thus, over the past half-year, Li Boda's proficiency in the Hengshan Sword Technique had reached the level of someone who had practiced it diligently for several years.
Purely in terms of swordplay, he was unquestionably presentable.
If he were to enter a fencing competition, he might even win the championship or something similar.
With that kind of skill, it wasn't too demanding for Li Boda to want a role with lines, right?
Moreover, aside from The Legend of the Condor Heroes, Li Boda also heard that another crew was filming Gu Long's Borden / Treasure Raiders (Xiao Shiyi Lang).
Li Boda had previously wondered whether Gu Long dramas could trigger the Golden Finger just like Jin Yong dramas did.
Therefore, Li Boda was currently feeling a tiny bit of hesitation about whether he should go try his luck with the Borden / Treasure Raiders (Xiao Shiyi Lang) crew.
Of course, if he were just going to be a nameless extra, he could easily work on both crews simultaneously—or even join several more.
After all, extras were just extras; any production would do.
It was just that Li Boda wanted to play a role with spoken lines, and that was neither so easy nor so simple.
Regardless of whether it was easy or simple, however, Li Boda wanted to give it a try.
He wanted to see if he could land a speaking role from either of the production crews.
Li Boda went to the crew of The Legend of the Condor Heroes first.
After all, both previous triggers of his Golden Finger had been Jin Yong dramas, so Li Boda held higher expectations for them.
However, Jin Yong dramas possessed immense popularity on their own, and everyone was scrambling to squeeze into The Legend of the Condor Heroes crew. For someone like Li Boda with zero connections, trying to secure a speaking role in The Legend of the Condor Heroes was pure fantasy.
And so, Li Boda merely made a cameo appearance as a nameless passerby in The Legend of the Condor Heroes, before pivoting and running over to the Borden / Treasure Raiders (Xiao Shiyi Lang) crew instead.
Even though Borden / Treasure Raiders (Xiao Shiyi Lang) was a Gu Long drama, compared to The Legend of the Condor Heroes, this production crew appeared laughably shabby.
Whether judged by the scale of the production, the actors' costumes and props, the capabilities of the director and crew, or any other aspect, Borden / Treasure Raiders (Xiao Shiyi Lang) truly looked far shabbier than The Legend of the Condor Heroes.
The female characters were acceptable, but looking at the male characters—Nicky Wu playing Borden / Treasure Raiders (Xiao Shiyi Lang) dressed in leather jackets and leather pants with a modern visual-kei hairstyle, alongside the main villain Lian Chenbi sporting a hairstyle that looked like plumbing pipes coiled around his head—it really made one struggle to keep a straight face.
Yet, despite all the elements in this production that made it hard not to laugh, Li Boda was astounded to discover that some of the main actors in this show were genuinely formidable.
For instance, the actor playing Lian Chenbi possessed exceptionally good martial arts skills.
Furthermore, the actors playing Lingjiu and Xueying also seemed remarkably proficient in martial arts.
These were skills that Li Yapeng, the actor playing the protagonist Guo Jing in The Legend of the Condor Heroes, simply could not match.