No matter what, Li Boda had managed to land a role this time. Though it was a far cry from a major supporting character like Zhang Cuishan, it still came with a fair amount of screen time, and Li Boda was quite satisfied—even though behind the scenes, he cursed that bald Dicky Cheung more than once.
Changing into what looked like somewhat ragged clothes, he found that despite their worn appearance, they had one redeeming quality: they were odorless.
Unlike his past days as an extra, where the costumes always reeked of a combination of stinky feet, rotten salted fish, and stinky tofu, at least this outfit was clean to wear.
As for the character Li Boda was playing, Yu Daiyan, in The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Saber, that poor fellow ends up crippled for decades.
In Young Zhang Sanfeng, however, he didn't suffer such a miserable fate; he was just one of Zhang Sanfeng's seven relatively ordinary disciples.
To put it another way, among the seven disciples, aside from Zhang Cuishan who was the fourth male lead, only the eldest disciple, Song Yuanqiao, had more substantial and prominent screen time. Even though the actor playing Song Yuanqiao looked a bit homely, in the script, this guy managed to win a gorgeous wife.
Ling Xueyan, played by Hu Jing, was a fine woman whose personality was both gentle and carrying a trace of resilience.
From Li Boda's perspective, Song Yuanqiao—played by Cao Jun—was a classic case of a toad getting a taste of swan meat.
Because in Li Boda's eyes, while there were certainly plenty of pretty actresses in the crew of Young Zhang Sanfeng, such as Li Bingbing, Wang Yan, Li Xiaolu, and Ruby Lin, Hu Jing's looks fit his aesthetic preferences the most: a slightly rounded face, a pair of bright, expressive eyes with clear whites and blacks, gentle yet carrying a hint of mischief...
Of course, although Hu Jing's appearance completely matched Li Boda's tastes, he had never harbored any delusional thoughts about pursuing her.
On one hand, the gap in their status was simply enormous. Even if Li Boda had lucked out and landed a named supporting role, compared to someone like Hu Jing, he was still a nobody.
On the other hand, Li Boda had no intention of tangling with any women.
If it were just for casual fun—hooking up when physical needs arose and parting ways directly afterward—Li Boda would certainly welcome it. But the moment it required talking about romance and love, forget it; let alone settling down for domestic life, as he knew he wasn't cut out for that kind of thing.
Even though he had secured the role of Yu Daiyan, the character didn't have much screen time, so Li Boda didn't have any scenes to shoot for the time being.
As for Li Boda, he just muddled along, picking up extra work here and there so he could earn a bit more pay on the side.
A few days later, the actor playing Zhang Cuishan arrived on set—a quite handsome young fellow with two dimples that appeared when he smiled, giving off a very sweet impression, a genuinely sweet little hunk.
However—*however*—this darn guy wasn't even Huaxia. He was an actor from Thailand.
Yet when Li Boda heard him speak Chinese, and rather fluently at that, Li Boda had nothing more to say.
This dude went by TAE, with the Chinese name Tang Chenyu.
He had apparently heard from somewhere that the role of Zhang Cuishan originally belonged to Li Boda, and feeling that he had somehow snatched Li Boda's part, he actually sought out an opportunity to apologize to him.
To tell the truth, seeing Tang Chenyu quietly coming over to apologize made Li Boda rather flustered.
After all, over the past two years, this Tang Chenyu had been quite popular, especially playing the second male lead, Feng Wuqi, alongside Jimmy Lin in The Legendary Siblings. He had quite a big name for himself, so Li Boda never expected him to privately apologize to an extra like him.
Regardless of Tang Chenyu's motives, the fact that he quietly apologized made Li Boda look upon him with a few extra degrees of goodwill.
Of course, Li Boda's goodwill probably didn't mean a damn thing to someone like Tang Chenyu.
When filming officially commenced, however, Li Boda's enthusiasm plummeted.
Yu Daiyan, the third disciple of Zhang Sanfeng—though it sounded impressive on paper—had no solo shots whatsoever. The eldest disciple, Song Yuanqiao, had his own individual camera focus, and Zhang Cuishan had even more. Both of those roles had their own stand-out moments.
Yet the character of Yu Daiyan had completely zero solo shots.
Whenever Yu Daiyan was required to appear on screen, he was either standing beside Zhang Sanfeng alongside the other martial brothers acting as mere wall decoration, or appearing alongside the eldest disciple Song Yuanqiao and the others only to serve as Song Yuanqiao's background prop, or else acting as background wallpaper for Zhang Cuishan.
When he wasn't background scenery, it was him sharing in some misfortune and making a fool of himself alongside his martial brothers. And even when making a fool of himself, he didn't stand out, because everyone else was doing the exact same thing.
Shooting scenes for this role left Li Boda feeling thoroughly depressed.
In reality, to be honest, Li Boda had previously only ever worked as an extra. Those past roles—let alone acting as background scenery—didn't even grant him a clear view of his face, nor a single line of dialogue.
Back then, though, Li Boda had acted with great zest, holding not a single unhappy thought in his heart.
Yet this time around, the role of Yu Daiyan was vastly, vastly better than any extra role he had ever played before.
And yet, Li Boda was unhappy. He was depressed.
This was entirely because of that single remark the assistant director had made back then: "Let me see—you're a pretty handsome fellow, and your martial arts movements are decent. You'd actually be quite suited for the role of Zhang Cuishan—"
It was precisely those words from the assistant director that had hooked and reeled in Li Boda's inner expectations.
Although Li Boda understood afterward that the assistant director had merely been making casual small talk, and that even without Dicky Cheung, it would have been impossible to hand such an important role as Zhang Cuishan to him.
He just couldn't help himself; Li Boda simply couldn't control his own thoughts.
What if? What if Dicky Cheung hadn't said those words? Wouldn't the role of Zhang Cuishan have been his?
Wouldn't all those brilliant, standout moments for Zhang Cuishan have fallen upon him?
Would he still need to be stuck like this, without even a single prominent camera angle to his name?
Human beings were truly something else: knowing full well that something was impossible, they still couldn't control their minds from wandering into delusions.
Especially with a golden finger at his disposal, which made him feel inherently superior. Even though the golden finger hadn't provided him with any massive assistance just yet, it had still stirred up that deep-seated arrogance within him.
More realistically speaking, however, Li Boda was an amateur who had entered the field halfway through, and his acting skills were nothing more than extra-level.
Forcing Li Boda to play Yu Daiyan and act as background furniture across various shots was already stretching his acting abilities to the limit.
A role like Zhang Cuishan? His acting chops simply couldn't hold it up!
Right, he couldn't possibly carry it!
The director had probably seen through that long ago; it was just that Yu Daiyan was meant to be background scenery anyway, which was why nothing was said.
Given his level of skill, wanting to bag Zhang Cuishan—at least in the director's mind—was nothing short of wishful thinking.