Chapter 30

In the darkness five meters away, Li Boxi bumped his head against the concrete wall, leaving a mark of foundation.

Li Baixi suddenly remembered a past event.

In the year of graduation, in the make-up competition for newcomers, he and his younger brother both planned to win the gold medal as an entry ticket to the industry.

If this competition only depends on personality, the junior may still have a chance. But Li Boxi has seen previous award-winning works, and knows that this competition is a test of comprehensiveness, film and television makeup, fashion makeup, creative makeup, each category must be proficient. In terms of skills, he has no chance of losing.

On the day of the competition, the judges asked questions on the spot. The title of the film and television makeup is “A Dream in the Garden”. He is familiar with Kunqu opera costumes, and put on a modified makeup with ease. The topic of fashion makeup is “Star Shifting”. When all the contestants were putting sequins on the model’s face, Li Boxi chose a black model, using her dark skin as a curtain, and using gold powder to outline a few strokes, she turned into a priestess in charge of the stars.

Everything was going well—he could see it on the faces of the judges walking by—until the last session.

The topic of creative makeup has only one word – “I”.

Li Boxi froze.

In this link, his model is a man. Facing the unpainted face of the model, he seems to have returned to the time when he was learning painting as a teenager, standing in front of the vast and endless canvas, and he couldn’t make the first stroke no matter what.

Maybe it was because he was frozen for too long, the model cast a puzzled look at him and reminded him in a low voice, “You still have forty minutes.”

Li Boxi: “Yes.”

Model: “Did you not hear the title clearly? The title is ‘I’.”

Li Boxi: “I know.”

But what is “I” like?

If he could answer this question, why did he give up pure art in the first place?

His oil painting teacher said bitterly: “Li Boxi, art is the blood of the human heart. If you only put some beautiful colors on the canvas, this road has come to an end!”

His father also hated iron and steel very much: “Just say it, you have heard me tell you since you were a child, why haven’t you learned it yet? Let’s practice with this painting of yours, the universe Tai Chi life wave memory soul dark dream, random Arrange and combine, say three hundred words! Say, are you dumb?”

Model: “You still have half an hour.”

Li Boxi let out a long breath, and began to search for alternatives in his mind.

Of course, he has prepared some versatile creative makeup solutions. Ocean pollution makeup, a hundred flowers blossom makeup, Picasso-style facial features shifting makeup, just pick one out, let’s finish it first, and think about how to break it up after the explanation.

I am an environmental fighter.

I am a marginalized alien.

I am a lonely seeker.

…

Under the death gaze of the model, Li Boxi finally opened the tool box, and applied the make-up that blooms at double speed.

He had practiced many times in advance, and almost had muscle memory, skillfully used body painting skills, and painted blooming flowers one after another on the model’s face.

His brushwork and color are impeccable, but his eyes are completely empty.

It’s ridiculous to say that although he doesn’t know what he is, he clearly knows what he is not.

He is not his teacher, nor his father.

He does not belong to the marginalized group, has no tragic childhood memories, has no incomprehensible dreams, has never been excluded by groups, and can’t even pretend to be lonely.

After searching carefully, he found that he didn’t have such a thing as “I”.

Makeup is done.

The judges took a look and showed a satisfied look: “Tell me what you want to express.”

Li Boxi: “.”

Judge: “?”

talk.

talk.

He couldn’t remember what he stumbled over.

He only remembered that the judges questioned him until the end, and his smile turned cold: “If you want to be an excellent makeup artist, you have to have skills but not ideas.”

In the last session, he got a low score.

On the other side, the younger brother used the high-saturation contrast color that he is best at, and painted a torrent of color on the model’s face. His self-awareness became such a torrent, so overwhelming that he preached for ten minutes before the judges raised their hands and surrendered.

Combining the scores of several links, the younger brother got the gold award as he wished.

When walking out of the arena, the two met. Li Boxi was ready to meet his junior brother’s sarcasm, but this time the other party stopped even his smirk, and the gaze he cast was sullen.

Junior brother: “I used to wish I was wrong, but unfortunately I didn’t. You can only be a worker at best.”

Even as a worker, he is at least the best one. With the high scores in the first two links, he also won a small award and successfully got his first job offer.

He’s in the business.

He stumbled, adapted silently, and learned secretly. Finally one day, he mastered the rules of the game, put on a skirt, and made a name for himself.

The voices that criticized him for his lack of personality gradually died down. His aura is getting stronger and stronger, attracting attention everywhere he goes.

But only he himself knows that since he entered the industry, the requirement he fears the most is “free play”.

If Party A insists on not giving any requirements, he will ask the assistant to set a few requirements at will. He cannot create without framing a canvas.

Two assistants asked him privately if he had any psychological shadows.

Of course he knew he had a shadow. He also knew the name of this shadow, the Shame of Mediocrity.

Li Boxi stood motionless in the darkness until Cheng Ping and his manager left in the other direction, and then slowly came out.

He drifted back to his room like a walking dead, and started drinking.

Cheng Ping actually said that.

You young man, you are so stupid. Just crawled out of the pit of the former captain, and then jumped into another pit in a blink of an eye.

God knows that in that aisle just now, he even had an impulse to go out and shake Cheng Ping awake: You are fooled, I am a liar, what you like is an illusion.

But he couldn’t say it.

The longer the time, the less he could speak. He already faintly felt that he might never be able to tell the truth to Cheng Ping.

He was afraid of seeing his own despicable reflection in the other’s unbelievable eyes.

And—he made up his mind to list more reasons to convince himself—Cheng Ping’s temperament of jumping into a trap every step of the way is simply precarious in this cannibalistic circle. Who knows what ghosts and monsters are waiting for him in the next pit? Maybe they were forced to hype CP and then kicked away, or they were photographed and used as excuses to threaten death…

Rather than that… Rather than that…

Might as well stay in my pit.

Li Baixi raised his head and drank the wine in his glass in one gulp.

Although he is not a good person, at least he will not harm him. He will not ask the media to inform him, will not reveal his privacy, and will not use him in exchange for anything. Taking a step back, even if he was accidentally exposed, I still have some way to protect him, which is better than those little monsters who haven’t yet matured.

That’s right, the left and right are wrong payments, it’s better to pay me wrongly.

Li Boxi drank until he was about to die, and then dragged himself to the bed with his remaining sanity and lay down.

Before he lost consciousness, his brain finally let go of its restraint, allowing a thought that had been formed in the chaos to surface: What if he simply became that illusion and put on that layer of “I”?

He wakes up the next morning with a hangover headache, wishing for a split second that he’s broken.

But no, his thinking was very clear, he not only remembered the dangerous decision he made last night, but also quickly completed the implementation plan.

In an inexplicably calm state, he put on a simple makeup, opened the closet to pick out a skirt. He wanted to pick the most beautiful and ostentatious one, like a thousand-year-old demon wearing a painted skin to meet a young scholar.

His hand reached out to the wardrobe, but it froze in mid-air again.

The two assistants waited bored in the lobby, thinking that Li Boxi had overslept, and were about to call to wake him up when they saw him coming out of the elevator.

Ma Koukou: “Miss Li? Did you take the wrong medicine today?”

Assistant Yang opened the schedule to check again: “Are you going to attend any official event today?”

Li Boxi: “No.”

Ma Koukou: “Then why are you dressed… like this?”

Li Boxi smiled: “You guys are free these two days, help me to buy some clothes, I want to change my style in the future.”

The whole crew was shocked.

In Li Boxi’s appearance, his slim suit and slender tie gave him an aura of a hundred and twenty points supported by his tall and straight figure. Although she still had long black hair, the previous beauty that blurred her gender suddenly turned into a slightly sinister handsomeness.

The little girls in the group looked straight.

The director endured it for a long time, but still said, “If Mr. Li is interested in acting in the future, remember to find me.”

Li Bai sneered and prevaricated, his eyes casually searching the crowd.

He found Cheng Ping. Cheng Ping was also peeking at him with a complicated expression.

Li Boxi walked over, and put his arms around Cheng Ping’s shoulders in a natural way: “Go, go make up.”

Cheng Ping: “…”

Li Boxi took two steps, felt his stiffness, but deliberately forgot the hand still on his shoulder, and asked with a smile: “Why are you looking at me?”

Cheng Ping: “Look at your clothes.”

Li Boxi was still smiling, but his heart sank a little: “I remember the last time I wore men’s clothing in front of you, and you didn’t feel comfortable with it? Doesn’t it look good?”

The two of them have their own ghosts in their hearts these days, and they try to avoid communicating with each other as much as possible. Today Li Boxi suddenly acted uncharacteristically and took such an initiative that Cheng Ping was caught off guard.

Cheng Ping seemed to sense something, and subconsciously wanted to escape, but escaping was not in line with his nature.

He struggled in silence for a long time, and just when Li Boxi was about to give up the questioning and change the subject, he suddenly popped out a sentence: “It looks good.”