They all pushed me!

"Akayin is indeed suitable for this role."

Before Beichuan Liang answered, Himekawa Daiki, who was half asleep and half awake, spoke first to give his affirmation. He stretched out a hand to rub his messy hair and added casually:

"The role I'm going to audition for this time is Daogui, the second-in-command of Shibuya Group and also the deputy of Meiji—"

As he spoke, he stretched himself and shook his head before finishing the second half of the sentence:

"From my perspective, it is indeed difficult to imagine that the person who plays my lord will be someone other than Chi Yin."

"I'm going to the bathroom, you two can continue chatting."

Without giving Kitagawa Ryo and Kurokawa Akane a chance to speak, Himekawa Daiki waved his hand and walked out of the practice room in his own way.

"It seems that Himekawa still approves of Akane."

After a while, Beichuan Liang finally spoke up and took up the topic.

"What about Ryo-senpai? What does Ryo-senpai think? Is it the same as Himekawa?"

"That's about right. But if Chi Yin really wants this role, then he'll have to..."

"It sounds like a line about unspoken rules, huh?"

"cough--"

Choked by Kurokawa Akane's sudden complaint, Kitagawa Ryo also coughed heavily. Looking at Kurokawa Akane, who seemed to be in a good mood because of the success of his little prank, he reluctantly completed the second half of the sentence:

"It definitely depends on how Chi Yin understands and performs the role of Shao Ji in front of the judges at that time."

"What a long prefix—"

"I'm afraid someone will take it out of context and shorten it to 'see how Chi Yin performs'... I'm almost being led astray by you."

Having said that, Beichuan Liang subconsciously wanted to reach out and touch the little head of his junior as he did before, but when he raised his hand a little, he suddenly noticed that the other person had become a graceful young girl. This action was really frivolous and inappropriate.

Obviously, he didn't have such a strong feeling when he faced Arima Kanae yesterday.

At this moment, the personal cell phone in Beichuan Liang's pocket suddenly vibrated.

"Ruby told me to go to the fourth floor to find her when I came to the LALALAI Theater. She seemed to be there to relax and enjoy the fresh air."

After taking a look at the message from his sister, Beichuan Liang stood up and waved at Kurokawa Akane:

"I'll go up and take a look first, and I'll be back in a while."

"Well, I just happened to start practicing too."

After saying goodbye to Kurokawa Akane for the time being, Kitagawa Ryo continued walking upstairs without stopping, and soon saw Rumi, who seemed a little depressed, lying by the window in the corridor on the fourth floor.

"No wonder I didn't see Ruby in the practice room. It turns out she came here alone."

"Well... the scenery here is very nice. I come here whenever I want to relax in the past two years."

Kitagawa Rumi tilted her head towards him, her bright golden hair blowing back in the wind. She had just celebrated her 19th birthday not long ago and was about to have her coming-of-age ceremony, which was the golden age for her. Kitagawa Ryodu subconsciously held his breath.

"Brother is my lover, right—"

However, this mature posture only lasted for a short moment. The next second, Kitagawa Rumi came over and hugged Liang's right arm, her rosy red eyes sparkling.

"Ah."

"Then brother should also fulfill his responsibilities as a lover."

Although Rumi's tone still sounded a little playful, Kitagawa Ryo also noticed that Rumi's expression was becoming more and more serious.

"I want to win against Akane and Kana."

"At least in the role of Shaoji, I definitely don't want to lose to them."

Even though he was still complaining about his sister's potato-like acting skills at home a few days ago, after seeing Rumi's attitude with his own eyes, Kitagawa Ryo quickly raised his hands in surrender and sighed a little helplessly:

"Fine--"

“It seems that after many years, the LALALAI Theatre Company’s WorkShop (acting training class) can be started again.”

Chapter 4: You think I'm exaggerating

LALALAI Theater Company's WorkShop, although originally just a product of Kitagawa Susumu that was almost a product of exhausting the pond to catch fish, which was created by Kitagawa Susumu in order to damage Kitagawa Ryo's future prospects and reputation in the circle, and which used his fame at the time to promote and sell courses, was immediately terminated and abolished after the unexpected death of the Kitagawa couple. However, in the marketing of Kurokawa Akane and Arima Kana two years ago, Kitagawa Ryoku once again constructed the persona of an acting teacher, half real and half fake, which caused widespread heated discussion on the Internet.

Because of this incident, WorkShop, which was more than a decade ago, was once again exposed by netizens. Based on this, many people even swore that the acting training class called WorkShop in the LALALAI troupe was actually still running privately. The instructor was still Kitagawa Ryo, and Arima Kana and Kurokawa Akane were graduates of this training class.

This speculation, which was backed by pictures and facts, was believed by many actors who had joined the LALALAI troupe in recent years. During that period, the troupe's director Kindaichi Toshiro expressed his views in a crazy way, and he almost wrote on his face that he would ask Senior Liang to give him special training as well.

Kindaichi Toshiro also pretended to be confused even though he knew the truth. He neither confirmed nor denied it, and still looked stern and unfathomable, which frightened the members who came to ask questions. He also immediately took advantage of that wave of popularity to recruit a group of fresh blood with excellent quality into the troupe.

As for Kitagawa Ryo, although this WorkShop was indeed a product that he had no attachment to and his colleagues had long been abandoned by the troupe, but judging only from the netizens' understanding and literal meaning, he had actually led two batches of newcomers and trained them in acting.

The first outstanding graduate was named Hoshino Ai, and the second was Kurokawa Akane. He taught the former almost from scratch for nearly two years, and the latter took even longer, taking regular weekly classes with her until he officially got married, a total of five or six years.

Now, facing his sister's request for urgent extra practice, Beichuan Liang subconsciously thought of this so-called WorkShop and took the initiative to reach out and pat her on the head:

"Although there are only two days left, if everything goes well, it will probably give Ruby a 10% or 20% chance of success in her official audition."

"Okay, I understand. So, what should I do as the first step, brother? Which aspects should I focus on? My understanding of the script, my control over the character's personality..."

In the face of Rumi's somewhat confused series of questions, Beichuan Ryo just shook his head gently, naturally took her hand, and walked downstairs with his fingers interlocked, leading his somewhat bewildered sister:

"As a first step, make an appointment with me."

-------------------------------------

"Why do you feel like your brother is so skilled?"

It felt like only a moment had passed. Kitagawa Rumi, who was now sitting in another large theater in Tokyo waiting for the next stage play to begin, asked Kitagawa Ryo who was sitting next to her in a subtle way, and twitched the corner of her mouth and complained:

"Besides, my brother is obviously a member of the LALALAI troupe, so why does he have a lifetime membership card for another troupe?"

"It must have been a long time ago, when I was told 'Ryo should definitely come visit our troupe when you have time' and other things like that, all kinds of uncles stuffed my pockets with these cards."

Beichuan Liang adjusted the height of the seat with ease and lay back slightly comfortably.

"As for whether she is familiar with it or not, it's mainly because I brought Abiko here to watch a lot of performances in the past two years, so that it would be easier for her to write the script for the stage play "Tokyo BLADE"."

"In the final analysis, this kind of project script and the so-called comic novel are actually completely different things. Abiko has often asked me questions about this since she decided to write it herself, but there are some details and feelings that she definitely can't explain clearly, so sometimes I will bring her here to see it in person, otherwise it will be a pure layman's perspective."

"I see."

Kitagawa Rumi nodded in realization, but immediately asked with some doubt:

"Then why didn't brother take Abiko to see the performance of the LALALAI troupe? It should be more convenient, after all, the adaptation and performance of Tokyo BLADE will be handed over to us in the end."

"That's what I suggested at the beginning, but Abiko kept saying that she wanted to see more of the stages and performances of other big theater troupes. And it's not like she had never seen the LALALAI Theater before. It seems that Abiko goes there often."

As if he felt that if he continued to argue about this topic, it would lose the meaning of bringing Rumi here today, Kitagawa Ryo quickly skipped over the matter of Abiko and immediately spoke to his sister, actively bringing up a new topic:

"Ruby, you must have watched the LALALAI Troupe's performances frequently in the past two years, right? What do you think of it?"

"I just think everyone's performance is outstanding... Especially Xiao Qian. When I was just a friend and audience, I watched her in Matilda and thought she was so amazing and remarkable. I was very proud and happy for her. But as a colleague, I can't help but feel suffocated. I can't surpass her no matter what."

Faced with this question from Kitagawa Ryo, Rumi herself couldn't help but smile bitterly. She has always been very confident, and her idol career is definitely one of the smoothest in the circle. Although she knew it would be very difficult when she decided to become an actor, after actually standing on the same track with Kurokawa Akane, Kitagawa Rumi still admitted that she was hit.

In her eyes, although they are both transitioning from idol to actor, why does Hoshino Ai seem to be performing quite smoothly and does not feel like she is in a bottleneck period at all?

But this is not Kitagawa Rumi's fault. After all, when Hoshino Ai was learning to be an actor from scratch with Kitagawa Ryo, she was in the last year of Tendouji Sarina's life and the first year of Kitagawa Rumi's life, and she was not by Kitagawa Ryo's side at all.

"So what Ruby needs to do now is to return to the audience's perspective and standpoint. In other words, from this second on, completely forget that she is an actor."

As he spoke, Kitagawa Ryo reached his right hand under the armrest of the chair and gently held Rumi's left hand, which was obviously smaller than his own.

"Just think of this as part of our date today, Ruby."

"...I understand, brother."

Along with Kitagawa Ryo's words and the lights in the auditorium suddenly dimming, the noise around her disappeared without a trace in a few seconds. In the sudden silence of the darkness, Kitagawa Rumi finally slowly relaxed the string that had been taut in her mind. She fell limply towards Kitagawa Ryo and gently leaned her head on his lowered shoulder.

-------------------------------------

After watching an entire stage play, Kitagawa Ryo once again took Rumi to a quiet coffee shop nearby with ease. It seemed that they had made an order online in advance. As soon as they found a seat in the corner and sat down, the waiter brought up the drinks and desserts on a tray, bowed slightly, and walked away.

"How does Ruby feel right now?"

Beichuan Liang reached out and took a cookie from the small plate and took a crisp bite.

"Hmm - it's pretty good. No wonder these 2.5-dimensional stage plays are so popular nowadays. They are indeed more attractive than traditional classical dramas. I feel that handing out flyers on the street for promotion is easier than those "Oedipus Rex", "Antigone" and "Medea" that are so confusing to look at."

Kitagawa Rumi was thinking back on the performance she had just watched while expressing her simple thoughts as a spectator.

"The actors performed very well, and the sound effects were great, especially when matching the lines and background changes. Although it was my first time watching this series of stories, I had almost no obstacles and understood the relationships between the characters and the plot very smoothly."

"Ah."

After hearing his sister's comments, Beichuan Liang nodded thoughtfully, but immediately changed the subject and asked:

"What if it's from an actor's perspective? How would Ruby rate it?"

"Actor..."

Being stunned by Beichuan Liang's sudden question, Rumi frowned slightly and said slowly and hesitantly:

"It felt like everyone's acting was so exaggerated? They were trying so hard and desperately, especially the heroine. She didn't have the ease and grace that Xiao Qian had. There was even a minor incident where the sound effects on the stage suddenly drowned out a line of dialogue. The actors' ability to improvise was also very poor, but it seemed like the audience didn't particularly care about this..."

"Exaggerated? In a sense, Ruby's description is not wrong."

Beichuan Liang just smiled and pointed at the corner of his mouth when he heard this, and suddenly showed her a big toothy smile:

"In many cases, acting essentially requires pretentiousness, because reality is not like comics or novels. In the former, you only need to use thick and heavy dotted lines on the character's face to let readers know that she is shy, and in the latter, you only need to describe it as "a slight upward arc at the corner of the mouth" to let people know that he is smiling. If in film and television drama shooting, the camera can be zoomed in and out, looking up and down to help the audience understand, but on a stage like drama, the role of camera language will be further suppressed."

“It is true that with the update of stage equipment, people sitting far away in the audience can now see the actors on the stage more closely through the hanging screens, but as Ruby just saw, the distance and perspective of the camera are almost always fixed.”

“Smiling can express happiness, laughing can also express happiness, but if you really perform it according to the principle of ‘slightly raising the corners of your mouth’, other than the audience closest to you, no one else can clearly see and realize this subtle change in expression. In this case, appropriate exaggeration is needed to allow more audiences to understand the character’s thoughts, actions, and even the entire plot.”

Beichuan Liang paused for a moment when he spoke here, and then he started again, using Kurokawa Akane as an example:

"Just like Chi Yin's best acting skill is to completely immerse herself in the role, her emotional investment in every performance will be the most dazzling and profound on the stage. When they can be truly conveyed to the audience, everyone will naturally think that the performance is really good."

"Actions, lines, and expressions are all tools to convey emotions, and exaggerating them is the simplest and most direct way, just like how I suddenly smiled at Ruby. The degree of this is the watershed that determines an actor's acting skills."

After finishing his words, Beichuan Liang restrained the bright and even exaggerated smile on his face and took a sip of the fruit drink he ordered.

"Of course, with only two days left, Ruby definitely won't be able to suddenly improve to the level of Akane who can control her movements with ease."

"So, if you want to pursue that rare chance of winning, Ruby might as well just try the most extreme path. You don't have to think about how to grasp the degree. You just need to think about making the audience feel the emotion you want to express at the first time and make them have an electric shock-like reaction."

Looking at Rumi, who had been listening attentively the entire time and even took out a pen and paper from her bag to start taking notes, Kitagawa Ryo crossed his hands on his chin, smiled and made a summary:

"If I were to summarize it simply, I would try to expand every emotion, using impressive body language and lines, and acting with the strongest emotions. Of course, the most basic character setting, that is, the core of the character, cannot have any problems."

"For example—"

"I like Ruby."

When saying this, Beichuan Liang had no expression on his face, his tone was flat, and there was no ups and downs in his voice, as if he was simply stating an established fact.

The next second, he leaned forward slightly, his tongue tapping against his teeth. Every word he spoke was like lava bursting out from the crater of an erupting volcano, and along with his suddenly hot breath, it hit Rumi's earlobes and heart:

"I-I like Ruby the most."

Chapter 5: The Three of Us

"cheers!"

Along with the crisp sound of ice cubes colliding with the wall of the glass, in a private room of an izakaya, Kitagawa Ryo raised the large glass in his hand high to Samejima Abiko who was sitting opposite him. However, what was filled in the glass was not beer which was not very suitable for the environment, but iced sour plum soup.

Sitting opposite him, Samejima Abiko was holding a smaller glass with the same drink in her hand, but her way of drinking it was more polite than Kitagawa Ryo. She held the cup with both hands, carefully biting the straw and taking small sips.

"I didn't expect Liang to agree to go out for dinner tonight so readily."

"After all, he's personally invited by a super super super popular manga artist, so I have to come no matter what."

"Tsk - every time I asked Liang to come out for dinner, Liang would always refuse with various excuses and say things like 'If you have anything to say, just talk on the chat app'. It's the same every time after watching a play. As soon as we leave the theater, he would suddenly have something urgent to do and run away immediately."

In response to Kitagawa Ryo's words, Samejima Abiko simply curled her lips and ruthlessly exposed the truth.

"Hey, if you really want to put it this way, Abiko has been dragging me to the theater for two years, saying, 'In order to write the best script for the stage play "Tokyo BLDAE", I need to have a deep understanding of the current stage play operation mode, performance form, and equipment iteration, and it would be best if I were accompanied by an experienced industry insider.'"

"Ahem...let's talk about Ruby first."

Upon hearing this, Samejima Abiko cleared her throat somewhat awkwardly, lowered her head and took a few sips of her drink, then changed the topic a little awkwardly:

"Anyway, Lailiang must have come to meet me today for this."

"Ruby's matter is indeed part of the reason, but maybe he really wants to talk to Abiko about the script. After all, we basically used text before, and some things are more convenient to talk about in person."

As he spoke, Kitagawa Ryo took out a printed copy of the final draft of the "Tokyo BLADE" script (tentative) that Samejima Abiko sent him yesterday from his bag. Although the author's name was written as Samejima Abiko, just like the role played by Kurokawa Akane in the creation of the script for "Pest", he also participated in almost the entire process of writing this script.

Frankly speaking, among all the 2.5-dimensional stage play adaptations that Kitagawa Ryo has taken over in the past, "Tokyo BLADE" is also the most special one. This is not reflected in his fame and popularity. After all, he has previously starred in equally famous old and well-known IPs such as the "Fate" series, "Gintama" series and "Rurouni Kenshin".

The reason why it is the most special one is that, on the one hand, of course, the original author Samejima Abiko and the manga "Tokyo BLADE" are closely related to him. On the other hand, it is because this is a very rare stage play adapted by the author of the original work. After all, the saying "different trades, different worlds" is not just a joke, otherwise the position of screenwriter who specializes in adapting works would not have been born.