Dreams of the Fragrant River

In front of an old apartment building in Kowloon, a bus stopped by the roadside.

Lu Xinsheng squeezed out of the car with difficulty, his tie was already crooked to one side. In a suit and leather shoes, he was too lazy to tidy up his appearance, like a tired dog, carrying a briefcase back to the apartment building silently.

Lu Xinsheng is 26 years old this year, with a handsome appearance and a height of 1.75 meters, which is considered a high-altitude crowd in Hong Kong at this time. If I had to use a simple word to describe him, it would be: tall and handsome.

It's a pity that the word "rich" is missing, so that Lu Xinsheng doesn't even have a girlfriend now.

Lu Xinsheng was born in the New Territories. His parents were mainlanders who fled Hong Kong. He grew up in a squatter house in the New Territories. Relying on diligence and talent, Lu Xinsheng has been among the best in academic performance since childhood, but he still failed in the final university entrance examination. Because of his outstanding academic performance, he is just a general among the dwarfs. The further north of the New Territories, the lower the quality of teaching, compared with the students in Hong Kong and Kowloon.

After failing the exam for three consecutive years, Lu Xinsheng finally accepted his fate. At the age of 19, he came to Kowloon to work from the New Territories with the 500 Hong Kong dollars given by his parents.

Porters, cleaners, salesmen, security guards... Lu Xinsheng has done all kinds of jobs, and even went to Tseung Kwan O Film and Television City to work as an actor for several months.

After working in Kowloon for seven years, Lu Xinsheng has become a sales manager of a telecommunications company. He is also in charge of a sales team. He earns at least HK$8,000 a month plus commissions.

At this time, the income of ordinary white-collar workers in Hong Kong was around 6,000 a month. Lu Xinsheng was considered a high-income group, but he was more tired than when he first came to Kowloon.

In the morning, I get up at dawn to squeeze the bus, sometimes I don’t even bother to eat lunch, and then I drag my tired body home from get off work. Eat, sleep and wait for the next day.

"Asheng, I just came back." As soon as he walked into the rented apartment of the apartment, someone greeted him.

Lu Xinsheng nodded and replied: "There is something wrong with the list. I went to deal with it, and I came back a little late."

As soon as you step in the door. Suddenly, a strange smell mixed with the smell of sweat, foot odor, and mildew entered his nostrils. Lu Xinsheng didn't frown. He was already used to it. He carefully took off his suit and hung it up, and put on a worn coat.

This rental house is very small, at most ten square meters, but it is densely populated by 9 tenants. Each bed has three layers, each bunk is only a little wider than a person, and all are caged with barbed wire. Just like cages for dogs, people live in cages.

This kind of apartment rental house is vividly called "cage house", and the people living in it are "cage people".

No way, Hong Kong's land is limited, housing rent is too expensive. In comparison, the cramped low-rent housing provided by Tseung Kwan O Film and Television City for the contracted actors is simply a heavenly existence.

Lu Xinsheng worked overtime today and came back from dinner. After chatting with the cage friends, he took out an English version of a marketing book.

Under dim light. Several other cage friends in the same room, or get together to play cards and gamble, or nest in the cage to read martial arts novels. Lu Xinsheng took notes on the book seriously.

At the beginning, other cage friends will laugh at him, but over time, everyone will get used to it.

In this apartment, no one knows how much Lu Xinsheng earns a month, only that this handsome boy is very thrifty. In addition to buying books, he is willing to spend money, and a pair of socks must be sewed and mended many times before he is willing to throw them away.

Before I knew it, it was already past 11 o'clock, and the cagemates in the room were basically asleep. Lu Xinsheng rubbed his sore glasses, closed the book, and locked himself in an iron cage to sleep.

in the dark. Lu Xinsheng calculated in his mind: 80,000 yuan has been deposited in the bank account, and the year-end bonus will be issued in one month. At that time, I should have about 100,000 in savings, and I can get a loan to buy a nice house in Kowloon. It's time to bring my parents to Kowloon to enjoy the happiness.

When the alarm went off, it was already the next morning.

Lu Xinsheng got up like a robot, washed and dressed, locked his iron cage, and rushed out of the apartment door with a briefcase.

The whole morning was spent in meetings and on the phone. Lu Xinsheng was called by the supervisor to scold him halfway, and then he went back and scolded the wrong team members.

Lunch was eaten at a food stall on the back street. Lu Xinsheng had just eaten two bites of rice when he saw a beautiful woman walking over and asked, "Is there no one sitting here?"

"No one, just sit down." Lu Xinsheng didn't dare to look up when he spoke. He knew the beautiful woman in front of him. She was an employee of the company downstairs. He heard that she was a top student who came back from the UK. There were even rumors that she was the daughter of the owner of the company downstairs.

The reason why Lu Xinsheng knew so clearly was because he was fascinated by the first time he saw this woman, and he quietly inquired for a long time before asking about the other party's situation, and then he had no next move.

Lu Xinsheng has low self-esteem. The other party's appearance and knowledge are first-class. How can he be a grassroots living in a cage house? Every time they met by chance, Lu Xinsheng only dared to pay attention silently, and he didn't even have the courage to talk to each other.

The beauty sat down opposite Lu Xinsheng and ate very ordinary egg fried rice, but Lu Xinsheng felt that her eating posture was very elegant, and her gestures had a ladylike temperament.

Lu Xinsheng had already made his face thicker than the city wall when he was in sales, but at this time he was eating at the same table with his crush, but his heart beat faster like an innocent boy.

Being able to keep reading industry monographs every day in the cage proves that Lu Xinsheng is a person who is not willing to be mediocre. At this time, the impulse in his heart is getting stronger and stronger, and he finally can't help but talk up.

Just before he could speak, a beeping sound suddenly sounded in the other party's bag, the beauty took out a mobile phone from the bag, and said while eating: "Hey, Dad, I'm eating... Oops, don't worry about me. Where to eat, I'll go back to the company in a while anyway. Well, that's it, hang up."

The words that had reached his mouth were swallowed back by Lu Xinsheng. The appearance of the phone reminded him again of the distance between the two.

Lu Xinsheng is a sales manager of a telecommunications company. He knows the mobile phone very well. The purchase of the phone is equivalent to a quarter of his savings.

The beauty seemed to be bored with eating, so she made a phone call and said, "Hey, Annie, are you free on Friday? I got two tickets for the screening of "The Truman World"...what. Don't have time? Do you want to? To accompany your boyfriend... well, I'll find someone else, bye."

The beauty continued to dial the phone: "Brother. Come to the movies with me on Friday, don't say no...what. You asked Mi Gao to accompany me? I'm annoying him, hang up!"

"Alas!" The beauty sighed softly, put the phone back in her bag and continued to eat.

Seeing the lonely expression of his sweetheart, Lu Xinsheng said obsessively, "Miss Chen, I'm free on Friday."

"What?" The beauty looked at Lu Xinsheng in surprise.

Lu Xinsheng swallowed his saliva and said, "I am a fan of Director Kang Jianfei, and I have never been able to get tickets for The World of Truman. If Miss Chen doesn't mind, we can watch it together."

The beauty asked suspiciously, "How do you know my surname is Chen?"

Lu Xinsheng explained: "I work in the company upstairs from you, and I often meet you in the elevator. Once I heard someone call you Miss Chen."

"Oh, no wonder you look familiar." The beauty believed him, took out two movie tickets and said, "Since you like it, I will give you the movie tickets."

The beauty is obviously very tutored, and she eats all the egg fried rice before leaving. Lu Xinsheng couldn't help laughing at the two movie tickets in his hand. His purpose was to pursue his sweetheart, but now the other party gave him all the movie tickets.

Friday arrived in a blink of an eye, and Lu Xinsheng explained his work early. After get off work, I hurried to the Yau Ma Tei Cinema.

Today is the day of the premiere of "The Truman World". The premiere was held at the Taiping Cinema on Hong Kong Island. The Yau Ma Tei Cinema is one of the screening venues.

This is Lu Xinsheng since he went to Kowloon to explore. The first time I went to the cinema, I was reluctant to spend money before.

The auditorium was full, but the seat next to Lu Xinsheng was always empty. If he sold the remaining movie tickets, he could at least sell them for a scalper price of hundreds of yuan, but for some reason, Lu Xinsheng, who has always been frugal, finally turned his head and would rather waste this movie ticket.

The movie began to be shown, and Lu Xinsheng looked at the vacant seat next to him, where a peerless beauty seemed to be sitting. That was his fantasy girlfriend.

At the beginning of the film, the protagonist Truman makes various exaggerated expressions in front of the mirror. Then he goes out to work and encounters all sorts of funny things along the way.

Tony Leung Ka Fai's performance is easy to retract. When it's time to go crazy, there will be bursts of laughter from time to time in the screening hall.

However, Lu Xinsheng felt that something was wrong. The film was less than 10 minutes long, and there were several TV screen-like borders in a row, and then the abruptly suppressed atmosphere and music seemed to be hinting at something by the director.

As the plot progresses, the truth is finally revealed.

It turned out that the male protagonist was an orphan who was adopted by the show team since he was a child, and he appeared on TV as soon as he was born. From learning to walk and talking, to his marriage and having children, every moment was recorded by the camera and broadcast 24 hours a day. The director will arrange to broadcast the commercial only when the male protagonist sleeps, takes a shower, goes to the toilet, etc.

The actor's life is arranged. As soon as he showed his yearning for the outside world when he was a child, the director arranged for his father to die in the sea. He watched his father get swept away by the shipwreck with his own eyes. From then on, he was afraid when he saw the water, and his legs trembled when he came to the beach.

While in college, he fell in love with a girl. However, the director thought that love was always unsatisfactory. For the purpose of the show, he deliberately separated them, and then arranged for the heroine to be his wife.

Everything is going according to the script, and the male protagonist Truman has no right to choose. His family, his neighbors, his colleagues, his best friends... All the people around him are actors, all are deceiving him, and he can only live step by step.

Unconsciously, Lu Xinsheng focused all his attention on the big screen, praying that the male protagonist could break through the siege and obtain a free new born. He felt that it was another self. Going to and from get off work was repeated constantly, and he lived in a huge invisible cage every day, living in a state that he hated but had to obey.

When he saw the male protagonist fighting to the death rather than yielding in the storm, Lu Xinsheng, who had never cried after picking up food in the trash can, suddenly burst into tears. His hands were tightly pulled into fists, and in his heart he kept cheering for the hero: rush out, rush out!

Not only Lu Xinsheng, but other audience members in the screening hall were also moved by the final atmosphere, looking forward to the final victory for the male protagonist.

The storm on the screen suddenly passed, the sun rose again on the blue sky, and the male protagonist emerged from under the capsized boat, showing a bright and moving smile to the camera.

"Wow!"

The entire audience cheered, followed by messy and loud applause, and everyone was celebrating the hero's victory.

All of a sudden, all the voices came to an abrupt end, and the male protagonist drove the boat to a halt on the sea level, and he stood up and touched the blue sky - it was a wall.

Lu Xinsheng stared at the big screen dumbfounded. The change of the plot was too unexpected. The meaning behind the wall blocked Lu Xinsheng's heart, and then he felt a deep sense of helplessness.

The final ending of the movie is a happy ending, which more or less relieves the depression of the theme of the movie and allows the audience to see a good hope.

Lu Xinsheng walked out of the cinema in silence~www.wuxiaspot.com~ thinking about his current state of existence and his unpredictable future. He decided to go after the girl in the company downstairs, no matter if she was a returnee from studying abroad or the boss' daughter. Even if there is a wall on the other side of the sea, he will try to rush out.

Some things, if you try hard, you may not succeed, but if you don't dare to try, you will never succeed.

Lu Xinsheng is very fond of Kang Jianfei's name, but he has never seen any of his films, he only regards his legendary experience as a kind of inspiration, and he is even more envious of his beauty and bliss.

As for watching movies, Lu Xinsheng thought it was a waste of money and time, but after watching "The Truman World", he had another gain, as if someone in the dark showed him the direction.

Kang Jianfei could never have imagined that this was actually an inspirational film.

But in any case, he has one more die-hard fans. (To be continued)

ps: Don't complain about this chapter. I deleted the previous one. I wanted to try it from a different angle, but I ended up writing it in the middle of the night.

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