Chapter 599: Call Me Dad

Luo Mo Studio, outside the audition classroom.

Wen Hong looked at the surrounding child stars and adults, feeling a bit nervous and uneasy.

She was not a particularly socially adept person, so she sometimes wondered if she was limiting her son Wen Lin's development.

After all, she was a single mother with no man in the house, so in many cases, regardless of what she said or did, she would uphold the principle of safety first.

Moreover, some experiences in recent years had made her gradually realize that men are a very strange species.

She was clearly only delicate and dignified, not particularly beautiful, but just because of her status as a single mother, many people would take more interest in her.

In the process of waiting, Wen Hong would look at the door of the audition classroom from time to time.

"Luo Mo is inside," she thought to herself.

After "The Bad Kids" wrapped up, Luo Mo had returned to the country.

Yesterday, a round of casting had already taken place, selecting for the role of Pupu.

The casting went very smoothly; they picked a little girl who looked quite cute, had lively acting skills, and possessed a natural spiritual aura.

Luo Mo was very satisfied with her because her eyes were big enough to give people a sense of being pitiful, as if her big eyes could speak.

In the drama, there were many reasons why the little girl Pupu could make so many people willingly do things for her and exert effort for her.

This role had to be cute enough to make people feel pity, so that it would be convincing in many performances and plot contents.

And today's audition was the most important part of the whole drama—Zhu Chaoyang.

On Earth, in terms of billing for this web drama, the Actor who played Zhang Dongsheng was the top-billed, but in reality, the screen time for the role of Zhu Chaoyang was no less than Zhang Dongsheng's, and perhaps even more.

Wen Hong looked at the children and adults around her, seeing that some of these adults were even more nervous than her, while others had an arrogant look of having victory in their grasp.

Most of the people here were the children's parents.

Because the attitude of Luo Mo Studio was very clear: if you acted in this drama, you had to sign with the studio, so child stars with powerful agencies behind them were destined to have no connection with it.

Sitting there, Wen Hong also noticed a child's parent communicating very sternly and seriously with their son, or rather, giving instructions.

This little boy, who was much more handsome than Wen Lin, didn't say a word, nodded frequently, his small hands clenched together, his head getting lower and lower.

"This is putting pressure on the child," Wen Hong thought.

She glanced at the calm and composed Wen Lin and asked softly, "Linlin, are you nervous?"

"Mom, I'm not nervous," Wen Lin said directly.

Wen Hong smiled; her son had been like this since he was young and never had stage fright.

On the contrary, he even comforted Wen Hong, gently grabbing his mother's hand and saying, "You don't be nervous either. Even if I don't get selected, I'll help you get an autograph from Brother Luo Mo. I know you're embarrassed to ask, I'll handle it!"

This left Wen Hong between laughter and tears.

Her son was mature beyond his years, his temperament tended to be gloomy, and he didn't like playing with his peers much, but he was relatively lively and cheerful at home.

Time passed second by second, and one child star after another was called by name and led inside by staff to audition.

Finally, only the mother and son, Wen Hong and Wen Lin, were left.

After there were fewer people, Wen Hong actually felt a bit more at ease.

After another fifteen minutes or so, the previous group of young actors walked out.

The adult beside him looked excited, as if the role had already been secured and it was nobody else's business.

This surprised Wen Hong a little.

A small hand gently patted the back of her hand, and her son Wen Lin looked up and said, "Mom, I think that uncle just now was doing it on purpose."

"What purp..." Wen Hong quickly realized what her son meant.

This was just messing with the mentality of the people behind!

She raised her finger and poked her son's forehead, saying, "You think about problems by always looking at the bad side of people. You need to change that! Do you know?"

"Oh," Wen Lin replied obediently.

Wen Hong had always felt that her son was a little bit dark-bellied and looked at things differently from ordinary children.

At this moment, a little girl wearing black-rimmed Glasses walked out with a data sheet and said softly, "Little brother Wen Lin, right? It's your turn."

Wen Lin stood up immediately.

Wen Hong raised her hand to tidy his clothes, then took a deep breath, and with a nervous face, held her calm son's small hand and walked into the audition classroom.

Once she walked in, her eyes lit up, unable to hide the excitement on her face.

Luo Mo looked at her expression; he was too familiar with this look and manner.

"Eight out of ten, she's a fan of mine," he thought to himself.

In the audition classroom, not only was Luo Mo present, but Xu Chujing was there too.

Besides the two of them, there was also Ding Xiaoyu, who had been pulled in temporarily to help with the scenes.

Luo Mo sized up the little boy in front of him and felt that his temperament and image were quite suitable for the role of Zhu Chaoyang.

He looked mature beyond his years and had a bit of a lonely and gloomy air.

Many children's eyes were very bright and lively, but his were not.

Honestly, Luo Mo was feeling a bit irritable now.

He had auditioned so many before, and two were not bad, but he always felt something was missing.

The role of Zhu Chaoyang was the most important part of the entire drama, and Luo Mo did not want to settle for just anyone to play it.

If these children were not good enough, he would continue to search for people like finding a needle in the ocean until he was satisfied.

"Wen Lin, are you ready? If you're ready, shall I give you a rough explanation of the scene first?" Luo Mo said.

The little boy nodded, indicating he was listening.

The scene Luo Mo was auditioning today was a scene from the first episode that explained the character's family background and Character Relationships.

Zhu Chaoyang was a child who grew up in a single-parent family, his parents were divorced, and he was raised by his mother.

His mother worked at a scenic spot and was often not at home.

His father, however, has now struck it rich, has good living conditions, has married a new wife, and has even had a daughter.

Zhu Chaoyang's mother does not stop him from seeing his father; the scene being tested today is the one where Zhu Chaoyang meets his biological father, Zhu Yongping, and his current wife, Wang Yao.

However, because this was a test and Ding Xiaoyu had been invited today, Luo Mo did not follow the original Drama when explaining the Character Relationships.

Later, he would personally play Zhu Chaoyang's father, Zhu Yongping, Xu Chujing would play Wang Yao, and Ding Xiaoyu would play the half-sister, Jingjing.

The Character Relationships were also changed so that Zhu Yongping was originally married to Wang Yao, and they had a daughter, Jingjing.

Then, after divorcing, he was with Zhou Chunhong and gave birth to Zhu Chaoyang.

But later, they divorced again, and he remarried Wang Yao.

Luo Mo did not know if the young boy in front of him could digest so much information so quickly while he was explaining the scene.

But the preparation time he left for each child was the same; once the time was up, they would start acting.

At the start, Luo Mo was the first to stand up and act with Wen Lin.

In this piece of Drama, Zhu Chaoyang takes his report card, which shows he is first in his grade, to find his father, Zhu Yongping.

Zhu Yongping is waiting for him where he plays cards with friends, and then he takes him to the mall to go shopping.

The reason he is playing cards is, on one hand, to show off to his friends how promising his son is, and on the other, to use playing cards as an excuse to hide it from Wang Yao so he can take Zhu Chaoyang to the pedestrian street to shop and buy him things as a reward.

But On the Road, he receives a call from Wang Yao. Wang Yao had checked up on him; she called his card-playing friends and found out that Zhu Yongping had taken Zhu Chaoyang to the pedestrian street.

She said on the phone, "You don't need to hide it from me when you take your son to the mall. Jingjing needs to buy a dress, we are coming over now."

This woman not only checked up on him, but she was also coming to stir up trouble.

"Wang Yao, this is..." Zhu Yongping wanted to say something more, but Wang Yao hung up the phone directly.

Luo Mo only gave a simple explanation of this content.

He started directly by acting out Zhu Yongping taking Zhu Chaoyang to pick out shoes in the mall.

Luo Mo sat right down next to Wen Lin and began to perform without props, pretending to hold the old shoes his son had taken off and saying, "Wow, what size shoe do you wear?"

"38, I guess," Wen Lin replied.

"Whoa, your feet are so big!" he laughed.

Then, he began to talk about his own childhood, saying, "When Dad was in elementary school, I also had a pair of white shoes like these. After wearing them for a few years, they turned black. I wanted to buy new ones but didn't have the money, so Grandpa would take chalk and rub them until they were completely pure white."

"Hey, just like new."

"But you couldn't let it rain; as soon as it rained, the jig was up! White soup would flow all over the ground," he said with a laugh.

Wen Lin listened with interest from the side, listening very seriously.

——He cherished the time spent with his father very much.

The two continued their performance without props; Wen Lin pretended he had already put on the new shoes and said, "They're quite comfortable."

"Walk a few steps and try them out. Go on, just walk, don't be afraid of creasing them, creasing them." Luo Mo crossed his legs, acting like a big shot.

Wen Lin listened to his father's words; at first, he walked cautiously while trying them on, afraid of leaving creases on the shoes, but soon he was striding across the acting classroom.

It was as if having his father by his side gave him a bit more confidence in everything he did.

The father and son were happy and harmonious, with smiles on their faces.

Wen Lin's performance was very natural; even that subtle sense of restraint was likely acted out, as his entire performance state seemed very relaxed.

The reason he wanted to act out a sense of restraint was that he felt that when Zhu Chaoyang was with his father, there should be a sense of restraint, even if... he was his own biological father!

Because when he himself met his own father in real life, it was just like this.

They should have been the closest people, yet they could not be the closest people.

Xu Chujing and Ding Xiaoyu stood up at this moment and began to enter the scene.

In this piece of Drama, Wang Yao brings her daughter, Jingjing, and rushes to the pedestrian street to keep an eye on the father-son reunion of Zhu Yongping and Zhu Chaoyang.

"Dad!" Ding Xiaoyu shouted at Luo Mo.

This shout of "Dad" almost made Luo Mo, who had already entered the scene, break character!

Even though he had already heard his good apprentice Ding Xiaoyu call him "Dad" at least ten times today.

(PS: First update, asking for monthly tickets at the end of the month.)

(End of this chapter)