Seven Days and Nights with the Werewolf

“Fang Daichuan, get up! Hurry to the airport, stop sleeping! Did you read the script and character setting?!” His assistant Xiao Zhou roared, kicking Fang Daichuan awake, her bright red high heels leaving a tiny round mark on his jeans. Fang Daichuan struggled to sit up from the back seat, his thin white T-shirt clinging to his well-built muscles. He brushed his messy bangs back from his forehead and grabbed a baseball cap to slap on his head. “For heaven’s sake, I pulled an all-nighter filming the drama last night. I only got the script yesterday, haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I’m reading it now, right now.” He scrambled upright and smiled to placate her. Xiao Zhou slammed the thick script and character booklet into his hands, snapping, “Who didn’t pull an all-nighter filming? Look at Best Actor Pei—he’s in the same crew as you, with a packed shooting schedule too. He’s flying to the Maldives early this morning to shoot a commercial, and why are his airport sneak peeks and fan-taken photos still so perfect and put-together?! Look at you! You’ve spent the whole morning sleeping, you didn’t even put on makeup, you skipped lunch—just look at your face! Your eye bags are practically dragging to your chin! How am I supposed to edit your airport photos later?!” “Is Pei Wenqing’s filming the same as mine?” Fang Daichuan forced a bitter smile. “He’s a best actor—he only does indoor dialogue scenes in the air-con. Stunt doubles do all his action and horse riding scenes, and he even gets a body double for outdoor shots when the sun’s too bright. By the end of a drama, he has more doubles than crew members. I’m a C-list internet celebrity, a martial arts actor to boot. I spent the whole night in armor, riding horses, falling off cliffs, getting thrown around and beaten up. The fact I can even stand up right now is a miracle of my physical fitness.” Xiao Zhou paid no heed to his excuses. She squeezed a big dollop of foundation onto her hand, dabbed it haphazardly on Fang Daichuan’s face with a damp puff, covering his dark circles, pimples, dry lines, and the small scars from last night’s beating, then lined his eyes with liquid eyeliner in thin strokes. As she fussed, she shot back casually, “Blame your own lack of ambition. When you make it to Pei Ge’s level, you’ll have a dozen or so doubles too, lazing in the air-con all day.” Fang Daichuan was holding the script and trying to read, but the eyeliner made his eyes water profusely—his eyes had always been sensitive, and Xiao Zhou, in her hurry, had pressed too hard, leaving his eye sockets red. He whimpered, “Take it easy, lady! I’m trying to read the script here! My eyes hurt!” Xiao Zhou snapped, “Read while I do this! This show’s production team is ridiculous—no on-set makeup artist provided. Filming starts as soon as we get on the plane. Do you want to be on camera looking like this?!” At her words, Fang Daichuan flipped back to the cover and stared at it. The script’s cover was simple and plain: black cardstock, with the show’s logo scrawled in bold white brush strokes—*Werewolf Kill*, the character for “kill” in traditional Chinese, its two knife strokes smudged with blood-red paint, striking and jarring. “What kind of show is this?” Fang Daichuan opened his character booklet to compare notes. “My setting is ‘MAX combat power, E-rank luck, IQ below eighty, the flower protector who’s utterly awestruck by the Goddess of Wisdom’s intelligence, obsessed with her, swearing to guard her for ten thousand years…’ Excuse me?! What kind of ridiculous setting is this?!” Xiao Zhou focused on contouring his puffy cheeks, explaining rapidly, “Werewolf Kill is a new variety show imported by Dragon Fruit TV—it’s basically name tag ripping with a werewolf game twist. The character settings are mostly to hype up the regular female MC, whose persona is the Goddess of Wisdom with off-the-charts IQ and EQ. Us supporting cast have to play dumb appropriately to set her off, you know how it is.” Fang Daichuan nodded. Fair enough—at least he got the role of a smitten protector with insane combat power; that meant plenty of camera time. All variety shows that hype a female MC follow this formula: the goddess has to be the team’s brainiac and the most beautiful, the other MCs play along—stir up a love line, be the backup lover, have a male guest pine over her devotedly, and the rest act silly for laughs. Combat power was never an issue. Fang Daichuan prided himself on being better than any other young actor in the industry when it came to martial arts—whether fancy choreography or real brawls. No up-and-coming actor could match a guy from a family of criminal police officers. It was the playing dumb part that… felt like a stretch for his acting skills, he thought, frowning. Xiao Zhou opened a box of loose powder and dusted a layer over his face with a big brush in quick swipes. She reminded him offhand, “I’m not worried about the low IQ bit—just act natural. You’ve never won a game of Werewolf Kill anyway. What I’m worried about is your combat power. Word is the guest stars are often national athletes—fencers, swimmers, table tennis and badminton players, a bunch of six-foot-tall heartthrobs. You’re definitely not getting any camera time for the dialogue scenes, and with your muscles, you’ll be the guests’ top target for name tag ripping. If you can’t even tear their tags off, you’ll just be a stepping stone for them.” “Low IQ? Act natural? Am I low IQ?!!” Fang Daichuan’s brow furrowed more and more, confusion written all over his face. Xiao Zhou paused, sized him up from head to toe, twitched the corner of her mouth, and let out a cold snort. “Hmph. Hmph.” Fang Daichuan knew he was being looked down on. “Hey, what’s with the hmphing! Am I… am I really that low IQ?! I have a legitimate bachelor’s degree from the college entrance exam—my IQ’s at least above average! How am I low IQ?!” Xiao Zhou gave him a fake smile, perfecting the silent mockery. Fang Daichuan was about to argue more when the driver turned around and said, “We’re at the airport.” The two grabbed their large suitcases and got out. Dark thunderclouds blotted out the sky in the afternoon, purple lightning hidden thick within the clouds, the world dim all around. Xiao Zhou stared worriedly toward the airport terminal. “Can the plane even take off in this weather?” “Whether it flies or not depends on the weather’s mood.” Fang Daichuan grabbed a large suitcase in each hand and strode inside. Xiao Zhou trotted after him with her makeup bag, snapping a few photos—she was going to post them on Weibo to hype his persona: the responsible guy who carries luggage alone, overflowing with boyfriend energy. She quickly touched up the photos with a phone app as she walked, scolding him like she always did, “You’d better pray right now for the plane to take off on time. Do you really think you’re some A-list celebrity? If you’re late, Dragon Fruit TV can replace you with a good-looking heartthrob in a second!” Just her luck—Xiao Zhou was a master of jinxing things. No sooner had they walked into the terminal than an announcement blared over the speakers: “Attention passengers traveling to Qingdao on flight CA256. Attention passengers traveling to Qingdao on flight CA256. We regret to inform you that due to adverse weather conditions, flight CA256 has been delayed, with departure time to be determined. We apologize for the inconvenience and ask that you wait in the waiting hall for further notice. Thank you. Attention passengers traveling to Qingdao on flight CA256…” “Damn it!” Xiao Zhou’s eyes rolled back in frustration. “What do we do?! Brother Deng didn’t come with us! I’m just a small assistant, I can’t handle this!” Brother Deng was Fang Daichuan’s manager. Fang Daichuan had been flying under the radar in the entertainment industry, never making any real waves. Brother Deng managed three or four other young actors and didn’t have much time to spare for him—he never showed up in person for airport runs or schedule chaperones. Xiao Zhou, a rookie assistant, was completely out of her depth. Fang Daichuan comforted her, “Calm down. Call Brother Deng first, and try to get in touch with the production team. See if we can find our own way there and meet up with them later.” Xiao Zhou ducked into a corner to make the call. Fang Daichuan rolled his luggage to the wall and sat on top, his long legs stretched out casually, and bent his head to read the script while he had the chance. Werewolf Kill was a pretty clichéd variety show, the competitive combat type, just an old concept with a new coat of paint—a werewolf game wrapper. Each episode started with drawing character cards: Werewolf, Villager, Witch, and Seer, with the same rules as the board game. Werewolves could kill one player each night. After the Werewolves struck, the Seer could randomly check one player’s identity card. The Witch held two potions: a poison to kill one player at night, and an antidote to save a Villager killed by the Werewolves. Once the potions were used up, the Witch became no different from a Villager. The production team would announce the killed player the next day, then hold a village meeting where players voted to lynch a suspected Werewolf. This cycle repeated until the Werewolves killed all Villagers, or the Villagers lynched all Werewolves—then the game ended. As long as both Werewolves and Villagers remained in the game, the referee would keep declaring, “Game continues.” For a C-list celebrity like Fang Daichuan, the good character cards were never his for the taking. In a scripted show like this, the “random draw” was just for show—everyone’s script spelled out their identity and the show’s plot clearly, and the MCs even had follow-up PDs to remind the guests what to do next. Fang Daichuan had been in the industry long enough to know all these tricks like the back of his hand. In the first episode, his card was Villager. He was fooled completely by the Werewolves, blindly following the votes and lynching the Seer—who was the Goddess of Wisdom—suffering a total defeat. The camera would cut to his face as the Werewolves’ identities were revealed, his dumbfounded stare as he failed to process what had happened. Then, amid everyone’s accusations, he would kneel down to apologize, beg the Goddess for forgiveness, and from then on, be tamed by her to become her loyal lackey. —Perfect, it fit the mindless muscle man persona to a T. Fang Daichuan sighed in resignation. In the second episode, he got the Witch card—but his IQ was still non-existent. He became the Goddess’s die-hard fan, following her around and voting however she did. When the Werewolves killed her, he used his precious antidote to save her, only for a huge plot twist: the Goddess was a Werewolf. The final shot would be him with his name tag ripped off by her, a look of utter heartbreak on his face. Fang Daichuan hung his head and flipped through the pages aimlessly. He’d signed on for all twelve episodes of the first season, and for eleven of them, his character was a fool—he lost every single game, and whichever team he was on lost too. A walking, talking E-rank luck, bold and underlined. And for eleven episodes, he’d pined over the plastic-surgery-faced Goddess like a lovesick puppy: when he was a Werewolf, he’d blurt out his identity to her like an i***t; when he was a Villager, she’d take him out without breaking a sweat; and when they finally ended up on the same team, he’d have his name tag ripped off by the Werewolves on the first night trying to protect her. A tragic backup lover, bold and underlined. Thankfully, the twelfth episode had a shocking twist. For the show’s c****x, the production team added a White Wolf card, turning it into an undercover game. Probably to make up for Fang Daichuan getting almost no camera time in the first eleven episodes, he was given the insanely overpowered White Wolf card for the finale. The White Wolf was a character card added in the second expansion of the Werewolf Kill board game, the equivalent of a spy in *Legends of the Three Kingdoms*—to win, he had to kill all Werewolves and Villagers alike. Leaning on the good karma he’d built up in the first eleven episodes and his deeply ingrained airhead persona, Fang Daichuan finally used his brain and pulled off a stunning reversal, stunning everyone else. Fang Daichuan closed the script and nodded in quiet satisfaction. If he played this character right, it would be incredibly popular with fans. He’d entered the industry as a martial arts child star—he truly loved acting, truly loved martial arts, and had dreamed of playing the male lead in a proper wuxia drama. But that was the way the industry was now: only if you were famous could you get roles, only if you had clout could you get work. To act, you first had to make yourself a star. May this Werewolf Kill be the turning point in my life, the thing that makes me famous. Fang Daichuan bowed his head and prayed silently, planting a bright red flag for himself. A moment later, Xiao Zhou came back with two cups of coffee. “I got in touch with the production team. They said your follow-up PD and your on-set cameraman are already at this airport. They’ll book a car and come pick us up in a bit—we’ll be there by one o’clock or so. Just wait a little longer.” Fang Daichuan took the coffee and nodded, then turned to stare out the window at the thick sheets of rain and mist. The heavy rain poured down, obscuring all the roads leading out, blurring every direction, every step of the way ahead.