Andrew Clark originally planned to go straight home, but on second thought, he went to the bank and withdrew six hundred yuan.

Yvonne Wright's hometown is in the south. Her father passed away, leaving behind a sick mother and a younger brother still in school—a typical family where the eldest daughter shoulders half the sky in a patriarchal household.

She earns six hundred yuan a month, and with extra work, it can reach seven or eight hundred. Half of that has to be sent home, so she is extremely frugal, unwilling to spend on food or clothing.

Andrew Clark has no attachments and has managed to save a few thousand yuan. Since Yvonne Wright was moving out to rent a place, he felt responsible, so he decided to help pay the rent for the next two months.

Two months later...

We'll see.

Andrew Clark withdrew the money and returned to Old Bennett's place to pay two months' rent.

The old man gave him that blatant look again: Kid, if you two were just friends, would you really help her pay the rent? Who are you trying to fool!

Andrew Clark couldn't be bothered to explain and casually gathered up the pile of old newspapers in the old man's house.

When he got home, Yvonne Wright had already packed her things—over a dozen big and small bags filled the outer room. The small dressing table was hers, and she had planned to take it too. Andrew Clark saw there was a bigger one at the new place, better than this one, so under Yvonne Wright's resentful gaze, he simply tossed it outside.

He had a reverse tricycle for collecting recyclables and made two trips to move everything over.

Brian Bolton hadn't been seen since morning, his room locked—no idea where he'd gone.

Yvonne Wright's lease was almost up, and she didn't want to say goodbye to Brian Bolton, so she just moved out directly.

After tidying up, it was already evening. The two of them found a small restaurant for dinner. Yvonne Wright tried to pay, but Andrew Clark firmly refused.

It was ten o'clock by the time he returned to his shabby little room. He glanced at Brian Bolton's room—it was still pitch black. That bastard was probably scared after being beaten and had gone out to hide.

Lying on his bed, Andrew Clark suddenly felt that so much had happened in the past two days, one thing after another, completely different from usual. He wasn't used to this constant busyness and felt a bit tired—not physically, but mentally, finding it all rather troublesome.

Over the next few days, he cleared out all the junk he'd accumulated in his room, getting two hundred yuan for it, and sold the reverse tricycle at a low price.

Only after tidying up did he realize how little he actually owned. Aside from a few sets of clothes and two pairs of shoes, there was nothing worth keeping.

With everything done, Andrew Clark was completely free. He made another trip to the film academy, chatted with Samuel Reed, set the departure date, and brought back a copy of the script.

Chapter Four Little William

Andrew Clark lay on the bed, the script that gave him a headache tossed beside him. The booklet was thin, only about ten pages, with the title ""Little William"" printed on the cover.

He had just flipped through it and found it incredibly boring and dull. Forcing himself to finish it, he suddenly felt like he was back in high school math class.

As for movies, apart from the patriotic blockbusters organized by the school, he had never actually been to a cinema.

Andrew Clark much preferred watching TV dramas, especially cuddling with his wife on the sofa, boiling a plate of edamame, or stewing some tofu, watching those melodramatic love stories and over-the-top family ethics dramas.

Most of the movies he’d seen were on TV, with a few pirated discs. He loved blockbusters—cars bursting into flames and flying into the sky, skyscrapers dozens of meters tall crashing down into rubble, and all sorts of badass guys saving the world and the girls with their own bodies.

That was his entire concept of movies.

So, when Samuel Reed gave him this script about the daily life of a sleazy petty thief, he found it utterly uninteresting.

Andrew Clark graduated from high school and hadn’t touched a book since, but luckily he could recognize all the words in the script.

A thief, wandering around the county all day, stealing chickens and dogs.

A former buddy became a private entrepreneur, now sees him as a social stain, and wouldn’t even accept his wedding gift.

Later, he fell in love with a karaoke bar hostess, took her shopping, bought her things, only for her to run off with a rich guy.

The ring he bought for the hostess was given to his mother, who then passed it on to her future daughter-in-law, leading to a family falling out.

In the end, he was caught red-handed by the police while stealing, handcuffed to a utility pole, and gawked at by passersby like a dog.

No friends, no lover, no family, can’t even play video games—completely loveless and miserable, the epitome of cold and detached.

And this is supposed to be a movie?!

After reading the whole thing, Andrew Clark could only see the words ""utterly tragic.""

He thought his own taste was pretty normal and couldn’t help but feel sorry for that droopy-browed director.

What a money-loser!

He’d heard the film had a budget of two hundred thousand. After it’s done, how many tickets could it possibly sell? Tsk tsk, even spendthrifts don’t go this far.

Andrew Clark sighed, but had no other thoughts. Since he’d taken the money, he had to do the job well.

So, in the days before departure, he holed up at home reading the script and memorizing lines. He knew he wasn’t the sharpest, and even after being reborn, he was still destined to be a poor student. So he just prepared like he did for exams back then—underlining key points with a pen and memorizing line by line.

Andrew Clark's memory was really just average, but he always managed to memorize texts because he strictly followed the comprehension method his Chinese teacher taught: first read the text until it was thoroughly familiar, then understand it sentence by sentence, and finally, by combining the context and sentence structure, he could recite the whole passage.