After Transmigrating as Cannon Fodder, I Became the Darling of the Variety Show - Chapter 1

The sound of splashing water filled the air.

In front of him was a glass door, blurred by rising steam. Behind the haze, a tall silhouette was faintly visible. The scent of body wash lingered in the air. An Rao sat on the wet floor with a dazed expression. His thin pants were soaked through. Damp, stray hairs like fragmented jade rolling with water droplets, fell over his curled eyelashes.

An Rao blinked. The droplets broke apart and scattered into the shimmering puddles on the ground.

Where was he? He had clearly been on a plane just a moment ago, yet he woke up in this unfamiliar room.

Wait, who is the person showering inside?

In an instant, the image of that middle-aged man on the plane, flushed and pestering him relentlessly, flashed through his mind. Thinking of that possibility, An Rao instinctively tried to get up and leave.

But from behind the door came the sound of footsteps treading on water. Then, the glass door swung open. A wave of hot mist rushed out, clouding his vision. An Rao froze in a half-seated position. Suddenly, a patch of white appeared before him, with a slight bulge in the center.

He brushed away the mist to see more clearly. The white was a bath towel. Beneath it were fair, well-proportioned calves connected to sturdy ankles. That bulge was less than a centimeter away from the tip of his nose.

An Rao slowly raised his head. Through the shifting mist, he caught a glimpse of eyes as black as obsidian, staring at him fixedly. Cold and profound, no emotion could be detected in those depths.

The man dried his hair, his expression like a thousand-year-old glacier. After a long pause, he stepped around An Rao and walked straight out.

“Sorry, I am not in the mood to do that with you. I am heading to the desert with the film crew tomorrow for location shooting, so I need to sleep early.”

Do that?

An Rao was stunned. Based on the man’s tone, they seemed quite familiar, yet he had absolutely no memory of this face. Who was this? Where on earth was he?

He searched his memory.

On his university graduation day, armed with a bank account full of savings, he had planned a spontaneous trip. While passing through airport security, he was asked to remove his hat for facial recognition. After hesitating for a long time, he took it off.

In an instant, everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at him. After a small commotion, a middle-aged man with a bright red face ran over excitedly and grabbed his hand.

“Can I have your contact information?”

An Rao pulled his hand back, ignored him, finished the recognition process, and quickly put his hat back on to pass through security. Once on the plane, however, he discovered the man was sitting right behind him, accompanied by his wife and child. The man was so excited he was rolling his eyes. He squeezed over to An Rao’s side, grabbed his hand, and kept shouting: “Give me your contact information! You can take your time getting to know me, I am in no rush!”

The man’s wife, sitting behind them with a two- or three-year-old daughter in her arms, saw this obsessive behavior and began cursing in a rage. The little girl started wailing. The flight attendants came to mediate, but the man refused to leave.

One thing led to another, and the cabin fell into chaos. Several passengers unbuckled their seatbelts and rushed over to scold the man for “a toad wanting to eat swan meat.” Others stepped in to break it up, resulting in a full-blown brawl with fists and feet flying like a martial arts convention.

The stewards and security guards tried to intervene but could not stop dozens of people. The fight eventually spilled over to the cockpit door, which rattled violently from the impact. The pilot seemed to be affected. The plane began to shake violently before plunging into a nose-dive.

Sometimes, An Rao doubted if he lived in a normal world, wondering if he was just a fictional character. Unsurprisingly, “Teacher An” had once again received the “Universal Heartthrob” script, paired with a “love at first sight” cheat code. Even with many extras on set, Teacher An remained the “flower vase” male lead.

But today, a male lead had appeared who was unaffected by Teacher An’s beauty buff.

An Rao sat for a long time before remembering the man mentioned going away for a shoot. Guessing the man might be an actor, he hurried through the hallway to the living room, where he found a passport and ID card on the table. He picked up the ID card. Three large characters were printed on it:

Chu Guannan July 16, 1993

The name sounded familiar. After thinking for a while, An Rao’s eyes widened. The name Chu Guannan belonged to the major villain in the entertainment industry novel Ascending the Altar, which his classmate had been obsessed with lately. His classmate had rambled about the plot so much that An Rao knew most of it.

Most coincidentally, Chu Guannan had a “cannon fodder” husband in the novel who shared his name, An Rao. His classmate often joked about this, suggesting he memorize the book.

So, he had transmigrated into a book?

In the original story, the cannon fodder An Rao was an obscure, eighteenth-tier actor who constantly sought death through his antics. Later, he managed to cling to the “great tree” that was Chu Guannan by drugging and raping him. Although Chu Guannan was a legendary superstar, his heart belonged to the protagonist Shou. Furthermore, the original An Rao was constantly causing trouble, antagonizing the protagonist’s group. In a fit of rage, Chu Guannan eventually kicked him out.

Having lost his protection and being blacklisted by the industry due to Chu Guannan’s influence, the original character ended up drowning in debt. He could only trade his body for resources, eventually becoming a notorious “public bus.”

An Rao arched an eyebrow. So, he had transmigrated into this bizarre cannon fodder who eventually became an “excellent bus”?

He recalled that there was indeed a plot point where Chu Guannan went to the desert to film, mainly to escape the cannon fodder husband and find some peace. Currently, the cannon fodder was at the center of a massive scandal.

He searched the living room and found a phone on the sofa. Just as the book described, the case had a little bear pattern. He tried entering his own birthday as the passcode. Miraculously, it unlocked.

The Weibo icon had a “99+” notification. When An Rao opened the app, the influx of messages caused the phone to freeze. Once the DMs loaded, a tide of unbearable insults rushed in.

“You slut, you just want to be f***ed. You have a husband as good as Nannan and you still go out looking for cheap thrills? Disgusting. Why are you not dead yet?”

“In all my years, you are the first person to lower my bar for humanity. I am barfing. Hurry up and divorce Guannan, stop ruining him.”

“Married to the Film King and still cannot behave? You bully our Xibao every day. Do you not know how much the Film King likes Xibao? I am waiting for your funeral.”

This “Xibao” was the original novel’s protagonist, Lin Jingxi, a standard “Mary Sue” male lead favored by everyone.

But these DMs were just the tip of the iceberg. An Rao closed the messages, unable to watch. Even though the insults were not directed at him personally, the filth was staggering. The source of all this vitriol was a video that had surfaced recently, currently pinned to the “Hot Search” list for public shaming.

In the video, a man with a face identical to An Rao’s was kneeling naked on the floor, hands tied behind his back. An unidentified man gripped his chin, commanding: “Hurry up, say what you just said again.”

The man in the video, the An Rao lookalike, smiled dizzily, clearly drunk or drugged. He turned to the camera and said: “I like ‘big brother’s’ giant pepper. Chu Guannan you are just a useless piece of trash. You are probably impotent. Come in quickly, let that loser see what a real man looks like.”

An Rao silently closed the video, his temples throbbing with pain.

The original character had become a social pariah because of this video. Already destitute, he could not get any scripts or endorsements, making matters worse. Later, once the heat died down, he became so desperate for money he took any trashy role offered. To mock him, the industry created a “Golden Toilet Award,” and he became the first and last person to win “Best Actor” in that category. He was a complete laughingstock.

While he had entered this world and received a “cannon fodder” script that suited his desire to be low-profile, being flamed for a moral scandal was unacceptable. He opened the video again, replaying it dozens of times, pausing frame by frame.

Finally, he was 100% certain: the person in the video was not him. It was a Deepfake. Because the swapped face was merged with the original’s, it looked slightly uncanny, and many small facial details could not be perfectly replicated. But even if he tried to clarify, netizens would just say: “Yes, yes, AI technology is so advanced it can even replace voices now.”

Explanations are the most useless form of counterattack in the world.

He searched online for a while and found a “computer god” content creator who seemed reliable, intending to ask him to teach him AI face-swapping techniques.

The “god” replied: “Sure. 100,000 yuan.”

An Rao opened his mobile wallet. Balance: 66.72 yuan.

The man was an entertainer, yet he was poorer than an elementary schooler.

An Rao: “Can we negotiate the price?”

One minute, ten minutes, half an hour passed. The “god” did not reply. An Rao thought for a bit and asked: “Or maybe installments?”

A red exclamation mark appeared, followed by a system notification: “The recipient is no longer your friend and cannot receive your message.”

Fine. If you want something done, do it yourself. First, find a computer.

He stood up and looked around. The house was large, a 300-square-meter flat with a small second floor. Chu Guannan had gone upstairs after his shower and was likely asleep. An Rao stepped lightly up the stairs. There was only one room, and the door was slightly ajar, as if intentionally left open for him.

Pushing the door open, he saw dappled moonlight reflecting through the windows onto a mound under the quilt. An Rao tiptoed over to observe the man. He was shirtless, half-covered by the blanket. One hand rested on his forehead, his sharp brows slightly furrowed, his breathing rhythmic.

Once sure Chu Guannan was sound asleep, An Rao began searching the room inch by inch. But after scouring the entire flat, he found no trace of a computer. Perhaps the man did not need one, or perhaps he was afraid of repeating previous scandals.

Without a computer, he would have to go to an internet cafe. But given the original character’s current reputation, he would probably be carried out on a stretcher if he showed his face. The priority was making money to buy a computer.

An Rao did not sleep all night, sitting on the sofa until dawn. As the sky grew light, footsteps sounded on the stairs. Chu Guannan, fastening his shirt buttons with one hand and carrying a suitcase with the other, came downstairs. Seeing An Rao, who looked as though he had sat there all night with faint dark circles, he ignored him completely. He grabbed his passport from the table, muttered a low “I am leaving,” and walked out.

An Rao looked up, watching the clock on the wall tick. His fingers lightly traced his knees. When the hand had made a full rotation, he suddenly stood up, put on a baseball cap, grabbed the keys, and went out.

When he returned, the 66.72 in his wallet had become 1.72.

He had bought Xuan paper, Chinese painting pigments, brushes, and a palette. He opened the fridge, looked at the ingredients, and after rummaging, pulled out a ham sausage. He took a bite, laid out the felt mat, secured the corners with paperweights, and set up his phone to record at the right angle.

The phone only captured his hands. His fingertips were pale and slender like jade sticks. He lightly pinched the brush, saturated it with Prussian blue and ink, pressed the tip down, and lifted it slightly as he stroked. The tip grazed the paper. Grass green blended into phthalocyanine blue as he moved from bottom to top. The entire process was as smooth as flowing water.

An Rao set the brush down and blew gently on the paper. A magnificent landscape of “Ten Thousand Miles of Mountains and Rivers” was revealed. Finally, he added a signature. Lacking a seal, he painted one himself.

When finished, he saved the video, edited it with music and text explaining the steps, created an account on a video site, and uploaded it. In just a few hours, the video surged onto the homepage recommendations. Views, likes, and tips skyrocketed. The comment count increased at a terrifying speed.

“You cannot achieve this without ten or more years of practice, right? But the hands look so young. Is he a university professor?”

“Wow, the calligraphy is great too! Flowing like dragons and snakes. The hands are beautiful! I want to see the artist!”

“Crying, I am a traditional painting major too. Give me ten more years and I might reach this level.”

“Sent a tip! Artist, please make more videos! I want to see flowers, birds, and insects!”

Two hundred, two-sixty, three-seventy…

An Rao watched the growing revenue. He calculated that if the momentum continued, two or three more videos would cover a decent laptop. Just as he was about to close the site to paint something else, a newly posted comment caught his eye:

“Wait, this signature… An Rao? Umm, is it the An Rao I am thinking of?”

“Impossible. Probably just a coincidence. Did you forget when An-Dui-Dui tried to fake a ‘Genius Artist’ persona and got exposed for using a ghostwriter? With a brain as empty as a goose feather, do you think he could paint this?”

An Rao tried to recall the original story. He remembered something like that happened. Back then, the original character’s reputation was already bad. To salvage his image, he posted a traditional painting on Weibo with the caption: “In a good mood today, just doodling.”

Initially, netizens thought that while his character was lacking, his artistic talent was commendable. However, the hand holding the brush in the photo was later outed as not belonging to An Rao. The attempt to build a persona backfired. The original An Rao truly had “great” luck.

An Rao washed his brushes and squeezed the bristles dry with paper, habitually trying to hang them up. His fingers met empty air. Oh, he forgot, he did not have enough money for a brush rack.

Seeing the comment section becoming more heated over the “An Rao” signature, many people flocked to An Rao’s Weibo to scold him, telling him to “leave the artists who contribute to the country alone.”

A moment later, An Rao was on the “Hot Search” list again: #Still Unrepentant, Second Attempt to Cling to National Essence. An Rao, Where is Your Bottom Line?#

A bunch of art students commented in tears:

“For goodness sake, do not let my supervisor block my graduation project because of this guy. Can you just leave the industry?”

“My supervisor already asked me to go to the studio. I am so unlucky.”

“Stop tagging art students. Our path is hard enough as it is.”

As An Rao was scrolling, his phone froze again as a call came in.

Caller ID: Zhang Ze’an.

An Rao remembered this man was his manager. Word had it he wanted to dump An Rao long ago and was plotting to trick him into breaking the contract to collect a massive penalty fee. An Rao composed himself and answered.

Before he could speak, the other side began shouting: “Stop pretending to be a f***ing artist! Delete that video now! I told you to stay quiet lately. If you keep going against me, you can get the hell out!”

This manager did not have much fame, but he certainly had a temper.

An Rao smiled, his eyes turning cold. “I will not delete it. You cannot get me scripts or endorsements. I have to find a way to make money. If I starve to death, you will not be the one burying me.”

Zhang Ze’an was so angry his head was buzzing. He wondered why this guy was suddenly so sharp-tongued. Previously, besides mindless babbling, he had not seen him do anything smart.

“There is a saying: you reap what you sow. You are not the only person I manage. Lin Jingxi is also under me. Why is he flooded with scripts and ads? Look for the reason within yourself. You do not have to delete it, but wait for the company’s lawyer letter.”

With that, he hung up.

Lin Jingxi again. An Rao rubbed his temples. Looking at the money was more comforting. Because of the signature, the revenue in the backend was starting to stall. An Rao thought for a moment.

He opened Weibo and posted a short update: “Live stream tonight at 7 PM. Everyone is welcome to come and watch.”

As soon as the post went live, the “anti-fans” reached an immediate climax.