When Zhen Wei was twenty-two years old, he joined a company.
He didn't know that this would be twenty-three years.
There is a kind of person in the company called a "licker". They applaud during meetings, quote their leaders when reporting, and look into their leaders' eyes when speaking. They are alive and well. The other kind of people don't know how to lick, or don't want to lick, and they walk very fast.
Zhen Wei learned to lick. He learned it from Little Tongue, from the Bearded Monster, and from the Patriarch. He became the first of the "Four Licking Saints", became Mr. Wang's secretary, and became the best actor in the company.
But he suffered from insomnia for twenty years. I wake up at three o'clock in the morning every day, look at the ceiling, and ask myself: Who is that person in the mirror?
He had seen Zheng Yi, a non-licker, come and go. He's seen little tongues - licking for a lifetime and finally saying "I don't know who I am". He had seen Li Xiang - there was light in his eyes, but the light went out. He had seen Wu Tingting - she lived the longest without licking anything.
He licked for twenty-three years. Licking away innocence, licking away friends, licking away myself. But at the end of the licking, he discovered one thing: licking is not the purpose, living is. To live is to live.
This is a novel about "acting". At the end of the performance, you thought you were playing someone else, but in fact you were playing yourself. The better you act, the further away you are from yourself. When you can act to the point where everyone believes it to be true, you are——
Forever movie king.
