In front of an old apartment in Kowloon, a bus stopped at a roadside stop.

Lu Xinsheng struggled to squeeze out of the crowd, and his tie was already crooked to the side. Dressed in a suit and leather shoes, he didn't bother to tidy up his appearance, like a tired dog, and walked back to the apartment building silently with his briefcase.

Lu Xinsheng is 26 years old this year, and he looks dignified, and his height of 1.75 meters is already considered a high-altitude person in Hong Kong at this time. If there was one simple word to describe him, it would be: tall and handsome.

It's a pity that the word "rich" is missing, so that Lu Xinsheng doesn't even have a girlfriend now.

Born in the New Territories to mainlander parents who fled Hong Kong, Lo grew up in a squatter hut in the New Territories. Relying on diligence and talent, Lu Xinsheng's academic performance from childhood to adulthood was among the best, but in the end, he still failed to enter the university. Because his outstanding academic performance is only a general among the short, the further north the New Territories go, the worse the quality of teaching becomes, and it is far worse than that of the students in Hong Kong and Kowloon.

After failing the exam for three consecutive years, Lu Xinsheng finally accepted his fate, and at the age of 19, he came to Kowloon from the New Territories to work with 500 Hong Kong dollars given by his parents.

Porters, cleaners, salesmen, security guards...... Lu Xinsheng has done all kinds of work, and even went to Tseung Kwan O Film and Television City to be a role actor for a few months.

After seven years in Kowloon, Lu Xinsheng has become a sales manager of a telecommunications company, and he is also in charge of a sales team, with an income of at least 8,000 Hong Kong dollars per month plus commissions, and sometimes he can break 10,000 yuan if he is lucky.

At this time, the income of ordinary white-collar workers in Hong Kong is about 6,000 a month. Lu Xinsheng is considered a high-income group, but he is more tired than when he first came to Kowloon.

I get up at dawn in the morning to squeeze the bus, and sometimes I can't even eat lunch after a busy day. Then drag the tired body home from work, eat and sleep and wait for the next day to come.

"Ah Sheng, I'm just coming back." As soon as he walked into the rental room of the apartment, someone greeted him.

Lu Xinsheng nodded and replied: "There was something wrong with the list, I went to deal with it, and I came back a little late." ”

As soon as I stepped through the door, a strange smell mixed with sweat, foot odor, and mildew entered my nostrils. Lu Xinsheng didn't frown. He had become accustomed to this, and carefully took off his suit and hung it up, replacing it with a shabby coat.

This rental is small. At most, it is only about ten square meters, but it is densely packed with 9 tenants. Each bed has three tiers, each bunk is only slightly wider than a person, and all are enclosed with barbed wire. It's like a cage for a dog. Man lives in a cage.

This kind of apartment rental house is figuratively called "cage house", and the people who live in it are "cage people".

No way, Hong Kong has limited land, and the rent is too expensive. In comparison, the cramped low-rent housing provided by Tseung Kwan O Film and Television City to contracted actors is simply a paradise.

Lu Xinsheng worked overtime today, came back from dinner, and chatted with his cage friends. I took out an English version of a marketing book and looked at it.

In the dim light, several other cage friends in the same room. or get together to play cards and gamble, or nest in a cage to read martial arts novels, while Lu Xinsheng is seriously taking notes in the book.

At first, the other cage friends would laugh at him, but over time, everyone got used to it.

In this apartment, no one knows how much money Lu Xinsheng can make in a month, only that this beautiful boy is very thrifty, in addition to buying books and spending money, a pair of socks have to be sewn and mended many times before being thrown away.

Before I knew it, it was already past 11 o'clock, and the cage friends in the house were basically asleep, so Lu Xinsheng rubbed his sour glasses and closed the book, and locked himself in the iron cage to sleep.

In the dark, Lu Xinsheng thought in his heart: 80,000 yuan has been saved in the bank account, and the year-end bonus will be issued in another month, and there should be almost 100,000 deposits by then, and he can take out a loan to buy a good house in Kowloon, and it is time to bring his parents to Kowloon to enjoy happiness.

When the alarm went off, it was already the next morning.

Lu Xinsheng got up like a machine, washed and dressed, locked his iron cage, and rushed out of the apartment door with his briefcase.

The whole morning was spent in meetings and phone calls, and in the middle of the way, Lu Xinsheng was called by the supervisor and scolded, and then he went back and reprimanded the team members who made mistakes.

Lunch was eaten at a food stall on the back street, and Lu Xinsheng had just taken two bites of rice when he saw a beautiful woman coming over and asking, "No one is sitting here, right?" ”

"No one, just sit down." Lu Xinsheng didn't dare to raise his head when he spoke. He knew the beautiful woman in front of him, she was an employee of the company downstairs, and I heard that she was a high-achieving student who came back from England, and it was rumored that she was the daughter of the boss of the company downstairs.

The reason why Lu Xinsheng knew so clearly was because he was fascinated by this woman when he saw it for the first time, and he quietly inquired for a long time before asking about the other party's situation, and then there was no next move.

Lu Xinsheng has low self-esteem, the other party's appearance and knowledge are all first-class, how can he be worthy of a grassroots who lives in a cage house? Every time they met by chance, Lu Xinsheng only dared to pay attention silently, and he didn't even have the courage to talk to the other party.

The beautiful woman sat down opposite Lu Xinsheng, eating very ordinary egg fried rice, but Lu Xinsheng felt that her eating posture was very elegant, and she had a beautiful temperament in her gestures.

When Lu Xinsheng was doing sales, he had already trained his face thicker than the city wall, but at this time, when he was eating at the same table with his crush, his heart was beating faster like an innocent teenager.

Being able to insist on reading industry monographs every day in the cage house proves that Lu Xinsheng is a person who is unwilling to be mediocre, and the impulse in his heart is getting stronger and stronger at this time, and he finally can't help but talk to him.

Just before he could speak, a beeping sound suddenly sounded in the other party's bag, and the beauty took out a mobile phone from the bag and said while eating: "Hey, Dad, I'm eating...... Heck, you don't care where I eat, I'll be back to the company in a moment anyway. Well, that's it, hang. ”

The words that had already reached his mouth were swallowed back into his stomach by Lu Xinsheng. The appearance of the mobile phone reminded him of the distance between the two again.

Lu Xinsheng, a sales manager at a telecommunications company, knew the mobile phone very well, and the purchase price alone was equivalent to a quarter of his savings.

The beauty seems to be bored eating. I dialed in casually and said, "Hey, Annie." Are you free on Friday? I got two tickets for the screening of "Truman's World...... What, no time? You're going to be with your boyfriend...... Alright then, I'll find someone else, bye-bye. ”

The beauty continued to dial the phone: "Brother, accompany me to the movies on Friday, don't say no...... What, you asked Michael to accompany me? I annoyed him. Hang up! ”

"Alas!" The beauty sighed softly, put the phone back in her bag and continued to eat.

Lu Xinsheng saw his sweetheart's lonely expression, and said with fascination: "Miss Chen." I'm free on Friday. ”

"What?" The beauty looked at Lu Xinsheng in surprise.

Lu Xinsheng swallowed his saliva and said: "I am a fan of director Kang Jianfei, and I have never gotten a ticket for "Truman's World". If Miss Chen doesn't mind, we can go and see it together. ”

The beautiful fox asked suspiciously, "How do you know that my surname is Chen?" ”

Lu Xinsheng explained: "I work at the company upstairs from you, and I often meet in the elevator. Once I heard someone call you Miss Chen. ”

"Oh. No wonder I think you're a little familiar. The beautiful woman believed him, took out two movie tickets and said, "Since you like it, then the movie ticket will be given to you." ”

The beauty is obviously very educated, and she eats no egg fried rice before leaving. Lu Xinsheng looked at the two movie tickets in his hand and cried and laughed, his purpose was to pursue his sweetheart, but now the other party gave him all the movie tickets, there is a fart!

Friday is just around the corner. Lu Xinsheng explained the work in hand early, and rushed to the Yau Ma Tei Cinema after getting off work and eating.

Today is the day of the premiere of "Truman's World". The premiere was held at the Taiping Cinema on Hong Kong Island, with Yau Ma Tei Cinema being one of the screenings.

This is the first time Lu Xinsheng has entered the cinema since he went to Kowloon, and he was reluctant to spend money before.

The screening hall was full, but the seat next to Lu Xinsheng was always empty. If he sells the remaining movie ticket, he can at least sell it for hundreds of dollars a scalper, but for some reason, Lu Xinsheng, who has always been thrifty, finally became willful and would rather waste this movie ticket.

The movie began to show, and Lu Xinsheng looked at the empty seat next to him, where there seemed to be a peerless beauty, who was his fantasy girlfriend.

At the beginning of the film, the male protagonist Truman makes all kinds of exaggerated expressions in front of the mirror, and then he goes out to work, encountering all kinds of funny things along the way.

Leung Ka-fai's performance was free, and he was crazy when he was crazy, and bursts of laughter erupted from time to time in the screening room.

Lu Xinsheng felt that something was wrong, in less than 10 minutes of the film, there were several TV screen-like frames in a row, and then the abrupt depressing atmosphere and music seemed to be hinting at something by the director.

As the plot progresses, the truth is finally revealed.

It turned out that the actor was an orphan who was adopted by the program team since he was a child, and he appeared on TV as soon as he was born. From learning to walk and talk, to marrying a wife and having children, every moment was recorded by the camera, and it was broadcast non-stop 24 hours a day. Only when the male protagonist has sex, takes a bath, goes to the toilet, etc., the director will arrange to play the advertisement.

The actor's life is arranged, and as soon as he showed his yearning for the outside world in his childhood, the director arranged for his father to die in the sea. He watched his father be swept away by the shipwreck, and from then on he was terrified at the sight of water, and his legs trembled when he came to the beach.

When he was in college, he fell in love with a girl. The director thinks that love is always undesirable, and deliberately separates them for the sake of the show, and then arranges the heroine to be his wife.

One qiē and one qiē are all walking according to the script, and the actor Truman does not have any right to choose. His family, his neighbors, his colleagues, his best friends...... All the people who appeared around him were actors, everyone was cheating on him, and he could only live his life step by step.

Unconsciously, Lu Xinsheng's full attention was on the big screen, praying that the actor could break through the encirclement and get a free new life. He felt that it was another self, going to work and leaving work repeatedly, living in a huge invisible cage every day, living in a state that he hated very much, but had to obey.

When he saw the actor fighting unyieldingly in the wind and waves, Lu Xinsheng, who had never cried when he picked up food in the trash can, suddenly shed tears. His hands were tightly clenched into fists, and his heart was constantly cheering for the hero: Rush out, rush out!

Not only Lu Xinsheng, but also the other audiences in the screening hall were also driven by the final atmosphere rendering, looking forward to the final victory of the male protagonist.

The storm on the screen suddenly passed, the sun rose again in the clear blue sky, and the male protagonist surfaced from under the capsized ship, showing a bright and moving smile to the camera.

"Woo!"

The audience cheered, followed by chaotic and loud applause, and everyone celebrated the victory of the male lead.

Suddenly, all the sounds stopped abruptly, and the hero stopped at sea level in a boat, and he stood up and touched the blue sky - it was a wall.

Lu Xinsheng looked at the big screen dumbfounded, the transformation of the plot was too unexpected, and the moral behind the wall blocked Lu Xinsheng's heart, and then experienced a deep helplessness.

The final ending of the movie is a happy ending, which more or less relieves the depression of the film's theme and allows the audience to see good hope.

Lu Xinsheng walked out of the movie theater in silence, thinking about his current state of existence and his unpredictable future. He decided that he must chase the girl in the company downstairs, whether she is a returnee from studying abroad or the boss's daughter. Even if there was a wall on the other side of the sea, he would try to rush out.

There are some things that may not succeed if you try to do them, but if you don't dare to try them, you will never succeed.

Lu Xinsheng is familiar with Kang Jianfei's name, but he has never seen any movies he made, only regards his legendary experience as an inspiration, and envy his beauty and beauty.

As for watching movies, Lu Xinsheng thinks that it is a waste of money and time, but after watching "Truman's World", he has another gain, just like someone in the dark pointed him in the direction.

Kang Jianfei would never have imagined that this was an inspirational film.

But in any case, he has one more die-hard movie fan. (To be continued......)

PS: Don't complain about this chapter of water, I deleted what I wrote before, and I wanted to try it from a different angle, but I wrote it in the middle of the night.