Rebirth of the Best Actor

Rebirth of the Best Actor is an urban entertainment-industry web novel by Ge Shen, serialized on Qidian Chinese Network. It runs to roughly 400,000 characters, began serialization on Qidian in late 2014, and is complete, with the main text closing on an "Epilogue." The protagonist, Zhu Guofeng, dies and is reborn with a wealth of entertainment memories from a parallel world—songs, novels, and film and television works that do not exist in this world. With this "foreknowledge" advantage, he steadily establishes himself in the acting world. Reborn with him is a strange "Contract System": whenever he reaches a verbal or written agreement with anyone, the contract takes effect by force, and whoever breaks it must pay the price. Someone who borrows money and promises to repay in three days must repay even if it means selling everything; when a hater declares in an online post that if Zhu Guofeng wins the Chinese edition of the Rising-Star talent show he will livestream himself eating excrement, and Zhu wins the championship in one go, those words become a contract that must be fulfilled. The novel begins with Zhu Guofeng unable to afford his medical bills and moves through a smoking-cessation contract, ability exchanges, talent-show auditions, on-set filming, and a betting match over ball skills, unfolding a "best actor's growth story" in a light, humorous tone while also bringing out the competition, human relations, and traffic economy of the entertainment industry. In the synopsis the author calls it the growth story of a best actor and the chronicle of a madman; the overall tone leans toward power fantasy and comedy.