“Are you saying Jiang Yu is undergoing treatment at the hospital, and Zou Rong was taken away by the police?”
Ye Zhou’s voice was full of undisguised shock. His body unconsciously stood up from the chair due to the astonishment, and his hand holding the phone tightened involuntarily.
He vaguely remembered hearing the name Zou Rong somewhere, but upon further contemplation, he couldn’t recall where he had heard it or who Zou Rong was.
“Then… where is Cheng Ran now?” Unable to remember, Ye Zhou had to temporarily put Zou Rong aside and asked about the important matter first.
After some conversation on the other end of the phone, Ye Zhou hung up and fell into a daze for several tens of seconds.
Xu Cheng, Xu Wei, and He Feiyang, who were originally eating hotpot on the side, looked at each other before Xu Cheng finally spoke up, “Ye-ge, what’s going on?”
Ye Zhou just managed to snap out of it and tried to organize his thoughts. However, the situation was too complicated for him to come up with a proper description no matter how much he tried.
Grabbing his coat draped over the back of the chair, he said to the others while putting it on, “You guys go ahead and eat. I have some urgent matters to attend to. I’ll leave first, let’s meet up another day.”
Seeing this, He Feiyang quickly stood up, grabbed the car keys, and followed after Ye Zhou, shouting, “Ye-ge, where are you going in the middle of the night? I’ll drive you there!”
Ye Zhou didn’t have many close friends in this world, but He Feiyang, Xu Cheng, and the others who were the first to meet him were definitely at the top of the list.
Over the years, He Feiyang and Liu Zhao, who used to struggle as a little director and screenwriter fresh out of prison, had gained some fame and reputation in the industry with several works under their belts. They no longer had to worry about investments.
Xu Cheng’s eSports team, the Chenzhou Team, after unexpectedly winning the championship that year, did not decline as quickly as speculated by outsiders. On the contrary, they continued to excel. By now, the Chenzhou Team had won three championships and was the most acclaimed team to win each year.
As for Xu Wei, there was no need to elaborate. Her show, “Starlight Youth Development Program,” had reached its third season. The amateurs nurtured by her were not just a few, but dozens. Anyone who met her would politely address her as Sister Xu.
The three small teams no longer needed financial support from Ye Zhou, and Ye Zhou was no longer their angel investor. Despite the lack of a business relationship, their bond had not diminished over time. Instead, it had grown even stronger with each passing year.
Whenever Ye Zhou returned to China, the group would always gather together for a lively meal, almost becoming an unspoken agreement among them.
This time was no exception. After the Golden Lemon Awards, Ye Zhou had to rush to the suburbs of City D to meet a screenwriter before the following Monday, leaving a day specifically to gather with Xu Cheng and the others.
Unexpectedly, just as the hotpot started boiling, Ye Zhou had barely taken a bite of his food when something happened to this world’s protagonist gong and shou.
He Feiyang drove Ye Zhou to the City Public Security Bureau. As he opened the car door, Ye Zhou said to He Feiyang, “It’s fine. I can handle things here on my own. You should go back quickly so they won’t get anxious.”
Worried that something had happened to Ye Zhou and wanting to make sure he wouldn’t be at a disadvantage, He Feiyang tried to follow him inside but was stopped by Ye Zhou.
“It’s okay. Mr. Jiang is waiting for me inside. With him there, would I suffer any losses?”
With the friendship he had with Ye Zhou over the years, He Feiyang and the others knew about the relationship between Ye Zhou and Jiang Tingyuan. Hearing him say this, they immediately felt relieved.
Watching He Feiyang’s car disappear, Ye Zhou finally stepped into the entrance of the police station.
As soon as he entered, a young police officer in uniform asked, “Are you a family member of someone?”
“Uh…” Ye Zhou looked around but couldn’t find Mr. Jiang. After some thought, he said, “I’m a friend of Cheng Ran. Is he here?”
After he spoke, the young police officer motioned for him to follow and said, “Come with me.”
Ye Zhou followed the young police officer into a lounge. Before opening the door, the police officer said to Ye Zhou, “He just experienced a kidnapping, so his emotions might be unstable. Please comfort him, and if possible, take him for some psychological counseling.”
Hearing this, Ye Zhou suppressed his surprise, nodded in agreement, and then pushed open the door.
Inside the lounge, Cheng Ran was alone, looking extremely nervous. His eyes were swollen from crying, and he appeared extremely weary. In just one day, he seemed like a different person compared to the one at the awards ceremony.
As if hearing movement outside the door, Cheng Ran suddenly turned around like a startled deer. His body unconsciously recoiled a bit, but upon seeing that it was Ye Zhou at the door, his tense nerves finally relaxed.
Weakly flashing a smile, Cheng Ran’s voice hoarsely said, “Director Ye, why have you come…”
Seeing Cheng Ran in such a sorry state, Ye Zhou couldn’t help but sigh inwardly as he sat down on the chair beside him. “I heard you were in trouble, so I came to check on you.”
“Are you okay? Do you need me to take you to the hospital?”
“No, no need. I, I’m not injured.” Ye Zhou’s concern made Cheng Ran appear slightly better emotionally, no longer as listless as before. He shook his head, his voice filled with apology, “I’m sorry for making you worry.”
Ye Zhou shook his head. “It’s okay. We’ve worked together after all. I thought we could consider ourselves friends. No need to be so polite.”
Cheng Ran’s eyes brightened a bit at Ye Zhou’s words, and he looked at him with a hesitant expression.
After waiting for a while and seeing that Cheng Ran didn’t seem willing to speak, Ye Zhou decided not to ask and simply said, “The police told me that you can leave anytime if you’re feeling okay. Shall I call a car for you so you can go back to the hotel and rest?”
After a moment of hesitation, Cheng Ran nodded. “Okay.”
Seeing his agreement, Ye Zhou took out his phone to arrange a car for Cheng Ran. Once he escorted Cheng Ran to the taxi and noted down the license plate number, he felt a pat on his shoulder. Turning around, he saw Jiang Tingyuan had appeared behind him at some point.
“Hey, Jiang-ge, have you finished handling things on your end?” Ye Zhou held Jiang Tingyuan’s hand and asked as they turned towards the car.
Jiang Tingyuan nodded, straightened Ye Zhou’s clothes, and led him toward the car. The warm air inside the vehicle dissipated the night’s chill, causing Ye Zhou to sigh in comfort.
Jiang Tingyuan took out a sandwich and a bottle of milk from the car’s mini fridge and handed them to Ye Zhou. Ye Zhou, feeling hungry, tore open the packaging and started eating while asking, “What’s going on exactly, and what’s the situation with Jiang Yu over there?”
Seeing him eat hungrily, Jiang Tingyuan couldn’t bear to tell him just yet. He ruffled Ye Zhou’s hair, comforting him, “Eat first, we’ll talk after you finish.”
Ye Zhou wasn’t in a rush either, knowing that Jiang Tingyuan was right beside him. How could he not tell him the truth?
After finishing the sandwich and drinking the bottle of milk, Ye Zhou finally felt his grumbling stomach settle. Rubbing his belly, he said, “Alright, let’s get started!”
Jiang Tingyuan took a tissue and wiped the crumbs off Ye Zhou’s lips before speaking, “Zou Rong heard that Cheng Ran returned to the country today and planned a kidnapping, not expecting Jiang Yu to be there as well, so he ended up taking both of them.”
Even though he was prepared, Ye Zhou was still left dumbfounded, his face filled with confusion as he asked, “If they were going to kidnap anyone, shouldn’t they have taken Jiang Yu instead? Cheng Ran just came back to the country and doesn’t have much money. How did Jiang Yu become an incidental target?”
Jiang Tingyuan explained, “Zou Rong is Cheng Ran’s half-brother from a different mother. He has impure intentions towards him, so he kidnapped Cheng Ran not for money.”
Jiang Tingyuan didn’t elaborate on the reasons, but Ye Zhou, based on his fragmented words, recalled Zou Rong’s identity and the plotline of this character in the book.
In the book, the protagonist faced Zou Rong, his half-brother from a different mother, who held unusual feelings for him. Following the original storyline, Zou Rong committed many heinous acts towards Cheng Ran, playing a role in the original owner’s death and causing a car accident that injured Jiang Tingyuan, the main villain. After clearing obstacles for Jiang Yu and Cheng Ran, Zou Rong was eventually sent to prison by Cheng Ran himself.
Thinking about these plotlines, Ye Zhou furrowed his brow. Despite knowing that the storyline had changed, recalling Zou Rong’s past actions still made him somewhat nervous.
“Has Zou Rong been caught now?”
Sensing his unease, Jiang Tingyuan squeezed his hand tightly, offering silent comfort.
“He has been caught. Jiang Yu is severely injured, even if he survives, he will be disabled. The nature of this incident is very serious. Jiang Changsong has already called in a lawyer, and he will face a severe sentence.”
It wasn’t until several days later that Ye Zhou understood what Jiang Tingyuan meant by saying that Jiang Yu would be disabled.
Zou Rong had shown no mercy in his actions. Jiang Yu’s lower body had not only been completely severed but also turned into minced meat. Although he was saved, the rest of his life would likely be spent dependent on catheters and urine bags.
The physical injuries were secondary. The most significant impact was on a mental level. Following this incident, Jiang Yu’s mental state became extremely unstable, oscillating between moments of clarity and madness.
Jiang Changsong’s new wife cried her heart out for Jiang Yu, her own son. However, her tears could not restore her son’s health.
While one might sympathize with a beautiful woman’s tears, too many tears would inevitably become unbearable.
Father Jiang was never a sentimental person. Dealing with a son who had gone from a troublesome child to insane was already distressing enough. Returning home to a wife’s mournful face only added to his burden. Not even half a month had passed before Father Jiang’s frequency of returning home grew increasingly scarce.
Father Jiang was already in his sixties, and although he had more than one illegitimate child apart from Jiang Yu, ever since Jiang Yu became disabled, he completely stopped caring about such matters. In order to ensure a peaceful retirement in his later years, Father Jiang publicly declared his will in front of all family members, stating that upon his passing, all his assets would be handed over to his eldest son, Jiang Tingyuan.
His wife was already depressed due to her son’s situation. Upon hearing about Father Jiang’s will, she was so infuriated that she remained bedridden. Initially, they thought it was just an acute illness that would soon pass, but it turned out to be more serious, and she remained ill in bed ever since.
Despite claiming to be concerned for her, Father Jiang started engaging in extramarital affairs once again, surrounded by numerous women. The Jiang family was shrouded in gloom, and the Zou family was no better off. The kidnapping demanding a sky-high ransom that resulted in the victim being left disabled was deemed extremely heinous. Zou Rong received a suspended death sentence in the first trial, but after an unsuccessful appeal, he was resentenced to immediate execution by the second trial.
It was said that Zou Rong’s father and Cheng Ran’s mother begged Cheng Ran to write a forgiveness letter with tears in their eyes. However, even after several months of searching, they couldn’t find Cheng Ran. He never showed up until the day Zou Rong was executed.
Where did Cheng Ran go?
Ye Zhou knew about this. After the kidnapping incident, it seemed like Cheng Ran had been deeply affected psychologically. Ye Zhou suggested he go abroad to clear his mind and also provided Cheng Ran with contact information for a psychologist as well as a few overseas directors he had met over the years. He guessed that Cheng Ran was currently secluded overseas filming a movie, having successfully impressed a famous foreign director during an audition.
Ye Zhou knew, but he chose not to speak because he felt that this ending was quite satisfactory. Although the protagonist Jiang Yu’s collapse in the book threw everything into chaos, compared to the original plotline, Ye Zhou actually believed that this ending was as good as it could get. Isn’t it?
Returning to Ye Zhou. Without the entanglement of the messy plotlines from the book, his life seemed more carefree and unrestrained than before. Following the success of “The Most Beautiful” and “Rewind,” Ye Zhou went on to film several works including “Elegance,” “Startling Feathers,” and “Inside the Game,” winning numerous awards both domestically and internationally. He launched the careers of many actors, producing two Best Actor awards and one Best Actress award.
Just when everyone thought he would continue establishing himself in the world of art films, gathering accolades one after another, and becoming an inevitable presence in the history of cinema, this stubborn director unexpectedly downplayed his achievements, casually transitioned, and started making commercial films once again.
What’s even more astonishing is that, despite not having made commercial films for many years, Ye Zhou seemed to naturally possess a keen sense of business acumen, accurately understanding what audiences entering the theaters wanted, desired, and pursued.
His first venture into commercial films after switching genres was “Giant Beasts,” which wildly dominated nearly sixty percent of the box office at the same time period and ultimately grossed a staggering 4.613 billion. Following that, films like “Thriller Circus 2,” “Ark,” and “Edge of Collapse” all reached the billion-dollar mark in box office earnings, with the most astounding being “Ark,” which claimed the highest box office of the year, raking in 6.632 billion.
With the resounding success of his commercial films, making a fortune in just a few years, Ye Zhou suddenly came up with a new idea. He publicly announced that he had been filming too much in the past couple of years and needed a break. Many industry colleagues rejoiced upon hearing that he planned to retire, but their joy was short-lived as they were astonished to find out that Ye Zhou, although not making movies himself, had founded a seedling cultivation studio named “Dream Maker.”
Initially, no one took his seemingly insignificant studio seriously, assuming Ye Zhou was just playing around. However, as a year passed, then two… and they realized that more and more talented individuals labeled with the Dream Maker tag were excelling in various fields such as the stage, laboratory, classroom, and even artificial intelligence, everything had already progressed toward an uncontrollable direction.
Actually, not even they had foreseen this turn of events, and even Ye Zhou himself had not anticipated that things would veer in such an unexpected direction. His original intention in establishing Dream Maker was quite simple – he felt he had earned too much money that he couldn’t spend it all, and instead of allowing it to sit meaninglessly in his bank account, he decided to use it to help those in need, considering it a good deed.
Many years later, on a sunny afternoon, after attending a medical conference where his name was fervently pronounced by the researchers on stage, Ye Zhou nudged Jiang Tingyuan sitting beside him.
As Mr. Jiang turned to look at him, Ye Zhou, in a voice only the two of them could hear, said, “Jiang-ge, do you know what my original wish was when I first came here?”
“What was it?”
Ye Zhou said expressionlessly, “To spend all your money.”
Jiang Tingyuan burst into laughter upon hearing this, playfully patting Ye Zhou’s head and stating logically, “That might prove to be a massive project.”
“Yeah, spending it all is impossible. I can never spend it all in this lifetime!”
“It’s okay, if you can’t spend it all in this lifetime, there’s always the next one.”
“I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Stop, stop it, isn’t that… isn’t that too embarrassing?”
“It’s fine.”
——End——
Raine: Whew! This is the longest project I translated and I am going to refrain from translating series more than 150 chapter for now. This is exhausting haha. Anyways, there are still 2 extra chapters before we wrap up this project.
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