Note: For those who get confused about why I use Boss Jiang and Mr. Jiang inconsistently, it’s because the author uses Jiang Zong (Mr. Jiang, President Jiang, Boss Jiang) and Jiang Da Lao (Mr. Jiang, Boss Jiang), I use Mr. Jiang when they use Jiang Zong, and Boss Jiang when they use Jiang Da Lao. But after rereading everything, I feel a sense of disconnect whenever it abruptly changes, especially if the POV remains on YZ’s. I decided to use Boss Jiang consistently when it is YZ’s POV. Anyway, he was the only one who used Da Lao when he addressed JTY in his mind. That’s all. Thank you for reading this segue. Enjoy the chapter!
For some reason, after acknowledging Boss Jiang’s ownership, Ye Zhou always felt that Boss Jiang seemed a little off.
However, if you asked him to specify what exactly was off, Ye Zhou wouldn’t be able to articulate it. He only vaguely felt that Boss Jiang’s attitude towards him seemed to have…improved compared to before?
Without overthinking it, after returning home, the two ate dinner together and watched a movie in the living room. The film was chosen by Boss Jiang, who usually had little interest in such things.
At first, Ye Zhou was quite excited and eagerly wanted to see Boss Jiang’s taste in films. A meticulous man like Boss Jiang should enjoy watching more serious, rational, and meaningful works, right?
Probably due to habits cultivated in his past life, Ye Zhou always liked to have pen and paper ready when watching movies. It wasn’t that he necessarily needed to take notes, rather it had become a habit to casually write and sketch while watching. Sometimes after watching an entire film, even Ye Zhou himself might not be able to decipher his scribblings.
This time was no different. While Mr. Jiang chose a movie, Ye Zhou went to his room to grab some paper and a pen. When he excitedly returned, he discovered…
Boss Jiang picked a romance film?
Ye Zhou’s smile froze for a second before quickly turning back to normal. What was wrong with a romance film? Romance films were great too. Most were shot in delicate, romantic styles with much to be learned!
It must be mentioned that Boss Jiang indeed had excellent taste. The movie was a work by a renowned director in the 1980s. Whether it was the cinematography, visuals, or the actors’ performances, everything was highly compelling.
Initially, Ye Zhou was somewhat absent-minded, but good works never lacked appeal. In just a few minutes, his attention was completely captured by the screen.
Staring fixedly at the screen without blinking, his hands didn’t idle either as he wrote and sketched on paper, not stopping for a moment.
Completely engrossed, Ye Zhou obviously didn’t notice that several times when the atmosphere was just right, Boss Jiang turned to look at him, intending to reach for his hand, only to be ruthlessly rejected by his furious scribbling.
In the entire two-and-a-half-hour film, hyperactive Ye Zhou didn’t leave Boss Jiang a single chance.
When the film ended, and the ending theme song started playing, Ye Zhou shook his somewhat sore hands and sincerely admired Boss Jiang, “The movie you chose was so good, Jiang-ge! I haven’t been so focused on watching a movie in a long time!”
“……” Boss Jiang silently put the hand that Ye Zhou had accidentally poked red marks into his pocket, his expression calm as he said, “That’s good if you liked it.”
Glancing at the clock on the wall, Jiang Tingyuan deeply gazed at Ye Zhou, but the meaning in his eyes went unnoticed by Ye Zhou, who was still immersed in the afterglow of watching a great film.
By the time Ye Zhou realized it, all that awaited him was the glass of freshly squeezed vegetable juice on the table, with a layer of dark green foam still floating on top.
Ye Zhou: “……?”
Did he do something wrong? Why should he endure torture that he should not endure at this age?!
In fact, Boss Jiang really couldn’t cook at all, and the only meal substitute drink he knew how to make was vegetable juice. It could be said that Boss Jiang was a man who put all his culinary talent into vegetable juice.
Under Boss Jiang’s calm gaze, Ye Zhou held his breath and finished the vegetable juice in two gulps, drinking so quickly that he even let out a small vegetable-flavored burp.
Ye Zhou washed the cup, covered his mouth, and waved good night to Boss Jiang in a muffled voice, then jogged back to his room.
After showering, he brushed his teeth several times before finally feeling like the lingering vegetable aroma in his mouth had disappeared.
Ye Zhou opened his laptop as he dried his hair, preparing to organize some of the inspiration he obtained while watching the movie and write a review.
This was also a habit Ye Zhou developed in his previous life – no matter how good or bad the movie was, he would always write a review. However, these reviews were not published to the public and were only kept for his own reference later on.
After blow-drying his hair and sitting in front of the computer, he opened his email to find it stuffed with unread messages.
Aside from the spam, congratulatory messages, and actor self-recommendations, there were also some interesting things among them.
For example, this one.
Aside from the “I’m sorry” in the subject line, there was also a long string of exclamation points, instantly making it stand out.
Ye Zhou opened it and found it was a rather sincere apology. The words were full of sincerity and fear, with the sender’s tone almost groveling in the dirt, humble beyond words.
Originally Ye Zhou was somewhat surprised, but after seeing the signature at the end of the email and thinking for a long time, he finally recalled the context.
Sender: Liu Yuanyuan
Ye Zhou remembered this name. Before shooting started for A Farce, there was an audition where Liu Yuanyuan was the first to participate. His looks weren’t outstanding, but his spirit was great. He was lively and loved to laugh, a very cheerful young man.
From his performance at the audition, it was evident Liu Yuanyuan’s acting was honed from drifting around sets, slowly cultivated bit by bit through practice and research.
What made Ye Zhou decide to cast him at the time was that he valued Liu Yuanyuan’s desperate and hardworking attitude. Therefore, despite his acting not being particularly remarkable, after discussing it with the assistant director, Ye Zhou still decided to give him a chance.
What Ye Zhou didn’t expect was that when the crew was about to start filming, Liu Yuanyuan suddenly called to viciously mock Ye Zhou before stating he wanted to terminate his contract. He would rather pay the penalty fee than work with an unscrupulous director of questionable character.
Ye Zhou had seen all kinds of fiends in the industry in his past life. With Liu Yuanyuan’s petty tricks, his intentions were obvious with just a few words.
When Liu Yuanyuan proposed terminating the contract, Ye Zhou wasn’t angry. After all, withdrawing at that time was reasonable for self-preservation.
Stepping on people while praising others was common in the industry, but intelligent people wouldn’t be so blunt about severing ties.
What truly angered Ye Zhou was that later, when Wang Hong intensified his smear campaign against him on Weibo, Liu Yuanyuan, the actor he once wanted to give a chance to, actually jumped in to kick a man when he was down.
This was no longer an issue of self-preservation but a problem of moral character.
As Ye Zhou looked at the email full of the most humble, apologetic words, begging for another chance, and recalled that arrogant phone call, he couldn’t help but laugh.
Without hesitation, he directly deleted it.
If Liu Yuanyuan had drawn a clear line after making that “ashamed to associate with him” remark, Ye Zhou might have thought a little better of him.
But with this kind of behavior, it was truly difficult to respect him.
After deleting the apology email, Ye Zhou continued organizing his inbox. Scrolling down, an inconspicuous email caught his eye, and he froze.
Opening it, from the information mentioned inside, Ye Zhou roughly determined the sender’s identity.
It seemed to be a senior that his original self knew from the film school. This senior was now a screenwriter and emailed over saying he had a script he’d been working on for a long time, wondering if Ye Zhou was interested in taking a look. At the end, there was also an attached document.
Ye Zhou didn’t have much impression of this senior’s name and didn’t find any useful information about him in the original’s memories either. Their relationship was probably not very close.
When the senior sent this email, he didn’t seem to hold out much hope either. It was more like trying his luck with Ye Zhou. Some parts of the language were quite chaotic. The attached document wasn’t even a complete script, either.
Rather than a script, it was more appropriate to call it a story outline. In total, it was only two to three thousand words and didn’t even take five minutes to read through.
At first, Ye Zhou didn’t take it seriously and only skimmed it perfunctorily. But the more he read, the brighter his eyes became as his expression also started changing.
How to put it… This outline was completely different in style from A Farce. If A Farce was a comedy, then this story was a thorough, outright tragedy.
In earlier years, there was a brief boom around this genre, but the glory days didn’t last long before the market eliminated them.
Aside from professional film critics and industry insiders, few people were willing to pay for these gloomy, depressing films anymore. Most people went to theaters to relax, not specifically to search for abuse.
Family-friendly, happy endings and all kinds of cool action blockbusters had become mainstream.
Tragedies were increasingly less well-received by the market. Smart directors and producers had learned to cater to the market – even if the core were still tragic, they would wrap the tragedy in thick layers.
These layers contained various genres like comedy, suspense, crime, action, etc. Compared to the overall dreary tone of a pure tragedy, this was undoubtedly more acceptable to both the market and viewers.
Aside from arthouse films aiming for awards without caring about the box office, there were hardly any directors still willing to shoot pure tragic films.
It wasn’t that tragic films had no audience – they did – but clearly, wanting to make money off such films was much harder compared to more easily accepted genres.
Unaccepted by market = no money = no investors willing to invest.
Some crews running on passion could barely even make it to theaters and inevitably had to disband for various reasons.
Even if a film managed to be released after overcoming difficulties, most would vanish among the vast sea of movies without making a splash.
Aside from famous big-name directors competing for awards whom people scrambled to fund, the chances of lesser-known directors attracting investors were extremely slim.
High-profile directors could not churn out many products as they focused on quality over quantity. To pursue excellence, some would go years without new work.
The saying “Ten years to sharpen a sword1“十年磨一剑” (shí nián mó yī jiàn) – “sharpening a sword for ten years.” meaning “perfecting one’s craft over many years of diligent effort and practice.”” wasn’t just an exaggeration but did reflect reality.
The position of the outline Ye Zhou saw now was very awkward. It was a good outline, but the issues were also obvious.
Small directors who were just starting out and were willing to run on passion couldn’t shoot it, directors with some fame didn’t want to make these thankless films, and truly established directors with money and ability looked down on it.
Closing the document, Ye Zhou heaved a long sigh.
He could almost imagine this senior taking the outline around the market and getting beaten bloody but still plugging away stubbornly.
His impression was that neither the original’s memories nor the novel’s plot ever mentioned this work, so it was either never filmed or made no waves if it was released.
Ye Zhou read the document again and again, opening and closing it repeatedly before finally clicking the reply button.
He emailed the senior back asking when he had time and whether they could meet up.
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