The final semester of senior high school passed quickly for Wen Ying.
Time seemed to have an accelerator attached. In the blink of an eye, it was April. Wen Ying still ignored The Crown of Thorns. Song Fotxiang’s Private Elopement at Dawn sold like hot cakes. The copy of Searching for Yong numbered “No.600000” remained missing.
As for Xie Qian, he flew to the magic city twice midway. He settled the demolition compensation matter completely.
Xie Qian was still waiting for the DNA paternity test results. The overseas side asked Xie Qian to wait a few more days.
Xie Qian had nothing he could not endure.
Searching for Yong had been on the market for just over a month. According to the sales data from the magic city publisher, it should be time for a reprint in about half a month.
This was good news for Wen Ying.
Xie Qian had good news too. The drama Zhang Guangzhen wrote for Ji Xin would air the day after tomorrow. It had been promoted intensively on Oriental Channel for the past two days.
The drama was a serious one. The title was quite plain too. It was simply called Alley Folks.
This drama was produced by Ji Xin Film and Television Company. The producer’s name was Gong Sheng. Jiang Youjia was the supervisor.
Ji Xin was a medium-sized film and television company that was heading towards decline.
Gong Sheng was a completely unfamiliar name. He was not a big shot in the industry.
The leads in this drama were indeed seasoned actors with solid skills. But in terms of fame, they were just so-so.
As Xie Qian’s acquaintance in the capital, the industry bigwig Ran Zong, had evaluated, the most famous actor in the entire drama turned out to be Xu Mei.
Xu Mei had become famous through hype. In the public’s eyes, she had no acting skills. If a serious drama relied on Xu Mei to carry the lead, the audience had little expectation.
What Alley Folks should Xu Mei act in? She should stick to idol dramas.
Then, looking at the poster for Alley Folks, Xu Mei’s position was not even central… Eh, Xu Mei was not the female lead?
After watching the promo for Alley Folks, Cao Bo felt a mix of sourness in his heart.
She had wasted so much effort to jump ship to Ji Xin, yet she did not become the female lead. If she had known it would be like this, she might as well not have jumped ship.
Of course, Cao Bo could only grumble a few sentences in his heart. After all, once Xu Mei returned to the magic city, she blocked him directly. No matter whether Xu Mei was doing well or not, she clearly did not want to have anything to do with Cao Bo anymore.
Manager Guan laughed himself half to death. He used this matter to educate the company’s signed artists.
Begging and cheating to break the contract and jump ship, now it ended up like this.
After so long with no big moves, and finally a drama airing, but only as a supporting role. For an artist like Xu Mei who originally had no representative works, it was too easy to fade into obscurity!
Manager Guan’s gloating look was extremely ugly.
The company’s signed artists agreed with his words on the surface, but each had their own thoughts in mind.
Jumping ship had no good end?
Zhang Yangning had blown up after jumping ship.
Originally just the third runner-up in a talent show, now he was a creative singer who had firmly established himself in the music scene.
With works to back him up, Zhang Yangning was not afraid of fading at all. For singers, one hit song could sustain a lifetime.
Besides, Xu Mei was indeed playing a supporting role, but she had a drama airing on Oriental Channel in a couple of days. In a while, she had another drama on Hunan Provincial TV. No matter how one looked, she did not seem like someone about to fade.
Manager Guan claimed it was for the good of his company’s artists. For the new project The Crown of Thorns, he had not used any company-signed artists as the female lead either.
Manager Guan invested 20 million. The cost was too high. He did not dare let the company’s artists carry the lead. He said those signed by the company were all from singing competitions, with no acting skills.
This argument did not hold water at all.
Li Mengjiao had debuted from a singing talent show too. She acted in two hit dramas and became red to the point of purple!
Xu Mei was the same. She debuted in the same batch as Li Mengjiao from the talent show. So far, she had acted in three dramas.
As long as one could become famous, whether singer or actor did not matter at all.
Manager Guan only criticised everyone for poor acting skills. Normally, he did not spend money to send them to acting classes. They had no way to improve!
Manager Guan had wanted to use Xu Mei’s example to educate the company’s artists. Unexpectedly, it had the opposite effect. Several artists were now itching to jump ship while they still had some heat…
Ran Zong looked down on Ji Xin’s drama.
Cao Bo could not understand Ji Xin’s drama.
Manager Guan hoped Ji Xin’s drama would flop.
What these people thought could not hinder Xie Qian at all.
Because Alley Folks was about to premiere, Xie Qian’s conversations with Wen Ying these past two days all revolved around this drama.
Though the producer’s name was Gong Sheng and the supervisor was Jiang Youjia, from finding Zhang Guangzhen to draft the script, to pulling investments, to negotiating the broadcast with Oriental Channel, all of it could not do without Xie Qian’s lead.
Xie Qian had connected with bigwigs in the capital’s film and television circle. Though he did not have as deep qualifications as Yuan Fenghui, calling him half a professional was not an exaggeration.
Xie Qian and Wen Ying already had no barriers in communication. Now with a shared career field, common topics came effortlessly. Wen Ying had not gone to the test screening of Alley Folks in the magic city, but Xie Qian showed her the finalised script by Zhang Guangzhen. She already knew the whole story by heart. Comparing it to the trailer, she could not help saying two or three times in front of Xie Qian:
“I think this drama can win awards!”
Wen Ying still did not dare touch “serious dramas” to this day. She had no confidence in writing them well.
Zhang Guangzhen used to write only idol dramas too. But this person had been in the industry for years. His life experience and creative accumulation had all reached the level. This year, he created two serious dramas in one go. It made Wen Ying envious to no end.
Xie Qian told Wen Ying not to rush. He also asked how many materials she had recorded in her little notebook.
Wen Ying chuckled. She pulled a notebook from her desk drawer: “This is the third one!”
Because the college entrance exam was approaching, Wen Ying now only submitted one short story per month to Spark. She did not create long novels. She had not even started on the second book of the Nine Cauldrons series.
But this did not mean Wen Ying had stopped her creative path.
She was accumulating now.
Besides going to Deng Juan’s hometown during the New Year to chat with the villagers, Wen Ying now especially liked chatting with the vendors at the school gate, with taxi drivers… These “little people” she saw every day but always overlooked before let Wen Ying hear many stories for free.
Creation did not require experiencing everything personally. Cognition of the world could come from books or from others’ mouths.
Seeing Wen Ying’s proud posture with her head held high, Xie Qian smiled too: “When your material notes reach the thirtieth book, creating serious dramas should be no problem.”
Thirty books it was then. Wen Ying loved writing. She had strong subjective motivation for her writing career. She did not find it tiring at all.
Wen Ying was optimistic about Alley Folks. Li Mengjiao and the others were also very expectant. In their hearts, Xie Qian was like a god. Any TV drama produced by Xie Qian’s company would surely achieve good results.
But someone did not think so.
On the Xie family side, Xie Jinghu had been instilling in the family the idea of sacrificing a film company to temper Xie Qian.
Xie Qian buying land and encountering demolition was luck.
Xie Qian’s logistics company developing well was also just choosing the right industry.
Did Xie Qian, a high school student, still want to run a film company well?
Xie Jinghu sneered, “How is that possible!”
Zou Weijun did not argue with this mad dog. After her son took over Ji Xin, the first drama he invested in was about to air. Zou Weijun needed to hurry and finish the work at hand to free up time to chase the drama!
