Chapter 224

Wei Sheng had originally been a bit anxious, fearing that Director Zhang would run straight to Zhou Mingxing to complain about him pushing to change the script.

To his surprise, Director Zhang didn’t file a complaint with Old Zhou at all. Instead, as if his account had been hacked, he went out of his way to tag Wei Sheng on his main social media profile and showered him with praise.

He used phrases like “an actor with startling talent,” “brimming with brilliance,” and even “my only regret is not meeting an all-around actor like Wei Sheng sooner.” It was a non-stop barrage of flattery.

If he hadn’t been certain the account tagged was his own, Wei Sheng would have suspected Zhang Gaojun was praising some other actor who just happened to share his name.

It was absolutely ridiculous!

Wei Sheng was initially bewildered, wondering if the venerable Director Zhang had lost his mind.

However, he soon discovered the reason behind Director Zhang’s sudden, abnormal behavior.

Who could have guessed that the character background he had come up with on a whim for the second male lead would, by some stroke of luck, catch the eye of a business tycoon!

Wei Sheng quickly opened a search app. After reading through this Mr. Yang’s biography, he was left speechless.

He could swear on his future marriage that he really hadn’t intentionally modified the character’s backstory to suck up to this titan of industry!

The eerie part was that the suggestions he had casually tossed out to Director Zhang and the screenwriter regarding the second male lead’s backstory were identical to Mr. Yang’s actual rise to success.

Could it be true, as those masters claimed, that there really was something “supernatural” about him?

Mr. Yang and the film’s protagonist lived in the same era. After leaving his hometown with his first love, he had also started a small business, though theirs was in small commodity wholesaling. Just as the business was starting to take off, the two of them were scammed by a gang running a Badger Game^[1].

Not only were their years of savings wiped out, but they also owed a massive amount for goods. Suppliers were hounding them for debts and threatening to call the police.

Unfortunately, Mr. Yang’s first love didn’t have the luck of the film’s female lead. There was no handsome, wealthy male lead to come riding in on a golden cloud to save her in her hour of need.

After Mr. Yang was imprisoned, even though the case was settled, the creditors didn’t let his girlfriend off. While fleeing from debt collectors, she lost her way in a panic and was struck and killed instantly by a large truck.

No one came to save him, and there was no possibility of a “retrial.” Mr. Yang simply sat in prison for four years.

Then, a bizarre coincidence occurred.

Just like the plot Wei Sheng had designed for the male lead, Mr. Yang, who had originally been sentenced to seven years, unexpectedly befriended several elites from various industries while serving his time. Under Mr. Yang’s encouragement, the group worked hard on their rehabilitation.

Some wrote books and autobiographies, submitting them to magazines to use their personal experiences to warn others against breaking the law.

Others utilized their expertise in scientific research, improving production equipment and earning sentence reductions through inventions and patents.

Mr. Yang didn’t have a specific technical skill, but he had a good voice. Together with another cellmate who had studied singing, he organized a prison choir. They performed at every prison event and even staged several legal education skits. The promotional effect was excellent, and because of his outstanding performance, he received several sentence reductions.

Mr. Yang wasn’t the first among them to be released, but these brothers kept the promise they made in prison: whoever got out first would be responsible for picking up the brothers who followed.

By the time Mr. Yang was released, the brothers waiting for him were enough to fill two mahjong tables.

Before prison, Mr. Yang and his girlfriend had been running a small-time business.

After his release, with such a powerful network of connections, Mr. Yang’s business began to scale up. It happened to coincide with the years when the domestic real estate industry took off. Mr. Yang and his brothers started by contracting engineering projects and then moved on to acquiring land for their own developments. By the time domestic housing prices soared, the value of the land they had hoarded had increased tenfold!

After making his fortune, Mr. Yang returned to his hometown several times to pay his respects to his first love. He built a three-story villa for her parents to live in during their retirement and even bought a villa and a wedding car for her younger brother in the city.

Others said he was a man of integrity for buying a house and car for the family of a girlfriend who had passed away long ago without them ever being married. Only Mr. Yang knew that every girlfriend he had since, including his current wife, bore some resemblance to his first love.

Mr. Yang had overheard the script by chance during a dinner party. As luck would have it, one of the sponsors who joined the film later was actually one of Mr. Yang’s “cellmates” from back then.

When the old friends were chatting about the movie over dinner, the cellmate joked that he had originally joined because of Wei Sheng, the God of Wealth. However, after reading the plot summary, it felt more and more familiar. Hey, wasn’t this second male lead written exactly like his good brother, Mr. Yang?

Curious, Mr. Yang asked for the character profiles. When he saw the plot where the second male lead and the female lead miss each other for half their lives only to reunite when their hair is gray, he couldn’t help but feel a pang of emotion.

If he could, he would rather give up this fortune if it meant his first love could be alive and well. Even if they hadn’t seen each other for half a lifetime, he wished that she could be living healthily somewhere he couldn’t see, even if she had married another man.

At his age, he had long since moved past intense, heart-wrenching romance. His greatest wish was simply for the people he cared about to be alive and well in this world.

Except-

“What’s wrong with this director? Why only write half the story?”

“Didn’t the female lead divorce the male lead? They aren’t that old yet. They missed the first half of their lives, and they finally recognized each other with great difficulty. Why doesn’t the director say if they got back together?”

Mr. Yang was extremely dissatisfied with the open ending Director Zhang had the screenwriter design.

Furthermore, he decided to invest in this talented director so he could film a sequel!

Wei Sheng: “…”

What on earth was happening?

Had he just ruined Director Zhang’s “final masterpiece”?

“Isn’t it obvious? This Mr. Yang has incredible influence. One of his cellmates is a big shot in our film industry who controls at least a third of the movie theaters in the country!”

“Think about it, how could our Director Zhang dare to offend them? I heard that Mr. Yang asked that cellmate to act as a middleman and invited Director Zhang and our screenwriter to dinner. Word is that as soon as they got back, the screenwriter locked himself away to start working on a new script.”

“Whatever you do, don’t mention the words ‘final masterpiece’ in front of Director Zhang. The old man is probably still hiding at home sobbing. He promised this would be his retirement project, but before it’s even released, he’s had to slap his own face and prepare for a sequel. What a mess!” The male lead, Chu Bin, held his bowl and gnawed on a large chicken leg while warning Wei Sheng to stay out of Director Zhang’s line of fire lately.

Directors have pride too, right? Back when this movie was being greenlit and cast, word had already been sent out that this would be the final masterpiece of Zhang Gaojun’s directing career. And now?

He probably wouldn’t even have to wait for the movie’s release. As soon as the sequel was registered and filed, the marketing accounts would collectively release articles mocking Zhang Gaojun.

Looking at the wild mushroom braised chicken that Chu Bin had already half-finished, Wei Sheng thought for a moment and decided he should cook more delicious food lately to comfort Director Zhang’s heart, which was about to be wounded by the gossip media.

Zhang Gaojun had only managed to wail for a bit before his wife grabbed him by the ear and chased him back to the set to film.

His wife had been quite fierce, declaring: “What final masterpiece? How old are you that you’re already thinking about retiring to enjoy life? What about your daughter and son? What about the brothers and apprentices who follow you? Get moving, get back to work! While Mr. Yang and Mr. Gao are willing to back you, use the chance to train the younger generation!”

Being forced out to work by his wife at his age, Director Zhang was indeed quite pitiful.

But even more pitiful than Director Zhang was the film’s female lead, Zhen Yu. She was originally supposed to have “one man on each arm,” but after the script was changed, the affectionate male lead divorced her, and the devoted second male lead ran off to start a business with a bunch of cellmates…

If she weren’t afraid of offending the director, Zhen Yu really wanted to scream at Zhang Gaojun: “Why don’t you just delete my character entirely?”

How would Zhang Gaojun dare delete her? Mr. Yang himself had spoken; this movie needed a sequel, and the second installment had to give the female lead played by Zhen Yu a happy and fulfilling old age to make up for Mr. Yang’s guilt toward his first love.

The male lead, Chu Bin, comforted her: “Look on the bright side. Though you can’t have two men in your youth, at least you have a happy old age to look forward to! Not like me, I’m written out in the first movie.”

Anyone could guess that since Mr. Yang had projected himself into the character of Wei Sheng, he certainly wanted to “rekindle the old flame” with his first love in the second movie.

When that time came, one would be a divorcee and the other would be unmarried. Both would be successful members of society with more money than they could spend, and they wouldn’t have to worry about the Bride Price. If they didn’t have a grand reconciliation, would it even make sense?

Several people chatted about the plot settings for the second movie while eating hot pot.

Even though the final decision rested with Mr. Yang, it didn’t stop them from gossiping.

Unexpectedly, the dense Wei Sheng dealt them a heavy blow.

“Impossible! Don’t forget, Mr. Yang has a wife and children. If you were his wife and heard that your husband was not only unable to forget his first love but also specifically invested in a movie to let himself end up with her on screen, wouldn’t you be furious?”

Oh, right! They had almost forgotten Mr. Yang had a wife!

Well, since the two of them couldn’t get married, how was the sequel supposed to be filmed?

Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment.

Wei Sheng said quite bluntly, “Let Teacher Liu figure it out himself! Anyway, the scriptwriting fee from Mr. Yang didn’t go into our bank accounts, so why worry for him?”

Besides, Wei Sheng had spent two hours cooking personally to treat his colleagues to a meal, and it wasn’t just to gossip about Mr. Yang.

“I want to make a suggestion to the director. Since we’re filming on location in Nanjiang County and the county has been so supportive of our crew, we should repay them a little.”

“Isn’t Nanjiang County currently collaborating with our company to develop traditional Cast Iron Cutlery? I was thinking, why don’t we have some interaction with that in the movie?”

“How do you want to interact?” Zhen Yu suddenly had a bad premonition.

“Actually, it’s just changing one tiny little setting in the script. The male lead decides to stay in the country to explore the craft of traditional cast iron tools. Originally, he was motivated by an international competition, but I feel that’s not coherent enough.”

“So I thought, could we add a small segment? When the male lead and female lead meet, she has been swindled out of everything and wants to save up money to get the second male lead out of trouble, so she returns to her old trade. She sets up a stall in the wet market selling fishballs. The male lead discovers the Fish-killing knife she uses is different from the ones sold outside while buying fishballs at her stall, so he asks to borrow her knife to take a look.”

“Of course, to highlight the uniqueness of this knife, we can arrange a few domestic shots later on. For example, after the male lead and female lead fall in love, she makes fishball soup for him at home, and he helps her kill the fish and scrape the fish meat…”

This would tie the plot together so the transition wouldn’t be too abrupt.

However, while the script changes weren’t massive, the two leads…

Zhen Yu: “What? You want me to kill fish? And I have to cook for him?”

Chu Bin: “What? You want me to sell fish, and I have to eat her cooking?”

Wei Sheng: “…”

A new script where only the male and female leads suffered was finally achieved.

(End of Chapter)