C1 Part1

Parsed with an automated reader. The content accuracy is not guranteed.

Hello hello! Welcome to my new project, The Eye of the Storm by Tan Shi. If you’ve come here from NU, please make sure you read my project page for this book – it’ll explain a few things about chapter parts and what the ‘N’ means in front of the chapter number. Updates for this will be sporadic until I finish Lovely Allergen.

N – Chapter 1.1

By 10am, the topic of ‘Huang Qianshi drug usage’ had stayed first in the real time hot searches for a consecutive eight hours.

As state media broadcasted similar news in succession, the condemnation online towards Huang Qianshi only increased, a tremendous wave of voices sweeping across everything that had to do with him.

Huang Qianshi’s large advertisement poster for a designer watch brand was removed overnight from its place on a tall commercial building in Beijing’s 3rd Ring Road; dozens of businesses scrambled to be the first to separate themselves from Huang Qianshi as they declared the termination of their endorsement contracts with him; and even a popular variety show, meant to show Huang Qianshi in its next upcoming episode, announced in the early morning that the week’s episode was going to be delayed due to special circumstances.

Any business that had the slightest relationship to Huang Qianshi frantically rushed to clear itself, in an attempt to minimise its losses as much as possible.

The official Weibo account for the film A Choice into the Dark1 was also caught up in the siege of public opinions on Huang Qianshi’s Weibo account as he’d acted in it. The account had just uploaded its second trailer last night at 8pm, and the accompanying text for the video had even warmly said: “We invite you to witness this choice into the darkness.”

The comment sent to the top with the most amount of likes was: “No thanks, no thanks [bye]”, and a neat and orderly row of lit candle emojis followed below3. When looked at together, the comments appeared particularly mocking.

Luomeng Media — the film production company over ten million netizens had called ‘unlucky’ for being the film’s largest investor — was as silent as cicadas in winter, the entire company waiting for the newest orders from their senior management.

“He’s here, he’s here.” The sharp-eyed girl in charge of the front reception desk caught a glimpse of the figure that had flashed in front of the company doors. She hurriedly shoved the girl sitting next to her with an elbow, who then immediately threw down her phone. She had been scrolling through the heated debates on Weibo.

In response to the front doors slowly opening, the two receptionists stood up, well trained, and greeted, “President Cao.”

The person stepping through the automatic doors gave them a perfunctory ‘mn’. He was about twenty five, twenty six years old, and his hair had been blown into a bit of a mess from the wind. He wore a baggy dark blue hoodie and a black pair of ripped jeans, and the fickle air of a youth yet to settle down threaded through his footsteps. There wasn’t a single bit of him that looked like a ‘president’.

“Has Zeng Ran arrived yet?” Cao Ye walked over to them, swiping a finger on the iPad screen on the desk. He looked through the record of guests who had signed in that morning.

“He arrived half an hour ago,” one of the girls said. “He’s waiting for you in the conference room.”

“Good. What about Xu Anqiao?”

“He’s in there as well, he came over at 7am…”

“That’s fine then, they came quite promptly.” Cao Ye turned around to leave, and the two girls glanced at each other; they hadn’t had the chance to communicate with their eyes when they heard a smack, scaring them into trembling. Cao Ye had snapped back around, and a palm was lying heavily on the large marble front desk.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” He was taller than them by a head, and he leaned on his arm as he slightly bent over to look at them. “You look so sad, I even thought our company was about to go bankrupt when I first came in. Be a bit happier, hm?”

Stunned, the two girls immediately nodded their heads, hesitating.

Cao Ye still wasn’t finished, staring at them as he said, “Come, give me a smile.”

Both of them raised their heads. The look on Cao Ye’s face was half joking and half serious, and they couldn’t tell exactly what this young boss of theirs was feeling. One of them raised up the corners of her mouth, barely managing to give him a smiling face.

“You.” Cao Ye jerked his chin at the other girl, signalling her to also do it.

She too quickly forced a smile onto her face.

Only then did Cao Ye leave in satisfaction, throwing down a sentence as he left. “Now that’s much better.”

Cheng Duan, the director of Luomeng Media’s marketing department, was sitting on the edge of his desk in his office. He was reading the report his team had just sent him about the current state of public opinion, and his entire face was filled with anxiety. He’d just wanted to look up and sigh, when his eyes saw Cao Ye — he swiftly jogged up to him and said, “You’re finally here, you stay calm so well!”

“Didn’t the police report just come out?” Cao Ye didn’t stop walking, heading directly to the conference room. “How is it, have you announced that we’re reshooting with a new actor?”

“We’re about to, I’ve already had someone write it up last night. We’re just waiting on the official account to post it. Also, you want to have a look at this? It’s a report on public opinion, freshly released,” Cheng Duan said, lifting his phone to Cao Ye’s eyes.

Cao Ye waved it away, his voice lazy. “Too lazy to read. Just tell me.”

“It’s actually not that bad. Other than saying we were blind before, people are also saying it’s a good idea to reshoot with a new actor. A lot of people are also guessing which actor we’ll invite as a replacement… Ah yes, some dickhead also leaked our one billion RMB wager agreement, which was why a bunch of people were lighting candles for us.”

Hearing this, Cao Ye’s face faintly shifted, his eyebrows drawing together. “Who leaked it?”

“I’ve already asked some people to start digging into the source of the leak. No news yet.” Having worked with Cao Ye for two years, Cheng Duan was already very clear about his bottom line.

The two of them arrived at the conference room as they chatted.

They could feel the heavy, uncomfortable atmosphere in the conference room through the glass doors. It hadn’t even been an hour yet, but the ashtray on the table was already filled with several cigarette butts, overflowing with ash. The two men sitting inside were anxious, and when they saw Cao Ye coming in, they stood up immediately.

“You come in for the meeting too,” Cao Ye said to Cheng Duan as he pushed open the door to the conference room. His first footstep into the room hadn’t even landed yet when Xu Anqiao rushed over and grabbed his arm, pouring out his regret at his initial choices without holding anything back.

He said, “President Cao, blame all this on me, it was my fault for stubbornly insisting on Huang Qianshi for the character. I just thought Huang Qianshi was quite decent at acting, and the general audience also quite liked him — who would’ve thought something like this would happen after we finished filming the movie…”

Cao Ye’s head was starting to hurt from all his blathering, but he still patiently stopped walking and stood at the entrance to listen to Xu Anqiao’s entire mental journey. When Xu Anqiao finally finished, he turned to look at him with a faint smile on his face and leisurely asked, “So does this mean Producer Xu is planning on making amends and will help me make up the remainder of my one billion RMB bet?”

His mouth halting, Xu Anqiao turned to look speechlessly at Cao Ye. He couldn’t see any annoyance on Cao Ye’s face, and the corners of his eyes seemed to slightly curl upwards with sly humour. Xu Anqiao scoffed, saying, “Don’t joke around, how could I make that up to you…”

Cao Ye chuckled, but his voice was blunt. “Then there’s no point in you talking about all those things.” He pulled out his arm from Xu Anqiao’s hand and walked to the round conference table, spinning a chair half way around before sitting into it. “It’s fine. If you had the ability to see the future, why be a producer? You should go to Mount Wutai and become a fortune teller.” And then, he raised his head. Zeng Ran also seemed despondent, looking as though he wanted to speak to him but hesitating to do so. Cao Ye pointed at him and warned, “No complaining.”

Zeng Ran was the director for A Choice into the Dark. He’d started with underground films, and then he spontaneously gained a bit of fame a few years ago after releasing a cult film. Within the small circle of underground productions, fans of his works started to tout him as the Quentin Tarantino of the country’s new generation of directors — of course, being called that got him scolded more often than not. He was a quiet and dreary person of few words, all of his passion and enthusiasm seemingly released into his movies. Now, he slowly replied, “But all three offers Producer Xu sent out this morning have already been rejected…”

Cao Ye had been hungover all night yesterday, and after being urgently startled awake this morning by Cheng Duan’s phone call, his brain felt stiff and heavy, unable to turn. Reclined into his chair, he pulled over a box of cigarettes on the table and casually pulled one out without asking who it belonged to; he put it into his mouth, lifting his eyes to look at Zeng Ran when he heard what he’d said. Words coming out unclearly, he asked, “Huh? Who’d you invite?”

Xu Anqiao took his own lighter and leaned in to help Cao Ye light up his cigarette. “I’ve already asked everyone I could think of, but only three people have responded to me so far. All rejections.”

Cao Ye dragged deeply on the cigarette, and when he breathed out the smoke, he laughed and said, “Not a bad ratio. And here I thought you guys would’ve been busy cursing Huang Qianshi out. I didn’t expect you to have already sent out offers. Which three actors have sent back their rejections?”

“Let me talk about the one with the most amount of hope.” Pulling over a swivel chair to sit next to Cao Ye, Xu Anqiao reported the morning’s results to him. “Zhao Qian’s pretty interested, but his manager said he’s going to start filming a TV drama next week. It’ll be at least half a year before he finishes. We’re aiming for awards with Director Zeng’s film, so if we wait for Zhao Qian, we’ll only be able to submit the film for award ceremonies the year after next. Our strategy of award first, release second is very likely to be messed up if we wait for him.”

“Don’t wait for him,” Cao Ye straightforwardly said. “He’s not suitable for the role.”

“Aiyo, my dear ancestor.” Xu Anqiao could guess what Cao Ye was thinking just by looking at his determined attitude. He coaxed him like a small child. “You need to lower your expectations. Even though Zhao Qian acts mainly in TV dramas, he’s fairly well-known to the general population. He’s even a drama emperor. With his qualifications, he’s already one of our preferred candidates.”

With an utter lack of interest, Cao Ye asked, “Who else?”

“Yan Jia. He should be suitable, right? Just like Huang Qianshi, he’s a Hong Kong star and was even nominated last year for film emperor2. His age matches too… But his manager turned us down very thoroughly. No chance with him.”

“How’d he reject you?”

“They worded it quite tactfully, but the overall meaning was, Yan Jia has an endless supply of film offers these days, so he has no need to pick up these leftovers…”

Cao Ye sneered. “His manager wasn’t talking like that when they were fighting to get into Echoes.”

“I know, right,” Xu Anqiao helplessly agreed.

“And the last one? Didn’t you say you sent out three offers? Since you started with the one with the most amount of hope, then talk to me about the one with the least.”

“We offered the role to this actor simply just to try our luck. And as expected, we were turned down as well,” Xu Anqiao said. “Liang Sizhe.”

“Hah? Liang Sizhe?” Cao Ye laughed as soon as he heard. “You guys really dared to hope.” And then he paused, as if thinking of something, and raised an eyebrow faintly. “There’s nothing strange about him rejecting you. What Yan Jia said when declining is probably better used on him.”

“Or rather I should say, his manager Xu Yunchu rejected us,” Xu Anqiao added.

Cao Ye didn’t consider that worth mentioning. “Is there a difference?”

“There’s a massive difference.” Xu Anqiao slid his chair slightly closer to Cao Ye. “Everyone in the industry knows that even though Xu Yunchu is Liang Sizhe’s manager, she can’t actually make his decisions for him. I was thinking, what if we try to find a way to go around Xu Yunchu and send the script directly to Liang Sizhe? I hear he really cares about the script and character when choosing films — our character in the film could be considered fairly rare for what our country normally produces. Who’s to say he won’t be interested? It’s just that I’m not close to Liang Sizhe and he might not even look through it even if I sent it over. What if you…”

Cao Ye was already shaking his head and laughing before he finished. He flicked the ash off his cigarette and said, looking at Xu Anqiao, “Let me ask you something. If even Yan Jia asked why he should pick leftovers, then why would Liang Sizhe consider taking a supporting role — in a reshoot, no less — when he has so many film emperor awards?”

“You don’t know that for sure, he’s indebted to your father after all… If you communicated with him directly, I think he’ll still give you face and at least read the script, right? And then maybe…”

“Oh, so you wanted to use my father.” Cao Ye refused succinctly. “No way.”

Xu Anqiao still wanted to say something else, but he saw Cheng Duan, sitting across from him, shoot him a look. When he looked at Cao Ye again, he noticed the usual careless and idle air around him had receded a fair amount — he realised he might have said something wrong, and so sensibly shut up.

For a moment, the room fell into silence. Cheng Duan was just about to open his mouth to ease the atmosphere when Cao Ye spoke. Compared to how lazily he’d spoken just earlier, it was as though he’d turned into another person. “Producer Xu, I think there might be a bit of misunderstanding with you. Liang Sizhe may owe my father a massive debt, but that has absolutely nothing to do with me.”

Xu Anqiao was clearly not used to Cao Ye speaking so seriously. He was first stunned, and then sweat started to appear on his nose as he silently cursed at himself for not being considerate. He was someone with years of experience in this industry and had started from being an actor’s assistant — he’d crawled his way up to his current position as a well-known producer, and he’d relied on nothing but his ability to read people’s faces and their moods. He hadn’t expected to stumble in front of this fearless, carefree son of the Cao family.

His scalp tingling, he was about to explain and smooth things over, but Cao Ye actually helped him step down from his awkward position. Cao Ye leaned his upper half forward, an elbow pressing into a thigh, and returned back to his previous careless attitude. “Besides, a celebrity as famous as him casually coming over to be a substitute for a supporting character without top billing — do you think he doesn’t have any pride?”

Xu Anqiao instantly went along with him, nodding his head in quickly. “True, true.”

Cao Ye went quiet, and then he turned his gaze to Zeng Ran across from him, who’d been silent the entire time. “Director Zeng, who did you have in mind?”

Zeng Ran was actually worrying about the reshoot, his head lowered and mind somewhat wandering. When he heard Cao Ye call out his name, he lifted his head blankly.

Cao Ye didn’t press him, patiently waiting for him to speak. He’d already seen the initial screening for A Choice into the Dark and had a decent impression of Zeng Ran.

Zeng Ran had gotten distracted during a very inopportune moment, as he was completely unaware of the layer of cold sweat that had grown and already dried off on Xu Anqiao’s body. He’d only hazily heard them mention Liang Sizhe and hadn’t really paid attention to the actual content of their conversation, and now, it wasn’t convenient for him to say his mind had been elsewhere.

Cao Ye simply thought he had someone in mind who he didn’t dare bring up, so he softened his voice and gently said to him, encouraging, “Director Zeng, please feel free to speak. I’ll do my best to help you.”

Rubbing his nose, Zeng Ran seemed to be a bit embarrassed, and he hesitated for a moment before he mumbled, “If I could get Liang Sizhe for the reshoot, there’d be nothing I want more.”

The corner of Xu Anqiao’s mouth spasmed, and he silently thought to himself that Director Zeng really didn’t know how to read the room — things had already been escalated to this point, and yet he still dared to mention Liang Sizhe. Cao Ye’s mood was likely to turn for the worse.

Except Cao Ye actually ended up laughing, shaking his head as he chuckled. He laughed for a good long while before he stopped, and he spoke again in that seemingly ridiculing voice. “Inviting Liang Sizhe to reshoot a supporting character role… Little Director Zeng, your minds really are good at dreaming.”

Liang Sizhe was the actor carefully cradled in the celebrated, famous director Cao Xiuyuan’s heart.

When he laughed, Zeng Ran followed along. What he’d just said was taken as a joke, spoken during a daydream.

After pulling over the ashtray and snuffing out his cigarette, Cao Ye stood up and stretched. “Let’s keep thinking about it, we’re not really in that much of a rush. Cheng Duan, tell everyone in the company to put their heads together and pick out a few possibilities.”

Cheng Duan replied, “Will do.”

“I’ll leave this conference room to you guys for today, I need to meet with the other investors. They might dig out my family’s ancestral grave if I don’t go. Little Director Zeng, you should come along with me since the meeting will be about the reshoot. You know more about it than I do.”

“Oh, okay.” Zeng Ran also stood up, and he followed Cao Ye out of the room.

“Ah yes, Cheng Duan. When it comes to Huang Qianshi,” Cao Ye was just about to close the door when he stuck his head back in, “have the legal team go on hard as him as possible. He should pay however much he needs to pay in compensation. Don’t go softly on him.”

“Understood.” Cheng Duan gestured to him in understanding. “I know what to do.”

As soon as Cao Ye left, Xu Anqiao let out a sigh in relief and lowered his voice to curiously ask Cheng Duan, “What was that? I got so scared.”

Cheng Duan smiled at him. “You couldn’t tell? You touched a scale4.”

“What scale? Young President Cao’s always chuckling and laughing, I can’t see what scales he would have.”

“Really? But on his entire body, he only has two untouchable scales: Cao Xiuyuan and Liang Sizhe. And you touched both of them.”

Xu Anqiao’s curious heart was suddenly awoken. “Young President Cao has a history with Liang Sizhe? They’ve worked together before?”

“Even if you ask me, I’m not sure either. They haven’t worked together before from what I know, but as for their history, I can only guess. Don’t worry too much about it, you know how Cao Ye is — he’s going to forget it soon enough. He won’t hold it against you.”

Xu Anqiao nodded, hearing Cheng Duan’s words; he slightly relaxed and didn’t keep speaking.

“Let’s do some work first.” Cheng Duan grabbed his phone. “I’ll call a few people in, and we can talk about it over the morning.”

Translator has something to say:

The Chinese title for A Choice into the Dark is 至暗抉择. ↩A ‘film emperor’ is someone who’s won Best Male Lead for a movie 🙂 I dunno where the film emperor term came from, but emperor/empress is what China calls people who’ve won Best Male/Female Lead awards! ↩A lit candle emoji 🕯️ is almost like saying ‘rest in peace’. ↩The ‘scale’ mentioned is translated from 逆鳞, which refers to the scale of a dragon. Colloquially speaking, this term can be translated to ‘nerve’, as in ‘you touched a nerve’, but 逆鳞 is much more serious than simply just a nerve. It’s used to refer to subjects/topics that are absolutely taboo to someone and should never be brought up in front of them. ↩

This book is a slow burn slow burn slow burn in terms of both relationship and story progression, so I won’t be offended if you wait for a bunch of chapters to come out before binging! Slow burn slow burn slow burn. (Important things must be said three times x2). I’ve posted some artwork and some more information here on Twitter.

N – Chapter 1.2

Like this:Like Loading...

Related