C1 Part2

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N – Chapter 1.1

N – Chapter 1.2

All of the investors of A Choice into the Dark were Cao Ye’s friends, so they didn’t really band together to bring him down — but even though they were friends, business remained business, and none of them actively opened their mouths to bring up the fact reshooting required additional investment after half a day of idle chatting.

“So you guys have started considering who to contact for the reshoot, right?” Lin Yan asked, “Who have you already thought of?”

“There’s…” Cao Ye faintly frowned as he tried to remember the people Xu Anqiao had mentioned. Other than Liang Sizhe, he’d completely forgotten the names of the two other people. He turned around and asked Zeng Ran, “Who did you guys talk about?”

“Zhao Qian, Yan Jia and Liang Sizhe,” Zeng Ran said.

“Hah, Liang Sizhe would be great!” Sitting to the side of Lin Yan, Zhao Chengdong immediately took the initiative to discuss providing additional funds. “Let me just say, if you really can get Liang Sizhe in for the reshoot, I’ll double my investment. I’m serious.”

“But he’s not easy to hire,” Lin Yan said, laughing. “How expensive is he now?”

“It doesn’t matter how much he’ll cost,” Zhao Chengdong said, with the air of someone wealthy and used to getting his way. He sounded excited as he said, “Just think about it, if you can get Liang Sizhe, you’ll have people talking about the film, and more people will pay attention to it — I don’t even have to talk about the film’s final result. Would we even need to worry about the box office? We won’t lose any money.”

He Fangwen, sitting across, had never thought much of him, and he now coldly interjected, “You talk so simply. Is Liang Sizhe someone you’ll be able to hire just because of money? I’ve worked with him before. Any film he’s willing to work with will have money flying towards it. If it’s a film he doesn’t want to work with, it doesn’t matter how many hundreds of millions you give him — he’ll throw them right back at you.”

Zhao Chengdong raised his voice at He Fangwen, having had his face swept away. “He’s just an actor, how could he——”

Cao Ye interrupted him before he could finish. “Enough, enough. There’s no point getting so serious about something so unreliable. No chance, Xu Yunchu’s already rejected us.” He stood up and said, “If we’re finished, I’m going to leave first. I have a headache, I don’t want to listen to you guys arguing.”

Lin Yan lifted his head and said, “You’re not going to throw a party or something to comfort us after something so big happened?”

“Who’s going to comfort me?” Cao Ye smiled. “I’ll do it another day, put it on my tab.”

On the way back to his company, Cao Ye sat in the car with his eyes closed, nursing his head. He wanted to sleep, but his head was stuffed full with all sorts of random things — he couldn’t fall asleep no matter how he tried.

He might as well think about the reshoot. He went through all of the actors he could think of, only to not find a single one of them suitable. Except for Liang Sizhe.

He had to admit: leaving aside other factors, Liang Sizhe truly was the best choice for this reshoot. It wasn’t hard to imagine why he’d heard Liang Sizhe’s name no less than twenty times over the entire morning.

When Hong Kong star Huang Qianshi had announced two years ago that he was expanding into mainland China’s market, a few media companies had recklessly predicted that Liang Sizhe didn’t have many days left to be as impulsive as he’d been. Some media companies had even compared and analysed the two of them from multiple angles, and the conclusion they’d arrived at had been: Huang Qianshi would become the cost-effective version of Liang Sizhe within less than two years. He would gradually eat away at Liang Sizhe’s popularity and market in mainland China.

They had explained their conclusion with the reason being: Huang Qianshi seemed to have all of the mandatory requirements of a star such as awards, acting ability, looks and personality. He was merely lacking in mainland recognition since he had been shackled to Hong Kong the last few years.

One particular media company, having been paid, had said the new Huang Qianshi was polite and well-mannered, as well as willing to cooperate. He would never make things hard for others, and so, compared to the forthright and outspoken film emperor Liang Sizhe who’d had a scandal every now and then, the Huang Qianshi who behaved himself would clearly be better liked by management and investors.

No one expected that after two years, Huang Qianshi, who ‘behaved himself’, would fall so thoroughly — to the point his entire reputation was destroyed. He’d touted himself too highly.

But Liang Sizhe was still the same; he remained as impulsive as before, doing only what he wanted. Companies and investors didn’t really like him, but none of them would lie and say they didn’t want to work with Liang Sizhe.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t try to invite Liang Sizhe. If Cao Ye sent over the script, Liang Sizhe would come if he could and would decline if he wanted. It sounded very simple, but… Cao Ye sighed, his eyes still closed. But if only things were truly that simple.

–

The next day in the afternoon, Cheng Duan sent over another list of suggested people for the reshoot. Pretty much all of the actors in the right age bracket in the industry were included, and the key candidates were marked in red. Sweeping his eyes over the list, a continuous string of ‘not suitable’ appeared in Cao Ye’s brain.

He typed over two words to Cheng Duan: Try again.

Cheng Duan sent back a pitiful sticker, the tiny figure kneeling down with three large words floating on top of his head: My dear ancestor… The words were very similar to how Xu Anqiao usually spoke, so the two of them must be getting their stickers from the same places.

Cao Ye placed his phone to the side, his gaze falling on the new quarterly financial statement displayed on his computer screen.

The phone on his desk vibrated again not long after. Cao Ye glanced at it; Cheng Duan had sent him another message: We had to dig deep to get this new list. If you still think no one’s suitable, then I have no one else for you.

Cao Ye thought for a bit and then sent over an audio message, his voice lazy. “Then come and persuade me.”

Cheng Duan pulled open the door to Cao Ye’s office a few minutes later, his mouth moving as he walked in. “This guy — once he ends up with a particular preference, all other options turn unsatisfactory.” He sat down across from Cao Ye and pushed forward the printed candidate list. “Today’s chicken soup has been simmering the entire day. Would you like to give it a taste?”

Cao Ye tapped a finger a few times onto the piece of paper. “I didn’t prefer Huang Qianshi one way or another.”

Cheng Duan shrugged. “Huang Qianshi’s useless now. I wasn’t talking about him.”

With no look of surprise on his face, Cao Ye nodded and said, “Oh.”

“Looks like I don’t need to say much, we all know who the best candidate is. I say, young President Cao,” Cheng Duan looked at him, carefully choosing his words, “why don’t we give it try? We can consider other plans if our best option fails. We won’t mention other things, we’ll just give him the script to look at. I can send it to him since I have his contact details, and it’s his choice to accept it or not…”

“It’s not that simple, Cheng Duan.” Cao Ye pushed the paper to the side and sighed, raising his eyes to look at him. “When we were first casting for this film, you guys mentioned wanting to try and cast Liang Sizhe. Did I say anything in disagreement back then? But things aren’t the same anymore — giving him an offer now will mean bringing up many different matters like the reshoot, the wager agreement, online public opinion… The meaning of the offer has already changed. If Liang Sizhe agrees to act for us now, would you think he agreed simply due to the nature of the film? This isn’t fair to him. With his status, there’s no need for him to wade through these muddy waters to begin with. I could even say that in a situation like this, where we’re sending over the script to him and inviting him to be our substitute actor, this isn’t a simple business transaction — it’s more like an… an asking for a favour and tying him to us. Do you understand what I mean?”

“I do.” Cheng Duan nodded with a wry smile. “But the thing is, this industry is all about exchanging favours. You’ll know that more than anyone, President Cao.” Across from him, Cao Ye shook his head but he didn’t interrupt, so Cheng Duan continued on. “And besides, we’re only asking him to read through the script. How do you know that Liang Sizhe will definitely accept our invitation? What if he turns us down? Or what if he agrees, and the only reason he did is because he likes the script and our good production team…”

And now, Cao Ye opened his mouth to interrupt him, ignoring his final sentence. “He’ll come.”

Cheng Duan couldn’t help but be a bit curious. “Why are you so sure?”

Cao Ye’s phone buzzed on the desk, and Cao Ye lifted it up to read the message. His face immediately changed, and he cursed, “Fuck.”

“What’s wrong?” Cheng Duan’s heart jumped. “Did something else happen?”

Cao Ye didn’t respond, frowning as he stared at his screen. He only shifted his eyes to Cheng Duan after a long while passed. “Nothing happened. As you wished, Liang Sizhe will come.”

Cheng Duan froze in astonishment. “To reshoot A Choice into the Dark?”

“Mn. There’s about a 90 percent chance. He’s reading the script now.”

It was undeniably good news, but there wasn’t a single shred of relief on Cao Ye’s face — on the contrary, a layer of what looked like apprehension covered it. And so, even though Cheng Duan was faintly excited, he could only restrain himself and not show it on the outside.

“Ah,” he briefly said, letting out the feeling in his heart, and yet he couldn’t help but snap his fingers underneath the desk. The sound of his snap was clear and crisp, the joy in his heart not needing to be expressed.

When he saw Cao Ye look at him with an unhappy look on his face, he immediately knew what he should do, saying, “I’m going to leave, you do what you need to do.”

Cheng Duan couldn’t hold back his grin once he left Cao Ye’s office.

If Liang Sizhe really accepted their offer to reshoot the film, everyone knew exactly how online opinions would dramatically change. Everyone knew how the people who’d posted candles on Weibo would gape open their mouths and dumbly widen their eyes.

This was truly a textbook example of a blessing in disguise.

——It was Liang Sizhe.

Cao Ye’s assistant, Meng Xianxi, caught a look of the elation of Cheng Duan’s face and curiously asked, “Director Cheng, what’s the good news?”

“How do you know there’s something good happening?” Cheng Duan asked, smiling.

“You’re like a completely different person compared to how you looked when you entered ten minutes ago.”

“Ah, it is good news. It’s fantastic news,” Cheng Duan said, nodding with the grin still on his face. “But I still can’t say what it is yet, just wait for your young President Cao to personally announce it.”

In the room behind him, separated by just a door, Cao Ye rested his forehead on a hand, the fingers of his other hand on his cell phone screen. He absent-mindedly scrolled down, bit by bit.

The lit up phone screen held the few messages Lin Yan had just sent over:

Cao Ye, I just talked to Liang Sizhe. He agreed to look at the script.

He didn’t seem too interested in the beginning, so I mentioned you briefly. But don’t worry, I didn’t bring up Director Cao, I only said you were the main investor in the film.

I know I borrowed your name without telling you ahead of time, but this is good news no matter what, right?

Bullshit, Cao Ye silently said. After a while, he sluggishly tapped a few words over: What did you guys talk about?

A few seconds later, Lin Yan sent over two screenshots of the conversation between him and Liang Sizhe——

The situation’s roughly how I said above, so now we can only choose to reshoot. All of us investors gathered together yesterday, but we weren’t able to reach a consensus on the candidates. I could only harden my face and come look for you.

Here’s our proposal. I know it says ‘reshoot’, but both our script and production team are top quality. Could you honour us with a look?

Liang Sizhe’s reply was noticeably a soft deflection. Sure, I’ll forward it to my manager, Xu Yunchu. She’ll contact you in a bit.

Sizhe, I know that’s just an excuse. I’ll be honest with you, Cao Ye’s company contacted your manager a while ago. She already declined, which was why I could only go around her and contact you directly.

That was the end of the first screenshot. Cao Ye’s face lost all humour, and he held back the annoyance in his heart as he swiped to the second screenshot:

Liang Sizhe: Cao Ye’s company’s also an investor for this film?

Lin Yan: Sizhe, I’m not saying anything, but you’re too behind on news.

Liang Sizhe: I’ve spent almost the entire last year filming overseas, I actually haven’t paid much attention to industry news.

Lin Yan: I see. Cao Ye truly did invest in this film, and he’s also the main investor. The film’s also related to the wager agreement for his company to enter the stock market. He’s been terribly worried the last few days.

Liang Sizhe: ……you guys are really unlucky.

Lin Yan: I know, right.

After a few seconds, Liang Sizhe replied: All right, send over the script and I’ll have a look.

And that was the end of the second screenshot. The fire in Cao Ye’s heart had already flown into his throat.

That was called a ‘brief mention’? Who was Lin Yan trying to fool?

Wasn’t that obviously only missing a single ‘Cao Ye asked me to come beg you’?!

Thousands of thoughts were whirling in his head, and his heart was burning with anxiety — all of that converged into one single sentence, and Cao Ye’s fingertips flew to tap a message: Lin Yan, I’m going to fuck your uncle1.

The message went out, and then a few seconds later, Lin Yan replied with a single provocative, disagreeable message: Ye-zi2, I’m so happy for you, you’ve gotten so angry you’re not homophobic anymore. I’m visiting my family tomorrow, I’ll definitely ask my dear old uncle for you if he’s interested.

Translator has something to say:

The joy of Chinese swears! Instead of just ‘your mum’ AKA ‘fuck your mum’, Chinese swears like to spread the joy of fucking to all family members. :’) And Cao Ye actually did say ‘I’ in his curse – 我操你大爷 is lit. translated to ‘I fuck your uncle’. It’s a more angry swear compared to just 操你大爷 (‘fuck your uncle’) cos now you’re personally fucking that person’s relative :’) ↩Ye-zi is what some of Cao Ye’s friends call him! The same ‘ye’ in his name, and the zi is 子. In this context, the zi doesn’t mean anything beyond creating a diminutive of someone’s name (a similar example would be something like Timothy to Timmy, except the ‘-my’ would be a character not in his name to begin with). ↩

N – Chapter 1.3

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