Chapter 54

During the post-production period for ‘Demon Fox’, ‘The Elite Among Dogs’ was also aired weekly. The competition events became more and more difficult, but the dogs’ performance became more and more exciting. It was full of laughs that made the ratings climb, and attracted viewers from every age group. The TV stations regretted not giving the show a prime-time slot.

However, the popularity of the show also made the network see the value of ‘The Elite Among Dogs’, or rather, Su Yuanyuan. After meeting and discussing, they immediately sent someone to negotiate with Fang Lizhe for a contract on ‘The Elite Among Dogs 2’, wanting to appoint Su Yuanyuan as the main host and become the star of the variety show.

The investment for ‘The Elite Among Dogs 2’ was twice as much as the first season, with more exciting programs planned, seven locations in seven countries, and all the details well-produced. The payment for Su Yuanyuan was also raised to a first-rate price. Su Yuanyuan was very happy with the program and agreed to it without a second thought.

At this time, Liu Lan suddenly called and happily said, “Brother Fang, I’ve finished writing the script! I just sent it to your email, check it out!”

“That fast?”

“Brother Fang, you don’t understand. After seeing Susu’s brilliant acting, I was simply overwhelmed with inspiration. I’m confident that this time it will be even more popular than ‘Cute Dog Susu’. I’ll eat the script if it doesn’t!”

Su Yuanyuan also listened at the side, and rolled her eyes at the words. These two people are so fond of eating scripts? They really should be thankful of her superb acting and not establish any red flags. What was the essence of acting skills? They don’t say ‘a thousand-face fox king’ for nothing, okay!

(TNote: a thousand-face fox king = People that can truly act. Usually a derogatory term, meaning con-man, two-faced or scheming. But, here she meant it as boasting; that the term ‘fox’ was usually linked to truly good and ‘very believable’ acting.)

Fang Lizhe laughed, rubbed Su Yuanyuan’s head, and spoke with a smile, “Okay, I’ll read it now, and if there’s no problem, we’ll start shooting right away.”

“I’ll tell Chan Zhou to get ready!” Liu Lan hung up the phone excitedly, not even doubting her own proficiency.

Fang Lizhe got some of Su Yuanyuan’s favorite strawberry milk, then picked Su Yuanyuan up and went to the computer to read the script together. He used to do all these things by himself, but now, after getting used to doing everything with Su Yuanyuan, he suddenly found that it felt good to work alongside someone! Even if there were even greater difficulties, he didn’t feel tired at all. But, if the other party wasn’t Su Yuanyuan, perhaps he wouldn’t be able to give his wholehearted trust like this, right?

When he saw that Su Yuanyuan was already enjoying the milk, he smiled, petted her again and read the script seriously.

This was a story of conflict and strife that erupted in the heavenly realm, the demon realm and the human realm, called ‘Legend of the Demon King’. It included the love-hate relationship of the three main couples, among whom there were reincarnated immortals, demons who took on human form, imperial descendants carrying blood feuds, and indifferent and heartless weapon spirits. Their intertwined love-hate entanglements triggered one event after another and propelled one climax after another. However, the first protagonist of this drama was the Fox Queen who couldn’t transform.

The fox clan had a hard time cultivating, and had been punished by the Heavens. Even though the Fox Queen was resourceful and diligent, she could never transform. At the end of her life, she reluctantly used her brilliance to bring the human, demon and heavenly realms together, stirring up the elements and almost causing chaos in the world. Behind every event, there was her shadow. The human, demon and heavenly realms also had her secret stakes, and there were even many people who would go through fire for her and submit to her charismatic personality and stay loyal. She was an ultimate boss-like presence in the story.

However, when the story developed to the second half, many hidden darkness were gradually revealed. A conspiracy was discovered that the gods wanted to exterminate the demon realm, and establish the heavenly realm’s control over the human realm. The heavenly realm, which was trusted by all, merely played them like pawns.

Then, conflict erupted in full force, and the Fox Queen also turned from dark to light, leading the demon realm to conquer the heavenly realm. Only then did people see the Fox Queen’s intentions. She was only using her few remaining years of life to preserve the demon realm. Not only did she not harm the human race, but she even uncovered the conspiracy in the heavenly realm and helped the human race to resist it together. In the end, the Fox Queen exhausted everything to defeat the Lord of the gods, which finally made the gods withdraw from this land and obtain tranquility and peace, but she herself had come to the end of her life.

A great merit descended on her body, enabling her to transform before she died, fulfilling her thousand-year wish. But her previous sin of stirring up chaos couldn’t be erased. In the end, she didn’t survive, dissipating in her human form between heaven and earth, dissipating in her beloved demon realm’s spiritual mountain.

The death of the main character in a drama was generally a tragedy. But the Fox Queen lived in everyone’s heart and became their hero! At last, when the Fox Queen dissipated, she was smiling, and the last scene of the script was also the prosperity of the demon realm and the human realm. This was a good ending, the ending of a single person achieving peace in the world. Furthermore, for Su Yuanyuan, this drama could bring out the most from her acting skills. In the part where the Fox Queen was stirring up trouble, she would appear in various capacities and naturally show various personalities.

And the early ‘hateable’, the later ‘respectable’ and then the final ‘regrettable’ character plot, will undoubtedly carve the role of the Fox Queen in the hearts of the audience, becoming a classic role! This drama would definitely become Su Yuanyuan’s masterpiece. This would make her the real ‘a thousand-face fox king’ and establish Su Yuanyuan’s position in the entertainment circle!

A ‘Demon Fox’ movie and a ‘Legend of the Demon King’ TV series could definitely make Su Yuanyuan the hottest, most popular and most powerful star in recent years. Even though she was just a fox, a small animal!

Fang Lizhe was very excited after reading it, and subconsciously kissed Su Yuanyuan on the forehead, “Susu! You’re going to be famous all over the country. After shooting this, people will like you for the next 20 years!”

Su Yuanyuan eyes lit up, “Really? Then, won’t I be able to cultivate faster?” She excitedly stared at the script on the screen and waved her little paws, “No one knows the demon realm better than I do. This isn’t enough from her. I’ll add some more!”

Su Yuanyuan got interested, and immediately asked Fang Lizhe to help her type, changing parts of the script. It made the demon realm that only had an outline even more vivid, and made all the demon characters more vibrant.

Fang Lizhe glanced at her expression while typing, and saw that she seemed to have no reaction to the kiss just now, and quietly felt relieved. He was too excited to remember that this was his wife in a previous life, not a real pet. He said he couldn’t accept human-fox love, so how could he kiss her at this moment? Luckily, Su Yuanyuan didn’t scold him, or else he would really have no idea of how to explain his behavior.

But then again, does Su Yuanyuan’s unresponsiveness mean that she was used to being so close to him? After all, they were husband and wife in the previous life, so they should have done ‘everything’, right?

Fang Lizhe’s eyes drifted a bit. His mind wandered off, thinking about both of their past lives. Fortunately, he was very skilled at typing, and he could directly type whatever Su Yuanyuan said without stopping at all, and without letting Su Yuanyuan notice anything. At this moment, he suddenly looked forward to Su Yuanyuan’s early transformation. Since they were husband and wife in their previous life, Su Yuanyuan must be able to transform, right? What does her human form look like?

Liu Lan was so amazed by the improved script that she kept asking which great master helped him improve it. Fang Lizhe had no choice but to say that a friend named Su Yuanyuan helped, but Su Yuanyuan didn’t want to be seen, so he couldn’t introduce them to each other. Liu Lan was very disappointed upon hearing that. She asked Fang Lizhe to introduce them when she had a chance in the future, and then insisted on adding Su Yuanyuan’s name to the screenwriter’s column, saying that the changes by Su Yuanyuan brought the drama to a higher level. Seeing things in reality was definitely better than imagining things and feeling it out.

Su Yuanyuan buried her little face in Fang Lizhe’s jacket. She blushed a little when she was complimented by Liu Lan. She wasn’t really that powerful. She was just describing the demon realm she lived in, unlike Liu Lan, who could write such wonderful stories only by imagination. To Su Yuanyuan, it was Liu Lan who was really powerful.

In the end, at Liu Lan’s insistence, Su Yuanyuan was added as second screenwriter of this drama. The script was written by Liu Lan, and Chan Zhou, as her boyfriend, was naturally the one who knew the script best and had a complete idea of how to direct it long ago. After the few people had a short meeting, Fang Lizhe directly invested 50 million yuan, almost putting all his deposits into it. Then, he contacted another entertainment company that slightly exceeded Starlight — Sparkle Entertainment, and negotiated an investment of 20 million yuan.

(TNote: Both companies were named Starlight, only spelled differently in Chinese. So, I chose ‘Sparkle’ lol… I’m sorry.)

To shoot the fantasy script well, they couldn’t scrimp on money at all. Fortunately, the protagonist of this drama was Su Yuanyuan. Because others were only regarded as significant supporting roles, they didn’t need to hire first-line actors, only second and third-line skilled actors, which saved a lot of money. So that 70 million would be enough to make a sincere masterpiece.

Sparkle recommended several of their actors, but because Fang Lizhe was the main investor, no one could just stuff people in. After strict audition, the unqualified ones were returned, leaving four important supporting roles and a few less important ones. The others were found separately. Chan Zhou and Liu Lan had their own recommended people, and several students from film and television academies were also recruited, all of whom were great at acting.

Starlight also had a referral, even Xiang Tong had come to pull the friendship card, wanting to play the role with the most parts, or a cameo, playing the human form of the Fox Queen’s final transformation. Fang Lizhe turned it down without even considering it. It’s not like they can’ t find anyone, so why cooperate with Starlight to make themselves unhappy? Those days when Starlight blacklisted him, he kept it in mind. He never cooperated with Starlight since he turned over, not to mention Xiang Tong also tried to mess with Su Yuanyuan. He could remember all these accounts one by one, just waiting for the day to get the chance to settle them in one big move.

No matter how angry Starlight was, his side had quickly set up the crew, negotiated all aspects and started filming. Su Yuanyuan also had to shoot ‘The Elite Among Dogs 2’, but each episode’s shooting time was short. This was ‘Susu’, as long as the schedule was arranged, she wouldn’t get delayed.

The first season of ‘The Elite Among Dogs’ finished its twelfth episode run, and it was going to cooperate with ‘Demon Fox’ to participate in several promotional activities. Then ‘The Elite Among Dogs 2’ will start to broadcast and shoot at the same time. After the twelve episodes were broadcast, it wasn’t long before ‘Demon Fox’ was going to be released. With the strength of ‘Demon Fox’, it would definitely keep up the popularity for several months. When the popularity of ‘Demon Fox’ passes, ‘Legend of the Demon King’ will also be finished and start promoting, followed by the broadcast.

It could be said that the next 2 years belonged to Su Yuanyuan. Although she had been filming and rarely appeared, the variety show she had finished filming would be broadcast one after another, as well as her two advertisements and two public service announcements, practically brushing up her presence on the screen in general. From the first season of ‘Cute Dog Susu’, she simply appears on the screen non-stop and never disappears. Even if she didn’t show up and didn’t release any works, there were some who would invoke her and send her to the hot search list. She had become the absolute queen of popularity and the traffic bearer in the entertainment circle!

At this point in time, the insiders could already foresee Su Yuanyuan’s star power. No one would ever say Fang Lizhe was an average agent. Without Fang Lizhe, no one with acting skills could have been promoted to such a high level so quickly. Su Yuanyuan’s every step, seemingly coincidental and seemingly lucky, was the result of his careful arrangement. His strength was undeniable!

A good star requires precision, not quantity. In everyone’s eyes, Fang Lizhe’s dream of becoming a gold level agent has almost come true!