Two weeks after Yuan Lan escaped from the pit of being Fu Lianghui's fan, she unexpectedly received another editing job related to this person.
This confused her greatly.
Her confusion wasn't because soone asked her to edit videos—after all, her ability to beco one of Fu Lianghui's fan leaders naturally ant she had so skills, and her skill points were allocated to video editing. She had nearly ten thousand followers on video platforms, and her casual shipping videos usually got tens of thousands of views at minimum. She had taken editing commissions before and was accustod to comrcial collaborations.
But being asked to edit videos after she had already unfollowed him... she had never encountered such a thing before.
Although she hadn't publicly announced on social dia that she had unfollowed him, her public farewell and departure from the fan group had caused quite a stir. Anyone with even a slight understanding of Fu Lianghui's fan circle should already know that she was no longer a loyal fan of Fu Lianghui.
If that was the case, what did this person want from her? To make herself uncomfortable?
She scrolled up through her chat history with this person and discovered this wasn't even her first comrcial collaboration with this wealthy but seemingly naive client.
But their previous collaboration had nothing to do with Fu Lianghui—last ti, this client claid to be celebrating the birthday of a true fan of so obscure actress. Therefore, Yuan Lan was forced to speed-watch "The Last Wish" no fewer than five tis, painstakingly selecting the only scenes where the sole female supporting character looked decent and her hair didn't cover her face, piecing them together into a video just over a minute long. She was so ntally exhausted that she didn't even want to color-correct it and sent it directly to the client.
Although the paynt was quite adequate, this painful experience caused severe damage to both Yuan Lan's aesthetics and eyesight, and incidentally gave her deep psychological trauma regarding the film's male lead actor Li Xingyu. She even felt that if it weren't for this film, she probably would have switched to being Li Xingyu's fan half a year ago, rather than suffering an additional half year in Fu Lianghui's pit...
She originally wanted to refuse, but rembering the very adequate paynt from before, she decided to cautiously give this client one more chance.
She carefully inquired of this client nad [Antarctic Universe]: "What are your specific requirents? Actually, I'm no longer Fu Lianghui's fan, so I might not be very familiar with his recent situation..."
Her intention was to dissuade this client, thoughtfully helping them avoid trouble, but unexpectedly the client sent a string of exclamation marks before replying: That's absolutely wonderful!
Yuan Lan: ?
[Actually, it's like this,] the client Antarctic Universe was very straightforward. [The film version of "The Long Ballad of Immortals and Demons" is about to finish its theatrical run. As a loyal fan of the film version, I want to edit a comparison video of the sa plot points between the film and TV versions of "The Long Ballad of Immortals and Demons" to mock Fu Lianghui. I was afraid you were deeply devoted to Fu Lianghui before, so I didn't speak so directly...]
Yuan Lan: ...
Then how did you dare ask , a Fu Lianghui fan, to edit this video?! Was it because you had too much confidence in Li Xingyu's acting, or even more confidence in Fu Lianghui's "acting"?!
She thought back and sadly realized it was probably both. Even if she were still Fu Lianghui's fan, under such blatant comparison, any embellishnt of Fu Lianghui would be like decorating excrent—completely useless.
Fortunately, she was no longer Fu Lianghui's fan.
And precisely because she wasn't Fu Lianghui's fan, she could approach the comparison with more freedom!
Her spirits lifted as she quickly replied to Antarctic Universe: [No problem! I'm actually very interested in this subject myself. What are the specific requirents...]
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Nan Rongyu forwarded Shao Yichen's requirents to Yuan Lan, then exited the chat window and sent Shao Yichen an OK emoji.
Shao Yichen replied quickly: All set?
Nan Rongyu sent back a nodding emoji.
Shao Yichen contentedly replied with a thumbs-up emoji and put down her phone.
Li Xingyu was sitting on the sofa next to Shao Yichen, each looking at their own phones. Sensing her movent, he glanced over at her: "Resolved?"
"More or less." Shao Yichen put down her phone, picked up the cushion from the sofa again, grabbed the remote to turn on the TV, stared at the screen and yawned. "When we went to the Golden Leaf Awards ceremony to receive the award, didn't Nan Rongyu and Nan Rongzhou make that editing video for you while also giving a thorough critique? I think 'The Long Ballad of Immortals and Demons' needs a similar edit to intuitively show passersby the difference between your and his acting skills, while also letting Fu Lianghui experience the despair I felt back then."
Li Xingyu nodded with suppressed laughter: "Very reasonable."
After the film system upgraded and the two beca an official couple, Li Xingyu and Shao Yichen naturally moved in together and began planning how to publicly announce their relationship.
Although going public with a romance was indeed quite early for an actor of Li Xingyu's age, since he had never followed the idol route, they discovered that this matter wouldn't have a particularly significant impact on his career. As for the impact on Shao Yichen, it was even more negligible.
The reason they hadn't gone public yet was simply that they hadn't figured out what kind of public display of affection they wanted to use.
The film version of "The Long Ballad of Immortals and Demons" had been in theaters for two weeks, and external evaluation of this film showed a distinctive kind of "polarization." On one hand, no matter how strict their standards, film critics had to admit that this film was a successful comrcial work with first-class special effects, superb acting, and a very mature script—achieving such results was completely normal.
But on the other hand, quite a few film critics—especially those who had given high praise to Shao Yichen's previous works—openly expressed dissatisfaction with this work, believing that Shao Yichen had abandoned her own expression of ideas in this work, focusing solely on pleasing the audience, and that the entire work lacked any depth in its core, being nothing more than romantic entanglents between n and won.
Shao Yichen had long beco accustod to such voices. After all, she had made four films, and almost every release was criticized from different angles. If one day her film received unanimous praise upon release, she would probably be shocked instead.
However, audience evaluation of the work differed from critics and was very straightforward—as long as they enjoyed watching it, they didn't care about any deeper aning; it was simply good entertainnt. Therefore, while critics argued, "The Long Ballad of Immortals and Demons" continued to climb at the box office, and at this rate, breaking two billion yuan was just a matter of days.
The follower counts on both Shao Yichen and Li Xingyu's social dia accounts also reached new highs daily. Li Xingyu's follower count was already approaching that of Le Ziyao before his retirent, truly placing him among the top-tier celebrities.
As for Fu Lianghui, his fans had lost control of the narrative just one day after the film's release. Now nurous public accounts, while praising Li Xingyu's acting, never forgot to step on Fu Lianghui, successfully making the TV version of "The Long Ballad of Immortals and Demons," despite its extrely poor viewership, widely known—for its terrible reviews.
To avoid the fate of being mocked by entertainnt-seeking passersby with every social dia post, Fu Lianghui had been silent for a week.
Shao Yichen was satisfied, feeling she had achieved her expected revenge. Her anger had mostly dissipated, and she planned to let this minor villain Fu Lianghui off the hook after releasing the comparison video with the film.
Currently, her main concern had shifted to the film's subsequent distribution phase. The film would leave theaters in a week, and Shao Yichen and General Manager Qianqian were already considering which video platform to launch on after its theatrical run. Naturally, many platforms were interested and all offered generous terms for this hit film, leaving Shao Yichen uncertain.
While she was struggling with this decision, Li Xingyu suddenly proposed a suggestion she hadn't expected.
"Why don't you simply cooperate with South Polar Bear Group to establish your own video platform? Qin Lu and Jiang Miaomiao also want to start filming their own movies as head directors. Having such a platform might make collaborations more convenient."
Li Xingyu said this.
Shao Yichen was stunned.
Of course she wanted to establish her own video platform—but was such a thing really so easy to accomplish?
Probably seeing Shao Yichen's confusion, Li Xingyu explained further: "You don't think that when I convinced South Polar Bear Group to cooperate with , risking future conflicts with Liming Group by purchasing shares together with Le Ziyao's fund, it was all based on Nan Rongyu and their connections, do you?"
Shao Yichen: "...Wasn't it?"
"Although South Polar Bear Group does indeed adopt a hands-off policy toward these two heirs, they don't have much authority to make decisions on major matters involving company developnt." Li Xingyu shifted position on the sofa, moving closer to Shao Yichen. "Being able to convince South Polar Bear Group's actual decision-makers was partly because South Polar Bear Group and Liming Group don't have much overlapping business, but on the other hand—they've wanted to get into video platforms for a long ti."
"South Polar Bear? The toy company? Getting into video platforms?"
Shao Yichen was dumbfounded.
"After all, they also have a traditional animation industry." Li Xingyu said with suppressed laughter. "Do you rember why Li Qiaoqiao plagiarized your script in the first place?"
Shao Yichen thought about it: "It seems like Liming Video Platform had left an empty recomndation slot for children's content."
"Then can you guess what that recomndation slot was originally reserved for?" Li Xingyu guided her patiently.
Shao Yichen: "...Don't tell it was for South Polar Bear's large toy comrcial—no, long-form animated series?"
"Close enough." Li Xingyu nodded. "It was for South Polar Bear Group's cha blockbuster. But because they couldn't agree on terms, South Polar Bear Group ultimately didn't cooperate with Liming Video Platform, causing that recomndation slot to beco empty."
"From that point on, South Polar Bear Group probably started considering establishing their own video platform."
"But video platforms can't be built overnight..." Shao Yichen hesitated. "If we wait half a year, the film's popularity will have faded, which would be quite a pity."
Li Xingyu put down his phone: "You don't need to worry about that. As long as you're willing to cooperate, I think the video platform can go online within a month—no, if things go quickly, it might only take two weeks."
Shao Yichen: "Don't tell you've already been preparing?"
Li Xingyu shook his head but looked quite pleased.
Shao Yichen pondered Li Xingyu's words again: "Go online again—aning there's already a prototype of a video platform that might have been taken offline due to operational or other reasons? All we need to do is bring it back online?"
Li Xingyu remained noncommittal, but his smile beca increasingly obvious.
"Speaking of which, there have been rumors lately that Liming Video Platform is experiencing poor operations and is selling off its video platform business—it can't be...?!"
"It can be."
Li Xingyu casually confird Shao Yichen's guess: "After all, that seven percent stake I transferred to you didn't appear out of thin air—it was packaged and sold by the shareholders behind Liming Video Platform. You could consider it a buy-one-get-one-free deal."
Shao Yichen blinked: "I suddenly feel like I've beco a real mastermind behind the scenes."
"Then let interview Director Shao—isn't being a mastermind behind the scenes fun?" Li Xingyu rolled up the fashion magazine from the coffee table—which featured his own unsmiling face on the cover—into a tube, pretending it was a microphone as he began interviewing Shao Yichen.
Shao Yichen answered quickly: "Well... being a mastermind behind the scenes is absolutely delightful."
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Of course, what Shao Yichen hadn't anticipated was that even though she had decided to stop pursuing Fu Lianghui, half a month later, multiple dia outlets simultaneously exposed that Fu Lianghui had privately contacted fans and even forced them into sexual relations, with very clear video evidence.
Faced with such evidence, Fu Lianghui wasn't just dealing with fan defections and backlash—he was facing actual criminal prosecution! Forget about whether to retire from entertainnt or not; his previous works would probably have to be censored or completely cut.
Only after learning this news did Shao Yichen finally rember that when they were chatting that day, Li Xingyu's phone conversations seed to be with contacts from these dia outlets.
—So she wasn't the real mastermind behind the scenes at all; Li Xingyu was!
But even knowing all this, she still wanted to say—being a mastermind behind the scenes really is absolutely delightful.
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