Chapter 516: Chapter 282: Abandoning Darkness for Light, Zhao Mingyuan Realizes that with the Thought of Surrender, the World Suddenly Seems Vaster_3
Yesterday, I went to read the screenplay with emotions running high, so focused on picking out the story’s flaws that I didn’t examine many of the lines in detail.
Now that I’ve cald down and taken a closer look, everything seems clearer, and so of the brilliant lines have caught my attention. For example: “I’m not afraid to die, just afraid of discomfort. I’d give up my life for the sake of comfort.”
At that ti, he hadn’t imrsed himself in the story; he spent the whole morning editing. After seriously putting himself in the characters’ shoes, he felt even more that Long Wenzhang was not just a little bit charming.
The sensation of literary minds clashing without contact made Zhao Mingyuan’s pores open up in satisfaction.
The next day, he still went to invite Xu Qingyan. He had prepared himself for rejection, but after waiting for a while, he was t with Xu Qingyan’s skeptical gaze.
“Are you… really planning to take out to eat?”
...
“Of course.”
“And the purpose?”
“To apologize, haven’t I already said?” Zhao Mingyuan said sincerely, “It’s truly just to apologize. I’ve offended you greatly and ask for your forgiveness.”
These words left Xu Qingyan sowhat embarrassed, as he touched his face.
“This is so sudden, you’re not pulling so trick, are you?”
“Absolutely not, I swear on my life that if I’m playing a trick…”
“Alright, alright, I believe you,” Xu Qingyan waved his hand, “Then it’s settled. For als, no day is better than today, let’s go right now.”
“Good.”
Xu Qingyan sent a ssage to Gan Wenchang, asking him to co along to the dinner. It turned out to indeed be no trick, just a simple al.
They still had work in the afternoon, so neither of them could drink alcohol, thus they opted for tea instead of wine.
After so small talk, Zhao Mingyuan presented a gift. It was another sincere apology, and this change in attitude was sowhat surprising to Xu Qingyan, what was all this about?
After a lot of explaining, Xu Qingyan finally understood that Fang Chu had given Zhao Mingyuan so advice.
“Brother Xu, I think I’ve figured it out,” Zhao Mingyuan said after taking a couple of bites of his food and sighing, “So people, after all, have limited abilities.”
“I didn’t find the script terrible before, but now, looking at it, there’s simply no comparison. Fang Chu is right, the world has too many talented people… Let’s eat, let’s eat.”
Gan Wenchang sat on the side, quietly eating, not joining in the conversation between the two n. It wasn’t until the al was over and he watched Zhao Mingyuan walk away that he patted Xu Qingyan on the shoulder.
“What do you think happened to him? Why does he seem like he’s lost his confidence, strange.”
“I can’t tell, but it does look a bit creepy,” Xu Qingyan stroked his chin and muttered to himself, “Let’s just see how it goes, anyway this matter can be considered over.”
Four days passed, and the manuscript was finally rushed out, taking a bit more ti than expected.
The seminar also entered its late stages, and the more it progressed, the more issues arose. He Guojin had even sought out Xu Qingyan once to inquire about the developnt of the subsequent plot.
After learning about the follow-up, He Guojin seed sowhat downcast. He inadvertently expressed concern that it might be too dark, to which Xu Qingyan casually suggested, shall we make it brighter?
“Don’t, just write it like that,” He Guojin waved his hand, “My opinion isn’t that important; let’s discuss it in the eting.”
“Alright.”
At the seminar, two female leaders expressed their fondness for Mi Long.
Xu Qingyan offered no opinion on the matter. He didn’t create the material, he was just nature’s transporter, having not managed much of the follow-up after the script was completed.
The seminar was still going on, but his mind had drifted back to Xinghai. He worried both about the production team and the people he left behind in Xinghai, growing restless.
In the editorial office, Zhao Mingyuan beca increasingly alard the more he read the screenplay.
When he saw the protagonist, ng Fan, pinned against a stone by Long Wenzhang, being strangled yet still managing to say, “You gave us hope when we shouldn’t have had any!”
“Now, even though we know we shouldn’t, we still dream, we dream of victory! Even with death staring us in the face, we dream of victory, even when we know we’re losing, we still dream of victory!”
He was struck dumb, suddenly feeling as if his own script were a lump of silly putty. He tried to make an imitation subconsciously, but realized he couldn’t write dialogue like that.
After the cannon fodder troops were nearly annihilated, Long Wenzhang leaned against the stone wall, his roguish smile instantly vanishing.
“I owe a thousand graves, a thousand graves atop the Southern Heavenly Gate.”
Upon seeing the frail scholar Translator A utter, “I really want to beco soone like Long Wenzhang.”
He suddenly seed to envision how a rope is twisted into form, amidst a nation’s ruin and shattered landscapes. How a group of ordinary people transford into warriors, how they bled dry.
Shouting that they would rather die, comparing themselves to dood flies. They were cannon fodder, yet they followed their leader to their deaths without looking back, all for victory.
In the end, everyone died, every living, breathing person perished.
After Zhao Mingyuan finished reading the script, it took an entire afternoon for him to co back to his senses. The others were no exception; the seminar room was unusually quiet that afternoon, until soone said.
“So day, I want to go visit the south of Yunnan.”
As soon as the words were out, soone imdiately chid in.
“I want to go too, I’ve wanted to go for a while… just never found the opportunity,” that person said, “It’s been a long ti since I traveled, to see the mountains and while I’m at it, to see… ”
“Xu Qingyan’s script must be drawn from materials in Tengchong in Yunnan, let’s just go there to shoot it,” Ji Shi’an proposed.
“I agree.”
An afternoon scattered with sporadic chat, between two female comrades stepping outside to wipe away tears. Just reading the story doesn’t evoke feelings, but putting oneself in their shoes like they did is sowhat unbearable.
That almost desperate suffocation, like searching for a speck of light in the night.
…
Zhou Mian stepped out of the Civil Affairs Bureau, thunder grumbled across the clouds, wringing out moisture.
The first raindrop landed on his nose, and within the span of three breaths, the rain suddenly ca pouring down. In a blink of an eye, the whole old street was deluged.
Sheltering his head while running, Zhou Mian clutched tightly the red booklet in his hand.
Under the eaves of a convenience store, in the instant the lightning flashed, he saw a silhouette flit across the mist-shrouded buildings, imdiately concealed by the dense curtain of rain.
Body heat stead off the dampness, lifting a mist that shrouded the visibility a few ters ahead.
Divorced.
Zhou Mian breathed shallowly, his heart beating slowly. At the mont when everything was settled, his heart didn’t ache as he had imagined, nor was he particularly happy.
The convenience store owner lounged in a rocking chair behind the counter, drooping eyelids flicking a glance at the person outside. The voice, smooth as a chant, called out.
“Umbrellas for twenty-five.”
Hearing this, an irritation suddenly stirred in Zhou Mian’s otherwise calm heart. He rembered his ex-wife’s crazed expression during the negotiations and the blissful look when ntioning her new love.
“He’s not like you, he knows how to take care of a family, he understands everything I want!”
Boom! Lightning struck with a thunderous crash.
Grinding his teeth, Zhou Mian cursed a profanity under his breath at the bastard and the bitch. Then he walked straight into the rain, heading into the misty veils, rembering that he had parked his car nearby.
Rain splattering on his face made it hard to breathe. His waterlogged sneakers made squishing sounds as he walked, irritating him inexplicably.
Right from the start sothing felt off, and yet he had been too preoccupied with work to notice. Take care of the family… take care of your mother’s family, damn that whore, go to hell!
He opened the car door and sat down inside, drenched, but didn’t start the car right away. After a mont of silence, he finally pulled onto the road.
Soon enough, the mist turned heavier, forcing Zhou Mian to stop on the roadside again.
The car door kept out the downpour, and in this white noise, Zhou Mian recalled what Qingyan had said, “Why didn’t you do it sooner?” Instantly, he fished out his phone.
He scrolled to Chen Niannian’s chat interface, where their conversation had paused three days before. Chen Niannian has asked what he had been up to recently, and he had replied that he was working on a new play that Brother Xu had put together.
A polite exchange of words that ca to a halt at a yellow-faced emoji with a smile.
Zhou Mian composed a ssage but decided to delete it before sending. Reaching out to her right after getting divorced? That would just seem like he was too eager to bring soone else bad luck.
With this thought, he sighed and erased the lengthy ssage he had written.
Suddenly, his phone began to vibrate on its own. He glanced at it, and in an instant, he froze – Chen Niannian was calling him.
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