NOVEL NEXT 23: One Hundred and Eighty-Eight
However, what Nan Rongyu didn’t know was that the director’s attention wasn’t on the two male leads at all.
Shao Yichen was busy dealing with the aftermath of the system’s first settlement.
Speaking of the system’s first settlement, we need to go back to midnight, ten hours earlier.
After successfully bewildering Nan Rongzhou with her smooth talk, Shao Yichen hung up the phone. Just as she was congratulating herself on her cleverness, a [ding-dong] notification sound rang in her ear.
—As if in perfect sync with her thoughts, the system had calculated the settlement at the exact moment she hung up the phone!
[After calculation by the film system, this task has been completed. The total box office is forty-eight million yuan, with a net profit of 5.76 million yuan after distribution revenue sharing.]
[The host and system split profits at a 1:1 ratio. The host’s final profit is 2.88 million yuan, which has been deposited into the system-designated account.]
[Director System upgrade complete. Second task released: Host must complete the filming and release of a second film within three months. Script must be the host’s original creation. System investment for production is one million yuan. The required theme is mystery and detection. Host must begin the task within three days!]
After hearing the mechanical voice of the system in her mind, Shao Yichen’s good mood from successfully tricking the South twins instantly vanished.
Damn it! Did the system have to remind her that she hadn’t managed to lose money, right when she was feeling happy?
Not only that, although this dividend of 2.88 million yuan looked auspicious, considering the film’s original box office of over forty million, after layers of exploitation by theaters, distribution companies, and the system, she was left with only a little over two million—this seemed far too little. The system must have skimmed some extra portion beyond the original distribution agreement! Shao Yichen thought, grinding her teeth.
But Shao Yichen didn’t particularly care about this sum of money. After all, if she could successfully lose money and return to her original world, what awaited her would be far more than a mere two million.
After some thought, she kept one million for herself to use for rent and living expenses in A City after graduation, and had the system transfer the remaining money to another account she was familiar with. Then she stopped thinking about these two million-plus yuan and focused entirely on planning her next film.
It’s fine, I’ll just start over! Shao Yichen encouraged herself.
One profitable film isn’t scary; what’s scary would be making profit on every film.
As long as she could successfully lose money on the next film, she would definitely break free from this cycle of profit-making and smoothly return to her original world!
For this purpose, she needed to start preparing for the next film!
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Just like before, Shao Yichen pulled out a piece of paper and began to write and sketch, organizing her thoughts for the next film.
After the first film made a profit, the system’s investment increased tenfold.
It sounded like a lot, but this was purely an illusion caused by how small the previous film’s investment had been—after all, making a film with just 100,000 yuan and successfully releasing it was practically a fairy tale. Shao Yichen had only managed it with the help of various coincidences, leveraging some connections from her previous life and telling a few small lies.
In reality, this time the system’s investment of one million yuan for filmmaking was still considerably low compared to ordinary films.
In other words, this film would still be classified as a small-budget independent film.
Under these circumstances, Shao Yichen’s choice of film genre was still limited, just as it had been for her first film. Even if the system hadn’t specified a theme for this film, Shao Yichen estimated she could only choose between a comedy, a mystery, an art film, or continue with horror.
Honestly, if Shao Yichen had been allowed to choose freely, she would have unhesitatingly selected an art film—everyone knows art films are a paradise for losing money! Art films almost never make a profit! Plus, art films demand high acting skills, and with these two eye-scorchingly bad male leads, whether they played characters in a multi-person romance or went Brokeback Mountain with male-male romance, box office failure would be guaranteed…
However, since the system had already specified “mystery and detection” as the content, Shao Yichen naturally wouldn’t consider other genres and focused solely on mystery.
For mystery films, the script remained crucial. On this point, Shao Yichen was even somewhat grateful that the system required the script to be her original creation. Otherwise, if she had randomly found a screenwriter, and accidentally discovered an undiscovered gem, wouldn’t that be a major blow to her money-losing plan?
Given these circumstances, she might as well take matters into her own hands again!
Clearly, Shao Yichen remained firmly convinced that any script she wrote would undoubtedly be terrible.
However, she had also learned from the previous film’s failure to lose money and decided to establish several principles for her script to avoid making a profit. By strictly adhering to these principles while writing, she could steadily stay on the path to financial loss.
After some thought, she wrote down the first principle: No romance!
In the previous horror film, it was precisely because she, with no understanding of audience psychology, rashly added a love story between the male lead and the so-called ghost girlfriend that some viewers without discernment were accidentally moved by such a terrible film, affecting their ability to correctly judge the film’s quality. This time, she would absolutely not add any romantic subplot to the film—not even a love story between the male lead and a dog!
She had to eliminate the source of audience emotional attachment!
After writing the first principle, Shao Yichen pondered for a moment, then wrote down the second: No complete ending.
As everyone knows, a good story, even if it doesn’t achieve perfect continuity, should at least have a beginning and an end. Whether it’s a happy ending or a sad ending, it should at least have an ending.
Given this, one could deduce that viewers definitely couldn’t tolerate a story without an ending!
That’s right, Shao Yichen had decided that this time the story would nominally have an “open ending,” but in reality, she planned to write it without any conclusion!
She would end the story right at its climax! Foreshadowing would be left unresolved! Cases would remain unsolved! Clues would lead nowhere!
This way, faced with an abruptly ending plot, audiences would be left with nothing but frustration. After leaving the theater, not only would they not give the film a five-star rating, giving it a one-star review would be completely normal.
Shao Yichen looked at her two principles with great confidence.
She refused to believe that she couldn’t lose money making a film this way!
With these thoughts, she stuck the principles to her bedhead, pulled out a few more sheets of paper, and began planning the plot.
Two hours later.
Even though it was already 2:30 AM, Shao Yichen, accustomed to staying up late, remained energetic and fully alert. With huge dark circles under her eyes, she gazed with satisfaction at the script she had just written.
Although some details still needed to be finalized tomorrow, after her revisions and edits, the script had essentially taken shape!
She could guarantee that this script was absolutely the culmination of all terrible mystery films in cinematic history!
Even if an experienced, famous director were to film this script, they would likely only produce garbage, let alone someone as amateur as herself.
She was certain that her plan to lose money this time would be absolutely foolproof!
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At the same time, at 2:30 AM, Li Xingyu was awakened by an urgent ringtone.
He picked up his phone and checked the contact. Instantly, he was fully awake.
He immediately pressed the answer button: “Hello? What’s happened? Is there any movement from fath—that person’s side?”
A familiar voice came from the other end of the phone. If Shao Yichen were here, she might recognize from the voice that this person was the landlord who had rented the apartment to her.
The mysterious landlord, now that the call had connected, hesitated: “No, it shouldn’t be him… well, it’s hard to say…”
Hearing this, Li Xingyu relaxed slightly. Although a middle-of-the-night call would likely concern something urgent, as long as it wasn’t related to that person, the situation probably hadn’t reached an unmanageable point. He shifted his position and patiently waited for the other person’s next words.
The person on the other end didn’t keep him waiting long: “Actually, I’m not sure if I should be calling you in the middle of the night—but one hundred and eighty thousand yuan was just deposited into your account. This… wasn’t your doing, was it?”
“…” Even someone as composed as Li Xingyu was momentarily stunned by this abrupt news. But he quickly recovered and said gravely, “It wasn’t me. Although I’ve been active recently, trying to find people from my mother’s side, they wouldn’t simply believe me.”
“That’s strange, it couldn’t be a mistaken transfer, could it?” The person on the other end also seemed confused. “Strictly speaking, the amount deposited into your account wasn’t one hundred and eighty thousand, but one hundred and eighty-eight thousand, and it was transferred at this hour, which is really peculiar. I can’t track anything more; maybe you should investigate yourself?”
“I’m already on it.” Li Xingyu tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear, opened his computer, and began typing to trace the source of this windfall while continuing the conversation. “There should be results soon—”
At this point, he suddenly fell silent.
The person on the other end, unaware of his change in demeanor, continued talking: “Actually, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In my opinion, if the source can’t be found, so be it. Consider it a donation from a kind-hearted person. It could be perfect for carrying out your plan. Aren’t you short on money right now, without even enough for living expenses…”
Li Xingyu suddenly interrupted: “I know now.”
“Huh? What?” The person on the other end didn’t immediately understand.
“I know where this money came from.” Li Xingyu stared at the information displayed on his computer screen.
This sudden transfer of 1.88 million yuan came from the same source as the 60,000 yuan payment he had received earlier for his acting role.
“You already know? That quickly?” The person on the other end seemed to scratch their head. “Is there any problem with this money?”
“There’s no problem,” Li Xingyu answered. But before the person on the other end could feel relieved, he continued: “But I can’t accept this money.”
“Huh? Why? If there’s no problem, why not accept it?” The person on the other end was clearly confused.
But Li Xingyu had no intention of answering his question. He exited the program, closed his computer, and said decisively: “In any case, I know where this money came from, and I’ll handle it. It’s too late tonight; she should be sleeping. I’ll find her myself tomorrow.”
Author’s Note:
Second update~
Big hammer eighty, small hammer forty, male lead one hundred and eighty-eight (just kidding)
It will be repaid in the future, with super multiplication like in a card game (?)
Thanks to the little angels who cast Emperor Votes or poured Nutrition Fluid for me during the period from 2020-08-16 11:02:23 to 2020-08-21 11:24:29~
Thanks to the little angels who threw landmines: Jumping Rabbit 2; Gentle Words 1;
Thanks to the little angels who poured Nutrition Fluid: Gentle Words 20 bottles; Little Stream 6 bottles; Where is my baby 5 bottles; Jessica, Us in the Sunshine 1 bottle;
Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!