After Defying the System, I Became a Genius Director

Shao Yichen was awakened by the sound of a phone call the next morning.

This wasn’t actually the caller’s fault, since Shao Yichen sleeping until ten-thirty on a workday was truly sinful—no normal person would have guessed she was still sleeping.

However, even though she had stayed up until two-thirty last night, sleeping until ten-thirty meant she’d gotten her full eight hours of sleep, so Shao Yichen wasn’t particularly angry about being awakened.

She yawned as she picked up her phone, saw it was Li Xingyu calling, and after a moment’s thought, answered: “Hello?”

She wasn’t particularly surprised by the call and had somewhat prepared herself mentally—after all, anyone who suddenly found an extra million or so in their account would probably want to figure out what had happened.

“Director Shao,” the voice on the other end sounded genuinely serious, not even calling her “Senior Sister” anymore but switching to the more formal title of “Director,” “I’ll return this million-plus yuan to your account. Please provide your bank account number.”

Shao Yichen was actually somewhat amazed at this point, partly because he was giving up the money so decisively, and partly because—how was he so certain it was her who had transferred the money?

Though indeed, she had instructed the system to transfer the funds.

That’s right, after yesterday’s profit distribution, she had kept only one million for herself and immediately transferred the remaining 1.88 million to Li Xingyu.

Her action didn’t have any particular ulterior motive; she simply felt it was what Li Xingyu deserved. After all, his acting skills had been instrumental in making the film profitable. Although Shao Yichen was furious about the film making money—and consequently felt irritated whenever she saw Li Xingyu’s handsome face—that didn’t mean she couldn’t recognize the facts.

Objectively speaking, Li Xingyu had been selected by her as the male lead and should naturally give his all to the film; his contribution of excellent acting was entirely appropriate. Moreover, his performance had indeed won audience approval and box office returns. If she kept all the money for herself, that would be unreasonable.

Besides, looking at Shao Yichen’s own situation, once she successfully lost money, she would return to her original world, unable to take the money with her—it would only benefit the original owner of this body. And while the original owner wasn’t from a wealthy family, her family certainly wasn’t short on money, otherwise they wouldn’t have let her study for a director’s degree. Why would she need money from an unknown source?

For all these reasons, after keeping enough money for her future life in this world, Shao Yichen transferred the rest to the true savior of the film. What she hadn’t expected was to be discovered so quickly.

Shao Yichen naturally didn’t know she had been betrayed by the honest system and hacking technology working together. Since guessing that she had transferred the money was actually quite logical, she was only slightly surprised before quickly continuing the conversation: “This is your share of the film’s profits, the part you deserve.”

“The part I deserve was written in the contract and settled when the film was shot,” Li Xingyu insisted. “Besides, I only filmed for a week; taking this much money would weigh on my conscience.”

Shao Yichen felt a headache coming on. She thought to herself, how is it so hard to give money away?

She shook her head and continued: “I’ve already kept my share. You really don’t need to be so polite.” She had initially wanted to say that she’d heard from Director Zhao that he was short on money recently, so this sum would be perfect, but thinking about it from his perspective, she realized it might hurt his pride, so she stopped herself.

Li Xingyu still wouldn’t relent, insisting that as a junior in college, he didn’t deserve such a large payment.

Shao Yichen had no way to deal with this righteous junior. She was about to hang up the phone and pretend nothing had happened when she remembered the new task issued by the system last night and suddenly had an inspiration.

“Actually, this isn’t just profit-sharing,” Shao Yichen coughed twice with feigned seriousness. “It also includes… payment for the next film. You won’t refuse that, will you?”

Li Xingyu was indeed distracted by the information Shao Yichen revealed: “The next film?”

“That’s right,” Shao Yichen confirmed. “The script is already written, well, mostly written.”

“This time you’ll still be the lead—”

“But you’re not the lead,” Shao Yichen added. “You’re the second male lead, no, the third male lead.”

After saying this, she worried Li Xingyu might become suspicious about his ranking dropping rather than rising, so she quickly explained: “The reason you’re not the lead is simply because the role isn’t suitable for you! There’s no other reason, don’t overthink it.”

“I understand,” Li Xingyu’s tone showed no change. Shao Yichen could imagine him on the other end of the line, expressionless, nodding slightly.

He sounded convinced, and Shao Yichen sighed in relief, thinking it was ridiculous how troublesome it was to give someone money. Fortunately, the issue was resolved. Before Li Xingyu could say anything else, she quickly added: “I’ll organize the script in a bit and send you both your role and the entire script so you can familiarize yourself with it.”

Li Xingyu made an affirmative sound, then seemed to remember something: “But 1.8 million is still too much—”

“Just consider the rest as my investment!” Shao Yichen quickly interrupted him. “Anyway, that’s how it is! I have something to attend to, so I’ll hang up now. We’ll talk on WeChat later!”

“Oh, and don’t call me ‘Director’ or ‘Senior Sister’ anymore, it makes me feel awkward. Just call me Shao Yichen!”

After dropping this final line, Shao Yichen hung up the phone with lightning speed.

Leaving Li Xingyu on the other end to ponder alone.

Investment? Investing in what? In him?

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Shao Yichen hung up the phone, feeling she had finally resolved one problem.

As for why she didn’t want Li Xingyu to call her “Senior Sister”—it was mainly because she had come through rebirth, and becoming Li Xingyu’s senior was an additional result of her usurping someone else’s position, which made her feel a bit guilty when she heard it.

Just as Shao Yichen was breathing a sigh of relief, planning to organize the script and scan it to send to Li Xingyu, her phone rang again.

She picked up the phone and saw that the name displayed was Nan Rongyu.

…Why are the troubles coming one after another this morning!

Despite her internal complaints, Shao Yichen answered the call again: “Hello?”

“Um, Lose All Hundred Thousand…” Nan Rongyu’s voice sounded a bit sheepish.

Honestly, from his perspective, what he had done was quite improper—first, calling a girl in the middle of the night was already inappropriate. Not to mention that he, a drunk, had issued orders while intoxicated, and he was a rich second-generation who could genuinely cause a lot of trouble if he wanted to.

But from Shao Yichen’s perspective, the issue wasn’t so serious. On one hand, due to her memories from before rebirth, she still considered the South twins her friends; on the other hand, she was also aware of Nan Rongyu’s quirks and didn’t take his words to heart. Casting them as leads was purely because she thought the suggestion was genuinely excellent.

So she didn’t make a big deal of it and answered him as if joking.

“Don’t call me by that ‘Lose All Hundred Thousand’ name!” Shao Yichen said, unable to decide whether to laugh or cry. “That’s just my game ID, okay? Didn’t you already learn my name from your brother?”

Besides, now that the system task had been upgraded, that name should be upgraded too, Shao Yichen thought.

“Oh, um, Director, Director Shao!” Nan Rongyu seemed to struggle to think for a moment, perhaps only remembering Shao Yichen’s surname, so he simply and directly called her Director Shao. “I was drunk last night and everything I said on the phone was nonsense. I’m really sorry!”

Shao Yichen couldn’t be bothered to hold it against him: “I know you were drunk, and I’m not angry. Don’t worry about it. We’ll still play ranked matches today; I believe we can climb another rank!”

Hearing this, Nan Rongyu breathed a sigh of relief. Since she was still in the mood to chat about the game, it seemed she truly wasn’t very angry. He tentatively inquired: “About asking you to make a film with us as the leads last night, that was all drunk talk—”

“But I really do plan to make you two the leads,” Shao Yichen took a deep breath and delivered another blow to Nan Rongyu. “This has already been decided, so don’t back out.”

Nan Rongyu: “…”

Didn’t she say she wasn’t angry?! Why is she playing with us like this!

He quickly continued: “Director Shao, I was truly drunk last night, please don’t take that seriously! Forget acting, we barely even take photos. We definitely can’t meet the requirements…”

“Don’t deny your potential like this!” Before he could finish, a shout came from the other end of the phone.

Nan Rongyu’s body trembled, actually shocked by her outburst.

“I think you two have great acting talent!” Shao Yichen began her smooth talking again. “When I first saw your band perform at the restaurant, I was stunned by your expressiveness.”

Such eye-scorchingly bad performances, Shao Yichen had never seen before.

“You have a unique voice and sense of rhythm!”

In other words, they went off-key in a very distinctive way, basically without limits.

“To be honest, the reason I used some tricks to get you to do the soundtrack for the previous film wasn’t because of your status, but because I was attracted by your music!”

After all, such awful music was truly hard to find.

“And your final result was as expected, very satisfying to me—no, it was even more satisfying than I had imagined.”

Your ending theme was even more unbearable than I had imagined.

Shao Yichen was so eloquent that Nan Rongyu was dumbfounded and momentarily forgot what he had originally wanted to say. She pressed her advantage and continued.

“However, I regret that your soundtrack didn’t receive very good reviews in the previous film.” At this point, Shao Yichen sighed affectedly, then changed her tone. “But I think this wasn’t your problem, but rather that the film didn’t match your characteristics well, causing the audience to miss the true charm of your music!”

“That’s precisely why I want to tailor-make a film for you this time, with you as the leads and also composing the soundtrack. I believe this is the only way to bring out your full potential and let everyone experience the emotions hidden in your music!”

“It’s settled then! I’ll send you the script in the chat room when we play the game this afternoon!”

Shao Yichen dropped this decisive statement and then, just as she had done with Li Xingyu, promptly hung up the phone again.

On the other end of the call, Nan Rongyu stared at the phone in his hand, his expression complicated.

“Brother, how did it go?” Nan Rongzhou anxiously came over. “What did Director Shao Yichen say? Has she calmed down?”

But Nan Rongyu remained silent as if he hadn’t heard what his brother was saying. After a long while, he finally said something that seemed more like he was talking to himself.

“…When did she hear our performance at the restaurant?”

Author’s Note:

Shao Yichen: In my previous life.

Three updates complete!

The author will continue to work hard!