Chapter 53 It seems to be the same type of Stand

"Did you slip some kind of bewitching potion to Old Qi? He kept praising you the moment he got back from work."

To put it mildly, Qi Luokan had practically never heard her old man praise anyone. He always wore an indifferent, take-it-or-leave-it attitude, treating film directing and variety show appearances as mere chores.

Yet this very detached, almost checked-out sort of person had recently praised Yu Wei twice already, from completely different angles.

The children of other families truly were wonderful.

"Let's fast-forward to me becoming sworn brothers with him. I'll call him big brother, and you can call him dad."

Despite having met him only once, Yu Wei had a deep impression of this Director Qi. Be it his personality or his working style, he radiated laziness from head to toe.

When an actor asked if a certain performance style was acceptable, he would reply with a string of affirmations. When the crew asked him to increase interactions, he would nod along. When Yu Wei showed him the revised script, he would agree to everything without hesitation.

Yu Wei had never seen a director as lazy as him in this life, nor in his past life either... The good news was that his film set shot things very quickly; the bad news was that the things he shot were utter garbage.

With him completely hands-off, it would be a miracle if the resulting work turned out any good.

Yu Wei had specifically searched him up. This man was now the "King of Bad Films" in the truest sense of the phrase—every single movie he directed bombed in quality, yet every few years he would continue to churn them out, truly behaving like an enduring hack.

Normally, a bad-film director of this caliber would have been universally reviled by now, but Qi Yunming's reputation remained surprisingly decent. The comment sections would curse him for being a slacker, but very few called him completely incompetent.

The reason he could still get by until now was mainly because his masterpiece was genuinely rock-solid. When he was young, he had directed a true cinematic classic that swept both box office and critical acclaim, winning high praise even overseas.

Later on, however, let alone a classic, he couldn't even direct a decent piece of work. Because the decline in quality was so severe, people once suspected that the masterpiece had actually been ghost-directed by someone else.

When there were no movies to shoot, he would pick up some variety show gigs as a mentor, managing to scrape by quite comfortably.

This was quite literally the life Yu Wei dreamed of: experiencing a peak, achieving financial freedom, then lying flat and checking out, only to find something minor to do whenever he grew restless.

Only those who had truly checked out knew how blissful it felt to do nothing.

"If you're willing, I can call you an old-timer too."

The internet was abuzz with discussions about Yu Wei rewriting the script, but after chatting for ages, Qi Luokan didn't ask much about it. After all, she had seen Yu Wei's finished script and knew what kind of standard he was operating on.

Compared to original creation, secondary creation was considerably simpler.

"Speaking of which, when is that short film of yours coming out? This concerns my dormitory survival rights after the semester starts."

A month had passed since The Tuner finished shooting, but Qi Luokan hadn't heard a single piece of news. Anyone who didn't know better would have thought that amateur outfit had simply grabbed the money and run.

"Soon."

Actually, editing a fourteen-minute short film shouldn't have taken this long. It was mainly because Yu Wei had offered numerous suggestions based on the original footage, leading to multiple rounds of revisions that dragged things out until now.

He wasn't particularly in a hurry either. Cutting this thing together was easy, but the real question was how to distribute it. A short film of such high quality would be a bit of a waste if just dumped straight onto the internet, as it would easily be forgotten with time.

He might as well aim for some sort of award.

However, Yu Wei hadn't heard of any short film competitions lately. Perhaps with the rise of short videos, the concept of the micro-movie seemed to have fallen out of fashion.

A two-hour movie could now be summarized in three minutes, and micro-movies currently had even less presence than short web dramas.

"This stuff really has ebbed a bit. The barrier to entry is relatively low, but the audience is sparse, making it a thankless task. The only people I've ever seen shoot these are media and film students... Wait a second."

"I remember now, there's a National College Student Micro-Movie Competition, but the deadline is coming up immediately."

This competition was basically meant for media and film majors to gain practical experience and pad their resumes. Students from other majors didn't have the time and weren't interested in it, but submitting entries was still an option.

The prize money and whatnot weren't important; the main thing was that the top three entries of the micro-film festival could go overseas.

"A student competition? Wouldn't that be a bit like bullying beginners?"

Although Yu Wei's team was an amateur outfit, they were still somewhat more professional than student groups, presumably...

"Looking down on college students?"

Some modern college students were terrifyingly competent, especially when it came to shooting videos. They covered everything from suspense and art house to sci-fi, with camera work and lighting as professional as could be. They were not to be underestimated.

Qi Luokan had watched quite a few and therefore didn't dare lower her guard in the slightest. A dark horse could easily emerge at any moment and completely flip their chances over.

The competition committee wasn't going to care whether you were a celebrity or had a good physique...

"If you want to submit, tell Director Lü to hurry up. The submission portal closes tomorrow night."

Qi Luokan paused, then sent another message: "Though if we submit, it can only be under my name, seeing as you're all old-timers."

"Okay."

The main thing was whether Old Lü could make the deadline; whose name was used didn't really matter. The production team was credited clearly enough, and the only thing Qi Luokan would likely get out of it was the prize money.

For a competition aimed at college students, the prize money wasn't much anyway, so it could just be treated as returning a favor for a free ride.

...

"Allow me to ask, have you ever sung any songs?"

On the second day of recording the show, Yu Wei had grown familiar with the guests. Whenever he met someone, he would start asking about their representative musical works, intending to write them into his novel as minor characters.

Everyone knew full well what he was up to.

The livestream from a few days ago was still fresh in their memories; even Qi Yuan's extraordinary performance hadn't been enough to withstand him. What could the rest of them, lingering at the bottom, possibly use to fight back? Blind stubbornness?

Actually, if the song quality were high enough, Yu Wei's book would serve as an exceptional promotional channel. But the problem was, if anyone had high-quality representative works, why would they even come here?

Knowing they lacked that kind of strength, they began giving Yu Wei a wide berth whenever they bumped into him, terrified that this kid would write them into his book for a public execution.

"Is my book the Death Note?"

Yu Wei hadn't expected his initial venture to be so unlucky. In such a large show, not a single peer had a representative work?

This thought of his was terribly modest. Very few contemporary celebrities could pull out a representative work, and someone like him—daring to write a novel while sitting on three hit songs—was a rare sight indeed.

Chi Leying did want to help, but all her songs were covers, and she couldn't be generous with someone else's property.

Asking around all the way, the two of them arrived at the set of Chasing the Stars. The temporary director was Lin Yi, a veteran actor invited by the production team. Having acted in numerous hit dramas, she enjoyed excellent audience rapport.

"Sister Yi, aren't you a singer as well?"

Celebrities in the earlier years were basically dual-threat artists. Even if actors weren't exceptionally skilled singers, handling the theme songs for film and television dramas was at least not an issue.

The moment these words left his mouth, Chi Leying was startled. Judging by the sound of it, he intended to take aim at the teacher directly; his nerve was truly immense.

Yu Wei wasn't acting on a whim. Qi Yuan was already among the top tier of the younger generation, and after defeating him, the readers' threshold had already been raised. To continue driving up their expectations, he had no choice but to challenge an even higher level.

He asked because he knew Teacher Lin enjoyed mingling with the younger crowd; had it been some slick and oily veteran of the industry, he wouldn't necessarily have initiated contact.

Lin Yi, currently busy preparing for auditions, hadn't expected him to ask this. But after a brief moment of daze, she quickly grasped Yu Wei's intent.

Lin Yi started as an actor, and her singing days were several years in the past. Even if she were written into the book and lost, it wouldn't be shameful, and she was quite curious as to what kind of song Yu Wei would use to match up against her.

"I suppose so. I used to sing movie theme songs. If you want to write about it, go ahead..." Lin Yi pointed at her own script. "But you have to help me revise my script too. You can't just rewrite it for Teacher Qi alone."

She had even checked the trending searches from last night; it seemed she genuinely kept up with the times. Many older actors, let alone surfing the web, were practically cut off from the internet entirely.

Actually, letting Yu Wei write it wasn't a bad thing either, but Lin Yi was somewhat curious whether his understanding of scripts was genuine or fake, so she decided to test the waters.

"That works too."

Yu Wei didn't have much confidence either, but looking it over and making edits was doable. If all else failed, he could just change a few punctuation marks.

He had just intended to pick up his pen when he was pulled away quietly by Chi Leying at his side. As she led him out, she didn't forget to offer an apologetic smile to Teacher Lin, maintaining immaculate manners.

"Teacher Lin's song is quite popular, and listeners hold a nostalgic filter for it. It won't be easy to beat."

For Chi Leying to make such a serious deal of it showed the song's impact. The tracks Yu Wei had targeted previously were recent new releases without deep listener nostalgia, but challenging an old classic was an entirely different story.

"What theme is the song?"

"Time." Chi Leying wore a grave expression. "I really liked this song back then. Not to embarrass myself, but I listened to it and cried several times."

Time? It seemed they were dealing with the same type of formidable substitute.