CH 29

March 31, 2021kaychandra

Chapter 29: The Great Fire

Translated & Edited by KChandra

The eighth day of the first month was considered a very auspicious day for many Chinese people, and the ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’ crew was expecting this day to bring them good luck.

When the crew gritted their teeth and found the best studio in the country to do the post-production, they were also taking a big risk. But if the post-production of the immortal cultivation drama was made with fifty cents special effects, then the whole feeling of the drama would be ruined, and the actors’ acting skills would be of much less value.

Because of traditional culture, their people always had a special sentiment for immortal cultivation dramas. However, unfortunately, in recent years, in order to save costs, the post-production of immortal cultivation dramas were all kinds of shoddy. As a result, after they broadcast, the quality had no immortal atmosphere and the audience only turned their backs on it. Over time, people had little expectation for the post-production special effects of immortal cultivation dramas, and even jokingly called the special effects of these works fifty cents special effects.

It showed how disappointed people were in their hearts.

At 8pm, some of the fans of the main actors of ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’ sat in front of the TV on time, waiting for the drama to start.

After the commercial, a soaring crane appeared on the TV. The crane was painted in the style of ink and watercolor. With the sound of a flute, the crane turned into wisps of ink and spread out into a picture of immortal mountains and white clouds.

Just such a picture made the audience in front of the TV unable to look away because the picture was so beautiful. So beautiful that they almost believed there was really such a beautiful place, and that there were immortals in that place.

A beautiful female voice rang out, with lyrics like poetry and a singing voice like falling rain, slowly outlining the love and hate, passion and enmity, and the partings of life and death in the world of Immortal cultivation.

The TV show’s contents had not yet appeared, and already many people were marveling in their hearts that the ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’ opening credits were really explosively cool. How much money was thrown at the post-production?

Before the first episode finished airing, there were already a lot of discussions on Weibo about the beauty of ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’s graphics, which made some netizens who were only planning to watch the online version[1] itch to turn on the TV.

‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’ premiered at 4, and by the time the first episode was finished, the ratings had reached 4.6. In the current environment where all kinds of dramas were flourishing, having this rating for the first episode was already a very good achievement.

After the torturous commercial break, the second episode of ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’ aired. Then, to the delight of the network and the crew, the ratings for ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’ kept rising. By the end of the second episode, the ratings had already broken 5.

After Director Zhu knew that ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’ had broken the 5 rating, he and the writer were so excited that they hugged each other and cried.

The show was a success!

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A success!

Gongxi Qiao, who was staying at home, also got the news that ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’s ratings broke 5. Looking at the congratulatory text message from Chen Ke, he smiled and put down his phone, then continued to control his game character in the field battle.

“Junior Brother, give their fighter a blindness attack!” Xu Chao wore his headset and yelled into the microphone while giving himself an invincibility buff and accelerating up to slash the opponent’s nannies.

Wu Hai, who was sitting next to him organizing scripts, watched the two shiny game characters on the computer screen mow down several opponents and silently swallowed a mouthful of old blood, “You’re playing games with Qiao Shao, does Mr. Xiang know?”

After successfully hacking down all opponents, Xu Chao took off his headset and looked at Wu Hai with a bewildered face. “What did you say?”

Wu Hai said dispiritedly, “Qiao Shao starred in a TV show that broke 5 in the ratings. Even if you don’t go to wish him well, you still brought him along to play games. If the company executives knew, they would probably kill you.”

“Broke 5?” Xu Chao looked surprised. His face was full of glory and he said, “As expected of junior brother, not only is he a master in-game, but the drama he filmed is also popular with the audience.”

“Don’t just look at other people’s ability, you also think about yourself. You started four years earlier than Qiao Shao, but you’re still not as good as him,” Wu Hai put the script away with some disgust, and said in a serious tone, “You should just grow up.”

Xu Chao used a teleportation charm to send his character back to the city to make sure he wouldn’t be killed before he went to sit next to Wu Hai and patted his shoulder. “Brother Wu, I know you’re doing this for my own good, but I think it’s good that the company has principles and won’t force artists to do things they don’t like. What’s wrong with that?”

Wu Hai was very upset by his words, “But what will happen when you lose popularity?”

“At that time I’ll have saved enough money. It won’t matter if I’m popular or not,” he took a few steps to the computer and waved his hand, “Junior brother asked me to download a copy of this script, you can help me look through it.”

Listening to the tapping of the keyboard, Wu Hai roughly flipped through the script in his hand a few times, and finally breathed a long, helpless sigh of relief. Forget it, although Xu Chao lacked a bit of thoughtfulness and loved to play games, he had no other hobbies, and generally speaking, he was quite worry-free.

So be it, people had their own will. A husky couldn’t turn into a Persian cat. He was resigned to his fate after signing such an artist.

Since the start of the broadcast of ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’, the ratings had beaten all the other dramas. Some people in the industry laughed and said that ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’ had given the drama circle a good opening this year, and had also given a lot of pressure to its peers.

The dramas that aired at the same time as Immortal Mountain Courtyard were indeed very tragic. The ratings weren’t high, and even the headlines were stolen by Immortal Mountain Courtyard, so they had no sense of existence. When you opened your computer or an entertainment newspaper, you could see ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’ related reports everywhere.

A random ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’ behind-the-scenes clip on the Internet could get tens of millions of hits. Even the woman who played the role of a cook in the cast was on fire. In an interview with the media, she quipped that since the TV series was broadcast, every time she went to the market to buy food, she had to pay a few cents less than others.

Even the supporting characters were on fire, not to mention the main actors. The main actors were instantly popular everywhere. It was like people were embarrassed to go out and talk to others if they hadn’t seen ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’.

Gongxi Qiao’s Weibo followers finally crossed the 10 million mark and he became a real celebrity. It was just that Gongxi Qiao usually updated his Weibo too little compared to the other main actor, Zheng Lei, who posted on Weibo every day. The latest Weibo post was the one where he teased his friend Xi Qing on the first day of the first month of the new year, so many fans screamed under his Weibo account that they wanted the male god to release a selfie to feed them.

A netizen expressed in anger, the male god’s agency can’t be so careless. Other artists have special people to take care of Weibo. Don’t you help the male god take care of it? As long as you post photos of the male god, I don’t mind if he doesn’t personally send the Weibo posts, ah.

Clearly, the netizens’ bottom line and requests were getting lower and lower, just so they could see pictures of the male god.

The new fans were still waiting for the male god to update his Weibo, while the old fans had learned to have fun with Weibos of Gongxi Qiao’s agent, his assistant, and his parents, entertaining themselves very much.

Some bold netizens went to Xi Qing’s Weibo post on the first day of the first month to leave a message, happily saying: Master Xi, you have the ability to take pictures of snowmen to mock the ugly snowman made by the male god, you have the ability to make the male god update his Weibo!

Unfortunately, they didn’t know that this Master Xi had his settings on all notifications[2] for their male god, and usually when the male god didn’t have any Weibo updates, he rarely trifled with Weibo.

The fans waited and waited until the Lantern Festival day when Gongxi Qiao finally sent a Weibo message.

Gongxi Qiao V: Happy Lantern Festival, let’s have some dumplings together. [Photo: Selfie of eating soup dumplings]

Smoke Wave Jiangbei: The male god is the male god, such a terrible selfie angle can make his face so handsome, I want to worship under your suit pants.

The Pandas: above, peeping at the male god’s suit pants, don’t leave after school, the male god is mine!

The fans were happy to tease each other under the post. Suddenly, a person who didn’t set an avatar and whose Weibo name was just a string of English letters suddenly left a message: Oh, some people are really cold and noble, not even forwarding the official Weibo of the crew, they really think they’re a big shot? The other main actors of the same crew are not so big-faced.

This Yin Yang tone under a bunch of joyful comments seemed extraordinarily idiosyncratic. Just when some passerby fans thought the Qiao fans were going to make a scene, the responses from the Qiao fans made people very speechless.

Green Family Ten Birds: Hahahaha, how do you know, above. Qiao Shao’s face is at least one meter eight.

Moth On The Moon: Bullshit above, my male god’s face is clearly two meters seven.

This fight did not cause a quarrel, but let the passerby fans refresh their outlook. Whose fans didn’t say that their idols were good everywhere, how come Gongxi Qiao’s fans were so unique?

Zhao Yikun, who also relied on ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’ for success, watched the drama on Weibo and turned his head to ask Sun Xiang, “Where has he been the last few days?” With his knowledge of Gongxi Qiao, he wouldn’t be someone who didn’t even forward the crew’s promotional posts.

Sun Xiang lowered his voice and said, “‘National Industry’s crew seems to be making up footage in the last few days, and only finished yesterday.”

“It’s been so long and still filming?” Zhao Yikun raised his eyebrows and looked at the Weibo page with some regret, “How come these people didn’t get into a fight?”

It was a pity that the fan who posted just now didn’t smear Gongxi Qiao. He really had some regrets.

“Master, just save your breath,” Sun Xiang shut down the computer, “Gongxi Qiao and Wen Wen have a good relationship, you must not cause any more trouble.”

As soon as he heard Sun Xiang mention Chen Wen, Zhao Yikun was a little sickly and said only after half a day, “What’s good about Gongxi Qiao? Wen Wen looks more at him than at me.”

Sun Xiang didn’t look up and said, “Because he’s more handsome than you, ah.”

Zhao Yikun: “……”

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Gongxi Qiao didn’t update his Weibo recently for reasons other than to make up shots for ‘National Industry’. Another reason was his own characterization.

Now that ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’ was on fire, Gongxi Qiao, as the hottest actor in the drama, really didn’t need to use all means to increase exposure. Sometimes when the audience saw the same person all the time, it would create a reverse psychology about how the same person always appeared, and how much did he need a sense of presence.

In Chen Ke’s opinion, Gongxi Qiao wasn’t a small entertainer who was in a hurry to hype up his value. Therefore, the more there were these kinds of times[3], the more stable he had to be. This gesture shouldn’t only be seen by his fans, but also by others in the circle, so that they could have a favourable impression of Gongxi Qiao.

The most common thing in this circle were entertainers who thought they were big shots after they became popular. However, often this kind of entertainer’s path to stardom did not last long, and in a few years, who still knew who they were?

Therefore, after ‘Immortal Mountain Courtyard’ became a big hit, Chen Ke didn’t arrange variety shows and interviews for Gongxi Qiao to participate in. Instead, he was more strict with the scripts he sent to him, and he didn’t consider any low-grade product endorsement invitations with higher payments.

It was because of this reason that Gongxi Qiao appeared to be much more low-key compared to the other main actor in the drama, Zheng Lei, who went around on shows and received endorsements.

The night was perfect. Gongxi Qiao sat on the sofa and watched Zheng Lei on the TV with melodramatic music, his eyes red as he talked about his family’s poverty and his years of struggle. Suddenly he felt a bit bored.

After living all these years, how could he not see that Zheng Lei was putting on an act? Gongxi Qiao didn’t know if he wanted to arouse sympathy for himself or deceive others. At least in his opinion, this tactic wasn’t very clever.

Fans who liked him wouldn’t hate him because his family was poor. And those who didn’t like him wouldn’t change their opinion because of his tragic past.

Because he was on fire this time, Zheng Lei’s entire body was buoyant, with a sense of complacency that he didn’t know how to restrain after his success.

Gongxi Qiao had never liked such people getting too close. In contrast, he actually preferred young people like Xu Chao. The second person was a bit different, but at least he was open-minded.

However, among all the young people he was in contact with, the one he appreciated the most was ……

The phone placed on the coffee table vibrated. He bent down and picked it up.

Tomorrow there will be rain, pay attention to keeping warm.

Sender: Xi Qing.

Gongxi Qiao smiled and returned a good word, then got up and turned off the TV.

Tomorrow he was going to be outdoors taking pictures for the Ya De Apparel print campaign. This big boss fan had actually thought things through quite thoroughly.

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