Chapter 34: Love is Not Blind

When Liu Yiyan first heard this term, she wondered why Xu Heng would have a younger brother from the Island Country; it took her two seconds to realize that Xu Heng was teasing her.

"You're bullying me again!"

"You're the only treasure I have; if I don't bully you, who would I bully?"

Hearing Xu Heng say this, Liu Yiyan felt both happy and shy.

"I'm not chatting with you anymore, I have to go take my mom to get her blood drawn for tests in a bit."

"Don't hang up yet, I want to ask you something."

"What?" Liu Yiyan muttered to herself.

Because Xu Heng usually hung up the phone first and always seemed very busy, his uncharacteristic request to talk a bit more today exceeded her expectations.

"You're studying acting, right?"

Liu Yiyan didn't know why he was asking this, so she said in a coquettish voice: "Yeah, I'm a talent from the Magic Arts Academy's acting department. Once I film a movie and make big money in the future, I won't be with you anymore, hmph!"

"Then do you want to film a movie?"

Xu Heng opened a private document on his computer, which was filled with scripts for excellent films from the future, hit songs, and production plans for various phenomenal variety shows.

Aside from investing in stocks and writing novels during his summer break, he had spent most of his remaining time writing this stuff.

After his rebirth, he remembered parts of his past life with exceptional clarity—not the kind of memory enhancement found in novels, as he was still very slow at memorizing professional textbooks; it was simply that he remembered the things he had experienced in his previous life very clearly.

For instance, he could remember the rise and fall of most stocks he saw on the day he and Sheng Bo first entered the stock market in his past life; another example was that he could remember the plot of every movie he had watched and the sheet music for every song he had heard.

It was absurd.

This feeling was like having the dust-covered door of memory completely opened, with the storage capacity in his mind instantly increasing from 512mb to an exaggerated 512gb.

However, memories of things he had never come into contact with could not be conjured out of thin air; just like how he had never bought a lottery ticket, so he didn't know the winning numbers for any draw—though it seemed that even if one knew the jackpot numbers, it didn't necessarily mean they would win.

He had only played the stock market for a few months in his past life, and because one had to do homework before entering the market, he had basically seen the trends of the bull stocks from 2006 to 2008; beyond that, since he didn't play the stock market, he didn't have the advantage of "memory" in that area.

Therefore, among the batch of memories from his past life in his mind, the ones related to movies and songs were currently more valuable.

He was a novelist himself and had some research into things like scripts, so rewriting movies he had seen in his past life into scripts and filming them was not a difficult task.

Moreover, Xu Heng held many excellent song scores in his hands, which could easily make an ordinary person famous, even if the other party's singing skills were lacking or they didn't even recognize musical notation.

After all, with so many internet celebrity singers in the future, didn't they still live high on the hog by relying on excellent representative works, marketing, and million-dollar tuners?

Of course, Xu Heng hadn't considered bringing out phenomenal movies before 2010; the Huaxia film market wasn't very big right now, with the total annual box office barely reaching a few hundred million at most, and a movie breaking one hundred million could be called a huge hit—it was far from the vast market of the future where breaking one billion was common.

As for songs, he could bring out a few; if some of these weren't released, others would publish them in a couple of years.

But the problem was that many songs were sung by women, and some male songs had different vocal requirements.

Xu Heng could sing, but only a small portion; for the rest, he would still have to sell them to entertainment companies under the name of a composer.

He himself was actually unwilling to give good things to outsiders; if he had close, trustworthy confidants or friends, he would rather make them famous.

During the summer break, Xu Heng had asked his younger sister to try singing, but unfortunately, she was tone-deaf and couldn't even find the right key, so he dismissed the idea.

It still required someone slightly more professional.

Xu Heng hadn't thought of who would be suitable at the time, until he recently met Liu Yiyan.

As everyone knows.

Friends with benefits are still friends.

Although they said they wouldn't talk about feelings, there would always be some feelings between them to a greater or lesser extent.

Besides, Liu Yiyan was a proper student from a professional school and certainly had a foundation in singing and acting.

Letting her try was better than letting someone without a foundation or someone he didn't know try.

But the funds Xu Heng could currently use were limited; after pulling out of the stock market in October, he would have at most twenty million RMB, and this bit of capital could only support investments in small-budget films.

He had spent time over the past two days browsing his library for suitable small-budget films.

First were the "youth romance films" that would emerge in a couple of years, with small-budget tear-jerker romances like *You Are the Apple of My Eye*, *Our Times*, and *So Young* as the mainstream, focusing on the beauty and innocence of recalling one's student days.

Many of these films already had original works, and if he wanted to film them, he would have to pay for adaptation rights, which wasn't very cost-effective.

Next were some feature films that didn't require special effects, such as *Goodbye Mr. Loser*, *Tang Yi*, and *Lost on Journey*; however, these scripts didn't have much for a female lead, or even lacked one entirely, so it was impossible to film them with just Liu Yiyan.

After careful consideration, Xu Heng finally copied and pasted a script called *Love is Not Blind* from his library.

*Love is Not Blind*!

This was a truly magical movie; with a production cost of less than ten million, it created a myth of over one hundred million at the box office.

But its magic didn't stop there; the most magical thing about it was that this film crew was toxic.

The various leads in the movie successively had scandals exposed, and the way they couldn't wait to get on the trending searches was like wild boars that had just escaped their cages.

According to incomplete statistics, out of the four leads in the movie, three cheated... and other supporting actors had everything from drug use to divorce.

It could be called a gathering of elites.

However, in the end, Xu Heng still decided to let Liu Yiyan test the waters with this movie.

For one, its cost was truly very small; back then, it seemed that excluding marketing costs, the movie only cost 8.9 million, much of which went to the paychecks of the then-popular Wen Zhang and Yao Di.

Setting aside these leads, the actual expenses required wouldn't exceed five million.

Calculating based on the 300 million box office of *Love is Not Blind* in the future, this was a deal with a return rate of over fifty times.

As long as Liu Yiyan performed normally, it was impossible for this movie to lose money.

Moreover, *Love is Not Blind* had a good reputation; if she could act well in this movie, Liu Yiyan would have her own footing in the entertainment industry, and it would be very easy to make her famous afterward.

Releasing a few representative songs, participating in some variety shows, building a persona, and then acting in two big-budget productions of over one billion when the era of box office explosions arrived in a few years would immediately allow her to rank among first-tier or even top-tier stars.

Xu Heng knew that one couldn't become fat in one bite, so he decided to take it slow, starting with small-budget films to train and cultivate Liu Yiyan's acting ability; once she was groomed into a big star by him, she wouldn't be able to run away even if she wanted to.

"After October, I'll put together a film crew to shoot a movie, and you'll be the female lead," he said.

On the other end of the phone, Liu Yiyan thought Xu Heng was joking.

"Honey, stop teasing me."

If Xu Heng had said he was investing in a movie, Liu Yiyan might have barely believed him, but what he meant was clearly that he would be the director himself.

Is making a movie an easy thing to do?

Actors, funding, promotion and distribution, theater chains—every single one is a hurdle; for an outsider with absolutely no qualifications or foundation to want to make a movie is no different from a pipe dream.

"I'm not teasing you; I plan to make you famous and play a star-raising game."

Facing Xu Heng's banter, Liu Yiyan could only smile bitterly: "Hubby, if you really want to make me famous, you should invest in two TV dramas first and let me start by playing small roles like the third or fourth female lead; I don't want you to lose money yet."