Chapter 536: “Chronicles of Chasing the Wind” Premieres

"Right, right."

Yuan Sitong winked at Xiao He: "Brother Xiao, want to trade for your gossip?"

Xiao He yawned, looking rather uninterested: "Oh, then forget it."

"Hey, no, no."

Yuan Sitong felt a bit stifled, silently cursing Xiao He for being so uncooperative, even being secretive about gossip, which was really no fun. But on her face, she cleared her throat lightly, putting on a profound air: "Forget it, forget it, considering we still have to cooperate in the future, I'll tell you this gossip for free—"

"You know Taidong Entertainment, right? They have tons of rules, and they manage their artists very strictly."

"Yeah, I know."

Xiao He nodded.

A lot of his understanding of Taidong Entertainment came from Liu Zehang.

It's just that later, due to various benefit considerations, Liu Zehang still stayed with Taidong Entertainment.

But Xiao He was very clear about Taidong Entertainment's "reputation."

"Recently, Zhao Qinyuan's situation hasn't been as good as before. Several scripts have used him as a supporting role to boost another traffic star in the company. So, I guess he wants to use the heat from Record of Chasing the Wind to jump ship."

"Wants to jump ship? Not surprising."

If this happened to Xiao He, he'd also try every means to jump ship.

The cycle of a drama can be as short as a year or as long as several years. Who has that much time and youth to waste on others?

Taidong Entertainment's exploitative behavior isn't the only one in the industry circle, and artists like Zhao Qinyuan who want to escape are definitely not the last.

Xiao He speculated: "So, he wants to bring a finished work and a script yet to be filmed as bargaining chips for jumping to another company?"

A ready-made work, Record of Chasing the Wind, showcases his current value. And if Record of Chasing the Wind becomes a hit, even though most of the profits would still be in the hands of his old company, the boost in popularity and traffic would be huge. With fame, even "leaving with nothing" could allow for a comeback.

And a script yet to be filmed demonstrates his future value. Although Super Spacetime Confrontation currently has many uncertainties, its overall value has risen recently, showing promise for the future. It also indirectly proves his good relationship with Linghui Entertainment, indicating significant investment potential.

"Which company does he want to go to?"

Xiao He asked casually.

"No idea." Yuan Sitong spread her hands. "That's his own secret. How would I, an outsider, know?"

Xiao He glanced at her sideways: "You guessed he's jumping ship, but you don't know where he's planning to jump? Could it be your Yunheng?"

"That would be too unfair to us. I wouldn't let him be in the same company as me, or I'd really have to make a scene with my agent."

Yuan Sitong made a disgusted expression.

Xiao He: "Makes sense."

Judging by Yuan Sitong's current state of avoiding it like the plague, Xiao He knew his guess was wrong.

But it didn't matter; he wasn't that interested anyway.

As long as Zhao Qinyuan didn't affect the normal broadcast of Record of Chasing the Wind.

...

Xiao He stayed in Beijing for a few more days, flying to Hangzhou in between to attend commercial activities.

On the evening of August 8th, Record of Chasing the Wind premiered simultaneously on platforms and TV channels.

Almost instantly after going live, all the big data for Record of Chasing the Wind skyrocketed. Even the usually stable ratings of CCTV-8 climbed with an incredible slope during the prime-time slot after launch, with real-time viewership steadily rising, forming a "premiere peak."

The platform data went without saying. As the main base for Little Box fans, cloud screenings had already been widely arranged before the broadcast. A large number of fans participated to accompany the premiere, even creating countdown red envelope rains.

As his first major male-lead drama, Xiao He also timed it to wait for the launch, then casually roasted Banana Video's lousy website maintenance.

Banana Video wasn't as good as before. Although it was one of the early giants, it didn't have many traffic stars to rely on, and its post-launch operations had many points worthy of criticism. In the viewers' minds, it was a mix of praise and blame.

Of course, no video platform escapes roasting.

But watching the page gradually start to lag as bullet comments surged, Xiao He's eye twitched.

If possible, he'd also like to secretly give this partner a bad review.

To prevent his drama from facing a server crash from fans right at launch, Xiao He reluctantly and quietly helped reinforce it a bit.

Only when the video loading lag finally disappeared did Xiao He relax, following along with the netizens in the video bullet comments to simultaneously watch his own Record of Chasing the Wind.

Xiao He's screen time in the first episode of Record of Chasing the Wind was relatively less, basically only appearing briefly at the beginning. The rest was background plot setup and some beautiful childhood memories of the male lead.

This part of the plot still tested the director's camera language and narrative pacing. After all, the male lead only flashed by at the beginning, speaking somewhat cryptically, which might confuse many viewers. The middle part featured child actors, which could feel boring by comparison, so there needed to be certain highlights to retain the audience.

Fortunately, the child actor was also a "veteran actor" among the many kids in the industry circle, with quite likable acting skills. The story was explained very clearly, with almost no unnecessary dragging. Soon enough, Xiao He's character, Song Chenye, successfully appeared again.

From here, the plot was straightforward. Song Chenye's entire family was murdered. He followed his master to escape, living in seclusion in the mountains to apprentice and learn martial arts. Now, having mastered his skills and returned, he had only one thing to do—revenge!

Find the enemies from back then, force out their accomplices one by one, uncover the truth of that year, and then kill them all, one after another.

One good thing about Record of Chasing the Wind was that the plot didn't drag. In other plots, the male lead might need to investigate around, going through hardships to find the first enemy, then painfully interrogate or even redeem them, finally getting information about the mastermind behind the scenes.

But with Song Chenye, he directly chased the first enemy to kill, killing until the enemy finally couldn't take it anymore and directly called for backup to shift the conflict.

This simple and brutal operation not only left the enemy himself dumbfounded but also stunned the viewers.

No, no, no, shouldn't you first do this, then that, then this again, and finally that?

What about the promised enduring humiliation to plan revenge?

Shouldn't it involve planning over many episodes, even being suppressed by the enemy to a desperate situation, then surviving against all odds for a counter-kill?

How come you're just wildly killing right from the start!

Originally thought to be a deep, oppressive revenge tragedy, the opening was directly suppressed by the male lead's powerful martial prowess.

When they saw the first enemy neatly bite the dust by the end of the first episode, the viewers tremblingly typed out a sentence.

[With all due respect, everyone here is trash.]

[Song Chenye is so righteous it's almost evil.]

[Wait for what? Kill first, talk later.—Song Chenye]