Chapter 260: The Monk Just Wants to Tease You

After New Year's Eve, not everyone was as bored as Bai Liang, going off to research someone else's story about Akun and basketball.

Normal industry insiders were all watching the several films in this year's Spring Festival slate.

"Detective Chinatown 2," "Monster Hunt 2," "Journey to the West: The Demon Kingdom," "Operation Red Sea." Oh right, and "Boonie Bears"—that one is the true evergreen of the Spring Festival slate.

The fact is, Bai Liang's phone was buzzing all last night, but it wasn't really because everyone was frantically sending him that many messages.

At first it was just various New Year greetings, but the reason it kept buzzing later was because Sister Xiao Zhao gave him a call.

No wonder that Na Zha felt the later buzzing rhythm didn't quite taste right.

Sure enough, as the old saying goes, many hands make light work.

Relying on Sister Xiao Zhao alone won't cut it~ not enough force.

And the reason Sister Xiao Zhao was still calling to harass Bai Liang late at night was purely because she was in a bad mood.

She seemed to have a premonition, knew she'd hit a sore spot, a perfect scapegoat position—but some things are like honey laced with arsenic, always making people unable to resist wanting to gamble on it.

The crew was marketing for her, her own team was marketing too, wanting to gamble big.

Last night Sister Xiao Zhao barely slept.

While Bai Liang and Na Zha were working up a sweat, she spent the whole night wavering between hope and fear.

The fact proved her "premonition" was right.

Why, in just one day—just one day—"The Demon Kingdom's" reputation cracked wide open! It was even worse than "Monster Hunt 2."

Online, the various mockeries aimed at Sister Xiao Zhao alone were enough to carry the film's buzz, but unfortunately, it was entirely negative.

God knows how many rivals jumped in to give her a kick while she was down.

These past few years Zhao Liying's momentum in the TV drama field has been too big, and she'd tested the movie market, with "Duckweed" right there as proof—such a great start. Once "The Demon Kingdom" blew up too, she'd truly be the number one of the post-85 flowers.

How could anyone allow that?!

Honestly speaking, pinning the full blame for a movie flopping and its reputation cracking on the actress is obviously unreasonable.

The movie ended up that miserable, and there were hardly any in the entire crew who didn't share the blame.

But who made Zhao Liying the biggest target!

The others could just prettily stay invisible~ all the firepower was aimed at her.

Because she's the top-tier post-85 flower!

Of course, this kind of thing isn't new—before this, Liu Yifei's "Eternal Love" and Yang Mi's "Brotherhood of Blades 2" followed the same pattern.

It's just that Zhao Liying's storm this time was a bit bigger.

Because her film's hype was built up too big from the start, all that "Gong the Emperor, Ying the Queen" talk.

Now it's the marketing backlash.

It even dragged down the earlier "Duckweed"—a bunch of people saying any actress could have played that lead and it would've been the same.

Bai Liang said that's pure nonsense—swap in Big Mi Mi and the whole flavor of the movie would be different.

How would it be the same?

"You're pretty good at comforting people—I'll have to tell Yang Mi when I get back." Sister Xiao Zhao on the other end of the line said, pretending to be lighthearted.

"Biting the hand that feeds you?!"

"Women, you know, don't have to be reasonable—when they're in a bad mood, everyone has to die!"

One moment laughing and joking, the next moment murderous, wanting to wipe out everyone.

Bai Liang felt Sister Xiao Zhao's aura was gradually starting to take shape.

What she actually lacked most was exactly this.

Usually attending some event, standing there, that little round face really did tend to lose out to female stars of the same tier.

Always missing a bit of that sharp, big-leading-lady flavor.

Now, with a major movie flop, she'd反而 slowly gained a touch of fierceness.

But between the lines, she seemed to have temporarily lost confidence in her movie path.

Just that last "self-destructive" line of hers, if it got out, would probably still be pretty infuriating.

What does "worst case, I'll just go back to making TV dramas with higher ratings and coast" even mean?

Mm... she really does need to come back and film TV dramas.

The 2018 Spring Festival slate, 6-day cumulative box office 5.71 billion yuan, a year-over-year increase of over fifty percent.

From the record-breaking New Year's Day to the record-breaking slate box office by the sixth day, it felt like Chinese cinema was stepping into a new era, a new starting point.

On New Year's Day, "Monster Hunt 2" led the pack with a single-day box office over 550 million, though its reputation, while not cracking as thoroughly as "The Demon Kingdom's," still dropped pretty sharply.

Neither passed.

So being gradually pinned down and hammered by "Detective Chinatown 2" was naturally a very reasonable thing.

But a true dark horse had clearly started to make its move.

That guy Huang Jingyu, on the first day was whining to Bai Liang, saying the film had few screenings, barely over ten percent, and the opening day box office only ranked fourth.

This guy was clearly trying to play the build-up-before-the-payoff routine, stubbornly not mentioning that the reputation and ratings were the highest among all Spring Festival films.

Nor did he mention the film's extremely high attendance rate.

By the fourth day, "Operation Red Sea's" single-day box office had surpassed "Monster Hunt 2," and on the seventh day it took the single-day crown!

"Heh, bro's also perking up now!"

What a face~

Bai Liang went straight with: "So your film will definitely surpass it?"

"... Don't bring that up, and we're still good buddies. No, wait, you don't really want me to streak, do you? Then you'd have to get Sister Yang's approval first."

"Who wants to see you streak? It's New Year, don't do something so heinous."

"So what's the deal with our bet, then?"

"Let me think about it. How about you treat me to a meal first~"

"Huh?"

At the roadshow venue for *Operation Red Sea*, Bai Liang's appearance was clearly a huge surprise for the fans and audience on site.

He even stole a bit of the spotlight from the leading actors on stage.

But no one really minded, after all Bai Liang was clearly just here to show support and help with promotion.

Oh right, Song Qian over to the side was also here to show support.

After the new year, her film with Huang Jingyu, *Jie Ai: The First Love of My Lord of a Thousand Years*, was about to air, so coming to support his movie now was also good for generating buzz and promoting the drama.

It's just that all the attention got stolen by Bai Liang, and hardly anyone seemed to notice her. Only when the host on stage called her name did quite a few fans realize there was actually a female celebrity there too.

Fortunately, Song Qian didn't really care. She walked up to the stage together with Bai Liang, a fairly brilliant smile on her face.

At this point Huang Jingyu actually showed a bit of gentlemanly grace, even taking a couple steps forward and offering his hand to Song Qian so she could lean on him walking up onto the stage.

The result was, he turned his head and found Bai Liang standing there not moving, standing on the steps, also extending a hand — looking like he wanted someone to help him up too.

At first glance, damn, he actually looked pretty tsundere.

Huang Jingyu said, you think I'm going to indulge your stinky habit?

He opened his mouth and said: "What, you've reached the age where you need a man to love you?"

Bai Liang just gave him a puzzled look. "What's it got to do with you?"

The next second, Song Qian ran over and held out her fair little hand, letting Bai Liang lean on her to walk up the steps.

This bit of teamwork left Huang Jingyu staring wide-eyed. Damn, why couldn't he think of these slick moves?

Thinking about it, Bai Liang's way of playing it was more fun, and had more buzz to it.

Song Qian was already barely able to hold back her laughter. Aiya, this kind of slightly sickly boy, he's so cute!

Dating him would definitely be fun~ Don't you think so, Classmate Xiao Huang?

Huang Jingyu: I'm your leading man here~

"I actually went to audition for *Operation Red Sea* too, but unfortunately they didn't pick me." Bai Liang started spouting nonsense right in front of the cameras.

The director Lin Chaoxian heard this and gave a start, hurriedly explaining it away with something about scheduling conflicts.

The media was now quite interested — *Red Sea*'s momentum was so terrifying, would Bai Liang regret missing out on this film because of scheduling?

A normal person would definitely regret it, right~

Mm. Huang Jingyu figured he probably wouldn't.

Because the film he had a scheduling conflict with was called *Wolf Warrior 2*.

This answer left the media on site all stunned into silence for a few seconds.

Damn, how is this guy's life so good? Missing out on *Operation Red Sea*, that excellent ensemble military film, only to end up starring in the number one box office film in Chinese cinema history?

No matter how outrageous a person is, they couldn't say that Bai Liang not choosing *Operation Red Sea* was his loss.

Actually, there really was this kind of chatter online.

Never doubt the internet users' "vast supernatural powers" or their rivals' determination to take you down.

The fact that Bai Liang auditioned for *Operation Red Sea* wasn't any secret at all — a little digging and anyone could find out.

No errors, no missing lines, no duplicate posts, no wrong content — all in one read!

These past two days, as the film's word-of-mouth kept rising and the box office staged a comeback, there really were some haters stirring up this kind of narrative.

Saying things like Bai Liang was "blind" and the like.

But his fans had long since dug up what Bai Liang was doing while *Operation Red Sea* was filming! Turns out he was filming *Wolf Warrior 2*.

The narrative hadn't even gotten off the ground before it was directly snuffed out.

Today it was basically brought out into the open. Everyone knows that no matter how much *Operation Red Sea*'s word-of-mouth comes back, it could never reach the level of *Wolf Warrior 2*.

Huang Jingyu even said on the spot: "Thanks, Brother Liang, for not stealing my role — who could compete with you?"

Well said, treat me to a meal then.

But given that Huang Jingyu still had to continue the roadshow, his schedule was still pretty tight.

Bai Liang, ever so considerate, said: Huang Jingyu himself didn't need to come along for this meal, he and Song Qian would just go eat by themselves, and he'd send him the bill afterwards.

Something about this feels a bit off~

Yet the next day, when Huang Jingyu received the bill, he was stunned: "Your uncle's Bai Liang, you two ate this much?"

"Are you crazy? If the two of us eat alone, won't there be scandal rumors? Of course there were team staff members along too."

"How many staff?"

"Seven or eight."

Good good good, damn, this turned into a team-building event!

Between good bros, of course it's all real — Bai Liang sent over every single receipt from that meal.

But the money actually wasn't that much, the whole point was the show's effect — yours truly just wants to mess with you.

Among them, one thing caught Huang Jingyu's attention — a receipt from a convenience store, where he successfully spotted the key detail.

A box of twelve condoms.

Of course, he reimbursed that particular item especially readily.

Don't ask why — when a good bro treats you to the cost of a box of condoms, that's something you absolutely have to pay for.

Once he paid that money, he'd have grounds to roast Bai Liang.

So, right after reimbursing that one item separately, he immediately quipped: "The twelve-pack, have you used them all yet? If you've used them all, will the Miss even be able to walk?"

Believe it or not, Huang Jingyu wasn't just shooting off the cuff — he was speaking with solid basis, tying it to this morning's trending search.

Song Qian showed up at the airport today, seemingly injured, walking with a limp, her knee bruised. She told fans she'd taken a tumble.

What a crime! This is drilling it in to the death?!

Bai Liang felt like he couldn't really explain this either.

What, tell Huang Jingyu that he didn't like using this stuff?

"Dapao, don't listen to Old Zhou's nonsense, you don't need to buy me this stuff. The storage cabinets in my RV are already stuffed full."

He roasted his cousin for a bit, and took the chance to curse out Old Zhou from afar.

It had to be that guy who led him astray.

When Old Zhou had been moonlighting as his assistant and driver, he hadn't been shy about buying Bai Liang all sorts of things.

Of course, he'd gone even further—lubricant, little toys, Viagra, and the like, all bought without exception.

All this stuff was now stuffed inside Bai Liang's RV, with only a small portion that might actually be useful.

But condoms really weren't needed.

Just like Miss Li Xin had roasted him, this guy of his liked to "spit on the ground," had no manners.

Hearing his words, his cousin Dapao scratched his head. Really don't need them? That's not what Brother Zhou said.

Old Zhou's exact words had been: As long as Brother Liang goes to meet a girl, whether he uses them or not, just have them ready for him. Better safe than sorry, right? We can't have him needing this stuff and not having it.

Very reasonable!

At this moment, Bai Liang was on a flight heading to Xinjiang.

Of course, he wasn't going to find Nazha or Reba—those two hadn't been back to Xinjiang in ages.

So the question came: who exactly was in Xinjiang?

Before the new year, Meng Jie had joined a crew called "Ever Night," playing the third female lead, Ye Hongyu.

This drama had started filming in Xinjiang.

Although "Ever Night" certainly couldn't compare in weight class to the upcoming "Joy of Life"—after all, Director Chen Kaige's son Arthur hadn't managed to make it big yet, and waiting for him to make it big was admittedly a bit difficult.

But for Meng Jie, it was still a decent resource, even if she was just a lower-billed supporting actress.

Moreover, the casting of the female leads in this drama was very friendly to her.

Not famous, not pretty enough—honestly, in this drama she really outshone the other female leads. She was the best-looking one there!

Only, well, she could outshine them, but there was no need. Female lead Song Yiren and second female lead Yuan Bingyan were just so-so, really not that famous.

What was the point of outshining them? Outshining Lin Shimmer was the real thrill!

Of course, Meng Jie was just talking big. She didn't dare pull that stunt again now—she'd had her fill of the bitter taste of being infamous.

Who wouldn't want everyone to like them, to heap all kinds of praise on them~

Just老老实实 act properly~

But she wasn't anxious—soon she'd be able to latch onto Little Hedgehog's thigh.

But on the "Ever Night" side, she didn't have many scenes left, yet they kept dragging and not filming, which made her slightly anxious.

Soon "Joy of Life" was about to start filming, and she still had to head over there.

Of course, it wasn't actually that rushed.

"Joy of Life" was a male-led drama; besides Bai Liang, the others didn't need to join the crew that quickly.

When it came time to film their scenes, they might all have to wait quite a while.

But Meng Jie was clearly getting a bit impatient. Only, in the "Ever Night" crew she had no say either—what reason would the director have to film her scenes first~

In her own words: What am I even worth?

She could only sit there stewing in frustration, then envy Li Yitong on her phone for being able to join the "Joy of Life" crew so early.

At this point Li Yitong had actually already cleared her schedule, just waiting for this drama to start filming—she'd join the crew the moment cameras rolled.

How hateful! —

Third watch, thirteen thousand words. Begging for monthly tickets.

(End of chapter)