Chapter 275: A Person Shouldn't — At the Very Least, Shouldn't

The premiere of "Love and Time Travel" wouldn't repeat the scene from last time — the young ladies all gathered together, and the two beauties of Xinjiang going straight at each other's throats.

Unlike the time with Wu Jing, when Bai Liang had to find people to fill the venue, Xu Zheng didn't need that, and besides, he didn't want to see the movie premiere turn into a slaughterhouse.

Because the subject matter was different.

"Love and Time Travel" was a romance film, with a different selling point from "Wolf Warrior 2."

From the interactions between Bai Liang and Miss Jing Tian on "The Yearning Life" before, the CP combination of Liang Chen Mei Jing had gradually come into many people's view.

Many netizens commented: It gives off that same vibe as back in the day with Nazha~

In the department of being cute and brainless, Miss Jing Tian and Nazha really are on the same track.

If a bunch of Bai Liang's good sisters came rushing over at the premiere and stole the spotlight, that wouldn't be called showing support.

That would be called wrecking the place!

It's just like setting up two tables at a wedding specifically for your ex-girlfriends.

It would absolutely be more loss than gain.

Of course, the CP of Bai Liang and Miss Jing Tian actually wasn't hyped up that intensely, its presence wasn't all that strong, and aside from appearing on shows together, the two sides hadn't done any ambiguous interactions.

Mainly because they didn't want to start a fandom war.

The internet was already chaotic enough — if the fans of Reba and Nazha and the others piled in at this point, and the top male and female stars collectively kicked off a super melee, whether the movie would be affected or could withstand it was unknown, but Weibo probably wouldn't be able to hold up~

So at this premiere, only some of Bai Liang's male friends who had nothing better to do came to show support.

For example, Huang Jingyu, who had completely propped himself up with "Operation Red Sea" — when this guy arrived, he practically walked with the wind at his heels.

One movie had almost completely transformed his "public persona" in the industry.

Before, whenever people mentioned him, it was always about BL CPs, and his fan base was mainly fujoshi.

But now he had directly turned things around and embarked on the route of a tough military man.

If nothing unexpected happened, he would probably start "serving in the military" in the entertainment circle from now on, playing all kinds of soldier brothers, firefighters, hat uncles, and the like.

"Huh? No army of wives putting on a show today?" Huang Jingyu smacked his lips, seeming a bit disappointed.

But the next second his expression froze on his face, because Wang Yanlin the bastard didn't hesitate to snitch on him.

"Great Immortal, this guy's badmouthing you, he wants to see you make a fool of yourself."

"WTF?" Huang Jingyu was completely dumbfounded — not cool, bro?

Wang Yanlin let out a hehe laugh, but then got collectively "reported" by these birds, and at a later gathering he got to enjoy a round of Bai Liang's "massage service," letting him experience the feeling of Huang Jingyu being rubbed into the ground back then.

Come on, let's hurt each other!

Bai Liang didn't bother with these two — there'd be plenty of chances to deal with them later anyway.

But the next second, he froze, because he saw Unlike Ni Ni smiling at him.

Huh?

Unlike Ni Ni?

Bai Liang simply closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again — damn, it really was Unlike Ni Ni!

How could she be here?!

Jing Boran hadn't even come today, because the guy was holding his own premiere "next door."

That's right, poor Jing Bao had run head-on into Bai Liang again, and this time the collision was even worse — both were romance films, his was called "Us Later."

It was one he had co-starred in with Zhou Dongyu.

This one could actually be said to be the biggest competitor for "Love and Time Travel" in the same window — the other side's lineup was not to be underestimated, and it even had a nostalgia boost.

But because the buzz about Li Yifeng's "going head-to-head" stance with Bai Liang was louder this time, Jing Boran hadn't even managed to snag the title of "opponent."

After all, he was already Bai Liang's "vanquished foe."

Just like in a Wu Xia novel — once someone's been defeated, you don't even need to look at them again.

Of course, this didn't really matter — Bai Liang and Jing Boran were still helping promote each other, they were bros.

But Unlike Ni Ni showing up here was a bit of a problem!

She didn't go support her boyfriend's movie, and instead came to the "opponent's" premiere?

Does that make sense?

"What's that look for? What, I'm not welcome?"

Unlike Ni Ni flipped her hair, her tone seeming a bit displeased.

But from her upturned lips, one could tell she was purely bluffing.

"Very welcome, but didn't you go to the premiere of 'Us Later'?"

Hearing this, Unlike Ni Ni's expression suddenly stiffened for a moment — she reached out and tugged at her clothes, then touched her ear.

After eight hundred little fidgeting motions, she lowered her voice: "I'll tell you secretly, don't tell anyone — he and I just broke up, the official announcement will come in a while."

Bai Liang:???

Actually, he didn't need to know that clearly.

Wait, this shouldn't have anything to do with me, right?

Last time he hadn't gone to Tokyo with Unlike Ni Ni — instead he'd taken Zhang Tianai to a hostess bar, and that young lady was actually pretty nice, she hadn't even contacted Bai Liang since.

But Unlike Ni Ni showing up uninvited like this really made Bai Liang feel inexplicably like he owed Jing Boran an apology.

A person shouldn't — at the very least, shouldn't.

They were all good bros — how could Bai Liang have the heart to let the guy fail at both career and love?

But Unlike Ni Ni was already here, he couldn't exactly kick her out~

He could almost hear Li Yitong complaining in his ear again: Public fox! Male incubus!

What a sin!

And Unlike Ni Ni, whether on purpose or not, after telling Bai Liang this, smiled at him, didn't disturb him any further, and let the staff lead her to a seat.

After sitting down, she rested her chin on her hand, watching Miss Jing Tian, who had arrived a little late, trailing behind Bai Liang and wandering around happily.

Her gaze looked thoughtful, as if she was brewing something.

Before the film officially screened, Bai Liang went up on stage with Miss Jing Tian to sing the movie's theme song.

The song was called "Don't Forget Me."

Neither of them could really sing, but they won out on sincerity.

Bai Liang made up for his singing with his acting, while Miss Jing Tian just let herself go freely—she actually quite liked the song.

What exactly did she like about it?

She said she liked the song's title.

Girls, after all, can always find points of empathy in all sorts of places—that sensibility is their innate advantage.

So even though the two of them sang only so-so, they still won thunderous applause all the same.

When watching a romance film, that's exactly the feeling you want.

As the lights dimmed and the curtain rose—

"The me of 1999 met the you of 2018, and we fell in love. So when the me of 2018 comes to you with everything you need, will you say yes?"

At its core, "How Long Will I Love U" is just a love story—one room, two people.

Bringing two people who could never have met together, even making them fall in love, is itself a wondrous thing.

The male lead Lu Ming and the female lead Gu Gu Xiaojiao live in 1999 and 2018 respectively; they occupy the same room at these two different points in time.

Open the left door and it's 1999—Lu Ming uses a Nokia, eats at roadside stalls, listens to Teresa Teng on cassette tapes.

Looking around, the kids on the street are playing Subor game consoles, and the TV is playing "My Fair Princess."

Open the right door and it's 2018—Gu Gu Xiaojiao uses a robot vacuum to clean her shabby little room, her Bluetooth speaker plays music and glows, and with two taps on her phone hotpot is delivered to her door.

The sense of era and the sense of the times from the two timelines, woven together through intercutting, feel both warm and familiar, vividly presenting the past and the future.

Love is an encounter full of variables—it comes quickly and leaves quickly; that is reality.

The overlap of time is like a beautiful dream; once the dream ends, everything goes back to normal. City dwellers are probably the most fond of dreaming—chaotic, colorful dreams—only to wake up and face another new day of mundane mess just like yesterday.

Gu Gu Xiaojiao is exactly such a person.

Her happy, well-off family fell apart the day her father died in a car accident. The twenty years after that, she had to run around every day just to make a normal living; the purpose of her blind dates was to find someone who could buy back her childhood home.

At her core, she is desperately starved for love—especially after having known the happiness of a family, losing everything overnight makes a person abnormally sensitive and fearful of any kindness.

So Gu Gu Xiaojiao is snobbish and money-worshipping, but whether it's her dragging Lu Ming from 1999 along to borrow a suit for a Hongmen Banquet with old classmates, or her completely different attitude toward Lu Shiyi at the very beginning, there's a faintly bitter flavor running through it all.

Lu Ming almost represents the young person who has just stepped into society, at a loss—he has talent, but doesn't accept society's various rules, carrying a bit of expectation for the future and a foolish naiveté that's almost endearing.

He has no story of his own, so unlike the thirty-one-year-old Gu Gu Xiaojiao of 2018, he doesn't hesitate before love out of fear of loss.

He is bright, stubborn, and most of all, the most moving.

When the 2018 version of Lu Ming—that is, Lu Shiyi—appears as a real estate tycoon, the movie's dilemma of choice for the male lead also emerges:

If you know your future self will be successful and famous, would you still be willing to make a different choice?

No errors in a single line, a single post, a single piece of content—read it all here!

If such a choice happened in reality, probably ninety-nine percent of people would choose success and fame.

The remaining tiny bit, barring accidents, would be hopelessly lovesick fools.

But the male lead in a romance film is, of course, a "hopelessly lovesick fool."

Laughs, tears, touching moments... and a CP chemistry practically spilling off the screen.

There were film critics and professionals in the audience quietly observing the reactions of ordinary viewers, and they couldn't help but sigh: Damn it, this guy Bai Liang really is born with a CP body! How does he manage to click so well with anyone?

As for the acting—whether the impoverished kid of 1999 or the real estate tycoon of 2018—Bai Liang can let people easily tell these two completely different characters apart with just one expression.

Likewise, solid acting is just doing an actor's duty, but "adorable" was the strongest impression for many people in the audience.

It's not the kind of earth-shattering emotion that makes you cry, nor is it cramming in jokes to make you laugh out loud—it's somewhere in between, with tearjerker moments and funny moments, just right without overdoing it. That's called "adorable"—watching it, you like it, you feel comfortable.

Many domestic films, the most common way they manufacture conflict is: absolutely refuse to give the characters any intelligence, let them act like crazy, and after acting up, they still play the universe-level pure-white lotus, looking pitiful, thinking the audience will shed tears.

This film can be said to have abandoned the silly-sweet and fake-innocent tropes of past domestic romance films, and performed what "adults of normal intelligence" should look like.

And compared to the professionals' various analytical angles on the film, ordinary viewers' feelings were very straightforward.

They genuinely felt the love flowing from the corners of the actors' eyes.

As if the two of them just exchanged a smile, and suddenly the whole world was full of stars—the pitch-black theater instantly became a sea of stars, and even the most stubborn singletons at this moment wanted to find someone's hand to hold.

No wonder one of the film's promotional materials contained this line:

If you have someone you like, take them to see this film together—your chances of a successful confession will be at least fifty percent higher.

A very shameless tagline, because the production company reserves the final right of interpretation.

If it didn't work out~

It must be that the other person got too into the film and fell in love with Bai Liang or Miss Jing Tian instead.

——

Behind the black curtain, the lights came on.

Some of the more emotional female viewers, after laughing and crying, still hadn't regained control of their facial expressions~

But without a doubt, they were absolutely not stingy with their applause.

However, as the big screen lit up again, the applause turned into screams and heckling.

Because what was playing now was a behind-the-scenes blooper reel—yes, it was Miss Jing Tian sticking out her tongue.

You really have to admit, the big screen is something else—that little tongue, pink and tender, was crystal clear.

Unlike Ni Ni: Tsk tsk, the kiss really did have feeling.

But she felt that if she were the one doing it, it would probably feel even more!

She couldn't help but lick her lips.

At that moment, the on-site host called the film's main creators up to the stage. Miss Jing Tian felt as if she were being publicly executed, and she braced herself, following behind Bai Liang like his little tail.

After all, so many people had just watched her stick her tongue out.

As a result, because of her action, she got teased by the on-site host again.

Today's theme was simply to tease these two.

There was a strong sense that they wouldn't stop until they drove Miss Jing Tian into a crack in the floor.

Unlike Ni Ni: "I'm giving you the chance and you can't take it! What would it hurt to give him a kiss right here on the spot? The topic热度 would be maxed out instantly!"

She had just overheard the professionals behind her discussing the film's box office.

She didn't catch anything else from Unlike Ni Ni, only this one line: "It'll definitely cross one billion! I bet 'Us Later' can't beat this one."

Holy shit! He can really carry Miss Jing Tian too?!

Unlike Ni Ni took a deep breath—this was only the premiere; they'd still have to see how the actual box office performed afterward.

If Bai Liang really is that fierce...

Obviously, crossing the river by feeling for Miss Jing Tian's stones was quite a good choice for Unlike Ni Ni.

No way around it—Unlike Ni Ni's current situation honestly wasn't much better than Miss Jing Tian's.

As a "Hou Xun Girl" by origin, her starting point was undeniably high.

But during the most crucial years of her career development, she ran off to fall in love, parading her affection for three whole years.

Three years plus another two after that—in short, she just kept dating!

Outside of her romance, Unlike Ni Ni's positioning had always been wavering and indecisive, lacking clear planning, more like a trend-chaser.

Whatever was popular in the circle, she and her team would rush off to do the same.

After Fan Fan Bingbing made waves on foreign red carpets, she often took airport photos, played the "outshining" game, and thrived in fashion and endorsement circles. So Unlike Ni Ni went crazy taking airport runway shots, playing the "outshining" game, and shooting fashion magazines—thirty of them in just the past year.

She was billed as a film actress, yet what people remembered about her was a series of glamorous fashion editorials where she outshone everyone. Looking at her few film works, the vast majority scored below passing.

And these past two years, just like Miss Jing Tian, she'd started doing TV dramas.

The result was that the originally agreed-upon big-female-lead drama "Rise of Phoenixes" was forcibly rewritten into a male-lead drama—who could blame them, since Chen Kun's star power was higher?

At this point she really was about the same as Miss Jing Tian, since "Minglan" had also been changed from a female-lead drama to a male-lead one.

But one was forced, the other willing—clearly not the same.

Still, this didn't stop Unlike Ni Ni from wanting a taste of Miss Jing Tian's happiness.

After experiencing the shyness of sticking her tongue out, this young lady, facing the praise from the live audience and media, was beaming so hard her little face was about to lift right off.

It was a brand-new version she had never experienced before!

So many people actually liked her performance—and they weren't plants.

She couldn't help glancing up at Bai Liang, only to find the guy spacing out again out of habit.

Infuriating!

What kind of day is it today? Why is he still the same as before?

It's just like the wedding night—the groom doesn't hurry up with the main business but instead sits there craving wine instead.

So she lightly pressed against Bai Liang's calf, then pouted slightly and asked softly, "What are you thinking about?"

"Wondering what to eat for late-night snack tonight," Bai Liang said honestly.

"I want to eat too."

"Sure~ let's go eat together."

"Order takeout later and bring it to my room."

This time Bai Liang immediately stopped spacing out; his eyes snapped wide awake in an instant.

Where?!

(End of chapter)