Chapter 608: You

Bai Liang's "outing" truly required him to rush between engagements, with almost daily schedules, so he took over a week off.

Of course, being able to take such a long break from a tightly scheduled shoot like "The Battle at Lake Changjin" wasn't due to any favoritism, but because of his "ability."

As Chen Kaige put it: "It's like seeing a ghost!"

Only those who direct or coordinate shoots know how complicated it is to manage large-scale filming.

All kinds of problems popping up were routine.

So when directors screamed themselves hoarse, furious and seething, their mouths foaming—it wasn't without reason.

Yet, during Bai Liang's filming of those troublesome and time-consuming scenes, not a single accident occurred.

Extras followed orders precisely, acting with unnatural professionalism; scene coordination and prop preparation were flawless—even the weather seemed to be helping.

Scenes originally planned to take several days were finished in a single day, sometimes even half a day.

Smoother than Dove chocolate!

Once or twice, you might call it coincidence, but if it happened every single time, it was just too absurd.

A wave of déjà vu named "When fortune arrives, heaven and earth unite in force" slammed into everyone's faces.

When Bai Liang first returned to the set, everyone still joked around calling him "Movie Emperor"; now everyone called him "Great Immortal."

On film sets, some things you genuinely believe in—otherwise, why do you worship gods before shooting? Isn't it just to hope for smooth filming? But to have it go this smoothly because of Bai Liang? It truly opened everyone's eyes.

Previously, many people who didn't browse the internet much didn't understand how Bai Liang got the nickname "Great Immortal."

Now everyone understood better than the next.

It was just too damn weird! What else would you call him but "Great Immortal"?

You can pick a wrong name, but you can't misname a nickname!

Of course, those who had previously worked with Bai Liang felt this even more deeply.

Like Wu Jing.

He had filmed with Bai Liang in Africa and could say his impressions ran deep—the more dangerous and troublesome the location, the higher the value of "Great Immortal" became!

But his claim that Bai Liang went out to support Misses was pure rumor.

How many events even needed support?

Just a few, that's all~

"Little White Brother, while you're out supporting these events, also check if these movies might pose any threat to us."

After Bai Liang left the set, he received a call from Sister Yanzi.

The call was straightforward: "Youth" was still this year's box office champion, dominating with over three billion yuan.

"My People, My Hometown," released during National Day, ranked second with over 2.8 billion yuan.

Then came "The Eight Hundred" and "Jiang Ziya"; behind them, there was a sharp drop-off—none even reached the one-billion-yuan mark.

Overall, due to the pandemic, this year's film market was utterly shriveled.

As 2020 was about to end, fewer than twenty films had crossed the hundred-million-yuan mark.

Total box office had plummeted by two-thirds compared to last year.

Of course, this was mainly because theaters were shut down for a period; still, after "Youth" kicked things off, the market did show signs of recovery.

But even so, the cinematic winter still affected the entire industry.

Simply put: less money, fewer projects; many actors who used to get roles were now just lying at home with nothing to do~

Of course, this didn't really affect the top stars.

The few actors with the strongest box office appeal were even busier.

But in the period leading up to year-end, no actor at the very top of box office draw had a film releasing.

Sister Yanzi was just still thinking about this matter.

If someone was truly powerful, why not go for the Spring Festival slot? ~

"Detective Chinatown 3," "Hi, Mom," "The Assassin," all got crammed into the Spring Festival slot.

Big Mi Mi, who starred as the female lead in "The Assassin," had already planned for Bai Liang to attend her roadshow to support and promote it.

Clearly, Big Mi Mi had real confidence in this movie~

She carried herself as if she could easily claim the box office crown too.

Of course, in terms of main competition, her eyes were fixed squarely on "Detective Chinatown 3."

As for "Hi, Mom"—how much Shen Teng was in that movie?

Shen Teng's box office draw was unquestionable, but precisely because of that, he was now frequently used in "movie fraud."

Some films he appeared in made him look like the male lead on posters, but once you entered the theater, his screen time didn't even reach ten minutes—some were even worse, designed purely to trick audiences into buying tickets.

Clearly, Big Mi Mi felt "Hi, Mom" had a similar vibe—after all, it looked like a dual-female-led film, and Shen Teng was probably just making a cameo.

Anyway, she wasn't worried!

"The Assassin" was a big-budget film—how could all those special effects not blow audiences away?!

Think positively—it might even become the next "The Wandering Earth" of the Spring Festival season!

She poured out all these thoughts to Bai Liang, sounding like "Sister's about to make it big," clearly wanting to prove herself to him.

At her age, still so energetic—only she could be like this!

Maybe she realized she couldn't maintain that older-sister tone with Bai Liang anymore~

In the past, she constantly acted superior, always trying to be on top, spouting nonsense like "Little brother, you're not being good~" or "I love you, I'd even give you my life."

Gradually, it turned into "Big Brother, spare me!"

Her coquettishness kept increasing~

It wasn't that she disliked the feeling—she actually enjoyed it.

But Big Mi Mi still had her pride!

Cooing is fine, but you can't only know how to coo?

Bai Liang strongly supported this idea of hers, even took concrete action to offer her some help.

So he asked if she wanted to come see him before the movie premiered.

The subtext was more or less: Come on, let me bless you~ The longer you stay, the better the effect.

But Big Mi Mi regretfully said she was currently super busy and simply couldn't make it to the set to keep Bai Liang company.

In the end, whether to soothe Bai Liang or express confidence, she suddenly said, "Once the movie becomes a huge hit, I'll clear out a whole month just to drain you dry!"

What's the difference between this and saying, "After we win this battle, we'll go home and get married"?

Flags were practically stacked to the ceiling~ —

"How's Sister Tian Tian doing?"

"Big Brother Dou Xiao Bai, I asked—Sister Tian Tian's being held at the set."

"What the hell?"

Bai Liang stood in the wind, stunned, holding the phone— one of the reasons he'd left the set for a "break" was precisely to get more trending topics with Big Tian Tian.

To build more hype for the upcoming release of "Si Teng."

Although the two had caused a huge stir over the "baby incident," that matter had lost all traction because it was too absurd and lacked evidence, and Big Tian Tian had kept denying it publicly.

On top of that, Bai Liang had won Best Actor, and Huang Jiaozhu and Yang Tianbao had stirred up another wave of attention, drawing away much of the public gaze.

In short, Big Tian Tian really needed to get back beside Bai Liang quickly and draw more eyes.

In plain terms: PR stunt!