Chapter 521

People are truly emotional creatures.

Before this, Lu Yanhe hadn't really thought much about being in China, nor did he feel much of the loneliness of being in a "foreign land."

When Yan Liang suddenly brought up *Young Days*, Lu Yanhe thought of the scenes of playing with everyone, and suddenly, a sense of melancholy washed over him.

Just then, his phone suddenly rang.

He took a look and saw it was actually Arne Bogut calling.

Lu Yanhe answered the phone with some confusion.

Arne Bogut was inviting him to a bar for a drink.

"Simon, Lily, and I are all here. Do you want to come join us?"

Lu Yanhe thought for a moment and said, "I'm a bit tired, Arne. I won't go. You guys have fun."

Arne Bogut seemed a bit disappointed, muttered an "alright," and hung up the phone.

"He's not coming, right?" Seeing Arne Bogut's expression, Simon Schmidt guessed the result of the call. He curled his lip, wearing an "I told you so" look. "I told you already, he definitely wouldn't come out. You still wasted time making this call. Those Asians, they're just not like us."

Arne Bogut looked at Simon suspiciously and said, "Simon, why do I feel like you have hostility toward Lu? Is there some conflict between you two?"

Simon Schmidt: "I just simply don't like him. There's no conflict."

"Why don't you like him?" Lily Williams asked with confusion.

"No reason. Do I need a reason to not like him?" Simon Schmidt shrugged. "Let's go, let's just head over."

And so, Simon Schmidt drove, taking the two of them as they set off.

It wasn't that Lu Yanhe was unsociable or unwilling to drink, but rather that back in South Korea, he had been led by Zhong Benshuo to the second floor of Liu Zhen's house and had almost been set up.

Therefore, in an unfamiliar environment, he preferred to be cautious. Otherwise, if they went to a bar late at night and something happened, he was a stranger in a strange land, and it would be nothing but trouble.

However, Lu Yanhe hadn't expected that his concerns would turn out to be spot on.

The next morning, he went to the set for special effects makeup. As soon as he entered his lounge, he saw the makeup artist and her assistant discussing something with grave expressions.

Lu Yanhe asked what had happened. The makeup artist said that last night, Simon Schmidt had been caught by local police for drunk driving and was still being detained. Arne Bogut and Lily Williams were also in the car.

This matter couldn't be kept under wraps at all; it was headline news in the local tabloids early that morning.

The headline even directly used the words "Hollywood film crew."

Although foreign films don't necessarily get shelved or become unreleaseable just because they used an artist with a tarnished reputation, a scandal is never a good thing.

Drunk driving, abroad, isn't considered huge, but it's not small either.

Lu Yanhe sighed.

He didn't quite understand; they were all artists, so why not call a driver to pick them up after drinking? Why insist on driving themselves?

And they got caught right away.

Halfway through his special effects makeup, someone came in to talk to Lu Yanhe, saying that the filming schedule for later would be moved up a bit.

Because Simon couldn't film today.

The makeup artists were all whispering, curious about how this would play out.

Simon wasn't a huge star; if the public backlash lasted long enough, the crew might just fire him directly.

After Lu Yanhe finished his special effects makeup and left the makeup room, he found the atmosphere on set to be very strange as well.

Everyone was in a state of whispering and being extremely cautious in their speech.

Everyone was acting as if "nothing had happened," while tacitly and visibly conveying an atmosphere of "this is going to be interesting to watch."

Arne and Lily, who were in the car with Simon last night, weren't detained; they were just passengers who had been drinking, so no matter how they were questioned, it wouldn't fall on them.

However, at this moment, they were like headless flies, restless and uneasy. Even though they were on set, it was clear at a glance that their hearts weren't in it.

Lu Yanhe thought for a moment and decided to take the initiative to go over and greet them.

"Hey, are you guys okay?"

The moment Arne saw Lu Yanhe, his expression became somewhat unnatural.

Last night, Lu Yanhe had almost been in that car too.

"You're really lucky you didn't go with us last night." Lily looked up at Lu Yanhe. It almost made Lu Yanhe think she was being sarcastic, but Lily's dejected tone showed that she didn't actually mean it that way.

Lu Yanhe asked, "You guys had been drinking, so why did Simon still drive himself?"

Lily said, "We tried to persuade him not to drive, but he insisted it was fine, saying this place was remote and there wouldn't be any police checking."

Lu Yanhe: "..."

Lily added, "If we had been more insistent yesterday, it would have been better."

Because of Simon's incident, the atmosphere on the set today was quite low, and even Director Mukan wasn't in a very good mood.

It wasn't until evening, just before wrapping up, that news came that Simon had finally been brought out of the police station by his agent.

Xinnalin had also disappeared for the day, busy dealing with this matter.

The next morning, Simon made a public apology outside the studio, admitting to drunk driving, accepting all criticism, and promising to correct his behavior in the future.

His attitude was very sincere, and since Simon was actually a star who had just debuted and had some fame but wasn't a household name, the ripples caused by this incident weren't huge. After the public apology, Simon returned to the crew and continued filming.

However, this incident clearly dealt him a bit of a blow.

He was usually a very active and talkative person on set, but he suddenly became much more silent.

Moreover, Lu Yanhe didn't know if it was his imagination, but he always felt that Simon seemed a bit awkward around him, as if he were venting his anger over the drunk driving incident onto him.

This feeling hung between them, making their already distant relationship even more strained.

Fortunately, regardless of what happened in private, they could still perform their scenes together normally when filming.

In fact, in the movie, Lu Yanhe was already in a relationship of avenger and the avenged with the other actors, so they didn't need to have a great relationship in the film. The fact that their real-life relationship wasn't great actually helped their acting. This might sound a bit heartless, but that was the reality.

However, no one expected that when the movie was about halfway through filming, Simon would get into trouble again.

This time it wasn't drunk driving, but fighting—fighting with someone at a bar.

The cause of this fight was that Simon had taken a fancy to a girl and went to hit on her, but the girl was there with her boyfriend. The boyfriend saw his girlfriend being hit on, spoke rudely, and greeted Simon with some very foul language. Simon was already in a bad mood and had been drinking, so he started arguing with the other party. This argument escalated, both men were furious, and they started throwing punches.

While others might score twice on the soccer field, Simon scored twice in the scandal nest.

This time, the news of Simon fighting with someone caused a much bigger stir than the previous drunk driving incident.

People can tolerate mistakes, but making mistakes repeatedly in a short period of time, without showing any sincerity in repenting, will inevitably disappoint everyone. People might even feel that their previous tolerance was betrayed and let down, so their anger and annoyance toward this person became even more intense.

Simon trended on social media.

He didn't have much fame, so many media outlets introduced him as the lead actor in the new film by horror master Mukan.

*The Mist* became known to many people in a way that no one had hoped for.

Xinnalin's face was particularly ugly; she took Simon and recorded another apology video directly.

But this time, the public wasn't buying it.

Simon was being scolded very harshly.

Even the *The Mist* crew was being scolded along with him.

"I also didn't expect that my first time filming abroad, I would run into this kind of situation." Lu Yanhe was also very helpless on the phone. "And this isn't some low-budget production; it's at least Director Mukan's new film, and yet we encounter this."

Chen Siqi: "It's alright. You should be glad that the character Simon plays in the movie isn't a good person to begin with, so when the audience sees this movie, they won't feel disgusted."

"With all these things happening, I don't even know how many viewers will be willing to walk into the cinema." Lu Yanhe sighed helplessly. "It's quite passive, and I don't know how the crew will resolve this."

"The simplest and crudest way is to fire Simon and replace him with another actor." Chen Siqi said. "But if that happens, there will be a lot of scenes to reshoot, and your movie might be ruined. After all, not everyone has their schedule cleared to stay and reshoot with the crew."

Lu Yanhe: "I estimate the crew won't fire Simon. These two incidents, they're big, but they're also small. Abroad, it's not like in our country where once an actor breaks the law, it's basically impossible for them to come out and participate in public activities. Although everyone is scolding Simon harshly, compared to the cost of replacing an actor and reshooting, the risks and losses of the former might be bearable."

Chen Siqi: "Sigh, that's true."

If a movie that's already halfway filmed suddenly changes actors and reshoots, it's very likely that the budget will need to be increased by several million dollars.

For this movie, the pressure to break even would be huge.

"Knock, knock." Someone suddenly knocked on the door of Lu Yanhe's lounge.

Wang Biao went to open the door.

It was someone reminding them that Lu Yanhe's next scene was about to start and he needed to head over.

Lu Yanhe had no choice but to say a word to Chen Siqi and hang up the phone first.

After finishing the call with Lu Yanhe, Chen Siqi thought seriously about the situation *The Mist* was currently facing and what the breakthrough point could be.

Of course, she didn't want to see Lu Yanhe's first English-language film fail before it even started.

Just as she was pondering, Lin Yu knocked on the door and entered her office.

"Siqi, this is the proposal I made." Lin Yu handed the "Jump Up International Film Critics Film Festival" proposal she had drafted to Chen Siqi.

Chen Siqi came back to her senses and took it in her hand.

This was an idea Lin Yu had expanded upon based on last year's international film critics' online forum.

With their current strength, wanting to hold a proper film festival was actually unrealistic. First, money; second, people; third, no connections.

To start an international film festival on their own, all three of the above are indispensable.

But developing steadily and wanting to get the film version of *Jump Up* up and running, who knows how long that would take.

Therefore, after discussing it with Chen Siqi, Lin Yu decided to continue using the format of last year's online forum for film critics, using the lowest cost to do what they wanted to do as much as possible.

Lin Yu told Chen Siqi: "Just invite film critics from all over the world to China, chat about movies together, talk about the latest award winners, talk about the hottest movies of the last few years, and also talk about classics. Then, set aside one day specifically to watch the Chinese-language films we've selected, and after the screening, have a discussion about Chinese-language films together."

For an event like this, there's no need to organize a star-studded red carpet, no need to organize all kinds of celebrities, and no need to go to great lengths to contact major film crews to attend.

They only need to find a venue that can accommodate film critics from all over the world to stay together, have a cinema where they can sit together and watch movies, and then have a budget to pay for the travel and accommodation expenses for these invited film critics, and hold a few lively parties to drink and chat happily.

Perhaps, calculated this way, it would only take one to two million to get it done.

For the current *Jump Up*, even if they don't look for sponsors, just paying for it themselves is affordable.

Not to mention, this event could actually generate funding by selling broadcasting rights through Lin Yu and the film and television review column on Yuehu Station, video platforms, or even just by finding brands to sponsor it.

Chen Siqi spent twenty minutes reading the proposal Lin Yu had made, nodded, and said: "No problem, let's do it this way. Just one thing, Lin Yu, this is our first time doing this, so I suggest we control the scale. Only invite the film critics we want to invite, and don't accept applications from others. Let's do it once first to accumulate experience for us, and then slowly expand the scale later."

Upon hearing this, Lin Yu agreed, nodded, and said okay.

"So, this film festival really won't invite a single actor?" Chen Siqi asked curiously.

Lin Yu said: "My idea is, either make it star-studded, or don't invite any at all, and just invite film critics specifically. By doing this, we can ensure the style of this film festival. Although the reality is that we don't have that much money to hold a grander film festival, we can't say that. It's better to make this film festival niche, but with distinct characteristics. This is a film festival that belongs to film critics."

"Fine." Chen Siqi also agreed with Lin Yu's idea.

After Lin Yu finished talking to Chen Siqi about this matter, she didn't leave immediately.

"Is there anything else?" Chen Siqi asked.

Lin Yu said: "When I came in just now, I saw you frowning. Did you encounter any difficult problems? If you can talk about it, you can tell me. Maybe I can help brainstorm."

"It's not me, I didn't encounter any difficult problems. It's the movie Yan He is currently filming." Chen Siqi then briefly told Lin Yu about the problems the *The Mist* crew Lu Yanhe was in was currently facing.

Lin Yu pondered for a while and said: "Although this trick is a bit mean, if Simon accepts it, actually, it might not be impossible to turn the crisis into an opportunity."

"Ah?" Chen Siqi didn't expect Lin Yu to have an idea so quickly.

"Didn't you tell me before that the crew wanted to market the rumor of ghost possession on Yan He to gain attention?" Lin Yu said. "This point holds true for Simon as well."

"You mean let the crew market that Simon was possessed by a ghost, which is why he did so many outrageous things?"

"Of course not. At a time like this, not many people would believe in the existence of ghosts." Lin Yu laughed. "Everyone isn't stupid, could they be fooled by this kind of reason?"

Chen Siqi also laughed.

"Then what do you mean?"

"Isn't Simon in this movie a person who was avenged by a ghost after doing bad things?" Lin Yu said. "If the crew could borrow this image of Simon that has already happened, to further ferment it, spread rumors that Simon united with actors Arne and Lily to isolate and exclude the Asian actor Yan He on set, to shape the rumor of their racial discrimination, and then slowly release a bit of the story outline and character situation of this movie, provoke the public's emotions toward this movie and these actors, make everyone hate and loathe Simon, and make everyone sympathize with Yan He, then when the movie is released, who wouldn't want to see the three actors led by Simon being hunted and avenged by the Asian ghost played by Yan He? The box office would naturally explode."

"How would Simon agree to this kind of marketing method that damages him? He won't cooperate, and his agency will also stand up and deny it at the first opportunity."

"If Simon hadn't driven drunk or fought with others, he indeed wouldn't. But now these two things have already caused huge damage to his acting career. If he wants to reverse this situation, he can only turn this scandal of excluding Lu Yanhe into the fact that all his behavior was actually done under the arrangement of the crew for the sake of movie promotion." Lin Yu said. "The movie gets the box office, the production side stands up to explain the marketing plan, and Simon's team uses this to whitewash him. A win-win."

Chen Siqi suddenly realized, looking at Lin Yu in surprise.

"Wow!"

Lin Yu: "It's true that Arne and Lily might not be willing to cooperate. This matter itself has nothing to do with them."

"Actually, they don't need to cooperate." Chen Siqi said. "As long as Simon doesn't deny it, even if the two of them stand up to deny it, no one will believe it."

Lin Yu: "Hmm, but this method is indeed not very honorable."

Chen Siqi thought for a moment and said: "We provide such an idea, whether to do it or not is decided by them, and whether it's honorable or not is also borne by them."

Lin Yu: "Be careful with this matter. You are Yan He's girlfriend. If some words come out from you, and if it's discovered and exposed, then the nature of this matter will change."

Chen Siqi: "Rest assured, this matter will absolutely have nothing to do with us."

Simon's agent took the initiative to find Xinnalin.

When Xinnalin heard this solution from Simon's agent, her heart was actually shaken.

This kind of risky method, one wrong move, could put Simon in an even worse situation. If the whitewashing didn't succeed, he would also be stained with the stigma of racial discrimination.

But Xinnalin discovered that Simon's agent had made up his mind to do so.

Actually, the first time Xinnalin heard this plan, her eyes lit up, and she was moved by it.

Xinnalin is a producer.

A producer's first priority is to make a profitable movie, not a movie that loses money.

Horror movies are even more so.

At least not many people would say when making a horror movie, "I'm not making this movie to make money, but to pursue art."

Therefore, if there is a good marketing method that can make *The Mist* a movie that becomes popular before it's even released, relying on extremely high topicality to capture the audience's attention, she will definitely push for it.

Xinnalin doesn't have that much hypocritical hesitation.

Her boyfriend Wendy even fought directly with the director over character styling. She could fire him for the sake of the crew's stability and the smoothness of filming. Of course, she wouldn't worry about the specific impact of such a marketing method on the actors of this movie.

Therefore, according to such a consensus, Simon, who had just caused trouble twice, became the protagonist of racial discrimination this time.

Similarly, Lu Yanhe was also completely in the dark, unaware of the inside story, and just because of such an image of an innocent victim, he was recognized by many people along with this matter.

Of course, what shocked Chinese audiences the most was this matter.

"Lu Yanhe actually went to act in a horror movie?!"

"He was bullied by foreign actors in a foreign crew? Excluded him? What the hell!"

"I don't understand. Lu Yanhe is already at this level, why does he still have to go abroad to suffer this? Is foreign film really that good? Isn't it good to film in China?"

"Isn't it said that Lu Yanhe has great influence internationally? It's said that he has a very good relationship with top international film festivals, so why is what he went abroad to film not an art film, but a horror movie? Very disappointing!"

"Can you guys not think it's a bad movie just because it's a horror movie? Please look clearly, the director of *The Mist* is Mukan Zorge, and the previous two movies were huge successes at the box office! He is a very famous horror movie director in Europe and America!"

"Exactly, which famous actor abroad hasn't acted in a horror movie? It's like horror movies are very cheap. Arne Bogut, Simon Schmidt, and Lily Williams are all rising stars in the United States, and this movie also features the famous British actor Jamie Wilson. It's completely a very awesome production, and you guys are talking about it like it's a bad movie."

"Are you guys missing the point? The problem now is that Lu Yanhe was bullied in a foreign crew, okay! Damn, these white pigs!"

"I'm so pissed off. Lu Yanhe is such an excellent actor, we cherish him so much, and the *The Mist* crew didn't protect him well and even let him be bullied. I will absolutely not contribute a movie ticket to *The Mist*!"

"Where is Lu Yanhe's agent? What are they doing?"

The shock caused by this matter in China was even far greater than abroad.

And this meant that soon, Lu Yanhe's army of fans climbed over the wall to overseas social media, righteously crusading against the *The Mist* crew and Simon Schmidt.

Simon Schmidt's social media had all its comment sections blown up within a day, and almost no words other than scolding him could be seen.

And Arne Bogut and Lily Williams didn't even last the first day, directly posting photos of themselves with Lu Yanhe on set, expressing that they had a very good relationship with Lu Yanhe.

After Lu Yanhe knew everything that had happened, he was stunned.

What the hell?

He was acting well on set, how did he get "racially discriminated" against?

He really hadn't been racially discriminated against on this set.

Except for Wendy, he really hadn't encountered a second person who didn't take him seriously—and Wendy didn't not take him seriously either; he had that kind of attitude toward the director, so how could Lu Yanhe be embarrassed to attribute it to racial discrimination.

On set, Simon lowered his head expressionlessly.

Lu Yanhe looked at him like this, thinking, no one had done anything to him, it was just that they didn't talk much usually. Arne and Lily usually talked and laughed with him on set, so how did it become that Simon united with Arne and Lily to exclude him as reported?

Lu Yanhe thought about whether to speak out and explain.

He also noticed that his fans were currently crusading everywhere, venting this anger for him.

Lu Yanhe didn't want them to be misled by wrong information.

"I'll explain later, Simon." Lu Yanhe took the initiative to tell him. "Although we don't talk much usually, you didn't do what those media reports said."

Simon looked at him in surprise.

Lu Yanhe thought Simon was surprised that he was such a good person.

Who knew, Simon laughed mockingly instead.

"Do you know nothing?"

Lu Yanhe was stunned, looking at him in astonishment.

"What should I know?"

Ten minutes later, after learning that all this was actually a play directed and acted by Simon and the crew, Lu Yanhe had a sense of astonishment that left him speechless for a moment.

He didn't expect even more that after Xinnalin failed to market "ghost possession" with him, she played the "racial discrimination" card by taking advantage of Simon's recent affairs.

As long as it can market a good box office, it seems Xinnalin can do anything.

Lu Yanhe was a bit disillusioned, but also felt that everything was very reasonable.

Sure enough, after a day, insiders began to reveal what kind of story *The Mist* was about.

This is not a simple horror movie; this is a story about an Asian ghost returning to hunt and avenge after being burned to death along with his whole family by three white people.

—Don't you want to see a racial discriminator like Simon being hunted and avenged by an Asian like Lu Yanhe on the big screen?

The theme of the movie *The Mist* suddenly seemed to hit the main artery of internet sentiment, various data indicators skyrocketed, and everyone's search volume for this movie skyrocketed overnight.

For several days in a row, while everyone was paying attention to the matter of Lu Yanhe and Simon, they discussed the movie *The Mist*.

And in such discussions, the filming of *The Mist* also came to an end.

Outside the studio, a group of paparazzi and self-media bloggers suddenly began to gather.

Lu Yanhe was almost poked in the face with a mobile phone by someone, and was asked: "Were you really discriminated against in the *The Mist* crew because of your Asian identity?"

Lu Yanhe left without saying a word.

The secret that the whole crew was sticking to, of course, he couldn't be the one to pierce it.

It's just that he wasn't happy to lie to cooperate with this marketing. If Simon had really done this shitty thing, he would definitely be happy to see it happen, and even kick him while he was down. But it just didn't happen.

This surprised Mukan.

"Actually, if he cooperated a bit at this time, or even played the victim, relying on such great attention, he might have become famous in Europe and America." Mukan said. "Other actors who encounter such a god-given opportunity would definitely climb up the pole."

He heard his wife say very confidently: "That's because they firmly grasp every opportunity to become popular, no matter what kind of opportunity it is. But Lu Yanhe doesn't need to be known by everyone in this way. He can be known by everyone uprightly, and become popular uprightly."

Mukan looked at his wife in surprise and asked: "Do you have such confidence in him?"

Hua Ruzhen said: "You are the director, you watched Lu Yanhe's performance in *The Mist*, don't you have this confidence?"

"I admit his performance is indeed excellent, but I have also seen too many actors with great acting skills who are not recognized."

"That's others." Hua Ruzhen said. "Dear, don't look at an actor like Lu Yanhe with your Hollywood thinking. He is not a newcomer who has just stepped into the film industry. He has already achieved very excellent results in China and at international film festivals. You wait and see, the movie *The Mist* will make him get huge attention in Europe and America, and he will be the key to your movie's brilliance."

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