Chapter 318: The Thoughts of Women, the Flavor of an Oscar-Winning Actress

Late at night, in a rental apartment in Beijing.

A round-faced girl lies on the bed, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep.

Born in 1987, at the age of 18, due to family circumstances, she gave up the opportunity to become a flight attendant and chose to work outside; because of her educational background, the most respectable job she had ever held was in sales.

The years 2005 and 2006 happened to be the peak of the talent show craze, and unwilling to remain mediocre, she plunged headlong into the competition of Yahoo Search Star.

Very luckily, she made it to the end, became the champion of Feng Dapao's group, and successfully signed a three-year contract with Huayi.

She had thought that this step into the entertainment industry would lead to her success, but unfortunately, the waters of this circle were far deeper than she had imagined.

As a newcomer discovered by Feng Dapao, she did indeed receive his care at the beginning; whether it was the advertisement "Kneeling Clan" or the television series "Golden Marriage," for her as a novice, they were both decent resources.

She naturally leaned toward Feng Dapao, but unfortunately, after attending two of his so-called cocktail parties, she was no longer willing to integrate into that circle.

She could not accept the high-handed pointing and the unscrupulous trampling of her dignity by those people.

After that, she was never able to obtain many resources from Huayi and was completely left to fend for herself.

In 2007, when Fan Bingbing established her Studio and received capital injection from Wei Jin, Huayi extended the contracts of its artists, and just like that, her contract changed from three years to five years.

It was also in this year that she met her former Agent, He Ru, a woman she called "Mother Ru."

He Ru was quite good to her and helped her take on quite a few roles; although they were all supporting roles in obscure crews, for her at that stage, she was very happy just to have the opportunity to work.

Unfortunately, good times did not last long; in 2009, He Ru left Huayi and joined Peking University Starlight.

Originally, she had intended to follow, but looking at the high breach-of-contract penalty on her contract, she could only regretfully give up.

Although she failed to jump ship with her, He Ru still looked after her and introduced her to many resources, including the first drama where she played the female lead, "Great Internal Expert," and "Xin Huan Zhu Ge Ge," which had just wrapped up filming not long ago.

She was very grateful for He Ru's guidance and originally planned to join her once her contract expired, but she did not expect an unexpected turn of events.

He Ru had only been at Peking University Starlight for two years before planning to jump ship again.

This unstable state made the girl feel insecure.

One must know that the cautionary tale of Wang Jinhua's team was not far off.

Back then, the once-thriving Wang Jinhua team first left Huayi to jump to Orange Sky, and later left Orange Sky to set up their own business; after much tossing and turning, in just a few short years, they had almost vanished from the industry, and the artists under Wang Jinhua had also seen no new talent rise to prominence in these years.

Still harboring dreams of the entertainment industry, she did not want to follow in those footsteps.

But as for where to go in the future, the 24-year-old girl was completely lost. —— China Film Digital Production Base, "Gravity" filming set.

Wei Jin is pointing at the image on the computer, explaining to Cheng Long.

"Big Brother, you only need to make the corresponding facial expressions later. As for the movement trajectory, we will achieve it through rotating, moving light sources, and camera equipment, but your rhythm must be precise, do you understand?"

This film can also be considered a new attempt for Wei Jin; every frame needs to be transmitted back to the computer via the camera to perform judgment on the overlap of movement trajectories.

Once it does not match, it means starting over; even if it matches, if the actor's expression does not match, it also has to be done over. Overall, it is no easier than conventional filming.

"I roughly understand, let's try it first."

Cheng Long nods and walks into the lightbox.

Wei Jin first glances at the cinematographer Dong Jinsong, who gives an affirmative gesture, and then glances at the head of the special effects team, Liu Jianguo, who signals OK.

Without further hesitation, Wei Jin picks up the megaphone and gives the order directly.

"Action."

Suddenly, Cheng Long, who is in the lightbox, feels the world spinning; the surrounding scenery immediately changes into the starry sky, and he immediately makes the relevant reactions learned during special training according to the requirements.

Looking at the footage transmitted back to the computer, in the frame, in the boundless cosmic starry sky, Cheng Long is controlling the thrusters of his Spacesuit to adjust his position.

Wei Jin shakes his head; the reaction was still half a beat slow and had not formed muscle memory, but he did not call cut immediately, instead letting Cheng Long continue to familiarize himself with the environment and this filming method in the lightbox.

After a segment of the performance ends, Wei Jin picks up the walkie-talkie.

"Cut, adjust, continue in five minutes." —— Time enters mid-April, and Golden Harvest publicly announced this year's new film plan.

"Following 'The Raid', Golden Harvest once again launches a new film project, a script written by gold-medal screenwriter Wei Jin."

"The film 'The White Storm', a police and crime action film, with a production cost of 80 million, is currently in the casting stage."

"The film 'Storm', a police and crime gunfight film, with a production cost of 80 million, is currently in the casting stage."

The eyes of the industry were instantly attracted; although Hong Kong films had already declined, this was Wei Jin's script.

One must know that looking at Wei Jin's career since his debut, apart from a few art films, the box office results of any script he handled had never been lower than 100 million.

This was definitely good news for many actors in the industry, especially Hong Kong actors.

As everyone knows, Shanhe Media's projects rarely select Hong Kong actors, but the Hong Kong actors had no objections, simply because although Wei Jin closed a door, he left them a window.

After Golden Harvest's resurgence, the several projects it led, while strict in the selection of Hong Kong actors, had never excluded Hong Kong actors due to regional identity.

In fact, in most cases, Golden Harvest's projects, whether for lead or supporting roles, considered Hong Kong actors as much as possible.

For a time, the Hong Kong actor circle was surging, and everyone began to pull strings and find ways. —— The filming time passed quickly; in the blink of an eye, a week had passed, and half of April had gone by.

After this period of adjustment, Ceng Li and Cheng Long had both almost adapted to this filming method.

It was just that the filming progress had not accelerated, simply because every single shot of this film relied almost entirely on grinding, and Wei Jin had no better way to deal with it.

Just as "Gravity" was proceeding steadily and slowly, the external film market also began to surge.

The promotion for "Ip Man 3" and "Guan Yunchang" had already reached the white-hot final stage.

The production company of "Guan Yunchang" high-profilely announced to the public that the North American copyright of this film had been purchased by the Weinstein Company. But when faced with inquiries from media reporters, the production company kept the transaction price strictly confidential.

This made many industry insiders begin to speculate, after all, Feng Dapao had previously exposed the true face of Weinstein to the public.

Furthermore, for previous films, as long as the North American copyright could be sold, the production company would tell the media the news at the first opportunity to hype it up and attract audiences.

Under these circumstances, industry insiders unanimously judged that the price of the North American copyright for "Guan Yunchang" was likely quite low, and it was mostly likely that they had been ripped off by Weinstein.

At the same time, after more than half a month of casting, Fiber announced the cast of "The Four" to the public.

Male lead Deng Chao, playing Leng Xue; female lead Bai Bin, playing Wu Qing; second female lead Wan Qian, playing Ji Yaohua.

Supporting actor Zhou Zhaolong, playing Tie Shou; supporting actor Zheng Zhongji, playing Zhui Ming.

Once the cast list was out, the industry looked on; after all, the combination of Mainland and Hong Kong actors was still very attractive and a selling point, especially since these people were all first or second-tier actors.

However, a large number of female stars began to feel sour; Wei Jin now not only promoted women in his own projects but also used projects by industry peers to promote women. The key was, why wasn't he promoting them? Seeing this news, Yang Mi felt terrible; without a doubt, this was the handiwork of her senior brother.

Compared to the vase-like female lead in *White Vengeance*, the female lead of *The Four* undoubtedly had a much heavier role; if she hadn't already been tied to other film contracts, this project might have fallen into her lap, but unfortunately, she missed it again.

This gave Yang Mi a feeling that the harder she worked, the further she drifted from success; all her desperate Struggle wasn't as effective as simply lying in Wei Jin's bed.

Thinking of the start dates for the two films she had heard about from Wei Jin that night, Yang Mi only felt incomparable heartache.

"Mimi, don't think about it so much; we can't predict the future, after all."

Although Ceng Jia was trying to persuade her, she also had a constipated look on her face; what the hell is this, Shanghai, Tangren Media.

"Shishi, did you really not hear a single bit of news this time?"

Miss Cai truly hadn't expected that Wei Jin could even intervene in a project from Enlight Media, but why didn't he consider Liu Shishi for either of the two female roles? Could it be that she had fallen out of favor?

"Sister K, he had a lot of things to deal with after the Spring Festival, and we were busy preparing for our own shoot, so we only sent text messages occasionally; how could we have talked about these things?"

Although Liu Shishi felt a bit disappointed, she still maintained a good mindset; after all, *Xuan-Yuan Sword* was about to start filming, and her schedule was already completely locked in.

It was just that when she thought about how the man had considered even his assistant and the Shanghai Theatre Academy artists he barely had any interaction with when choosing roles, yet hadn't even asked her a single word, she felt a bit sad.

"Sigh, that's true, but Shishi, you should still keep in touch more often, look at you..."

Listening to Miss Cai's constant nagging, Liu Shishi felt a bit annoyed and perfunctorily brushed her off with an impatient expression, while in her heart, she was thinking about asking the man to come visit the set once *Dixing Yinxing* wrapped up. —— On the other side, looking at the cast list released by Enlight Media, the round-faced girl felt extremely envious.

"Wan Qian joined Starry Sky Culture last year and has already been the female lead in two consecutive films; that girl who was fired from *The Flowers of War* also got a female lead role in a TV series as soon as she signed; the resources at Starry Sky Culture are truly too abundant, and they are so friendly to newcomers."

Suddenly, an idea involuntarily popped into the girl's mind.

"Is it possible for me..."

But immediately, she shook her head with a bit of self-mockery.

The signing threshold for Starry Sky Culture was notoriously high; every year, so many professionally trained actors and mature artists were turned away.

She wasn't professionally trained, nor was she a second-generation star; she was just an artist who debuted through a talent show and didn't know how to play the game; aside from being diligent and hardworking, she was useless—could she really have a chance? "No, how would you know there's no chance if you don't try? It can't get any worse, right?"

A voice suddenly popped into her head, and she realized: why worry and agonize over the result of something she hadn't even done yet?

Thinking of this, she made up her mind, went to the computer, and began to edit her resume.

Soon, a fresh resume was finished; clicking on the official website of Starry Sky Culture, she found the email link for submitting resumes.

As if to cheer herself on, the girl took a deep breath and sent the resume over.

"I hope there will be a good result." —— After finishing the day's filming tasks, Wei Jin and Ceng Li returned to the Yanjiao Villa.

After playing with Dudu for a while and patiently coaxing her to sleep, Wei Jin tiptoed out of the room.

Arriving in the bedroom, he saw Li Jie bathing in the bathroom, so Wei Jin went to the study on his own to browse information online; this had already become his habit.

This year's Hong Kong Film Awards had concluded; looking at the list of winners released online, Wei Jin clicked his tongue in wonder—they were truly a bunch of people wallowing in their own self-importance.

Several Mainland China actors who had been nominated, such as Deng Chao, Zhang Jingchu, and Wang Xueqi, had all failed to win any awards.

The key point was even more ridiculous: Xie Feng had actually defeated Zhou Runfa, Jacky Cheung, Zhang Jiahui, and others to win the Best Actor Award.

When receiving the award, this guy even held the Best Actor trophy and put on a show, drawing mockery from netizens.

Little Love for Noodles: "The Hong Kong Circle has declined; there is no one left to carry the torch."

Greater China Conan: "Self-deception and sticking to outdated ways; without Golden Harvest supporting it, I'm afraid the Hong Kong Circle can't even be called a circle anymore, right? Were there any decent works worth showing last year?"

Fighting Buddha Who Doesn't Like Fighting: "I'm afraid this is the most watered-down Best Actor in the 30-year history of the Hong Kong Film Awards, right?"

After bathing, Ceng Li wiped her hair and came to the study; glancing at the news online, she couldn't help but shake her head.

In the era when she was studying, the Hong Kong Film Awards were at their peak, and every Mainland China filmmaker took pride in being nominated; unfortunately, by today, the Hong Kong Film Awards had been cursed by the entire internet, to the point where even the media had started to mock them—they truly no longer possessed their former glory.

A faint fragrance drifted into his nose, making Wei Jin feel restless; he stood up, wrapped his arms around the beauty's slender waist, and a playful smirk hung on the corner of his mouth.

"Miss Ceng Li, after these two days of filming, this director is very tired; I wonder if you, as the female lead, can relieve this director's fatigue?"

While speaking, one of Wei Jin's hands covered the round buttocks of Li Jie, who was wrapped in a silk nightgown, while the other hand followed her slender waist, heading straight up until it reached the base of a perilous peak.

Looking at the heat revealed in the man's eyes, the love in Ceng Li's eyes was about to gush out like a spring; even after so many years, this man was still incomparably obsessed with her—how could she bear to refuse his little romantic gesture? Thus, Ceng Li changed her expression, and with a shy, somewhat coy, and half-refusing manner, she said:

"Director, you are the boss on set; if you want to do something, could I possibly refuse?"

"Hmm, very good; tonight, let me taste the flavor of an Oscar Best Actress."

Before long, a good show worthy of a Hollywood red sofa began to unfold in the study. (End of chapter)