Chapter 52: I Think I

"This lesson..."

"For me, it was painful and a wake-up call..."

"Before, I had little legal awareness; I never realized I was already teetering on the edge of crime..."

"After being criticized and educated by public security authorities, I came to understand what I could and couldn't do..."

"..."

On July 24th.

The official [Beijing Public Security Department] released a special program.

The program listed a series of real fraud cases and fraud awareness content...

Whenever real people appeared, their faces were blurred—except for one young man wearing glasses, sobbing uncontrollably.

Although the internet was not very developed in 2003 and the [Beijing Public Security Department] website had low traffic, it initially had little impact.

But this time, the public security department put extraordinary effort into this anti-fraud publicity campaign.

Not only did the original [1819] program air Zhou Yang’s tearful regret footage, but later TV media—Zhejiang Satellite TV’s [888 Golden Eye], Shandong Satellite TV’s [Health and Livelihood Program], and even CCTV’s legal affairs segment—began gradually airing Zhou Yang’s tearful regret scenes at different time slots...

As more and more viewers watched this legal program, Zhou Yang’s information began gradually being posted online by people...

Along with it, the film he made—the insane [Sun Wukong vs Superman 2]—was also released...

"This guy looks kind of familiar... I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere..."

"Me too, I also think this guy looks familiar..."

"Wait, isn’t this guy a filmmaker? Didn’t he show up in entertainment news? Didn’t he make something called [Sun Wukong vs Superman 2]?"

"Wait? Holy shit, this guy made that movie? I bought close to three or four DVDs, and all I saw was eye-bleeding garbage—you’re telling me he made this?"

"Yeah!"

"My god, buddy, please stop making movies. You can’t scam me with fraud, but you scam people with movies like this? Come on, please, don’t ruin society anymore..."

"Is this movie really that bad?"

"This movie isn’t just bad—it’s total dog shit!"

"How is it dog shit?"

No plot at all, not even a hint of a plot. The characters are like idiots, the dialogue is awkward, and there's zero acting. The protagonist suddenly gets inspired, then suddenly becomes impotent... It's an epic disaster!

"Holy shit, really that bad?"

"What did you think? I wasted five yuan on it!"

"..."

Beijing.

Ma Wei, watching TV at home, stared blankly at the figure sobbing on screen.

When he saw the title [Sun Wukong vs Superman 2], he twitched slightly!

Holy shit, is this movie’s title really that brutal?

He immediately logged onto his computer and opened [Movie Home] to check the rating of this movie!

Then he froze—he never expected [Movie Home], which usually had so few users, to now be in an uproar, especially under [Sun Wukong vs Superman 2]’s 2.2 rating, where nearly a thousand comments had already piled up...

Almost everyone was saying the movie was insanely bad.

Many victims even used phrases like “the worst movie I’ve ever seen,” “never seen anything this bad,” and “insanely terrible” to describe it.

Then he saw a newly posted hot thread on the forum.

The thread’s title was...

[China’s Shame: An Epic Disaster of a Movie]

He clicked the title and read the post’s content.

【A penniless hooligan, who mooched meals and scammed money everywhere, suddenly went insane and decided to make a movie...】

【The movie he made was disgustingly bad, yet he made money by selling fraudulent DVDs...】

【Now he wants to keep scamming people and make a sequel?】

【This guy should be locked up!】

【...】

The entire post was filled with insults, viciously attacking Zhou Yang and even declaring [Sun Wukong vs Superman 2] the worst movie in the world...

After reading that, he saw another thread’s title: 【[Sun Wukong vs Superman 2]? If you’ve never eaten shit, go try it—it’s total shit...】

One after another, every thread was slamming [Sun Wukong vs Superman 2], calling it insanely bad, outrageously terrible...

Originally just an epic disaster of a movie...

There was no real reason to watch it.

But for some reason, seeing so many people call it bad, Ma Wei—who’d never eaten shit—somehow developed a strange urge to go to the cinema and see just how bad this movie really was.

Human nature is truly strange!

Some people, like Ma Wei, inexplicably developed a bit of “curiosity”!

He originally planned to dismiss the idea, to click X and avoid this terrible movie...

But his curiosity grew stronger and stronger!

He glanced at the cinema ticket price.

When he saw the ticket cost only five yuan, Ma Wei finally gave in to his curiosity, shut his computer, and headed toward the cinema.

Half an hour later, when he arrived at the nearby cinema, he found the [Feihe Cinema] entrance surprisingly crowded.

Through some audience conversations, he learned that many people shared his thought—they all wanted to see just how bad this movie was, the one rated the lowest in history on [Movie Home]!

At that moment...

He saw a group of people walking out of the theater.

"Incredibly bad!"

"Seriously, don’t go watch it!"

“It’s insanely terrible. Why am I here watching it?”

"I wanted to see just how bad this movie could possibly get..."

"..."

Some people walked out with complex expressions, as if they’d swallowed a huge pile of shit.

Others were excited, enthusiastically agreeing with everyone that the movie was insanely terrible—even worse than online reports claimed...

July 25th.

Zhang Muxue, the owner of [Feihe Cinema], watched as audience after audience arrived at the entrance.

She couldn’t believe it—she thought she was dreaming.

Such a scene had only happened on the first day of [Sun Wukong vs Superman 2]’s premiere.

But after the first day, as criticism mounted, theater attendance dropped sharply.

Some screening rooms had almost no one...

Yet no one expected that over ten days later, attendance suddenly surged—and everyone came specifically to buy tickets for [Sun Wukong vs Superman 2]!

Though they all criticized it, these people didn’t carry the rage of those originally tricked on opening day; instead, they came as if exploring a new continent.

And the number of these “new continent explorers” kept growing—even tomorrow’s advance tickets had already sold a few.

This level of popularity was unheard of!

Even more astonishing to her was that today, all day long...

Thanks to this terrible movie, three theaters with over four hundred seats earned her nearly 5,000 yuan.

By nine p.m.

"Where’s Zhou Zong?"

"The pirated DVDs of [Sun Wukong vs Superman 2] sold out today!"

"We’re planning to print another thousand copies..."

"..."

A dedicated DVD pirate supplier rushed over, eager to find Zhou Yang.

But...

Zhang Muxue shook her head.

She didn’t know where Zhou Yang was.

"Zhou Zong!"

"Ah, hello, hello!"

"I’m Li Dachun, a coal mine operator. My daughter saw your news on TV—the one where you cried in that fraud report—and suddenly insisted on coming here... I only have one daughter, so I brought her..."

"Huh?"

"For investment, I’ve got money—twenty thousand yuan? A million is no problem... But I have one request..."

"What request?"

"My daughter wants to act—she wants to be the female lead..."

"OK, no problem!"

"And also..."

"What else?"

"My daughter made a request over the phone: she wants you to be the male lead in your new movie!"

"???"

【Xuanshi Entertainment】.

In a spartan office.

Zhou Yang received a phone call.

Shortly after...

A knock came at the door.

Then, a portly middle-aged man stood at the door with an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old girl...

"Is that him?"

"Yes, yes, yes, that's him—that photo online next to the Audi A6! That's him... I searched for so long; if I hadn't seen it in the news, I'd have thought that photo wasn't even real... Ah, ah, he's even more handsome in person than in the photo..."

"..."

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