Chapter 448: Shocking Venice—Where the Hell Is My Italian Cannon?!

The greatest regret about the film *The Witness* is that it is a short film and cannot compete in the main competition section.

Moreover, the short film section no longer exists; it can only be screened as a featured presentation.

Nevertheless, Venice holds this film and Wei Ming in high regard; *The Fantastic Tale of the Heavenly Book* was confirmed for the main competition at the last moment, and historically, animated films rarely make it into Venice’s main competition—this was largely due to the prestige of *The Witness*, though BBC’s involvement also helped.

So even though *The Witness* is only a screening entry, the festival has granted it the highest level of hospitality; while Wei Ming was in Sichuan, the original formal invitation had already been mailed from Venice to Beijing.

And the invitation specifically requested the *The Witness* team to attend in person.

Wei Ming’s new team planned to continue touring southern Sichuan; when passing through Chengdu, they received this notice from the Ministry of Culture.

But the leadership did not want Wei Ming to go abroad at this critical juncture, and Wei Ming himself was too lazy to abandon the crew for so long over a short film, so he remained unmoved.

Still, he sent a telegram to Hong Kong, asking Ah Long to convey to Xu Jinjiang: if he and Xia Wenshi had time and were willing, they could represent the *The Witness* crew at the Venice Film Festival, with all expenses covered by DreamWorks.

This would at least properly acknowledge the festival’s generous invitation.

While Wei Ming and the others were resting in Chengdu, the actors dispatched from Beijing arrived—they had come early to experience life.

The lead actor, Li Baotian, did not come; his experience centered on his musician identity, and Wei Ming needed him to maintain a sense of alienation from rural life, so he was currently mingling among the faculty of the Central Conservatory of Music.

The three who came were Ge Cunzhuang, his son Ge You, and Wu Jing; they were cast as a three-generation family in the film: Principal Wang Baoding, Village Chief Wang Jianshe, and student Wangshitou.

Ge Cunzhuang, with his rich acting experience, could easily handle such a role, but this was his son’s first major role—by weight, second only to the male lead, excluding the children.

Ge You had only three years of rural down-to-earth experience in Changping, mostly feeding pigs, cleaning pigsties, and postpartum care for sows; his life experience beyond that was severely lacking.

So Grandpa Ge personally brought his son to the filming location to experience life, specifically seeking out village cadres who ruled their villages with absolute authority.

Since the filming location had not yet been finalized, Wei Ming planned to send them to the village where his maternal grandmother lived, to be met by his eldest uncle.

Wu Jing was the same—he had never lived in the countryside, so his father voluntarily offered to send him down to the countryside to experience life, and Wu Jing’s father himself didn’t come, leaving everything to others; taking care of a child during summer vacation was a nuisance, and he even regretted that Wei Ming hadn’t taken him away sooner.

Wu Jing didn’t understand this at all; he asked Wei Ming: “Why do we need to experience life? I’ve acted before, and everyone says I’m good at it.”

Wu Jing’s role actually had less screen time than Xi Zi’s “Pipi,” and Wu Jing’s acting talent was also inferior to Xi Zi’s, so experiencing life was still necessary.

Wei Ming smiled and explained: “Jingzi, you’re a city kid—you probably don’t know what rural children’s lives are like. To act truthfully, you must learn their habits: you need to know that rural areas have no televisions, no traffic lights at village intersections, and the Sichuan dialect is incomprehensible.”

Wu Jing frowned: “Wei Ming, you’re talking, but why are you shaking your head like that?”

Wei Ming laughed harder, ruffling his little crew cut: “Don’t copy me—learn well from Grandpa Ge and Uncle Ge. In a few days, Xi Zi will come to keep you company.”

Xi Zi had recently been studying martial arts at Shichahai—he’s Jingzi’s childhood friend—and he’s already started filming *Under the Bridge*; everyone’s waiting for Teacher Xi’s schedule; *The Shepherd Class* is done, and now it’s time to film Hong Haier in *Journey to the West*.

The village school in the film has over twenty elementary students of different ages; the four key child actors—two boys and two girls—are all from Beijing, selected for their basic acting experience, including Xi Zi, the film emperor himself.

Although rural children are more natural and could be used directly without life experience, their extreme rawness and lack of exposure to the outside world might mean they have no concept of acting, leading to high communication costs; even after extensive training, they might still fail to deliver the feeling Wei Ming wants, and could feel jarringly disconnected from professional actors.

The task of escorting the Ge family and Wu Jing was given to Mi Jiashan, who happily accepted it, because Wei Ming had assigned the female lead role to Pan Hong.

In the original novel, Zhong’s wife and child abandoned him, but fortunately he had a musical soulmate, Teacher Yu—unfortunately, he later learned she had also passed away.

The film simplified this: his wife is his soulmate, yet she too dies in the end, leaving Teacher Zhong utterly alone, so he ultimately adopts Pipi.

This wife’s role isn’t extensive—she appears mostly in flashbacks—but she is Zhong’s lifelong white moonlight; Wei Ming even considered keeping the role for Lin Jie.

But remembering that Lin Jie had already received *Du Shiniang* and *Middle Age*, he decided to give it to Teacher Pan instead.

Before leaving, Wei Ming handed Mi Jiashan a letter to deliver to his eldest uncle.

During their absence, all information on women in Sichuan named Xu Shujie, aged 32, had been gathered; the detailed records were all in Wei Ming’s thick letter; Mi Jiashan felt its weight and thought it contained money.

But to the Xu family, this was more valuable than money.

When Xu Cunmao received the letter, he understood: it was now his duty as the eldest brother to act.

His feed mill business was currently limited to one county; now he must expand to the entire city, then the province, all while traveling for business and searching for his sister using these records.

In the letter, Xiao Ming wrote: “Auntie likely changed her name, and she may have left Sichuan. If we still can’t find her, we’ll find another way—I heard China has now imported a technology called parent-child identification; even if Auntie herself can’t remember, as long as we find a suspect, a single hair can confirm whether she’s the one.”

Xu Cunmao had never heard of such a technology, but he trusted his nephew—if he said it existed, it must exist.

This technology is called DNA parent-child identification; currently, it is only used in major criminal investigations and won’t be applied to parent-child verification for years to come.

But Wei Ming has overseas channels; his uncle will screen candidates, and Wei Ming himself will confirm the match.

In Hong Kong, Chow Hui Min and her mother were watching the weekly *Millionaire*.

This was the second official episode, which had gone viral since the previous one.

Each week, countless Hong Kong households sat glued to their TVs, answering questions alongside the contestants, then mocking others for being stupid and imagining how they themselves would have done better.

In the first official episode, the best performer had fallen on question 14 and walked away with the prize for question 10: 60,000 yuan.

This episode, a formidable contestant, after using all his lifelines, successfully answered question 14—he was a bespectacled, scholarly company clerk with a university degree.

At this point, he was uncertain about question 15; answering question 14 had nearly exhausted his luck—he knew the final question would be harder, more obscure, and more misleading.

So at this critical moment, he chose to stop, taking the 500,000 yuan prize and declining the challenge for one million; he said that with 500,000 yuan, plus the recent drop in housing prices, he could now buy his own apartment.

This move would inevitably spark widespread public debate; many would call him foolish, which would only spur more people to join the show.

But Chow’s mother focused on the contestant’s mention of housing prices: compared to their peak, prices had begun to decline, bringing her and her daughter closer to owning their own apartment.

Liu Rulong also planned to buy a property for himself and Gong Ying next year—after all, his mother was about to give birth, and the household would grow larger.

At this time, he had received Wei Ming’s telegram and conveyed its message to Xu Jinjiang.

The younger brother hesitated; he felt it was inappropriate to travel abroad at Wei’s expense.

Ah Long urged: “Ah Ming isn’t stingy. How about this—I’ll go with Ying and you; she’s always dreamed of Milan’s fashion—it’ll be our delayed honeymoon.”

Xu Jinjiang was tempted—he loved Italian sculpture—and finally nodded: “I’ll ask Xia Wenshi first.”

When Wei Ming and the others returned to Chengdu for the second time, August was nearly over; Wei Hong had also returned to Chengdu, planning to say goodbye to her brother before heading back to Beijing—school was starting.

After personally seeing Wei Hong off, Wei Ming convened a crew meeting to analyze the results of the month-long location scouting.

The conclusion: Fan Village, originally recommended by Long Xiaoyang, remained the most suitable.

Several other small villages offered supplementary scenery to complement the main setting.

In different regions of Sichuan, they also found locations suitable for the county town and township scenes, but these two settings were not crucial, together accounting for less than a quarter of the film.

Wei Ming said: “Then it’s Fan Village. The village committee is thrilled to welcome us and will offer full support. Now we must turn this village into a 1960s setting—Old Feng, Young Feng, it’s up to you.”