Chapter 2: The Familiar Story Shocked Everyone

If he were reborn in 2005, Wu Yuchen could easily go find coal bosses for investment.

With a script in hand, a torrent of words painting a glorious future, plus downing a pound of baijiu, a coal boss might get excited and cough up at least a million or so.

If reborn in 2015, it would be PPTs and business plans—a passionate, emotional pitch to internet tycoons, leaving them breathless with dreams.

But now it’s 1995; coal bosses haven’t risen yet, and even if you had money, you still couldn’t shoot a film.

Films back then weren’t something you could just pick up and shoot—you needed official permission, and only major studios held that right.

Without approval and registration, you’d be banned outright.

It wasn’t until 1997 that the authorities began experimenting with film marketization, allowing private groups and individuals to invest in film production.

Thus, after his rebirth, Wu Yuchen had already laid out a short-term plan: make a low-budget art film to compete for awards.

First, build his reputation, establish himself in the film world, and then whether seeking investment or pursuing other projects, everything would become twice as effective.

And choosing to make a short film first would let him sidestep the ban on individual filmmaking, since shorts were still seen as experimental works—falling into a regulatory gray zone.

“Thank you!”

Jia Zhangke’s thanks after reading his script interrupted Wu Yuchen’s thoughts, followed by a round of applause.

Jia Zhangke’s script was decent—rarely did anyone focus on migrant workers with such a perspective, brimming with humanistic concern, so everyone applauded generously.

Jia Zhangke smiled, then asked:

“Any other students want to read their own scripts?”

Jia Zhangke was one of the film group’s organizers; the five who had already read were all regulars, and only they’d ever expressed interest in writing scripts—but maybe someone else wanted to try?

Still, Jia Zhangke had some confidence in himself.

He wrote four reviews a month for newspapers and ghostwrote scripts for TV dramas—uncredited, but he got paid. Though his family wasn’t rich, he wasn’t exactly a poor student.

He’d long mastered scriptwriting; compared to the previous few, his script was far more polished.

At that moment, a tall figure stood up: “Brother Jia, I’ve prepared a script too—can I read it?”

Jia Zhangke looked over—it was Wu Yuchen, a freshman who’d joined the group right after the semester started.

He remembered him clearly: a film directing student who was even better-looking than the acting majors—he wondered if this kid had enrolled in the wrong major.

“Of course!”

Jia Zhangke smiled and stepped down from the stage to make room. He didn’t think this good-looking newcomer posed any real threat—hadn’t he spent years studying and writing scripts?

“Hey, bro, good luck!” Wu Shixian whispered to Wu Yuchen.

He and Chen Er had come today just to hear what kind of script Wu Yuchen had written.

Wu Yuchen glanced at Wu Fat, smiled, and said:

“Wu Fat, if I win, I’ll treat you to dinner.”

Internally, he added: Wu Fat, this is the moment to test who’s better—you or Jia the Boss!

Wu Yuchen walked onto the stage, stood tall, scanned the crowd staring at him, then pulled out his script:

“Hello everyone, my script is called ‘Car 44’.”

With 20,000 yuan in the film stock era, Wu Yuchen ran through his options in his mind and chose his roommate Wu Shixian’s debut: ‘Car 44’.

Eleven and a half minutes long, it won the Golden Lion for Best Short Film at the Venice Film Festival in the original timeline, was invited to multiple festivals in 2001, caused a sensation, and achieved great success overseas.

Wu Fat, don’t blame your bro for being ruthless—blame your ‘kid’ for being too captivating!

Many should already know the plot of ‘Car 44’:

A long-distance bus female driver is raped by highway bandits; only one young man steps forward to help, but he’s brutally beaten. Then the driver kicks him off the bus, leaving him despondent. Soon after, he learns the driver has taken the bus into a ravine—everyone on board is dead.

Compared to ‘Little Mountain Going Home’, ‘Car 44’ is much shorter but far more gripping.

Below, Jia Zhangke listened, his expression calm and relaxed at first, then gradually drawn in, his focus sharpening.

He felt outrage at the driver’s violation, anger at the young man’s beating, fury and sorrow at the passengers’ silence, confusion and lament at the driver’s expulsion of the young man.

When he heard the ending—the driver deliberately driving the bus into the ravine to die with everyone—he, like everyone else in the classroom, fell into stunned silence, only the shock echoing in his mind.

People in the future might feel nothing watching this story, but in this era, its first appearance delivered an unparalleled psychological impact.

A short tale with conflict, rising tension, twists, and a final, devastating reversal.

Just from its structure alone, it was enough to fully engage the audience’s emotions.

Not to mention how profoundly it exposed the light and darkness of human nature—leaving everyone in the room shaken, their minds still buzzing.

“What a fucking story!” An English exclamation rang through the classroom.

Wu Yuchen looked over—it was his roommate Wu Shixian, who’d just blurted out the curse, face flushed with excitement, then clapping loudly to start the applause.

The class, startled by Wu Fat’s English swear, snapped to attention and followed suit—twenty people clapping as if a hundred were present, their excitement palpable.

Jia Zhangke, too, was emotionally stirred and joined the applause.

This freshman’s script had utterly exceeded everyone’s expectations.

Moments later, the applause faded, but the mood remained electric.

A male student, face flushed, shouted:

“Awesome! Your story is insane!”

“But I have one question—is this your original idea, or did it actually happen?”

Everyone turned to Wu Yuchen. It was the question many wanted to ask—it sounded too real to be fiction.

Wu Yuchen himself didn’t know whether the story was true or not.

Back then, the tale had circulated widely online, in newspapers, and in magazines like ‘Reader’ and ‘Yi Lin’, but there were two competing claims about its origin.

One claimed it was a real event, though accounts varied on when and where it occurred.

The other claimed all online versions originated from the short film ‘Car 44’.

But ‘Car 44’ opened with “Based on a True Story”—no one knew if that was just a marketing ploy.