Chapter 155: A Life of Disasters and Hardships

"Star Fortune" is a romantic drama film.

A large amount of daily life scenes gives people a comfortable, slow-paced feeling.

In the movie, almost 80% of the screen time belongs to Lin Nan and Liu Liu Yifei.

Starting from that first meeting at the "Patient Support Group," in the plot, the two began to slowly draw closer...

The male lead always sent timely text messages to remind the female lead to take her medicine, watched movies together, chatted together, and played around and joked together.

Until they agreed to go out for fun...

"The Great Gold Heist," filmed for nearly three months, has officially wrapped.

Ning Hao returned to the capital and made a special trip to visit the "Star Fortune" film set.

"You guys are doing great; making a movie and falling in love, neither is neglected."

"It's a pity that Sister Na isn't an actress; otherwise, you two could try it too."

Lin Nan made a teasing remark.

"Let's not bother; our looks aren't suitable for that."

"I'll have to tell Sister Na what you said later, haha..."

Ning Hao ignored Lin Nan's teasing and instead looked at the film crew's logistics team preparing.

"What scene are you filming? It's quite a big production."

Lin Nan turned back for a glance; at this moment, Liu Liu Yifei was having her makeup done.

"In the plot, I invite her to go out, and then the female lead develops pulmonary edema, her condition begins to worsen, cancer cells...

Hmm, we'll film this part in a moment."

Hearing this, Ning Hao gave a thumbs up.

"As expected of a standard romantic drama; so many disasters and hardships!"

When Liu Liu Yifei's new look was revealed, Ning Hao was stunned.

Her face was withered and dull, her eye circles were iron-blue, and there wasn't a trace of blood color on her face...

Miss Liu, wearing a patient's gown, would make anyone think she was already at death's door.

"Good heavens, Lin Nan is really willing to let you become like this?"

"Yeah, he's really ruthless."

Liu Liu Yifei lightly laughed and complained, then rolled her eyes at Lin Nan.

All preparations were ready.

Lin Nan first looked at the previous shot that had just been filmed.

In the scene, a sense of suffocation woke the female lead, played by Liu Liu Yifei, from her sleep; she shouted with all her might.

The female lead's mother, played by Liu Liu Xiaoli, ran in frantically.

She carried her daughter in her arms and rushed toward the car in the yard...

This shot left Ning Hao bewildered.

"Auntie Liu has quite a lot of strength!"

Lin Nan nodded; it was indeed a lot, especially when holding her own daughter.

"Action!"

In the shot, Liu Liu Yifei lay on the hospital bed; her makeup was the same as before, just with many more tubes and bandages added.

"I, what happened to me?" Miss Liu asked weakly.

"Nothing, just pulmonary edema; the doctor has already drained it..."

To be honest, Lin Nan thought Liu Liu Xiaoli's acting was quite good.

In that single sentence, the emotion was perfectly in place; she had a soothing tone while desperately trying to conceal something.

But concealment is ultimately just concealment...

The mother still remembered what the doctor had just said; her daughter's cancer cells had already shown signs of spreading.

The girl on the hospital bed had guessed this too; the two just remained silent like this...

"Cut!

Take a break."

"I don't have much acting experience, so I can only rely on emotions to get into it."

Liu Liu Xiaoli looked at Lin Nan and said with a smile.

"Auntie, you're already very good; sometimes even better than her."

Lin Nan pointed at Liu Liu Yifei, who was still lying on the bed, and said with a smile.

"Hmph, sycophant."

"What are you saying?" Liu Liu Xiaoli glared at her own daughter.

After mooching a lunch on the film set, Ning Hao was about to leave.

"Take advantage of your wife not being home to go back and get some good sleep; fly to Wan Island early tomorrow morning. After all, I'm a Golden Horse Award judge, so I must participate in the final screening session."

After seeing Ning Hao off, Lin Nan began to go over the subsequent plot with Liu Liu Yifei, ensuring Miss Liu's condition remained on point.

"Later, the female lead finds out her condition has relapsed and intentionally distances herself from the male lead..."

"I understand; it's just that because I like you, I have to stay away from you.

After all, there's a high probability I won't survive the illness. Ending a relationship that has just begun is always less painful than the agony of a final separation in life and death..."

"Try to minimize the harm to the person you love, because the one left alive will suffer more."

Liu Liu Yifei's tone was somewhat heavy; girls are mostly emotional creatures.

"Mm, that's exactly the point."

Lin Nan nodded and said affirmatively.

In this movie's ending, the girl does defeat the illness, but...

Lin Nan and Liu Liu Yifei were on set, seriously filming "The Fault in Our Stars."

The outside film market once again began to fill with the smoke of war.

This time, January films had entered the competition early.

First, Huayi and Feng Feng Xiaogang's "If You Are the One," which claimed it would surpass "The Robbers" and reclaim the box office record.

In addition, Chen Chen Kaige's "Sacrifice" had also begun large-scale promotion, billed as a "masterful magnum opus"!

Jiang Wen gave Lin Nan a call, and after getting his agreement, highlighted the origin of the movie's name in the promotion.

The name "Let the Bullets Fly" was something Lin Nan had helped come up with.

Into the war among the big-name directors slipped a new film—Zhao Zhao Benshan's "Big Laugh Laughing Jianghu," billed as a comedic martial arts film.

In January, only these four films had selling points.

Although Lin Nan had previously told Xue Xue Xiaolu that he wouldn't interfere with "Love Is Not Blind," when it premiered, he still gave her a call.

"Sister Xue, just release it normally, what's there to worry about? Even I, the producer, am not worried..."

Riding on the reputation built by the company's previous films, "Thirty-Three Days" couldn't possibly have any mishaps.

November's domestic films were all about the same; the one with any promotional hook was the domestic "My Sassy Girl."

Wang Xiaoshuai's "Rizhao Shancheng" posed no threat; people like them had never been box office draws.

Then there were the imported films—"Resident Evil 4" and a few animated movies.

Lin Nan had thought it through carefully: among this batch of films, "Thirty-Three Days" was still in the top tier.

"The Fault in Our Stars" continued filming.

"This film is basically all dialogue-driven scenes.

So let's put in some extra effort and aim to wrap it up in about a month."

Liu Liu Yifei nodded, fully supporting Lin Nan.

"Action!"

In the frame were Liu Liu Xiaoli and Liu Liu Yifei.

According to the plot, the mother clearly sensed her daughter was distancing herself from that boy.

She began to counsel her daughter: "We're not sentimental people. If you like him, go tell him—at the very least, give him the right to choose..."

The character played by Liu Liu Yifei nodded earnestly.

At Lin Nan's "Cut!", the shot ended.

"The next scene is your 'confession' to me, hahaha..."

"Hmph, dream on."

Liu Liu Yifei rolled her eyes and burst out laughing.

A little over an hour later.

Liu Liu Yifei had changed into another outfit, and the person at the monitor had changed too.

In the frame, a man and a woman sat side by side on a swing.

Their eyes met, for a long while.

Her voice was hoarse, with a nasal tone.

"You know, I actually like you. I like the feeling of being with you, but I can't take the next step..."

The girl's tears slowly slid down from her eye sockets. At this moment, Lin Nan was completely out of the scene: "This crying scene is pretty good!"

"I know. I like you too. Those little tricks of yours to push me away won't work."

"I might die. I don't want to hurt every single person around me, make them heartbroken..."

"I'm willing to be heartbroken for you..."

"Love Is Not Blind" had been released.

As this year's closing work from Lin Nan Pictures, it received a great deal of attention from moviegoers.

First-day box office: 23 million!

It could almost be said that on its very first day of release, it had recouped its production costs!

This left many production companies feeling helpless, yet with nothing they could do.

Online reviews were also overwhelmingly positive.

Zhu Zhu Yawen's brooding charm, Wang Wang Luodan's down-to-earth quality, the witty dialogue, and the healing love story made even this Singles' Day feel different.

Yet another low-budget dark horse.

Of Lin Nan Pictures' four films, only "The Robbers" had brought in investments from China Film and Wanda; the other three were all solely produced.

Film people with sharp instincts already had a premonition: Lin Nan Pictures was likely to establish its own brand effect!

"Another one I've misjudged."

Han Han Sanping said self-deprecatingly, but felt no real regret.

With such a small budget, if he stuck his hand in again, it would really look too ugly.

The atmosphere inside Beijing Film was excellent; with this opening-day box office, he wasn't just a member of the hundred-million-yuan directors' club anymore—three hundred million was entirely possible.

The key point was, Xue Xue Xiaolu was still a teacher currently employed!

…………

The "Star Luck" crew.

After the man and woman confessed their feelings to each other, everything began developing in a better direction.

For instance, the female lead's illness was once again under control.

"From now on it's better to focus on directing. Doing both directing and acting is really exhausting."

Lin Nan sat on a small stool beside the director's exclusive chair and quipped.

He handed a cup of brown sugar water to Liu Liu Yifei in the chair.

"Feeling any better?"

"Mm, much better. I can keep filming in a bit…"

"Then rest another half hour."

If Liu Liu Yifei hadn't said it was a small matter and not serious, Lin Nan would have wanted to give everyone a day off.

When the crew was ready again, this time the location was inside a coffee shop.

According to the script's design, this was Lin Nan and Liu Liu Yifei having run off together on a trip.

This time it was the male lead's turn to confess to the female lead.

"I love you.

Although I know the word 'love' will ultimately be devoured by the little time remaining and will be forgotten, I still have to say it—I love you…"

When it came to kissing scenes, Lin Nan and Liu Liu Yifei already had plenty of experience with each other.

The two returned fully satisfied; this trip was wonderful.

……

Outside, after a week of release, "Love Is Not Blind"'s box office had reached 148 million.

In the film news, "Thirty-Three Days" firmly held down every other film in the same window, firmly occupying the top headline spot.

Quite a few production companies were paying attention to this year's revenue at Lin Nan Pictures.

Good lord—just looking at the books on the surface, Lin Nan Pictures was undoubtedly the top-tier production company in the country; the lavish numbers made every industry peer green with envy!

The filming of "Star Luck" reached its climax.

When the trip ended, the male lead played by Lin Nan clearly felt unwell.

In front of the camera were the doctor and Lin Nan.

"The amputation earlier suppressed the spread of the cancer cells, and the probability of recurrence was only 1%. But unfortunately, it has now begun spreading throughout the body…"

"I'll choose chemotherapy. How long I can hold on, so be it…"

……

……

End of chapter