Chapter 437: A Young Girl's Heart is Always Poetry

For Ding Xiaoyu, this coming-of-age gift was too precious, so precious that this young girl with artistic pursuits felt she had no way to repay it in this lifetime.

Yes, she had won an award at the International Chopin Piano Competition; she was a piano prodigy.

Such a persona is something other celebrities can only hope for but never attain.

This honor is solid and real; it requires both talent and hard work.

It is not like some so-called "straight-A student" persona or "book lover" persona, which can be faked.

Nor is it like the foreign Best Actor award Song Ge received, which was incredibly watered down and of extremely low value.

Yet even so, given Ding Xiaoyu's musical appreciation and her near-blind worship of Luo Mo, she felt it was her honor to be able to play "D Da Diao Ka Nong".

The coming-of-age gift Luo Mo gave her was not just a simple musical score.

It was... a chance to leave a name in the history of Blue Star!

After leaving the studio, Luo Mo had his driver take Ding Xiaoyu home.

After Ding Xiaoyu signed with Luo Mo Studio, her mother, Chen Ru, also rented an apartment in a high-end residential complex in Shanghai.

Upon returning home, Ding Xiaoyu took off her black loafers, revealing her pure white cotton socks.

Above the socks were her fair, shapely calves exposed beneath her skirt.

"You're back?" Chen Ru said to her, "I bought you a new pair of slippers, see if you like them; they're the fawn style."

Looking at the incredibly cute cotton slippers, Ding Xiaoyu knew very well that her mother still treated her like a little child who hadn't grown up.

In truth, she was already a bit uninterested in such overly cute things.

After pouring herself a glass of water and taking two sips, she said to Chen Ru, "I want to practice the piano for a while before dinner."

"Sure, I thought you'd come back today and be like the last few days, reading the script for a while first," Chen Ru said with a smile.

As long as it was a script related to Luo Mo, Yu would muster up twelve times the energy.

The scripts she flipped through and marked up were not as pristine as your textbooks.

Hearing her mother's words, Ding Xiaoyu said, "Practicing the piano is also a little bit related to the script."

Hearing this, Chen Ru did not ask any further questions.

She currently had no say at all regarding Ding Xiaoyu's career path and work arrangements.

Because of this, the mother-daughter relationship had actually become much more harmonious than before.

"Go on, go on, I'll cut some oranges for you in a bit."

In the interval while Ding Xiaoyu practiced the piano, Chen Ru first sat on the sofa to scroll through Weibo for a while, then went to the kitchen to cut fruit for her daughter.

Listening to the piano music coming from inside the room, Chen Ru muttered to herself while cutting the oranges, "I don't think I've heard this piece before."

"It's actually quite nice." She gave the highest praise an ordinary person could give a piece of music—it's nice.

After cutting the oranges, she knocked on the bedroom door and only entered the room after Ding Xiaoyu opened it.

Chen Ru had indeed changed quite a bit recently; back when her desire for control was strong, she never knocked when entering her daughter's room.

After putting down the fruit plate, Chen Ru glanced at the musical score and said casually, "I haven't heard you play this piece before."

"Mm, it's called 'D Da Diao Ka Nong'," Ding Xiaoyu looked up and smiled, sharing her joy with her mother.

Just a moment ago, when her fair, slender fingers were Dancing on the keys, her joy had reached its peak.

This was the coming-of-age gift her master had given her; it brought her much, much more happiness than her daily piano practice.

"'D Da Diao Ka Nong'?" Chen Ru asked, "Who wrote it?"

"Master wrote it!" Ding Xiaoyu answered instantly, her tone rising, and she even lifted her chin slightly.

"Did he write it for 'The Beginning'?" Chen Ru said.

"Not entirely, it's also an 18th birthday gift for me," Ding Xiaoyu said.

Hearing this, Chen Ru was amused.

She couldn't help but reach out and pinch her daughter's small, upturned nose hard—an action some celebrity mothers wouldn't dare to do, as a single pinch could cost quite a bit of money.

"My silly daughter, you are really easy to please."

"Your master just wrote you a piece like this, look how happy it made you!"

Ding Xiaoyu knew in her heart that Chen Ru didn't understand the weight of "Canon", nor its significance.

But she didn't want to explain it to her mother either.

"When the time comes, I'll shock her, hee hee!" Ding Xiaoyu touched her nose and began to practice the piano again on her own.

The music of "D Da Diao Ka Nong" flowed through the room; the young girl's many thoughts were things even her mother could not hear.

………

………

On the other side, after Luo Mo had been busy at the studio for a while longer, he returned home.

There was someone waiting for him at home.

Xu Chujing hadn't gone out for the past few days; she had been recording songs in the home studio.

The two of them had unanimously decided to record every song on this album at home.

In any case, the equipment at home was no worse than anywhere else.

Since Luo Mo was personally handling the entire album, he followed the usual rules—no lead single!

"If I absolutely have to pick one song from this album as the first lead single, it's really a bit difficult," Luo Mo thought to himself.

Nowadays, in addition to "Courage" and "Love Song", Xu Chujing had also finished recording a new song.

With three songs recorded and the others already written, this album could actually start its pre-promotion and then find a good day to be released.

These days, there are even flashy operations where people sell the product first and then owe the songs later.

There are plenty of people who release a prelude and then keep stalling.

Luo Mo feels that he really is an Honest Man.

After returning home, Luo Mo first spent some time cuddling with Xu Chujing, and then he had to start playing his own "Feeding the Diva" mini-game: going into the kitchen to cook.

Xu Chujing, barefoot, stepped on the floor with underfloor heating, wearing a nightgown as she walked over to Luo Mo and asked, "How is the contact with the cinema chains going?"

Luo Mo didn't answer, but instead raised his hand and patted her buttocks, which were as round as a full moon, causing the elastic flesh to ripple with slight tremors, and then said, "Go over there; if you're like this, it's easy for me to cut my hand while chopping vegetables."

Xu Chujing felt helpless; she knew that Luo Mo was taking advantage of the fact that he was holding a kitchen knife, and because she was afraid he might actually cut himself, she dared not retaliate, which was why he was acting so willfully.

Luo Mo put the chopped vegetables into a plate and then said, "Basically all the cinema chains have been contacted, and the situation is not very ideal."

If *Monkey King: Hero is Back* insists on being released during the Spring Festival slot, the cinema chains don't actually have much of an objection.

As mentioned before, according to the rules, there will be animated films every Spring Festival slot to satisfy the Demand of children.

As for the other live-action films, they can be considered the most highly anticipated blockbusters of the year; the cinema chains will not reduce their screenings to add them to *Monkey King: Hero is Back*.

Therefore, the screen allocation for *Monkey King: Hero is Back* is actually still limited to that tiny bit of screen time reserved for animated films.

Moreover, it still has to be shared with another animated film called *Bears Rising*.

Everyone can just treat this film as the Blue Star version of the *Xiong Chu Mo* feature film.

The nature is about the same; one was released during last year's Spring Festival, and this year is the second one. The box office for this series is basically very stable, and if luck is good, it might even approach 100 million.

Last year's installment had a box office of 89 million, ranking fourth in box office among Huaxia animated films.

This year, the director of the series has shouted the slogan: "Charge for the top three in film history!"

Luo Mo glanced at Xu Chujing and said, "From the current situation, the national screen allocation we can get is 3.7%."

A screen allocation so low it leaves one speechless.

One could even say it is the film with the lowest screen allocation among all domestic films with an investment of over 100 million!

The other big productions with investments over 100 million have never had a screen allocation lower than 8%!

*Monkey King: Hero is Back* hasn't even reached half of that.

What's most fatal is that being able to get this much screen allocation is only because Xindi Cinema Chain, one of the largest cinema chains in the country, is relatively optimistic about *Monkey King: Hero is Back* and added some showtimes.

Although most of these showtimes are not in the evening.

Yes, with low screen allocation, the number of showtimes is definitely small.

But showtimes are also divided into prime time and garbage time.

Just like how evening showtimes are definitely better than morning ones.

Under normal circumstances, the time slots allocated to films with low screen allocation are all garbage time...

Even so, Luo Mo was extremely surprised.

He doesn't know the people at Xindi Cinema Chain at all, and he didn't expect them to give so many showtimes.

Xu Chujing listened to Luo Mo's words, nodded slightly, and said, "I will promote it well for you when the time comes."

"Then I really thank Jing for covering me like this," Luo Mo said with a smile.

There is still some time before the Spring Festival, and the screen allocation has not been fully finalized.

That is to say, he can still fight for it.

In the early promotional warm-up for *Monkey King: Hero is Back*, he hasn't even used his various Killer trump cards yet.

After the meal, Luo Mo cut a fruit platter and sat down in the living room with Xu Chujing to watch the *Nirvana in Fire* episode airing today.

For the 54-episode *Nirvana in Fire*, if one is a Penguin member, one can already watch up to episode 40 now.

During these days, *Nirvana in Fire* can be said to have broken various records one after another.

Octopus TV has even directly topped the ratings of all major satellite TV stations this year, and its ratings are already heading toward breaking 2.

Station Head Xu Guan sometimes feels like it's a dream.

"How long has it been? How long has it been since a regional satellite TV drama had ratings break 2?"

You have to know, these days, if a CCTV rating can break 3, it's already considered a huge hit.

Let alone the major satellite TV stations.

This kind of ratings Myth makes Xu Guan even feel that the era of the three major satellite TV stations has passed.

"Why can't our Octopus TV be mentioned alongside them as the four major ones?"

At this very moment, Luo Mo and Xu Chujing were watching episode 39, which was playing the Drama where the head of the Xuanjing Bureau, Xia Jiang, was taken down by Mei Zhangsu.

Luo Mo looked at the big screen, popped a cherry tomato into his mouth, and after chewing and swallowing, said to Xu Chujing, "By the way, there is good news I almost forgot to tell you."

"What good news?" Xu Chujing turned her head to ask.

"Your international popularity is about to increase by another notch," Luo Mo said with a smile.

"Hm?" Xu Chujing sounded a bit puzzled.

(PS: Second update, asking for monthly tickets at the end of the month! If you don't vote now, they will be void in a few hours!)

(End of this chapter)