Chapter 476: Past Lives and the Present

"Xinwen Lianbo" is a household name.

It broadcasts punctually at 7:00 PM and ends punctually at 7:30 PM.

In Huaxia, it holds a different kind of significance.

In today's half-hour episode of Xinwen Lianbo, "Monkey King: Hero is Back" did not take up too much time.

Only a brief 37 seconds.

In terms of content, it did not overly tout this domestic animation film.

Instead, it stated an event, adhering to the principle of seeking truth from facts.

It told the audience that this film had broken box office records.

It told the audience that it was currently hard to come by a single ticket.

It told the audience that its reputation and ratings were currently ranked first for the Spring Festival season.

It told the audience...

Well, it emphasizes Strictness.

But, this was enough, wasn't it?

In those 37 seconds, the praise only accounted for the final seven seconds.

Yet it still triggered a massive earthquake in the industry!

Because Xinwen Lianbo, along with those five special media outlets, can represent a certain attitude.

Most importantly, although those few words were not mentioned in Xinwen Lianbo, the articles from those five media outlets all used the same term.

——【The Rise of National Animation】!

This may be a very long road.

Perhaps one that sees no end.

Perhaps one that requires countless people to spend a great deal of heart and blood.

However, one must fire the first shot, right?

Now, it remains to be seen just how loud this first shot will be!

………

……..

In Beijing, Luo Mo had already returned home.

He had gone to his aunt's house today to pay a New Year's visit, and then he was forced by his elders to sign several posters for his younger cousins.

He had to sign them, fearing they would steal his school-era essays from his room when they came to his house to pay their own New Year's visits.

After signing, Luo Mo only gave one piece of advice: "Don't go selling these!"

The younger cousins nodded like they were pounding garlic.

During the meal, the elders also mentioned "Monkey King: Hero is Back" a few times.

Luo Mo didn't say much, just smiling and responding a few times.

After returning home, Luo Mo opened various social media platforms to look at the current online discourse.

What he found quite rare was that an interesting title from Earth had not appeared on Blue Star—【Self-Coming Water】.

When "Monkey King: Hero is Back" was originally released on Earth, because the production team was too poor, the promotion couldn't keep up at all, which led many netizens to spontaneously wave flags and engage in Shouting for it.

Many people who didn't know the situation thought this was a paid internet army hired with big money, and some even raised quite a few doubts.

Since these "internet army" members were unpaid and came of their own accord, they earned the interesting title of 【Self-Coming Water】.

Fundamentally, the emergence of this title was closely related to the production side being too poor.

Luo Mo could actually have let his studio team guide things from behind the scenes, but he thought better of it later; that would change the flavor of it.

"From the current situation, although the magical organization known as 【Self-Coming Water】 hasn't appeared, there are really quite a lot of people promoting it hard online," Luo Mo thought to himself.

Looking at the scale and the number of people, the commotion was really no smaller than it had been on Earth.

Once this situation emerged, many pieces of copy created by netizens began to circulate online.

Some were like slogans; the horse-faced monkey even had visual fans, shouting that they wanted to bear his children.

Many of the texts were directed straight at the two characters for 【Sentiment】.

Luo Mo scrolled through his phone, unable to tell which were fabricated and which had actually happened.

"At the cinema watching Monkey King: Hero is Back, there was a mother and son next to me. The child looked at us and asked his mother in surprise, 'Isn't this a cartoon? Why are so many big brothers here to watch it?'

His mother said to him, 'Because they are all waiting for the Great Sage to return; while waiting, they grew up.'"

Luo Mo's gaze continued downward, and he soon discovered another one.

"I once thought the Tathagata was the most annoying person in the world, after all, he suppressed me for five hundred years. Until I met Jiang Liu Er, he recited my name for a lifetime."

Of course, besides these, many people were also posting those few lines from Luo Mo's "Wukong" stage performance.

Honestly, perhaps many years later, when you look back at the online discourse from the 2015 release of "Monkey King: Hero is Back," you might find it overly sentimental.

But perhaps in that year, it was precisely these words that struck a chord in your heart.

………

………

The third day of the Lunar New Year passed just like that, with "Monkey King: Hero is Back" finishing with a single-day box office of 62.3 million.

At the same time, its single-day box office figures surpassed "Crossing the Future," ranking fourth for the Spring Festival season.

In reality, the cumulative box office figures were only a difference of 40 million or so from "Crossing the Future."

This made Song Ge incredibly depressed during the New Year.

With double the screen allocation, this was the result?

This meant that if major cinema chains wanted to cut screen allocations for other films, they would definitely prioritize taking the knife to "Crossing the Future"!

For the past few days, the entire animation industry has been in a state of sensation, being stirred up by *Monkey King: Hero is Back* several times every single day.

It can be said that *Monkey King: Hero is Back* is, by its own strength and with an unrivaled posture, improving the general environment of the Huaxia animation industry.

Many people owe it a debt of gratitude!

This has also caused many animation professionals to start thinking: "Then what can we do for it?"

Some have not yet come up with an answer.

But undoubtedly, there are also those who figured out the answer long ago.

Xu Cheng, 37 years old, animation professional.

Originally, this Spring Festival might have been incomparably agonizing for him.

Before the New Year, he had been trying to raise investment for his new project, but he kept hitting walls.

Every time he scrolled past news related to *Monkey King: Hero is Back* online, he felt incomparably envious.

"150 million in production costs, a full 150 million!"

This number was too terrifying.

This is a number sufficient to stretch one's legs and arms, capable of bringing an animation director immense confidence.

Looking at himself, he couldn't even scrape the money together.

"This year, I'm afraid it won't be easy to get through; it's inevitable that I'll have to... sigh." Xu Cheng sighed.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, in the afternoon, he took his wife and child to the cinema to watch *Monkey King: Hero is Back*.

He and He Yuanguang are acquaintances, just not close.

This film, he definitely had to support.

As for his wife, she is a die-hard fan of Luo Mo's music and dramas, and secretly, she is likely a fan of his looks as well.

His son is very simple; he just wanted to come out and play.

In the cinema, once the film started and the opening scene of the Havoc in Heaven finished playing, his wife glanced at Xu Cheng.

Although everyone was wearing 3D Glasses, she could guess that her husband, who kept sniffing secretly, had likely already reddened his eyes.

This work was done too well!

After the entire film finished, Xu Cheng went to the mall restroom and smoked a cigarette.

After returning home, he sat in his study, looking soul-lost.

At first, his wife thought he was feeling the gap between his own work and others'.

In reality, she thought wrong.

Xu Cheng looked dull-eyed, but his heart was incomparably fiery, and his brain was spinning at high speed.

In his view, this film was simply too good!

He wanted to do something for it.

He felt he must do something for it!

Xu Cheng thought in his study for a full half-hour; in the end, he prepared to do what he was best at.

He wanted to draw a picture for *Monkey King: Hero is Back*.

Xu Cheng didn't know if the picture he drew could increase its popularity or help it get more box office. But this was what he was best at, wasn't it?

Once he thought of this, he began to conceive it.

On the night of the second day of the Lunar New Year, he began to work.

In the end, the picture couldn't be called very exquisite, and it looked quite simple.

But when he showed it to his wife, she looked at the picture, was stunned for a moment, and said, "It's actually quite moving."

"Right? I also think it's not bad." Xu Cheng smiled.

And by today, he saw the news in the afternoon that *Monkey King: Hero is Back* had broken the box office record of *Legend of the Red Dragon*.

Consequently, in the evening, he uploaded this picture on Weibo.

In the picture, it was actually a mirror image.

Using a lake as a mirror, but it wasn't reality and reflection.

It was the present and the past!

Or rather, it was the previous life and this life!

In the upper half of the picture, a monk wearing a kasaya stood there with his hands pressed together.

A monkey knelt before him.

For many people, in their memories, the monkey sincerely expressing his request to Tang Seng was in the Drama of the "Three Strikes on the White Bone Demon."

And in the water surface, it was a little monk with his hands behind his back, standing on tiptoes, smilingly looking at the monkey, his mouth open, not knowing what he was saying.

The monkey sat in front of the little monk, listening to his nagging, feeling slightly impatient.

This picture's like count quickly broke ten thousand.

Under this Weibo post, the top-rated netizen left a reply, the content of which was two lines of dialogue from the *Monkey King: Hero is Back* film and the *Journey to the West* Animation version:

"【Previous life: Little brat, don't follow me!

This life: Master, don't drive me away.】"

(PS: First update, seeking monthly tickets!)

(End of chapter)