Back to 1997, I became the originator of online literature

Chapter 554 Do You Remember My Birthday? Box Office Data in Both Regions

a few days later.

Around 8 p.m., Jiang Xiaoshuang, who had already finished get off work and was resting in her dormitory, received a call from the Human Resources Department of Anhui TV.

On the phone, the other party sounded very sincere, inviting her to join Anhui TV, and the offer was significantly better than that of Huizhou TV.

The phone call lasted for more than half an hour.

Finally, Jiang Xiaoshuang said, "Thank you! Thank you for the invitation. However, I need to think about this for a few days. I will get back to you once I have made up my mind."

……

After the call ends.

Jiang Xiaoshuang put down her phone, got up and walked to the window. Looking at the night outside, she frowned slightly and hesitated.

Reason told her that Anhui Provincial Satellite TV was of a higher caliber than Huizhou TV, and that working for Anhui Provincial Satellite TV would definitely offer a better future than working for Huizhou TV. She should accept Anhui Provincial Satellite TV's invitation.

However, the headquarters of Anhui TV is not located in Huizhou.

If I were to work at Anhui TV, I would be separated from Cao Sheng most of the time.

Over time, his relationship with Cao Sheng will likely drift further and further away.

Reason also told her: Even if I stay in Huizhou, he may not marry me in the future. He has not publicly acknowledged that I am his girlfriend. What are the chances that he will marry me in the future?
A voice inside her seemed to be urging her: Go! Go to Anhui TV. There may not be love there, but there will definitely be a better future.

However, deep down, she couldn't make up her mind.

She had persevered until he broke up with Huang Qingya, and finally became the woman who most resembled his girlfriend. If she gave up at this moment, all her previous perseverance and efforts would be in vain.

Moreover, once you've seen the ocean, other waters seem insignificant.

Having been entangled with him for so long, my heart is filled with memories of him. If I leave him, will I be able to fall in love with someone else in the future?
Can?

Maybe I'll meet someone richer than him, but someone richer than him is probably not as handsome or as talented.

Someone as handsome as him is probably not as rich or as talented as him.

Those who are more talented than him are most likely not as rich or as handsome as him.

Reason also told her that Cao Sheng was probably the best choice she could ever meet in her life.

Although he was a bit of a womanizer.

But how many of those who are handsome, rich, or talented are not womanizers?

Moreover, he is not only handsome, but also rich and talented.

……

"Hey! Cao Sheng, do you know when my birthday is?"

The following evening, Jiang Xiaoshuang came to Cao Sheng's place for a free meal.

While eating, she casually asked this question.

Cao Sheng glanced at her, frowned slightly, and asked, "Why are you suddenly asking this? I don't remember this being your birthday?"

Jiang Xiaoshuang put down her chopsticks, feeling a bit conflicted. She was surprised that he remembered this month wasn't her birthday, but she also felt that he genuinely didn't remember when her birthday was.

"Then tell me, what month is my birthday?"

She asked with a smile.

Cao Sheng picked up some food with his chopsticks and casually said, "September, right?"

Jiang Xiaoshuang was pleasantly surprised; she hadn't expected him to remember the month.

Which specific day?

She pressed for an answer.

Cao Sheng picked up a piece of steamed pork ribs with glutinous rice, put it in his mouth, spat out the bone with a "plop," casually chewed the meat in his mouth, glanced at her again, and chuckled slightly, "Testing my memory, are you? You're putting me in a bit of a difficult position, number 22, right?"

Jiang Xiaoshuang looked at him in surprise.

For a moment, I felt a mix of emotions.

He actually remembered her birthday.

How could he possibly remember?

I've only told him my birthday once. He usually has such a bad memory that he often forgets what I tell him. Sometimes he doesn't even remember what month it is.

I told him my birthday last year, and he still remembers it.

Could it be... that he really has feelings for me?

"Your memory is supposed to be very good, right? How can you call this a bad memory?"

She made a joke with a complicated expression.

Cao Sheng smiled. He had developed a habit a long time ago: every year he would buy a desk calendar and circle the birthdays of the more important people in it to make sure he wouldn't forget them.

He developed this habit because very few people remembered his birthday.

Before his rebirth, almost no one wished him a happy birthday every year.

Before he was a teenager, his mother would cook him a bowl of noodles with three eggs in it every year on his birthday.

After he turned teens, even his mother would forget his birthday every year.

The more times he spent his birthday alone, the clearer he became about how much he longed for someone to remember his birthday.

Almost every year on his birthday, he would think: If there is a man who remembers my birthday every year, he is my best friend. If there is a woman who remembers my birthday every year, as long as she is not a direct relative within five degrees of kinship, I will definitely marry her.

Unfortunately, there is no such person.

Then he figured out a little trick to deepen relationships with people: mark their birthdays on the calendar and give them gifts or blessings on their birthdays.

That's why he remembered Jiang Xiaoshuang's birthday.

At this moment, facing Jiang Xiaoshuang's praise, Cao Sheng smiled and put a few slices of beef on her plate. "Eat your food! Don't test my memory too much in the future. There are many things I really don't remember."

Jiang Xiaoshuang hummed in agreement.

His eyes had softened considerably.

……

The following evening around 8 p.m., when she received another call from the personnel department of Anhui TV, she smiled and politely declined: "I'm sorry! Thank you for your kind invitation, Director Li, but I am not very knowledgeable and my abilities are very limited, so I will not be able to make a fool of myself at your station. I'm so sorry!"

……

After the call ends.

She let out a long sigh, smiled, and sat down at her desk, looking at the screensaver on her computer screen—a photo of her and Cao Sheng, taken with her phone's camera while he was asleep one night when she stayed at his place.

The lighting in the photo is dim because the main lights in the room were not on when the photo was taken; only the bedside nightlight was on.

Cao Sheng is fast asleep in the photo, with his eyes closed.

She smiled and pressed her face against his.

At this moment, looking at Cao Sheng in the screensaver image, she couldn't help but reach out and touch his face on the screen.

Smiling to herself, she said, "Since you remember my birthday, I'll take this gamble with you. Even if I lose, I'll accept the consequences. Will you let me lose?"

Cao Sheng, whose image is on the screensaver, naturally wouldn't answer her question.

……

Coincidentally, that night, Cao Sheng was writing until late at night. When he went to bed to rest around 12:30, he picked up his phone to check if anyone had called or texted him. He saw a message that Qian Zhenyu had sent around 9:00 p.m. that night.

“Honey, I can take a few days of annual leave soon, and I'd like to come to Huizhou to be with you. Would you welcome me?”

Qian Zhenyu's pretty face appeared in Cao Sheng's mind.

She was his crush in high school.

Even after his rebirth, before he had a relationship with her, he was still able to resist her charm.

Now that they've had a relationship, how could he not welcome her to come and keep him company?
"When are you coming? Let me know before you come, and I'll pick you up from the airport."

The next morning, while he was having breakfast, he saw Qian Zhenyu's reply: "I should be able to arrive in Huizhou by tomorrow afternoon. Plane tickets are too expensive, so I plan to take the train. I'll tell you the specific time after I buy the train tickets." By train?
Trains these days are too slow.

Sitting on a train for several hours can shake your bones to pieces.

He had experienced this firsthand when he used to travel between his hometown and Huizhou by train every year.

So he smiled and replied, "I'll reimburse your airfare. Don't take the train; it's slow and tiring."

A moment later, Qian Zhenyu replied, "Forget it, I'll just take the train! It's easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but hard to go from extravagance to frugality. If I get used to flying, I'll find it uncomfortable to take the train again. You can't possibly reimburse me for airfare every time, can you?"

Cao Sheng smiled.

If he had the income he had before his rebirth, he definitely wouldn't have tried to persuade her if she said that.

After all, back then, he really couldn't afford to reimburse her for her airfare regularly.

but now?
Even if she commutes by plane every day, it's unlikely she can seriously injure him.

"I'll reimburse you for your airfare to come here every year from now on, so don't worry about buying your ticket!"

Magic City.

Sitting in her office, Qian Zhenyu smiled slightly when she saw Cao Sheng's reply.

I feel like my relationship with him has finally taken another step forward.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have made such a promise to himself.

Moreover, with his promise, she could take some time each month to visit him and deepen their relationship.

She admitted that she had just used a little trick to induce him to make that promise.

But her main purpose was to make it easier for her to see him every month in the future.

The long-distance relationship has recently made her feel increasingly insecure.

She feared that if too much time passed, her relationship with him would gradually revert to that of good friends.

……

The clattering sound of typing became the only noise in the study.

In front of the computer.

Cao Sheng had only the plot and characters in the book in his mind, and had long forgotten about Jiang Xiaoshuang and Qian Zhenyu. His eyes were fixed on the document on the screen.

The fingers of both hands flew across the keyboard.

It was as if he himself was fighting for Wang Chao, the male protagonist in the book.

The fight scenes in the book are controlled by his ten fingers.

Yes, he is writing a chapter of "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts".

He was in good spirits this morning; he had just finished writing one chapter and was now writing the second.

However, he has been typing too much lately, and his fingertips ache slightly every time he types on the keyboard.

This made him miss the short-travel silent keyboard he had before his rebirth.

The keyboard he used back then not only had a short key travel, but also felt very similar to the keyboard that came with his laptop.

The keystrokes are light enough to type smoothly without hurting your fingers.

The keyboard he's using now, although it's a high-end product that he carefully selected, still feels a bit stiff.

I need to get a new keyboard again.

The thought flashed through his mind as he typed away.

It is said that after his rebirth, he has already changed 6 keyboards in just a few years.

Actually, none of the keyboards were broken.

However, after using each keyboard for a while, the typing feel will deteriorate considerably. But for ordinary people using such keyboards to browse the internet, there is no problem at all.

But he has to type a lot of words every day, and a keyboard with poor tactile feedback would hurt his hands.

Peeling skin on fingertips is common.

Peeling skin on his fingertips isn't a big deal, but the problem is that he still needs to type every day while his fingertips are peeling. The feeling of constantly typing on the keyboard with peeling fingertips is very uncomfortable.

A constant, needle-like pain will come from my fingertips.

Finally, at 11:44 a.m., Cao Sheng finished writing the second chapter of the morning.

Save the draft you just finished writing.

He reached out and unplugged the keyboard.

I took the teapot and the keyboard I had just unplugged from the table and went downstairs.

This keyboard won't go to waste. When I go to inspect Xitong Internet Cafe again, I can bring it to the internet cafe and it can continue to be used there.

This is also one of the reasons why he is willing to frequently change his keyboard.

Otherwise, given his frugal nature, even if he had money, he wouldn't be willing to replace keyboards so frequently.

……

in the afternoon.

After turning on his computer, Cao Sheng did not immediately start typing.

I just finished eating, and I feel a bit lazy.

He opened his browser and went online to check the news about "Infernal Affairs," wanting to see how much the total box office of "Infernal Affairs" had risen.

—6332 million.

He quickly found the box office figures for "Infernal Affairs" in mainland China online.

And I saw that "Infernal Affairs" officially ended its run in mainland China 3 days ago.

He also found the film's box office figures in Hong Kong—6642 million.

The combined box office revenue from both locations is approximately 1.3 million yuan.

The box office figures were roughly in line with his previous projections.

With so much box office revenue, how much will I get?

The thought flashed through his mind, but he was too lazy to calculate the specific numbers.

After thinking about it, he checked which countries and regions the movie had already been released in.

The information found is very good.

It has not only been released in Japan and South Korea, but has also been shown in more than a dozen regions including Southeast Asia and Taiwan.

Having memories of his previous life, he knows that this is not all the achievements of the film "Infernal Affairs." In the original timeline, the film also exported its adaptation rights.

They not only produced an American version of "Infernal Affairs," but also a Korean version.

Furthermore, both versions of "Infernal Affairs" achieved remarkable success.

It achieved both box office success and awards.

Thinking about this, Cao Sheng was looking forward to when filmmakers from those two countries would come to him to buy the adaptation rights to this movie.

He was mentally prepared to ask for an exorbitant amount.

What is this called?
Three ways to cook a fish?
Thinking about this, he couldn't help but laugh.

But, is the script for the second "Infernal Affairs" movie going to be started soon?
A few days ago, he had already received calls from several investors. These people probably learned from Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu-wai that there would be a sequel to this movie, so they called him one after another recently, all urging him to write the script for the sequel as soon as possible.

With Hollywood blockbusters dominating the global film market, it's becoming increasingly difficult for Hong Kong-produced films to achieve decent results.

Not only are box office revenues outside of Hong Kong declining, but Hong Kong films are also finding it increasingly difficult to secure box office revenue even in Hong Kong.

Therefore, it's rare to see a movie like "Infernal Affairs" achieve both box office success and critical acclaim. As soon as these investors heard that there would be a sequel, they couldn't sit still.

(End of this chapter)