Huayu: I'm reborn, but you still force me to be a scumbag?

Chapter 516 Now that we're all here, who isn't a school beauty?
At this point, it wasn't Tony Leung Ka-fai who was expressing his feelings and making comments about the chaos Chen Nuo caused at the Venice Film Festival and the treatment he received.

In fact, the NBC breaking news report that the Tai Chi quartet saw was just one of many news reports covering the "massive boat jam" in Venice's main city.

In the next few minutes, this scene was broadcast live and shared and commented on by numerous public news channels and entertainment media around the world.

In response, the backstage of RAI MOVIE channel, a subsidiary of the Italian national broadcasting company RAI (the host country) that specializes in broadcasting important events such as the opening and closing ceremonies of the Venice Film Festival, was already in a state of jubilation and celebration even before Chen Nuo's ship docked.

"A helicopter! That's a fantastic idea, Marco, well done!"

“Now the BBC, ARD in Germany, France 2 in France, NBC, ABC and CNN in the United States, NHK and TBS in Japan, CCTV in China, KBS and SBS in South Korea, and even Zee News in India and Al Arabiya in the United Arab Emirates are contacting us, wanting to use our live broadcast footage in their news reports.”

"Giovanni, our RAI name has reached number one on the Italian trending list, number five in the UK, and in the top three on the US Twitter trending list! We now have over four thousand comments on our Twitter account and over eighteen thousand retweets, and that's only been less than 30 minutes—if this trend continues, this live stream clip could very well become the most retweeted post in our account's history within 24 hours!"

Amidst the cacophony of reports, a composed, gray-haired Italian man smiled slightly, patted the shoulder of the young man standing beside him, who was grinning foolishly at the praise, and said:
“Marco, well done. Now I can tell you—you can stay on after your internship. I think RAI MOVIE needs fresh blood with your imagination.”

"Thank you, thank you so much, Mr. Bianchi! I'm so grateful." The young intern named Marco nodded repeatedly, both excited and nervous.

The man currently sitting in the live broadcast control room is none other than Giovanni Bianchi, the chief person in charge of the live broadcast of this film festival and the program coordinator of the RAI MOVIE channel.

He nodded slightly, then turned to look at the wall in front of him covered with video splitter monitors.

On the screen, the presenter, Valeria Morandi, with her black hair and elegant demeanor, is shown from multiple angles broadcasting the news in the channel's studio. She is excitedly reporting on the scene that has just unfolded.

Meanwhile, aerial footage transmitted from the helicopter was also playing:
The tranquility of the mirror-like lake was shattered as speedboats, led by a white motorboat, lined up in an arrowhead pattern, leaving long white trails on the deep blue water, resembling a barrage of arrows, creating a magnificent spectacle.

Valeria's voice continued passionately during the live broadcast:

"The speedboat carrying Chen is about to arrive at the Lido Island pier—viewers, our live broadcast has now ended. But please don't change the channel! After the commercial break, we will continue to broadcast Chen's red carpet appearance live! This is Chen's first public appearance with a completely new look since the Oscars earlier this year. Why did he dye his hair a bright red? Is he confident about his trip to Venice? What does he have to say to the enthusiastic fans and moviegoers? The answers to these questions will be revealed in the live interview, so stay tuned to RAI MOVIE!"

"Advertisement!"

At the director's command, the screen switched to an advertisement.

Giovanni Bianchi breathed a sigh of relief.

Just then, a voice rang out beside Bianchi.
"I am now certain that if he doesn't come, then neither of the two male leads of 'The Master' will come, and I have information that even Monica Bellucci will be absent without him. That's the current state of the Venice Film Festival."

Giovanni Bianchi turned around, slightly surprised, and said, "Mr. Colonna, what brings you here?"

Before he knew it, a thin, gray-haired old man had appeared beside him. This was his superior at RAI Cinema—Conti Colonna, the executive vice president of RAI Cinema, a veteran in the Italian television and film industry, in charge of coordinating the acquisition, editing, and broadcasting of film content within the RAI system.

"With such big news, if I'm still sitting in my office, I'll really be a useless old codger."

Conte sighed, looking at the surveillance footage being switched on the wall. "For the past eight years, Marco Müller has completely led the film festival into a dead end. He's friendly to other Chinese films, but what good is that? The Chinese people he should be befriending, he's been acting all high and mighty, handing him and his films over to Berlin and Cannes for years on end."

"That guy should have been kicked out long ago. Fortunately, he stepped down this year, and Chen came along. Look, this isn't just ordinary traffic; this is a historic moment, Giovanni. The last time Italy was in the center of the world's attention was when Mussolini was hanged."

"Hahaha." Giovanni was amused by the old man's last dark joke.

Conte laughed and said, "Honestly, how long has it been since the Venice Film Festival had a star of Chen's caliber? I was watching the red carpet live just now, and I felt really sad. When did our film festival start needing those sexy supermodels wearing see-through dresses to get attention? When did a third-tier Hollywood actress like Kate Hudson get to give a three-minute interview on our red carpet? Look at her performance just now, a sentence of less than twenty words, she stammered out five 'you know,' and needed her director to bail her out. I swear, she's never received this kind of treatment before. She probably can't even believe it herself."

"Hahahaha." Giovanni, a serious and upright man, couldn't stop laughing at Conte's jokes. "Dear Conte, you're being really mean."

"This isn't being mean, it's the truth. Chen's arrival not only saved our ratings, but also saved this film festival! If I were Barbara, I would definitely be nicer to him. Okay, quickly notify the people on set to hurry up and give each group a few seconds of screen time. No audience will pay to see them. Clear the space for me before Chen arrives at the dock."

Giovanni laughed and said, "Don't worry, Conte, I had them do that before you arrived."

Conte nodded in satisfaction. "That's good. Did I say that after I retire, the person I think is most likely to take my place..." He then suddenly changed his expression. "Wait, what's going on?"

Giovanni turned his head and was immediately shocked, shouting, "Why is there no signal?! Where's the live broadcast signal?!"

……

……

Chen Nuo disembarked.

Chen Duling stared at his back and the exaggerated scene in front of him, and it took Gulina several calls for her to come back to her senses.

"Ah...ah!" Chen Duling withdrew his gaze, lowered his head and said to Gulnazar, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, what did you say? I didn't hear you."

Gulnazar said, "Let's go, classmate, let's get off the boat."

Chen Duling stared in near terror at the sea of ​​people before him, the dense array of cameras and flashes, the staff in suits and ties, and stammered, "Now...now?"

Gulnazar said, "Otherwise what?"

Even the fearless Pan Shouyi was a little frightened at this moment. "With so many reporters, what if we get photographed and the pictures get out? Should we wait and let Brother Nuo leave first?"

Gulnazar was getting a little impatient and urged, "Don't worry, no one will take pictures of you."

really?
Chen Duling was somewhat skeptical after hearing this.

But when she and Pan Shouyi carefully disembarked, they discovered that even though they were right next to each other, and the spotlights were shining on someone like they were free, not a single person turned their camera around to look at them.

Even though the photographers' shouts didn't get much response, the red-haired man who came off the boat didn't pay attention to them one by one. He just stood there lazily, giving people a "whatever" feeling, and at most changed his angle occasionally.

They'd rather stop and squeeze in with the people next to them than take a picture or two of them. You know, even when she's just eating in the China Southern Airlines cafeteria, people will secretly take out their phones to take pictures of her.

As if sensing her confusion, a pleasant voice beside her said, "They are professional journalists, not paparazzi who only shoot gossip. To them, taking pictures of us is a waste of their energy. Even if they send them back, they won't publish them, and they won't get paid, so they won't waste their time."

Chen Duling turned her head and saw a pretty young lady from XJ give her a flat smile and say, "Unless you get to stand next to President Chen, no matter how pretty you are... that's all. After all, we're all here now, everyone's a campus beauty, right?"

……

Chen Nuo was unaware that behind him, the young Gulnazar was giving the even younger Chen Duling a lesson in realism.

All he wanted to do now was get this damn red carpet over as quickly as possible.

After the long journey by water, his patience with the outside world had completely vanished.

All he wants to do now is go to the cinema to see the opening film of this year's Venice Film Festival, which is also the biggest favorite—"The Master," and see how his two biggest competitors perform in the film.

He'd heard of this movie in his past life; it seemed to have won quite a few awards. As for whether it was the Venice Film Festival's Best Actor award, someone who only watched popcorn movies and blockbusters naturally couldn't recall at this moment. However, since he'd heard of it, it meant the movie was very successful, which certainly put considerable pressure on him this time.

After all, looking back now, he realizes that he didn't have enough time to prepare when he was filming "Dorp," and he has no confidence in how the final product will turn out.

But it seemed as if this day was deliberately working against him; he wanted to get in quickly, but someone told him he had to go slowly.

When the host asked him to wait a few minutes because of a problem with the live broadcast signal, his expression immediately turned grim. "How long?"

Seeing his expression, Victoria Celetti couldn't help but curse inwardly.

Delay? How do you delay?
How did she, a location presenter earning 2000 euros a month, manage to hold back this Hollywood superstar worth billions in public?

“It’ll be ready soon, I promise.” Victoria explained, racking her brains for a topic of conversation. “By the way, Chen, did you know? There are two film crews from China on the opening red carpet of this year’s film festival.”

Chen Nuo had only heard about the complete failure of Chinese films at this year's Venice Film Festival, and had never really paid attention to it. Hearing this, he became a little curious and asked, "Which two films?"

“One is ‘Tai Chi’ from Hong Kong. Their crew has…emm, four people. They just went in,” Victoria said. “The other one is…emmm, but they’re from mainland China, just like you. They’ve been nominated for the Horizons section. They’re on their way. If you wait here for a couple more minutes, you should be able to see them.”

Seeing the woman's troubled expression, Chen Nuo didn't want to be too aggressive. He raised his hand, glanced at his Rolex, and asked, "I'll give you ten minutes."

Victoria was overjoyed and said repeatedly, "Okay, thank you."

Chen Nuo's original intention was not to make things difficult for the laborers, but the Italians thought that his five minutes were to find someone for them.

And as it turns out, when the Italians want to be fast, they can be fast. If they had been this efficient 70 years ago, the Führer might not have died.

……

Although the red carpet event was cancelled at the last minute, Li Ruijun still came to Lido Island. When he received the call from the organizing committee, he and his wife lingered at the entrance of the cinema, hoping to get two tickets to watch the opening film.

When the person on the phone told him that the red carpet event, which had been canceled, had been reinstated, Li Ruijun was completely baffled. After finding out the reason, he learned that Chen Nuo wanted to see him and was waiting for him, which made Li Ruijun even more confused.

He was born in 1983 and is 29 years old this year. He comes from Group 2, Longtai Village, Gaotai County, ZY City, Shanxi Province, and graduated from the Film and Television Advertising major of Shanxi Media College.

In 05, inspired by a director surnamed Zhang who became famous overnight with a makeshift crew, I began preparing to make my own movie.

In 06, he made his film "Summer Solstice" with all his family's savings. It was shortlisted for the Rotterdam Film Festival and collected by UCSD (University of California, San Diego). It barely broke even and made a small profit, thus officially launching his directing career. To date, including "I've Gone on a White Crane," which was shortlisted for the Horizons section, he has directed and produced three films. He has used only one professional actress, the woman with the round face next to him, his wife Zhang Min, who used to work as an extra in Hengdian World Studios. All the rest of the actors were amateurs, and to save money, they were all his relatives and friends, including his aunts, uncles, and great-uncles.

Let's say that.

Although Li Ruijun doesn't think there's anything wrong with him being a director who came from a rural area in China, and has always considered himself a pillar of Chinese cinema, he still feels that the distance between him and Chen Nuo is probably farther than the distance between his rural hometown and the Forbidden City in Beijing.

When he heard that Chen Nuo wanted to see him, he really couldn't understand what was going on.

However, he has always had excellent mental fortitude; otherwise, he wouldn't have traveled thousands of miles to Venice only to be refused entry onto the red carpet, and then come to the venue to ask the organizing committee for two movie tickets to watch a film.

After hanging up the phone, he chuckled to himself, regaining his composure, and then turned to his wife beside him, saying, "Looks like we can watch the movie today."

……

Chen Nuo waited for a few minutes and then saw an ordinary-looking young man with short hair, black hair, and yellow skin walking towards him with a woman in a formal dress.

He was genuinely surprised at this point.

He initially thought the host was talking nonsense because he didn't even know the name of the Chinese movie, but to his surprise, someone actually showed up, and they really did look Chinese.

As they got closer, the young man with sallow skin and somewhat triangular eyes extended his hand and said in accented Mandarin, neither humble nor arrogant, "Hello Chen Nuo, I am Li Ruijun."

Chen Nuo grasped the other person's somewhat rough hand and said, "Hello, I'm Chen Nuo."

Li Ruijun asked curiously, "Did you really come all this way just to wait for me?"

His wife blushed slightly and coughed beside him.

Chen Nuo paused for a moment, looked at the woman who looked embarrassed, then laughed and said, "Yes, you could say that."

Li Ruijun said, "Could you give me two movie tickets? I want to go in and see how Harvey's latest film is, and see if you can win an award this time."

Following the other person's tone, Chen Nuo smiled and said, "You're not a judge, how would you know?"

Li Ruijun smiled and said, "To be honest, if I had even a third of the skill of watching movies when I was making movies, I wouldn't be here right now."

Chen Nuo smiled and asked, "Then where should it be?"

Li Ruijun said with a half-smile, "Be a judge inside."

Chen Nuo paused for a moment, pondered the meaning behind those words, and then burst into laughter.

……

Time always flies when you're with interesting people. Chen Nuo felt like they had only exchanged a few words when the female host told him that the signal had returned to normal and they could continue the interview.

The interview lasted about ten minutes, and in Chen Nuo's opinion, the questions were rather uninteresting and lacked substance. The only valuable part was the brief appearance on Italian television to promote his upcoming drama, taking advantage of his new look. The rest was nothing more than celebrity gossip and so-called "insider relationships"—all the familiar stuff.

As the interview ended, he turned around and saw Li Ruijun and his wife standing to the side. He couldn't help but smile and ask, "Did you come all this way just to wait for me?"

This time, Li Ruijun was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter: "Absolutely, absolutely."

Of course, they came specifically to wait for him—without him, Li Ruijun and the others really wouldn't have been able to get into tonight's premiere.

On the way, Li Ruijun talked about the treatment he received at the door earlier, and said with a smile, "That's the downside of being unknown. If there's a problem, you'll be the first one kicked out."

Seeing his carefree smile, Chen Nuo smiled back and replied, "Keep up the good work! Next time, win the Golden Lion and see if they still dare to look down on people through a crack in the door."

Li Ruijun smiled so much that his triangular eyes narrowed into slits, and he said repeatedly, "Absolutely, absolutely."

At the entrance of the cinema, the group met up with Gulnazar, Pan Shouyi, and Chen Duling, who were waiting there. Before Chen Nuo could even speak, Allison had already taken the initiative to speak with the staff at the entrance, and the group was smoothly allowed to enter without anyone being left behind.

Li Ruijun said, "My wife and I tried to talk to that fat security guard for a long time, but he didn't say a word and just stood there blocking our way. I thought he couldn't understand English. But I just found out that he speaks English better than I do. These days, you have to be careful who you talk to."

Chen Nuo laughed and said, "How can you talk without looking at people? Are you talking with your eyes closed?"

Li Ruijun said seriously, "Closing your eyes doesn't mean you can't close your mouth, so why can't you speak?"

Chen Nuo was taken aback, then nodded: "That's true."

After saying that, the two of them laughed together.

That's how it is sometimes between people.

Some people, even after ten years of getting to know them, still feel like you're meeting for the first time.

Some people, you feel like you've known them for ten years when you first meet them.

This is probably what they call being like-minded.

Although Chen Nuo didn't think much of it, this brief exchange with Li Ruijun was one of the few relaxed moments he'd had in recent years. After all, in this life, he had very few people he could truly call friends, and even fewer who could communicate with him on an equal footing without any restraint. To meet someone who matched his temperament at this moment was truly a rare treat.

Since Li Ruijun and his wife were unregistered residents, they were not assigned formal seats and naturally followed Chen Nuo and his group into the private room on the second floor.

Because the red carpet event had taken so long, there were only about ten minutes left before the movie started. As soon as everyone took their seats, there was a gentle knock on the door of the private box.

The door wasn't actually closed. Chen Nuo turned around and saw Monica Bellucci standing in the doorway, smiling and waving at him: "Hi!"

The two, who had known each other for many years and had met numerous times at various film festivals, were practically old friends. They hugged and kissed, exchanging a few pleasantries. However, time was short, and they couldn't talk much. In the end, they agreed to meet for coffee after the film, where the most famous Italian movie star would show him hospitality. Afterward, they returned to their seats.

Then, the lights dimmed, and the movie officially began.

The film "The Master" tells the story of a veteran, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who is traumatized and destitute after World War II. He encounters the cult leader of Philip Seymour Hoffman by chance and struggles between faith and freedom, dependence and resistance.

The 137-minute screening passed almost in a flash as Chen Nuo watched it from the actor's perspective.

After the event, the entire audience stood and applauded thunderously.

Chen Nuo also stood up.

He's definitely not the type to be overjoyed when facing a strong opponent, or to only regret that the opponent isn't strong enough.

The thought of his parents and a whole bunch of relatives coming over in ten days to see if he could win an award made him wish there were no male actors in any of the other films at this year's festival.

But at this moment, setting aside his opponent's mindset, as an actor himself, he had no choice but to stand up and applaud.

Joaquin Phoenix, a normally robust and powerful actor, lost so much weight for this role that he was practically skin and bones. Not to mention, in the film, he even changed his way of speaking for the character, uttering each line vaguely from his half-open mouth, perfectly portraying a character who is highly stressed, easily angered, vigilant, and prone to violence.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was equally impressive.

His portrayal of the religious leader didn't rely on flashy technical acting like Joaquin Phoenix's, but his inner drama and nuanced performance were on a completely different level compared to five years ago. The complex and chilling interplay of emotions—a mentor-like figure, a father figure, and even a vague sense of attachment and control towards Phoenix—was so real and intricate.

Chen Nuo knew that this time, he was really in big trouble.

As he clapped, he turned to Li Ruijun and asked, "What do you think?"

Although Li Ruijun was clapping lightly, his expression was quite calm. When asked the question, he nodded slightly and said, "It's alright."

"Just okay?"

Li Ruijun said earnestly, "If it were last year, I think this movie would deserve a 9 out of 10, and the actors' performances would be a 10. Joaquin Phoenix almost brought the character to its fullest potential. As for Philip Hoffman, I've always liked him. I think he's one of the best actors alive today. In this movie, I feel that both of them could win Best Actor. But this year, I can only say it's okay."

Pan Shouyi, who was standing to the side, couldn't help but ask, "Why?"

Li Ruijun turned to look at Pan Shouyi and said, "Because the most popular candidate for Best Actor this year, as recognized by the public, is actually someone else. Since I haven't seen that movie yet, I have to leave myself some room for maneuver."

Pan Shouyi asked instinctively, "Who is it?"

Li Ruijun laughed.

PS:
The cover was made by someone on Taobao; it will take two days to arrive.

The base image was created by me using AI; it's the Chen Nuo I envisioned.

My family members were quite worried about this, saying that if you change the cover, will your readers still be able to find your book?
I said it should be possible, since most of them are literate.

(End of this chapter)