This actor has something

Chapter 343 Unreasonable

Everyone in the preparation room, except for He Daqi, shared the same feelings: apprehension, nervousness, and anticipation.

The audience seats are almost full, and the creators of Crazy Stone will appear in five minutes to interact with the audience.

The closer the time came, the more silent the group in the preparation room became.

The reasons varied. He Daqi was chatting with someone on QQ while typing on his phone, laughing and clearly engrossed in chatting in a group.

Aside from He Daqi, He Bing was probably the only one who seemed quite relaxed and at ease, at least he had the mind to go over to He Daqi and see what his nephew was doing with his phone.

The others were more or less nervous.

Ning Hao chose this because it was his first commercially successful film.

Sun Honglei and Jia Nailiang, who have achieved some success, are hoping to reach even greater heights. Although the entertainment industry environment is generally not great now, whether someone becomes famous or not still depends to some extent on fate. Many people become famous with just one role, so this expectation should still be maintained.

Huang Bo and Wang Xun were purely nervous and apprehensive. The lively atmosphere in the preparation room earlier was entirely due to these two little karami constantly finding topics to chat with everyone. Now that they were about to meet the audience, they were in no mood to make people laugh.

Xu Zheng, sporting a large bald head, looked left and right, seemingly lost in thought. This guy had come on his own; they hadn't initially planned to invite him, since it was just a cameo role. How could they possibly drag a cameo along on a roadshow every day? But the guy came at his own expense, showing his sincerity.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it's almost time." A cinema staff member who had just gotten an autographed photo from He Daqi walked in with a smile and reminded them.

"Thank you, you've worked hard." He Daqi nodded gently to the girl, then put his phone in his pocket and led the way out.

As soon as the curtain of the passage was lifted and He Daqi peeked out, the audience erupted in cheers. It was quite interesting; some screamed wildly, while others took photos incessantly.

The most eye-catching group was the one with the largest number of people, all sitting neatly in their seats, because they were wearing the same clothes, holding the same light boards, and chanting the same slogans, just like they had been specially trained.

"Great opening! Great opening! Let the drums be sounded!"

"Great Qi! Great Qi! Number One Under Heaven!"

The group of people following He Daqi were completely dumbfounded, and even He Daqi himself was taken aback.

Wow, my fans are evolving so fast...

He Daqi felt he was overstepping his bounds, but he couldn't worry about that now. Boosting box office was the most important thing. Every extra dollar Crazy Stone earned was a dollar less for Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles.

So he followed the original agreed-upon procedure and took the microphone to become the temporary host.

"Thank you all for coming to support this movie. I believe Crazy Stone will not disappoint you. As you all know, I am the screenwriter for this movie. The inspiration for this script came from a trip my wife and I took to Sichuan..."

...That concludes the scriptwriting process for this film. Next, I'd like to introduce the main creative team. This is the film's director, Ning Hao. I see quite a few of my fans in the audience; you probably all know about my relationship with Ning Hao, right? We've collaborated many, many times before.
Then there's the lead actor in this movie, Sun Honglei. Does anyone recognize him?

At this point, He Daqi pointed the microphone at the audience.

"conquer!"

"Liu Huaqiang!"

He Daqi smiled and took the microphone back: "It seems our lead actor is quite well-known. Come on, let Liu Huaqiang say hello to everyone."

Sun Honglei stepped forward, bowed, and said, "Hello everyone, I'm actor Sun Honglei. Thank you all for supporting Crazy Stone!" After he finished speaking, he stepped back.

Next, we will introduce ourselves one by one.

"Hello everyone, I'm actor He Bing..."

“…Jia Nailiang…”

“...Huang Bo..."

“…Wang Xun…”

After all the introductions were finished, He Daqi, the temporary host, was done. The remaining time was given to Ning Hao to share interesting stories from the filming and answer questions from fans.

Ning Hao is quite experienced. He led his team to several cities for the promotional tour of "Gift of the Seventh Room". Now he knows the ropes and starts rambling. He doesn't need to elaborate much and just talks for about ten minutes.

When the screening time arrived, the main creative team members walked off the stage one by one and sat in the first row.

As soon as they sat down, Huang Bo excitedly said to Ning Hao, "This huge screening room is full. I feel the box office shouldn't be low. Director, you have experience, could you estimate the approximate box office for the first day?"

"I have no experience whatsoever. It would be strange if I could estimate it. As long as it's not less than ten million, we'll be thankful. If we compare it with the historical data of other movies, we can break even."

“The director’s goal seems quite low. Why can’t you make a bold wish?” Sun Honglei added with a smile.

Upon hearing this, Ning Hao rubbed his face and gave a wry smile: "I hope so."

He wasn't in good spirits and hadn't been sleeping well lately. Initially, he couldn't sleep well because of the box office success of "The Promise," and later, he couldn't sleep well because he was excited about the poor box office performance of "The Promise."

Ning Hao's listless appearance made the others a little uneasy.

What's wrong with the director? Did he receive some kind of tip-off? Is it confirmed that the box office will be mediocre, hence this behavior?
While these people were pondering their next move, Jia Nailiang confidently declared, "Don't worry, I think our box office is going to be a smash hit!"

The main cast members all looked at Jia Nailiang in surprise, not understanding where his confident expression came from.

As if they had thought of something, the group glanced at He Daqi, who was happily playing on his phone, trying to glean something from his face. Since He Daqi and Jia Nailiang were classmates, if there was any news, it was most likely that He Daqi would tell Jia Nailiang.

Unfortunately, He Daqi didn't pay any attention to what they were talking about; his mind was entirely focused on chatting with his friends in the QQ group.

Ning Hao couldn't glean anything from He Daqi, so he turned to Jia Nailiang with some confusion and asked, "Liangzi, how do you know our box office will be a hit? We only ran TV ads for a week, spending less than ten million, while the movie 'Riding Alone for a Thousand Miles' next door has already spent more than twenty million."

Seeing the confusion in everyone's eyes, Jia Nailiang was even more puzzled than them, and asked in surprise, "Don't you guys go online? These past two days, Yabo.com and Tencent have been doing a promotion. As long as you buy a ticket to the movie 'Crazy Stone,' you can get a joint reward. Tencent is giving you an exclusive outfit, and Yabo.com is giving you a custom avatar frame. These are all exclusive rewards. Putting everything else aside, I see that nearly two million people have already signed up on Yabo.com. Even if these people buy the lowest-priced movie tickets, that's still forty million, right?"

After Jia Nailiang finished explaining, everyone except Ning Hao was even more confused. "Yabo.com?"

"penguin?"

It's funny, though. Among them, He Daqi, Ning Hao, and Jia Nailiang are the only three young people. The others are all out of touch with the times. They never talk about QQ or log on to Yabo.com. Listening to Jia Nailiang's explanation is like listening to gibberish.

Ning Hao, however, hadn't been sleeping well for the past few days and hadn't been in the mood to go online, so he was unaware of this matter.

Upon hearing Jia Nailiang's explanation, Ning Hao excitedly rubbed his hands together and suddenly turned to look at He Daqi: "Daqi! Is this what you meant by doing a small experiment?"

"Huh? Oh... no, this is the online marketing plan I was talking about. The little experiment I was referring to is having you post trailers on video websites, and then we'll buy ad slots on the homepage so the video websites keep pushing the trailers."

Why the hell didn't you tell me sooner?! Do you know how I've been these past few days? I haven't been eating or sleeping well, and I've even lost two pounds!
Ning Hao didn't want to talk to He Daqi anymore. He thought it would be better for He Daqi to go online and check it out himself. So he immediately took out his phone, first opened QQ, and saw that there was indeed a system activity push. After carefully looking at the activity content, he opened Yabo.com.

……

……

Shock, bewilderment, confusion, and anger.

boom!
Zhang Weiping slammed the folder containing box office data onto the table.

The blue plastic folder was cracked in two places, showing how much force Zhang Weiping used.

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible! It's fake! It's all fake!"

Zhang Weiping was panting heavily, his face ashen, his eyes filled with a vicious malice that seemed to want to devour someone.

He abruptly turned to his secretary and roared, "Is there a mistake in the statistics?! Huh?! Tell me!"

The beautiful and hot secretary was startled by Zhang Weiping and couldn't help but take a step back.

The secretary, seeing Zhang Weiping's murderous glare, thought to herself: No wonder everyone says you have bipolar disorder, what's with all the yelling! You're such a useless piece of trash!

The secretary was quite the actress; what she thought was completely different from her outward appearance. At this moment, she put on a pitiful look, her eyes even welling up with tears, and timidly said, "But... but we've counted the data several times, and there's absolutely no problem with the data."

"What's the point of keeping a bunch of useless trash like you? Get out! Get out of here!"

Zhang Weiping's roar could be heard clearly even outside the office. Not long after he finished roaring, his delicate little secretary came out with tears in her eyes.

She walked towards the tea room looking dejected, clearly not in a good mood. Once inside, she put away her expression, made herself a cup of coffee, and sat down to leisurely savor it.

The door to the break room opened gently, and a man with gold-rimmed glasses, dressed in work clothes, and with a gentle and refined appearance walked in. He casually pulled up a chair and sat down next to the secretary, asking in a comforting tone, "Got scolded again? Sigh... You really have a tough time every day."

He speaks very sincerely, but his hands are a bit unruly, always heading in places he shouldn't.

The secretary, her face flushed, gave the man a charming glare before complaining, "That spineless coward is just like that. He's good at bragging but has no other skills. He's just lucky to have caught the wave of opportunity; otherwise, he wouldn't be so smug."

"Leave work a little later. Don't you have a key to his office? Let's go to his office today and experience it for ourselves. Maybe it'll be more interesting," the man said with a wicked grin.

"You have so many tricks up your sleeve..." The secretary's tone was as sweet as honey.

"Oh? That's considered a lot of tricks? What do you think it would feel like if we got halfway through and you called him to say you were at the gym?"

The secretary imagined the scene and couldn't help but look forward to the time after get off work.

Judging from how familiar the two of them are with the place, they must be old neighbors.

Zhang Weiping would never have imagined that someone else would help feed the canaries he was raising.

He was panting heavily in his office, clearly quite angry.

As before, Zhang Yimou sat on the sofa without saying a word. There was a box office data in front of him. Looking at the numbers, Zhang Yimou felt only irony. Amid the irony, he was also puzzled. How could the difference be so big?

Just as I was pondering this, I heard Zhang Weiping say threateningly, "He Daqi! Zhou Huimin! I'll make you regret this one day!"

Zhang Yimou smiled disdainfully. Recent experiences made him feel that his partner was really like a clown. However, the cooperation had already been agreed upon, so he had no choice but to accept it. It seemed that he would have to carefully refine the upcoming "Curse of the Golden Flower".

Thinking of this, Zhang Yimou stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, stood up and said, "The movie 'Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles' is probably not going to get off the ground. I'll continue with the promotional tour. After that, I want to focus on preparing for 'Curse of the Golden Flower.' Contact the actors and see if we can start filming sooner."

Zhang Weiping didn't say anything, and didn't even raise his head.

Zhang Yimou didn't bother to ask if he had heard him. He opened the office door and walked out. Just as he turned around and closed the door, he heard another bang from inside. It was probably something that had a close encounter with the floor.

"He's always throwing things around. If he loves throwing things so much, why doesn't he bring some firecrackers to the company? They'd relieve stress and let off steam," Zhang Yimou muttered softly.

He paid no attention to the probing looks from the employees at the newsstand, and walked toward the stairwell with his mind preoccupied with his own thoughts.

That's really strange, how can there be such a big difference in box office revenue? Should I find a chance to go to the cinema and watch Crazy Stone? How good must it be to generate such a box office gap?
It's really strange...

Zhang Yimou doesn't use the internet and doesn't know how lively it is now, so he can't understand it at all. He still looks at things with old eyes and guesses that it might be because Crazy Stone was filmed so well.

What he never expected was that at this very moment, someone in Beijing was thinking the same thing as him—Chen Kaige.

Unfortunately, few people can contact Chen Kaige now, let alone know that he has locked himself in his room and is staring blankly at the data.

The phenomenal box office success of "Crazy Stone" is reminiscent of the early days of "The Promise," leaving director Chen Kaige completely baffled.

"This is unreasonable! What makes them so special? I haven't seen any ads for them on TV or in the newspapers, so why are their box office numbers so high on the first day? It's unreasonable, so incredibly unreasonable!"

(End of this chapter)