Huayu: Starting from retirement, sweeping across the domestic entertainment industry

Chapter 241 Li Ran Has Been Set Up

Time flies.

Winter in Shanghai is not as crisp and clean as in the north. The damp cold seeps in from the Huangpu River, seeping into your cuffs and collar, making you feel like there's still a layer between you and the real cold, yet you can never quite warm up.

The crew of "Glory" finished filming the last scene in Shanghai two days before New Year's Day.

When Zhang Yimou yelled "Cut!", the staff on set applauded, not to celebrate the wrap-up of filming, but to bid farewell to the city.

The props team began packing up the equipment scattered throughout the venue, and the lighting technicians dismantled the reflectors that had been hanging for more than half a month and packed them into boxes one by one. The entire set was filled with a unique atmosphere of busyness and relaxation that comes with wrapping up filming.

Li Ran stood at the entrance of the venue, watching the prop trucks drive out of the parking lot one after another.

Zhang Yimou walked up behind him, slapped a new call sheet on his chest, and said in a tone like he was giving a military order: "The schedule at the Bird's Nest has been arranged. Filming will start after the New Year's Day holiday. It's two key scenes from the World Cup. Get yourself in shape, kid. After all, these two scenes are two different challenges for you."

Li Ran glanced down at the schedule on the notice, nodded, folded the paper, and put it into his coat pocket.

The two World Cup scenes filmed at the Bird's Nest are the most important parts of the entire film.

A beginning, an end.

The atmosphere of a giant stadium with more than 10,000 seats, with spotlights shining down from the dome and cheers from all directions surging towards the ten computers in the center of the stage, cannot be simulated by building a set in a studio; it must be filmed on location.

The production team spent a long time coordinating the location and schedule. Zhang Yimou even personally went to Beijing several times to get approval. Everything was arranged, and they were just waiting for the New Year's Day holiday to end before heading north.

Li Ran returned to Beijing ahead of schedule.

His reason was simple: the movie he starred in with Zhang Ruonan, "Even If This Love Disappears," would be released on New Year's Day.

This is the first time that two names have been listed side-by-side in the lead actor section.

It would be a lie for Zhang Ruonan to say she wasn't nervous. During the few days she was at her hometown, she sent him several messages, ranging from "Do you think the box office will be good?" to "Was my crying scene too intense?" The messages were incoherent, and each one revealed a hint of panic.

Meanwhile, another work has already fired the final shot for him this year.

The popularity of "The Sword and the Brocade" has been soaring at an almost unreasonable speed for exactly half a month since its broadcast.

On the data charts, it firmly holds a top position among all dramas airing at the same time, second only to the phenomenal hit "Joy of Life" from that year.

The fact that it is "second only to" is already a victory in itself. After all, being able to be compared with that show in the same coordinate system already says a lot.

However, the issue of script adaptation has been raised by many.

Fans of the original work have been criticizing the show on social media since the first episode. Some say the pacing is off, others say the character relationships have been drastically altered, and still others say that some important plot points have been cut down to the bare minimum.

These criticisms are not insignificant; if this were any other production team, they would have already issued an apology statement.

Surprisingly, the action scenes and special effects were not criticized this time.

Instead of being criticized, it received a lot of positive reviews from both fans of the original work and ordinary viewers.

In its previous life, this show was criticized almost mercilessly for two reasons: excessive use of slow motion, cheap special effects, and obvious wire work. Memes about these issues circulated on various forums for an entire season.

But this time is different.

After Li Ran made his demands at the beginning of the production, the crew spent a lot more budget and time on the action choreography team and special effects rendering. When the effect came out, no one found fault with it.

As for the characters, the most unexpected one is Wang Churan.

Her portrayal of Nangong Pushe has garnered the most discussion among fans of the original novel.

The character's description in the original work is already quite outstanding—a white fox-like face, androgynous, cold and aloof to the point of being unapproachable, and strong to the point of being unreasonable.

Wang Churan's face, standing in the snow, with his sharp jawline and white fur coat, made it seem as if Nangong Pu She himself had stepped out of the book, without him needing to say a single line.

She doesn't have many scenes, maybe just a few in total, but every single one of them has been screenshotted by viewers, and the comments section is filled with "Sister is killing me," making her incredibly popular.

The same applies to the Bluebird, played by Zhou Ye.

She really suits this look.

Dressed in green with his hair tied up, holding a long spear, the heroic spirit between his brows and eyes emanated from his very bones, not from makeup.

When her bluebird stood behind Xu Fengnian, it didn't seem like a follower, but more like a sharp blade quietly sheathed in a sword sheath, silent until it uttered a sound that would draw blood.

This role has a subtle fit with Zhou Ye's own temperament, which the audience felt, and thus a flood of positive reviews came in.

These two became the girls who gained the most followers. Wang Churan's social media account more than doubled its followers within two weeks of the broadcast, and Zhou Ye followed closely behind, showing no less momentum.

But while some are happy, others are sad.

Lu Yuxiao's portrayal of Jiang Ni received far more criticism than praise.

To be fair, her acting skills weren't a big problem. Her crying scenes were solid, and her delivery of lines was also good. At least in terms of performance, there were no obvious shortcomings.

But the problem lies elsewhere – her appearance and the temperament of Jiang Ni in the original work are indeed not very compatible.

In the original work, Jiang Ni is the kind of girl with the temperament of a princess of a fallen kingdom. She is delicate, sensitive, and has a sense of brokenness hidden in her bones. Lu Yuxiao's features are more bright and beautiful. She is especially radiant when she smiles. She always seems to be missing that feeling from the character.

The complaints from fans of the original work focused on this point, with comments like "This doesn't look like Jiang Ni" and "What was the casting director doing?" appearing frequently in the live chat.

But interesting things also happen here.

Some viewers actually became fans because of her scenes with Li Ran.

There's a long shot in the drama where the two are drinking together in a restaurant. Li Ran's character, Xu Fengnian, is leaning back in his chair, casually bickering with her. She holds her wine glass and glares at him sideways. The unspoken understanding between them makes what is clearly an ordinary everyday conversation in the original work unexpectedly generate an inexplicable sense of a couple.

"Although she doesn't look like Jiang Ni, she and Li Ran look so good together."

This type of comment is quite common on bullet screens and Weibo.

Even negative publicity is still publicity. With both criticism and CP (couple) fans coming in, Lu Yuxiao, though not as many followers as Wang Churan and Zhou Ye, still steadily gained a wave of attention.

However, the character who gained the most fans was Wang Churan's Nangong Pushe.

This made Wang Churan, who was still resting and recuperating in her hometown in Hunan, very happy.

Liu Haocun texted Li Ran, saying, "These past few days, Chu Ran's tail has been practically wagging in the air."

When Li Ran changed into a set of loungewear and came out of the bedroom, it was already completely dark in Beijing.

The heating made the room cozy, and he was wearing loose gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt, his hair casually draped over his forehead.

As he walked towards the living room, he casually asked, "What are we having for dinner?"

A person was curled up on the sofa.

Zhang Ruonan curled her legs up in front of her, hugging a cushion in her arms, her chin resting on the edge of the cushion, looking at something on her phone.

Hearing Li Ran's voice, she didn't turn her head, her finger continuing to swipe across the screen, her tone casual as if she were talking about something that didn't need discussion: "Let's order takeout."

"Aren't you going to cook?" Li Ran walked behind the sofa, put his hands on the backrest, and looked down at her.

Zhang Ruonan finally looked up from her phone screen and glanced at him.

She held up her phone and waved it at him. The screen showed the interface of a food delivery app; she had already scrolled through several pages. "I just got back too. There's absolutely nothing in the house. The fridge is practically a pantry. What are you going to make? Fry the air?"

She was telling the truth.

"Hurry up," she urged, turning her phone screen towards him, "What do you want to eat? I'll place the order."

Li Ran walked around the sofa and sat down next to her, leaning over to look at her phone screen.

The dazzling array of restaurant names on the page scrolled past his eyes: hot pot, Japanese food, Hunan cuisine, pizza. Each one looked pretty good, but each one felt like it was missing something.

He thought for a moment, then made a decision in a tone that suggested he was giving up: "KFC, I'll indulge myself."

Zhang Ruonan raised one eyebrow, typed "KFC" into the search bar, and muttered, "Great, I happen to have a coupon."

"What's wrong?" Li Ran leaned back, draping her arm over the sofa back, her tone teasingly mocking, "You're such a big female celebrity, you need a coupon to order takeout?"

Zhang Ruonan rolled her eyes at him, a clean and crisp roll that, combined with her still exquisite profile despite lacking makeup, had almost no offensive power, but her aura was quite imposing: "Save what you should save, spend what you should spend, what do you know!"

"Hehe," Li Ran said shamelessly, leaning closer until his chin almost touched her shoulder, his voice low and slightly mocking.

He chuckled, "My wife really knows how to save money."

Zhang Ruonan shoved his face away, her palm landing squarely on his forehead. The force wasn't heavy, but the movement was clean and swift, like pushing away a large dog that had gotten too close: "Get away, I'm not your wife, go find Zhou Ye."

She spoke in a light tone, and even had a smile on her lips, but the smile only lasted for less than a second before disappearing.

Li Ran wisely refrained from continuing the topic.

He straightened his upper body, which had been pushed away, leaned back on the sofa, and remained silent for a while.

"How are things back home?" he asked.

Zhang Ruonan glanced at him sideways, put her phone on the coffee table, moved the cushion to a more comfortable position, and then slowly said, "It's very good, so good that I want to stay there forever."

"But—" she changed the subject, her tone dropping two degrees, "that's not a reason for you to change the subject."

She turned to face him, placed a cushion on her lap, straightened her back, and stared intently at his face.

Li Ran fell silent.

He didn't make excuses, didn't try to change the subject, and didn't put on his usual frivolous smile to ease the atmosphere.

Seeing his expression, Zhang Ruonan remained unmoved and said frankly, "Li Ran, you should know why we're following you."

She didn't use "together," she used "following."

This word carries much more weight than "together" because it is not sweet or romantic; it represents a choice, a choice to jump into something you know is coming.

"Even if Tian Xiwei got your parents' approval first, even if Liu Haocun was pregnant," she laid out these points one by one, like spreading a deck of cards on a table, with each card face up, "we never thought of leaving you."

Not even once.

"But things are different now."

She looked at him, her gaze devoid of anger or accusation, containing only a deep, almost helpless quality: "You're going to marry Zhou Ye. Even if you don't make it public, even if outsiders don't know, among us, this matter has already changed. The nature of it has changed, do you understand?"

"Although we will never leave you," she said slowly, pushing each word out as if to etch them into the air, "there will always be a knot in our hearts."

Li Ran did not speak immediately after hearing this.

He had actually begun to realize the true nature of the matter after talking with Zhou Ye in the bedroom that night.

What Coconut said at the time was much more lucid than he had imagined. The things she said when she rested her head on his chin weren't just...

Shi Xin's soft heart wasn't a sign of backing down, but rather that she realized this earlier than anyone else.

If he really chooses her, the act of "choosing" itself is a form of harm to others.

"I know," he said, his voice a little deep and hoarse, "it was my oversight."

He looked up at Zhang Ruonan, offering no further explanation, for explanations were meaningless at this moment.

He was simply stating a decision, a conclusion he had spent several days recalibrating: "I will discuss this matter with the old man again."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Ruonan's expression underwent a subtle change.

It wasn't a surprise, nor a sense of relief, but rather a feeling of understanding that "you finally figured it out."

She smiled, a very light and faint smile, the corners of her mouth only slightly upturned, yet it softened her entire face.

"Liu Haocun and Wang Churan have already spoken to the old man," she said. "Now it's up to you to decide."

Li Ran was stunned, his eyes widening slightly, his expression one of complete surprise: "You told the old man?"

Zhang Ruonan nodded, a hint of undisguised smugness in her voice: "Grandpa said that you young people should handle your own affairs, he won't interfere anymore, and he also won't let Mom get involved."

Li Ran was completely dumbfounded.

He sat on the sofa, his mind racing through everything that had happened during this period.

Before he could even process what they had said, they had already moved in front of him.

He didn't expect Liu Haocun and Wang Churan to have the courage to go to the old man.

These two people actually went together to find the old man and talked face-to-face with him about his marriage. The old man, who was sitting in the rattan chair in the study, had taken off his reading glasses and had sharp eyes.

"I understand." Li Ran said these four words after a long silence, and then he added, "Actually, I already told Coconut, and she thinks the same way as you."

"I know, we've discussed it." Zhang Ruonan's smile held a hint of mischief, the kind of mischievousness that seemed to say, "We've arranged everything for you, but you don't even know it."

"Of course, Tian Xiwei also knows that there is a group chat for the nine of us."

"Nine?" Li Ran's attention was precisely captured by this number. He frowned and quickly went through the list in his mind: Liu Haocun, Wang Churan, Zhang Ruonan, Zhang Jingyi, Zhou Ye, Lu Yuxiao, Xiao Hu, Tian Xiwei—he counted again and again in his mind, but no matter how he calculated it, it didn't add up to nine.

"Why are there nine?"

Zhang Ruonan's smile widened completely, "And there's Sister Tong too."

Li Ran's expression froze for a moment, his mouth slightly open, but he couldn't utter a single word.

Looking at Zhang Ruonan's smiling face, he had a strong and clear intuition for the first time that he had been excluded from a huge information circle for a long time, and that these women had already arranged everything for him without his knowledge.

Doorbell rang.

The KFC has arrived.

Zhang Ruonan jumped up from the sofa to open the door. As she passed by him, she casually patted him on the shoulder, the force neither too light nor too heavy, as if she were comforting a slow-to-realize child.

"Stop thinking about it, let's eat first." She walked towards the entrance without turning her head, her voice still carrying a smile. "Thinking too much is useless, you can't come up with anything interesting anyway."