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

Chapter 243 The God of Nature and Coconuts

Li Ran and Zhou Ye walked through the passageway filled with equipment boxes on the side of the field and made their way to the director's monitor.

Zhang Yimou was sitting in front of the monitor, holding a thermos cup with the lid unscrewed on the table, the air filled with the faint sweet aroma of goji berries.

When he saw Li Ran, a smile appeared on his face.

"How's your mindset adjusting?" Zhang Yimou gestured with his thermos towards the stage. "I just saw you staring blankly over there, your gaze wandering off somewhere."

Li Ran put his hands in his down jacket pockets and smiled faintly: "There's nothing to adjust. After all, it's my own personal experience, just reliving it."

He spoke of it casually, as if he were talking about a trivial matter from long ago.

But Zhang Yimou has been in this industry for over thirty years; what kind of actors hasn't he seen?

A person who has truly let go of something will not stand in front of an empty stage for several minutes on their first day on set.

That kind of absent-mindedness isn't a matter of acting preparation; it's when a person's memory is precisely struck by a scene, leaving no time to defend themselves.

Perhaps for Li Ran, there really is no need to cultivate any emotions.

This was originally his personal experience.

He didn't press further; he just chuckled twice and steered the conversation back to the filming schedule: "Today we'll shoot the contestants on stage, with ten cameras moving simultaneously, trying to get all the close-ups done. Tomorrow, once the extras are in place, we'll shoot the wide shots; that will be a real challenge to coordinate."

He paused after he finished speaking, as if he had suddenly remembered something interesting. When he looked at Li Ran again, the smile on his lips deepened: "But speaking of which, your idea is really good. You actually came up with the idea of ​​having fans as extras, which saves so much trouble and creates a much better atmosphere than regular extras."

Li Ran waved his hand, refusing the praise, and instead said seriously, "Tomorrow we still need to arrange for people to settle the fans properly, plan the entry routes and zones in advance, and avoid causing any disturbances."

Although it's not necessary to fill the entire Bird's Nest stadium, having thousands of fans sitting in one venue at the same time, with things like light boards, banners, cheering sticks, and cell phone cameras getting out of control, would no longer be a filming issue; it could actually lead to a safety accident.

Having been in the e-sports industry for so many years, Li Ran knows that when e-sports fans get crazy, they can be even more enthusiastic than some celebrities' fans.

He knows all too well how much energy fans' enthusiasm can have. If that energy is guided well, it can be the most useful prop for filming; if it's not guided well, it can be a time bomb.

"Don't worry about that," Zhang Yimou said, putting the lid off his thermos and patting Li Ran on the shoulder as he stood up. "The security plan was reviewed three times the day before yesterday, and each area has been assigned a dedicated guide."

"Alright, go to the lounge. The professional players who are here to make a guest appearance have arrived and are waiting over there."

When Li Ran heard the words "professional player," his eyebrows twitched slightly.

He had heard Zhang Yimou mention this matter briefly during the initial communication, but at the time he only said "we are in contact" and he didn't expect that they would actually invite the person over.

He nodded, asked no further questions, and turned to walk towards the lounge.

Zhou Ye followed beside him, the hem of her down jacket swaying gently with each step. She didn't speak, but quietly accompanied him through the long corridor, their footsteps echoing in the empty passage.

Before the two even reached the door of the lounge, they could hear laughter coming from inside, halfway down the corridor.

It was a kind of unrestrained, up-and-down laughter, interspersed with a few barely audible insults and the sound of slapping thighs, as lively as a team celebrating in the locker room after winning the playoffs.

Li Ran walked to the door, and without even knocking, simply pressed the doorknob down and pushed the door open to go inside.

As soon as the door opened, everyone inside turned around in unison.

"Burning God!"

"Brother Ran!"

"Li Ran!"

"Xiao Ran!"

A variety of names exploded out almost simultaneously, each with a different volume and timbre, layered together like an unrehearsed harmony.

Li Ran stood at the door, his gaze sweeping over the familiar faces in the lounge one by one: Ah Shui, Xiao Gou, Factory Manager, Holy Gun Bro, and Letme.

The five people were scattered haphazardly on the sofas and chairs. Ah Shui was curled up in a single sofa in the corner, his legs swinging off the armrests; Xiao Gou and Chang Zhang sat side by side on a double sofa, with an open bag of potato chips between them; Sheng Qiang stood leaning against the dressing table, twirling a bottle of mineral water in his hand; Letme sat in the folding chair closest to the door, closest to Li Ran, and when he looked up at him, his face still showed the expression of a smile he hadn't been able to stop.

These five people made a cameo appearance as the champion team of the season in which Li Ran lost in the movie.

The team in the script was based on a Korean esports team, but since it was a Chinese TV drama, it was impossible to actually cast five Korean players. So the production team took a different approach and invited these five to make cameo appearances—five champions (whatever kind of champions), all from the LPL.

People whose names are etched in history, standing together, are themselves a silent testament.

There's no need for dialogue to explain who the champion is; the audience will understand as soon as they see these faces on the big screen.

Li Ran's gaze first fell on Holy Gun Bro.

He took two steps toward Saint Gun, reached out and patted him on the shoulder, his tone filled with a sincere smile: "Congratulations, S11 World Champion."

EDG won the S11 World Championship last November. The final match went to five games before a winner was decided, once again igniting university campuses at 3 a.m. and flooding social media with esports news, giving viewers a visual feast.

As EDG's top laner, Flandre immediately straightened up from the dressing table after being singled out by Li Ran, waving his hands in front of him so much that his whole body swayed: "Ran, you're giving me too much credit! Who in this room isn't a champion? You and JackeyLove are double champions, and Xiaozhao and Letme are Asian Games champions!"

He spoke urgently and sincerely, as if he were desperately trying to push away an honor that didn't belong to him.

The factory manager, who was sitting on the sofa, was reaching for the bag of potato chips when he heard this. His hand stopped in mid-air, and he turned to look at Saint Gun Bro. His expression went from confusion to displeasure to grievance, completing a three-step arc.

"So I'm the only one who doesn't deserve it?" The factory manager's tone carried a hint of resentment, as if he had been precisely and unwittingly hurt.

The lounge was silent for 0.3 seconds, then erupted in a burst of laughter.

The puppy laughed so hard it almost spat out potato chips, while Ah Shui buried her face in the cushions in the corner of the sofa, chuckling to herself, her shoulders shaking.

Saint Gun laughed so hard he crushed a water bottle, waving his hand at the factory manager as he tried to explain, but his laughter broke his words into fragments, making them inaudible to anyone.

Li Ran also laughed. The factory manager's reaction was truly classic. In terms of honors, he had the MSI championship, and in terms of status, he was the LPL's number 001 professional player. But when it came to world championship results, he was indeed the only one in the room who had never won a championship.

Flandre's unintentional remark hit his softest spot.

Zhou Ye stood half a step behind Li Ran, not laughing out loud, but leaning against the door frame, watching Li Ran and the others chatting away with a smile.

She was still wearing her down jacket, the zipper was closed, and her hands were in her pockets. She stayed quietly in the unnoticed area behind Li Ran.

Letme noticed Zhou Ye.

He sat in the folding chair closest to the door, less than two meters away from Zhou Ye.

He had indeed met Zhou Ye. Back then, she had visited Li Ran at the RNG base more than once, sometimes bringing milk tea, sometimes fruit, and sometimes nothing at all, just sitting and watching him play training matches.

Once, when Li Ran was not at the base, Zhou Ye entrusted him with something to pass on. He stood at the entrance of the training room for a while, not knowing where to put the bag of snacks, and finally neatly stacked them next to Li Ran's keyboard.

Zhou Ye noticed that Letme kept looking at him. The look in her eyes wasn't like someone who was intimidated by a celebrity's aura; it was more like a sense of confirmation that "I recognize this face, but I haven't seen it in years."

She smiled at him generously and took the initiative to speak: "Why are you staring at me? Wang Junkai, have I gotten better looking, or do you not recognize me anymore?"

Letme was jolted awake by her calling him "Wang Junkai of esports," and immediately raised his hands in front of his chest, waving them wildly—even more so than Flandre had done earlier. His expression was a mix of embarrassment and amusement: "How could I not recognize you! You're a big star now, I just didn't expect—"

He paused, glanced at Li Ran, then at Zhou Ye, and swallowed the rest of his sentence, "There's also the real Wang Junkai here, so stop calling me Old Yan, who's just praising his own wares."

Zhou Ye was amused by his reaction and laughed out loud, his eyes curving into two shallow crescent moons.

The puppy followed Letme's gaze and looked over.

Unlike Letme, he was an old acquaintance of Zhou Ye—back when they were at RNG, Zhou Ye visited the base so frequently that he once thought the girl was an unofficial manager.

He knew about the relationship between Li Ran and Zhou Ye, and he also knew how many years this relationship had lasted and how many ups and downs it had experienced.

Looking at the two people standing side by side, he felt not gossip-like curiosity, but the emotion of a witness.

He tossed the bag of potato chips aside, dusted off the crumbs on his hands, and deliberately spoke to Li Ran in an older brother tone: "Xiao Ran, when are you two planning to get married? It's been so many years, and I'm already thinking about having kids."

The timing of this statement was perfect; the volume was just right, not too loud or too soft, so that everyone in the lounge could hear it.

The lively atmosphere in the air paused subtly for a moment, and everyone's eyes quietly drifted towards Li Ran and Zhou Ye. Even the factory director's gossipy nature temporarily overshadowed the grievances he had just felt from being touched on a sore spot.

"Brother Zaozi, don't talk nonsense!" Ah Shui was the first to react, sitting up straight from the corner of the sofa and winking at the puppy. "Brother Ran is a celebrity now, you can't say things like that."

He was covering for Li Ran. In his mind, celebrities' private lives should be kept secret, and they shouldn't be talking about marriage and having children so openly in the dressing room.

He had seen Zhou Ye a few times, but only from a distance. He knew that a girl had come to see Li Ran, but he didn't know the specifics of their relationship.

Upon hearing Ah Shui's words, Zhou Ye turned his head and glanced at Li Ran.

There was a hint of mischievous amusement in his eyes, and the upturned corners of his mouth carried a provocative "Do you want me to talk or you do?" attitude.

Li Ran didn't stop her, and his expression didn't even change much, only his eyes showed a hint of helpless indulgence.

So Zhou Ye turned around, smiled at the puppy, and said casually, "You're only now starting to prepare for having a child? Li Ran already has a child."

The air in the lounge seemed to have been paused.

The factory manager's eyes widened, and he involuntarily leaned forward, his gaze sweeping over Zhou Ye's stomach several times. His expression was as if someone had just whispered a line in his ear that was completely off-script: "What? Really?"

"Girl, are you newly pregnant? You don't look it."

Zhou Ye pursed his lips, somewhat speechless, and said, "Who said it's mine?"

"Uh," the factory manager opened his mouth but couldn't say anything. His choked expression looked just like a computer that was loading but suddenly lost internet access.

The puppy and Saint Gun Bro exchanged a glance, conveying roughly eight hundred words of information in their eyes, but neither of them uttered a single word.

Letme looked down at the tips of his shoes, pretending he hadn't heard anything.

Ah Shui's expression was the most interesting.

"Alright, don't ask questions you shouldn't ask." Li Ran spoke up at the right time, his tone not stern, but as soon as he said that, everyone knew that the topic had to be put to rest.

Having served as a commander in professional matches for so many years, his short command of "retreat first" in the voice channel could make four teammates turn around at the same time. That kind of imposing aura was ingrained in his bones, and it worked just as well on the film set.

Of course, this excludes top laners who can't hear the instructions clearly.

Ah Shui reacted the fastest, immediately seizing the opportunity to say, "We were just chatting today, we'll forget what we talked about later."

He spoke naturally, but everyone present understood the weight of his words—he wasn't joking; he was drawing a line for Li Ran: what was said inside this door today would not leave this door.

Li Ran glanced at Ah Shui, and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly, a smile that held a hint of surprise and a touch of relief.

The year he met Ah Shui, Ah Shui was just a seventeen-year-old boy. At that time, Yu Wenbo was a newcomer who needed to be pushed forward. But now Ah Shui has learned to calmly and effectively handle sensitive topics raised by others, providing support, resolving them, and defusing them cleanly and efficiently.

Brother, your great character needs no explanation.

"Oh," Li Ran tilted his head, his tone carrying the teasing tone of an old father watching his son finally grow up, "the child has grown up."

Ah Shui rolled her eyes, speechless at his words, grabbed a cushion from the sofa, and threw it at him: "You're the kid! I'm only two years younger than you!"

Li Ran ignored Ah Shui and turned to look at Uzi, who was curled up on the sofa.

Jian Zihao has become rounder in the past two years compared to when he was a professional player, but his posture while sitting there is still the same—his back is slightly hunched, his hands are unconsciously resting on his knees, and his fingers occasionally move, as if clicking a mouse in the air.

Those are habits ingrained in the muscle memory of professional athletes, and they can't change them even after retirement.

"Little dog, is this a confirmed comeback?" he asked casually.

Rumors of Uzi's comeback have been circulating since the end of last year, with all sorts of gossip flying around the sports world. Some even say he's already having trials.

Until BLG officially announced their 2022 season roster.

Uz leaned back on the sofa, scratched the back of his head, a gesture that carried the embarrassment typical of someone being asked something serious.

"I still want to give it a try."

>