How did I become famous?

Chapter 122 Liu Mang's Script (Part 1) (Third update, nearing 10,000 words!)

Just as Wu Kai's career of "unifying the martial arts world" was in full swing, Liu Mang was still talking to Nie Fang and the others about the rough script he had come up with.

"Actually, I already have an idea. My idea is this..."

Liu Mang began to talk about the script he had stayed up all night thinking about.

The story begins with the protagonist arriving at a factory where he finds a time bomb and tries to defuse it.

But someone stopped him, and in the chaos, the bomb exploded unexpectedly.

His face was burned and disfigured.

The person who had just walked over placed the time-travel machine next to him.

When the male protagonist woke up from his coma, he found that his whole body had been bandaged up.

While gathering intelligence, he discovered that a bomber was secretly attacking the entire city.

The protagonist's mission is to find the bomber and stop him before the entire city is blown to bits.

That's right, his profession is a time agent.

After undergoing plastic surgery, he received his last mission.

He traveled back in time to a bar twenty years ago and became a bartender there, where he met Xiao Su, a handsome but somewhat androgynous guy.

The two got along very well.

As they chatted, Xiao Su got quite drunk and told the male protagonist about his past.

She was actually a baby girl who was abandoned in an orphanage.

One day, a scientist came to the welfare home and said he wanted to recruit volunteers for an official event.

Xiao Su was outstanding in both physical condition and education, but after the medical examination, the scientist still decided to give up on him.

Xiao Su, who has returned to her past life, accidentally met a handsome guy on her way home from school on a rainy day.

She fell in love with him at first sight.

After some time, the scientist came to see her again.

It turns out that all the official events were fake; what he actually wanted to recruit were people with no past and no future.

Just when life seemed to be getting better and better, the handsome man Xiao Su met disappeared without saying goodbye, and she was already pregnant with his child.

After ten months of pregnancy, her daughter was born.

The doctor told her that she was born intersex, and because she had given birth, the female reproductive organs in her body were no longer usable.

The doctors had no choice but to perform a sex reassignment surgery on her; otherwise, it would be very difficult for her to live as a normal human being.

She said she would think about it.

One night, her newborn daughter was taken away from the hospital by a mysterious person.

Heartbroken, Xiao Su decided to undergo gender reassignment surgery to start a new life.

The scientist's recruitment attempt failed, but fortunately, she was exceptionally intelligent and quickly became a bestselling author.

It wasn't until they arrived at the bar and met the male protagonist, who was dressed as a bartender.

The male protagonist suddenly tells him/her that he/she can help him/her find the scumbag who abandoned him/her.

Xiao Su found it strange.

My life has been completely changed by that scumbag.

If she hadn't met him, she could have continued living a normal life and wouldn't have had to undergo gender reassignment surgery to become a man.

But how could the bartender know what he was thinking?

And how did he know where to find that scumbag?

He agreed, taking it as a joke.

The male protagonist uses a time machine to take him back to a point in time several years ago, before he met the scumbag.

As long as you prevent your past self from encountering that scumbag, your future will be changed.

So Xiao Su waited there for the scumbag to appear.

But instead of that scumbag, he met Xiao Su when she was still a girl.

It turns out that the scumbag was himself.

Xiao Su felt sorry for the girl from her younger days, so they got along very well and gradually developed feelings for each other.

The true male protagonist travels alone to the time before the bomber committed his first crime.

Sure enough, he found the bomber there, but the bomber escaped.

Then he saw another time-traveling agent fail to defuse a bomb and be disfigured by the explosion.

Out of pity for the other person, he helped them put their small time machine into their hands so that they could travel back in time to receive treatment.

So the disfigured agent is the male protagonist himself.

He disfigured himself, went back to the future to get plastic surgery, then returned to the present and saw that he was disfigured again, and then saved himself.

He was leaving because he hadn't caught the criminal.

Before leaving, he traveled back in time to when Xiao Su was giving birth.

He took the baby girl away, traveled back eighteen years, and sent Xiao Su's daughter to an orphanage.

This means that Xiao Su slept with herself, abandoned herself, and then gave birth to herself.

The male protagonist did this because he was a time agent and already knew about Xiao Su's one-person reincarnation.

In order not to change history, he cannot disrupt this cycle of reincarnation.

So it was intentional of him to take the male Xiao Su to meet the female Xiao Su before.

Then he traveled back to when the female Xiao Su was seventeen years old, and he was the one who picked up the male Xiao Su and left.

This was their agreement.

Because the male protagonist is retiring, he will take Xiao Su to meet the scumbag who abandoned her, and then Xiao Su will take over his job and become a time agent.

That way, the male protagonist can retire honorably.

That's right, his last mission wasn't actually to find Bomberman, but to find someone like him who had no past and no future to be his successor.

After retiring, he traveled back in time, intending to live a peaceful retirement after the time machine self-destructed.

But the time machine was not destroyed. The Time Management Bureau gave him his final mission: to capture the bomber.

Left with no other option, the male protagonist had to try his best to investigate.

Using clues he had gathered in the past, he finally found the bomber through subtle clues.

I never imagined that it was my older self.

He said he caused the explosion to prevent a tragedy from happening.

Because he understood that there would be even more serious accidents in the future, he wanted to nip them in the bud.

The Time and Space Administration arrested him not because he was causing explosions everywhere, but because he was disrupting history.

The male protagonist was almost convinced by him.

But in order to complete his mission and retire peacefully, he killed his old self.

But he also understands that he would make the same choice after learning about the even more serious accidents that might happen in the future.

That's right, he will become that prisoner in the future.

But he still killed that older version of himself.

The movie will then end.

Besides the male and female leads who form the connecting loop, there is actually a third loop in the movie.

Actually, both Xiao Su and the male lead are the same person.

That's right.

Several years after Xiao Su takes over as the time agent from the male lead, the scene at the beginning of the movie will occur.

He went to defuse the bomb, but was disfigured by it.

After Liu Mang finished speaking, he said smugly, "How about that? Aren't I awesome!"

"Awesome, you're awesome, okay?" Nie Fang shrugged. "But there are a few issues here, which I can't quite explain. Mule is the editor, he should be able to understand your line of thinking."

Luo Wei chuckled: "Your script is great in every way, but there's one thing: it's too mind-bending, countless times more so than 'Shadow of Light.' To be frank, I doubt it'll beat Wu Kai at the box office."

Liu Mang said unhappily, "But my work is profound and thoughtful, and it is logically consistent. It is definitely of a higher level than his 'The Grandmaster'."

"First of all, *The Grandmaster* expresses a spirit, and that spirit resonates with domestic audiences. It's also incredibly inspiring and evokes national pride. Your script is good too, but do you really think Director Fang can't write a profound yet obscure script? It's precisely because it's so obscure that Director Fang's scripts are relatively simpler," Pan Xiao analyzed. "Because our films are for the masses, not for you filmmakers to indulge yourselves. What the audience says is good is good. If you think they can't understand it, then they're just not sophisticated enough. Who do you think you are?"

Liu Mang frowned: "But..."

"No buts, and you've overlooked two crucial points, which are the most important to us." Nie Fang sighed. "First, besides science fiction and time loops, Miss Su added 'romance' to this movie's theme. In your script, romance is completely irrelevant; you just gloss over it with a single line, 'love at first sight.' Aren't you just asking for trouble?"

"Also, don't forget that the main actors in our movie are Miss Su and Director Fang. Let's not talk about Director Fang for now, but just look at Miss Su's acting skills—she can't even handle playing a corpse without getting a series of takes. Are you sure she can pull off something this complicated?" Nie Fang scoffed. "We've been beaten up in society for so many years, don't you know what the most important thing is? Of course, it's that the boss is satisfied! What's the use of winning an Oscar if Miss Su isn't satisfied? Don't forget who Fang Mu is really in charge of."

Fang Mu Film and Television, on the surface the person in charge is Fang Bie, but the real person in charge is of course Miss Su Mulin!

Didn't you see that their name is on the company name?

Liu Mang said helplessly, "Does adding more romance elements mean Miss Su will act well? She's never even been in a relationship."

"No wonder you didn't do as well as Wu Kai in the past." Nie Fang rolled his eyes. "Miss Su likes Director Fang, do you think she can play this role well? And let me ask you again, what is your ultimate goal in making this movie?"

Liu Mang immediately replied, "I will surpass Skinny Monkey and become the director second only to Fang Mu and the other two."

"That's it," Nie Fang said. "You need to see beyond the surface. What defines a win? Is it box office success? Critical acclaim? Awards? None of those!"

"It's all about sucking up to Miss Su!"

"Miss Su has a crush on Director Fang but doesn't dare to say it. Director Fang, whether genuinely oblivious or pretending, certainly 'doesn't know.' So, what do you suggest? We create an opportunity for Miss Su in the movie, a chance to express her feelings under the guise of filming. If it succeeds, great. If it fails, she can use the excuse that it was just acting to get by. Then, what do you think she'll think of you?"

Liu Mang's small eyes widened: "Thank you!"

"That's perfect! No matter how high Wu Kai's movies do at the box office or how good their reviews are, if you have Miss Su protecting you, then as long as you don't anger Director Fang, you can practically walk sideways like a crab in the company, right?"

"Old Nie, I get it!" Liu Mang nodded. "I'll revise the script right away! We'll do it the way you said! Our movie will be made to make Miss Su as comfortable as possible! But what about the audience's opinions? Didn't you say it should appeal to the masses?"

"The public doesn't pay me a salary, so why should I care about that?" Nie Fang shrugged. "Besides, if we can let Miss Su play herself and showcase her acting skills in a movie, even if the audience doesn't understand the loop, they can still understand the romance. We can just feed them lemons and let them eat the romance, and they'll be satisfied."

Nie Fang is actually very savvy in interpersonal relationships.

But in the past, he was arrogant and looked down on those who were just getting by and trying to drag him down, so he was too lazy to integrate with them and that's why he got a reputation as a troublemaker.

But now, he considers himself a part of Fangmu Film and Television.

Liu Mang gave a thumbs up: "Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!"

I slept for 5 hours and then worked on Chapter 3.

It's an old friend's birthday tonight, and I have to go.

Then I need to get a normal night's sleep, because I need to go to the Citizen Service Center tomorrow to deal with some social security matters.

There might only be two updates tomorrow, so I'll just go to sleep tonight and use that time to get back into the swing of things.

In a few days (or maybe just one day), I'll be back to writing 10,000 words a day.

(End of this chapter)