Reborn, my online friend is the real me.

The final exams ended faster than Su Yu had expected. When Su Yu finished the last exam and walked out of the exam room, he felt like his brain was a wrung-out sponge, and not a single drop of water could be squeezed out.

The night after the exam, the three of them had a farewell dinner at the east gate of the school.

Lu Yang stayed in Beijing, Wang Boxue returned to Luoyang, and Su Yu returned to Jingzhou.

Three plates of dumplings, two plates of cold dishes, and a bowl of lamb spine hotpot were eaten with great enthusiasm.

After drinking two bottles of beer, Wang Boxue started rambling incoherently, putting his arm around Su Yu's shoulder and saying, "Brother, when you come back from Berlin, you'll be an internationally renowned director. Don't forget me then."

"Don't worry, I won't forget. I'll make you my photography assistant then."

"Couldn't you have arranged a better position for me?"

"That script supervisor?"

"Forget it, let's keep the photography assistant role."

The next morning, Su Yu dragged his suitcase to Beijing West Railway Station.

When I got home, Li Xiulan was frying lotus root sandwiches in the kitchen.

The oil sizzled in the pan, and the aroma wafted from the kitchen to the living room, and then from the living room to the front door.

Su Yu took a deep breath as he changed his shoes. "Mom, I'm back."

Li Xiulan poked her head out from the kitchen, her hands still covered in flour. "You've lost weight. Is the food in Beijing bad?"

"I'm fine, it's just that the exams are tiring."

Su Jian'an came downstairs with an account book in his hand. He glanced at Su Yu and nodded: "You're back."

"dad."

"Okay, let's eat."

This was Su Jian'an's style of welcome—simple and unpretentious, but Su Yu was already used to it.

......

The days of returning home were wonderful at first.

I wake up naturally every day, and there's always a hot meal waiting for me. After eating, I lie on the sofa and watch TV until I fall asleep.

Li Xiulan nagged at him, "Look at your sitting posture, what kind of posture is that?" Su Yu changed his position and continued to lie down.

This blissful period lasted only three days; after that, Su Yu began to feel bored.

Unlike Beijing, Jingzhou doesn't have 24-hour convenience stores, small cinemas showing movies until the early hours of the morning, or roommates like Lu Yang and Wang Boxue who you can chat with anytime.

There are only three things he can do: eat, sleep, and watch TV.

On the fourth day, Su Yu dug out his father's fishing gear, got on his bicycle, and went to the Yangtze River.

Winters in Jingzhou are too cold, and the river wind carries a damp, fishy smell on your face. Su Yu found a sheltered bay, set up a small stool, cast his fishing rod, and then began to stare blankly.

From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., not a single fish was caught.

An old man next to him caught five fish in an hour. He glanced at Su Yu, shook his head, and his expression clearly said, "Young people are no good."

Su Yu was embarrassed, but there was nothing he could do. He really didn't know how to fish, and his bait was just some earthworm he randomly dug up, which looked like a dead noodle on the hook.

I fished for three consecutive days and caught a total of two crucian carp, each smaller than the palm of my hand.

Li Xiulan made soup from the two fish. When Su Yu drank it, he felt that the soup cost at least two hundred yuan a bowl, and the time cost alone was more than that.

........

While fishing, Su Yu began to ponder a serious question: how to make money.

He currently has over 200,000 yuan in his account, and the 1.7 million Tencent shares in his stock account are long-term investments that he cannot touch.

He always felt that you can never have too much money, especially after he discovered that his expenses at the Beijing Film Academy were greater than he had imagined; buying equipment, filming assignments, socializing—all of these cost money.

Writing screenplays? Filmmaking is too tiring. Filming PG? Nobody's hiring him yet. Ghostwriting? He can't afford the embarrassment.

Su Yu lay on the sofa, listening to the sounds from the TV with a bored expression.

Su Jian'an's phone rang. The ringtone was "The First Snow of 2002," and the melody sounded familiar.

He suddenly sat up.

Ringtone.

In 2005, what was the most profitable thing? Ringtones!

Su Yu had been an internet celebrity for a few years in his previous life, so he had some understanding of music copyright.

If a song becomes popular, the revenue from ringtone downloads alone can earn hundreds of thousands or even tens of millions of yuan.

He can't compose music, but he can write lyrics, and more importantly, he can sing. He has the pop hits of the next decade or so in his head.

In this era, divine songs are still in the making.

.......

Su Yu jumped up from the sofa, rushed into the room, turned on the computer, and created a new document.

He began to recall the songs he had heard countless times in his past life, typing out the lyrics line by line.

He remembered some things completely, and some things he couldn't remember completely, so he filled in the blanks based on his memory. If he really couldn't remember something, he would make up a couple of sentences, as long as the meaning was roughly the same.

I wrote ten poems in one go: "Autumn Never Returns", "By the Lake Baikal", "There is a Kind of Love Called Letting Go", "Damn Tenderness", "Bare Face", "Because of Love", "The Actor", "Blue and White Porcelain", "Little Dimples", and "It's Not That Simple".

After writing the lyrics, Su Yu read them aloud to the screen and felt quite pleased with himself.

Although it can't compare to the original, it's about 90% there.

The problem is, he can only sing, not compose music.

Su Yu inquired around Jingzhou and finally found a graduate student named Chen Ming from the School of Music at Yangtze University.

Su Yu found him through an acquaintance and got straight to the point: "I want to ask you to compose and arrange music for me, ten songs, five thousand yuan."

Chen Ming was a tall, thin man who wore black-rimmed glasses. His dorm room contained an electronic keyboard and a guitar. After listening to Su Yu sing two songs a cappella, his glasses nearly fell off.

"Did you write all these songs?"

Su Yu remained expressionless: "Yes, I wrote it."

"Your melody... has great potential to become a hit." Chen Ming picked up his guitar and tried playing the intro to "By the Lake Baikal." "If this song were recorded, it would definitely be a hit."

Su Yu thought to himself: I know; but said aloud: "It's alright, just some random stuff."

Chen Ming spent ten days completing the sheet music and chord arrangements for all ten songs.

Su Yu would go to his dorm every day to work on the music with him, singing the wrong melody again and changing any awkward chords.

Chen Ming, being a classically trained musician, possessed strong composing skills. Even when Su Yu hummed unclear parts, Chen Ming was able to guess seven or eight parts of the meaning.

On the tenth day, the sheet music for the last song, "It's Not That Simple," was also completed.

Su Yu slammed five thousand yuan in cash on the table, and Chen Ming stuffed it into his pocket without even counting it.

"Su Yu, any one of these ten songs of yours could be enough to live on for a lifetime," Chen Ming said with a serious expression. "If you want to record demos, I can help you find someone."

Su Yu thought for a moment, "No rush, I'll register the copyright first."

The following week, Su Yu went to Wuhan and found an intellectual property rights agency to register the copyrights of all ten songs with the National Copyright Administration.

The registration fee for each song was 300, and the intermediary fee was 2,000, totaling 5,000.

If even one of these ten songs becomes a hit, he'll have made his money back.

If he becomes a huge hit, he won't have to do anything else in his life; he can just sit back and collect royalties.

He thought of those songwriters in his past life who made a living off a single song, and felt that his approach was even more stable than speculating on real estate.

........

The shortlist for the Berlin Film Festival was announced on January 20.

Teacher Mu informed Su Yu that his short film had been shortlisted for the main competition, and the invitation letter from Berlin had been sent to the school. The school would then send it back to Jingzhou with him.

"Black Hole" has been shortlisted for the short film competition and will compete for several awards along with more than ten other short films.

This made Su Yu extremely happy. Putting aside whether he would win an award or not, this was a nomination for one of the three major European film festivals!

A nomination is an affirmation in itself. Although he wanted to win an award to stand taller and be seen more clearly, he is currently standing a little shorter, but that doesn't stop him from helping others get to know him.

People often talk about the connections and resources of the top three universities, but if you don't have the ability or anyone to appreciate you, you can only watch from the sidelines.

Otherwise, why would there be so many unemployed people graduating from the top three universities every year?

He himself was a bad example in his previous life.

Being reborn with resources and past life experience is like having a cheat code!

Oh... no, bro, I'm the one with cheat codes!

Because Gu Changwei's "Peacock" was nominated for the main feature film competition this year, Su Yu was also mentioned by the media.