Huayu: Starting with Xiang Yu, the Hegemon of Western Chu

When Chen Mo and Shen Yu walked out of the elevator on the twelfth floor side by side, everyone in the lobby was looking at them.

Or to be more precise, I'm watching Chen Mo.

The employees in the office building lobby probably already knew what happened in the conference room through some mysterious internal channels.

A signed contract.

Three very simple clauses.

A young actor stands up and says, "See you later."

These details should have already spread within Star Entertainment.

Chen Mo didn't notice those gazes.

He simply walked quietly alongside Shen Yu.

I walked out of the hall.

Walk onto the sidewalk.

The early summer sun felt warm and comforting on my face.

Shen Yu stopped in her tracks.

Her white Porsche Cayenne was parked on the side of the street.

"Shall I take you home?" she asked.

Chen Mo glanced at the car, then at the subway station across the street.

"No need. I'll take the subway."

Shen Yu smiled.

"On your first day of signing, I, your agent, won't even let you take me home?"

"The subway station is close to my home. Driving there would be too much traffic and not worth it."

Chen Mo spoke very seriously.

It seems this really is a question about "route selection".

Shen Yu looked at him and suddenly smiled.

"Okay. You take the subway. I'll go back to the office."

"President Shen," Chen Mo called out to her.

"Um?"

There's something I want to tell you.

"you say."

"I know what those three conditions you just mentioned in the meeting room mean," Chen Mo said calmly. "You hardly make any money off me, which doesn't make sense in business."

Shen Yu did not speak.

I just watched him and waited for him to continue.

"I want to tell you something," Chen Mo said. "The reason you're not making money off me now is because you believe I'll be worth a lot more money in the future. At that time, you won't be making a percentage of my earnings, but rather the premium that comes from the trust itself."

"I will make that trust worthwhile."

"Not three years from now."

"Let's start today."

Shen Yu looked at him.

I looked at it for two seconds.

Then she reached out her hand.

"Welcome to PuShi Culture, Chen Mo."

Chen Mo took her hand.

It was very light and very brief.

After shaking hands, the two turned around.

Shen Yu walked towards her Porsche.

Chen Mo walked towards the subway station.

An agent and her first wildly popular artist left the street in two completely different ways.

A person driving a luxury car worth millions.

A crowded subway at 3:30 pm.

But none of them felt that there was anything wrong with it.

Because they all knew that the value of this contract was never in that car.

It's not included in the subway ticket either.

It's in those three seemingly unprofessional clauses.

It's in the word "trust".

Chen Mo walked into the subway station and swiped his card to enter the gate.

The wind on the platform made his hair sway slightly.

He took out his phone and sent a message to Xu Zhinian.

"Signed."

Xu Zhinian replied instantly.

"Who did you sign?"

"Shen Yu".

"Not Star Entertainment?"

"no."

"They didn't offer a price?"

"It's on the table, a signing bonus of twelve million."

Xu Zhinian remained silent for a few seconds.

Then a long string of exclamation marks and question marks appeared.

"You turned down a signing bonus of twelve million?!"

"Um."

"Are you crazy???"

Chen Mo looked at the screen and smiled.

The subway has arrived at the station, and the wind outside the yellow warning line has become quite strong.

He slowly typed a reply.

"A year ago they thought I was worth less than 20,000, but today they think I'm worth 12 million. My value has increased 60,000 times in a year. They've figured it out, but I haven't."

All I know is that I am still the same me.

"So you'll never feel safe signing a contract with someone like that."

Xu Zhinian did not reply immediately.

I guess I'm still processing this statement.

It took Xu Zhinian about two minutes to come back.

But his reply wasn't about the contract.

"Old Chen, I also have something I want to tell you."

"you say."

"You remember my script, right?"

Which script?

After asking the question, Chen Mo realized that it was a bit inappropriate.

Xu Zhinian has written many screenplays in recent years, but there is only one that he truly cherishes.

It was that original script that he had revised over three years, a script that the company wouldn't even bother to glance at. Chen Mo had read the first few pages, but hadn't gotten around to finishing it.

"That one? The one I wrote for three years." Xu Zhinian's tone was so cautious you could feel it even through the screen. "Yesterday, an angel investor approached me, read the proposal, and immediately decided to give me a million."

Chen Mo paused for a moment while holding his phone.

"One million?"

"Yes, one million, in cash. The contract hasn't been officially signed yet, but they said they'll pay the deposit next week."

After sending this message, Xu Zhinian added another one.

"Old Chen, I made it through."

Just these six words.

Chen Mo stared at the screen for a long time.

A flood of images suddenly appeared in his mind.

I remember Xu Zhinian writing scripts in his rented room the year he graduated from the Central Academy of Drama.

He had a secondhand laptop, and the letters on the W key on the keyboard were worn off. Every night, he would sit at that creaky little desk and type away until midnight.

I remember what Xu Zhinian looked like when he first joined that film and television company as a ghostwriter.

I wrote a script for half a year, but the company took it, modified it, and put someone else's name on it.

Xu Zhinian complained to him once, just once, and never mentioned it again.

He recalled the afternoon Xu Zhinian helped him move more than a year ago.

Xu Zhinian almost strained his back when he climbed to the fourth floor, but he still stubbornly insisted that he was the personal porter of Xiang Yu, the King of Western Chu.

He recalled Xu Zhinian sitting on the floor of his new home, holding up a Coke can and saying to him, "Respect to Bawang."

Back then, he earned eight thousand yuan a month, and the scripts he wrote were not credited.

Back then, the two of them sat next to a cardboard box eating takeout rice porridge. One had just left Star Entertainment, and the other was working as a ghostwriter at a film and television company. Neither of them felt bitter or poor.

Now, the man tells him he's made it through.

Chen Mo stood in the corner of the subway car and took a deep breath.

Then type.

"Congratulations."

After sending it out, he felt that those two words were too mild, so he added a long paragraph.

"It's been three years. I remember your script. The first time you told me this story was at that barbecue restaurant next to the Central Academy of Drama. We ate five-yuan skewers of grilled meat and drank two-and-a-half-yuan bottles of beer. You were so animated when you told the story. After listening, I said that if this script were made into a movie, I would be willing to play a minor role. Do you remember?"

Xu Zhinian replied to the message a few seconds later.

"Remember."

"Back then, nobody took this script seriously." Chen Mo continued typing, his fingers moving faster than usual. "You yourself were also unsure, thinking that this kind of low-budget, multi-narrative story might not be popular, but you still wrote it. You worked for a company writing cheesy scripts to earn money, and at night you went home and wrote your own script."

"To be honest, I was both envious of you and felt sorry for you back then."

"I envy you because you have a story you truly want to write, and I feel sorry for you because you've worked so hard to write it."

"Now you've made it through."

"One million is neither too much nor too little, but what's more important than one million is that someone saw your stuff. That's much more important than money."

Xu Zhinian hasn't replied to any messages for a long time.

Chen Mo knew that this chatterbox was probably typing away on the other side of the screen right now, his eyes red with tears in his eyes.

Sure enough, two minutes later, Xu Zhinian only replied with three words.

"Thank you."

Why thank me?

"Thank you for not laughing at me when I talked about that notebook at the barbecue restaurant three years ago."

As Chen Mo read those words, the corners of his mouth slowly curved into a smile.

He replied.

"My buddy, who's been through thick and thin with me, is treating me to barbecue tonight, at the same place as always."

"Deal, add grilled tendons."

"Add beer."

"add."

Chen Mo put his phone away.

There weren't many people in the carriage.

The subway at 3:30 pm.

He stared out the car window at the rapidly receding black tunnel walls, his mind still replaying those six words, "Xu Zhinian."

I made it through.

pretty good.

It's really good.

Sometimes he felt that what was most disheartening about this industry was not the contract terminations, smear campaigns, or suppression.

Instead, it is the truly talented people who are ground down into cogs, eventually forgetting even what they originally wanted to write or act in.

Xu Zhinian hasn't forgotten.

He spent three years, in the most unfavorable circumstances, to finish writing that notebook.

Chen Mo understood this kind of persistence.

Because he himself had also endured it.

He endured five years of hardship.

Xu Zhinian endured three years of hardship.

The two people cooked different things, but the taste was the same.