Bai Lu got scammed, but I became a superstar through e-commerce.

The co-creation meeting was held three days after the filming of "The Legend of Motherhood" wrapped up.

After Guo Jingyu finished filming "The Legend of Motherhood", only a complete inn set remained in the Huairou Film and Television Base.

The two-story wooden building has a courtyard, and gray cloth lanterns from the TV series "The Legend of Motherhood" are still hanging on the eaves.

Just as the art department was preparing to dismantle the set, Guo Jingyu called them back.

He walked around the inn, stood in the courtyard and smoked a cigarette, then made a phone call.

"Jixiang, I have a scene in mind. See if you can use it. Let's invite President Qing to come along."

On the day Xiao Jixiangtian arrived, she was wearing a long black trench coat, with her long hair flowing down her shoulders, and stood at the entrance of the inn for a moment.

He went inside, crossed the courtyard, pushed open each wooden door, and looked down from the second-floor railing for a long time.

Qingxiao arrived later, so he naturally knew that this location saved a lot of budget.

Xiao Jixiang Tianxia Lou walked up to Guo Jingyu and said, "In the eight hundred miles of the Yellow Springs, there is only this one inn. Meng Po sees off and welcomes people here, persuading the departed souls to drink Meng Po soup and enter the six realms of reincarnation."

After much discussion, the three of them decided to use this location for filming.

He went back that day and started writing the script. Seven days later, the complete script of "The Ferryman: Huangquan" was placed on Guo Jingyu's desk.

Later, in an interview, Xiao Jixiangtian said that he only took 7 days to write "Huangquan", but before he started writing, he spent a year cultivating a "girlish heart", waiting for himself to enter a state of pure love, and also waiting for a good actor who could enhance the script.

On the day of the co-creation meeting, Beijing experienced its first snowfall of the winter.

Bai Lu, wearing a long white down jacket, pushed open the conference room door and walked in, bringing with her a few snowflakes that hadn't yet melted.

Chen Yu was squatting in the corner adjusting the projector, while Ju Xingmao sat across the long table, twirling a pencil in his hand, with several pages of storyboard sketches spread out in front of him.

Xiao Jixiangtian sat by the window, with a cup of strong tea that he hadn't drunk much of beside him.

Guo Jingyu leaned back in his chair, holding a thermos in his hand, looking in the direction where Bai Lu was sitting, with an indescribable look in his eyes.

"Everyone's here." Qingxiao took the printed script out of his briefcase and placed it on the table, flipping to the page on production budget. "Let's talk about a few things today. Project size, production standards, work pace, and Bai Lu's special effects makeup."

Qingxiao first played a rough cut of the original "Soul Ferry: Huangquan".

The room fell silent.

Ju Xingmao's pencil remained on the table, no longer turning, while Xiao Jixiangtian leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed.

After showing the final scene of Sanqi transforming into mountains and rivers, Bai Lu pushed the tissue box in front of him aside and whispered an apology.

Xiao Jixiangtian turned to the page on the production budget in the script. He held the edge of the paper with his left hand, his right index finger tracing the lines of numbers in the production budget, and looked up at Qingxiao: "President Qing, you're the investor today, so let me make this clear upfront. The cost of the main set and the pure filming alone is equivalent to the investment of two ordinary online movies. The cost of special effects alone in post-production might be another movie, not even including music, materials, promotion, etc. This is not a cost structure that investors will be happy with. If we want to insist on making a god-level online movie, we can't cut corners on any item, from set design, props, special effects to music."

He paused, then added, "Do you acknowledge this money?"

Qingxiao didn't hesitate: "Go all out to the maximum. No budget limit on special effects, and separate funds for post-production music and promotional materials. You produce the quality you want, and I'll cover the cost."

Xiao Jixiangtian flipped to the storyboard diagrams on the back pages of the script, pulled one out and pushed it to the center of the table: "This special effects needs to be reworked—the scenery of the eight hundred miles of sand sea when Changsheng first enters the Yellow Springs world, the distant view of Meng Po Village, and the scene of the eight hundred miles of Manjusaka flowers blooming after Sanqi transforms into mountains and rivers. Every frame of these scenes represents a production cost."

Bai Lu listened quietly, then took the storyboard sketch and looked at it for a long time.

The pencil lines were thick, but she looked at them very carefully.

Qingxiao's gaze shifted from the picture to her profile, but he didn't speak—he knew that Sanqi's problem wasn't here, but in the dressing room.

He waited until Xiao Jixiangtian flipped to the diagram of the three-seven shape before speaking. His voice was not loud, but every word was spoken very steadily.

"Bai Lu isn't playing an ordinary female lead in a romance film this time. Sanqi's true form is a giant azure-scaled python, and her face undergoes a transformation from withered to radiant. In the early stages, she appears withered, but after meeting Changsheng in the middle stages, her cheeks begin to glow. She is most radiant on her wedding day, and after her sacrifice, she transforms into mountains and rivers."

He presented Bai Lu with the special effects makeup artist's initial proposal.

"You need to do three layers of makeup: fangs, snake scales, and fine scales at the corners of the eyes. Every day at dawn, I go to the makeup room, and the basic facial styling alone takes several hours. The fangs need to be modeled separately, the snake scales are attached from the cheekbone all the way to the temples, and the fine scales are handled separately at the corners of the eyes. Each scale, no bigger than a fingernail, has to fit the curves of the face without interfering with your facial expressions."

Bai Lu looked down at the form, pointed to the image of the fine scales at the corner of his eye, and said softly, "Could we make it so that half of this scale falls off at the corner of his eye in the scene where he sacrifices himself?"

The makeup artist paused for a moment, and before she could speak, Xiao Jixiangtian turned her face to the side and nodded a few seconds later: "A half-damaged scale at the corner of the eye hurts more than a completely new scale."

He picked up a pen and scribbled a few lines on his script, then pressed further, "Getting up every morning at dawn and sitting for hours in the makeup chair, applying scales layer by layer—how long can you keep that up?"

"I can endure a lot of hardship until filming wraps up."

Bai Lu closed the design sketch and put it back on the desktop.

While she was changing hundreds of outfits a day at the Sijiqing shopping mall, her armpits were constantly covered in red marks from the labels.

She knew that snake scales were Sanqi's true form, and also the most direct expression of love she gave to this character.

This is nothing.

Ju Xingmao took a pencil out of the pencil holder, drew a few movement arrows on the paper, and then looked up: "I'd like to add something. In terms of production rhythm, we insist on 'slow and steady wins the race,' shooting only two pages a day, but the daily working hours will exceed 15 hours. We will meticulously refine every detail and never compromise. This rhythm needs the approval of the investors. President Qing, you have to give your nod."

All eyes turned to Qingxiao.

In this room, he is both the investor and the protagonist, holding the key to whether the project can proceed to its maximum capacity.

He stood up and pushed the production budget sheet to the center of the table: "Eight million. Four and a half million will be spent on production and special effects, two million will cover the directors' and screenwriters' fees, and one and a half million will be reserved for publicity. We'll only shoot two pages a day, and add more if needed. Music and post-production materials will all be allocated separately, with no upper limit. You're responsible for making Sanqi and Huangquan into benchmark films, and I'll be responsible for ensuring this investment is in place on schedule."

The meeting lasted the entire afternoon.

Outside the window, the heavy snow in Beijing had piled up all over the ground, covering the blue bricks and gray tiles of the Huairou Film and Television Base. The inn that was taken over from "The Legend of Motherhood" stood quietly in the snow, and the gray cloth lanterns under the eaves swayed gently in the wind.

Bai Lu leaned against the window and glanced outside. That inn was the place where Sanqi had been brewing Meng Po soup for six hundred years.

When the meeting ended, Xiao Jixiangtian stopped briefly beside Bailu.

He still clutched the storyboard covered in tiny scales in his hand, glanced down at the line he had just added, then looked up at Bai Lu and said, "Miss Bai, you need to be prepared for this role. Sanqi goes from being naive and clueless in the early stages, to experiencing 'wanting' for the first time after meeting Changsheng in the middle stages, to learning the truth on her wedding day and personally feeding herself her favorite Meng Po soup, to finally sacrificing herself and turning into mountains and rivers. Her emotions aren't progressive; they're four completely different textures—you have to break each one down, knead it, and embed it into your very being. Fortunately, you naturally possess a stubborn, indomitable spirit."

Bai Lu glanced back at the quiet inn outside the window and said, "Thank you, Little Lucky Heaven. I'm all ready."

The snow was still falling outside the window, covering the roof tiles of the Yellow Springs Inn with white layers.

Chen Yu pushed open the door at some point, walked over and stood next to him. He glanced at the proposal sheet on the table covered with three different designs, and said in a low voice, "President Qing, a big-budget special effects web movie production? You're going to pull off something big."