Huayu: This producer has no bottom line.

Sohu Building, Chairman's Office.

Zhang Chaoyang stared at the green media player interface on the computer screen for a long time.

iQiyi officially launched today, and the most eye-catching feature on the homepage is a poster.

Two middle-aged men in white shirts and black suits stood under a spotlight.

Old Boys.

His interest in this film didn't just start today.

From the day that young man named Ren Pingsheng first sat in this office and calmly negotiated with him using three domain names, he had been keeping an eye on this person.

What bothers him even more is that the kid hasn't accepted his terms yet.

The online discussions over the past two days have been overwhelming, with "Adolescence" being heavily criticized and the debate over whether online videos should exist has intensified.

He wanted to see what kind of films the person who coined the term "micro-film" would actually make.

Zhang Chaoyang pressed play.

There was no lengthy opening sequence. After the introductions, a spotlight shone on the stage of "China's Got Talent" with a click.

"You two, one a wedding emcee and the other a hairdresser, right?"

"Do you two know that you are the oldest among all the contestants?"

Do you think you guys can become famous?

Da Peng and Bai Ke stood in the center of the stage, facing the judges' slightly sarcastic questions, while a few scattered laughs came from the audience.

Zhang Chaoyang stared intently at the screen.

He had expected to see a film filled with internet memes like "Report to the Boss," but to his surprise, the film's narrative was very solid.

The overexposed stage lights, combined with the rapid editing of scenes depicting the two people's humble daily work, made the audience understand instantly in less than a minute.

These two people are just ordinary people struggling in this city.

Immediately afterwards, a very nostalgic background music for radio calisthenics began to play, instantly transporting the scene back to a school campus in the 1990s.

At the school gate, a boy was holding a broken guitar and humming a tuneless rendition of "Xiao Fang".

In the distance, a girl with a high ponytail rode a Phoenix brand bicycle towards the camera.

Backlighting.

Long, close-up shot.

That's Qiu Ya, the school beauty played by Tong Liya.

The wind blew her bangs, and the bicycle bell jingled.

In the overexposed backlighting deliberately created by Ren Pingsheng, she wore a clean blue and white school uniform, and a few strands of bangs blown by the breeze brushed against her fair cheeks, like a ray of white moonlight passing in front of the camera.

It's too clean.

The scene transitions amidst a blinding flash of white.

The boy is Xia Luo, played by Da Peng. At this moment, he is sitting next to the podium, being used as an example by the snobbish yet responsible teacher, Tian Yu.

You spend all day strumming your guitar, and there are only 100 days left until the college entrance exam. Do you really think playing guitar will get you into university? Why don't you learn from Yuan Hua?

Yuan Hua, sitting in the first row, pushed up his glasses and straightened his back with a righteous expression.

Qiuya, who was sitting next to him, was looking down at her textbook and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

In the back row of the classroom, by the window, Bai Ke lay on the desk, his face buried in his arms, oblivious to the commotion in front of him.

Both of them had terrible grades. One was outgoing and a troublemaker in the eyes of the teachers, while the other was so quiet that he was almost invisible.

They originally had no connection.

It wasn't until Qiuya delivered a cassette tape to Bai Ke in place of Ma Dongmei that Dapeng and Yuan Hua misunderstood the situation.

Back alley.

Two teenagers were pinned to the ground and beaten up by thugs from outside the school.

Dapeng turned his head, his mouth covered in blood.

"You're not even handsome, so why does Qiuya like you?"

Bai Ke clutched his stomach and gasped for breath, it was hard to tell whether it was from pain or anger.

"She likes me, how come I didn't know?"

The two helped each other up from the muddy ground.

The setting sun slanted in from the alley entrance, casting long shadows of two dusty, disheveled figures.

Zhang Chaoyang, watching from the screen, couldn't help but smile.

A misunderstanding that arose out of nowhere, a fight that happened out of nowhere, and a friendship that started out of nowhere.

No reason is needed.

Youth needs no reason.

However, the carefree days of high school passed in the blink of an eye.

Twenty years later.

Da Peng works as a wedding emcee, wearing an inexpensive suit, and for a few hundred yuan in red envelopes, he puts on a smile for other people's happiness.

Bai Ke washes hair at a barbershop, hunching over every day, his hands constantly soaked in water, covered in white cracks.

Xiao Shenyang made a cameo appearance as an effeminate man, walking into the barbershop in high heels and stockings, swaying his hips. His contrasting performance tore a hole in the dull atmosphere, and there were definitely laugh-out-loud moments.

But after laughing, looking at Bai Ke's numb, ingratiating smile on the screen, the bitterness only intensified.

Immediately afterwards, after Da Peng finished get off work, he heard the news of Michael Jackson's death on the radio. In a daze, he rear-ended a Mercedes.

The car window rolled down, and the driver turned out to be Yuan Hua, a high school classmate.

The rich kid who once relied on family connections to achieve the American Dream is now a young entrepreneur returning home in glory.

Meanwhile, Qiu Ya, the school beauty whom Da Peng and Bai Ke both secretly admired back then, was now sitting radiantly in the passenger seat of Yuan Hua's car, her eyes filled with a hint of pity and estrangement towards her old classmate.

Clutching the business card that Yuan Hua had casually handed him, Da Peng ran dejectedly to the barbershop to find Bai Ke.

Pushing open the door, they found the shop in a mess, with Bai Ke's wife, Ma Dongmei, pointing at Bai Ke's nose and cursing loudly, the place a mess of chicken feathers.

As the film nears its end, the scenes rapidly switch between the harsh realities of life and the pursuit of dreams on stage.

Da Peng was scolded by his future mother-in-law for not being able to afford a house: "At your age, you'll never even be able to afford four dishes in your entire life!"

In the hair salon, Bai Ke's back was bent by the weight of life, and he didn't even have the strength to refute his wife.

In the cramped and dimly lit rented room, two middle-aged men lay back to back on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

The suffocating feeling of middle age is palpable even through the screen.

"China's Got Talent is holding auditions, dare you go?"

Finally, after the two of them asked each other in unison, their voices filled with suppressed emotions, the melody of the song "Old Boy" began to play on the stage.

"That's the person I miss and love day and night. How should I express my feelings? Will she accept me?"

"Perhaps I'll never say those words to her. I'm destined to wander the world; how can I have any attachments?"

As Da Peng sang with a slightly hoarse voice, Bai Ke awkwardly but earnestly danced to Michael Jackson's songs on the side.

"Youth is like a rushing river, once gone, it never returns, leaving only a numb me, devoid of the passion of yesteryear..."

The chorus bursts forth instantly.

The camera then switched between the classmates who had entered middle age.

Brother Chen Kai, heavily pregnant, apologizing to the boss; Song Xiaobao, guiding customers to park; Teacher Wang, looking exhausted...

Zhang Chaoyang leaned back in his chair, a cigar burning quietly between his fingers, a bit of ash falling onto the carpet, but he was completely unaware.

He is not a post-80s generation, he has no pressure to buy a house, and he has already achieved financial freedom that is difficult for ordinary people to reach.

But for some reason, while listening to this song, he felt like something was blocking his throat, and his eyes even started to feel hot.

He recalled his energetic childhood at the Xi'an East Suburbs Arsenal, remembering how he practiced horse stance at age 9 and played the erhu until his fingertips developed calluses at age 10.

I remember that special period, when I was a young Red Army soldier, full of enthusiasm but also ignorant, carrying a megaphone and spreading the word everywhere.

He recalled that winter of 1981, when he was 17 years old, wearing a tattered cotton-padded coat, and studying English by the lotus pond at Tsinghua University every day at five in the morning in order to get first place.

If he didn't get first place, he would punish himself by running five kilometers around the Old Summer Palace.

He recalled how, in the MIT lab, he hadn't slept for three days and three nights trying to fix a laser spectrometer.

Back then, he was not good with words, like a country bumpkin from northern Shaanxi, but in his heart there was only pure physics, only Goldbach's Conjecture, and only the Nobel Prize.

"Have my initial wishes been fulfilled? Now all I can do is mourn them, as time dries up my ideals and I can never find my true self again..."

The singing echoed in the office.

Zhang Chaoyang closed his eyes.

He has everything now: his company went public, he rang the Nasdaq bell, he bought China's largest luxury yacht, he graced the cover of a fashion magazine, and he's adored by millions.

However, in recent years he has felt increasingly miserable. An inescapable, deep fear and anxiety, like a venomous snake, has been entwining him, even leading to a diagnosis of depression.

What did he lose?

He lost the boy who practiced flying stones diligently on the Loess Plateau, and the student who purely sought knowledge in Tsinghua University.

He won the world in the midst of worldly affairs, but lost his most authentic self.

"If there is a tomorrow, I wish you well, my dear..."

When Qiu Ya, played by Tong Liya, covered her mouth and sobbed uncontrollably in front of the television.

Zhang Chaoyang understood.

He finally understood why the short film was called "Old Boy".

Dapeng and Baike didn't stand on that stage to win at all.

If a person suddenly discovers in middle age that they have lived most of their life and there is one thing they really wanted to do that they haven't finished, that feeling is more suffocating than failure.

This film is not meant to exploit the anxieties of those born in the 80s; it is a tribute to the utopia that has collapsed in everyone's heart.

Ren Pingsheng is truly a genius at manipulating people's hearts!

The movie ended at its climax.

No miracle happened; Da Peng and Bai Ke did not win the championship with this song, and they were eliminated.

The scene shifts back to the gray, misty streets of Yanjing.

Da Peng was still wearing that cheap suit, hosting the wedding for the newlyweds on stage.

Bai Ke was still in the barbershop, cutting Xiao Shenyang's hair.

Dreams ultimately succumb to reality, but life must go on.

But their lives changed as they pursued their dreams.

But at that moment, the camera focused on the table in Dapeng's rented room.

A red letter lay quietly inside.

Da Peng wearily opened the envelope. The camera zoomed in, revealing an exquisitely beautiful wedding invitation.

The bride's name was clearly written as: Qiuya.

"Ring ring—"

In the background, the pleasant sound of a bicycle bell could be heard.

That was Qiuya's voice when she first appeared.

"The End."

Black background with white text, the screen went dark.

Zhang Chaoyang sat in front of the computer, motionless for a long time.

This ending, like a thorn, is deeply embedded in the flesh of reality.

Instead of offering the false comfort of a happy ending, it used an invitation to announce the end of youth.

A decisive goal.

Zhang Chaoyang dialed Deng Ye's number.

"Mr. Zhang." Deng Ye's voice sounded a little uneasy on the other end of the phone.

"Go find out..." Zhang Chaoyang stared at the page that had finished playing, a glint of fervor flashing in his eyes. "Where is Ren Pingsheng now?"