My cousin asked me to go to Wuha, and Hanikezi stuck to me.

Hanikezi watched her daughter rubbing her calves, her smile softened, and her eyes lit up.

Chen Yi stood up from the sofa and put the guitar back on the shelf in the corner.

"Alright, go wash your feet after you finish practicing. Don't walk barefoot on the floor, it's cold."

The daughter responded and ran barefoot into the bathroom.

The sound of running water from the tap being turned on came out, followed by a little girl humming a tune, off-key but full of confidence.

Hanikezi stood up and patted the dust off her knees.

"The piece you just played was quite nice."

"I dialed it randomly."

"You randomly dialed the tune and it was perfectly in time. Your randomness is just too accurate."

Chen Yi ignored her, went to the kitchen, poured a glass of warm water, and placed it on the coffee table.

After the Qingming Festival, the weather gets warmer day by day.

In late April, things at the studio were put on the agenda.

The young director incubation program has reached its third year, and the reputation and number of works it has accumulated have reached a critical point.

Xiao Fang made a suggestion at the regular meeting at the beginning of the month.

"Brother Yi, we've signed six young directors in total, including the new ones selected this year. Three of them already have completed films or are in the pre-production stage, while the other three just signed and are still polishing their scripts. It's time to hold a formal signing ceremony."

"What size?"

"We won't go big. We'll use the studio's screening room as the venue, invite about twenty media outlets, and have the newly signed directors take the stage to introduce their respective project directions. The focus isn't on creating hype, but on letting the industry know that we're serious about this project."

Chen Yi flipped through the project list in his hand.

"Is the media list ready?"

"We drafted a first version, filtered out a few sensationalist writers, and kept only serious reporters covering the film and television industry."

"I won't go on stage then."

Xiao Fang was stunned for a moment.

"Not going up on stage? Yi-ge, you're the one who initiated this project, aren't you going up and say a few words?"

"What's there to talk about? This is their territory, not mine. I'll just sit here and listen."

Xiao Fang opened her mouth, but swallowed the words that were about to come out.

Having followed Chen Yi for eight years, he should have gotten used to this kind of thing by now.

The signing ceremony is scheduled for Friday afternoon, April 28th.

The studio's screening room is small, with about eighty seats. The first three rows are reserved for media and industry guests, while the back rows are for the studio team.

Chen Yi arrived first at 2 PM.

He was wearing a dark gray crewneck sweatshirt, jeans, and white sneakers.

He wasn't wearing a suit or leather shoes; he looked more like someone visiting a neighbor's house.

Xiao Fang greeted him at the door. When he saw his attire, he twitched the corner of his mouth but remained silent.

At 2:30 p.m., the media and guests took their seats one after another.

Chen Yi sat in the front row, at the very edge, with an empty seat next to him, containing his thermos and a stack of printed project brochures.

The host, who is also the studio's publicity manager, briefly introduced the background of the young director incubation program and its achievements over the past three years.

The data was read concisely and without any unnecessary words.

The three newly signed directors then took the stage one by one.

The male director at the top of the list is in his early thirties and transitioned from documentary filmmaking.

He stood on the stage somewhat reservedly, flipping through his cue cards twice before speaking.

"I previously made two independent documentaries, one about the migration of herdsmen in Northwest China, and the other about the staff of a county funeral home. Now I want to make a feature film, which is also about people in a small place, about a rural postman who is about to retire and completes the postal route he has run for thirty years in his last year."

Several reporters in the audience were taking notes in their notebooks.

The next male director to take the stage was 27 years old, a graduate of the film academy, and had directed three short films, one of which won an award at a youth film festival.

He was much more at ease, spoke quickly, and expressed himself clearly.

"My feature film project is called 'Echo,' which tells the story of a hearing-impaired girl's three years in a mainstream school. It's not a melodrama; what I wanted to film was how she interacts with the world in her own way."

When the last person to appear on stage appeared, the screening room fell silent.

Twenty-five years old, female director.

She was short, had short hair, and wore a faded denim jacket.

She stood on the stage without a cue card, her hands in her coat pockets, her gaze sweeping across the audience before settling on Chen Yi at the very edge.

After a two-second pause, she spoke.

"My name is Zhou Xiaoman. I graduated from the Directing Department of the Film Academy a year ago. My graduation short film was called 'The Attic,' which tells the story of an elderly woman living alone and a stray cat. It was fifteen minutes long and had no dialogue."

She paused for a moment.

"The feature film I want to make is tentatively titled 'The Road She Walked.' It tells the story of a woman who came from the countryside, worked as a cleaner in the city for twenty years, and decided to return to her hometown to rebuild a house when she turned fifty. It's not an inspirational film, but a story about a person's struggle against time."

A round of applause erupted from the audience.

It wasn't particularly enthusiastic, but it was very genuine.

The ceremony ended at four o'clock.

After taking group photos, the media began to disperse.

Chen Yi didn't leave.

He asked Xiao Fang to invite the three directors to a small conference room next to the screening room and talk to each of them for fifteen minutes.

When the documentary director pushed open the door, he was still reserved, holding a mineral water bottle in his palm, the bottle dented in the middle.

Chen Yi sat across the table without exchanging pleasantries.

"Have you found the real-life inspiration for the character in your film about the mail carrier?"

"I found him. An old postman in a town in Guizhou, who has been running the mountain roads for 32 years, is retiring next year."

"Did you spend a few days with him?"

I spent a week there last summer.

"A week isn't enough. You have to follow him along the entire mail route, from when he leaves in the morning to when he returns at night. Not for an interview, but to walk alongside him. You'll only understand what that route means to him when you get blisters on the soles of your feet."

The director loosened his grip on the water bottle.

"Understood."

"Send me the second draft of the script, and I'll check its structure for you."

"Okay, thank you, Director Chen."

The second director was much more relaxed when he came in.

He took the initiative to sit down and pushed the project proposal in front of Chen Yi.

Chen Yi flipped through two pages and pointed to one of the paragraphs.

"You wrote a scene where a hearing-impaired girl is mocked by her classmates in class, and used three pages to describe her feelings."

"Yes, I wanted to portray her sensitivity and vulnerability."

"Three pages is too much. Think about it, someone who grew up in a silent world, her sensitivity isn't in her brain, it's in her eyes. She sees her classmates' mouths move, she sees them laugh, but she can't hear the laughter. This contrast doesn't need to be written out, just filmed."

The director remained silent for a moment.

"I'll go back and rewrite this scene."

"Don't rush to write. Go to the school for the deaf and mute for three days and attend classes with those children. Sit in the last row of the classroom, put on your earplugs, and don't listen to anything, just watch. Write after you've finished watching."

The director nodded and took the proposal back.

Zhou Xiaoman was the last to enter.

She pushed the door open gently, walked to the table, and sat down with her back ramrod straight.

Chen Yi glanced at her.

I've seen your graduation short film.

"When did you watch it?"

"Before signing the contract, Director Zhou Yuan provided a link when he recommended it, and I watched it that very night."

Zhou Xiaoman remained calm, leaning forward slightly.

What's your opinion?

"Fifteen minutes, no dialogue, relying entirely on visuals and pacing. In the end, the old lady opens the attic window, the cat jumps onto the windowsill, and the two shadows overlap. The ending is clean and crisp."

Chen Yi turned to the second page of her project introduction.

"What is the core conflict in your story as a cleaner?"

"It's all about time. She spent twenty years saving money, and when she went back to build her house, she found that her hometown village had changed. The home she remembered no longer existed, but she still wanted to build it."

"Who is it for?"

"Cover yourself."

Chen Yi put down the project brochure and leaned back in his chair.

Why do you want to make movies?

Zhou Xiaoman did not respond immediately.

She paused for a few seconds, then spoke slowly.

"Because my maternal grandmother was that kind of person. She worked as a cleaner in the city for fifteen years, and sent all the money she saved back to her hometown. Later, when she returned, half of the village had been demolished. She stood on the ruins and cried, and the next day she started looking for someone to build a house. She only lived in the house for three years after it was built before she passed away."

She paused.

"I want to make her story into a film. Not to make others cry, but to make people remember that such a person existed."

Chen Yi looked at her, pausing for a long time.

The sound of staff packing up equipment could be heard coming from the corridor outside the conference room.

The afternoon sunlight streamed in through the gaps in the blinds, casting fine lines on the tabletop.

People with clear motives are less likely to get lost.

He stood up and handed the project brochure back to her.

"Send the script directly to my email once it's finished; there's no need to go through Xiao Fang."

Zhou Xiaoman took the briefing and stood up.

She looked back as she reached the door.

Chen Yi was already tidying up the documents on the table, without looking up.

At 11 p.m. that night, Zhou Xiaoman posted a message on her WeChat Moments.

The accompanying photo shows empty seats in the studio's screening room, with the lights off and only the green indicator light for the emergency exit illuminated.

The text consists of only two lines.

"He asked me why I wanted to make movies, and I talked for five minutes. After listening, he only said one thing: 'People with clear motives are less likely to get lost.'"