The Heiress's Game

Li Chunjing entered Gu Yunjin's study carrying a laptop and a stack of storyboards.

"Is it cut out?"

"I've roughly edited a few clips to get the tone right and show them to you."

Li Chunjing placed the laptop on the desk, turned on the screen, and plugged in the hard drive. Her movements were so swift and efficient that she didn't seem like someone who had stayed up for three nights in a row.

Gu Yunjin sat up straight and reached out to dim the blinds a little.

The screen lights up, and the first shot is of Chen Cui sitting in front of a huge floor-to-ceiling window playing the erhu.

Outside the window was the skyline of the city by the sea. Dusk was just beginning to fall, and her profile and the silhouette of the erhu neck were reflected in the glass. The light came from the side, cutting a clean and crisp highlight on her face.

The gentle sound of the piano spread across the screen for nearly five seconds. There was no narration or subtitles, only the visuals and the music.

Then there's a shot of Chen Cui's younger brother—he's no longer the mechanic with his face covered in engine oil at the auto repair shop, but is now wearing a neatly tailored black shirt, standing on the rooftop watching the city lights.

The photographer gave him a slow-motion look back, the wind blowing his hair, and there was an indescribable wildness in his eyes.

Next, there's a shot of Chen Cui's mother chopping vegetables in the kitchen—but the kitchen is no longer the old house with peeling walls from last time, but an open-plan Western-style kitchen with a marble heat-resistant mat on the countertop and a minimalist Nordic-style metal lampshade.

She was still picking vegetables, her hand movements still those of a woman who had lived in the countryside for decades, but the overall feel of the scene was completely different.

Gu Yunjin didn't speak. She stared at the screen, her expression focused, but it was impossible to tell whether she was satisfied or not.

Then the camera focuses on the younger sister.

She was wearing a beige knit sweater and sitting on an outdoor seat at a street-side cafe, touching up her lipstick in front of the mirror.

She saw a photographer across the street taking pictures of her in the mirror, rolled her eyes, and then couldn't help but laugh.

The clips are short, totaling less than eight minutes.

Gu Yunjin leaned back in her chair and tapped her fingers lightly on the table. "Not bad."

Li Chunjing quietly breathed a sigh of relief—she knew that Gu Yunjin's "not bad" meant "very satisfied," and Gu Yunjin never used exaggerated adjectives.

"The background has been completely changed?" Gu Yunjin asked.

"I've replaced everything." Li Chunjing opened her notebook, speaking quickly but clearly.

"Last time you said that the local flavor was too strong, so I communicated with the production team and art director three times and finally decided on this plan - not to shoot the real scenes of the hometown, but to use studio shooting and on-site location shooting for all the scenes."

All the interior sets were rebuilt by the art department, and the furniture and soft furnishings were selected piece by piece, referencing the color scheme of the reality show you mentioned last time.

The costume and styling team has also changed. The current stylist has worked on many fashion variety shows and has created a unique style for each main character.

Chen Cui takes the cool and artistic route, her younger brother takes the masculine and rugged route, and her older sister takes the sweet and cool urban route.

The younger sister and her cousin embody the energetic, girl-next-door type, while their mother is portrayed as "an elegant woman who has been worn down by life but hasn't broken down."

"So, half the team was replaced, and by how much did the budget go over budget?"

"Thirty-five percent. But after the streaming platform watched the rough cut, they offered to add more promotional resources, meaning that part of the overrun could be offset by promotional costs."

I've calculated it with the finance team, and the total cost is currently still within a controllable range.

"The platform saw it and said they would add more money?"

"Yes, the old Zheng who said he 'couldn't handle it' before didn't say anything after watching the new clip. He was silent for a while and then said, 'This one is going to be a hit.'"

His team is already coordinating with us on the broadcast schedule.

Gu Yunjin looked at Li Chunjing and said, "You were the one who proposed this project in the first place—to turn Chen Cui from one person into Chen Cui's family."

The film that was shot now has a completely different quality compared to the first version.

I've said before that you're wasting your talents as a personal assistant. Now it seems that being a work assistant is just the beginning for you.

Li Chunjing clenched her fingers on the edge of the notebook for a moment, then released them.

She nodded slightly, tucking those words into a very important place in her heart.

"I want to change the name of the reality show," Gu Yunjin said.

Li Chunjing immediately picked up the pen.

"Walking with brilliance".

When Gu Yunjin said those five words, her gaze fell on the last image frozen on the screen—Chen Cui's family standing on the rooftop, with the lights of thousands of homes in Dahai City behind them, the wind blowing everyone's hair, and they were all laughing.

The word "brilliant" not only echoes Chen Cui's name but also captures the trajectory of this family of six as they gradually climbed out of the muddy bottom.

More importantly, it doesn't sound old-fashioned.

If placed on the homepage of any video platform, it wouldn't look like a family mediation program or an agricultural channel documentary.

Li Chunjing wrote down these five words in her notebook, and then quickly added a line next to them:

The opening animation features glowing effects for the words "brilliant," with color schemes inspired by urban nightscape light trails.

Gu Yunjin glanced at the few lines she had written in the notebook out of the corner of her eye. She didn't say anything, but her judgment became clearer—this person was indeed able to draw inferences from one instance to another.

"We'll proceed according to this standard from now on. When the release date is set, I want to see a complete promotional video, with a quality no lower than the clips shown today."

After Gu Yunjin finished speaking, she suddenly remembered something else.

"Oh, by the way, I have a dinner party to attend next week."

"This might affect the upcoming work arrangements. You should let your team know in advance and allow for some flexibility in the schedule."

"Okay. What kind of dinner is it? Is there anything I need to prepare?"

"Blind date." Gu Yunjin said these two words in a detached tone, as if she were saying, "The weather will be nice tomorrow."

Li Chunjing paused for a moment, then resumed writing with remarkable speed and professionalism.

"Understood."

Li Chunjing closed her laptop, stood up, and put the hard drive into her bag.

"Li Chunjing, you've worked hard these past few days. You'll receive a project bonus once this project goes live."

"Walking with brilliance," Li Chunjing thought, "this name is really good."