Just because I wrote "Zhu Xian," the school beauty sent me razor blades.

"Sister Fei, Zhiwan," Lin Yuan said, leaning slightly forward with his hands on the table. "Let me show you the MV script first."

Fei Zhao nodded slightly and picked up his coffee.

Gu Zhiwan leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, her gaze fixed on the screen, her expression calm.

Lin Yuan walked to the large touchscreen in front of the long table in the conference hall and swiped his finger across the panel a few times. The lights automatically dimmed, and the screen lit up.

The screen then displays the following elements in sequence: cover image, character design page, narrative structure diagram, storyboard sketches, and color scheme.

On the cover, under the streetlights on a rainy night, the silhouettes of a man and a woman stand side by side, creating a rich atmosphere.

Gu Zhiwan raised an eyebrow.

Fei Zhao put down his coffee cup and fixed his gaze on the screen.

The male protagonist is a down-on-his-luck retired boxer, burdened by the sins of his past, destined for a bleak and mediocre life. The female protagonist, blinded in a car accident, is gentle and pure, spending half her life trapped in darkness.

Lin Yuan opened the character settings page, and two character cards popped up side by side: "Their fates are already intertwined—her suffering all stems from his past mistakes."

He paused, then swiped his finger across the panel, and a line of text slowly appeared on the large screen:

My remaining years are spent in darkness, but only when I met you did I dare to offer you a moment of tenderness.

"The story is divided into five acts." Lin Yuan switched to the narrative structure diagram, his finger gliding across the timeline. "The prologue depicts the male protagonist's bleak daily life in a cold, blue-gray tone, establishing his underlying loneliness. Act One: their first encounter in a rainy parking lot, where he invites her into the guard booth to take shelter from the rain. Act Two: their love blossoms, their bond solidified by picking pebbles by the lake. Act Three: the turning point—learning that she needs surgery as soon as possible, or she will have no chance of regaining her sight, he agrees to his underworld friend's request to travel to Thailand to fight in underground boxing matches to advance her surgery fees."

"Act Four." Lin Yuan's voice slowed slightly. "After finishing the underground boxing match and getting the money, he was ambushed on his way back. He was severely injured, his legs were permanently disabled, and his face was extensively disfigured. The money was stolen."

He paused for a second.

He felt incomplete and unworthy of her, who was about to regain her sight, so he disappeared.

The meeting room fell silent.

Fei Zhao's hand, holding the coffee, hovered in mid-air, not yet reaching his lips.

Gu Zhiwan's fingers, which were wrapped around her arms, tightened slightly for a moment before relaxing.

"And then?" Fei Zhao spoke first, his voice still calm, but his speech was a fraction of a beat faster than before.

Lin Yuan did not answer, but opened the storyboard page for Act 5.

The final few shots pop up on the screen:

After regaining her sight, she brushed past him on the street, now a limp and disfigured man, so close yet she couldn't recognize him.

As the seasons changed, she opened a small carving shop, sitting by the window carving every day, occasionally glancing up at the door.

He stood far across the street, gazing at her shop for a long time, but never went inside.

The notes section for the last set of shots contained two lines of text:

[The ending: The two ultimately passed each other by, each living on opposite sides of the same city. He would occasionally pass by the sculpture shop, stop, look at her through the glass, and then turn and walk away.]

He never stepped through that door. She was always waiting for someone who would never return.

Lin Yuan lightly swiped his finger across the panel, and the last line of text slowly appeared on the large screen:

Every year, the world witnesses passionate love, but my pure love ends at our first meeting, returning to the sea of ​​people.

The large screen froze on this sentence.

The only sound in the conference room was the faint hum of the air conditioner vents.

Gu Zhiwan stared at the screen without saying a word. Lin Yuan caught a glimpse of her slightly reddened eyes, but the next second he saw her turn her head and tap her knee lightly with her fingers.

"...What are you thinking?"

Fei Zhao was the first to break the silence.

"The mutual redemption failed." Lin Yuan turned around, leaning against the edge of the large screen, hands in his pockets. "He thought that being disfigured and disabled made him unworthy of her after her sight was restored, and that disappearing was letting go. But what he didn't know was—"

"She doesn't want a perfect him," Gu Zhiwan suddenly spoke, her voice a little hoarse, "but rather the person who holds an umbrella for her."

Lin Yuan didn't look at her; his finger paused on the panel for a second.

"So that's the cruelest part." He spoke calmly, as if stating a conclusion he had long since come to terms with. "His self-sacrifice was, in her eyes, nothing more than a heartless abandonment. Both of them were trapped in their own cages, and neither of them escaped."

Lin Yuan continued to swipe his finger across the large screen: "Take another look at the color scheme and visual style."

He opened the color temperature comparison chart: the prologue was cool blue-gray, the romance was warm gold, the black fist was red and black violence, the fragmentation period was desaturated and poetic and melancholic, and the epilogue returned to cool gray—a complete emotional color temperature curve that perfectly matched the emotional direction of the plot.

The storyboard sketches pop up frame by frame: the warm yellow glow of streetlights on a rainy night, the rain curtain outside the window of the parking lot guardhouse, the backlit silhouettes at dusk by the lake, the red lights of the underground arena, a face scarred in a shattered mirror, time-lapse shots of the changing seasons...

The composition of each frame is extremely meticulous, the switching logic between far, medium and near views is clear, and even the shooting angle and depth of field of the establishing shots are clearly marked.

Fei Zhao's gaze swept across the table frame by frame, pausing occasionally as his fingertips lightly tapped the surface.

"I'm asking you," Fei Zhao suddenly spoke, his gaze still fixed on the last frame of the storyboard, "Are you sure you want a tragedy for this ending?"

"Sure."

Why?

Lin Yuan was silent for two seconds, his gaze falling on the frozen frame on the screen—he was looking at her in the carving shop through the glass, and then he turned and left.

"September, the start of the university semester," he began, his voice not loud, but carrying a calm and confident tone. "The campus is brimming with hormones. New classmates, new environment, first love, unrequited love—the air is thick with the scent of romance."

He paused, looked away from the screen, and turned to look at Fei Zhao.

"In this season, everyone yearns for love. But look at the songs released in September—sweet, energetic, all designed to make your heart race. Not a single one has been released that breaks your heart."

"It's not because I don't want to, it's because I don't dare." Lin Yuan paused. "Tragedies are hard to write, and tragic romances are hard to sell; I'm afraid the audience won't accept them. But I think it's quite the opposite."

"In the season when love is most believed in, tell them: some people, though deeply loved, still drifted apart. This feeling is more intense than any sweet song—sweet songs make you happy for a day, but the lingering sorrow can stay with you for a lifetime."

Fei Zhao didn't ask any further questions. He leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers on the table one last time.

"I have no problem with the storyboard and color scheme. We can discuss the execution details later."

She paused, then looked directly at Lin Yuan.

Now answer my question—

Fei Zhao's voice was calm and even, but it carried a great weight.

What song are you planning to release?