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

Fei Zhao's reply came quickly.

[Fei Zhao: Racing? You made a romance film last time, and now you're making a racing film? Isn't that a bit of a leap?]

[Lin Yuan: Not really. It's all about speed. One's chasing people, the other's chasing corners.]

[Fei Zhao: ...Your analogy makes me want to punch someone. Come to the company tomorrow morning with a script synopsis.]

Sunday. Tianxing Entertainment Conference Room.

Fei Zhao sat at the end of the long table, with two people sitting next to him—Old Liang, the director of Tianxing Production Department, and a man in his early forties with dark skin wearing a leather jacket.

Lin Yuan pushed the door open and entered, and the three of them looked up at the same time.

"Let me introduce you," Fei Zhao said, pointing to the man in the leather jacket. "Du Lei, the assistant director candidate. He directed two racing-themed web series in his early years, has plenty of experience with car stunts, and has worked with Hong Kong stunt teams. He's a hardcore car enthusiast himself, with over ten cars in his garage, and he talks about engines all the time."

Du Lei stood up and extended his hand: "Director Lin, it's an honor to meet you." His grip was strong. "I've seen 'Qian Xuesen' and 'Secret,' one won the Huabiao Award, the other the box office hit—the difference is bigger than my gear shifters."

"Thank you." Lin Yuan sat down. "What are your thoughts on racing movies, Director Du?"

"Modern racing movies?" Du Lei leaned back in his chair. "They're all just the same old gangster tropes: revenge, brotherly betrayal. The cars are props, not the main characters. I want to film the cars themselves. The engine, the tires, the road, gravity—man and machine become one, the soul leaving the body for half a second when cornering."

Lin Yuan nodded: "That's what I think too."

He pushed a three-page outline onto the center of the table.

Project Name: Initial D.

"The core of the story is simple. A seventeen-year-old boy gets up at five every morning and drives his dad's old delivery truck to the top of the mountain to deliver tofu. On the way down, he outruns a group of guys driving modified sports cars in his slow car."

Fei Zhao frowned: "A delivery truck outruns a sports car?"

"It's a meticulously tuned delivery truck," Lin Yuan said. "An AE86, the rear-wheel-drive version of the Toyota Corolla, 130 horsepower, weighing less than 1,000 kilograms. On mountain roads, horsepower isn't everything; lightweight construction and driving skills are."

Du Lei's eyes lit up after reading the synopsis: "The drainage ditch goes around a bend?"

"right."

"drift?"

"Yes, all of them."

"Five consecutive hairpin bends?"

"Mount Akina signboard."

Du Lei slammed his hand on the table: "I'll take this project."

Fei Zhao glanced at him, then at Lin Yuan.

"The main creative team is finalized." She drew two lines on the paper with her pen. "As for the actors, Lin Yuan, are you going to do it?"

"Go," Lin Yuan said, "but I won't play the lead role."

"Why not act?"

"Takumi Fujiwara, the protagonist of the story, is seventeen years old and works at a tofu shop. He's introverted, taciturn, and knows nothing about driving; he's reserved, ruthless, and doesn't talk much." Lin Yuan paused for a moment, "This character clashes severely with my own core personality."

"So who will you play?"

"Ryosuke Takahashi," Lin Yuan said, "the captain of the Akagi RedSuns racing team, a top student in the medical school, from a family that owns a hospital, outstanding in appearance, intelligent and calm, with an innate elite arrogance, and the tactical brain of the entire team."

Fei Zhao thought for a moment and said, "It does suit you better."

"Could you help me find someone for Takumi?" Lin Yuan said. "The requirements aren't high: he needs to have a youthful look, clear eyes, and be able to portray a 'genius who doesn't realize it' attitude. Ideally, he should be a newcomer, without any acting baggage."

"Okay." Fei Zhao made a note of it.

"There are two more important characters." Lin Yuan held up two fingers. "Fujiwara Bunta, Takumi's father. This character has a strong duality, and the actor must master two extreme states: in daily life, he's a slovenly, alcoholic, and muddle-headed tofu shop owner, but in private, he's a legendary race car driver with top-notch skills who has been retired for many years. His arrogance is hidden beneath his decadent exterior, and the actor also has to handle the awkward yet subtly warm father-son scenes well."

"I'll oversee this selection," Fei Zhao said.

"The fourth one is Sudo Kyoichi," Lin Yuan said. "He's the team leader of the out-of-town Emperor Racing Team, a professional driver, and drives a Mitsubishi EVO III. He lost to Ryosuke a year ago, and this time he brought his team specifically to Gunma Mountain Road to challenge them. He's arrogant and stubborn, with a strong desire to win ingrained in his bones. He's not just a pure villain; he's a formidable opponent that Takumi must overcome on his path to growth. This character needs to have enough dramatic tension in his performance. From his very first appearance, the audience should be able to immediately feel that this guy is not to be trifled with and exudes a strong sense of pressure."

"I'll handle this," Du Lei said. "I know an action actor, speaks with a Beijing accent, has an imposing presence, and drives recklessly."

"The last one." Lin Yuan paused for a moment, "The female lead, Natsuki Mogi. Japanese."

Fei Zhao raised an eyebrow: "A Japanese actor?"

"The story takes place in Gunma Prefecture, Japan. Natsuki is Takumi's classmate, an ordinary high school girl raised in a single-parent family. Her appearance needs to be clean-cut, with a youthful innocence—naturally Japanese, not forced," Lin Yuan said. "The acting doesn't need to be too complex. The early scenes depict sweet, innocent school romance, while later there's a very heavy emotional scene—Natsuki is caught engaging in compensated dating by Takumi. The contrast between sweetness and heartbreak needs to be heart-wrenching."

Fei Zhao paused for two seconds: "A cross-border audition?"

"Yes. I can have Director Du contact the talent agency in Tokyo and send out audition notices."

"Okay." Fei Zhao closed his notebook. "Leave the actors to me and Director Du. What about the technical team?"

"That's the key point." Lin Yuan sat up straight. "A regular drama film crew couldn't shoot this. Car chase scenes aren't acting; they're real, high-risk stunts. I'm demanding that multiple technical teams be assembled simultaneously."

"The first line is the stunt driving team." He held up one finger. "It must be a two-way contract—a senior domestic stunt driving instructor, plus a local Japanese professional mountain road driver. The domestic team is responsible for designing the standard procedures and safety guidelines for high-risk stunts, while the Japanese driver is responsible for executing localized technical maneuvers such as mountain drifting and cornering through drainage ditches. The two sides will collaborate on the design, and all shots must be clearly defined: what the actors are filming in the car, and what the professional driver's stunt double is filming—absolutely no blurring."

"The second line is the camera equipment team." He held up his second finger. "A telescopic camera stand on the front of the car is standard, but more importantly, it's drone aerial photography. Mountain chases, panoramic shots of two cars side-by-side, and overhead views of five consecutive hairpin bends—these shots can't be captured from ground-based positions alone. What I want is for the audience to sit in the theater and feel their soul drifting along with the car."

"The third task was location scouting," he said. "The production team had to go to Mount Haruna in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, to scout locations. Mount Akina isn't something made up; its prototype is Mount Haruna in Gunma Prefecture. Road closures, planning shooting routes, and confirming filming locations—Director Du has experience in this area, and he led this part."

"The fourth line: vehicles." Lin Yuan's tone turned serious. "Establish a special vehicle task force, with four core vehicles—a Toyota AE86, a Mazda RX-7 FC3S, a Nissan GT-R R32, and a Mitsubishi EVO III. Each vehicle must have a spare, and all modification parts will be sourced overseas. Vehicle wear and tear during filming is normal, but we cannot stop work due to a lack of parts."

After listening, Du Lei leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh of relief.

"Director Lin, do you know how many times the budget will be increased for those four projects you just mentioned?"

"I know," Lin Yuan said. "That's why we're running two parallel storylines—not to save money, but to ensure every penny is spent on the visuals the audience sees."

Fei Zhao picked up his coffee, took a sip, and then put it down.

"I only have one question."

"ask."

"Can you drive?" she asked Lin Yuan. "Driving school doesn't count."

Lin Yuan thought for a moment.

"It will be held," Lin Yuan said.

Du Lei's eyebrows twitched.

"But I can't drift," Lin Yuan added.

"..." Fei Zhao put down his coffee cup, "So you're going to make a racing movie that's all about drifting, but you can't drift yet."

"So I had to learn," Lin Yuan said. "I went to Japan for intensive training beforehand to master basic drifting maneuvers. After filming started, I drove myself for the daily smooth driving and close-up shots inside the car. But all the high-risk stunts, such as high-speed drifts, cornering through drainage ditches, and multi-car races, were all handled by professional Japanese drifting stunt doubles."

Fei Zhao stared at him for three seconds.

Du Lei waited on the side, his hands unconsciously tapping the steering wheel rhythmically on his thigh.

Old Liang was calculating the budget when the tip of his pen poked a hole in the paper.

"Is there anything else?" Fei Zhao asked.

"Yes." Lin Yuan took out his phone from his pocket, opened a photo, and pushed it over.

The photo shows a white AE86 parked at the beginning of a mountain road. The fog hasn't cleared yet, and the taillights are glowing red.

"This is the original car. I took this picture a few days ago when I passed by a used car dealership. The owner said it was an import from the late 1980s, the engine had been tampered with, and the transmission had been modified, but not properly, so it's now broken down."

Du Lei snatched the phone from his hand, his eyes glued to the screen: "You bought this car?"

"No. But I think we can buy it for reference. Let the vehicle team disassemble and study it to understand the AE86's chassis tuning and center of gravity distribution; this will be helpful for later modifications and filming."

Du Lei handed the phone back to him, slapped his thigh, and said, "Director Lin, I originally thought you just wanted to make a racing movie. Now I think you want to build a racing car."

"Whether we build cars or not isn't important," Lin Yuan said, putting away his phone. "What's important is that when the audience sees the 86 taking a corner in the theater, they can feel the tires screaming on the asphalt."

Fei Zhao closed his notebook and stood up.

"Alright. Lao Liang, go back and make the budget, list all the costs for all four lines clearly, and give it to me by next Friday. Du Lei, go back and contact the mountain road drivers in Japan and the brokerage firm in Tokyo, keep both things going at the same time. Lin Yuan—" She looked at him.

"The complete script will be delivered next week."

Lin Yuan nodded, stood up, and walked out.

As they reached the door, Fei Zhao added, "By the way, you just said 'master simple drifting maneuvers.' What does 'simple' mean?"

Lin Yuan turned around: "They can float, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll float beautifully."

"So what are your goals for this training camp?"

"It floats beautifully."

Fei Zhao couldn't help but laugh.

"Okay. Go ahead."