Chapter 28: Daily Life
[Yura's Drama Location]
When Yura finally takes a break from filming, she manages to find a moment to look at her phone.
Being the second lead in the drama, her acclaim has dwindled after her marriage; her recent reviews also have not been flattering. As a result, even though she's the secondary female lead, she's not the primary person being taken care of in the crew.
Therefore, once she joined the drama crew, she had a full day shoot – it was uncertain if they might need her for a scene.
The drama shooting involves a chief director and an assistant director, they carry on filming simultaneously in two different locations.
Before 10 pm during both day and night, they mainly film scenes with the lead actor. Whenever she's needed, they would call her over.
Once her part was over, she had to wait on the sidelines again.
Her scenes were primarily shot early in the morning and during lunch breaks when others rested - often under the scorching sun.
For indoor and night scenes, they often filmed late into the night after the main actor left at 10 pm.
Under such circumstances, she could only find a moment to rest. She had to sleep incredibly late yet get up exceedingly early. She couldn't often eat at regular meal times, and even during sleep, she had to be mindful not to mess up her hair.
Yura had swallowed all these hardships.
Not a word of complaint.
Today, she finally had some spare time and took a look at Weibo on her phone. She searched for Su Jinli's name in the search bar and watched Su Jinli's videos, commenting to Xiao Mi, "This young man is pretty great, suddenly becoming so popular. He's a lot more efficient than I am; my scenes are still not completed."
"Sure enough, I've also checked out some news and performance videos about him, unexpectedly good. His clueless charm is strangely appealing."
Yura nodded along, "Indeed."
Phone in hand, Yura contemplated giving Su Jinli a shoutout.
After some thought, she simply posted a straightforward Weibo entry.
Yura: Initially, I always wished for a sweet younger brother like Su Jinli. Having watched "National Idol", I've begun to believe it would be interesting to have a younger brother like An Zhihan.
She even attached a picture of An Zhihan and Su Jinli sitting together.
This way, it might be less hurtful to Su Jinli.
Moreover, she had a good impression of An Zhihan, who had helped her scold Wu Na once.
After her post, Yura handed over her phone to Xiao Mi and leaned into her chair for a rest.
"I'll go get you a coffee!" Xiao Mi rose from her seat, striding out swiftly while avoiding the crew members moving the equipment around.
Yura hasn't been getting enough rest recently. If they were to continue filming, coffee was the only way she'd keep going.
After a few steps, she looked up at the building across and was surprised to see a massive poster for Su Jinli's show, featuring him as well. She couldn't help but stop and take a second look, exclaiming, "This boy really has good looks."
Just as she finished speaking, a large curtain suddenly fell in front of her, causing a loud bang. Xiao Mi, startled, stared at the sight before her. This was a backdrop used for shoots, one side covered with a green cloth, the other side made to look like a wall of a building.
Damn sturdy and reusable, it usually took a group of people to move and was transported away on a large truck. Its sudden collapse in front of her gave her quite a scare.
Instant chaos ensued, with startled cries and screams from beneath the fallen backdrop. People were trapped! After a moment of shock, Xiao Mi quickly joined the rescue effort. The injured were taken away by an ambulance before Xiao Mi could regain her composure.
Just moments ago, she was walking alongside another person, only stopping in her tracks to admire Su Jinli's poster.
"Holy Hell!" Xiao Mi let out a bewildered exclamation, then quickly returned to where Yura was resting and relayed the incident.
After listening, Yura's eyebrows furrowed slightly, asking, "So, did this young man also tell you that you'd have a change of luck?"
"Yeah, but he said since I haven't done enough good deeds, the luck transformation will come later. This indeed feels a bit... mystical."
Yura nodded, "You think if I posted on Weibo, gained him some popularity, he might help me transform my luck again, so that I could rise to stardom?"
"Sis..." Xiao Mimi couldn't watch anymore, "I'm going to get you that coffee."
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[An Zhiyan's Film Location]
An Zhiyan unhappily sat on a small stool, his tall figure looked somewhat ridiculous perched on such a tiny seat.
The scene was quite a sight for the fans who came to watch An Zhiyan's shooting, a large male god seated on a small stool.
He glanced again at the director and the female lead, who was crying her eyes out and couldn’t help but click his tongue in disapproval.
To the oblivious, it would seem like he had offended her.
They were previously shooting an emotional scene. Initially, it was supposed to be just a hugging scene, but the female lead suddenly raised her head attempting to kiss him.
He quickly dodged and politely smiled at her.
However, this caused the female lead to feel embarrassed and she started crying. And she cried for quite a while.
An Zhiyan avoided her, found a small stool and sat down, only to find it hard to rest his legs so he had to stretch out, occupying quite a lot of space.
After sitting for a while, a crew member came and explained to An Zhiyan, "She was just too immersed in her role, hope you don’t mind."
In fact, those who have acted before know that the idea of being "too immersed in the role and unable to come out" is all nonsense - there's no such thing as a mystical experience.
The female lead was just trying to flirt with the male lead even though she had a boyfriend. This kind of thing was not easy to discuss, so they just explained it that way.
An Zhiyan nodded and replied with a pleasant smile, "Yeah, she's really dedicated."
The crew member continued explaining with an awkward smile, unable to maintain eye contact with An Zhiyan.
"Alright, I understand. Let her take some time to adjust her state, and then we'll continue shooting."
"Sure, sure," the crew member hurriedly ran off.
An Zhiyan took out his phone and saw someone reminding him on WeChat: Yulra posted on Weibo, mentioning An Zhihan.
In their circle, even trivial matters are closely watched by thousands of people.
For example, if someone posts on Weibo mentioning you, and you haven't noticed or responded for a long time, many enthusiastic netizens would come to criticize you, or suggest that the person who posted on Weibo is clingy, and things might get very lively.
An Zhiyan's company has a team specifically for monitoring such matters, with daily tasks including checking the news to make sure there are no negative news articles about the company's artists.
So when Yura posted on Weibo, An Zhiyan received the news.
He opened the post and couldn't help but smile.
Yura had gotten smarter.
In this Weibo post, instead of praising An Zhihan, Yula actually intended to bring attention to Su Jinli.
Everyone knows who An Zhihan is, but many do not know who Su Jinli is.
By posting this kind of Weibo, it seems Yura is praising one while belittling the other. This will likely arouse the curiosity of some netizens who will wonder what kind of person Su Jinli is and why Yura is attracted to An Zhihan.
Adding a photo to the post will also attract those who haven't seen the trending topics and are just fans of Yura's beauty.
Although Yura's popularity has faded, she recently had some news exposure.
Many people, in order to conveniently criticize Yula, deliberately followed her Weibo. She has a considerable number of fans, and her posts can be seen by many.
An Zhiyan, holding his Weibo feed, thought for a moment and decided to comment.
An Zhiyan: If you like it, I'll give it to you as a gift.
It wasn't long before Yura replied, seemingly active on Weibo.
Yula's reply to An Zhiyan: Is it one package or several?
An Zhiyan's response to Yura: What's the difference?
Yura's reply to An Zhiyan: One package is cute, several are scary.
An Ziya read the Weibo message but didn't reply. In a short while, his interaction with Yula hit the trending topics list.
He scrolled through Yura's Weibo for a while and then decided to follow her.
Yula quickly followed him back.
After doing all these, An Zhiyan stretched his neck and asked the crew member, "Are we ready?"
"Ms. Xin is still applying an eye mask."
"Oh, then call a few people over."
"To hold an umbrella for you?"
"No, to play a game of PUBG with me. Ah, remember to find those with good tempers, I have a bad temper and will curse if I lose. Don't let me make anyone cry."
"Oh, okay, got it."
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[Guyu Studio]
As soon as Brother De entered Hou Yong's office, he saw that Hou Yong was still tapping on the keyboard.
"You have hardly rested for the past two nights, right?" Brother De placed a cup of soy milk on Hou Yong's desk.
"I'm taking advantage of the heat to help Su Jinli boost some data," Hou Yong answered.
Their studio doesn't have a team, and only Hou Yong has this kind of experience. Therefore, since Su Jinli suddenly became popular, it has been Hou Yong personally controlling the situation.
Having been able to be the manager of Hua Sen Entertainment, Hou Yong naturally has his own strategies.
Hou Yong had created a variety of secondary accounts long ago, and even had an entertainment Big V account. He usually posted entertainment news, and continued to do so even after leaving his job at Huasen Entertainment.
When he left his job, Huasen offered to buy his account for 500,000 yuan, but he didn't sell it.
After watching the first episode, his colleagues laughed and told Hou Yong that setting up Su Jinli's image like this might not work.
However, only Hou Yong didn't laugh. He watched the whole episode and began to plan for Su Jinli.
In fact, Su Jinli has a natural sense of variety and no idol burden, has strong adaptability, and doesn't seem overly nervous.
With this in mind, Su Jinli should be able to take on a variety show and reality show career path after the competition.
That day, he took screenshots from the video of An Zhiyan and An Zhihan arguing, made them into a long image, and posted four of them together on Weibo.
This Weibo post quickly became the number one trending post in a 24-hour period.
He didn't rush but waited until the next day to post a long image of Su Jinli's conversation on Weibo.
Su Jinli didn't have the popularity of the An siblings, so this post wasn't as appealing.
As a result, he continued to rely on himself, using his secondary accounts to boost the popularity of the post, and then buying fake followers and likes.
Once the post made it onto the hot list, it climbed up much faster.
After completing these steps, Hou Yong allocated some funds to commission artists to create fan art of Su Jinli in different styles, such as multi-panel or single-figure art. The artists he hired were all well-known.
He initially controlled the copyright to these images, which could be made into merchandise. He also asked the artist to post a Weibo, pretending to be a fan who had a secret crush on their new idol.
Of course, after the post was made, he would use his secondary accounts to share and comment on the post, saying things like "I didn't realize you also like him, I just became a fan as well", to push for more engagement.
For some artworks, Hou Yong asked the artists to depict Su Jinli as a half human-half fish character, with Su Jinli’s figure on top and a Koi fish tail at the bottom.
When these Weibo posts were made, they were shared with captions relating to Koi fish.
Meanwhile, Hou Yong was building the atmosphere in Su Jinli's fan group, nurturing core members of the fan club who would be his helpers in the future.
At this time, a phone call came in. Hou Yong answered it immediately, considering the call for a few moments. His tone changed slightly, but he still spoke friendly before hanging up.
"What is it? Did another company contact you?" Brother De asked casually.
"Yes, they want me to bring Su Jinli to their company."
"If there is a better opportunity, take it. Many colleagues have left the company. If there is a better place, you must climb upwards."
"If I were to leave, or if the studio affiliates, I would still need to select the most suitable place for Xiao Jinli," Hou Yong replied, then continued tapping his keyboard.
Brother De leaned over to look at the screen, words were flooding the chat box so fast it was making him dizzy.
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Author's Note:
[An Zhiyan and Su Jinli are playing a game together]
An Zhiyan: Did you land and form a box, my baby? Come over and kiss me, I will not let this slide.
Su Jinli: Let me practice more.
An Zhiyan: With a typing speed that produces three characters per minute, you might as well stop practicing and come here, I am running low on patience.
Su Jinli: No, you never stop after one kiss.
An Ziyang got up and walked over…
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