For film premieres, the wealthy have their methods, and those without funds have theirs as well.
If a film crew has money, the premiere, as an important marketing event, must be grand and spectacular. Venues are rented, invitations sent out, and media invited—all to ensure a gathering of stars that attracts attention and builds anticipation for the public release.
But if a film crew lacks funds, then a premiere becomes dispensable—when there's barely enough money to make the film, what's the point of such flashy affairs? Many crews simply skip this step altogether. The better ones might spend a few hundred or thousand yuan to rent a hotel hall, invite people for a meal, show the film, and the premiere is complete.
The apathetic Shao Yichen had originally planned to skip this step entirely, just as she had with her first film. But when she casually asked the crew about it, she discovered everyone was enthusiastically looking forward to experiencing a premiere. The twins even openly stated that if the crew lacked funds, they could arrange an event themselves, setting the location at South Polar Bear Group's own conference hall, without spending a penny on rent.
Shao Yichen was immediately frightened off by this idea.
A joke indeed—holding the premiere at South Polar Bear's own venue? Were they afraid people wouldn't discover the two lead actors' backgrounds?
Before the film even screened, the media would surely swarm with news about the South Polar Bear heirs' film debut. The film would attract bandwagon viewers before release, making it impossible to lose money.
Unable to decline such earnest enthusiasm, Shao Yichen deliberated and decided the premiere costs should come from the system's side, spending money while avoiding unnecessary complications.
Having made her decision, Shao Yichen began searching for a venue. High-budget film premieres typically take place in stadiums, but given their cost constraints, she ruled this out. Finally, "The Web" premiere was set at Theater 2 of Yuchen Cinema on A City's Third Ring Road. Though not spacious, it had a stage and over 300 seats, which was already exceeding standards for their small-budget film.
After finalizing the venue, Shao Yichen heard that another film crew had scheduled their premiere in Theater 1 of the same venue on the same day.
But she didn't take this seriously.
After all, with so many films releasing simultaneously, Yuchen Cinema had hosted numerous premieres before, and accidentally overlapping with another crew was unavoidable.
Moreover, when two premieres coincide, media naturally favors the more publicized, better-known film crew. As for "The Web" crew, rather than saying their publicity was insufficient, it would be more accurate to say they had no proper publicity at all. Which side the media would choose was painfully obvious.
Shao Yichen believed she had inadvertently lowered the film's visibility again, feeling quite pleased. She didn't even bother to nitpick the sample footage sent by Jiang Miaomiao, merely glancing through it once, confirming it was suitable for release, and immediately approving it—after all, she had written the plot herself, and even she found it headache-inducing, unable to make any sense of it.
Rather than giving herself a headache watching the film, she might as well leave that to the unfortunate audience.
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One week later.
Fu Lianghui sat in the backstage rest area of Yuchen Cinema's screening hall, arms crossed, wearing a sullen expression.
The makeup artist before him had long heard rumors about his diva behavior on set and didn't dare breathe loudly, nor did they feel like designing any special look for him. They hastily sketched a few strokes on his face, just wanting to finish his makeup quickly and escape to the next actor.
But as the saying goes, what you fear most comes to pass. As the makeup artist turned to take an eyebrow pencil from the makeup box, their body pivoted, knocking over Fu Lianghui's mineral water bottle on the table. With a "clang," the plastic bottle spun on the floor, water spilling everywhere.
Fortunately, the bottle had only fallen to the floor without affecting the makeup or costume, but Fu Lianghui immediately exploded: "What's wrong with you! Are you blind? Such a large water bottle, and you couldn't be more careful!"
The makeup artist apologized repeatedly, seeming on the verge of tears from the scolding.
In truth, Fu Lianghui himself was at least half responsible for the water bottle being knocked over—he had placed it very close to the edge of the table and hadn't put the cap on, making it extremely easy to knock over with the slightest inattention.
But he self-righteously pushed all the blame onto the makeup artist. After berating them for a while, still feeling unsatisfied, he was about to order the makeup artist to "get out" when other crew members arrived.
Although Fu Lianghui considered himself a top celebrity and never took these people seriously, his last film had just flopped, and his agent had advised him to "cause fewer problems." Considering that continuing this behavior might become gossip fodder for marketing accounts to blacken his name again, he could only sit back down with his sour face and wave the makeup artist away.
The makeup artist, having been spared, quickly ran to the farthest position to apply makeup to others.
Fu Lianghui didn't bother with them anymore, just feeling inexplicably irritated with nowhere to vent.
In fact, he had been in a foul mood for nearly two months.
After all, "Seeking the Path to Immortality," the film he starred in, had not become his defining work transitioning from traffic star to actor as he had expected when it was released two months ago. Instead, the box office had crashed through the floor, claiming a 300 million investment but earning just over 100 million, failing even to break even.
Moreover, certain troublemaking marketing accounts, seeing the high discussion volume around "Seeking the Path to Immortality," deliberately compared it with a dark horse hit from the same period—"The Last Wish." Though they didn't explicitly criticize "Seeking the Path to Immortality," they implied between the lines that Fu Lianghui's acting skills were inadequate, infuriating him to the point where he nearly smashed his phone.
Not only that, but after the film bombed, if it were merely a loss of face, it wouldn't matter. The problem was that after this film failure, the number of film scripts interested in Fu Lianghui drastically decreased. Even those scripts that did approach him were no longer big productions like "Seeking the Path to Immortality," but idol drama scripts looking to cash in quickly on his celebrity status.
In short, Fu Lianghui had been extremely uncomfortable lately.
But naturally, Fu Lianghui wouldn't consider it his own problem. After seeing the performance of concurrent films, he very directly pinned the failure of this film on "The Last Wish," this dark horse.
—If this film hadn't attracted the audience's attention, would "Seeking the Path to Immortality" have been so coldly neglected?!
Thus, he unilaterally blacklisted all personnel from that film in his mind, especially the lead actor. He vowed to be at odds with them—although he had never met them face to face.
As for why Fu Lianghui was here, it was also inseparable from "Seeking the Path to Immortality's" failure.
When he approached the male lead role for "Seeking the Path to Immortality," he was actually already filming an idol movie adapted from a romance novel, "Warmth for You," in which he played a wealthy, handsome male lead with screen time only slightly less than the female lead.
But when he received the role in "Seeking the Path to Immortality" and discovered that part of the filming schedule overlapped with this idol movie, he decisively abandoned this film, starting to rely on his popularity to frequently take leave for filming "Seeking the Path to Immortality."
After all, between an ordinary idol movie and a high-investment xianxia film, even thinking with one's rear end would show which had more potential.
At first, the director of "Warmth for You" could still adjust the filming schedule for Fu Lianghui, but after he requested leave too many times, the director understood his intentions. Although this director only made idol romance films targeting young women, he had his pride. Seeing that Fu Lianghui didn't take the crew seriously, with a stroke of his pen, he demoted him from male lead to second male lead, drastically reducing his screen time. The original second male lead, who in the novel had been waiting patiently for the female lead, replaced Fu Lianghui as the male lead, becoming the female lead's soulmate.
When the director made these script modifications, Fu Lianghui was aware but completely dismissed the director's petty actions.
After all, although he was the male lead in "Warmth for You," the female lead had the most screen time, making him at most a secondary protagonist. "Seeking the Path to Immortality" was different—he was undoubtedly the absolute male lead, and if he performed well, he would definitely attract fans. Why would he care about a secondary male character in an idol drama?
But what he never expected was that "Seeking the Path to Immortality" would flop.
Now suddenly without resources, to maintain his fan base and avoid appearing inactive for too long, he had no choice but to attend the premiere of "Warmth for You," which he had previously disdained.
For him now, even a second male lead was better than nothing!
Thinking of this, Fu Lianghui's irritation grew stronger. He didn't reflect on any problems with his acting or judgment in role selection, only feeling that the director was against him, the former second male lead now turned lead was against him, and even rational fans offering sincere suggestions about improving his acting skills were against him.
They're all just envious of my fame and can't stand me!
With this mindset, Fu Lianghui grew increasingly angry. Just as he was about to drink some cold water to cool down, he reached toward the makeup table but remembered the mineral water had already been knocked over by the makeup artist, making him even more irritable.
He glanced at the busy crew members in the rest area and randomly grabbed a very young girl who looked like a celebrity assistant. While looking at messages about himself on his phone, he nonchalantly said to her: "You, go buy me two bottles of water. Remember to get the best brand, and make sure they're refrigerated!"
After saying this, he didn't even look at the person who seemed like an assistant, turning back to continue checking fan comments on his Weibo to improve his mood.
But the person he had stopped was utterly bewildered, not knowing what was happening.
Shao Yichen: "...Huh?"
Author's Note: Shao Yichen: Who is this person?
The first—and possibly only (?)—author-designated antagonist has appeared in this novel!
In a story where the system is the main antagonist, the sudden appearance of such an ordinary villain feels somewhat refreshing (.)
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