Chapter 438: Broadening the Horizon: How to Spend the Money? Jiang Ci Teaches You! |
On the coffee table, the thick script had its cover page blown open by the wind.
Lin Wan crossed her arms. High heels often represented a sense of pressure, but in front of Jiang Ci, this tactic had never worked.
"Jiang Ci, you need to think this through."
Lin Wan's tone was serious.
"You're the 'Anti-Drug Image Ambassador' now. If you take on a noisy, chaotic kung-fu comedy at a time like this, aren't you overreaching?"
Jiang Ci didn't speak.
He was curled up in the sofa, holding a Red Fuji apple in his hand, and took a crisp, audible bite.
With his other hand, he casually flipped through the script.
The beginning of the script was indeed quite chaotic.
The protagonist, Ah Jie, was a lazy, good-for-nothing little punk who spent his days swindling and cheating with two dumb underlings.
To scam a free plate of char siu rice, he could argue with the proprietress for half an hour. To sneak a peek at the neighbor girl Ah Hua washing her hair, he could lie on the wall until he dried out like jerky.
The text was thick with the gritty, smoky atmosphere of everyday life, even bordering on vulgar.
For example, in scene fifteen: [Landlord Fa, wearing boxer shorts, picks his feet in public, then uses that same hand to grab a bun and shove it at Ah Jie. Ah Jie curls his lips in disgust, but turns around and wolf it down.]
At first glance, this looked like a typical Lunar New Year family comedy.
But Jiang Ci's page-turning slowed down.
He stopped chewing the apple in his mouth, mid-bite.
In his mind, those sparse words began to build a picture.
A turbulent, uncertain era.
That foot-picking Landlord Fa was actually a grandmaster of Hong Fist, who had gone into hiding in the walled city to collect rent under a false name to avoid his enemies. Those hands of his that picked his feet had once crushed the barrels of foreign guns.
That constantly cursing, penny-pinching tailor, Aunt Gui, who haggled over the price of a single scallion, was actually a master of the elusive Tan Leg technique.
And that blind fiddle player, Ah Jiu, who always coughed and looked like a gust of wind could knock him over—his fiddle case didn't hold sheet music, but two short swords sharp enough to cut through iron.
Jiang Ci saw what was hidden behind the laughter.
The first fifty scenes made you laugh your head off. The next hundred scenes would break your heart.
The script flipped to the middle.
Foreign enemies invaded. The slum was in crisis.
To protect the protagonist, Ah Jie,
this group of people—who in daily life seemed wretched, greedy, and even cowardly—one by one, stepped forward.
...
And Ah Jie, the protagonist.
That little punk who only knew how to steal chickens and walk dogs. He watched the walled city engulfed in flames.
He watched the uncles and aunties who had watched him grow up fall, one after another.
Silently, from the rubble of the roadside, he picked up a battered lion's head.
"Gulp."
Jiang Ci swallowed the apple in his mouth.
It got stuck in his throat.
"Sister Wan." Jiang Ci closed the script, gently rubbing his fingers over the red lion's head on the cover. "This is no comedy."
Lin Wan was taken aback. "What?"
"This is a knife hidden in a cotton candy."
Lin Wan frowned. "So your meaning is..."
"I'll take it."
Jiang Ci's answer was crisp and decisive.
Just then, the phone on the coffee table vibrated.
On the screen, two big characters flashed: [Director Jiang].
Jiang Ci answered the video call.
On the other end of the screen, Jiang Wen was squatting in what looked like a construction site,
an unlit cigar dangling from his mouth.
"Kid!" Jiang Wen's booming voice came through the speaker.
"Have you read the script? What do you think? Does it make your stomach hurt from laughing?"
Jiang Wen had a smug, "praise me" grin on his face.
Jiang Ci looked at the rugged director on the screen and twitched the corner of his mouth.
"Director Jiang, you have a dark heart."
Jiang Wen froze for a moment, then burst into raucous laughter.
"Hahahaha! Who knows me best? Jiang Ci, that's who!"
Jiang Wen took the cigar out of his mouth and pointed it at the camera.
"All those investors told me, Old Jiang, let's make something fun, make some money. There's no shame in that."
"They only saw the scatological jokes at the beginning."
Jiang Wen's gaze suddenly turned sharp. Even through the screen, his fierce aura was palpable.
"But what I want to shoot has never been some action comedy."
"What I want to shoot is the backbone."
"It's about that era, those bottom-dwellers living in the mud, and how they took their broken spines and pieced them back together, joint by joint!"
Jiang Wen spat forcefully. "So? Do you have the guts?"
"Let me be clear: this film is no easier than 'Icebreaker.'"
"Can you perform Southern Lion Dance? Can you do Hong Fist Iron Thread Fist? Can you do backflips on plum blossom poles?"
A barrage of three "Can you?" questions.
Lin Wan, listening on the side, was shocked.
She knew Jiang Ci's background too well. He had talent for acting, but martial arts routines weren't something you could learn in two days with just talent.
"Director Jiang." Lin Wan couldn't help but interject. "Jiang Ci has no foundation. We'll have to use a stand-in, or CGI..."
"Screw CGI!" Jiang Wen interrupted directly. "In my movies, there are no CGI superheroes!"
Lin Wan was about to retort.
Jiang Ci placed his hand on hers.
He faced the screen, the familiar smile spreading across his face.
"Director Jiang, provocation won't work on me."
"But..." Jiang Ci shifted gears. "I really like that Ah Jie."
"What do you like about him?"
"I like the way he's a hopeless piece of mud that can't stick to a wall, but still stubbornly tries to climb it." Jiang Ci said casually. "Kinda like me."
Jiang Wen squinted, staring at Jiang Ci for a few seconds.
"Alright. I'm giving you one month to come to the set for special training. If you can't hack it, I'll replace you without a second thought."
"Snap."
The video call ended.
Lin Wan rubbed her temples, a bit headache-stricken. "You've truly gone crazy!"
"Worth a shot."
Jiang Ci picked up the half-eaten apple again, joking, "I've got a long life anyway. No point just sitting around."
Lin Wan rolled her eyes.
"Fine. One more thing."
Lin Wan pulled a bank card from her bag and placed it on the coffee table.
"The first box office dividend from 'Icebreaker' has come in."
Jiang Ci raised an eyebrow. "How much?"
Lin Wan named a number.
The string of zeros on it was something Jiang Ci had only ever seen in Chengdu's giant panda count.
Even he paused slightly, his hand holding the apple frozen for a moment.
This wasn't just money.
It was the greatest recognition for him—an "atypical top star"—in this era where online traffic was king.
Jiang Ci stared at the card.
Before his eyes, a sudden image flickered.
It was from the on-location shoot for 'Icebreaker' on the border of Yunnan Province.
Because the crew had borrowed a local elementary school as a set, there were many children from the mountain area watching.
That day, after filming, Jiang Ci, covered in fake blood, sat by the roadside to rest.
A little girl, wearing ill-fitting Liberation Army shoes, her clothes full of patches,
clutched a slightly melted fruit candy in her hand.
She timidly walked over and offered the candy to Jiang Ci.
"Uncle, it's very sweet."
The little girl's eyes were big and bright.
But her little hands were covered in chilblains and calluses.
The marks of years of farm work.
Jiang Ci had taken that candy.
It was the sweetest, and the most bitter, candy he had ever tasted.
"Jiang Ci?" Lin Wan waved her hand in front of his face. "What are you thinking? Are you so happy you've gone dumb?"
Jiang Ci snapped back to reality.
He picked up the bank card, twirling it in his hand.
"Sister Wan, this money... it feels a bit hot to the touch."
Lin Wan was taken aback. "What do you mean?"
"Nothing." Jiang Ci slipped the card into his pocket and stood up. "I'm tired. Going back to take a nap."
With that, he waved his hand, ignoring Lin Wan's bewildered expression, and swayed out of the office.
...
Late at night.
Inside the upscale apartment in Star City, there was absolute silence.
Jiang Ci lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.
He couldn't sleep.
Whenever he closed his eyes, one moment it was the tragic death of Landlord Fa from 'Awakening Lion,' the next it was the little girl who handed him the candy from 'Icebreaker.'
The two faces overlapped in his mind.
Both were the kind of people who struggled in the mud, yet still wanted to give a little sweetness to others.
"Sigh."
Jiang Ci sighed, sat up, and turned over.
He grabbed his phone from the bedside table and opened Weibo.
In his private message list, the red "99+" was still glaring.
Most were confessions from fans, and quite a few were people asking for money, cursing him, or sending advertisements.
Jiang Ci expertly filtered out the junk.
His fingers slid quickly across the screen until they stopped at a private message from half a month ago.
The sender's ID was [Faint Light from the Great Mountains].
The profile picture was a photo of a blackboard with crooked pinyin written on it.
The homepage had a few photos.
The first was a leaky classroom, with children squeezed into a room that only had three walls.
The second was lunch: a metal bucket filled with bland, watery cabbage, not a trace of oil to be seen.
The third was a group of children standing on a muddy playground, saluting the national flag. The flagpole was a tree trunk with the branches stripped off.
The last line attached was:
"Teacher Jiang, after watching your 'Icebreaker,' the kids all say they want to be police officers when they grow up."
"This is the current state of our school. I'm not asking for donations, I just hope you can send the kids a few books of this kind. Sorry for the intrusion."
This private message was buried under a sea of fan messages.
If Jiang Ci hadn't suddenly thought to check it tonight, it might never have been seen.
Jiang Ci clicked on the photo of the salute.
He zoomed in.
The little girl standing at the very edge wore ill-fitting Liberation Army shoes.
Although she wasn't the same girl who had given him the candy, her eyes were exactly the same.
Jiang Ci glanced at the time in the top right corner of his phone.
3:00 AM.
Without hesitation, he dialed the contact number left in that private message.
"Ring... ring... ring..."
The phone rang for a long time before being picked up.
A groggy, sleep-laden male voice came from the other end,
with background noise of a few dogs barking and the sound of wind rattling a window frame.
"Hello? Who's this? It's so late..."
The person on the other end clearly thought it was a nuisance call, their tone tinged with impatience.
Jiang Ci stood up from the bed and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.
Outside the window, Star City's neon lights were brilliant, the traffic bustling even in the dead of night.
On the other end of the line, there might be the deep mountains without even a single streetlight.
Jiang Ci looked at his own reflection in the glass.
That "Film Emperor" Jiang Ci, rolling around in the entertainment industry's vortex of fame and fortune.
At this moment, he was smiling more genuinely than ever before.
He spoke softly into the phone:
"Hello."
"This is Jiang Ci."
"The one... who played the cop."