World Hopping: Avenge Our Love
Translator: translationraven
First Published on Chaleuria
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Song Yucheng moved fast. He contacted Picture Domain to get ready to sign Tang Chi on right after getting the confirmation from him. Meanwhile, Cao Kun frowned when he heard the news and wondered if Song Yucheng had bitten off more than he could chew.
Cao Kun was no fool. He could tell that Song Yucheng had not signed Tang Chi on for the sake of it. He was probably starting on some revenge on Ding Mingcheng, and this was a plan he was carrying out.
Even so, he felt that this was too much for Song Yucheng to handle. Ding Mingcheng was not trash that could be easily taken care of like Luo Tong or that paparazzi reporter after all.
As expected, Cao Kun received a call from Ding Mingcheng not five minutes after news of Song Yucheng’s move got to him.
“Cao Kun, I’m not being discourteous here, but your subordinate is being too disrespectful to me. I’ve made it known that whoever takes Tang Chi in would be asking for trouble from me.” Ding Mingcheng’s attitude was as bad as ever.
“I won’t mention other things. We’re close as brothers, and our relationship won’t sour because of a few little actors, right? Don’t worry, I won’t touch any of your family. But if he insists on assigning Tang Chi resources, then don’t blame me for turning on you.”
Ding Mingcheng hung up right after he was done talking. He was rude to the end.
Interesting. Cao Kun looked at the phone in his hand, and leisurely typed out a message to Song Yucheng. The reply he got from him almost made Cao Kun laugh out loud.
“Don’t worry, President Cao. He soon won’t have much energy to bother about Tang Chi.”
So this guy had a plan in place already, huh? Cao Kun knew Xie Qianchen, and knew that he would never claim to be able to do things he couldn’t. Cao Kun wanted to ask him what he was going to do next, but before he could make a call, he received a call from Lu Mian.
“Go to the airport. Now.” Lu Mian sounded like he was in a hurry.
Cao Kun could not refuse. He quickly answered, “Yes, I’ll be right there.” He snatched up his car keys and left the office. The question he wanted to ask Xie Qianchen had been pushed to the back of his mind.
Though he sounded like he was in a rush over the phone, Lu Mian’s face was expressionless. His subordinate, however, had an odd expression on his face. He knew that the person Cao Kun was rushing to meet at the airport was no one important. It was an alpaca Lu Mian had ordered off the internet a few days ago.
So… Was it because President Lu simply didn’t like Cao Kun interacting with Xie Qianchen and wanted him a distance away from him? The secretary thought of the recent intimate interactions between his boss and Xie Qianchen, and suddenly felt that he might have been witness to some sort of huge secret.
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Song Yucheng did not sit idle while Cao Kun was being sent in circles by Lu Mian. He had not picked Bai Siwei and the others just to fulfil the manager requirements — he was going for results.
This was why he was as busy as a bee, once the contracts were signed and the three celebrities started going to the company to work.
Cao Kun had already informed the whole company that Xie Qianchen would be given priority for all the resources of the company. Song Yucheng did not hold back. He booked the biggest practice room right away, and the best recording studio.
“We don’t have much time.” These were his first words to the three “new” celebrities. “Let me say first that I am not like your previous manager. I do not produce rubbish. You can leave now if you can’t tough it out.”
“No! We can handle it.” All three of them chorused. Even the frail maiden Bai Siwei was determined.
They had been silenced for too long. In these past few years, they’d been either left to languish, treated badly, or had support removed from them. Every one of them was bitter.
Right now, Song Yucheng was giving them a chance to prove themselves. Who cared about how tough it was going to be? They’d already tasted dark days. What they had now was true heaven to them.
This thinking of theirs was soon forcefully revealed to terribly naive. They also finally understood how Shen Yi had been able to raise the levels of his acting in the short span of two weeks.
Xie Qianchen… was a terrifying demon king.
The teachers at Double Universe had been strict, but what they dished out were in a tolerable range. Xie Qianchen was not. He was so frightening that he could drive them into a state of terror.
His teaching style was very different from their old teachers and he was harsh, especially to Bai Siwei and Hao Yi, who’d had a foundation in acting.
He tore apart all of their understanding of acting skills, and built in brand new content in their syllabus, bit by bit. This new content too, had to be completely learnt on the day it was imparted to them.
Bai Siwei was doing a bit better than Hao Yi, who was truly struggling. Song Yucheng had thrown him right into group acting.
Xie Qianchen knew many people in the industry, so it was a piece of cake for him to find an available supporting role at short notice. A role with just a few lines was a walk in the park. Hao Yi was thrown into taking on these roles every day, in various big dramas. He played different parts, from wizened old man to teenage beggar. Song Yucheng got him all the small roles that he could imagine.
Don’t even think about getting rest in the evening after running from set to set the whole day. Song Yucheng brought video recordings and analysed the contents. He even set up cameras whenever and wherever he wanted so that Hao Yi could practice, practice, practice.
Bai Siwei’s training focused on the basics of dialogue.
In Song Yucheng’s words, Bai Siwei’s foundation in dialogue was abysmal, and worse than her mediocre acting skills. He deemed her so bad he even put her in the same class as Qi Luo.
Qi Luo had been put under Song Yucheng’s training every step of the way and he had not debuted, but his foundation was rock-solid. Qi Luo was a rather straightforward person and dedicated to his work — much like a person obsessed with the world of acting. Just ten minutes in his company made Bai Siwei’s confidence crumble.
She’d been an actress for years, so how could she not hold a candle to this child who had not even debuted? Bai Siwei trained like a madwoman, spurred by the pressure she felt from Qi Luo. She just hoped that she wouldn’t be far behind Qi Luo.
This training schedule taught the three of them more than what they would’ve learnt in a year at their previous companies. Their basic skills and professional skills were being improved and increased at a rapid pace.
In this period of time, yet another big event happened in the industry. The public welfare short film Song Yucheng had asked Cao Kun to help out with was finally released for public viewing. What shocked people the most was that the short film was astonishingly good.
It was not just on national TV but on all the TV channels at prime time, calling for the cancellation of the prime time advertisements in a month and proposing to change them to this public welfare message which Song Yucheng had devised. At the same time, the online broadcasting platforms had received the same order requesting them to replace the current advertisements with this one.
Many people were dissatisfied by this, and felt that this was too overbearing. Even if they did revere public service, this was too much! How could so many resources be redirected to support this one thing?! Plus, even if this was for the public good, having the message bombarding the masses like this was not exactly a good thing, and could draw flak too.
The people being forced to comply with the promotional and advertising slot allocations expressed their discontent and voiced complaints.
However, this did not affect anything, and did not change the decision of the higher-ups.
“Hehe, I’m just waiting for Xie Qianchen to be thrown out on the street!”
“What sort of public welfare ad could be so amazing that it has to be given such importance? So what if it’s a script written by Wen Ran?”
“I’ve had enough. This Xie Qianchen has been overstepping boundaries too much recently! He’s everywhere these days! Looks to me like he’s not a manager, but trying to debut himself or something!”
“Debut? Him? The trash talent he’s managing will help him get through the manager qualification this time, but he won’t pass the next assessment.”
A large number of people in the industry who’d had their share of the pie soiled by Song Yucheng were waiting for him to be thrown out, but these voices of dissent went mute after the short film was released.
They were not just rendered mute — they’d been slapped hard too.
Never in a thousand years had they imagined that the theme of the public welfare film was “father”. The short film Song Yucheng had made was so touching that it did not feel like a public welfare message at all. It was more like an art film which could be entered in competitions.
It was also different from Wen Ran’s usual work depicting treachery and dark themes. The first part of the film was so heartwarming it made people smile.
A woman in wedding attire was reminiscing about the past.
“There was a man who loved me very much when I was young.”
The memories unfolded with the gentleness of the woman’s voice.
Sweets in kindergarten… the pink hair clip in elementary school… being taken care of when she was sick in middle school… protecting her in high school, and a hug… and the tears at the train station when she left for university. Finally, she came to the moment where she put on her wedding dress.
The image of the man in her memories was blurry, and his face was not shown, but everyone who watched the film couldn’t help smiling.
The wedding march song played, and the man’s features were finally revealed.
The hand stretched out to her was not a young man’s hand like the audience had imagined. The man’s face was not a young and handsome face. It was a pair of wrinkled hands, an elderly man with a head of white. He held the young woman, his eyes full of happiness, and it was clear that he was her father.
“Only one man in this world would love you with all he has — your father. The actress’s voice was a little choked up, and she sounded more nostalgic, and happy.
In the next second, the scene switched to show Li Xuyang.
“Not every father is loving. There are prickly ones too.” This was Li Xuyang’s segment.
He had held it against him for failing to meet expectations as a young boy, and there was incomprehension in his teenage years. Fighting, arguing, more time apart as an adult, hardly meeting. Their relationship grew increasingly cold.
Finally, his father was afflicted with dementia, and Li Xuyang went back to visit him. The long silence discomfited him, and he felt at a loss when he stood in the kitchen with his father, cooking dumplings.
The dumplings were cooked. He removed them from the pot and was going to serve them, and that was when the awkwardness dissipated.
His father suddenly put a hand on his wrist, and said, “L-Leave half. My little boy likes dumplings with this filling.”
Tears poured down his face instantly. A grown man of over thirty cried like a child in front of his father.
“There’s a man who’s forgotten everything, but he won’t forget that he loves you. This is your father too.”
“Goodness! The first part’s sweet, and this second part’s breaking my heart. Dang it, I’m suddenly a little too afraid to keep watching,” commented someone. When the third segment was released, it shocked them far more than they’d imagined.
No one had expected that Wen Ran had the ability to write scripts so deep, so profound.