123: Chapter 123 Thirty Billion

What did "You can scold me, but you can't scold Ruan Xingyu" mean?

Think about it, really think about it.

Ah, is this what they call that damn boyfriend energy?

What made the CP fans even more ecstatic was that Ruan Xingyu made a move too!

Without a second word, she released a statement and then sued some of Feng Liqian's fans who were spewing excessively nasty, dirty insults and spreading all sorts of slander and rumors. The couple was all about division of labor—one handling the literary, the other the martial, both internal and external.

When fans expressed their support in the comments, she replied with a smile: "If you scold me like that, I'm definitely going to take issue with it. Also, you can't scold Lin Chuyan like that either, okay?"

How to put this? You could certainly interpret this as a form of politeness, a way of thanking Lin Chuyan for his actions over the past few days.

But for those who shipped their CP, it was a subtle, long-distance response.

This was evidence—evidence that, once they officially announced their relationship one day, would be taken out and examined frame by frame, savored in detail!

Ruan Xingyu's thinking was actually very simple: liking someone is a two-person affair. Since her boyfriend was so brave, how could she not respond?

Wu Yue sent a message to Lin Chuyan on WeChat, not daring to say it to his face, just four words: "Thanks, Xiao Yan."

As for Feng Liqian, he actually wanted to say something, but his team forcibly held him back—keep making a scene? Was he not embarrassed enough? What if the other party wrote another song? It was better to just stay quiet and lay low for a while.

Some say the internet has a memory, but in reality, even the biggest things will be forgotten.

To hell with trending topics; things like that come one after another. This whole affair could be big or small, depending on whether you could endure it.

Ma Yue had finally realized that Lin Chuyan was not someone to be trifled with, nor was he worth provoking.

She couldn't out-argue him, and she just ended up getting dragged into the mud. Other people piggybacked on trending topics subtly, but this guy? He did it like his life depended on it! And after he was done, his status kept rising—who could stand that?

In short, after this incident, both sides became popular.

Ma Yue was "hot" in the sense of being furious, while Lin Chuyan was truly starting to return to the kind of popularity he had when he first debuted.

It's just that the composition of his fan base felt very different from before.

Before, they were basically just fans of his looks; now, there were all kinds.

Some came for his looks, some liked listening to his songs, some loved watching him roast people online, and some shipped him and Ruan Xingyu as a CP...

A portion of the Haters had successfully completed a change of identity; they had hated him for so long that they actually developed feelings—you think they're hating? In reality, when others came to scold Lin Chuyan, they were more anxious than anyone else...

But fortunately, there were also plenty of new Haters, with Feng Liqian's fans becoming the new main force.

Lin Chuyan didn't pay any more attention to it and started packing his luggage to go on a business trip—Li Mujian sent him a message saying that the production team of Fengshen finally wanted him to come over for an audition.

The news came urgently, and he didn't even get to properly say goodbye to his girlfriend before setting off for the island city in Lu Province.

However, before that, he had to open a treasure chest.

Ding!

[Dynamic Traffic Value: Red (3,198,650) Black (1,919,827)]

[Congratulations, Host. This round of Dynamic Traffic Value has settled at 5 million+, and 1 Treasure Chest (Gold) has been redeemed.]

[Settlement complete, Dynamic Traffic Value has been reset to zero.]

Another 5 million+ in traffic value, just as he had expected.

A lot had happened this week, but there were really only two things that could have brought him this much traffic: one was the "every day" MV exclusive to Douyin a few days ago, for which the platform likely gave a targeted push, and the other was this affair with Feng Liqian.

It was a pity that Feng Liqian kept shrinking away and staying silent, and Feng's fans had also been held back early on, resulting in the Red Chart being larger than the Black Chart once again.

Collecting his thoughts, Lin Chuyan opened the treasure chest directly.

[Congratulations, Host, you have obtained 25 Basic Attribute points (can be freely distributed).]

[Congratulations, Host, you have obtained 50 Specialized Skill points (can be freely distributed).]

[Congratulations, Host, you have obtained the item: 1 "Immersive Deep Learning Card".]

[Congratulations, Host, you have obtained the work "must love" (complete Songwriting).]

[Congratulations, Host, you have obtained the work "At This Moment, Who Are You Thinking Of" (complete Songwriting).]

Whoa! It didn't give any skills, but it gave two songs at once, which seemed pretty good too.

Lin Chuyan planned to register the songs once he arrived at the hotel in the evening.

Speaking of which, "must love" was another love duet; the System was clearly determined to make him keep showing off his affection.

The other one was by Wang Leehom; let's look at the lyrics—

"In a rented room of two pings, she stares at the instant noodles soaking."

"If it could be realized in three minutes, she would wish for tuition to be a little lighter, but tomorrow is like interest compounding on today."

"Another blank exam paper; effort doesn't necessarily conquer heaven."

"She is forever inconspicuous, with no face to follow behind; no one cares whether she appears or not."

Lin Chuyan recalled that the inspiration for this song seemed to be when Wang Leehom was eating at a restaurant and accidentally noticed a little girl helping her family run the restaurant; the girl's busy yet helpless expression left him deeply impressed.

So, he used a girl working the night shift at a convenience store as the entry point to create this song.

Mm, it was a rare non-love song, instead describing the hesitation and helplessness of young people facing the pressures of life, along with their inner desires and expectations. It would still be very suitable to include in his first album.

...

It was already night when they arrived in the island city. Xia Zhi had booked the hotel in advance, and after checking in, the few of them gathered in one room.

Wu Yue spoke up: "The film and television city here in the island city is relatively new, large in scale, and sets high standards. Nowadays, many big-budget special effects films prefer this place over Hengdian, so it's normal for Fengshen to be chosen here... The audition time is tomorrow, right?"

Xia Zhi nodded: "Tomorrow morning. A few days ago, I downloaded quite a few TV shows and movies related to Erlang Shen for Brother, and I also bought a lot of books. However, in my impression, Erlang Shen always seems to be a supporting role; I've never seen one played very brilliantly..."

Lin Chuyan naturally knew this too: "It's precisely because there aren't any brilliant ones that I want to try..."

Fair enough, that makes a lot of sense.

Xia Zhi nodded frantically on the side; the young girl just loved this about him—daring to do what others wouldn't.

She and Wen Qi had listened to "General" countless times in private, and now they were already a bit blindly worshipful of their boss.

"But having said that, I heard from my teacher that tomorrow's audition should only involve some Lines, acting, and physical-related aspects; the specific role selection might have to wait until the training camp."

Wu Yue nodded: "Just take it seriously; there's nothing else to worry about. In my experience, the audition will be 200% fine. First, your acting is up to par, and second, your master is involved in this. To put it bluntly, you have to give face to the Buddha if not the monk; the entertainment industry is just like that. If two people have similar acting skills, why would they insist on using you? It's only because you have someone behind you who can put in a good word."

Lin Chuyan shrugged; this was his network resource, so he would naturally make good use of it and wouldn't feel awkward about it.

Xia Zhi flipped through her phone's chat history: "I heard from my friend that Feng Liqian seems to have passed the preliminary auditions too."

"Really? With his status, he still had to do preliminary auditions? They didn't arrange a role for him?" Lin Chuyan perked up.

"This news came from someone in their company; it should be true."

Lin Chuyan thought of what Wu Yue had just said and nodded, having guessed it pretty accurately: "Probably still an acting issue, shoved in by Jinghua Entertainment, right? The director couldn't refuse to save face, so they put him in the training camp? Nice, nice, this is going to be fun now."

Thinking about having to get up early for the audition the next day, the three of them chatted a bit more before returning to their rooms to sleep.

At seven o'clock the next morning, after eating breakfast at the hotel, the three of them rushed to the Oriental Movie Metropolis in the island city.

The Fengshen production crew had large-scale set constructions here. Lin Chuyan didn't have a feeling for this aspect at first, but after arriving, he realized just how big of a spender the production side really was.

The staff member who came out to receive them introduced everything along the way: "We have 9 studios here, including 10,000-square-meter and 6,000-square-meter single studios. Places like Zhaoge City, Xiqi City, and Jizhou City were all built by us. There are also quite a few individual buildings, such as the Longde Palace, Lu Terrace, Yin-Shang Ancestral Temple... adding up to over 100 in total."

Lin Chuyan didn't speak, just followed the person, listening and walking.

As they got closer, passing by a building, although it was only a rough prototype, it already looked very luxurious.

There were quite a few people around the building who looked like carving masters. The staff member pointed and introduced them: "This is the Longde Palace; it's been under construction for three months and it's still not finished. For this palace alone, there are nearly 200 clay, wood, and stone carving masters working simultaneously, but it's still very time-consuming; there's no way around it."

Lin Chuyan couldn't help but recall the scenes when he was filming the drama "drama" in Hengdian...

Damn, the difference is too big. How much is the investment for this Fengshen exactly?

He glanced at Wu Yue, who seemed to read his eyes and quietly held up three fingers.

What does that mean? 300 million?

But then he thought, "burning life" was already 350 million, so Fengshen would only be more, not less.

Damn, it couldn't be three billion, right?

He looked at Wu Yue again; it turned out that he had held up a three with his left hand, and his right hand was fisted into a zero...

Fine, it's probably the cost of the trilogy.

Pushing aside these strange thoughts, the three of them followed the staff member into a building.

The doors were wide open, and the few of them walked in together.

"Director Yu, Lin Chuyan has arrived."