222: Chapter 222 Z-Station's All-Out SSS-Level Push

After two full months of extreme filming.

After countless breakdowns, retakes, and Su Zhe's cruel torture, which felt like that of a tyrant from hell.

In an abandoned factory in the Beijing Suburbs.

Su Zhe sat behind the monitor, watching the screen as Gao Qiqiang and An Xin brushed past each other at a crossroads.

He watched the final long take where the two men's fates diverged completely into parallel lines.

He slowly lowered the megaphone in his hand.

He took a deep breath.

Cut!

I announce that the knockout...

Has officially wrapped!

As those words, which sounded like heavenly music, rang out.

The scene did not erupt into roof-raising cheers like other film crews.

Instead, there was an extremely suppressed, heavy panting of relief.

Zhang Song collapsed directly onto the dusty asphalt road.

He covered his face with both hands.

His body, which had lost a significant amount of weight, trembled violently as tears silently welled out from between his fingers.

Gao Lan leaned against a dilapidated police car, her hand shaking as she lit a lady's cigarette.

She took a deep drag.

Her eyes were filled with the exhaustion and trance-like state of someone detaching from a character.

For these two months.

They hadn't been acting.

They had forcibly ripped out their own souls and stuffed them into that cruel world called "Jinghai City," living through it for real!

"Everyone, thank you for your hard work."

Su Zhe stood up, walked over to Zhang Song, and reached out a hand to him: "Go back and get a good night's sleep.

Prepare to welcome... an era that belongs to you."

...

After the crew disbanded.

Su Zhe took tons of raw footage and went directly back to the headquarters in the Jinyuan Building.

"Su Zhe, I've already contacted the post-production companies."

Sister Liu held several quotes and followed behind Su Zhe: "Although our budget isn't large, I found the one with the best price-to-performance ratio.

Editing, plus color grading and basic sound effects, is a package price of eight hundred thousand.

As long as we pay a two hundred thousand deposit first, they can start tonight and guarantee we make it in time for the summer season."

"Eight hundred thousand?"

Su Zhe, holding several heavy hard drives, stopped abruptly.

He turned his head and looked at Sister Liu as if she were a spendthrift: "Sister Liu, do you have some misunderstanding about our company's financial situation?

Where would we get eight hundred thousand?

Besides, do those assembly-line post-production companies understand what the gritty texture of realism means?

Do they understand the suffocating rhythm of an anti-gang drama?

Giving the material to them would be a complete waste of talent!"

Sister Liu was stunned: "Then what should we do? We can't just not edit it."

"Who said we're not editing?"

Su Zhe kicked open the door to his private office.

Specifically, that windowless machine room he had named the "Little Black Room."

"I'll do it myself! From now on, except for bringing me instant noodles and Red Bull, no one is allowed to step foot in this room!"

Bang!

The door slammed shut.

And it was locked from the inside.

Sister Liu stood outside the door, dazed for a long time.

"Madman... a thirty-nine-episode TV series, thousands of hours of footage, and you're editing it alone?"

But what she didn't know.

Was that in the dark space behind that door.

Su Zhe had already sat down in front of the top-tier workstation.

His hands flew across the keyboard and color grading panel like phantoms.

He didn't need to repeatedly watch the footage to find inspiration like ordinary editors.

Because every frame, every camera angle, and every line of the entire drama.

Had been deeply etched into his mind while he was filming.

"Cut! Cut! Cut!"

Su Zhe's eyes were bloodshot, and he was in an extremely excited, hardcore working mode.

He stripped away all the fluff and nonsense.

He pushed the rhythm of the plot to the limit.

Especially at the end of each episode.

Su Zhe showed a ruthlessness ten times more sinister than any capitalist.

He always cut the progress bar with pinpoint accuracy at the most critical 0.1 second, just as both sides were drawing guns or a shocking secret was about to be revealed.

"Want to see what happens in the next second?

Keep waiting!

I'm going to make the entire internet's audience itch with anticipation and lose sleep all night!"

...

While Su Zhe was locking himself in the Little Black Room and working like a madman.

In Shanghai, at the Z-Station headquarters building.

In the super conference room on the top floor.

The atmosphere was tense, even more suffocating than the sauna-like weather outside.

Z-Station's CEO, Mr. Chen.

Was facing the most intense board of directors' confrontation since he took office.

"Mr. Chen! Have you lost your mind?"

A major shareholder in a suit and leather shoes angrily slammed a marketing proposal onto the table: "The summer season is almost here.

This is the most critical period for major video platforms to grab traffic and attract investment.

You actually want to take all of Z-Station's splash screen ads and S+-level homepage recommendations.

And even the commercial resources of dozens of top-tier UP Masters...

And give them all to a crappy web drama called the knockout?"

Another executive also stood up, looking heartbroken: "That's right, Mr. Chen!

I've investigated this crew.

The investment is a measly two million, and there isn't a single idol star in the entire show.

The male lead is an old bit-part actor who has played corpses for over a decade, and the female lead is a blacklisted voice actress.

This is practically a ragtag team within a ragtag team."

The executive grew angrier as he spoke, pointing toward the window: "And what about our competitors?

It's legend of the nine heavens gods and demons, jointly launched by the You-Ai-Teng platforms, costing three hundred million and starring the top star Chen Yu!

You want to take this street-vendor trash and go head-to-head with someone's S+-level xianxia masterpiece?

This isn't a gamble; this is suicide!"

The entire conference room was filled with voices of opposition and doubt.

All the executives believed that Mr. Chen had been brainwashed by that director named Su Zhe.

Smashing the station's core resources into a short realism-themed drama with no traffic and no big production.

Once it flopped.

Not only would Z-Station's revenue suffer a Waterloo.

But even the reputation they had worked so hard to build over the years would become a laughingstock.

Facing everyone's bombardment.

Mr. Chen sat in the main seat.

Without saying a word.

He silently smoked a cigarette; through the curls of smoke, the look behind his lenses was unclear.

Until the voices in the conference room gradually quieted down.

Only then did Mr. Chen slowly take the cigarette butt that was about to burn his fingers and crush it fiercely into the ashtray in front of him.

He used so much force that the cigarette butt was ground into powder.

"Are you all finished?"

Mr. Chen's voice wasn't loud. He looked up and scanned everyone present: "You keep saying legend of the nine heavens gods and demons is an S+ masterpiece, that it has traffic and big stars.

But put your hands on your hearts and ask yourselves.

That kind of cookie-cutter paralyzed acting, five-cent green-screen effects, and melodramatic plots that insult the audience's intelligence...

Can you yourselves usually stand to watch it?"

The executives were taken aback by the question and looked at each other.

"But Mr. Chen, the current market is like this. The audience just eats this stuff up..."

Someone defended weakly.

"Bullshit!"

Mr. Chen suddenly slapped the table and stood up abruptly: "The audience isn't stupid!

They eat it because the three major platforms have monopolized the channels and forcibly stuffed this garbage down their throats.

It's because they have no choice!"

An unprecedented ambition and feverishness erupted in Mr. Chen's eyes: "For the past few years, our Z-Station has been suppressed by the three major platforms, mocked by them as the sewer of the ACG world.

If we want to break the deadlock and join the ranks of first-tier long-video platforms.

By competing with them in traffic and pretty boys?

We can't win that way.

The only way is to flip the table!"

Mr. Chen pointed at the large screen behind him. "In the middle of last night, Su Zhe sent me the rough cut of the first episode of the knockout.

I watched it for the entire night.

I watched it ten times!"

Mr. Chen picked up the remote control: "Now.

I ask you all to shut your mouths and open your eyes wide.

Take a good look.

At what a god-tier masterpiece is!"

He pressed the play button.

The lights in the conference room went out.

Images lit up on the giant projection screen.

There were no eye-searing skin-smoothing filters.

No slow-motion shots full of ethereal air.

The scene began.

It was the night of New Year's Eve in the year 2000.

Inside the interrogation room of the Old Factory Street police station.

Gao Qiqiang, played by Zhang Song, was wearing a worn-out jacket, his hair was messy, and his face was covered in bruises and bloodstains from being beaten.

He was handcuffed to a radiator pipe.

Using an extremely fearful, humble, yet deeply desperate and unwilling gaze.

He looked at the police officer opposite him.

His hands trembled violently as he took that bowl of steaming pig trotter noodles.

He didn't dare to make a sound.

He swallowed in large gulps.

Tears mixed with snot silently fell into the noodle soup.

"..."

The conference room instantly fell into a deathly silence.

Those executives and shareholders who had been shouting just a moment ago.

Watched the struggle of that small character on the screen.

Watched that extreme reality that struck the soul without any trace of performance.

Everyone felt as if their hearts were being gripped tightly by an invisible hand.

Even breathing became difficult.

In just these first five minutes of the opening.

This highly cinematic imagery, this rhythm filled with tension, and this penetrating acting.

Directly crushed those so-called "S+-level xianxia masterpieces" they had seen in the past into dust.

The first episode finished playing.

The screen went dark.

In the conference room, still no one spoke; only the sound of heavy breathing remained.

The eyes of several executives had even turned slightly red.

"Do you understand now?"

Mr. Chen stood in front of the screen, his gaze like that of a wolf king who had put everything on the line: "The three major platforms use bad dramas to feed the audience garbage."

"Our Z-Station will use this masterpiece to cleanse the audience's palate."

To teach those high-and-mighty capitalists in the Chinese Entertainment Industry a lesson! Stop mentioning budgets and risks to me!"

Mr. Chen spoke each word clearly, making the most insane decision in Z-Station's history: "Pass down my order."

All station traffic, highest-level promotion channels.

Everything—All in!"