I entered Huayu Entertainment in 2016.

Chapter 125 Your junior brother is unreliable!

To be honest, I've been in this industry for almost twenty years.

Wang Chunzai believes he has seen many highly talented young players.

There are those who can cry on cue in front of the camera at the age of fourteen, those with such good physical attributes that they are sought after by both dance academies and acting departments, and those with a naturally beautiful voice that can quiet the entire rehearsal hall with just one note.

But sitting in this makeshift film set today, flipping through the three neatly printed scripts in her hands, she felt that the talents she had seen before seemed somewhat inadequate.

These are three scripts, each better than the last.

It's not the kind of well-structured, academically-trained work that's good—well-organized and with a correct theme, but easily forgotten after reading.

When the last line of "Sacrificing oneself for the country" was sung at the end of "The Red-Haired Girl," she felt a layer of fine goosebumps rise on her arms.

After reading the passage in "Escape from the British Museum" where Xiaoyuhu writes on the glass display case with her finger, she turned back to that page and read it again.

"Warm a Cup of Tea" is the quietest of the three, but beneath that quietness lies an undercurrent. When you read the last paragraph, that undercurrent suddenly surges from the page, catching you off guard and bringing a lump to your throat.

It's not easy to watch something that's engaging, emotionally resonant, and leaves a lasting impression.

This is something that someone without formal training could not write, and even many people with formal training cannot write it.

This shows that it's not simple at all.

She closed the script, looked up, and her gaze passed through the busy figures in front of the makeup mirror, landing on the boy whose face was being painted by the makeup artist while he was being pressed into a chair.

Wang Chunzai looked at him, a bright light flashing in his eyes, as if something had suddenly ignited them.

Even if we have to kidnap this person, we'll take them to the Beijing Film Academy.

However, she thought again that this kid was too smart and calm, so she couldn't act rashly.

He called her today specifically to invite her over, saying he wanted to "help with the casting," but she knew it was much more complicated than that.

She turned her gaze away from Wang Zian and onto Lao Li, who was smiling obsequiously beside her.

Old Li had been sitting next to her since earlier, handing her the script and storyboard one by one, occasionally introducing the shooting plan, his demeanor very cautious.

A slight smile played on her lips. "Li Qi~!"

"Hey! Teacher Wang, what are you saying?"

"I remember you! Professor Mu contacted quite a few people because of you!"

Upon hearing this, Old Li's face instantly darkened, and his smile froze.

The professional, polite smile he had always carefully maintained seemed to shatter at the slightest touch.

He lowered his head, placed his hands clasped together on his knees, his fingers intertwined, and after a long while spoke, his voice full of remorse:

"I have failed my teacher's teachings!"

"That's not necessarily true!" Wang Chunzi leaned back in her chair, her voice calm and even, without sympathy or blame, simply stating a fact she had witnessed countless times as someone who had been through it all.

"Everyone has their own path to walk. Those who leave early may not go far, and those who leave late may not go slowly. You've been wandering around for so many years, and now you're back in this industry!"

Old Li looked up at Teacher Wang in surprise.

Wang Chunzai knew he understood, and gestured with his eyes to the three scripts on the table.

"How do you feel?"

"Excellent! It's one of the best scripts I've ever seen!" Old Li exclaimed excitedly.

"This kid's tough, you have to catch him!" Wang Chunzai said.

"I've already signed with the company! And not just me," Old Li turned around, gesturing with his arm to the group of people bustling about in the lobby, "Look at this crew, quite a few people—lighting, cinematography, sound recording—several are from the Beijing Film Academy. They're all...like me!"

Wang Chunzai followed his gaze.

Old Yang was squatting on the ground winding up the power cord, Xiao Qi and Sister Su were busy at the dressing table, and the sound engineer was adjusting the equipment in the corner.

She did recognize some of these faces; she had probably brushed past them in a corridor back in school.

She nodded slightly. "No wonder many of you looked familiar. After all these years, you've all returned to the field you studied."

Suddenly, she changed the subject, "It's just that your junior brother is a bit unreliable!"

Old Li paused for a moment, then understood what Wang Chunzai meant from her meaningful look and nodded.

"If his position is unstable, yours won't be stable either. You know what to do, right?"

Old Li nodded; "Our Beijing Film Academy is the best art school in this area!"

Seeing that he was so cooperative, Wang Chunzai nodded in satisfaction and turned his gaze back to Wang Zian.

He stood up from in front of the dressing mirror, dressed in a martial arts costume with a flag on his back, and was adjusting his cuffs.

"Keep an eye on him for the next few months. If there's anything you can't handle, remember to tell me."

"Understood! I'll definitely persuade my junior to come to our school!"

"Tell me what he's been up to lately? I see it's quite a spectacle on short videos!"

At this point, Old Li started talking non-stop.

"Teacher Wang, you don't know?!"

Old Li told Wang Chunzai everything he had seen and heard with Wang Zian recently.

After listening, Wang Chunzai remained silent for a long time.

Her expression remained calm, but her fingers, resting on her knees, were unconsciously tapping lightly.

She has always been good at controlling her emotions, but this time, those emotions are leaking out bit by bit from the frequency of her tapping.

"So, all those viral videos online, those makeup and styling looks that's been all the rage in the industry, and all those jokes and scripts, were all designed by him alone?"

"Yeah, right!" Old Li slapped his thigh. "I watched the whole thing, and the more I watched, the more outrageous it seemed. How old is he? Eighteen, just finished the college entrance exam."

He immediately wrote three scripts that could be submitted directly to short film festivals.

Teacher Wang, to be honest, sometimes I feel like the things he thinks about are from a different world than ours.

"In that case, you need to keep an even closer eye on things." Wang Chunzai stopped tapping his knee with his fingers, his tone suddenly dropping a half-degree angle. "What if an even more talented photographer jumps ship here..."

Before she could finish speaking, Old Li nodded hurriedly, his expression even more tense than when she called his name earlier.

"Don't worry, Teacher Wang!"

Wang Chunzai smiled. "Go back to school and visit when you have time. I'll talk to your teacher, Mr. Mu."

She didn't elaborate on what she would say to Professor Mu, but Old Li's eyes were already slightly red.

He has been wandering outside for so many years, and he has never dared to go back to school because he feels ashamed to face his mentor who went out of his way to ask for help for him back then.

Now that Wang Chunzai has taken the initiative to speak up, it's like helping him to open a crack in the door that has been closed for many years.

"Okay, thank you, Teacher Wang."

····

Wang Zian had been keeping an eye on Wang Chunzai's situation. Today, he specially invited this associate professor from the Performance Department of the Beijing Film Academy, not just to ask her to help with the casting.

He had another plan in mind.

During this period, he felt there was a major gap in the filming process: from Zhou Ye to Tian Xiwei to Liu Haochun, including himself, no one in the entire crew had systematically studied acting, nor was there anyone with practical acting experience who could be there to cover for him on set at any time.

They've managed to hold on for so long thanks to their talent and intuition, and they're good at making short videos, but now they're going to start filming three fully structured musical short dramas, each with complex emotional twists and turns and emotional outbursts. Talent alone won't be enough.

They desperately need a professional to protect and support them.