Chapter 40: Ch40 - Lemon Flavored Film Emperor Gong: (19)

The little lemon’s girlfriend: Beautiful enough to break the sky~~

Translator: KunLin

Editors: Amaris, Rubhyl

The third week after Gou Liang returned to the country, the post-production of《Agent of War》was finally completed. 《Agent of War》had finished filming six months ago, but for a blockbuster—not to mention half a year—even if post-production took up one or two years, it would still be considered normal.

However, by He ChongFeng’s request, the premiere date of the movie had already been set since three months ago, it was going to be released on the 20th of March. Since two months ago, the movie had already entered its publicity period. Costume photos, film posters, as well as the theme song and the movie trailer had all been released to the public… With the prestige of He ChongFeng’s studio, they would never do something like leading the fans on, so the entire team worked overtime in order to meet the deadline, even the boss himself got to work. Otherwise, according to the original plan, this movie would only air in October.

Few fans would think about the pressure and efforts which took place behind the scenes. As He ChongFeng did a mass release of his works during this period of time, the fans were naturally overjoyed.

There was 《Seeking Survival on Wilderness Island》half a year ago, after that was 《The Rose that Blooms on Doomsday》, there was also 《Agent of War》that was scheduled to air soon and 《River Mountains》that was anticipated to screen in June… Compared to the past where Film Emperor He only released one movie per year—or perhaps as little as two movies every three years—the current release rate simply made the fans swoon from happiness.

And it didn’t end here.

According to certain credible sources, My Feng would shoot a special column in the new issue of International Celebrity List magazine!

As the world had entered an era of holo-technology, printed magazines and photos were quick to be eliminated from the industry. Most people now used the holographic internet platform. A few lucky entertainment magazines managed to remain because—one, the fans liked the retro feel and collected the magazines like one would collect antiques; and two , it was also a symbol of prestige. For example, 《Seeking Survival on Wilderness Island》had been published on paper specifically because of the latter reason.

However, when this news was released, the people who believed it could be counted on one hand.

The reason was, other than when he had first debuted, He ChongFeng had never done a shoot with a magazine, not even when he became No.9 of the purple list. He only posted a casual photo to commemorate the occasion.

In reality, however, He ChongFeng really was in a film studio right now, standing in front of the spotlight with his little newbie star.

“Very good. He-Laoshi, can you clench your hand just a little tighter to accentuate the joint? Yes, like that…”

“Maimai, lift your head up a little more…”

“Maimai, place your hand out more, so we can clearly see your wrist…”

The photographer was so excited, his voice flew a few octaves higher.

This issue would coincidentally be published on the tenth anniversary of the International Celebrity List magazine and the theme of the special topic was 《Crossing Over Time》. Originally, the plan was to invite an emerging star with a decent fanbase and a few veterans from the red and purple list to shoot a series of contrasting photos that expressed how the audience’s preferences had changed over the last ten years.

For the emerging star, the magazine had long set its heart on Gou Liang—he had risen to fame at an unprecedented speed and had both high popularity and publicity. As for the superstars, never had they imagined that they would be able to invite He ChongFeng! The person they had originally decided on was Cheng Bei, a red list artist who had been in the industry for nearly twenty years.

The magazine’s chief editor never would’ve thought that he would receive this kind of unexpected fortune after contacting Zhao Bin.

At this moment, Gou Liang and He ChongFeng were posing according to the photographer’s instructions.

A well-known veteran and a rising star of the new generation collided as they competed against each other. This first photo expressed that tension between them.

With both hands behind him and his back facing the air, Gou Liang leaned against a formless barrier. On the other side, He ChongFeng’s hand passed through the barrier and grabbed onto Gou Liang’s throat, forcing the other to raise his head upward. He ChongFeng’s face was lofty and cold as his mouth curled into a haughty smile that carried traces of disdain. Gou Liang faintly creased his brows, but on his face hung a provocative grin.

The second picture was an inheritance ceremony.

Both of their figures were faintly hunched, He ChongFeng bit onto the rose as he passed it over to Gou Liang, the two of them biting on the rose stem. When both of their gazes met for a brief moment, the former’s eyes were graceful and profound while the latter’s eyes were passionate and earnest.

The third photo was the collision of artists in the span of the last ten years.

He ChongFeng wore an evening suit, sitting on a sofa while cuffing his pants before languidly resting his hands on the armrest. Standing behind him, Gou Liang bit the other’s necktie and tugged at it. One of his hands undid He ChongFeng’s third button while the other impatiently slipped under He ChongFeng’s collar, pressing his clavicle. Just as the white wrist was about to delve deeper, the photo stopped at this moment.

The fourth picture…

When the magazine was published, they were snatched up in an instant. The fans were in a complete uproar!

“Ao, ao! So handsome!!”

“Even International Celebrity List had fallen. The main theme radiates bromance. I like it. Bwahaha!”

“My Feng and Maimai being so CP, do you all feel blinded yet?”

“My Feng is not a single dog anymore, everyone fill in your brain pits…”

“I don’t care. How can my husband be so handsome?!”

“Upstair, scram. My Feng is mine!”

“This is My Feng’s girlfriend passing by~”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

“Rb! P’w Zs Mfcu’r ybsoglfcv!”

“Qtja vbfr j ulgioglfcv mbeca jr? Zs Mfcu’r klof lr atf gfji qglhf!”

“Jjc rbwfbcf vlraglyeaf j mbqs ab wf? P mjwf ijaf jcv mbeivc’a ufa jcsatlcu, s’jii jgf abb asgjcclmji HCH!!”

“Ljtj, P rabif ws ybsoglfcv’r mbqs, bcf mbqs klii yf erfv obg ws mbiifmalbc jcv atf batfg klii yf erfv obg kbgrtlqqlcu. Bcffilcu jcv ilmxlcu~ Vb tjcvrbwf, jt, jt, jt!”

“Upstair, be careful when you go out at night! (▼皿▼#)”

“I hate you all!”

“Celebrity list isn’t printing anymore copies, this is a tragic tale…”

“Upstair, here’s a hug ~~o(>_<)o ~~”

……

However, the friends that didn’t manage to snatch a copy would soon receive their comfort.

March 20th.

The premiere of《Agent of War》officially launched!

At the premiere opening ceremony, the main leads and seven important supporting characters lined up with the director. According to the unwritten rules in the industry, the line-up order from the center out would be done according to the actors’ ranking on the artist list. Thus, there were two red list artists placed in between Gou Liang and He ChongFeng.

When the premiere started, the director was bombarded with questions as to why he had rushed to edit and release the movie, and if it would impact the quality of the finished film.

Director: “Our luck was very good this time. There was an engineer in our company who happened to like this film very much—and they were coincidentally on a break—so they did the special effects for Agent of War for a period of time, allowing us to release this to the public much sooner. Can you all guess who this person is? Everyone calls him the god of victory, oh~”

This was the answer given to him by He ChongFeng, the stockholder of WE. Naturally, he would believe this to be the truth.

Gou Liang looked over at the staff list, and on it was a special thanks to Editor ‘F’. He had the system check it and found out that this wasn’t the first time He ChongFeng had used this codename. In the past, he had even received the best editing prize under this name, it was just that he had a company representative go to receive the prize instead.

After this statement, any further questioning halted immediately.

The director then brought the focus to He ChongFeng but the reporters were more interested in his “mysterious girlfriend”. However, He ChongFeng’s reply remained simple and professional—

Reporter: “May I ask, He-Laoshi, is your girlfriend currently present at the premiere?”

He ChongFeng: “The movie ‘Agent of War’ talks about the future world, even if that future isn’t as beautiful as you imagined. No matter the script or the performances, the actors or the special holographic effects, they’re all excellent. Everyone can see the results for themselves in fifteen minutes.”

Reporter: “May I ask, He-Laoshi, is your girlfriend among the audience?”

He ChongFeng: “The role I played in this film is a forty-year-old middle-aged man with a wife and a child. I hope I will live up to everyone’s expectations.”

Reporter: “May I ask, He-Laoshi…”

He ChongFeng: “Apologies, but the three minutes for question and answer has already passed. It’s time for the other actors’ question and answer session.”

Seeing the reporters become sullen, the audience roared in laughter.

When it came to Gou Liang’s turn to be questioned, the reporters became fired up again.

Reporter: “Maimai, it’s said that you graduated from the Imperial Academy of Medicine, so why did you choose to become an artist?”

Gou Liang: “Eh, I haven’t explained this before? Of course it’s because I love my male god the most, la! I want to stand at the place where it’s closest to him and work with him.”

The reporter asked quick-wittedly: “I heard that Maimai and He-Laoshi are very close in private. Then, has Maimai met this mysterious girlfriend before?”

Gou Liang smiled: “Like you said, it’s something you’ve heard. He-Laoshi, do you think I’ve met your girlfriend before?”

Gou Liang turned around to look at He ChongFeng, the latter nodded his head: “If you said you have, then you did.”

There was a feeling of being drowned in honey, the heartbeat of the audience sped up along with them.

Gou Liang let out a sigh and said with a serious expression: “Dear media friends, could it be that all you care about is He-Laoshi’s girlfriend? Don’t you care about my performance in my debut work?”

The reporter accepted this well-intentioned change of topic.

The movie started, the bustling atmosphere quieted down with the darkening room.

It was an ordinary morning for the family of three. The male lead was sitting on the couch, listening to the weather report playing on the television, “…Today’s PM index is three times higher than yesterday’s. For friends who are going outside, it is recommended to wear SB038 heavy-duty purification masks in order to guarantee safety.”

The female lead placed the breakfast down and said: “Go wake up your daughter, she’s going to be late.”

Just as she said this, a little girl came skipping down the stairs and threw herself onto her father who was greeting her.

Before heading out of the door, the madam meticulously placed the mask model that was recommended in the weather report on her daughter and checked her watch which measured the quality of the air she was breathing. Meanwhile, the male lead had received a phone call. Just as he was about to hastily leave the house, he was stopped by the female lead. Her voice was muffled behind her mask as she said: “You forgot your gas mask again. So careless, no wonder the things in the store get stolen so often.”

The male lead smiled. After kissing his wife and child’s forehead through the masks, he turned and left, slowly putting on the mask that covered his matured but nevertheless handsome face.

The fans then understood why He ChongFeng said that this future wasn’t as beautiful as they imagined.

Not only was it not beautiful, it was a terrible world, a world that made them reflect.

After the credits finished rolling, a film enthusiast wrote a review:

Initially, I just wanted to watch a moving love story similar to Doomsday Rose. I even prepared a packet of tissues. In the end, all the tissues were used but it was not because of a tragic love nor was it because a favorite character had died, but because of a ruinous era.

The day after the premiere, Agent of War’s creative staff participated in an art comprehension livestream that was hosted by WE. To add more publicity to the movie, He ChongFeng also participated.

“Welcome to WE’s art comprehension stream that is live every Sunday. Good evening, everyone! Now, the fifty lucky audiences who had been chosen tonight, can we get some noise?”

“My Feng!”

“My Feng!!”

“Maimai!!”

“Good evening!”

“My Feng is this handsome! Maimai is this cute!”

The entire livestream was filled with excited screams one after another, accompanied by enthusiastic applause.

WE art comprehension started the holo livestream and switched out of spectator mode. Here, every audience felt as if they were watching from the scene. The program would choose fifty people from the audience to be the lucky participants every week, they would also start their audio bullet screen before the livestream started. But in order to ensure the quality of the livestream, the audience were asked to refrain from talking during certain intervals so as to not disturb the guests.

《Agent of War》had only been on screen for a few days, but it could rival the box office of 《The Rose that Blooms on Doomsday》. With the remarkable performances of the actors, the realistic holo effects, and the movie’s profound themes, the popularity of the movie grew by the day. Both professional movie critics and fans alike had nothing but praises from start to end and the box office of the movie had also slaughtered any movies that were aired at the same time.

This high level of popularity only continued to climb in the livestream. In just a few minutes, the view count in the stream had broken through a hundred million.

After the opening remarks, the host smiled and asked an incisive question.

“We are very lucky to have managed to invite He-Laoshi to our program today! Everyone knows that for his last movie, Doomsday Rose, he had never participated in any publicity for the movie other than during the premiere. He-Laoshi, can you tell everyone why that is so? What about ‘Agent of War’ made you pay more attention to it than ‘Doomsday Rose’?”

He ChongFeng: “During Doomsday Rose’s publicity period, I was filming a new movie, so my schedule didn’t allow me to participate. But of course, there is a point about ‘Agent of War’ that ‘Doomsday Rose’ cannot compare to.”

The host’s eyes instantly lit up, asking what it was.

He ChongFeng said with a cold and aloof face: “《Agent of War》was funded and titled by He ChongFeng Studio. Everyone, please do support it.”

The host laughed uncontrollably. “He-Laoshi, you are still as upright as ever, haha.”

After briefly going over the movie’s plot and introducing the main casts, the program entered the game segment.

Host: “Agent of War is a special agent drama. Working together to complete a task requires a high level of tacit understanding with each other. So today, in order to test everyone’s tacit understanding with one another, the staffs have especially prepared a game for all of you called ‘You’re Only Honest to Me’.”

For the game ‘You’re Only Honest to Me’, ten questions would be picked from the bullet screen in real time and the players would have to write the answer down on the board. This game was to test everyone’s understanding of each other.

The fun to this game, other than fan interactions, was naturally seeing how eccentric the questions could get.

Such as the first question: “Please describe My Feng’s girlfriend with a phrase!”

In face of this question, everyone showcased an unparalleled tacit understanding. A great half of the crew, including the director, all wrote on the board: [Haven’t seen before] or [I also want to know].

Only Gou Liang wrote: [Beautiful enough to break the sky ＾ｖ＾].

The host was delighted: “I’m sure everyone is impatient to see what the answer is. May He-Laoshi please show us your answer!”

He ChongFeng turned his fingers, revealing a meticulous handwriting that read: [Beautiful beyond compare].

The host clapped his hands and said with a sense of schadenfreude: “Maimai, as expected, you’re the only one on-site who has seen He-Laoshi’s girlfriend before. How unfortunate, when you walk out of this stream, you’re sure to be surrounded by the media friends! It’s better for you to quickly confess who He-Laoshi’s girlfriend is~”

The second question: “Everyone under the heaven knows Maimai likes My Feng. Then, does My Feng like Maimai?”

Board: [Like]

Gou Liang: [He loves me, heart~]

He ChongFeng: [Love]

The third question: “Exactly how rich is Maimai?”

Board: [No idea; probably very, very rich!]

Gou Liang: [I’ve never counted]

He ChongFeng: [It’s not important]

After answering ten questions of similar intensity, undoubtedly, the game had turned into a big competition of testing Gou Liang’s and He ChongFeng’s tacit understanding. The host kept it going and even added an additional question, asking the two of them to answer at the same time.

The host randomly chose a question from the bullet screen and read aloud: “Can My Feng and Maimai guess the underwear color that the other is wearing today…? Hahaha, is it because my hand’s too lucky or is it because the friends in the bullet chat have all dropped their morals? I like this question. He-Laoshi, Maimai, please give your answer.”

Answers written on the board↓

Gou Liang: [Black]

He ChongFeng: [White]

The host hyped things along and even had the director help confirm the authenticity of the answers. In the end, it was once again proven that they indeed had ‘ample tacit understanding’.

It was only a long time later that the host and fans would realize just how naive they had been back then. But at this moment, the game continued on merrily.

Host: “I’m sure everyone knows that an actor is highly required to memorize scripts. I heard that He-Laoshi’s memory is extraordinary that you can remember everything that’s been said once. Incidentally, a host also needs a good memory. So today, under tremendous pressure, the host, He-Laoshi, and the staff from Agent of War will have a live PK. The content is reciting books—Oh, the winner will have to grant a wish of one of the lucky participants. Haha, Director, we are indeed related!”

The host passionately blew a kiss towards the director’s direction.

The bullet screen blew up with laughter as they became filled with expectations.

They thought that My Feng would win and had already started to prepare their wishes, but unexpectedly, it was a stalemate between He ChongFeng and Gou Liang in the end. The two finished memorizing at the same time and started reciting at the same time. They even spoke in unison.

“Eating grapes and not spitting out the grape skin…”

“Black fertilizer, gray fertilizer…”

“Once upon a time there was a mountain, in the mountain lived an old monk…”

In the end, Gou Liang glared with his peach blossom eyes, trying to use his murderous eyes to prevail over the other. He ChongFeng silently looked at him. The two of them wordlessly faced off for a moment and at last, it was Gou Liang who couldn’t hold back and broke out into a smile.

“Male God, Male God, I admit defeat.”

But then He ChongFeng said: “You’re too modest. You won.”

Film Emperor He himself had spoken, who dared to refute? Coincidentally, the lucky participant who was chosen happened to be Gou Liang’s fan. She excitedly asked him: “Maimai, I want to hear you sing a song on scene. Could you please sing My Feng’s song, 《Drunk in Jianghu》?”

Gou Liang grinned broadly. “Lass, I applaud your courage.”

《Drunk in Jianghu》was the theme song of a movie and was one of the few songs written by He ChongFeng. The song had continued to be extremely popular after its release.

The host and fans all covered their ears. Gou Liang tossed He ChongFeng a look and opened his mouth to sing: “Lying drunk in the nine provinces, hating the mountains and sea, the district of JiangHai is colorless, the water reflecting no scars…”

He ChongFeng’s mellow and rich voice began to play. Gou Liang, with a face full of deep emotions, pretended to be Film Emperor He as he lip synced along. The audience was stupefied. But abruptly, there was a period of silence. Gou Liang looked back and furiously glared at He ChongFeng who had suddenly gone on strike without warning. Gou Liang had no choice but to grudgingly continue on—

“My heart faintly, the Jianghu don’t forget, can’t forget Du Kang—”

“Ying.”

“Spicy ear!!”

“Begging you, please don’t sing anymore…”

“Hahaha!”

The broadcast room, after listening to this graceful singing, was about to go crazy.