Chapter 204
When Cui Yujie heard Zhang Min's ridiculous words, her first reaction was: "Impossible! Absolutely impossible! How could Jiang Ning be Ning Meng? Last year, "Wuxia" magazine said that Ning Meng was admitted to Peking University..." Her voice gradually weakened.
Zhang Min said: "Yes, didn't Jiang Ning enter Peking University last year?"
The girls looked at each other, shocked by this guess, but the more they thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed!
Especially, Jiang Ning's name contains the word "Ning", and Ning Meng's name also contains the word "Ning". Although there may not necessarily be any connection between the real name and the pen name, this is really too much of a coincidence.
Previously, some readers of Kyoto University focused their attention on the students of the Class of 1997 who were admitted to Kyoto University last year, so they couldn’t find Ning Meng. But what if Ning Meng was not a student of the Class of 1997, but of the Class of 1998?
This possibility made Cui Yujie feel unwell. She said with an unpleasant expression, "Can you guys stop being so ridiculous! Ning Meng... How could Ning Meng be Jiang Ning?"
She couldn't help but raise her voice a little. Students from other departments behind her heard it and came over to ask, "What are you talking about? Ning Meng is Jiang Ning?"
Although Jiang Ning is somewhat famous among the sophomores, not everyone knows her. Many people don't pay attention to other people's affairs and only focus on their own studies and growth.
But not knowing Jiang Ning doesn’t mean they don’t know Ning Meng.
In the eyes of this generation of young people, Ning Meng, like Jin Yong and Gu Long, is the youth that their generation is experiencing.
Zhang Min and the others then realized that their whispering had affected the people watching TV around them. They apologized embarrassedly and turned around to watch TV seriously.
The director team of "White Snake" was willing to spend 10,000 yuan in publicity fees to invite Jiang Bai to Beijing to participate in the Wanhua Film Festival. This was because after evaluating several shortlisted films, they felt that they were not strong enough in vying for the three important awards of "Best Actor", "Best Actress" and "Best Supporting Actor". Therefore, they used all the public relations expenses to help Jiang Bai win the award of "Most Popular Actor among Audiences".
Because the leading actors and actresses of several other nominated films, including supporting actors, are all veteran actors with a certain degree of fame. These people not only have acting skills, but also backgrounds. They themselves have a certain influence and power in the Beijing circle and the film circle. For example, the two who won the Best Actor and Best Actress awards. Although "White Snake" is leading the box office, the leading actress is a pure newcomer from the film academy. Jiang Bai was nominated for the "Best Supporting Actor" because of the high box office of "White Snake" and Jiang Bai's high popularity.
Sometimes, whether a movie can win an award is not just a matter of acting. The various complicated relationships behind it are all factors that affect the award.
What's more, Jiang Bo and the female lead don't have as good acting skills as those veteran actors.
"White Snake" is a movie with a box office of over 40 million this year. After the award ceremony of the Wanhua Film Festival, most of the filmmakers present, except for some big names, did not rush to leave. Those who had the intention of cooperation took this opportunity to find the people they wanted to cooperate with and make friends.
Almost all of them have seen the movie "White Snake". As insiders, they have seen the movie in more detail and naturally know that Jiang Ning, who walked the red carpet with the "White Snake" crew, is not an actor in the movie "White Snake". They couldn't help but ask about Jiang Ning's identity curiously. After learning that she was the author of the original novel of "White Snake", many people who knew Jiang Ning also extended olive branches to Jiang Ning and asked about her next work.
If businessmen are superstitious, then people in the entertainment industry are even more superstitious.
Jiang Ning has only written three works so far. The first adaptation had a viewership rating of 54%, which is at the top of the viewership pyramid. It also made the heroine of the show famous.
If this work also took away the fame of "Justice Bao", then the movie "White Snake" made real money. Together with the third work "The Commander of the Imperial Guards", the ratings exceeded 10 as soon as it was released on National Day, and it continued to rise afterwards. The current ratings have reached 30%. Although it cannot catch up with the highest ratings of more than 50% of this year's phenomenal TV series "Happy Little Swallow", among the TV series in recent years, this rating is already a hit.
I heard that the movie version is also being filmed and will hopefully be released during this year's Lunar New Year holiday.
Not to mention the high box office and ratings of the TV series and movies of each of her works, even the physical books of each of her works have sold millions of copies. The sales of "The Great Song" are almost over 10 million. She also has the feat of directly bringing a magazine to fame with one of her works. In the eyes of many filmmakers, producers, and investors, Jiang Ning is destined to be famous. After hearing that she is Ning Meng, they all handed her their business cards, asked for her contact information, and asked her about her next work, wanting to buy the film and television rights of her next work in advance.
When they learned that the film copyright of "The Song Dynasty" and the TV copyright of "White Snake" were still available, some interested parties told Jiang Ning on the spot that they wanted to talk to her about the film copyright and TV copyright of these two works.
It's really that the subject of "White Snake" has great potential for development. There are currently two movies and one TV series on this theme, all of which are classics. If another fantasy film with "White Snake" as the theme is made, with the huge readership of "The Years I Was a White Snake Cultivating Immortality" and the influence of the movie "White Snake", the TV series version of "White Snake Cultivating Immortality" can be said to be popular before it is broadcast, and there is no need to worry about the ratings.
Similarly, the work "The Song Dynasty Constable" is also very promising. It can be made into a series of movies like "Young and Dangerous". "Young and Dangerous" was a huge hit, and the third part has been filmed now. It is estimated that there will be four, five, six or seven more parts in the future.
Even its TV series copyrights can be re-adapted and remade, just like the various versions of "The Return of the Condor Heroes" and "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" have been remade several times, and there is still a huge audience group willing to pay for this work.
More than one person at the scene expressed interest in the copyright of these two works. Jiang Ning naturally did not refuse and even called Jiang Bai and Tong Jingang over to introduce them to the director and producer on the scene.
They were not very interested in Tong Jingang, but were very interested in Jiang Bai, who played the second male lead in "The King's Guards" and won the "Most Popular Actor" award at the Wanhua Awards for his super high popularity.
Popularity is sometimes the guarantee of a drama's ratings. The audience likes Jiang Bai so much. If they invite Jiang Bai to film a drama, then they don't have to worry about the basic ratings and box office. The rest depends on the quality of the TV series or movie itself.
Although they were not interested in Tong Jingang, Jiang Bai and Jiang Ning both valued Tong Jingang very much and said that anything they could do in cooperation could be handed over to Tong Jingang. Tong Jingang was originally thick-skinned and a big shot in the community. When Jiang Bai first started playing supporting roles, it was he who negotiated for many supporting roles, and then got both of them to play supporting roles. Now both parties are willing to cooperate, and they get along very well and hit it off.
By the time the Wanhua Film Festival was over, Jiang Ning and Tong Jingang had been stuffed with half a box of business cards, and half a box of business cards that Tong Jingang had printed had also been distributed. Many people had memorized Jiang Ning's contact information.
Zhang Min and the others returned to the dormitory with mixed feelings. They all wanted to wait for Jiang Ning to come back and ask her if she was Ning Meng.
Especially Zhang Min and Cui Yujie.
Cui Yujie has a heart for literature and art. She loves to write poetry, recite and read novels. She is also a loyal reader of Lemon Tree and has read every novel.
Zhang Min simply felt that it was an honor to know Ning Meng, and she also thought that it would be a very fashionable act if she could get an autographed photo from Jiang Bo.
Liu Yan and Yu Qianqian were fine. Before entering Peking University, they had only seen the name "Ning Meng" on the posters in the bookstore at the school gate. But they were focused on studying at that time and had never read Ning Meng's books. They really started to know Ning Meng after they came to Peking University. The movie "White Snake" was shown in their auditorium several times. It would be a waste not to watch free movies, so they had watched free movies, and then they slowly came into contact with Ning Meng's two works "The Imperial Guards" and "White Snake Cultivation".
They all thought Jiang Ning would go back to the dormitory at night, but they didn't expect Jiang Ning to not come back at all.
It was already nine o'clock when Jiang Ning and the others left the award ceremony. The White Snake crew and investors held a party and invited all the main creative team and actors who came to the scene today to attend the celebration banquet.
Such a celebration banquet had been held once before when the box office of the movie reached 40 million, but Jiang Bai and Jiang Ning were not there at that time. This time it was a celebration banquet to celebrate the movie winning the "Best Picture Award" and Jiang Bai winning the "Most Popular Award".
The place they originally decided to go was a nightclub. Tong Jingang really wanted to go and see it, but Jiang Ning was afraid that going there might lead her brother astray. Jiang Bai was afraid that kind of place was not suitable for his sister. Both the brother and sister said that they were tired after a day and wanted to go back and rest.
Jiang Bai is one of the protagonists today, and Jiang Ning is also an author they want to work with in the future, so how can they not go?
The investors who had not considered whether they were suitable or not, and only considered whether they liked them or not, saw that the siblings were unwilling to go, and said, "Why don't we go to the nightclub and sing at the karaoke bar?"
"Go, go, go to the gold cabinet!"
Since we can't go to any indecent places, we can only go to places where people sing seriously. In this era, the first choice for young people to go to serious singing places is Jingui.
Several investors were young second-generation investors, and each of them was holding this year's hottest mobile phones. They immediately called Jingui to book a large private room, and asked the manager there to send a lot of fruits and snacks into the room.
Jiang Bo and Tong Jingang had never been to even the most formal KTV these days. Looking at the magnificently decorated and brightly lit KTV, the two country bumpkins who had never seen the world felt that their eyes were not enough to see enough.
Jiang Bai was actually fine. He was mainly curious about the decoration here which seemed like two different worlds from his hometown. Tong Jingang, on the other hand, was itching to try it out.
As a trend-setter of this era, Tong Jingang has long been interested in places like dance halls, Internet cafes, karaoke bars, and bars, and wants to see the world.
But his good brother Jiang Bai is a real bumpkin. Not only does he have no interest in these places, he even thinks they are bad places that no decent person should go to. He frowns whenever they are mentioned and thinks such places are a waste of life and time and have no meaning at all.
When Tong Jingang saw that his good friend was not going, he thought there was no point in going alone, so he did not go either.
Today I finally get to see the world!
Jiang Bai just refused to go to such an indecent place, and was also very curious about such a place that was purely for singing. He walked and looked around, and when he entered the box, there were already two waiters waiting inside. The two large coffee tables were filled with exquisitely arranged fruit plates, various snacks, ice cream balls, etc., and they asked them what they wanted to drink.
When Jiang Ning said she wanted some tea, the investors waved their hands and said, "What tea? We're in a good mood today. Bring me some wine. Beer, foreign liquor, red wine, all for me!" They pulled Jiang Bo and said to Jiang Ning, "Today we are here to celebrate the award of our film White Snake, and also to celebrate your brother's award. Don't spoil the fun. Don't worry, no matter how much you drink or whether you get drunk or not, I will take care to send you home. If you have curfew and can't go home too late, that's okay!" They called the nearest hotel and booked rooms for everyone present, saying, "Now you can drink as much as you want!"
The investors booked the largest private room. They were originally happy today and wanted to spend more money in the evening, but who knew that they would not go to the nightclub and save money for him.
The movie "White Snake", excluding the publicity and distribution and the share given to the theaters, also earned several hundred million yuan between investors and Director Yu. In 1998, that was several hundred million yuan, not to mention the subsequent continuous income from copyrights and peripheral income from discs. It won another award today, which shows that it is very wealthy.
They were really happy too. They turned up the music in the box to the maximum. The colorful flashing light balls above started to spin. They started singing first, howling with great pleasure. They were young and had a carefree nature. They must have been to nightclubs and dance halls quite often. Not only did they lead the singing, they also danced in the disco style, singing and dancing, and invited Jiang Ning and the female lead to come and dance with them.
They mainly wanted to ask the female lead and Jiang Ning to dance with them. The female lead was just a student who had not yet graduated from the Film Academy and had never experienced such a scene. Seeing that Jiang Ning was very calm from beginning to end and refused with a smile, she followed Jiang Ning, eating fruits and drinking tea, and following Jiang Ning in everything.
She didn't dare to refuse the producer and investor, but Jiang Ning was very straightforward and refused without any ambiguity.
They were not angry. Seeing that they did not want to dance, they invited the female lead and Jiang Ning to sing. The female lead's microphone was handed to her enthusiastically. As she sang well, she refused and took the microphone to sang a song which was very popular at that time, "Sweet Honey". This song was a street song that everyone could sing in that era and it was almost a must-have song for long karaoke sessions.
After the female lead finished singing, they started to urge Jiang Ning to sing.
But they dared to put the microphone in the female lead's mouth and let her sing. When they saw Jiang Ning's smiling eyes that looked like the dean's, they didn't dare to be presumptuous anymore. They restrained themselves and called out to Jiang Ning: "Teacher Ning Meng, don't just sit there and drink tea, sing a song too."
Jiang Ning certainly wouldn't spoil the fun, but she still said something ugly up front, "Of course I have no problem singing, but I have to tell you in advance, other people sing for money, but I sing for my life."
Everyone in the box burst into laughter at this sentence, and no one believed it.
Jiang Ning's makeup and appearance today are really beautiful and fashionable. No one would believe that such a cool and beautiful beauty can't sing?
Because these second-generation actors came from wealthy families and made money by investing in movies, they actually didn't take student actors like Jiang Ning and Jiang Bo seriously. The reason they were relatively restrained in front of Jiang Ning, gave her face, did not cross the line in their behavior, and were respectful to them in their words and deeds was that they just wanted to continue cooperating with Jiang Ning and make money.
Since they wanted to hear Jiang Ning sing, Jiang Ning was not shy at all. Not only did she sang herself, she also invited Jiang Bai to sing with her.
Jiang Bai had been sitting quietly in the corner, watching the investors and producers howling loudly. When Jiang Ning called him, he waved his hands and said, "No, no, I can't sing."
Jiang Ning used the microphone to tell the waiter who was serving at the song request counter in the private room, "Play 'Returning Home.'"
Speaking of the most popular songs in KTV right now, apart from several theme songs of the movie "Little Swallow" which was just released this year, Cantonese songs like "Only Hard Work Can Win" from Hong Kong and Hong Kong Island, there is also the theme song of "The Return of the Condor Heroes" which was a hit last year.
When the investor heard that Jiang Ning had chosen this song, he shouted, "How can I sing this song with my brother? I'll sing it with you, I'll sing it with you!"
Jiang Ning smiled and said, "You also know that my brother is shy. If I don't lead him to sing, he might not open his mouth all night. There are more songs to come. I will lead my brother to sing this song first. If anyone wants to sing with me later, I will accompany him."
As soon as these straightforward words came out, no one wanted to argue with Jiang Bai anymore, and the microphone was given to Jiang Bai, one of today's protagonists.
After The Return of the Condor Heroes became a huge hit, "Return" was played on speakers in every street and alley. Jiang Bai had also seen The Return of the Condor Heroes, so he was naturally familiar with this song. After hearing this familiar melody, he took the microphone with the encouragement of Jiang Ning.
In the box that was bustling just a moment ago, only the colorful light balls were still spinning and the music was flowing. Everyone unconsciously stopped their previous unbridled body twisting behavior and waited for Jiang Bai and Jiang Ning to speak.
They only heard Jiang Ning sing the first line calmly: "This time I really decided to leave..."
Everyone who was originally full of expectations was stunned by the first sentence.
If the opening credits of The Return of the Condor Heroes were not still playing on TV and the familiar and beautiful melody was not ringing in their ears, they would not have recognized every word that appeared on the TV. They really could not have heard that the song was "Return".
They were all extremely shocked as they looked at Jiang Ning who was still singing the lyrics calmly.
Every word she sang was correct, except that not a single one was in tune, as if the lyrics and melody were completely separated and recreated.
They almost couldn't resist the urge to run out of the door, but they held back their words and listened to her finish singing the first verse.
The second part is Jiang Bai’s male voice.
With Jiang Ning's singing as a foundation, they thought that no matter how bad Jiang Bai was at singing, his singing couldn't be worse than Jiang Ning's, right?
As soon as Jiang Bai opened his mouth, wow, these two are indeed siblings, they really are singing their own songs, with different lyrics and tunes, it cannot be said to be exactly the same, it can only be said to be completely unrelated, once the lyrics and music are turned off, it is almost impossible to tell that this is the theme song of "The Return of the Condor Heroes" which was popular all over the country last year.
But the brother and sister seemed to be completely unaware that their singing was completely out of tune. It was as if they had not only sang it off, but had created it from scratch. Both of them sat on the sofa, holding the microphone, and sang the entire song seriously.
After the brother and sister finished singing, the KTV box became completely quiet.
When they first entered the box, the atmosphere was very lively, but the song sung by the brother and sister immediately cooled it down.
The investor who had said before that he wanted to sing a love song with Jiang Ning took a new microphone and objectively commented: "Teacher Ning Meng is really not modest at all!"
Everyone in the box burst into laughter.
After Jiang Ning finished singing, she smiled and asked the investor who had just said he wanted to sing with her: "Boss Wang, do you still want to sing with me?"
The young investor, who was called Boss Wang, looked at Jiang Ning, who was smiling sweetly, and his mind was confused. He immediately said with great interest: "Sing!" He said to the waiter at the song request station: "Give us a song called "Dang"."
"Dang" is the theme song of this year's hit TV series "Little Swallow". It has a pleasant melody, a distinct rhythm, and catchy lyrics. It can be said to be the most popular song this year. Even the children on the street can sing a few lines of "Let us live freely with the world as our companion"!
It's really not easy to sing this song out of tune.
He had really taken a lot of trouble to choose this song. He wanted to teach Jiang Ning how to sing and bring her back to the right tune. But in the end, not only could he not bring Jiang Ning back to the tune that had led her to Siberia, he himself was so out of tune that he couldn't come back. After the song was finished, he began to doubt his life. He couldn't believe that he had been led so out of tune that he couldn't even find his way back.
I was confused while singing.
After that, no one encouraged Jiang Ning and Jiang Bai to sing again.
If you don't want to sing, you can do something else.
Because of the popularity of the movie "God of Gamblers" in the past few years, movies about "God of Gamblers" are very popular in this era, and it has also brought about a trend of playing dice in places like KTV. Those who like to play are proud of shaking out numbers like leopards and pillars.
It doesn’t matter that Jiang Ning and Jiang Bai can’t sing. There are so many people in the box, but there are only two or three microphones. Most of them can’t sing anyway, so why don’t they all play dice? The loser has to drink!
People who come here to play are automatically drawn into the lively atmosphere once the place becomes lively. Besides, it is not a nightclub. Actors and screenwriters, including those who played Xu Xian and Fahai, all come over eagerly. They gather around one of the coffee tables and play the game of "bragging" by rolling dice.
The female lead was asked to sing because of her good singing.
Considering that Jiang Ning, Jiang Bo, Tong Jingang and other college students were playing this game for the first time and didn't know how to play it, the investor came over eagerly to explain the rules of the game to Jiang Ning and others and teach them how to play.
The game is actually very simple. It's just about shaking the dice and bragging. There is no tax on bragging. It depends on whether you believe the other party's lies and bragging. This not only tests everyone's ability to shake the dice, but also tests their psychological quality, observation ability and calculation ability.
After Jiang Ning and Jiang Bai, the three newbies, heard the rules of shaking the dice, they looked at the smiling investors who were eager to get them drunk, and they all agreed with a smile.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
