Back at the company, Ye Ying asked Ji Yan about Ji Yu speaking up for him, and Ji Yan simply replied, "He's sick."
Ji Yan felt that Ji Yushi was not only sick, but possibly quite seriously ill.
As life gradually calmed down, Ji Yan couldn't help but feel irritated whenever he thought of Ji Yu's name. The other person was like a groundhog, impossible to get rid of, and would occasionally jump around in front of him.
"Teacher Ji, calm down." Fang Yu tossed an apple over. "Wash it for me, thank you."
Ji Yan: "?"
Ji Yan considers himself a guardian of world peace, but Fang Yu always provokes his desire to fight. The two sparred for a while using the Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms and Iron Head Kung Fu, but were eventually stopped by the Sweeper Monk Xie Mingxuan, who gave each of them a box of washed strawberries.
"So sweet!" Ji Yan narrowed his eyes. "Thank you, Teacher Xie. I've never said thank you in my life."
"Thank you, Lao Xie!" Fang Yu blew Xie Mingxuan a kiss.
“…You guys can be even lazier.” Lu Wei was speechless. He felt that Xie Mingxuan treated Ji Yan and Fang Yu like children, without any authority as a team leader.
However, Xie Mingxuan is usually casual, except when he is writing or practicing songs. Ji Yan and Fang Yu are most afraid of him at these times.
It was rare that none of the four of them had work, so they could get together and chat. Lu Wei pulled out a chessboard from somewhere, and the group played a few rounds. As they played, they got sleepy and started watching cartoons. Ji Yan was getting drowsy when he opened his eyes and found that Fang Yu and the others were also sleeping soundly.
I always feel like time flies by on my days off; it's over in the blink of an eye.
Ji Yan is currently working on new songs. They plan to finish writing the songs for their new album by the end of the year, but the pressure can't be placed solely on Xie Mingxuan, even though he has always been the most focused on his music career within the group.
Songwriting is still a major headache for Ji Yan, but he has read many books recommended by Ning Wei, and the two of them often communicate using rabbits and pandas. Under such influence, Ji Yan always manages to learn something.
He first sent Ning Wei a panda hula hoop emoji, and she replied with a confused rabbit emoji after a long time.
"Blue" is not in City A recently; their tour has recently moved to City K. During their tour, "Blue" usually doesn't take on other work; they just go wherever they perform and have a great time.
After sending the emoji, Ning Wei quickly sent Ji Yan a new picture, which was a photo of them crossing the cable car. In the background was probably Duan Yiran, who was screaming and groaning in fear on the cable car, her face contorted in pain, completely unlike her dashing appearance at the concert.
Ji Yan: "...What about my teammates' love?"
Ning Wei expressed his love by sending Duan Yiran an even uglier photo of them together than the previous one.
— "Blue" is a band, so there is no such thing as the visual center or vocal center of a typical idol group. Duan Yiran calls himself the visual center of "Blue" and is responsible for showing off in the band. Concerts give him enough opportunities to show off. Even though lead singer Ning Wei is the core of "Blue", Duan Yiran and Du Jian's brilliance is not overshadowed.
A few minutes later, Duan Yiran appeared in the WeChat group chat and frantically tagged Ning Wei: "Did you post my ugly picture?"
Ning Wei chose to remain silent.
"Don't think I don't know what you've done just because you're not saying anything!"
The entire Wings: "..."
Just watching the show.
Originally, only Ning Wei had joined the group. After Yi attended the "Blue" concert, Duan Yiran strongly requested that he and Du Jian also join. After spending time together, Ji Yan and the others discovered that Duan Yiran had a very silly and goofy personality.
Duan Yiran silently demonstrated Ning Wei's photography skills—
In more than ten photos, everyone's face is blurry, and not a single clear picture can be found. That's not all, but he was able to make Duan Yiran, who was climbing the mountain, look like she was teleporting.
The "Wings" group: "..."
As die-hard fans of "Blue," the group couldn't help but recall a report they had seen a few years ago about "Blue." The reporter devoted a lot of space to describing how Ning Wei and the others didn't like using electronic devices and rarely posted selfies on Weibo.
In summary, "blue" is understated and simple, showcasing a completely different temperament from other celebrities.
Looking back now, with this technology, it really would have been difficult to release it.
Ji Yan and the others envied the lifestyle of "Blue," but they still had a long way to go to reach "Blue's" level. However, they always had a strange confidence in themselves, feeling that one day they could be like that too.
...
After April, Ji Yan became busy. The production of "Youthful Love Poems" was completed, and the tentative title "Youthful Love Poems" was also finalized. It is said that Zhu Shuguang once thought of changing the film title to "The Person Who Looks Up at the Stars," but later felt that it was too cumbersome and that "Youthful Love Poems" was more concise.
As the lead actor, Ji Yan naturally couldn't miss out on the film's promotional activities.
In mid-April, "Young Love Poems" announced its release date as May 26, avoiding the fiercely competitive May Day holiday period and also avoiding the highly anticipated summer holiday season.
The only problem is that during this promotional period, big-budget films are spending too much money on marketing and distribution. Since early April, Weibo's trending topics have been continuously promoting various blockbusters that will be released during the May Day and summer holidays, and film bloggers have also prepared viewing lists for movie fans in advance.
TV stations, video websites, street screens... Even if Ji Yan doesn't deliberately pay attention to which movies are showing during peak seasons, if he goes to the cinema, he will definitely choose one of these movies.
In contrast, the promotion of "Youthful Love Poems" was practically nonexistent.
Despite Zhu Shuguang's renowned reputation in the industry and the recent popularity of the lead actor Ji Yan, a film with a budget of only tens of millions of yuan is destined to struggle to survive amidst the onslaught of blockbusters. Moreover, the industry is well aware of Zhu Shuguang's previous films, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to describe them as somewhat obscure.
Film bloggers might mention "Young Love Poems" when promoting new films in May, but they usually just briefly mention who directed and starred in it. While Ji Yan is quite popular among young fans, the industry has tried casting popular idols in leading roles before, but the power of fans alone cannot salvage the idols' poor acting skills. Coupled with the film's inherently poor quality, the film suffered a dismal failure at the box office and with critics.
Of course, more importantly, "Young Love Poems" did not have enough marketing budget.
The film was able to be completed entirely thanks to producer Lu Yu's personal abilities, as well as Zhu Shuguang's reputation built up over many years of directing in the industry.
Ji Yan's first Weibo post of the month was a promotional poster for "Youthful Love Poems".
The poster is beautifully photographed, perfectly showcasing photographer Su Pan's years of shooting skills—there are no people on the poster, only a vast and magnificent starry sky, the sky is extremely high and dark, with only the stars shining brightly.
Under this starry sky, everyone feels their own insignificance, as if humans are not living beings on this planet, while the starry sky is eternal.
Ji Yan felt that if Gu Shan's thoughts could roam freely in such a starry sky every day, his love for stars wouldn't seem so bad anymore.
"Is 'Young Love Poems' going to be released?"
"Looking forward to Teacher Ji's new film. Judging from the film, it has a dreamy and romantic style, an unconventional type."
"Zhu Shuguang + Qin Zhen + Su Pan, an unbeatable combination for art films. I'm very curious to see how Teacher Ji performs in 'Young Love Poems'."
+10086.
Fans wrote down the title and release date of "Youthful Love Poems." Although most fans are not interested in art films, they were happy to contribute a movie ticket for Ji Yan.
Of course, Ji Yan's promotion only brought some attention to the movie "Youthful Love Poems" among fans.
Throughout May, the film market's attention was dominated by two high-budget productions: the overseas blockbuster "Blade Hunter" and the domestic action film "The Old Nest." Both films were well-made and quite attractive even from their trailers alone.
...
On the first weekend of May, the crew of "Young Love Poems" started offline promotional activities for the film. This was also the first time Ji Yan met with Zhu Shuguang after the film wrapped up.
Zhu Shuguang's face was usually stiff, but it was much better than during filming. He was well-informed and had heard that Ji Yan had gone to help Chu Yunquan, and he also knew that Ji Yan was introduced by Li Xiang.
Ji Yan blinked: "Director, you're so well-informed?"
"Chu Yunquan said it himself, and he even said he would come to support 'Youthful Love Poems'." Zhu Shuguang snorted, "He's just trying to fool me. He's filming that crappy drama every day until his butt is on fire, and he still has time to come and support me."
Ji Yan: "..."
He discovered that the old man needed everyone to coax him; if anyone didn't, he would grumble and grumble.
The "Youthful Love Poems" event was held at a cinema in City A. This cinema frequently participates in marketing activities for various art films. Zhu Shuguang's previous film was also promoted here. At a time when "Blade Hunter" and "Old Nest" dominate the mainstream media, the cinema's promotional posters mainly feature art films released within the past year.
Ji Yan looked around and realized that he hadn't seen many of the movies, but he had heard of their titles. Almost all of them were typical low-budget films that were critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful.
"Ji Yan!"
"Brother He!"
Ji Yan smiled and bumped fists with He Qing: "Long time no see."
He and He Qing hadn't seen each other since filming "Young Love Poems". He Qing had a lot of film and television offers, and at the beginning of this year, he joined a period drama crew. Ji Yan saw that the location seemed to be in the desert. During that time, He Qing posted on his WeChat Moments every day that he was eating sand.
“My life is quite ordinary, but yours is quite lively,” He Qing remarked. “It’s a pity that the signal is bad where I’m filming, so I can’t keep up with the latest gossip.”
He Qing had worked with Wen Xiang once by chance and knew his style quite well. As soon as the collaboration ended, He Qing repeatedly told his agent to put Wen Xiang on a blacklist that he would never work with again.
He Qing never imagined that Wen Xiang would cause trouble when filming low-budget idol dramas, and those idol dramas were begging him to film them, but he actually dared to act like a big shot on Chu Yunquan's set. He Qing looked at the cast list of that drama, and it's no exaggeration to say that He Qing would be happy to work for free on the set.
He Qing was genuinely envious of Ji Yan. Ji Yan's acting resume was very short, with only three works. But if you look at the cast of those three works, Li Xiang, Zhu Shuguang, and Chu Yunquan, aren't they all top-tier actors?
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