Chapter 18 Xu Zecheng is used to gain face.
Sun Ziyi nodded and said, "Teacher Li, please go ahead."
The planner next to Li Bei took out several printed scripts and distributed them, and also handed one to Sun Ziyi. Sun Ziyi opened it and found places marked with markers of various colors.
Obviously, this is a piece of content that has been marked by someone, and a small star has been drawn in the blank space of the title.
Sun Ziyi suddenly remembered that when she and Youyou met at the Tuanjiehu Coffee Shop, Youyou would draw stars on the napkin when she was nervous during the conversation.
She was lost in thought, and Li Bei knocked on the table. "Teacher Sun, can we start?"
Sun Ziyi quickly came to his senses, opened the pen cap, and said, "Okay, okay."
"Then let's get started."
Sun Ziyi seemed to have a God's perspective today. She felt like a patrolling God. Her body was sitting here, but her soul was floating in the air, staring at everyone's motives. Everyone was sitting here holding a meeting with a known purpose.
She remembered that every meeting in the past always had a planner with a laptop or pad to take notes. But this time, no one except her brought a laptop, and every planner held a document. From time to time, someone would look up at her. Having auditioned with others before, she knew that the look was a hint of pity, as if they were coldly examining her.
This means that whether the meeting goes well or badly, there will be one unchanging answer.
Li Bei took out a ballpoint pen and compared them with her one by one. "In the first scene, the heroine was dancing alone in the living room late at night."
Sun Ziyi nodded and waited for him to continue.
"Our planner believes that the message we can extract from this scene is that although this woman is very strong and independent outside and doesn't like to communicate with others, she loves to dance jazz at home, which shows that she is a woman who loves music."
"Yes, character design." Sun Ziyi picked up a pen beside her and made a mark, but found that the pen was out of ink. However, she pretended to have ink and continued writing seriously.
Li Bei saw it all. He paused awkwardly for three seconds and then said, "Then let's watch the tenth game."
Everyone in the conference room flipped through the pages until the tenth one. The sound of flipping papers reminded Sun Ziyi of the time when she was a child watching a play in which people were chopping reeds with a guillotine. She was wondering at the time, isn't a guillotine used to chop prisoners?
Did those reeds, after being chopped, become paper? Her thoughts were so wild that she couldn't help but roll up the paper in her hand to see if she could roll it back into a reed.
"The tenth scene depicts Mai Bai's father coming to her during lunch break, urging her to get married. Mai Bai says she can live well without getting married. Her father says that if she doesn't get married, no one will take care of her when she's old. Mai Bai says then she'll go to a nursing home. The two part ways unhappily. Mai Bai feels bad, and when she returns to the company, an employee tells her that she's pregnant. Mai Bai, who has always been 'ruthless', actually accepts her employee's request for five months of maternity leave," said Li Bei.
Sun Ziyi looked up blankly, the image of the guillotine chopping reeds still in her mind. She asked Li Bei, "What's going on?"
Planner Sihang knocked on the table, and Sun Ziyi awkwardly turned his gaze from Li Bei to Sihang.
Sihang cleared his throat and said, "It's like this, Mr. Sun. We feel that the transformation of the heroine in the first episode is a bit too fast."
Sun Ziyi suddenly realized she had to defend herself. She whispered, "This is just a setup. A simple plot doesn't really count as the heroine's transformation."
Sihang didn't argue with her and directly proposed a revision plan. "Here's what we're thinking. Listen, it's Mai Bai who refused to allow her to take maternity leave, feeling that this was looking for trouble and would affect the team's future advancement. After five episodes, we'll reshape Mai Bai's character and allow her to grow from an unsympathetic person to one with a warm and compassionate heart."
Sun Ziyi remained silent, and another planner chimed in, "That's right, Mr. Sun. This aligns with normal dramatic logic. Besides, the male lead hasn't appeared yet, and the female lead has awakened herself... so the male lead's presence will be relatively weakened. It would be better to push the character's setting to its peak before revisiting it. That would be interesting. We even think..."
The third planner firmly followed up on the second planner's words, "We even thought that having a colleague miscarry because of Mai Bai would stimulate Mai Bai's future character transformation and make it more three-dimensional and more tenable."
Several planners nodded to each other, apparently approving of this idea.
Sun Ziyi felt a chill. The words of the group of people opposite her made the guillotine in her mind fall on a child, and blood was everywhere.
"I don't agree..." Sun Ziyi suddenly spoke, and everyone turned to look at her, waiting for what she would say.
She looked up. "If he did that, would Mai Bai still be human? As a spectator, why would I want to watch the life of such a cold-hearted person, just for a plot conflict? A conflict that costs a child's life?"
The entire conference room immediately fell silent...Sun Ziyi's expression even looked a little painful, and she couldn't help but gasp.
Finally, it was Li Bei who broke the silence. He raised his head, looked at Sun Ziyi and said, "Ziyi, I think what our planner said is also a reference direction. Let's stop here today. I can see that you haven't been in a good state these days."
Everyone started to clean up the table, but Sun Ziyi had no intention of leaving. She simply closed the script in her hand and looked at Li Bei, "Mr. Li, I feel pretty good. Let's talk more."
"You seem to need more rest, and you are always distracted during meetings." Li Bei said.
There was a large mirror opposite the conference room. When Sun Ziyi looked up, he saw himself in the mirror. He had big bags under his eyes and looked like he had spent the whole night on a supernatural forum.
Li Bei put his hands back on the table and sat on the chair. He looked at Sun Ziyi with a slightly dissatisfied expression. "Ziyi, you don't have to be so stubborn. We have also heard about what happened online."
Sun Ziyi looked at him, waiting for him to continue. Li Bei's expression was clearly beginning to show dissatisfaction. Sun Ziyi could read it, his expression said, "I gave you a way out, but you don't know how to take it."
The group of people in the conference room stared at them, as if frozen in time, unable to move. Finally, Sihang coughed and said, "Mr. Li, we have another meeting later. We'll be leaving now. See you next time, Teacher Sun."
Everyone walked out one by one as if they were being robbed, lowering their heads, organizing documents, and pushing back their chairs. Sun Ziyi watched them leave one by one. The last person even considerately closed the glass door of the conference room, leaving Li Bei and Sun Ziyi alone in the dead silence.
Sun Ziyi then turned his head to look at Li Ang, cleared his throat, and said, "Mr. Li, I have been working on this project for two years, and I can't take a break."
Li Bei took out a pen and tapped the conference table. "I'm sure you've contributed a lot to the Maibai project."
She wanted to smile and be polite, but she found that she could no longer control her facial expression. Smiling was like straining when she was constipated, which was even more unlucky than crying.
Li Bei asked again, "So what's the situation online now? I was in a meeting all day and didn't check it."
"I don't know. I uninstalled all the apps on my phone." After having a heart-to-heart talk with the investors, she felt a little relieved.
Li Bei said softly, "It's just a matter of will. Running away won't solve the problem."
Sun Ziyi didn't say anything.
Li Bei took a seat closer to her and said, "Your script also has some major problems. We've wanted to tell you about this for a long time, but we just haven't found the right time. Last night, the platform also called me and asked if the nonsense I said in the interview was about Mai Bai's screenwriter."
Sun Ziyi didn't respond to Li Bei's question about the platform, but subconsciously asked, "Is now a good time? I'm being cyberbullied."
Li Bei waved his hands awkwardly. "That's not what I meant. It's just that we've found a team of screenwriters who are quite interested in this project, and the platform also happens to be..."
Sun Ziyi said calmly. "Zhang You, right? I know Zhang You. A friend introduced her to me. She happened to be contacting me when you were contacting her. At that time, I hadn't been cyberbullied yet. I was resting during the long vacation you gave me."
The smile on Li Bei's face fell. Seeing Sun Ziyi's disgrace, he put the pen on the table and raised his arm. "I don't want to say it so bluntly. So what do you say? Your script platform is not accepted. Do I have to find a ghostwriter to use your name?"
Sun Ziyi, who had been a bit hesitant about whether to get angry, was completely furious this time. "Let's go over the plan for our project. Initially, you wanted a female-themed story, about women's empowerment. After you finished the first draft, the platform was very satisfied and gave the project an A rating. But then you watched a popular idol drama, calling people "husband and wife" on WeChat every day, and then sent me a WeChat message telling me that audiences now like to watch mature women in love. So you changed the first draft of the drama and forced a domineering CEO male lead into the show. The platform changed the original A rating to B, saying, "Things have changed, and the content is irrelevant."
"Your investment has also shrunk because A has been replaced by B. However, at this time, you have already signed the male lead with the first draft of the script. The male lead asked for a deposit of three million. If we go back to the first draft, it means that the money will be wasted. So what are you thinking? You want me to revise it to a third draft, but the third draft is even worse. Do you know why it is worse? Because I have already written a million fucking words on this project. Do you think you can turn a million circles in your life as a despised donkey in the production team?"
Li Bei asked coldly, "You're really not decent to yell like this in Party A's company, you know?"
Sun Ziyi stood up, slammed the table and asked Li Bei, "You are decent. It's because you wanted to copy other people's success so much that you copied them every day. That's why your A-level project dropped to B-level. How difficult is it to succeed in the entertainment industry? You didn't know how to cherish the project when it was rated A. Now it's dropped to B. Do you think the script will get better with each revision? It's impossible. It will only get worse with each revision."
Li Bei wanted to speak.
Sun Ziyi interrupted him and asked, "Mr. Li, the colleagues have decided to change the screenwriter, right?"
Li Bei glanced at her, took a deep breath, and wanted to say something, "What do you think? Will we still use you after making such a scene today?"
Sun Ziyi sneered, "Don't try to PUA me. I met Zhang You two months ago. We signed a contract and received payment in a month. I know how many tens of thousands of dollars she makes per episode, and you're still pushing it onto me. I have no manners, so you don't have to keep trying to make things decent for each other."
Sun Ziyi added, "It's okay. Give me the money I deserve. I don't need this little money. My husband doesn't want me to do this job anymore."
Li Bei gave her a meaningful look, feeling that Sun Ziyi was now completely giving up. He had never heard that she was married.
Sun Ziyi walked out, casually tossing the document into the trash can, then turned back to look at Li Bei. "Go ask your new screenwriter. She knows that I came to the entertainment industry to experience life."
"Also, if you use my stuff, it has to be under my name, otherwise we'll see you on Weibo."
Sun Ziyi left without looking back. This time, she earned face thanks to Xu Zecheng.
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