It started raining in the second half of the night.
Perhaps it was because he had been thinking too much during the day, but Jiang Que was trapped in a bizarre and broken dream the whole night and couldn't sleep well, so much so that his head was still groggy when he woke up the next day.
After washing up and going downstairs, he found that Douzi had come here at some point. He was sitting opposite Song Yecheng on the sofa in the living room, talking in low voices around a pile of documents on the coffee table.
"Hey? Teacher Bai, are you awake?" Douzi greeted him warmly upon seeing him coming down, then pointed towards the kitchen. "I brought you breakfast. Is there anything you like?"
"Oh, thank you." Jiang Que responded and motioned them to continue working. He first went to the corner to add some food and water to Baimao, and then turned and walked towards the kitchen.
The breakfast that Douzi brought was very regular, consisting of common porridge, soup, noodles, and fruit and vegetable salads. There was basically no question of whether you liked it or not.
Jiang Que returned with a glass of water and sat down at the counter. He picked up a bowl of doufu from the pile of lunch boxes and brought it to him. Just as he was about to open the lid, he heard Song Yecheng remind him from afar, "The bottom box is sweet."
Jiang Que hadn't noticed this at first, but when he heard this he looked at the other box and found that the colors of the sauces on the two boxes of tofu pudding were really different. He couldn't help but turn his head to look at the sofa, and happened to meet Song Yecheng's teasing gaze of "I knew you didn't notice".
Jiang Que retracted his gaze, silently pushed the box of salty drinks back, and grabbed the box of sweet drinks. Douzi saw this from afar and couldn't help but ask curiously, "Is Teacher Bai from the south?"
Jiang Que nodded, and Douzi smiled in sudden realization, "No wonder."
After this short break, Douzi turned back and talked to Song Yecheng about the unfinished business, while Jiang Que listened casually while eating.
They seemed to be discussing a product endorsement advertisement. Douzi kept explaining the situation: "...Ming-ge said that the new product is expected to be launched at the end of the year, and the commercial will be shot in the form of a series of three or four short films."
Song Yecheng flipped through the information in his hand: "What's the shooting time?"
"They envisioned filming in the summer or fall, rolling out media and land advertising in the fourth quarter, and then officially launching the product."
Song Yecheng nodded: "Is the script finalized?"
Douzi scoffed, as if he'd heard something funny. "You know the creative team over there? They always argue so much they almost come to blows. How can they possibly finalize something until the very end?"
Song Yecheng also chuckled, as if he agreed with this. He put down the information in his hand, picked up the new product brochure next to him, read a few pages, and praised with some surprise: "Wow, this packaging is quite nice."
Douzi smiled wryly: "This is just a first draft - who knows what it will become in the end."
After saying that, he suddenly thought of something and added, "But the capacity and flavors are already there, and there are only a few bottle shapes. I guess they can't change much."
taste?
Hearing these two words, the spoon in Jiang Que's hand suddenly paused - if he had only speculated from the "capacity" and "bottle", he might have thought they were talking about a perfume or skin care product, but "taste" was obviously more applicable to food and beverages.
Could it be...
Thinking of this, he subconsciously glanced towards the sofa, but from his angle he could not see the contents of the album in Song Yecheng's hand at all.
Douzi was still talking to Song Yecheng, but Jiang Que had completely lost interest in eating.
He withdrew his gaze, put a few more mouthfuls of food into his mouth hastily and half-heartedly, then finally put down the spoon, closed the lunch box and stood up.
"Did you finish eating?"
Song Yecheng noticed his actions, looked at the mostly untouched lunch boxes on the table, and couldn't help but laugh and joked, "You don't eat as much as Baimao, do you?"
Jiang Que smiled as if in agreement, put the lunch box into his bag, picked up the empty water cup and walked towards the drinking machine, while casually asking, "Do you want to take a new advertisement?"
Walking to the drinking fountain, he gently turned on the tap, only to hear Song Yecheng say behind him: "It's not new, it's from Yongquan."
Yongquan - full name "Eternal Spring Water".
Song Yecheng endorses very few products. After all, his status and background are there, so he would rather have no advertisements than accept unqualified ones. The few endorsements he has are almost all for international first-line brands of clothing, watches, perfumes, jewelry, and cosmetics. The only exception is Yongquan Water.
It is neither an international brand nor a clothing or jewelry brand, but a time-honored domestic beverage brand. Initially, it focused on producing drinking water, and later gradually developed various types of comprehensive beverages. Its market share has remained the top for decades, and its advertisements are spread all over the country.
The reason why Song Yecheng said it is "not new" is because his cooperation with Yongquan Water has lasted for ten years, so much so that Song Yecheng's fans jokingly call themselves "grown up drinking Yongquan Water", and Yongquan Water's loyal fans also like to joke that they "grew up watching Song Yecheng".
In the open kitchen, water from the drinking machine slowly flowed into the bottom of the cup, and the moment Jiang Que heard the word "Yongquan", he knew that his ominous premonition had come true.
His fingers gripping the cup tightened slightly, and his whole body was slowly enveloped by a sense of suffocation that seemed to be an inescapable fate, like an ant that had slipped and fallen into a cup of water, its mouth and nose blocked by the gradually rising water level.
Heavy rain, high speed.
The screech of brakes and the deafening roar of explosions assaulted my eardrums, the pain of being crushed and squeezed pierced my bones, and rain mixed with blood filled my vision, dragging me into a bottomless despair...
The heart beat violently in the chest.
The nightmare-like fear even caused him to have tinnitus.
But he didn't let this strangeness last too long.
Just when the water in the cup was about to overflow, he hastily stretched out his cold fingers to turn off the faucet, then closed his eyes tightly, took a deep breath, and forced himself to remain calm.
After a moment, he turned around with a cup of water in his hand. When he spoke again, his voice was completely unremarkable. He asked casually, as if he was not paying attention: "Have they released a new product?"
As he spoke, he walked towards the sofa and took a sip of water from his cup. Douzi said nonchalantly, "Well, it's just following the trend. Aren't tea drinks hot these past two years? They also have a few varieties of black tea, green tea, fruit tea, and flower tea."
Tea drinks.
That must be it.
Jiang Que thought to himself as he walked to the single sofa and sat down. He leaned over to put the cup on the coffee table while calmly glancing at the album in Song Yecheng's hand. Sure enough, he saw the packaging design that was very much in the style of Yongquan Water and the name of the new product series - Deep Forest Tea.
Although the packaging was not exactly the same as Jiang Que's impression, since Douzi said it was a draft, it would probably be adjusted later.
Jiang Que withdrew his hand, leaned back slightly on the sofa, and tried to look relaxed and casual. He said to Song Yecheng, "It seems like you've signed a contract with them for many years?"
This really sounded like a curious question from a passerby, and Song Yecheng didn't doubt it: "Well, it's been a long time, but it's not a one-time contract. It's renewed every year."
Jiang Que nodded: "Has this year's contract been renewed?"
"No," Song Yecheng said, "last year's hasn't expired yet. It will be the end of August."
Jiang Que thought for a moment and then said, "So, are you planning to wait until the filming here is finished before shooting the new product commercial?"
Song Yecheng thought of Douzi's words and said with a smile, "It's likely. Every time Yongquan discusses advertising ideas, it's like a hundred schools of thought contending. If there's no deadline, the debate can last for a year. This time, I estimate it will take at least a few months to finalize the draft, and the official filming will probably be in July, August, or even September."
Jiang Que was silent for a moment, as if thinking about something. Suddenly, he asked, "What about static ads?"
Static advertising is the opposite form of dynamic advertising. The more common ones are road signs, posters, human-shaped standees, and poster advertisements. To put it bluntly, they are mainly pictures.
If his previous questions sounded like casual chatting, this question seemed too targeted, so much so that Song Yecheng couldn't help but notice something strange. After all, in his opinion, asking questions one after another was very unlike Jiang Que's character, not to mention asking questions to such a minute extent.
But even so, he still answered the question truthfully, only adding a rhetorical question: "Those posters should also be shot together with the short film, so what's wrong with that?"
Jiang Que actually realized that he was asking too many questions, but he responded calmly: "Oh, there's a plot in my next book that's related to advertising filming, but I don't know much about it, so I'm quite curious."
This explanation was indeed reasonable, and Song Yecheng couldn't help but raise his eyebrows as if he suddenly realized something.
At this moment, Douzi's cell phone rang.
He glanced at the caller ID and quickly picked up the phone. He said "hmm" and "okay" several times while listening. After hanging up, he said to Song Yecheng, "The business club is almost ready. Director Zhuang said to shoot in advance and let us go there now."
"So early?"
Song Yecheng was a little surprised. He looked up at the wall clock and found that it was almost ten o'clock. "Oh, it's not too early. Okay, then I'll go upstairs and get the script."
As he spoke, he stood up from the sofa and strode towards the stairs, while Douzi lowered his head to organize the documents on the coffee table.
Soon, he suddenly seemed to think of something: "By the way, Mr. Bai, if you're curious about the details of the commercial shoot, you can go with Brother Cheng when he's shooting the new Yongquan product?"
Jiang Que was actually not curious about the details of the shooting. He only cared about the shooting time. But he couldn't go back on his word three seconds after he said it, so he could only nod perfunctorily.
The rain outside the window has not stopped. The gloomy sky makes the lighted house look even brighter, but this brightness does not bring any comfort to people. Instead, it makes Jiang Que feel even more depressed.
July and August, September at the latest.
The shooting time mentioned by Song Yecheng made him clearly aware of one thing -
If November 14th marked the final explosion of the gunpowder for him, then its fuse had actually been lit earlier.
In other words, the time he could use was actually far less than he had previously planned.
Because once the fuse is lit, the rest of the time will become unstoppable sand in the hourglass, and he can only watch them leak out and run out until it comes to an end.
There was the sound of footsteps behind me.
Song Yecheng had already returned downstairs with the script. As he passed by the sofa, he gently patted him on the back of the head: "Are you going?"
Jiang Que looked up at him, then nodded and stood up: "Let's go."
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