Make a Fortune and Become Well-off [90] - Chapter 208

The year 1996 was destined to be lively.

First, the release of “The Young and Dangerous” at the start of the year made this movie a sensation across the country, with its box office soaring.

At the end of previous year, the release of “The Legend of the Fragrant Prince” also caused its TV ratings to skyrocket, with everyone knowing about Chu Liuxiang, Hu Tiehua, and the King of Thieves, Sikong Zhixing.

The previous year, Z Province’s TV station had enjoyed great viewership thanks to the popular “Justice Bao”, and all the ratings were snatched up by the stations that bought the broadcasting rights for this drama in mainland China. Director Li was so stressed that he had blisters at the corners of his mouth, especially since the neighboring province had even launched a variety show called “Home Alone”, inviting kids to the show. No one knew where they found those child-like adults, but the audience was always amused by their innocent remarks, and the ratings kept climbing.

In contrast, their own TV station was watching its once-high ratings plummet.

Director Li urged the station’s staff to come up with programs to improve their ratings while simultaneously pressuring Justice Bao’s crew to hurry up. They needed to film quickly while the first season’s heat was still alive. If they were delayed, the buzz around Justice Bao would be overtaken by new shows, and who would still remember Justice Bao then?

The crew for Justice Bao only took two days off for New Year’s Eve and the first day of the New Year, and then promptly resumed filming under Director Li’s insistence.

After filming each day, the footage was sent to the editing team for post-production and dubbing.

Previously, Justice Bao had aired two episodes a day, which made filming quick. However, the editing and dubbing took time, and if they wanted to air while filming, they needed to have at least twenty episodes filmed in advance to ensure a continuous broadcast. Moreover, their scripts were adapted from the plots of Catcher in the Song Dynasty and were written on the spot, so they couldn’t film out of order like some mature crews did. For instance, in The Legend of Zhen Huan, the scenes with the Emperor and all his concubines were filmed in one day.

Many crews saved costs by filming the same scenes together, which also saved a lot on location rentals.

They still hadn’t written the subsequent scripts and could only shoot in order based on the case sequences.

At this time, the famous Hengdian World Studios had not yet been built, and their filming locations were in a historic town not far from the provincial capital.

Z Province had many ancient towns, many of which were still inhabited by local residents. For the second season of Justice Bao, Director Li specifically made connections with the local government, as they needed many extras during filming and cooperation from the local residents.

Aside from the fixed scenes in the yamen and the streets of Kaifeng, when they moved to the next case, they would have to transfer to another ancient town to film the next case’s scenes.

Just so happened that the next show they aired after Justice Bao had over forty episodes, which meant airing two episodes daily could sustain them for about twenty days. Then they could rebroadcast Justice Bao to regain some popularity, just in time for the second season of Justice Bao to be released.

Qin Shumin, being a formal employee at the TV station, was considered one of their own. Director Li hoped to promote her and, after the show ended, she could gain some popularity and become a host for their programs, boosting the ratings for other shows.

At that time, Qin Shumin didn’t have her own program, so she cherished this opportunity. She was not only playing the lead role in the character she loved from her favorite book but also working as a screenwriter, crafting her own romantic scenes. She was enjoying the acting, but it was too hectic. While others could rest after shooting, she had to negotiate with the main screenwriter about how to combine the romantic and investigative scenes. After all, she lacked experience as a screenwriter; she could only follow the TV station’s requirements. So, she worked with her two interns daily, writing scripts until she was stressed.

She didn’t even go home for New Year’s Eve, choosing to write scripts in their rented room in the town.

Fortunately, her co-star was indeed very handsome, so much so that he didn’t need any makeup; he could just put on his costume and was perfectly like a living, breathing Zhan Zhao, which made her feel both happy and tortured.

The happiness came from how fun it was to shoot romantic scenes with a handsome actor, while the pain was in having to come up with the plot and dialogue for those scenes.

Director Li, worried about the lack of later cases, also called the publishing house to ask when the third volume of Catcher in the Song Dynasty would be released. It was taking too long to gather the serialized content from Wuxia, and he wanted someone to write the remaining scripts in advance. As long as they followed the original story, they could just write the dialogues based on Catcher in the Song Dynasty’s cases.

The first and second volumes of Catcher in the Song Dynasty had sold very well, and the publishing house also wanted to hurry and release the third volume. They called Wuxia Magazine to urge them to increase the serialized word count for Catcher in the Song Dynasty to about 25,000 words a week. That way, in a month, they could have 100,000 words serialized, and in a month and a half, they would have enough material to publish a volume.

If all went smoothly, they could plan to release the third volume within two months.

Unbeknownst to them, Wang Yong was also facing troubles.

He clearly sensed the shift in the social atmosphere brought by the release of The Young and Dangerous, especially since Guangzhou was currently under construction. The entire city was experiencing rapid changes; as the pie got larger, the interests increased, and naturally, disputes multiplied. There were numerous thieves and pickpockets at the stations, and there were motorcycle gangs on the streets that specialized in snatching bags from unsuspecting people.

———

A couple of days ago, they had heard about a brawl involving over a hundred people, happening at a construction site not far from him. It seemed to be over the transportation of discarded materials from the site.

The waste and transportation from these large projects were enough to support an entire transportation crew. With profits at stake, naturally, there were people fighting over it.

Wang Yong wasn’t too worried about Guangshi. His concern was for Jiang Ning, far away in Wucheng.

That dark and gloomy alley—he, as a grown man, would feel uneasy walking through it during the day, let alone Jiang Ning, a young girl.

He was terrified that Jiang Ning would be dragged into some alley. The more he thought about it, the more anxious he became. After staying in Guangshi for two months and securing a stable job, he began thinking about heading to Wucheng again.

He couldn’t feel at ease unless he was with Jiang Ning.

He also sent an email to Jiang Ning, telling her to stop going to the internet cafe to write, “We have plenty of drafts stored up now. No need to worry about gaps in the updates. You can even write the drafts by hand and send them to us by mail.”