Superstar Aspirations

Chapter 23

Translator: Vian

Editor: Shem

At the time when Rong Xu accepted this drama, he had received the initial version of the script.

Back then, his role was very simple. He was just a Marshal that was cold on the outside but warm on the inside with an infatuation towards the female lead. Afterwards with the whole Han Yanghao situation, his role went under some slight changes. There was an increase in scenes that showed Huo Xi's innermost feelings, and also made him appear more gentle.

And now, the latest version of the script completely changed the show's whole ending!

In the original ending, the female lead Liang Linghui was persuaded by Bai Mingde to also join the new fraction and became a member of the underground party. Then after their victory in the revolution, she married Bai Mingde and like all other fairy tales, lived happily ever after.

But in the new ending, Liang Linghui chose to leave Bai Mingde.

Ninety-nine percent of TV dramas on the market all must meet some basic principles. For example, the protagonist must be righteous. Another good example would be that the ending was perfect. It was not that there was no dramas with tragic endings, but it was just the minority afterall. The great majority of TV dramas were happy endings to let the audience be comfortable watching it.

If the male and female lead didn't end up together, this could be said to be tragic in a sense.

When he saw this new script, Luo Zhentao was very surprised and exclaimed: "Are they not afraid of what the audience would think changing it like this? For the male and female lead to not end up together, the audience is very likely to be angry. They might even boycott the crew ah."

Rong Xu carefully looked through the script, he thought for a moment and replied: "This ending is not impossible. Luo ge, I remember that wasn't there a very famous and popular film three years ago. In the end, the male and female lead finally divorced. They boarded trains going in the opposite direction and since then, they really had no more involvement with each other."

Luo Zhentao still hesitated: "Will there really be no problems… changing it like this?"

Who was the one the most against the new script?

Naturally, it was Han Yanghao!

Han Yanghao immediately went to find Director Zheng for an explanation, but who knew Director Zheng would readily open up a market survey, concisely and clearly saying: "Sixty percent of the audience hope that Liang Linghui can adhere to principle. Whether or not she loves Huo Xi, she is already Huo Xi's wife and shouldn't have an affair. And Tomato Station's Director Wang also said that while having an affair in the marriage plot is worth watching, we can delete it if it's not necessary. Liang Linghui isn't together with Bai Mingde in the end, so what? You have a problem with it? Her husband just died and she already remarry. This will repulse the audience."

Listening to these words, Han Yanghao was ready to cough out blood: "Liang Linghui and Huo Xi were obviously a fake couple, okay? They've never crossed the line. Huo Xi died because he decided to suicide, Liang Linghui didn't force him to. Liang Linghui not ending up with Bai Mingde because of Huo Xi, if you change it… change it like this…" If you change it like this, then who the hell is the male lead!

Han Yanghao didn't say the last sentence out loud, but Director Zheng had long understood what he meant. How could Han Yanghao care about who Liang Linghui likes or marries? What he really care about was: Who is the male lead!

However, this shrewd Director pretended to be dumb and said: "This is what the audience hopes for. They even hope that Liang Linghui will end up liking Huo Xi. Now you tell me, how do you want this to be changed huh?"

Han Yanghao was stupefied.

Even if Liang Linghui didn't end up together with Bai Mingde, Bai Mingde could still be called the protagonist. But Liang Linghui was together with Huo Xi in the end… What do you call this situation?!

The person that end up together with the female lead was actually the second male lead?

This was a situation that would not happen even out of a hundred films!

If the person together with the female lead was the male lead, then according to this common sense, Huo Xi would be the male lead?

Han Yanghao and Director Zheng had a big fight but in the end, it was dropped without any results. The crew still proceeded with the filming, needing to retake some scenes shot before. In order to find out the audience's thought, the "Ambush" crew launched a popularity poll on their official Weibo and asked the netizens to vote for their favorite character.

***

Consequently, thousands of miles away in B-City, Xu Jin was holding some materials and walked back to the private lounge when he saw a certain man sitting in front of the computer with a serious look, what he was doing was a mystery to Xu Jin.

Xu Jin walked towards Qin Cheng and casually opened his mouth: "What are you doing? Old Liu, Director Chu, and Director Zhao all sent you a script the past few days. Which one do you like? All three big Directors are planning their film's itinerary with you for next year, we have to give them a reply by this week."

As he spoke, Xu Jin went next to the computer, almost seeing what was showing on the screen. But at the very moment he was about to see, Qin Cheng calmly clicked on the exit button and the whole screen went back to the desktop. Xu Jin only had time to see the two words "Weibo Registration" on the screen flashed past before he had no way to ever clearly see it again.

Xu Jin subconsciously asked: "Eh, what the hell are you doing? Did I just see the Weibo registration page…"

"Old Liu's new film is quite good." The low, magnetic male voice suddenly spoke, interrupting Xu Jin's words.

Xu Jin immediately nodded: "En, I also think the Old Liu's new film is quite good, then we'll be going with Old Liu's? You decided quite fast ah, and here I thought you still haven't seen the script yet…"

The topic quickly focused on Old Liu's new film. Xu Jin had already completely forgot what he just saw, and took it as he saw it wrong. However, the fact was that the webpage that a certain someone closed just now, indeed, in all honesty, shown the two big words——

WEIBO, REGRISTRATION!

Xu Jin was also completely clueless to the fact that this was already a certain man's 43rd time opening to this page today and that it was also his 43rd registered Weibo account. The whole afternoon, Qin Cheng was silently staring at the computer screen, silently registering an account, silently paying attention to a certain crew's official Weibo… and then silently casting a vote.

But even like this, first place on "Ambush" crew's official Weibo's popularity list was still Han Yanghao.

After all, he was very popular before with over five million fans on Weibo, and because of this drama, Han Yanghao's acting career also gradually improved. As a result, his fans madly voted. So even though Rong Xu's fans also madly voted ——for example, by cheating in registering forty-three times to vote like a surname fan Qin, they still couldn't beat Han Yanghao.

Han Yanghao had more than five million fans, but Rong Xu only had over a million fans. The difference in the key numbers were too big, they were on completely different levels. Even the crew had this thought when they released the poll. Han Yanghao would definitely be in first place, second place should be Rong Xu, and third place should be Zhang Tongtong. And the gap between first place and the last two would definitely be very big.

However, a week later before the poll was about to close, Luo Zhentao opened Weibo to take a look at the votes to suddenly be surprised to find: "Ah, Xiao Xu, your votes are only a thousand less than Han Yanghao!"

Bai Mingde: 13,514 votes

Huo Xi: 12,053 votes

Rong Xu looked over at Luo Zhentao's phone screen. He thought for a moment, and said: "It should probably be because of yesterday's episode."

Luo Zhentao thought about it: "True, a lot of people did talk about yesterday's episode."

On the fourth week of "Ambush" airing, the national rating was 1.2!

Compared to the previous episode, the rating did not decline at all. And it was definitely nothing like those deathly loyal fans of "The Summer's Truth" said would happen: that it was just a flash in the pan, but instead, it even rose by 0.1! Because of the rising ratings, Director Zheng had been grinning from ear to ear all day today and was even firmer in his determination to change the script.

___

In this fourth episode that was aired, Bai Mingde was trapped by Hou Xi and almost died.

As soon as this scene appeared, the conflict between the male lead and the second male lead rose to the extreme. Bai Mingde did his upmost to make Huo Xi stop doubting himself, and hide his spy identity. He also heard about some things from Liang Linghui's mouth, and only then did he note Huo Xi's actions. Thus as a result, his identity as part of the underground party was not found out.

This episode was not about emotional developments, but was pure plot. The fervent and tense story excited the audience incessantly. Many viewers have even expressed that they didn't dare to miss even a second, because a shocking change could happen at any time.

Not to mention, at the end of the episode, an underground party member was captured by Huo Xi's men. Huo Xi personally interrogated the other party till the person's spirit was about to collapse. At the end of the episode, it closed at that underground party member's words——

"I'll confess! I'll confess everything!"

The audience was so nervous as they held their breath. Just as they were waiting for the person to say the name "Bai Mingde", suddenly! The screen dimmed, the ending song played, and the cast list slowly appeared.

Audience: "……"

What to do! They dare to leave this cliffhanger!

Rong Xu's analysis was indeed very good. The fourth episode's main point was no longer about Bai Mingde's and Liang Linghui's love story, but instead used a lot of words to describe the battle between Huo Xi and Bai Mingde. That was why in this episode, Huo Xi had numerous scenes.

Originally, the audience only knew in their hearts that 'Marshal Huo is a cruel and ruthless person', but had never really experienced it. However in this episode, they wholly saw a ruthlessly decisive and cold-blooded Marshal Huo.

Afterwards their unanimous response was: "F*ck! So handsome!"

Therefore, Huo Xi's number of votes suddenly jumped and risen by over 3,000 more votes.

Luo Zhentao lowered his voice and whispered: "The poll closes today, maybe you can surpass Han Yanghao."

Hearing this, Rong Xu slightly raised an eyebrow and didn't respond.

***

There were only three days left before "Ambush" finish filming, and today's scene would be Rong Xu's last scene. All of his other scenes were already filmed. After he finished shooting this last scene, he could take that yajing red envelope belonging to him and officially leave Xiangshan Movie and Television City.

Probably due to knowing that Rong Xu was about to finish and leave, many crew members would smile and say hello when they bump into him. Han Yanghao's incident made the crew more united, and also made them like this newcomer Rong Xu who was bullied by that poser Han Yanghao even more.

When Rong Xu arrived at the set, Director Zheng was still talking to Zhang Tongtong. Assistant Director Li walked over and said with a smile: "Rong Xu, do you still remember that kid that went to pick you up at the airport two months ago?"

The youth was slightly taken aback, he thought for a moment and asked: "I remember… He was called Xiao Li?"

Assistant Director Li laughed: "I didn't think you would still remember him, he would probably be very happy to know. He's actually my son, he has a very good impression of you. Originally, he should have also been an intern in our crew as field service, but unfortunately on the fourth day of Han Yanghao's arrival, my son gave him a cup of coffee. He wasn't able to find the Mocha that Han Yanghao liked and gave him latte instead. He ended up cursing my son as useless. My wife heard about this and refused to let her baby suffer any grieves here, so he left."

Rong Xu had a bit of an impression of this incident, but he never thought that the intern who took the initiative to leave the job turned out to be Xiao Li.

Assistant Director Li faced Rong Xu with a serious look, the smile on his face slowly withdrawing. He seriously expressed: "Thank you very much, please continue to do your best."

Rong Xu slowly raised his lips, smiling as he nodded.

That was to say, why was he able to instigate Assistant Director Li so easily to risk being dismissed by Director Zheng and use the crew's official Weibo to privately post the crowdfunding plan? Everything has a cause and effect. The cause was the incident Han Yanghao first committed, and the effect was that his wall was later destroyed by everyone else.

But either way, not long after, Rong Xu's last scene officially began.

Looking at the temporary set up prison setting, the youth took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. When he opened his eyes again, his gaze turned cold and indifferent. Even as he wore the simple and coarse prison uniform, his hair messy, and has a wound on his forehead that has not yet healed, he did not let go of his pride.

Rong Rong stepped up, and walked to the wall to sit down.

The next moment, Director Zheng shouted: "Action!", Huo Xi's last scene officially starts now!

A flash in the pan – [曇花一現 – Tán huā yī xiàn] The night blooming cactus shows once; Short-lived

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