The Zhong family also invested in a film, which would be released once the document was issued.

 

[I miss you very much.]

Luo Huai opened the music app intending to listen to some songs, only to find that Jiang Fen had sent him a private message through the app with those words.

The two of them had never managed to add each other on social media. They only communicated occasionally through the music app's private messages, and the number of times they had chatted was few enough to count on one's fingers. Why had Jiang Fen suddenly said that he missed him today?

Luo Huai replied, [I miss the ‘Fallen home’ crew too. Even though there weren't many of us, everyone was very close, and we always spoke frankly and directly. I'm working on a big production now. The costumes, makeup, and props are excellent, every department is fully staffed, and there are two directors, each in charge of the episodes they oversee. Even the boxed meals for the ordinary actors come with plenty of meat. But getting along with everyone here is a little exhausting. A lot of what they say, I can't even figure out what they really mean. Fortunately, Brother Qian drops by from time to time and tells me how to get along with everyone. Sigh... I miss you all.]

Luo Huai possessed a physique that attracted ghosts, yet he had managed to grow up healthy and safe to this age, which was proof enough that he was an exceptionally lucky person. That good fortune was reflected in his acting career as well.

He auditioned for every role Qian Duoqun had found for him. They were called auditions, but in reality all he had to do was put on the costume and let the casting director take a look. None of the roles were important; as long as the appearance fit, he was accepted.

Luo Huai was young, handsome, and a professionally trained acting graduate, with an excellent appearance. He was cast in every role, and so began his life as a bit player running all over the same film studio. One moment he was killing the heroine's best friend, and the next he was dressed in dull gray rags playing the servant of the elder brother of the male lead's friend's rival.

While he worked diligently, the crew of a xianxia drama suffered one mishap after another. One day, the lead actor's costume was accidentally damaged. The next day, there was a problem with the boxed lunches, and the extras and crew members all lined up outside the toilets with diarrhea. After that, the wire harness supporting the actor playing the third male lead inexplicably snapped, causing him to fall and fracture a bone, making him unable to continue in the role.

The entertainment industry was rather superstitious. Some people said the production must have offended an inauspicious supernatural force. If filming continued, who knew how many more accidents would occur? Even if they managed to finish, the drama would probably encounter all sorts of problems and never be broadcast.

The crew even invited a fairly famous Taoist priest from the circle to perform an exorcism. After inspecting the set, the Celestial Master declared that someone on the production was under a curse. However, with his current level of cultivation, he could not tell who had been cursed. Even if he could identify the victim, without knowing the nature of the curse, it would be difficult to remove it.

Using cinnabar as ink, the Celestial Master painted talismans all over the set. As he worked, he sighed and remarked that if the astonishingly gifted genius from his own family had not abandoned everything and run away from home, that person would certainly have been able to dispel the curse.

According to the Celestial Master, the talisman formation would suppress the evil only for a limited time. Whenever the colour of the talismans began to fade, they would have to invite him back to reinforce the formation.

With the formation in place, filming indeed proceeded much more smoothly. But in less than three days, the talismans had faded until they were almost invisible, forcing the crew to hire the Celestial Master again.

The problem was that Celestial Masters were outrageously expensive. A single talisman started at 100,000 yuan. Covering such a large production with a complete formation required dozens of talismans, meaning each formation cost several million yuan. If they had to reinforce it every three days, no amount of investment would be enough to sustain that expense.

Although only faint traces of the talismans remained, the crew decided to take the risk and continue filming, planning to call the Celestial Master back only after the formation had completely disappeared.

That day, Luo Huai arrived on the set of this production—which was already on the verge of collapse—wearing drab gray clothes to play an ordinary mortal who would be cut down by the Demon Lord in the drama.

Since the scene required numerous combat visual effects, everyone was filming inside a temporary green-screen soundstage. Halfway through filming, a gust of sinister wind swept through—and the entire soundstage collapsed!

Luo Huai quickly took shelter beneath a pillar. He also pulled along several middle-aged crew members who had been too slow to escape. Everyone who hid with him came away unharmed. The only casualty on Luo Huai's side was the cheap plastic bracelet he happened to be wearing that day—it snapped.

This accident was enormous. The person in charge immediately invited an even more famous Celestial Master—one whose talismans started at 200,000 yuan each. By the time the more expensive Celestial Master arrived, the rescue teams had arrived as well.

Holding a geomantic compass, the more expensive Celestial Master walked around the set once before saying in surprise, « Hm? The evil presence has already been eliminated. »

The person in charge replied, « Please don't joke around. The entire crew has been buried under the collapsed soundstage. This is such a serious filming accident. Whatever evil caused this must have been incredibly powerful. How could it already be gone? »

The more expensive Celestial Master answered, « The divination indicates that today a Lucky Star entered the production. The Lucky Star attracted a Killing Star, which subdued the evil. As long as the Lucky Star remains, nothing will happen to this crew. »

Naturally, the person in charge refused to believe him. The soundstage had collapsed so completely—who knew how many people had been killed or injured?

Yet once the rescue team pulled everyone out, not a single person had suffered serious injuries. The worst injury was only a scraped patch of skin. The main actors, the directors, and the producers were all completely unharmed. At that very moment, they were squatting beneath a pillar together with a gray-clad extra, calmly waiting to be rescued.

The Celestial Master pointed toward the pillar and declared, « The Lucky Star is here. »

And so Luo Huai—who had only joined the production that very day and had pulled the directors beneath the pillar with him—was officially recognized as the Lucky Star.

Everyone crowded around Luo Huai to question him. Looking more closely, they discovered that he was remarkably handsome, a professionally trained acting graduate, and happened to have an empty schedule with no current projects. Since the actor playing the third male lead had broken his leg and could no longer continue, what were they waiting for? They immediately kept Luo Huai on the production.

Just like that, Luo Huai inexplicably landed an important role. He no longer had to wear costumes that had not been washed for ages. Instead, he was assigned his own wardrobe. When he counted them carefully, he found he had no fewer than eight different costumes!

After Luo Huai took over the role of the third male lead, the production truly became trouble-free. Filming progressed with extraordinary smoothness.

There was only one exception. One day, a background role Luo Huai had previously signed a contract for on another production began filming. Since the contract had already been signed, and he had no scenes scheduled that day, he went to fulfil his earlier commitment.

He was gone for just that single day, and the production immediately started running into problems again. A camera dolly malfunctioned and destroyed an extremely expensive camera.

From then on, the crew no longer dared let Luo Huai leave. They insisted he remain on set every single day. Even on days when he had no scenes, they made him stay and watch everyone else film until the entire production wrapped. From that moment onward, Luo Huai's nickname, "Little Lucky Star," spread throughout the industry.

[The pay on this production is really good, but there are so many fight scenes. Director Zhong's accessories break one every day. Now I only have one ring left.] Luo Huai couldn't help complaining to Jiang Fen.

Although they were nothing more than cheap accessories that cost 9.9 yuan with free shipping, each one bore the company logo personally engraved by Director Zhong, so Luo Huai treasured them greatly. This time, thanks to his good fortune in landing an important role in a major production, even the costume designer treated him very kindly and allowed him to wear a different accessory every day. Luo Huai wanted to seize the opportunity to display their company's logo as often as possible and promote the company.

Yet not only did the accessories keep breaking, they always broke in exactly the same place. Deep cracks would appear right through the centre of the logo, making its original shape completely unrecognizable.

All Luo Huai could do was carefully place each broken accessory back into its box. He intended to preserve them properly. Even if he could no longer wear them, they would still become precious keepsakes to look back on one day.

[Waaah... I miss you so much.] Jiang Fen paid no attention whatsoever to Luo Huai's worries. All he wanted was to pour out his own misery.

[You have no idea. Director Zhong isn't human—he's a devil!]

[When you were all here, he could still film like a normal person. Now that you've all left, he doesn't treat us like human beings anymore.]

[I miss you human actors so much. When you were here, Director Zhong was so gentle.]

On the second floor of the villa, the computer with the music software open had its keyboard clattering away, but there was no one controlling it at all. Meanwhile, in the hall on the first floor of the villa, a group of ghosts with all kinds of different appearances lay sprawled around in disorder.

« We finally finished filming. » Qi Wanlian stared blankly at the ceiling. She was no longer as composed as she used to be. Instead, she lay on the floor with her hair dishevelled, half of her paper clothing burned away, her entire body looking as miserable as if it had been run over by a road roller.

« I think I lost fifty years of cultivation. » Fu Yue had long since been unable to maintain her appearance as a normal person. Her head was falling apart into pieces, and the ground beneath her was covered in blood.

« My tongue was eaten by Sister Qi three times. I lost ten years of cultivation. If we keep filming, I won't even need Director Zhong to do anything—I’ll just have my soul scattered into oblivion. » Shen Leshan declared that being in love with Qi Wanlian was truly too difficult.

Qi Wanlian said, « So you’re blaming me? You were the one who offered your tongue to me. With such heavy yin energy, how could I possibly resist? »

Shen Leshan replied, « Sister Qi, please be reasonable. It wasn’t me who offered my tongue to you. You used your charm technique to bewitch me. »

« I’m a seductive ghost. Are you blaming me for my own instinct? » Qi Wanlian asked innocently.

It was not only the male and female leads who were arguing. The other ghosts were arguing as well. Fortunately, they were all too exhausted to do anything except argue, so no one actually started fighting.

But even so, from above looking down, the first-floor hall of the villa looked exactly like a brutal crime scene. Thirty-three corpses with different horrifying states of death were lying on the floor, and the newly deceased ghost Jiang Fen was nearly frightened to tears.

He really missed the days when Luo Huai and the others were still on the production team. Back then, Director Zhong was extremely gentle, and the senior ghosts were also very restrained. But what was this now?!

Looking down, the first floor was simply hell!

While Jiang Fen was complaining to Luo Huai, Zhong Jiudao was contacting his cousin Zhong Hongyan from the Zhong family. This was the older cousin who secretly became a content creator behind his family's back. Zhong Jiudao had asked him to edit the movie.

Zhong Jiudao had already completed a rough cut of the film. The total running time was three hours, and the remaining work was to have Zhong Hongyan trim it down.

« No problem, » Zhong Hongyan immediately agreed. « I’ll go out tonight to catch a ghost. »

Zhong Jiudao asked, « Are you trying to finish your current work ahead of time so you can free up time to help me edit the movie? »

Zhong Hongyan answered, « Of course not. I’m going out to pretend that I’ve been injured by a ghost. That way, I can find an excuse to stay at home and enter seclusion to recover. Then no one will disturb me, and only then will I be able to squeeze out enough uninterrupted time to edit properly. »

Zhong Jiudao: « …Is doing a little side work really this difficult for you now? »

Zhong Hongyan explained, « That’s how things are. The Celestial Master world believes that we are currently facing an unprecedented catastrophe. They gathered all the younger generation together for training, saying that we must unite every bit of strength to fight the disaster that is coming in the future. I’m currently living in the Zhong family's main residence. Unlike the small apartment I live in outside, there are too many people here and too many eyes watching. It would be best if I found a reason to stop people from casually barging into my room. »

« I’ll send you a plague ghost talisman. You can pretend to have caught a plague. Since it might infect others, no one will dare enter your room. » Zhong Jiudao suggested.

« You really are clever. But to make a plague ghost talisman, we first need to find a plague ghost and seal its yin energy inside the talisman, right? Can you really find one that quickly? It’s a peaceful era now, and medicine is so advanced. Where are we supposed to find a plague ghost? » Zhong Hongyan asked.

Zhong Jiudao replied, « Don’t worry about that. I’ll also give you a cleansing plague talisman. After you finish pretending in front of your family, go back to your room and use this talisman to cure yourself. Don’t actually get sick. »

« Alright. But I never expected you to truly achieve your dream of making movies. I really admire you. Do you know? To prepare for the end of the Age of Decline of Magic, our family also invested in a movie. It will be released once the document is issued. » Zhong Hongyan said.

Zhong Jiudao remained silent for a moment before replying, « I guessed it. »

Since horror and suspense films were about to receive a moderate relaxation of restrictions, the Zhong family would naturally invest in a movie to promote themselves. Otherwise, lifting the restrictions would have no meaning.

Zhong Hongyan continued, « But don’t worry, theirs will definitely be released later than yours. That production has too many people, and filming was delayed several times. They originally planned to invest only 300 million, but because of the delays, they increased it to 500 million. It will probably be released half a month later than originally planned. »

Five hundred million!

As the person in charge of his own production, Zhong Jiudao felt a sour envy in his heart. Looking at his poor little crew, then looking at theirs, he couldn't help but envy such abundant funding.

Zhong Hongyan said, « They spent a huge amount of money hiring the most famous literary film director of that era. Your father is personally supervising the production on set. They hired more than ten screenwriters to revise the script at any time, ensuring that the movie is filmed completely according to the investors’ ideas. I heard it’s a Celestial Master-themed film. It seems to start from the origin of Celestial Masters and completely record the rise and decline of the Celestial Master world. The movie will be at least two and a half hours long. »

After hearing Zhong Hongyan’s description, Zhong Jiudao could not help saying, « This movie is going to be a complete box-office disaster, isn’t it? »

He could tell without even thinking. With his father’s old-fashioned ideas guiding the screenwriters, and more than ten screenwriters constantly writing and rewriting pages every day, the script would be impossible to watch. The literary film director they hired had indeed won every major award available, winning all major awards, but back then he had also been known as a “box-office poison”—his films won awards but did not sell tickets. Hiring him as director meant the movie’s popularity would certainly be very low, because ordinary audiences simply would not understand it!

Moreover, with a 500-million investment, after subtracting the cinema revenue share, they would need to earn at least 1.5 billion just to barely break even. If they wanted to make a profit, the box office could not be lower than 2 billion. Where did they get the confidence to believe their movie could achieve such a result?

« It’s fine. The family has money. Why are you worrying about them? Just focus on making your own low-budget movie. » Zhong Hongyan said without concern.

Zhong Jiudao indeed had no reason to worry about the Zhong family. He finished drawing the talismans and prepared to send them, along with the film, to Zhong Hongyan by express delivery.

After finishing the editing arrangements, Zhong Jiudao returned to his room. Seeing that the computer was still on, he knew Jiang Fen had used his computer again.

He immediately checked the music software and saw the chat history between Jiang Fen and Luo Huai. His brows furrowed deeply.

Only one accessory remained intact. Then after tomorrow, wouldn’t Luo Huai and the entire production crew be completely exposed to the curse without any protection?

No, he had to visit the crew tomorrow.

--

The author has something to say:

Zhong Jiudao’s father: This unfilial son insists on becoming a director, so I will suppress him in the entertainment industry and make sure no one watches any of his movies!

Zhong Jiudao: Go ahead and take the photo, as long as you are happy.

 

Translator : DarNan