Chapter 8

After that, Sang Yu spent two days on casting before getting sick of it and handing everything over to the professionals.

He had other things to do.

He got hooked on the fun of building a production crew and started 'crowdsourcing' on Weibo — asking fans to recommend directors, cinematographers, actors, art directors… and Sang Yu actually, genuinely used that list to reach out to people.

Everyone was floored.

The industry included.

Every legitimate production crew operates by the book — there are rules, back channels, and unspoken social codes for every single step. But this Sang Yu…

People in the industry had all heard opinions about him at some dinner table or another.

Almost none of it was positive.

The script isn't even finalized and he's already casting? He doesn't have the filing approval in hand, hasn't held a single investor meeting, and he's already doing martial arts training? Is he just winging it?!

No legitimate production works like this. Y03 is just throwing money around, treating Domestic Entertainment like his personal playground.

Sure, he's making a lot of noise and 'catering' to what audiences want — but what's the point?

The people who actually watch dramas aren't the ones active online.

Everyone was convinced this guy couldn't produce anything real. After all, The Demolition Office didn't even have a single big-name star to anchor it.

Just look at the male lead they cast — a face destined to flop straight through the earth's core.

The whole thing was a joke.

Word was he'd contacted some fresh art school grad — barely a few years out, barely any credits — to be the production's art director.

This Sang guy…

Just wait for the losses to roll in.

Huang Yunwen had also been watching from the sidelines for a while.

When the production officially announced Xuan Leron as the male lead, he froze for a second — who even was this guy? Not a rival he recognized at all.

A quick search told him everything: oh, a nobody who hadn't even headlined a single drama.

Huang Yunwen relaxed.

He'd been about to have his agency buy some smear pieces on the male lead, but the casting choice was so unexpected — the guy was so obscure Huang Yunwen couldn't even name him off the top of his head.

Not even worth treating as a rival.

The bad luck from before was just that — bad luck.

But that didn't stop him from riding his fans' 'we were set up' theory, playing the victim a little, and nudging his fanbase into developing a bad impression of Xuan Leron.

Perfect timing during a quiet period — give the fans something to do, boost engagement.

The fan group had just taken an L; they needed a W to get their morale back up.

— Huang Yunwen would've preferred to send his fans to mass-report Y03's account, but the other side hadn't given him an opening, so he didn't dare.

Pick the soft target.

With some quiet fanning of the flames, Xuan Leron's search page got completely buried.

Search 'Xuan Leron' and you used to get news about him being cast as the male lead of A Demolition Office Is Not Ordinary.

Or the occasional fan promo post from his small following.

Not anymore.

Now it was a parade of nicknames: 'Pork Rong,' 'Big Head Rong,' 'Xuan Nobody,' 'Domestic Entertainment's King of Dragging Others Down' — you name it.

Xuan Leron: …

He was in the middle of martial arts training, grinding so hard every day his hair could be wrung out like a wet towel, but he couldn't eat too much because he had to keep that lean, bookish physique.

Xuan Leron was a little worked up — was this what going viral felt like?!

The right move was to stay quiet, play dead, and wait for the storm to pass. But watching his few fans struggle to hold the line made him feel genuinely guilty.

The top-tier fan war machine hit without discrimination — his search page, his fan forum, even individual fans' comment sections.

Xuan Leron barely had any fans to begin with. It was a surgical strike.

One person couldn't take it and deleted their account.

He tossed and turned, thought it over, and decided to go find Sang Yu.

— He wanted to post something, but he was worried it might drag the production into it.

He'd figured it out by then: the young guy in the mask he'd seen at the audition, Y03, was also Sang Yu.

He and the original author of The Demolition Office had been hyping Sang Yu up to each other in private —

Young and talented!

Hot!

Could debut as an idol with that look!

The two of them had basically been ready to crown themselves Sang Yu's left and right guardians — but the moment they met him in person, they got properly starstruck.

Xuan Leron showered, blow-dried his hair, made sure he didn't smell like sweat, and only then headed to the hotel where Sang Yu was staying.

'Assistant Cui, is Sang Yu available?'

Cui Jin said Sang Yu was in, but currently in a meeting, and asked Mr. Xuan to please wait.

Xuan Leron heard that and obediently waited in the designated spot.

Not even ten minutes later, Xuan Leron heard the door open. He glanced over — and spotted a familiar face!

A director with a small body, a big face, and a gourd-shaped head like the dad from that cartoon — Yao Yingbo.

Xuan Leron: ?!

Yao Yingbo was well-known in the industry.

No matter how bad a drama he directed was, you could always cut a clip from it worthy of a 'Peak Moments of Chinese Drama Aesthetics' compilation.

His eye for visuals was legendary.

But ever since Yao Yingbo blew up, he'd basically been directing S+ historical costume projects for the Big Three studios, with a schedule packed to the brim.

Yao Yingbo was here…

·

Of course Sang Yu had brought him on as director.

Sure, casting wasn't done and filming hadn't started, but schedules need to be locked in early.

Yao Yingbo had been among the directors fans recommended in the comments — Sang Yu's approach was simple: if he could get him, he would.

Assistant Cui Jin had done a background check. A director like Yao Yingbo — famous, never short of work — was usually hard to poach.

But if you hit the right nerve and spend your money in the right place, even a ghost will turn the millstone.

The reason Yao Yingbo said yes was because Sang Yu made him a promise —

To make his dream of directing a film that didn't cater to mainstream tastes a reality.

When Yao Yingbo first entered the industry, he started as an independent filmmaker.

Independent filmmakers self-fund, write their own scripts, and direct — no backing from any major studio.

No compromising for the market, no bowing to capital. The direction of the story is entirely in the filmmaker's hands.

Independent films made by these kinds of filmmakers usually only have a niche following.

Yao Yingbo flopped right out of the gate too.

But he never gave up.

Especially after finding success in middle age — no longer worried about making ends meet — his shelved dream of making independent films started burning again.

He'd tried to pull in investors before.

One investor had obliquely 'suggested' that Yao Yingbo would be better off putting his money into period romance dramas — as long as he directed one, investors would come.

Yao Yingbo didn't like hearing that.

He wanted both things.

He couldn't let go of the quick money from period romance dramas, and he couldn't let go of his independent film dream. Right at that crossroads, Sang Yu showed up.

Yao Yingbo walked out the door and saw a not-quite-familiar face — the male lead.

The other guy spoke first: 'Director Yao, I've heard so much about you. I'm a huge fan of your work! I'm Xuan Leron — just call me Lerong!'

'Little Xuan…'

Yao Yingbo cleared his throat: 'Train hard. Don't let Sang Yu down. Looking forward to working together, yeah?'

This was going to be his male lead after all — they'd be working closely together — so Yao Yingbo didn't pull out the full old-timer attitude, just a light version.

The two exchanged a few pleasantries, swapped contact info, and Xuan Leron's heart was pounding.

…

In front of Sang Yu, Xuan Leron pulled himself together and got to the point.

He had some self-awareness. He fidgeted with his fingers and said: 'I feel like the moment I clap back at the haters, the whole production is going to get dragged onto the hot search with me.'

Sang Yu already knew — a production crew had more than just the usual logistics like set management; there was also a PR monitoring team and a marketing team.

'So what if we get dragged? My production isn't going to shut down just because people talk trash about it.'

Sang Yu had assumed he was coming to ask for permission.

Xuan Leron wasn't selling himself to The Demolition Office — whether he swallowed his pride or fired back immediately, both were his choices.

As long as he didn't blow it.

What Sang Yu meant by 'blow it': leaking contract details, or saying something so far out of line it crossed what the public could accept.

'Post whatever you want. Just watch the line.'

He was actually a little surprised Xuan Leron had chosen to stand up for his fans.

Xuan Leron nodded hard.

A beat later, his ears went hot.

Honestly, Xuan Leron's motivation was pretty selfish — he'd bothered Sang Yu over a tiny thing just to protect a handful of fans.

He hadn't expected Sang Yu to be this approachable.

Xuan Leron was fired up.

After saying goodbye to Sang Yu, he pulled out his phone.

The haters called him Pork Rong, and called his fans 'stinky pig fans' — the haters were more like a pack of unleashed strays with no owner;

The haters said he was an eighteenth-tier nobody — they couldn't even lick the back of his heels, and Xuan Leron, steamed and simmered, was probably sitting at home picking his toes and had already licked them first;

The haters had no class — a celebrity going online to bully regular fans was a thing, but Xuan Leron: whether he was a nobody or not, couldn't his identity just flex to fit the situation?

…

Sure, in Domestic Entertainment this kind of behavior was seen as a desperate flailing nobody pulling stunts for attention. But his fans were pretty happy about it.

When someone sticks up for you, it's touching no matter what. That goes double when it's a celebrity.

This job was different like that.

Everyone was shocked.

Was Xuan Leron just going to do this once and never again? He'd made way too many enemies this way.

Xuan Leron knew that too — but he was clear-eyed: his 'foundation' was too weak to begin with.

Better to hold onto the fans he had right now than to worry about future haters.

Sang Yu was already charging ahead at the front lines. Huang Yunwen's fan group had already had it out for The Demolition Office — as the male lead, Xuan Leron was never going to escape that.

Permanently dodging wasn't an option either.

He'd tried dodging before, and they'd brought the fight straight to his house — his fan forum!

Besides, Sang Yu had already started the fight. If Xuan Leron didn't join in and just played dead waving a white flag — was that right?!

He just wished he could clap back harder. Maybe pick up a few tricks from Sang Yu's playbook.