At nine in the evening, the dinner at the Jinjiang Hotel officially came to an end. The atmosphere in the private room had been quite harmonious, and the matter regarding the script for 《The Hidden Sentry》 was fully settled. The group walked along the resplendent corridor and made their way to the hotel's main entrance.
A night breeze blew past, dispersing the faint scent of alcohol clinging to them. The three of them exchanged pleasantries and said their goodbyes.
Shen Donglou's driver was highly perceptive, smoothly pulling the Maybach up under the portico. The driver got out and respectfully opened the rear door. Shen Donglou was just about to step inside when his feet suddenly paused.
He turned around, his gaze bypassing Xu Pingqiu to land directly on Jiang Yue. This capital tycoon, who held immense power in the industry, looked at him with a mix of scrutiny and expectation.
“Young man, take the script back and study it carefully.”
“Don't let Director Xu and me down.”
Jiang Yue's expression remained unchanged as he gave a slight nod. Shen Donglou said no more, bending down to step into the car.
The car door closed.
The black Maybach glided silently into the night, quickly merging into the flow of traffic ahead and vanishing from sight.
Xu Pingqiu stood in place, watching the taillights recede into the distance, before finally letting out a long breath. He turned toward his own business van and waved.
“Get in.”
Jiang Yue followed, opening the door and sitting in the back seat. The car started up, smoothly driving toward the hotel.
It was very quiet inside the car, with only the faint humming of the air conditioner. Xu Pingqiu turned to look at Jiang Yue, his eyes filled with a highly complex emotion.
“Do you see what Old Shen is planning today?”
Jiang Yue leaned back against his seat, watching the neon signs flash past outside the window, and let out a soft chuckle.
“Well, he certainly isn't running a charity.”
“Businessmen prioritize profits. For him to throw such an important role in 《The Hidden Sentry》 directly at a newcomer like me, he must have some ulterior motive.”
Xu Pingqiu burst out laughing.
“Of course it's not charity! That man is as shrewd as they come. Do you really think he made the final call today just because of your current online popularity?”
Feeling a bit parched, Xu Pingqiu unscrewed his thermos and took a big gulp of tea. “When he went to the set a few days ago, he was indeed checking your caliber. But I suspect that after watching you play Chu Yan, he had already begun to place his bets.”
“He is certain that once 《The Grand Game》 airs, your popularity and market value will absolutely skyrocket.”
Xu Pingqiu tapped his fingers against his thigh, a habitual gesture when he was deep in thought.
“《The Hidden Sentry》 won't start filming until the end of the year. By the time they finish shooting and post-production, it'll be the second half of next year at the earliest.”
“He is clearly making a guaranteed, highly profitable ‘futures trade.’ ”
“By using your current ‘newcomer rate,’ he's locked in your commercial value after you blow up ahead of time.”
“He will never lose on this deal!”
Jiang Yue nodded slightly.
So that was it.
Truly the mindset of a capitalist.
Always staying ahead of the market, locking in the highest returns with the lowest costs.
“But at the same time, he's also gambling on me,” Xu Pingqiu sighed.
“Gambling that you can hold your own against Chen Jiaming, and that I didn't misjudge you. Kid, don't ruin my reputation.”
Half an hour later, Jiang Yue returned to the hotel and bid farewell to Xu Pingqiu. He casually tossed his jacket onto the bed, pulled out his phone, and opened WeChat.
The moment the interface loaded, the screen lagged. In the upper-right corner of the WeChat icon, the red notification number had gone wild, instantly displaying “99+”.
Li Cheng, Lu Ming, Chen Haotian, and a dozen other classmates who hadn't spoken to him in ages—their messages filled the screen like snowflakes.
Jiang Yue scrolled through the list and tapped on Lu Ming's chat. The screen was completely filled with exclamation marks.
“Brother Yue!! Check Weibo right now!! Something huge happened!!”
Jiang Yue's fingers paused slightly. He swiped out of WeChat and directly opened Weibo.
There was no need to search.
Right on the splash screen was a trending search term marked with the “EXPLOSIVE” tag, dominating the number one spot on the hot search list.
This was a search term significant enough to cause waves even in mainstream news:
#Official Police Account Calls Out Shen Xu: With This Kind of IQ, Please Stay on the Right Path#
Jiang Yue raised an eyebrow and clicked into the topic. He saw an official, verified police account with a blue V badge.
They had directly reposted a GIF of his rooftop confrontation scene from the web series. The caption got straight to the point:
“The net of heaven has large meshes, but nothing escapes. In reality, a suspect with superb counter-reconnaissance capabilities like Shen Xu would eventually be brought to justice.”
“However, we also want to remind netizens that the extreme calmness and deceptiveness shown by the actor playing the villain can be considered a classic case study in criminal psychology. But after all, this is just for dramatic effect, so please do not imitate it.”
Below this post, tens of thousands of comments from frenzied netizens had already accumulated.
Jiang Yue gently slid his finger across the screen and opened the comment section under the official post. The number of likes on the top comments had already soared into the tens of thousands.
The netizens' comments were incredibly bizarre, turning a serious legal education post into a massive, hilarious meme fest.
“Holy cow! I knew something was off with the cast and crew of 《Manhunt》, and now even the authorities are stepping in! Jiang Yue, confess honestly, are you just playing yourself? [doge]”
“I suggest a thorough investigation! The reputation of Donghai University's School of Computer Science has been ruined! Our department really doesn't teach how to hack traffic systems! Stop asking! [facepalm]”
“Other actors playing villains: wear heavy eyeliner, crook their lips, and give a sinister smile.”
“Jiang Yue playing a villain: pushes up his gold-rimmed glasses and asks if the Enter key is faster, or a bullet. The police: ‘Huh? Say that again?’ ”
“Investigate! Investigate him to the bone! If they end up finding out he's actually a model student with excellent character and academic performance, that would be hilarious, hahaha!”
Looking at these playful comments, Jiang Yue couldn't help but laugh out loud. This generation of netizens really had wild imaginations.
Still, this kind of lighthearted, organic promotion was far more effective than the production team spending money on marketing articles.
He casually liked the official post, ignored the rest of the commotion, put down his phone, and fell fast asleep.
Early the next morning, Jiang Yue packed his bags, said goodbye to the cast and crew of 《The Grand Game》, and boarded the high-speed train back to Donghai City.
Two months of back-to-back filming had temporarily pulled him away from his identity as a student. But now that graduation was approaching for the seniors, his thesis defense was an unavoidable and serious matter.
In fact, with the explosive popularity of 《Manhunt》 recently, Donghai University's campus forum had long since blown up. Quite a few people knew that a senior from the School of Computer Science had gone off to act.
Rumor had it that a small group of wild “fangirls” had even sprung up on campus, posting on the confession wall every day to track him down.
But university wasn't like high school. With such a large campus and wide range of majors, it was hard enough to catch a glimpse of someone normally, let alone stake out a specific spot to find them.
When Jiang Yue dragged his suitcase through the gates of Donghai University, it happened to be the prime class time of 2:30 PM.
The main road was shaded by trees, with sunlight filtering through the leaves to cast dappled shadows. Aside from the occasional student hurriedly passing by on a shared bicycle, there was almost no one on the road.
This long-lost tranquility made Jiang Yue, who had grown accustomed to the hustle and bustle of film sets, feel extremely comfortable.
Instead of heading back to his dorm first, he naturally turned into the office building of the School of Computer Science. He stopped, raised his hand, and knocked on the door of his thesis advisor, Professor Zhang.
“Come in.”
A slightly stern female voice sounded from inside.
Jiang Yue pushed the door open and walked in. “Professor Zhang, I'm back.”
Sitting behind the desk, Professor Zhang looked up and pushed her reading glasses up the bridge of her nose.
Once she saw it was Jiang Yue, a smile emerged on her stern face. “Our big star is back from filming?”
“Professor Zhang, please stop teasing me.”
Jiang Yue familiarly pulled out a chair and sat down opposite her.
There weren't actually many classes left for seniors, and the few online courses had already concluded in the first two months of the semester.
When Jiang Yue joined the cast to film, he had specifically requested leave from his professor, excusing him from several online graduation project discussion meetings.
Now that he was back, he naturally had to push forward his thesis progress as soon as possible.
After a brief exchange of pleasantries, they quickly got down to business.
Jiang Yue's thesis topic was 《Deep Learning Emotion Recognition Model Based on Local Facial Muscle Micro-movement Capture》.
The core support of this research relied heavily on data regarding the extremely subtle changes in facial muscles.
Yet, Jiang Yue happened to hold the Purple-Tier Trait, 【Micro-Expression Master】.
His control and understanding of human facial muscle groups had long reached the pinnacle.
He himself was the most perfect mobile database.
Rate on N.U.
