Chapter 640: Chapter 468: Testing the Waters and Gathering Information
Zhou Yun returned home, and Song Chi had not yet come back.
She searched her name on the internet, and then searched for Xu Siyao’s name.
Due to the popularity of "Dingfengbo," there were many discussions about the two of them online, especially following Zhou Yun’s recent spontaneous live stream, which really stirred up her fan base.
The comments about her and Xu Siyao online were not much different from usual.
Zhou Yun didn’t find any particularly new content.
It was only Zhou Yun herself who saw a leak online stating that Xu Siyao and Su Yan were about to start shooting a new show and were currently having disputes over their roles due to conflicts of getting the right billing.
Now that Xu Siyao was once again popular because of "Dingfengbo," this dispute might help her in tearing up the billing, which annoyed Zhou Yun.
On the other hand, many people were also discussing whether Zhou Yun could win the Best Supporting Actress at the Huayu Award this time.
Many people were optimistic about Zhou Yun, but everyone felt that Zhou Yun had been too lucky with awards lately; could she really be that fortunate?
The struggle for the Best Supporting Actress at this Huayu Award was even more exciting than for the Best Actress.
Among those nominated with Zhou Yun, all were veterans in the industry who had won many awards.
Zhou Yun was less experienced compared to them.
Thus, some bloggers even said that this year’s Huayu Award for Best Supporting Actress was even more attention-grabbing than Best Actress.
Zhou Yun browsed the internet here and there to kill some time when there was nothing else to do and thought about it. Then, she took a collection of Raymond Carver’s novels from the bookshelf.
She had bought it two years ago but had always found it difficult to get into.
She decided to give it another try today.
After patiently reading a few stories, she still couldn’t really get into it and eventually put it back on the shelf.
She never forced herself to read a book she couldn’t get into, even if it was by a world-famous author, a masterpiece, or a classic.
Reading was about connection.
Forcing oneself to read a book was merely mechanically completing the reading of the text.
It was meaningless.
She instead picked up her favorite mystery novel that she usually liked.
She had even ordered several new books recently.
About two hours later, Zhou Lan called her.
"I just met with the director; he seems to be hiding something. When it came to you and Xu Siyao’s performances, he seemed evasive. I said since some content might not be appropriate for the final film, I hoped to see the rough cut in advance. He didn’t refuse, but he said the film hadn’t been edited yet. I said that when it’s ready, I’ll come check it, and he agreed. He seems to be cautious about something, and he even asked me directly if indeed their editing would favor you since you are the biggest celebrity; they know this very well inside. I didn’t continue that topic but mentioned that Xu Siyao is cunning and who knows what she might be up to. I came today just to ensure Xu Siyao wasn’t up to anything, and then his expression changed."
Zhou Yun asked, "Did Xu Siyao approach him?"
"I don’t know, but it’s possible," said Zhou Lan. "I also gently probed whether He Yong had anything to do with it, but didn’t catch anything."
"If Xu Siyao personally contacted the director, isn’t that too bold? Xu Siyao is crazy for all I care, but why should the directors go crazy with her? They are doing well with their program."
Zhou Lan: "Who knows what kind of deals they might have behind the scenes."
"You mean, Xu Siyao has bribed them?" Zhou Yun hesitated for a moment, "It sounds somewhat improbable, too unrealistic. He’s just a program director; at most, he could cut out Xu Siyao’s bad scenes, but to risk editing content negatively against me, why would he do that? I don’t have any issue with him."
"Anyway, I’ve hinted to him that we have records of the entire shooting process, and if the final film contains any content unfavorable to us, we’ll refute it directly," Zhou Lan said. "He’ll be the first to face the consequences."
Zhou Yun acknowledged with a sound.
...
The director of "What a Nice Weather" ran his fingers through his own hair, feeling almost on the verge of explosion inside.
Zhou Lan had just come to see him and made things very clear.
Now, the director himself didn’t know if Zhou Lan had heard something through the grapevine.
The things she said to him were indeed a bit odd, each sentence seemed targeted specifically at the editing issues.
Yet, to say that she definitely knew something didn’t seem quite right either.
If Zhou Yun’s camp truly knew what he was up to now, they wouldn’t just talk to him in veiled threats; they would have flipped out big time.
Of course, he wasn’t aware that the reason Zhou Yun and Zhou Lan were still somewhat cautious and had not clarified the issue was that they hadn’t fully grasped the specific details; they didn’t know how many people at Chestnut Video were involved in this.
When Xu Siyao approached him, she offered to pay him 300,000 yuan if he could slightly modify the content of this episode.
For instance, to cut out her acting pitiful towards Zhou Yun beforehand.
But if they did that, it would unsubstantially make Zhou Yun appear to directly taunt and mock Xu Siyao without any prior reason.
So, he refused.
If he really took the money, it would become a financial transaction, and the consequences could be severe if discovered.
But then Xu Siyao upped her offer to 500,000 yuan with only one condition: remove the scenes unfavorable to her but keep those involving Zhou Yun.
That tempted him.
Even though he was the director of "What a Nice Weather," what he earned over the years was far less than a fraction of what celebrities made.
If he agreed, that 500,000 yuan was his.
He was indeed tempted.
The key was that this task was indeed within his powers.
He could covertly get it done.
Just by cutting some scenes unfavorable to Xu Siyao.
Even if the final product might negatively impact Zhou Yun, it could still be kept within ambiguous bounds.
But then, Director Zhou suddenly demanded to see the film.
Risks arose.
The method he thought of using version A to pass the review, then switch it out with version B to go live, explaining later that the wrong version was uploaded.
Uploading the wrong version is a big blunder indeed, but after weighing it, just sincerely apologizing on behalf of the program team might just settle it, and it wouldn’t really impact him much.
This way, he could pocket the money.
But now, having calmed down, he slowly began to feel anxious, doubting if the outcome would be as perfect as he had imagined.
Is this really worth doing?
He couldn’t help but waver.