Chapter 33

3.10 – Let’s keep this identity as a younger brother (for now)

Bai Yue’s first film was titled “Bamboo Horse”. It was a name that did not seem to match the contents of the film. The film was finished on schedule, and after it passed the censorship board it was entered into a foreign film festival. They waited until they received news that the film had been nominated for an award before arranging for a release time in China.

Publicity for the film began after that.

Because the director was unknown and there were no big name actors besides the newly famous Sun Jianan, they did not spend much for promotion and only made a major push online to ensure that everyone knew of the film’s existence.

At this time, Xue Ling’s web series had already begun broadcasting, and two episodes had already been released. Both views and ratings were rising, and Xue Ling had attracted many people’s attention with his performance.

However, most of his fans were people who followed the series. Other than a brief mention in the program, there were very few people who looked for information on him specifically. But once the promotions began, many people noticed that he was a guest on this web program.

As the only permanent guest who was not famous at all, Xue Ling’s presence on the show was questioned when he first joined. If the test scores on his pilot episode hadn’t been good, and his subsequent brilliant performance in the first episode, tricking everyone with some rather immature stories and getting away as the murderer, a lot of people would probably have brought up their complaints long ago.

So, the episode where both he and Sun Jianan appeared was also released at this time.

They were somewhat similar in appearance, and Sun Jianan’s temperament has always been that of a gentle and approachable prince. When they stood together, it was inevitable that someone would begin to make comparisons. Sun Jianan’s fans loved to boast about their idol’s aristocratic style, but this time they were much quieter.

Because anyone who had eyes could see that when they stood together, Sun Jianan could not win in any aspect. Regardless of whether it was temperament or looks, Xue Ling was better than him. Especially because he was of mixed blood, his hair and eye color was particularly fascinating to young girls. Finally, he also seemed unable to compare to Xue Ling when it came to logic and reasoning, his laughter seeming forced as his thinking was unable to keep up with everyone else’s tempo.

There was already a girl who lacked in the intelligence department participating in the program as a joke. Sun Jianan was stuck in the middle of being smart and funny, and it made it difficult for others to connect with him.

This episode really helped Xue Ling gain a lot of fans, and he stole many of the ones who had originally come for Sun Jianan. When they heard that the two of them were going to appear in a film together, many people said they would go and watch it.

This year, there was no celebrity halo, and it was almost impossible to push a youth-themed film to perform well, but Xue Ling had backing. White Light Entertainment had a large number of its own movie theatres all over the country. Many screenings of the film were arranged with just a word from Bai Hao.

At the same time, the Zirkel Film Festival began overseas.

Although it was not as large as the Oscar Film Festival, the Zirkel Film Festival was well known for the quality of its selected films. This film festival had cooperated with Xue Ling’s university for many years now, showcasing many new directors. The winning works that participated in this festival might be inexperienced from a technique perspective, but the core of the films often made many film critics applaud.

In his past life, this film won a lot of awards at this festival, so Sun Jianan also published a lot of announcements and followed the crew over. Although his agent did not know what he was thinking, he could only do as he was asked as Sun Jianan was supported by a big golden ticket.

On the day of the award ceremony, the crew walked smartly through the red carpet.

Although the media did not pay much attention to them, the group went in with their heads held high.

Thanks to the system, Xue Ling knew ahead of time how many nominations his film had gotten and that they had really won several awards. He was not nervous at all, and his smiling and relaxed appearance even earned him Qi Ruishi’s praise.

Bai Hao went out on this trip along with his younger brother. He had recently been afflicted with the ‘will die without his younger brother’ sickness and had to breathe air that was from the same piece of sky as his brother in order to live, so he spent his days entangled with Xue Ling. Although he came for the film festival, he didn’t attend it due to his heavy work load. In reality, the main reason was that Xue Ling did not permit him to attend for fear of causing some silly rumors like those saying that he had paid for the prize. Although the rumors were silly, it was still better to avoid trouble where he could.

Bai Hao’s recent actions had become more and more bold. Sometimes, when Xue Ling forgot to lock the door before sleeping, Bai Hao would sneak into bed with him. The system that would occasionally get up in the middle of the night to walk around would also get scared to death by him. It clearly had a warning function, but it was completely useless when it came to Bai Hao, reminding the system of the general from the first world. It increasingly felt that Bai Hao was a bit odd.

Xue Ling totally ignored his brother’s increasingly idiotic and severe desire to monopolize him, continuing to act naively as though it was normal for brothers to get along like this, frequently causing the system to be speechless, not knowing what to say to express its increasingly strange mood.

“Bamboo Horse” was nominated for the Best Picture Award, Best Screenwriter, Best Male Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Newcomer Award and Best Editing Award. As a novice film, these achievements were already amazing enough. Xue Ling did not expect to win the Best Picture Award as it would be difficult to compete against those old directors, but he did manage to obtain the Best Male Actor Award and Best Newcomer Award. He did not get the Best Actor Award, probably because of his poor resume.

Sun Jianan also received two nominations, which could be considered as an affirmation of his acting skills. Although it was forced out by Xue Ling, his performance was very good for a young actor. Generally speaking, he should not have such a deep understanding at his age. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Best Newcomer Award, and finally won Best Supporting Actor.

However, winning this award should be ironic for him. After all, his acting skills in the film clearly lost to others, but for him to receive the Best Supporting Actor Award, it showed that the other party absolutely had the strength to win the Best Actor Award if their resume had been better.

As a new director, Xue Ling won six nominations and three awards, which was enough to make the media that did not know of them before to collectively suck in a huge breath. Moreover, he wrote and directed the film himself, and his own awards included the Best Newcomer and the Best Screenwriter Awards. Now, everyone exploded as the news reached back home. The name “Bai Yue” suddenly became popular overnight and he became a hot topic.

This film was more popular than the film from his previous life because there were different investors and a different team, and the film was shot more successfully. Although Sun Jianan was happy to have won awards, he felt that he had been slapped in the face and was particularly discontented, wanting to take it out on someone.

Regardless of whether he was happy or unwilling, the domestic media exploded anyway, and they began to dig deeply, quickly finding Bai Yue’s information and broadcasting it everywhere.

This could be regarded as a perfect resume. He was the Second Young Master of the Bai family who went abroad as a child, studied in the director department of a world famous university, returned to China to make a film and won multiple prizes. His resume looked simple, but no one could match it. On top of it all was his angelic face as he smiled slightly at the camera – his innocent and pure look was enough to mislead anyone.

The media also found his previous appearance on the web series and commented on his performance, calling him a good logical thinker, extremely clever, and a little angel when he laughed, but his eyes inadvertently caused people’s heart to beat faster.

Weibo began a series of memes from his participation in the series, using his ‘witty blinks’, ‘inadvertent lip licking’, ‘eyes squinted while thinking’, ‘tear mole winking’, and so on… in short, Xue Ling’s perfect face conquered most of Weibo.

The premiere began the day after news of the award was spread. White Light spent a lot of money this time, and invited a large number of film critics in the industry and many Weixin and Weibo opinion leaders. Thanks to yesterday’s news, many people attended the premiere on time.

Only then did people realize that besides the director, the rest of the group were also god-class, whether it was the assistant director, the costumes, or the music, all of them were top class characters from White Light. It was no wonder that the show won so many awards. With such a good team, even if the director was a new person, the others were still gods… let alone when the director also had some ability.

When Xue Ling returned home, many fans came to the airport to greet him, making Bai Hao very upset. In order to appease his elder brother, Xue Ling did not go out to meet his fans, but went directly through the VIP channel.

He asked Qi Ruishi to buy some gifts for the fans who were waiting to greet him, and signed a photo for each of them as an apology.

The fans kept whining and apparently were not happy. Qi Ruishi herself could not help but sigh over the fact that the second young master truly had the ability to attract girls—if they had seen him in person it would be over. It would be an absolutely unprecedented event, and the big boss would be angry enough to tear his hand off.

That night, the third episode of the web series went live, and the number of people watching live webcasts at the same time broke the records. The directors all praised the second young master, saying that they really made a profit by allowing him onto the show back then.

Xue Ling’s fame completely covered up any news of Sun Jianan and it made Sun Jianan so angry that his teeth itched. It was made worse when he returned home to learn that Lin Yi had gone to hold a celebration for Bai Yue, and he smashed a lot of things in his room. And because his things weren’t made of glass, he had to pick them up and continue to use them afterwards.

Sun Jianan could not bear to see Bai Yue’s popularity and was just thinking about how to cause trouble when reviews from the big opinion leaders who had just finished watching the film all came out.

In recent years, many people only read film reviews without watching the movie, so the spreading of film reviews was very important. Most of the reviews from the premiere night were good. After all, this work won several awards, and there was no fault to be found regarding the film’s technical aspect. Rather, it was the obscure and vagueness of the film that triggered a big round of discussion – was the relationship between the two youths a pure one just like the bamboo horse of childhood, or was there something else?

People’s attention finally shifted away from Xue Ling and began to focus on the film. As the culprit behind the scenes who caused the shift, Bai Hao smiled profoundly.

Xue Ling glanced at his elder brother’s smile, then looked at the trend of the internet and could vaguely guess what the damned repressed man had done. But he did not say anything—it wasn’t the first or even the second time that Bai Hao made moves like this behind his back. He planned to first save up a certain amount of money before he found the other party to make trouble.

He really wanted to how long this damned man could stay bottled up for.

When Xue Ling returned home, he received a phone call from Lin Yi saying that he had prepared a celebration party for him, and invited both him and his crew.

In line with the idea that it was foolish for him not to go if someone had already paid money for it, Xue Ling agreed. Hearing from the system that Sun Jianan had smashed his things at home, he was even happier, cheerfully picking out clothes to go out in, only to be blocked by Bai Hao at the entrance to their home.

“Elder brother?” He was smiling, with stars twinkling in his eyes, and Bai Hao could feel his heart thumping crazily.

“Where are you going?” Bai Hao’s voice was deep as he lowered his head to look at him, something indecipherable flickering in his eyes. God knows how much self-control he had to exert in order not to pinch his younger brother’s chin and kiss him right then.

“Celebration party.” Xue Ling shook the cell phone in his hand and said, “Elder brother has an important meeting tonight, right? Hurry up and go. Don’t worry, I won’t drink, and even if I do, I’ll call someone to pick me up.”

The words that Bai Hao had wanted to say were refuted before they even left his mouth, and then Xue Ling had already walked past him. He wanted to reach out and grab him, but he was afraid of upsetting his brother. He was worried that his younger brother would think he controlled his life too much.

Sometimes, the identity of brother was of great benefit to him. He could always find all kinds of excuses to eat his brother’s tofu and take small advantages. But sometimes, he hated this identity. With this identity, he couldn’t say anything to the other party. Even actions that were clearly possessive would always be brushed off by others as him merely being protective of his younger brother.

He was being protective, but it wasn’t because the other person was his younger brother.

Oh, he didn’t think of him as his younger brother at all.

But since his identity as a younger brother could ensure that they were both on the same household register, then they might as well keep this identity for now.

Bamboo horse竹马 – A kind of children’s toy. Typically a pole with a horse head model on one end and wheels on the other end. Because it was a toy typically played with in childhood, many literary creations use the bamboo horse as a symbol of recalling childhood.

editors: alamerysl & BlueBug

double post most likely happening today because i want to hurry up & share the fun ^_~ parts with ya’ll~

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