Chapter 1: An Exciting Opening
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Preface
“The world is so big, life is so long, there must be someone who you want to treat with care.”
Chapter 1 An Exciting Opening
Chu Shun knew that he had traveled to a parallel universe.
The more regrets there were in reality, the more one wished to travel to a parallel universe. Even when he was browsing in the book review area, he saw [Reply 1 is Riches System, Reply 2 is Parallel World Travel System, Reply 3 is Technology System, Reply 4 is Death Seeking System, Reply 5 World Transformation System, Reply 6 is World Modulation System…] being posted. Chu Shun silently replied 1, and used his dupe1 to reply 3.
Of course, posts like this were used to get book fans to reply, Chu Shun thought about different ways of traveling to a parallel world, but he had never thought that it would come so unexpectedly—eating wife cake1 with Lao Gan Ma2 and choked to death all of a sudden.
“According to the current memory, this is not planet Earth, it’s called the Primeland Planet. The origin of this bizarre name was not important, what was important was it indicated that I had traveled to a parallel universe, not being reborn on Earth.”
Chu Shun was a web reader too, he even had a writer’s account on one of the platforms. But he only wrote a chapter or two when he felt like it. It was quick for him to accept this new world as an avid bookworm, he even had an immediate basic judgment.
“The custom of the parallel universe…” Chu Shun was trying to execute a deeper level of memory integration.
There was no sign of ancient martial arts.
There was no extraordinary ability to be found.
There was neither doomsday ideation.
“That’s great, the Primeland is about the same as Earth where societies are governed by laws. I’m safe for now.” Chu Shun could relax a little, he then discovered that the history and geography of Primeland were almost the same as Earth’s. Judging with the limited memory he had about the history and geography of the Earth, there was no great difference.
As someone who had never given anyone a triple—like, sponsor with coins, and save to favorite—on bilibili.com before, never fast-forward when watching movies, a hard-working, and thrifty strong man, Chu Shun made a guesstimate about Primeland and realized that this was a parallel universe. In reality, it was called ‘Defective World’ because Chu Shun discovered that many celebrities did not exist.
The greatest difference was the entertainment industry. Not sure what butterfly effect it was, many famous writers from the late seventies were gone, and many celebrated directors and movie stars ceased to exist.
As for the less famous directors and movie stars, who cared? Nobody would notice their disappearance.
“Thus this beat is…”
A beat that made him become a mover!
Chu Shun read some novels about leading roles traveling to the past, where the leading roles would use other people’s identity with no shame, and glorified it by saying that it was to disseminate culture. He laughed, and now it was his turn to do so.
Would he plagiarise with no shame?
Of course, it was necessary!
Moving it himself would not be called ‘no shame’, it was for the benefit of mankind, for the lost souls, for the hollowed-spirits, this was the truth! Chu Shun believed it himself.
In his previous life, Chu Shun had two jobs. First, his main job was being an assistant director. He had been an assistant director for more than ten years. He had used these ten years to build his connection and had managed to get an ambitious investor for a film. But the investor changed the plot and added romantic scenes. That was not all, the director did not even have a say in the choice of a leading role.
In fact, the director had no say in the choice of actors, plot, and editing. Why would he continue with a film that would risk being a bad movie?
First, the chance of coming across an investor was extremely rare; in his previous life, Chu Shun believed that it may be his only chance—he felt lucky. Second, would one really quit halfway through the filming process? The investors were not naive, they mean business!
It was predictable that Chu Shun did not manage to pull it off—it was a box office disaster. Then he traveled to a parallel universe.
Honestly speaking, Chu Shun did not have much artistic aspiration. He was a layman. The reason that he joined the entertainment industry was due to a piece of news that he read when he was a student.
Leos Carax had always dated the female lead of the movie he was making. If he was honest about it… Their beauty stimulated his inspiration. Was he making movies or choosing concubine?
Juliette Binoche and Yekaterina Golubeva were all beauties.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, sexual orientation aside, he had Irm Hermann as a girlfriend while living with his boyfriend. Hermann was frequently abused, she even sold her body to make a living, she tried to commit suicide three times.
Lars von Trier even announced that he was a Third Reich’s supporter, the matter with big director Roman Polanski was insignificant. All in all these matters were all problematic in the eyes of young Chu Shun, but their fame did not decrease.
Trier was named the Nordic genius after Ernst Ingmar Bergman, Fassbinder became the master of film in Germany, Carax was 120% an artistic director. Unfortunately, Chu Shun did not read anything about the private lives of some writers, there were many writers in Europe and their private lives were astonishing.
Chu Shun wanted to become someone like that, he did not mean that he wanted to do what these directors did, but he wanted the freedom of a famous director. He could shout at anyone as he wished, he could leave anytime when he felt like it. As for the interviews, he would do as he liked, maybe even take the day off, that would be great… Stop it, it was over.
He only learned that things were not that simple after joining the entertainment industry. Furthermore, there were great differences between laymen and geniuses. Chu Shun truly believed that he was a genius—an incomparable genius and all he needed was an opportunity. But no one else shared that thought about him, years of challenging experiences made him realize that he was just a layman. Thus, his goal was only to make some money. He wanted to try to get into the upper-class society but was living in the underworld.
A familiar voice appeared as Chu Shun was organizing his memory.
“Brother Shun, you didn’t go to class again today.”
The door of the dorm opened and closed. He followed the sound and found his roommate, Plain Water. He was called Plain Water because he looked plain, plain as the water. Plain Water said as he put the books that were on his hands on the table, “The counselor called us and wanted us to inform you that you have to go and meet the counselor. Must be about class skipping. Behave yourself, don’t get into more trouble.”
“Thanks,” Chu Shun replied, “I’ll go there in a while.”
The former owner of this body was a simple-minded, engrossed in movie making, year two student of directing department in Beijing Film Academy. Art students may not come from a well to do family. But students from the directing department are usually from well to do families, just like the family condition of the former owner. His father had a factory, and his mother had a publishing house. His parents supported his dreams of becoming a director since he was young, and he was lucky enough to get into Beijing Film Academy.
It was unbelievable, the former owner thought that he had learned all that he could about directing, and was only one step away from becoming a famous director, and that was putting it into action. He begged his parents to invest, he made four short films and one featured film in two years. They invested three million, did not make any splash, the short films have been on the internet for six months and they did not reach one hundred thousand views. The featured film was able to get a film screening permit in PRC with the help of the academy and the teachers, but the box office was…
The former owner did not give up, and studied the film shooting techniques in his dorm everyday. Chu Shun suspected if he had ruined his health, thus he was able to stay in this body.
This also result in–
“I know you are passionate about movie making, and you are willing to invest financially, this can’t be the excuse you use for skipping classes over and over again.” Li Kan the counselor said with a tone that said he had high expectations of him and he should have done better: “we made it very clear to you last time.”
Chu Shun recalled, the former owner had skipped one too many classes and was disqualified from taking the final exam, had to retake.
The severity of class skipping largely depended on whether the school was strict or not. For the schools that were not strict, you can still graduate even if you skipped a third of the classes. Unfortunately, Beijing Film Academy was strict.
“You wouldn’t be able to graduate if this behavior persists, maybe you should consider dropping out.” counselor Li Kan was being serious as a heart attack when he was speaking the last sentence.
He had just traveled to this parallel universe and he was advised to drop out from the school by a counselor, this was exciting. Chu Shun had not had the chance to reply, the counselor asked: “How was the box office of the movies that you made?”
“Four hundred fifty eight thousand and seven hundred dollars.” Chu Shun reported the box office subconsciously. Luckily his second job has helped him to develop a thick skin.
The counselor Li Kan coughed after hearing that, and said: “The school advised you to drop out, you have one week.”
The meaning of that was, he had one week’s time to pack and leave the school, on the front the school advised him to drop out, in actual fact he was being expelled.
Chu Shun felt the pockets with his hands, he was going to take a cigarette. But the former owner did not smoke, and he gave up. He asked: “Is there any chance to turn this around?”
“It is not that I don’t want to help you. As a counselor, I do not wish students would be expelled.” Li Kan sighed, and said: “The academy administration knew about this, if the “Six Grids” that you made had a better result in the box office or better review, or if the short films received some kind of reward, the school could still say that they cultivated young directors, but…”
Not forgetting to mention, the movie that the former owner made was not only a box office bomb, it drew terrible reviews. Douban.com rated it 3.1, in the bottom ten lowest rating. Not only it cannot be used as leverage, it brought shame to the school.
The web commented that it was worse than having it recorded using a camera tie around a dog’s neck.
“I’ll ask Director Wang in the afternoon if you can repeat another year.” The counselor Li Kan pondered and said, then he added: “But don’t get your hopes up.”
” I understand, no matter what the verdict is, thank you, counselor.” Chu Shun thanked him, compared to the many web novels that he had read, teachers and counselors were usually difficult, but he felt that this counselor was different, he was nice.
After leaving the counseling office, Chu Shun walked around in the “Pyramid”. The good thing about Beijing Film Academy was that there were many beautiful chicks.
Before Chu Shun traveled to the parallel universe was a eunuch… no, this was all Jiang Wen’s fault, before he traveled to the parallel universe his second job was a highly experienced film critic.
After all, Jiang Wen once said film critics talking about movies is like eunuchs talking about lovemaking.
He thought that it made a lot of sense. This did not affect Chu Shun as a film critic. In reality, as an assistant director, he had to be nice to everyone, but he would critic hard on the web.
Basically, there were two kinds of film critics, first, was for the media, they were the ones that everybody was familiar with, second, was for the cinemas, their critics was for the people who run cinemas, then the cinemas would use it as a reference for the film schedule. It was like the middle tone of the financial industry.
Chu Shun was the latter, but his hobby was to use his dupe to connect with people.
Trying to recall the plot in “Six Grids”, it was an independent feature film by the former owner, it consisted of six short films, the story was mainly about charitable people, murderer, layman, a dog, beggar, and the dead. Each corresponded with gods, demi-gods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hells1.
“The filming technique was too raw, the part about animals was shot with a camera being attached to a dog. The one about the dead was even better, it was filmed with a camera being placed in a wooden box, the screen was black for more than ten minutes, it was to express how it would feel like lying in the coffin, occasionally there was the sound of people visiting the grave.” Chu Shun sighed, the former owner was indeed a f*cking genius. As a film critique, he thought that was a brilliant topic.
“No wonder it got so little points on douban.com, black screen that lasts for fifteen minutes. Furthermore, when they were shooting the part about charitable people, they used lots of exposure shooting techniques, it shook so much that it hurt the eyes. It was not a matter of whether it was a meaningful film or not, the problem was that it didn’t give people a pleasant movie watching experience.”
“I must justify something for this former owner, a review said that having a film that was filmed with a camera being attached to a dog would be better, from minute 43 to minute 59 it was exactly that, right?”
Chu Shun muttered, he was a keyboard hero before traveling to this parallel universe, his film critic was high standard, this was because he started as a crew member and worked his way up to being an assistant director.
It felt just right after becoming a film critic, everyone was a genius in this industry and had a sweet mouth. In his previous life, he used to throw verbal abuse at directors for a living.
Ps: Do you like the name Primeland Planet, mm—it was from proterozoic.
Ps2: I want to take this book publishing chance to go on a diet, would you like to join me?
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