Huayu: A Commercial Director

Chapter 22 Scandal
"A famous director makes a surprise appearance in a small theater to tell stories."

"The fantasy novel Journey to the West tells the story of the Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang's journey to the West to seek Buddhist scriptures."

"Different interpretations: Xuanzang hasn't appeared yet, but the Monkey King Sun Wukong has."

"Legend has it that when the monk Xuanzang traveled to the west, he was protected by several disciples, one of whom was named Sun Wukong."

"A year later, Chen Shouzhe returned to the Deyun Society's small theater. After his partner left, he switched to solo storytelling."

"An hour and a half listening to Chen Shouzhe tell the story of a monkey."

There are quite a few media outlets reporting on this, and now there are even self-media outlets; a simple edit with some content is all it takes to create a news story.

Viewers can also get the news in the shortest amount of time, and those who are interested will click to take a look.

Someone uploaded a video of Chen Shou's monologue throughout the entire performance on a video website. Those who are interested can listen to it, and those who are not can simply close it.

"You can tell he has a solid foundation from childhood training."

"I really like this old-fashioned storytelling style, unlike Lao Guo who just digs holes for the sake of digging holes."

"Guo's style is called stand-up comedy, while Chen Shou's style has very few jokes; it's more like storytelling."

“There are many kinds of storytelling, such as Xihe Dagu storytelling which is narrated and sung at the same time, storytelling, storytelling, and solo storytelling. I also like this kind of storytelling.”

"What happened? What did the monkey do after he wreaked havoc in the Heavenly Palace?"

"Unruly and untamed, truly befitting a monkey."

"This book is quite literary. The opening poem, as well as the Lingtai Fangcun Mountain and Xieyue Sanxing Cave, all contain the character 'heart', which corresponds to the birth of the Mind Monkey."

"A lousy crosstalk performer who also writes books, he doesn't learn anything well. If he didn't do crosstalk, he should be making movies. Now he's back to storytelling. This little bit of money isn't enough for him to earn. Just like his godfather Guo Degang, he didn't go to school for more than a few days, but he insists on pretending to be so cultured."

"I can't stop watching, I want the next episode."

It quickly dominated the headlines of several major portal websites, and with the upcoming release of "Painted Skin," its popularity skyrocketed.

Immediately afterwards, Chen Shouzhe and a few others appeared on several talk shows and did similar publicity before returning to Kyoto.

While busy promoting the news outside, Chen Shou was also constantly bombarded with gossip about himself.

[A mysterious director and a freshman at the Beijing Film Academy acted intimately.]

A photo taken by some unknown paparazzi appeared online. The person in the photo is Chen Shouzhe, and the person standing in front of him is Na Zha, who has his hair in a bun.

Suddenly, Naza's identity was exposed. Everyone knew that she was the most beautiful freshman at Beijing Film Academy this year. Unexpectedly, Chen Shouzhe beat her to it.

The internet is flooded with accusations that Chen Shou is guilty of all sorts of wrongdoings, including using his identity to deceive young girls.

"Did you find it?" Chen Shou asked his senior, Tao Le, who was now the general manager of the studio, when he returned to the company.

"We found out. She signed with Sugarman and has also joined the cast of a TV series. As expected, you know, they'll probably deny it soon," Tao Le shrugged.

"This is considered being piggybacked, right? I'm promoting myself like crazy, and they come here and use my fame for their newcomers. They have some nerve." Chen Shou was so angry he laughed.

Although this method is quite normal, after all, there are many ways to become famous, and using others for publicity was a common tactic used by artists two centuries ago.

Especially creating a scandal with a powerful figure can make someone famous even faster and boost their reputation quickly.

Chen Shouzhe has been doing a lot of publicity lately, appearing on various programs, and has a movie waiting to be released. In addition, he is the first director in China to have a box office of over 1 billion yuan.

"Should we respond?" Tao Le could tell that Chen Shou was unhappy, but this kind of behavior was very normal in the entertainment industry; it was just that the person being taken advantage of felt disgusted.

"I'm going back to perform storytelling today, I'll just respond then. It's good to learn from Chairman Wang," Chen Shou said with a sneer.

"This... alright." Tao Le didn't say much more. There would be no shortage of such things in the future. As long as Chen Shouzhe was still in this industry, people were bound to keep looking for him. However, Chen Shouzhe's methods would probably be very drastic, and that little girl's future acting career would probably be over.

He knew that Chen Shou was extremely restrained in matters of relationships between men and women, having received a very traditional education since childhood, but his personality was somewhat like his godfather's.

Almost three weeks later, Chen Shouzhe came to the bookstore again. Today there were only two people, Yan Hexiang and Chen Shouzhe. Li Yuntian went to perform crosstalk. If the two of them were to perform, each person would need at least an hour and a half.

Yan Hexiang went up first, and after speaking, he went down without any introduction. When Chen Shou came up, the audience was very surprised, and then cheers erupted.

"Thank you, thank you everyone for coming to the library. I'm back to tell stories again today. Let's chat for a bit first, and then we'll continue with Journey to the West, shall we?" Chen Shou sat down, tidied himself up, and said slowly.

"it is good!"

The audience is the most lovable group of people, and many of them enjoy casual conversation, which can bring the actors and the audience closer. There are techniques to storytelling. When Chen Shou first came, because he was a director, he immediately started telling the story, drawing the audience into the story and making them forget his identity, listening carefully to the content of the story.

Now that the audience knows what he's going to say, he can try to build rapport by saying some casual remarks to set the tone.

One important reason why many people feel that the older generation of storytellers are so engaging from the start is that they are recordings without an audience to interact with. In contrast, in teahouses and storytelling venues, they would be more willing to engage with the audience through casual conversation.

The casual storytelling is worthy of the audience's attention and is meant to be entertaining, while those who listen to audiobooks on television are more interested in the content of the book, which is essentially a conflict.

If you're making a living on set, you have to be worthy of the live audience; but if you're making a living on television, you can just start telling stories.

"When I talked about Journey to the West last time, I paid attention to the comments about me online. At first, I thought a lot of people would scold me, but when I looked, hey, there were quite a few. They were all scolding me, calling me a 'missing chapter dog', a 'little pitfall', and so on. I'm very gratified."

Many veteran crosstalk audiences smiled knowingly upon hearing the last line, and those who had watched Guo Yu's early crosstalk performances knew that he said, "I am very gratified."

"Before coming to the bookstore to tell stories today, I was going to post something, but when I opened it, I saw my scandal."

"Xu~~~"

A chorus of boos erupted from below.

"My teacher's wife called me and said I've finally figured it out, and they're very pleased!!!"

"Hahaha!!!"

The art of language was evident, and the atmosphere of the scene, combined with Chen Shouzhe's performance, made the joke land.

"Being in the entertainment industry means being a person with a tragic fate. Being an artist means living under the spotlight. It can be very difficult, but it can also be very easy. Today, many friends sent me photos to tease me. I took a look and it was taken when I went back to Beijing Film Academy for classes about two or three months ago."

I'm at least somewhat famous, a small-time director who got lucky and made a movie that only grossed a paltry 1.5 billion at the box office.

"Whoa~~~~"

"It's nothing, nothing at all." Chen Shou suppressed a laugh, his shifty eyes revealing a sly look.

"Whoa~~~~"

The boos grew louder; they really liked this shameless behavior.

That's really shameless. If other directors heard it, they'd want to throw their shoes in his face. Some people make movies their whole lives and don't even have a million in box office revenue.

"Okay, okay, no more joking. I just got 'bumped into' on campus and someone took a picture of me. I thought it was some hotel photo, but it turned out to be on campus. I thought to myself, when did I become so bold as to do that on campus... Don't laugh, um, don't get the wrong idea. I've definitely never been to any groves or anything like that."

In a way, Chen Shou waited until the audience had finished laughing before saying, "Let's get back to the story and continue with Journey to the West."

The audience began to listen attentively, showing great curiosity about Chen Shouzhe's Journey to the West.

“Difficult, difficult ...

We cannot talk to those who are not kindred spirits.

Let's have a few words with a kindred spirit.

It's a waste of time if you don't connect with your soulmate... *snap*... the tip of your tongue.

Last time we covered the fifth chapter, "The Great Sage Steals the Peaches and Elixir, and the Gods of Heaven Capture the Monster." Today we'll continue the story.

After talking for an hour and a half, Chen Shouzhe finally stopped.

"I will be updating the novel online from now on. Everyone can take a look and have different feelings. I will write down what I have to say for everyone to see."

That evening, the matter of Chen Shouzhe responding to the rumors came to an end. Not long after, a paparazzi broke the news that the freshman girl had a boyfriend.

Well, that's great, she already has a boyfriend, yet she still took the initiative to go to Chen Shouzhe.

Suddenly, the girl was subjected to a barrage of criticism, catching the Sugar Man Company completely off guard. Just like the girl from Heaven on Earth, she was brought down to earth. She was still a freshman in college and hadn't even entered the entertainment industry yet.

"Director Chen, they called to apologize," he said to Tao Le when he met him at the company the next day.

"Hmph, ignore them. 'Painted Skin' is about to be released, I'll be busy." Chen Shouzhe had no time to deal with these trivial matters. One lesson was enough to teach those who had their eyes on him a lesson.

He now wishes he could transform into seventy-two different people, throw all his hair out, and become countless versions of himself, writing novels, screenplays, studying, and so on. Who has time to care about such things? Making him uncomfortable is not an exaggeration; you might as well crush him.

The premiere day arrived quickly. Now that he was quite famous, it was impossible for him to have no premiere ceremony like his first film. This time, China Film Group took the lead in organizing the premiere ceremony, inviting many people in the industry, as well as many film critics and media.

(End of this chapter)