Chapter 06: First Acquaintance
September 1st marked the official start of the academic year for major universities.
Early in the morning, Yang Jian received a call from Da Dongzi saying that the computers had been delivered to the school gate.
He quickly roused Zhu Yawen, Luo Jin, and Qi Kui, and together they went to the school gate to move the items. He couldn't manage the desktop computer alone in this era, and there was also a laptop.
Luo Jin, still sleepy-eyed, rubbed his eyes and said, "Jian Zi, what exactly are you calling us up for this early in the morning?"
Zhu Yawen and Qi Kui also yawned, turning their heads to look at him upon hearing this.
"Moving computers, one laptop, one desktop. I can't move them by myself."
The three brothers' spirits lifted upon hearing this. Given Yang Jian's generosity, they would definitely be able to use these computers as well.
As the four of them stepped out of the school gate, Yang Jian saw Da Dongzi waving at him next to a Santana. He quickly jogged over.
"Dong Ge, you're too early. You didn't have to rush so much." He then pointed to his three roommates and introduced them to Da Dongzi: "Dong Ge, these three are my roommates. This is Zhu Yawen, Luo Jin, and Qi Kui."
"Hello everyone, I'm Liu Qiangdong," Da Dongzi waved, acknowledging the three brothers. He then continued, "I still have things to do at the store, and aren't you going to have military training? I was afraid you wouldn't have time later." Da Dongzi opened the back car door and pointed inside, "Come on, let's move them down. I still have to go back and be busy."
After the brothers finished moving and sent Da Dongzi off, everyone realized that Yang Jian wasn't holding anything; his three brothers were carrying everything.
Before the brothers could react, Yang Jian jokingly said, "Do you remember who bought you breakfast? You can use the computers as you like. If you're still so calculative about this little favor, then you're not acting like men."
The three brothers looked at each other, exchanging glances. This Jian Zi was truly exasperating. They hadn't even said anything, and he had already blocked their path.
The group brought the computers back to the dorm and set them up. Afterward, they called over Lu Fang Sheng and Ma Wenlong from the next dorm, and the brothers walked arm in arm, chatting and laughing all the way to the classroom for the 02-level undergraduate performance class.
By the time they entered the classroom, the other students in the class had already arrived.
Among the entire 02-level performance class, Liu Yifei was the most eye-catching. Yang Jian noticed her as soon as he entered the classroom door.
Actually, he had seen Liu Yifei during the art exam, but he hadn't been reborn at that time. Without any filters, he already thought this young girl was stunning.
Now, it was even more incredible!
Looking at the 15-year-old Liu Yifei, Yang Jian felt a moment of trance...
At this moment, Liu Yifei looked a little naive and innocent. A phrase immediately came to his mind: "Emerging from clear water like a lotus, naturally without adornment; hands like soft sprouts, skin like congealed fat, neck like a cicada's, teeth like gourd seeds, a forehead like a silkworm's head and moth eyebrows, a charming smile, and beautiful eyes."
He was very sure, this was the feeling of a heart stirred...
You're ruining my dao heart...
Immediately, he felt a bit rough. She was only 15 years old. Compared to himself, an 18-year-old big kid, she was truly a child, alright.
If the 2002 class were to rank the top ten influential figures, Liu Yifei would definitely be on the list.
Look at her, she entered Beijing Film Academy at 15, and before enrollment, she had already played the female second lead, Bai Xiuzhu, in the story of a noble family.
And that wasn't all. Before the story of a noble family had even finished filming, she had already been confirmed as the female lead, Wang Yuyan, in demi-gods and semi-devils.
The order of appearance for the actresses at the demi-gods and semi-devils commencement press conference was: female lead Liu Yifei, female second lead Wan Renmi, and female third lead Liu Tao.
Compared to them, Liu Yifei was starting at the finish line.
Looking at the others, Yang Jian's 18 years old was considered normal. He was a complete newcomer before, suddenly deciding to apply to Beijing Film Academy on a whim.
Even more ridiculous was Huang Bo, who was already the advanced age of 28 this year. He was previously a small fry in the music industry and also came to join the fun. It's unknown when he'll even get to act.
However, in modern society, age discrimination is not in vogue. You have to allow the old boys to bravely pursue their dreams, right?
Gathering his thoughts, he sat down behind Liu Yifei. That's right, he did it on purpose.
At this time, a familiar-looking girl organized everyone to come up to the podium one by one for self-introductions. She was the first to go up and introduce herself. It turned out she was Wang Jia, who would later play Cheng Ying in the condor heroes.
As everyone came up to introduce themselves one after another, besides Liu Yifei, Yang Jian saw a few other familiar faces: the originator of the 'green tea' archetype, the future cake shop proprietress Jiang Yiyan, and another person who later reportedly had botched plastic surgery, Zhou Yang. He didn't know much about the others.
When it was Yang Jian's turn, his appearance on stage attracted everyone's attention. There was no avoiding it; regardless of whether they were male or female students, and regardless of their psychological reasons, everyone would look at a handsome guy a few more times.
Standing firmly on the stage, he scanned the audience below and said, "Hello everyone, I am Yang Jian, the Jian from 'simple'. From now on, we are classmates, and we will be spending a lot of time together in the future. I hope this will be a wonderful university experience. Finally, I wish all of you future Best Actors and Actresses a perfect acting career. Thank you."
The students below were very supportive, especially Zhu Yawen and his brothers, who clapped particularly loudly. Yang Jian even wanted to ask them if their hands hurt.
After everyone finished introducing themselves, it was time to elect a class monitor. Without surprise, Wang Jia was elected.
After the class monitor was chosen, their homeroom teacher, Wang Jinsong, also talked about the upcoming arrangement - military training.
This is a mandatory process for every university's start of the semester. Some start military training as soon as school begins, and later, when the weather gets hot, some schools postpone it until the end of the year. Anyway, no matter when, military training is unavoidable, even at Beijing Film Academy.
In his previous life, a group of foreigners who had never seen the world saw our military training videos and exclaimed that our country had tens of millions of reservists, which could easily cause regional instability.
Of course, this statement is nonsense, but some foreign 'underworld' media deliberately distorted and slandered it.
September in Beijing was no longer that hot. The summer heat gradually dissipated, and there was a hint of coolness in the morning and evening, but the power of the 'autumn tiger' still made this group of 'favored children of heaven' suffer immensely.
Imagine a group of delicate girls and a group of weak boys standing under the scorching sun for several hours at a time. That scene looked incredibly satisfying.
Yang Jian was one of those who enjoyed the schadenfreude. His physical fitness made the instructor envious, and he would occasionally try to entice him.
Of course, don't think about anything inappropriate. He wanted to persuade him to join the army. With such amazing physical ability, not joining the army was too much of a waste, simply neglecting his proper occupation.
During this period of military training, Yang Jian, this scheming guy, always subtly looked for opportunities to chat with Liu Yifei. Of course, to cover it up, he also chatted with other female classmates like Wang Jia and Zhou Yang. Handsome and beautiful people are easily attracted to each other, and coupled with Yang Jian's high emotional intelligence, they naturally became close.
After the grueling military training ended, in the Beijing Film Academy cafeteria, Liu Yifei, Wang Jia, Zhou Yang, and several people from Yang Jian's dorm sat together to eat. During the military training, Yang Jian's appetite truly showed them what a 'rice bucket' was. If Yang Jian went all out, the difference between him and Zhu Yawen was at least 20 Liu Yifeis.
Although they already knew Yang Jian's appetite was astonishing, they were still surprised every time they saw it.
Zhu Yawen, who was sitting next to him, even disregarded the strange looks from others around them and directly reached out to touch his stomach, then a mouthful of national essence immediately burst out.
"Holy crap, Jian Zi, you're too inhuman! You can eat so much, and not only that, but your stomach is actually hard as a rock. Is there any justice left?"
At this moment, Liu Yifei, with little stars in her eyes, said, "Xiao Jianzi, you're too amazing! How do you do it? Can you teach me?"
Wang Jia and Zhou Yang next to her also chimed in, "Jian Zi, you teach us too."
Yang Jian was a little embarrassed by the girls, but he was thick-skinned and still pretended to reply, "I can't teach this. It's natural. Alas... it's annoying, no matter how much I eat, I don't get fat."
As soon as he said this, it caused the girls to playfully scold him.
"Oh right, I need a little help from a few beauties. I have a song that needs an MV filmed, and I'm missing a female lead. Class monitor, Zhou Yang, which one of you would be willing to help out?" Yang Jian said to the two girls.
Liu Yifei next to him wasn't happy and pouted, pretending to be angry, "What's wrong, Xiao Jianzi, am I not a beauty?"
"Qian Qian, of course you're a beauty, it's just that you're too young and not suitable for this MV, and aren't you about to join the demi-gods and semi-devils crew?" Yang Jian knew she was pretending but still patiently explained.
On the other side, Wang Jia also knew that Zhou Yang had a crush on Yang Jian, so she was willing to help out her good friend. She declined, saying, "Yangyang, you do it. You go."
Ultimately, the female lead for the fairy tale MV was decided to be Zhou Yang.
A few days ago, he went to look for Ning Hao but couldn't find him; he wasn't at school. Later, he got his phone number through the homeroom teacher Wang Jinsong, and they arranged to meet this afternoon on the phone.
In the afternoon, at a coffee shop outside the Beijing Film Academy, Yang Jian met the long-renowned Director Ning Hao. Of course, this refers to the future Ning Hao; at this time, Ning Hao was still a small fry in the directing world.
At this time, although the fleshy parts of Ning Hao's face were not yet very prominent, he already had some resemblance to a fierce bandit!
When Yang Jian saw Ning Hao, he stood up and extended his hand, saying, "Shige, hello, I am Yang Jian from the 02-level performance class. I didn't know what you like to drink, so I didn't order anything for you."
Saying this, Yang Jian beckoned a waiter over.
"Hello, Shige. I am Ning Hao." Ning Hao sat down and turned to the waiter, saying, "A cup of cappuccino will do." Then he turned back to Yang Jian and said, "Shige, tell me your ideas in detail. We didn't talk clearly on the phone."
Seeing this, Yang Jian picked up the MV script placed in front of him and handed it to Ning Hao, "Shige, you look at this script first. We'll talk after you finish."
Ning Hao took the script and quickly flipped through it. Actually, there wasn't much content in the MV script, so he finished reading it quickly. After a while, Ning Hao finished reading and put down the script.
"Although it's an MV script, it's written very detailed. You even drew storyboards. I just need to shoot according to it. I can finish shooting in one day and don't need to make any other changes."
Ning Hao himself was also a screenwriter. Although it was a simple MV script, he could naturally see that Yang Jian had good talent for screenwriting from it.
If Yang Jian knew Ning Hao's thoughts, he would probably be mortified. He copied everything from the script given by the System. However, no one knew about the System except himself, right?
"Okay, then Shige, do you think we can shoot tomorrow morning? I'll go rent the location in a bit. Also, how much budget do we need for the shooting?" In his plan, an MV could probably be shot well for 20,000-30,000 yuan.
"Don't rent a location. I'll find a place for you. They have all the costumes and props. I guarantee you'll be satisfied. It will only cost you 8,000 yuan."
He's truly a good Shige, knowing to save money for his Junior Brother. Actually, the Junior Brother wasn't short of this little bit of money, but he had to appreciate the gesture, right?
The MV shooting wasn't entirely smooth, mainly because there was a problem with the kissing scene between him and Zhou Yang. It wasn't that he didn't know how to do it, but rather that he was too good at it.
Ning Hao wanted a feeling of innocent shyness, but Yang Jian, on the other hand, was like an old hand, unbelievably skilled.
"Cut! Shige, you need to act a little more innocent and shy, okay? Do you know what innocent is? Don't be like a pervert."
"And you, Zhou Yang, you need to be a little more proactive. Don't be shy. You two have it reversed. Let's do it again."
Finally, after grinding through 6 takes, they finally passed.
In his previous life as an extra, he only knew that the director had great power, but during this shoot, he also found that the director's job was quite interesting. Thinking that he had some talent for directing, he pulled Ning Hao aside to ask for guidance.
Ning Hao was also very willing to teach him some of his insights on directing and cinematography, and he found that Yang Jian also had some talent.
So, one was willing to ask, and the other was willing to teach. They were still engrossed in conversation until dark, and continued talking during dinner.
When they were about to leave after dinner, Yang Jian noticed that Ning Hao seemed hesitant to speak, so he asked, "Shige, is there something you want to say?"
Ning Hao gritted his teeth and said, "Junior Brother, why don't you transfer to the directing department? You have more talent in that area."
The most feared thing is sudden silence in the air!
Yang Jian didn't react for a moment and was a little stunned. Embarrassing, this was him being disliked for his acting skills. ⊙﹏⊙‖∣°
But who was he? He was all about being thick-skinned. He quickly recovered and said, "Thank you, Shige, I will consider it. I'm just starting to learn now. Maybe next time you see me, my acting skills will be better."
Ning Hao didn't try to persuade him further. After all, they hadn't known each other for long, and it was most taboo to speak too deeply with someone you've just met. Although he liked this Junior Brother, he understood boundaries.
Ning Hao's words made Yang Jian even more eager. He needed to become stronger, so he had to release fairy tale quickly.
Ning Hao was very efficient. He only took two days to give the finished MV to Yang Jian. Yang Jian watched it and thought the effect was very good, better than Guang Liang's original version, mainly because the male lead was too handsome...
After the MV was edited, Yang Jian immediately went to find Zhang Yadong. He was in a hurry; he was not only short of money but also reputation.