Chapter 55: Challenging Xu Yunjin

  Thank you everyone for your support this week. The new book ranking is about to be released, and I suddenly feel a bit melancholic...

  Xu Yunjin has been in a bad mood for the past two days, ever since she met with her mentor a few days ago, she's been holding back a burst of energy and hasn't been able to come up with a good script.

  She is also a director of the Beijing Film Academy, and she knows some people in school. Among them, there are several passable friends in the screenwriting department. Before the summer vacation, she invited them to dinner and asked them to write scripts for her film.

  At the Yanjing Film Academy, this kind of practice is very popular. Just like Xu Yunjin preparing to shoot a film according to the school's teaching plan, it's not something one person can complete on their own, but rather requires many people working together and cooperating with each other to get things done well.

  The Beijing Film Academy encourages this kind of teamwork, participating in which can give each person a certain degree of exercise within their own professional field, and also counts as completing the process of combining theory and practice.

  In response to Xu Yunjin's invitation, her friends in the screenwriting department readily agreed. In these few days, she received a total of six movie scripts from them, and she read each one from cover to cover.

  As the saying goes, it's not that I don't know the goods, but rather that the goods are compared to each other. It turned out that Xu Yunjin had always thought that her friends from the screenwriting department were outstanding in terms of their writing style, creative ideas, and even their own thinking depth and logical judgment ability. However, after actually reading their movie scripts, she quickly discovered many unreasonable places.

  Not to mention the depth of the problems reflected in their script, just from a daily logical point of view, some are unconvincing and seem like wishful thinking or subjective conjecture. If such a script were to be made into a movie and publicly released, the box office would not need to be considered, it would be good if it didn't lose money.

  Xu Yunjin tossed the script in her hand onto the bed and lay down on it weakly. "Alas, pearls are in front of me, but wooden tablets are behind."

  She took out a sheet of face mask from a packaging box, applied it to her face, closed her eyes and meditated, thinking about how she could get more scripts through other channels. She didn't believe that even with a wide net cast, she couldn't catch a big fish.

  Just then, Xu Yunjin's phone rang. She didn't even look to see who was calling and casually pressed the answer button, putting it next to her delicate ear. "Hello, who is this?"

  "Haha, is that Yunjin? I'm Ding Shulü." A bright and clear voice came from the receiver.

  Ding Shu Li is a classmate of Xu Yun Jin's, and he's somewhat good-looking and capable. Privately, the teachers in the directing department all like to mention Ding Shu Li and Xu Yun Jin together, and their consistent view is that among this year's students, after graduation, the two most likely to continue working as directors and achieve success are these two.

  Ding Shu Li is tall and handsome, although not quite meeting the standards of a campus heartthrob, but he has great talent and gets along well at the Yanjing Film Academy. He's always surrounded by beautiful girls, however, it's said that Ding Shu Li is very self-disciplined and there have never been any rumors about him having romantic affairs with anyone.

  Xu Yunjin's classmates, several girls, all had a good impression of Ding Shulei, but Xu Yunjin was not too interested in him. She always felt that Ding Shulei's behavior was too perfect, great, glorious and righteous, with no flaws at all. Such a person is not very realistic.

  So, Xu Yunjin had always been cold and distant towards Ding Shu, never having a serious conversation with him.

  "Is that you? What's up? If nothing, don't disturb my beauty sleep." Xu Yunjin said coldly. "Also, I've told you how many times, call me Xu Yunjin, say the full name. If in the future I hear from your mouth only 'Yunjin' two words again, don't blame me for not recognizing you as a classmate."

  "Alright, I'm listening." Ding Shu Li put on a gentle and amiable expression, "What's wrong? Are you worried about the script?"

  "I'm busy, don't bother me," Xu Yunjin said. "Is there anything else? If not, hang up."

  "Don't be in a hurry, I haven't finished speaking yet. Today, I met our instructor and she said you've prepared several scripts for her to review. This summer holiday, I also prepared a few scripts and before letting the instructor take a look, I'd like to ask you to review them first. Among the dozen or so classmates in our class, your insight is something I've always admired, Xu Yunjin, would you mind exchanging ideas with me?" said Ding Shu Li.

  "Not interested." Xu Yunjin was annoyed at this moment and didn't have the leisure to look at the script prepared by Ding Shuqi.

  "I think you're not uninterested, but rather afraid?" Dingshu's words carried a hint of subtle provocation.

  "Afraid? Why should I be afraid? Who am I going to be afraid of?" Xu Yunjin said.

  "Why be afraid? Isn't it obvious? The instructor said that among our students, there will be two slots for public screening in one of the ten cinemas in Yanjing. Are you afraid your film won't get selected? Xu Yunjin, let me tell you, this time I've prepared a top-notch script, better than yours. Getting one of the slots is almost a sure thing. I want to prove to you that among our classmates, the one most likely to become a great director is me, not you."

  Ding Shu's voice was loud and clear as he talked incessantly, pouring into Xu Yunjin's ears.

  Xu Yunjin's temper successfully provoked Ding Shuli, "Are you crazy? You, Ding Shuli, don't always think of yourself as a scallion, this girl really doesn't care about you."

  In her anxiety, Xu Yunjin blurted out some rude words.

  "Isn't this just a conversation? Alright then, let's converse. I'll show you what a real script looks like. Speak up, time and place. I'm not going to back down now, I must see this through to the end."

  "Alright, there's a café on the road north of our school, you know it? I'll wait for you here and we can meet in half an hour, how about that?" said Ding Shu Li.

  "Wait for me, I'll be there in a moment."

  Xu Yunjin jumped down from the bed, tore off the facial mask worth over a hundred yuan from her face, crumpled it up and with a flick of her hand, the mask drew an arc and landed accurately in the trash can.

  Xu Yunjin put the several scripts she had collected into her bag and then went out. Before she reached the corridor entrance, she heard a dull thunder outside.

  Dark clouds pressed down, and in an instant, the sky turned dark, the dormitory became pitch black, as if it were night. After several days of continuous heat, a heavy rain arrived on schedule.

  Xu Yunjin took out her phone, wanting to make a call and not go to the appointment, but as soon as she thought about it, she realized that doing so might make Ding Shuli think she was showing weakness. She turned around and returned to the dormitory, picked up an umbrella, and hastily left the dorm building.

  I made some adjustments to the previous chapter, changing the reason why Sun Zesheng's parents refused Yin Xianer's 400,000 to because they felt that Yin Xianer gave too much, exceeding common sense, and were uncomfortable with it in their hearts, so they strongly demanded that Sun Zesheng return the money.

  This might be more in line with everyday logic.

  Thanks to "Clouds Forgotten by the Sky" for pointing out this detail.

  Also, I would like to thank "small small small can't" for helping me canvass votes and pull in people, thank you very much.