Side Income

Li Qing did not immediately decide whether to release the third episode. He checked his private messages and found that quite a few major content creators were still asking him for authorization to use it as video material for derivative works, and they were willing to pay.

After some back-and-forth, he made over ten thousand yuan more.

After scrolling through a pile of chaotic private messages, he found one that surprised him slightly.

[Hello, we would like to cooperate with you and jointly produce a film about this city of R'lyeh. We are willing to give you 60% of the profits, and regardless of the film's performance, we will pay you three million yuan for the copyright.]

Li Qing was slightly startled.

He looked it up online and discovered that this amount actually was not very high.

The production cost of Your Name had been around 120 million yuan, with visual production accounting for a huge portion of it. Each frame could be made into an exquisite animated wallpaper, so naturally, the expenses were high.

If he continued producing work with this level of visual quality, the other party clearly understood that it had a chance to become a hit.

This small company was going all in. They were offering him the lion's share of the profits while taking care of dubbing, post-production, and all the other odds and ends themselves.

Li Qing pondered for a moment. Are they trying to enter the film industry?

He contacted the other party. "Cooperation is possible, but there's no way I can create the visuals according to your plot. That would have no craftsmanship! I'll only provide the fixed shots. You can create the film's plot based on the visuals and find people to dub it."

On the other side of the computer was a man in his thirties named Xu Qiang. He ran a small video production company in Shanghai, but who didn't dream of becoming a great director and making a blockbuster?

But now, he was completely stunned.

Wouldn't that make us those marketing accounts that improvise stories from pictures?

Making things up while staring at pictures, relying entirely on one's mouth—is there really a film plot in this world that can be this childish?

He almost wanted to run away on the spot.

Can this possibly work? This is a gigantic trap.

[Sea Urchin Tomato]: "Could it be that you've already finished producing all the visuals?"

Li Qing added, "Our team has more or less finished the visuals. I don't want the 60% share. I'll take a flat buyout of ten million yuan. The rest is up to you. Even if you make several hundred million, I won't ask for anything."

The dubbing, distribution, and possibly even returning home to meet them in person—there were too many troublesome matters involved. It was better to name a price and throw everything to the other side.

Perhaps careful cooperation could earn him more, but at present, he only needed a sum of money to get through the start-up phase. Making a film took a great deal of effort. Wouldn't that be putting the cart before the horse?

Ten million was enough for now!

Meanwhile, Xu Qiang on the other side of the computer began to ponder. "If you're willing to give up so much profit, and the shots are fixed, I can take a gamble. After all, these visuals are incredibly fierce."

Their small company did not have much funding. Otherwise, they would never have tried contacting this video creator in the first place.

Besides, dubbing based on pictures was their specialty!

To be completely honest, his team had been making marketing-account videos. Most of the people in his office specialized in this sort of dubbing, and recently, his subordinates had been dubbing the works of this big shot.

Now they wanted to wash their hands of that business and make it into the legitimate world. They wanted to take a shot at something big, which was why they had contacted the original creator.

Turning a marketing-account-style dubbing project into a film would be a true test of their company's capabilities.

At the same time.

He had also figured it out.

The other party was a large team, probably using AI-assisted image generation. Moreover, the fixed camera angles were strong evidence supporting that conclusion.

This was very likely a trial work for some piece of software they had developed, which was why they had casually released it. Otherwise, there was no other explanation.

After all, AI technology was advancing by leaps and bounds in this era.

AI-written novels were still complete gibberish, but AI-generated art had already squeezed the survival space of many lower-level artists. Had they already started using AI to generate films?

[Sea Urchin Tomato]: "Sir, could you tell me what happens next?"

Li Qing kept most of the content to himself.

"The visuals have already been released halfway. As for the plot that follows, roughly speaking, R'lyeh is conquered by rebel forces, the royal city falls, the church attacks the emperor, and the ancient tower turns into a spine. Then the Evil God stands up, the earth sinks into wails, and the people sing praises to this Evil God. That's where it ends."

[Sea Urchin Tomato]: "The visuals sound grand. I can tell your team goes all out to make every frame as magnificent as possible, but there's nothing after that?"

It started with a bang and ended with a whimper. The film ended halfway through—what about the climax? What happened after the Evil God stood up?

Li Qing knew exactly what the other party meant.

How could I possibly let you see the next part?

The Evil God's grandeur was so imposing, with the whole earth calling out his divine name. Then he turned around, stood up, and opened a can with his hand?

Sorry, but he could not release those visuals.

Li Qing said: "There's no plot after that yet. It's still being produced. How you dub it and design the plot will test your abilities. In any case, there's an hour in total. Just pick some city streets, edit and switch between a few war scenes, choose a passerby or someone who appears frequently as the protagonist, and create a story about a hero's love and hatred, attacking the dynasty and resisting the revival of the Evil God. That shouldn't be difficult, right?"

Xu Qiang immediately got a toothache.

He felt that this was even more of a pitfall. This is a half-finished product!

Still, the other party clearly understood the marketing-account business.

He thought about it. It would not hurt to stop the plot there. They could even make a second film as a sequel, couldn't they?

He quickly made up his mind.

The other side was offering breathtaking overhead views, and the plot was only half-finished—there were indeed pitfalls everywhere. But with visuals like these, what more could they ask for? And the price was cheap!

"Deal!"

Xu Qiang gritted his teeth and said, "If the response is good, I hope we can work together on a second film."

Li Qing chatted casually with him for a while. The one-hour collection of beautiful visuals was packaged together for ten million yuan. All that remained was to sign the contract.

After setting the matter aside, Li Qing rubbed his nose.

If he worked properly as a psychiatrist, under normal circumstances, he would never earn ten million yuan even by the time he retired.

Unfortunately, he could not keep making money like this forever.

He posted a message from his account:

"To all my fans, the third episode will not be shown here. I've already sold the copyright to a certain company. I believe everyone will soon be able to see the complete film. Please look forward to it!"

At once.

The internet heated up again.

[Holy crap, so it really was to attract investors!]

[I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully they won't ruin it.]

[Someone said they used AI-assisted image generation, which is why the special effects are so impressive. After all, they never even change the camera angle. People constantly coming and going from the same perspective—it looks too much like AI.]

[Why are you so sour? Even if it is AI, it's still the most advanced AI technology in the industry. Once they can freely change camera angles, the film industry will undergo a great revolution.]

He glanced at a few comments and stopped reading.

After all, AI was the only explanation they could offer. They could not seriously believe it came from another world, could they?

That night.

Li Qing turned around and arrived outside the Crystal Wall.

He looked at the flourishing world inside. The ground consisted of oceans, lakes, rivers, and slabs of continent forged from soil, with cities standing upon them.

On the walls, there were even cities protruding like bird nests.

After his previous environmental improvements, the soil now contained all kinds of minerals, rubble, metal, condoms, chewing gum, tree leaves, plastic bags, and a wealth of various resources that enriched the entire world.

The soil also contained rare extraterrestrial life-forms such as cockroaches, dung beetles, and snail eggs.

Inside the room, mosquitoes and fly larvae of unknown origin had even successfully hatched and begun preying on the inhabitants of the cities below.

In this new world, they were no longer at the very top of the food chain.

"But they won't have many days. They'll probably reach the top again very soon."

Outside the Crystal Wall, Li Qing revealed a satisfied smile. "And now that they've obtained the genetic structures of ants, mosquitoes, and snails, an evolutionary Big Bang will occur."

Although.

They could not possibly evolve into small animals, rats, cats, or dogs all at once, given their complex structures, they should at least reach the level of snails and spiders.

"Cells—mites—ants—spiders. Although that follows the evolutionary history of life on Earth over hundreds of millions of years, with life evolving from single cells to multicellular organisms, it also means their bodies will grow larger and larger. If they keep evolving like this, this room won't be able to contain them."

"Compared with the entire evolutionary arena of life on Earth, this world is ultimately far too small."

A trace of emotion crossed Li Qing's face.