Old Zhou's Preparations Were Far from Ideal

Bai Youlou was an experienced thug, so he had prepared himself for the possibility of getting ripped off.

But he had never imagined that species could be so diverse.

Take Old Zhou, for example.

Had he underestimated this guy's character? Or misjudged his bottom line?

Neither!

Damn it, he'd overestimated this guy's abilities!

Old Zhou's preparations were far from ideal.

Forget secretly pulling some tricks and colluding with someone to swindle away the last bit of money from Bai Youlou. When this guy had left, he'd been absolutely confident, putting on an obnoxious act as if he were some experienced senior.

Yet just a few days later, he came back with a troubled look on his face. Even the fat on his cheeks seemed to have shrunk.

Mm. All right, it was an illusion. He hadn't lost any weight at all.

"I said, did you hear what I told you?" Old Zhou said helplessly, slapping the table.

"I heard you. So basically, you only put together a temporary crew for me, the kind that would disband next month if we didn't start filming. You didn't find a single main actor, and you didn't get a penny of investment, right?"

Hearing Bai Youlou's calm voice, Old Zhou opened and closed his mouth, seemingly wanting to say something to save face, but he found that he had nothing to say.

Damn it, that was exactly the situation.

And Bai Youlou felt that his crappy table probably wouldn't last much longer.

That bastard kept slapping it again and again.

Oh, right. He had already moved out of the large house and into a small apartment of just over thirty square meters. His previous house had sold extremely quickly. After all, he'd bought it when he was popular and making money, and it was a spacious apartment in an excellent location.

This small apartment was much more shabby. It had been vacant for quite a long time, and when he moved in, it had a layer of dust covering everything. He'd had to hire cleaners for most of a day before they got it clean.

However, after he moved over much of the furniture from his previous house, the place didn't look empty at all. It was packed full and had quite a lived-in feel.

That was probably the only advantage of having a small place.

Bai Youlou couldn't even remember why he'd bought this place back then.

Was its only advantage that it was closer to the film academy?

What puzzled Old Zhou was that Bai Youlou hadn't lost his temper over Old Zhou's poor performance.

It would have sounded ridiculous to say it, but Old Zhou was now even a little afraid of Bai Youlou. Before, Old Zhou had been his manager and held an absolutely dominant position over an artist. That had been the nature of their relationship.

But now, everything had been completely reversed.

It was strange.

Old Zhou felt it might be because Bai Youlou was the one paying him now.

Yes, that was what he believed.

"What do we do now?"

"There's no rush on the investment side. I can use my own money to start filming. In fact, finishing the movie won't be a problem. Afterward, we can take part of the rough cut and use it to negotiate with people. The urgent matter is finding the actor for the second male lead."

The main advantage of Whiplash was that nearly all the scenes centered on the teacher-student pair consisting of the male lead and second male lead.

Bai Youlou's face was very youthful now, so there was no problem with him playing the male lead.

A man in his early twenties playing a nineteen-year-old wasn't perfectly suitable? Women in their several decades could still play girls, after all.

If he could attract investment, he would shamelessly give himself a high salary and count it as part of the production costs.

He was a highly popular idol, after all.

Don't ask whether his popularity was good or bad. Just ask whether it was high!

Unfortunately, there was no big sucker willing to send him money for now. There simply weren't enough fools in this world.

As for finding a reliable second male lead to play that mad teacher, the requirements were very high. It wasn't a role that just anyone could be dragged in to play.

The so-called female lead, on the other hand, could be played by any decent-looking girl. Bai Youlou had even considered finding someone who charged two hundred a day to handle it.

Of course, he could pay her a thousand at night.

It wasn't that there were no suitable candidates for the second male lead.

After looking through the established acting talents in this world's entertainment industry, Bai Youlou really did find two or three who fit the role.

He could even find performances similar to what he needed.

Unfortunately, the least famous actors he could remember were still at least second-tier. They'd have to be insane to come work with a "disgraced" idol who had switched careers to become a director.

That meant he could only look for someone who wasn't doing well in the entertainment industry, or someone who hadn't entered it at all.

Not having a system really wasn't enough!

Without cheats, even though Bai Youlou had the cultural "legacy" of a parallel world, he couldn't even assemble a film crew smoothly right now.

After thinking for a long time, he opened the drawer and took a look.

There were actually two fairly rough scripts inside. They were rather perfunctory, without even any storyboards or anything like that.

Buried and The Man from Earth.

But after thinking it over, he closed the drawer again. Damn it, whatever. He was going to film Whiplash.

Bai Youlou, whose two selves had become one, felt every cell in his body urging him on, impatient to greet this world.

He liked this exhilarating feeling.

For the first greeting, he naturally had to put some force into it!

Start by smacking it right in the face!

--

The two men continued racking their brains, brows tightly furrowed, and tacitly walked over to the window. They pushed it open and each lit a cigarette.

This crappy apartment had terrible ventilation, so even the ashtray was placed on the windowsill.

Old Zhou was a longtime smoker. He smoked frequently, the kind of person with a genuine nicotine addiction.

Bai Youlou, on the other hand, was rather peculiar. After lighting a cigarette, he might take only two puffs in total.

He let most of it burn away on its own. It was practically like burning incense.

Old Zhou had secretly observed and concluded this pattern, which put his mind somewhat at ease. He smiled knowingly and even stopped minding the fact that Bai Youlou was always taking his cigarettes.

Mostly, he was just relieved.

There was no such thing as suddenly maturing and changing overnight, was there? He had genuinely thought that Bai Youlou, who had never smoked before, had instantly become a chain smoker. It had felt like something out of a fantasy novel, as if he'd been possessed.

Bai Youlou might have always possessed the talent and simply never displayed it before, but how could a person's behavior and personality change so rapidly?

Now it seemed that a young person's transformation happened gradually too.

After experiencing a drastic change, he had hidden himself away in various ways, like a hedgehog wrapping its soft body in spines.

Whether it was going crazy at the press conference or suddenly smoking recently,

both were methods of disguising himself and making himself stronger.

As long as he went crazy, he wouldn't be hurt.

Damn, Old Zhou suddenly felt a little sorry for this kid. He was practically the protagonist of a tragic drama~

Bai Youlou: ???

What the hell are you looking at me like that for?! Believe me, I'll gouge your eyes out!

Could this guy really be gay?!

It was hard.

His fists were hard.

Bai Youlou wondered if this guy really had unusual tastes and, not knowing his own limits, had set his sights on him.

Anyone who often killed people knew that two tons of water in one night were enough to flush a person completely into the sewers.

The two silently smoked, but their thoughts were completely different.

One was filled with emotion and sympathy; the other was gradually developing murderous intent.

However, just as the two of them looked into the distance and the film academy's sign came into view, they both froze.

The next second, they spoke in unison:

"Back to school to recruit people!"

When there's trouble, turn to your alma mater!

Both of them had graduated from the film academy. Now that they were having trouble putting a crew together, of course they had to go fleece their alma mater. No, they had to ask for help.

Thanks to Huanhuan Nianlun for the 1,000-tip donation, and thanks to Tianyikongyizhihai for the 400-tip donation.

May the boss never die.