Who

By noon, producer Tang Jiahe still hadn't come out of President Dai's office. When the lunch break arrived, the screenwriters from the editorial department gathered in groups of three or five, carrying their lunch boxes and trading theories as they headed straight for the employee cafeteria on the twelfth floor.

Li Xun had brought his own lunch, too. At the cafeteria, he got a serving of braised pork, spicy chicken, Kung Pao chicken, pork with pickled cabbage, and a portion of greens.

Veteran employees usually ate with the same people, in fairly fixed groups. Today, Li Xun once again found a corner and ate by himself.

Wang Hai's table had four people, two men and two women, all of whom usually got along well.

As she ate, Julie asked, "Who do you think our company bought the rights to?"

She was in her mid-thirties. Since she'd married relatively late, her child was still in kindergarten. She'd already made a name for herself before joining Penguin Video, and was now a chief editor in the Screenwriting Department. If even she didn't know, there was no way anyone else did.

"What's the matter, Master? Even you don't know?"

The speaker was Ye Zhou. He'd been in the Screenwriting Department for less than two years, so he was still something of a newcomer. When he'd first joined the company, Julie had been assigned to mentor him. She hadn't been a chief editor back then, and the two of them had gotten along very well, almost like siblings. Still, he couldn't break the habit of calling her "Master."

Julie shook her head. "This time, I really haven't heard a thing. President Dai spent ages chasing that IP a while back, but Gua Video swooped in and snatched it up for a huge sum. So, in theory, there shouldn't suddenly be another major IP in the works. But who knows? Maybe President Dai learned from being beaten to the punch last time and is keeping this one under wraps."

"Do you think someone in our Screenwriting Department secretly wrote an original script that got approved, but didn't tell anyone?"

It was Zhou Yao, a screenwriter Wang Hai had mentored the previous year.

"An original script? You'd be lucky to get a B-Class Production out of one. Tang Jiahe himself has been called in this time, so how could it possibly be a B-Class Production? This is definitely going to be an A-Class Production," Ye Zhou said, shaking his head.

"Then someone got an A-Class Production script approved?!" Zhou Yao asked.

"An original script for an A-Class Production? That's too risky. The company usually wouldn't take such a big gamble."

Julie shook her head.

Zhou Yao lowered her voice. "A few days ago, I saw Chen Yuning send a script to President Dai. Could it be him? Wasn't he always studying that book of strange cases from ancient and modern times? Do you think his script might've been approved? The company's taking this suspense trend so seriously that I can see them spending big on it."

"Chen Yuning? That's even less likely. He doesn't even have the experience to write a B-Class Production on his own. No matter how fast someone improves, it still takes time." Julie shook her head again.

Even though none of them thought it was likely, they all found themselves looking toward Chen Yuning.

Chen Yuning was around twenty-five or twenty-six. Everyone remembered him as a quiet person, but today he was chatting and laughing with the colleagues around him, looking quite cheerful. He did seem a little different from usual.

Only Wang Hai kept glancing at Li Xun, who was eating silently by himself.

"Master, what are you looking at?"

Zhou Yao followed Wang Hai's gaze, then asked, "Master, how do you think the new apprentice you took on this year compares to me?"

Wang Hai glanced back at Zhou Yao and smiled without answering. Instead, he picked up his lunch box and walked over to Li Xun.

Zhou Yao and the other two were left puzzled.

Wang Hai sat down across from Li Xun, glanced at his lunch box, and asked, "How is it? Getting used to the cafeteria food?"

Li Xun looked up at Wang Hai and nodded. "It's pretty good. Maybe a little too good. I'm worried I'll get fat if I work here too long."

"Hahaha! Exactly! Look at me—I weigh 170 pounds now, but when I first started, I only weighed 120! A few years on the job and I've put on fifty pounds."

At two fifteen in the afternoon, Tang Jiahe finally came out of President Dai's office. Julie knew him well, so she called out to him.

"What's going on, Lao Tang? Are we starting a new project? Can you tell us which popular novel IP we're adapting? Even you got called in."

Every screenwriter in the department perked up their ears.

It was what all the screenwriters were wondering about.

Just then, Tang Jiahe's phone rang. Before answering, he replied offhandedly, "Huh? A popular novel IP? What popular novel IP? Isn't it an original script from your department? What, even you, a chief editor, don't know?"

After answering only that, Tang Jiahe picked up the call. He nodded to Julie, then walked out of the Screenwriting Department while talking on the phone.

The department immediately erupted into chatter.

So it really was an original script from inside the company!

Whose was it?

They'd kept it so well hidden!

How had no one heard a thing beforehand?

An original script? And an A-Class Production?

Who had the talent for that?

If the script had forty or fifty episodes, the budget would be heading toward a hundred million. As long as it performed decently, whoever had a work like that under their belt could coast on the achievement for the rest of their life!

Most of the screenwriters started guessing wildly, like headless flies.

"Zhang, don't tell me you've been pretending to be useless and fooling us all?"

"Li, come on. If I had that kind of talent, I'd be running around shouting it through a megaphone."

"Xiao Liu, aren't you writing that suspense script lately? What's the matter, keeping it under wraps?"

"Ah, I gave up on it ages ago! I revised it more than ten times, and President Dai still wasn't satisfied."

The other newcomers, Han Qiaoling and Zhou Hongsu, were also stirred up.

They hadn't expected to witness the birth of an original A-Class Production on just their second day at work.

Since neither of them knew the people in the Screenwriting Department well, they both looked around the room, silently wondering:

Who was it?

An A-Class Production paid the screenwriter 200,000 per episode. That meant at least a few million in royalties! If the script had fifty episodes, and it was written independently, the screenwriter could make ten million from a single show!

When would they be able to write a script like that?

Three years? Or five?

Even ten years would be worth it!

Unlike most of the screenwriters, who were busy guessing, Zhou Yao, Julie, and Ye Zhou all looked toward Chen Yuning.

After all, they hadn't heard of anyone else submitting a script lately!

Wang Hai, meanwhile, kept glancing at Li Xun, who was sitting beside him.

Not long after, President Dai's assistant, Qiu Ting, came out of the office and walked over to the Screenwriting Department's work area. "Li Xun, please go to President Dai's office. She wants to see you."

Li Xun stood up and followed Qiu Ting into the office. A little while later, Qiu Ting came back out and closed the office door behind her. Then she returned to her own office nearby.

At that point, Zhou Yao quietly went over to Wang Hai and asked, "Master, do you think my junior apprentice has a grudge against President Dai? I always feel like she looks at him differently from everyone else."

Wang Hai answered absently, "Maybe. I'm not sure. Oh, right—the company only asked me to help him get familiar with the place. We haven't taught him anything, so I'm not qualified to be his master. Don't go calling him your junior apprentice anymore."

Zhou Yao protested, "What's wrong with calling him Master or junior apprentice? It's a tradition at our company. Everyone does it. Why should he be any different?"

Wang Hai gave a bitter smile and shook his head, saying nothing more.

Zhou Yao asked again, "Master, why do you think President Dai called him in?"

Wang Hai glanced at the newcomer he'd mentored the previous year, his expression complicated. "Maybe it's about the script he submitted this morning?"

Zhou Yao looked surprised. "He's only been here two days and already submitted a script? The first two episodes, right? That's so fast! But whether a screenwriter's any good still comes down to quality. Speed is useless if the quality isn't there. Hmm, Master, how many revisions do you think your new apprentice will need before his first script gets approved? When I started last year, I had to revise my first script a full twenty-eight times. It took three whole months before President Dai approved it. Still, my first script was for a B-Class Production, and President Dai was pretty generous. I heard that was already considered fast?"

Wang Hai nodded. "Yeah. When I first started, I had to revise my first script forty times before it was approved. The pressure was so bad I couldn't sleep night after night."

Zhou Yao added, "You still haven't answered me, Master. How many revisions do you think my new junior apprentice will need before his first script gets approved?"

Wang Hai took a deep breath. Thinking of the script he'd just read, he answered gravely, "That...I really wouldn't dare guess."