As the gang members left, the oppressive atmosphere vanished completely.
The entire crew rushed over and surrounded Lin Yuan.
"You're insanely good at fighting! After filming action scenes for so many years, I never imagined someone could actually be as fierce as they are in the movies!"
"A real-life Little Li Flying Dagger! Too bad the Olympics don't have a flying dagger event, or you'd win glory for the country right away."
"Lin Yuan, you're so handsome! I want to have dragon babies with you!" a female staff member shouted.
"Are you stupid? It'll be 2001 soon. At most, you can still have snake babies!"
Faced with everyone's enthusiasm, Lin Yuan did not know how to respond for a moment. He could only say, "It's just a trivial little skill."
"He's obviously so strong, yet he acts like it's nothing. How infuriating! He totally pulled it off!"
Lin Yuan sensed trouble. Everyone had already reached out and grabbed him.
"What are you doing? Ah... haha... Put me down..."
They hoisted Lin Yuan up and repeatedly tossed him into the air.
Only after quite a while did they finally let him down and allow his feet to touch the ground.
Zhang Ziyi squeezed out of the crowd and came before Lin Yuan. Her eyes were still a little red from crying earlier.
"Little brother, it was all thanks to you today. I'll remember your kindness in my heart, so I won't say too much more in thanks."
Lin Yuan stepped forward, gave her a light hug, and then let go. "Sis, don't be afraid. No matter what happens, I'll stand by your side."
She smiled and nodded, then stepped back a few paces and went off alone to compose herself.
The crew immediately gathered around him again, eagerly firing question after question at him.
Everyone meant well and wanted to get closer to him, so Lin Yuan had no choice but to force himself into social-butterfly mode and deal with them as best he could.
"Alright, everyone, disperse and get back to work. Lin Yuan and I still have something to discuss." Seeing that it was about time, Jackie Chan stepped forward and dispersed the crowd.
Lin Yuan casually picked up the document beside him. The gang members' disturbance had interrupted him before he had the chance to read it carefully.
But Jackie Chan snatched the document from his hand.
"Big brother?"
"Sorry, I took the wrong one. This isn't for you."
Jackie Chan stuffed that document into a drawer, then pulled out another one and handed it to Lin Yuan.
Lin Yuan smiled but did not expose him.
It was not that he had taken the wrong one at all. Jackie Chan had changed his mind at the last minute.
He had given Lin Yuan a different cooperation agreement. Although Lin Yuan did not know what it contained, it was definitely better than the previous one.
Things were different now. After the gang's disturbance, Jackie Chan valued Lin Yuan even more.
It was not strange for him to offer an agreement with better terms.
Lin Yuan opened the agreement. After flipping through a few pages, he asked in confusion, "Big brother, isn't something wrong with this contract?"
"What's wrong? I checked it myself. There shouldn't be any mistakes."
"Did the remuneration in the contract get an extra zero?"
Jackie Chan took one look and immediately said, "That's right. That's the amount."
"This pay is way too high. I'm only making a cameo as a minor character."
The remuneration Jackie Chan had offered in the agreement was two million... U.S. dollars.
From what Lin Yuan learned in his previous life, Zhang Ziyi had only been paid a little over one million U.S. dollars for this film.
As the villainous boss, she had a major role in the movie.
Yet Lin Yuan, a cameo actor, was being paid even more than Zhang Ziyi. Was that really appropriate?
"I want to make some minor changes to the script and ask you to perform one or two action scenes. This price is only right," Jackie Chan explained.
Lin Yuan knew that was not the real reason.
The script for Rush Hour 2 had already been polished to perfection. Even if Jackie Chan wanted to add scenes for Lin Yuan, it would amount to four or five minutes at most.
Otherwise, it would disrupt the rhythm of the entire film.
Rush Hour 2 had originally been set to premiere around August 2001. Its North American box office would reach as high as 226 million U.S. dollars, ranking fifth on the annual North American box office chart!
It had even outperformed The Mummy Returns and Jurassic Park 3...
If worldwide box office was included, Rush Hour 2 would reach 347 million U.S. dollars. At the exchange rate of the time, that was nearly 2.9 billion yuan.
By comparison, the total box office for all mainland films that year was only a little over 800 million yuan.
The box office from Jackie Chan's single film was more than three times the combined box office of every mainland movie.
One could truly say: Big Brother Jackie Chan was terrifyingly formidable!
The tremendous success of Rush Hour 2 not only earned Jackie Chan a 15 million U.S. dollar salary, but also brought him an additional 26 million U.S. dollars in box office profit-sharing, for a staggering total of 41 million U.S. dollars.
That string of dazzling achievements made even Lin Yuan sigh in amazement. He worried that he might end up doing more harm than good.
Jackie Chan, however, was not worried in the slightest.
Jackie Chan took the document from Lin Yuan's hand, flipped to the last page, and handed it back to him.
"My preliminary plan is to arrange a short, independent storyline for you. As a Hong Kong Island detective, you'll be an undercover thread investigating the mastermind on your own, without directly intersecting with my main storyline."
"I understand. That way, they won't interfere with each other."
"This method may be a shortcut, but for an independent storyline to be compelling, you'll need several exciting action scenes to support it."
"That won't be a problem at all."
How could Lin Yuan possibly pass up an opportunity to earn attribute points and strengthen himself?
Before you continue