TL: Hua

Chapter 119: Released

After the netizens were shocked for a while, they finally accepted the fact with a slightly calmer mind.

But after this wave passed, they began to worry about which school Lin Yanran would apply to.

Netizens knew very well that with this score, which top-tier university in the country couldn’t he attend?

Yet, regarding which school he actually filled out, his team remained silent just like before.

However, since Lin Yanran and his team had always been low-key about this matter, everyone had grown accustomed to it.

After all, if he could hold back from posting his score, it was even less likely he would proactively report his school choices to the netizens…

This time, the netizens learned to be clever; they waited with an anxious yet forced patience.

Everyone was speculating whether he would go to A University or B University, the top two ranked schools in the country.

After the college entrance exam, it wasn’t just the netizens who were incredibly concerned about Lin Yanran.

Because of his celebrity status, all kinds of media outlets were fighting tooth and nail, all hoping to secure an exclusive interview with him regarding the exam.

However, Lin Yanran rejected them all outright.

In the end, he only accepted one interview from the national television station.

This interview was broadcast on TV shortly after.

During the segment, the questions asked by the host were quite practical. Lin Yanran didn’t dwell on how difficult his academic journey had been, nor did he take the opportunity to build a persona for himself.

He answered calmly and composedly, even sharing some of his own learning experiences with the vast number of students.

The entire process was very positive and uplifting, without a trace of deliberation or pretension, yet it served as a great inspiration to the youth and his fans.

After watching it, the netizens couldn’t help but look at him in a new light.

Beyond just the netizens, Lin Yanran’s interview also received widespread acclaim from parents and the elderly.

They even brought their children to watch the interview together, hoping their children would take him as a role model and become someone with excellent grades, courage, and strength just like him.

Because of these ultra-high scores, Lin Yanran’s reputation in real life became exceptionally good.

Many endorsements related to education came looking for him, but as before, he turned them all down.

The massive attention brought by the exam did not make him lose his original intentions; he continued his routine, low-key practicing for his musical.

This musical was adapted from a romantic and healing foreign film called “The Journey of Him and Me”.

It tells a story set in a future world where an abandoned child wanders to a barren planet. Along with a friend, an alternate personality he created, he bravely survives alone in the harsh environment, eventually saving the desolate planet and restoring it to a beautiful world.

Lin Yanran played the role of “Him,” a part with very significant screen time.

Musicals were quite different from the singing and acting he had participated in before.

Fortunately, he had listened to musicals with his grandmother since he was a child. Although he lacked direct experience, he had at least been immersed in the atmosphere; under this lifelong influence, the difficulty was relatively reduced when he officially began performing.

After the initial phase of learning and integration, “The Journey of Him and Me” had reached the stage of collective rehearsals and would soon be selling tickets for its theater debut.

Lin Yanran dared not delay the progress. After submitting his university preferences, he arrived at the theater on time every day and rehearsed performances with other actors.

The rehearsal space wasn’t very far from Lin Yanran’s home, but parking there was difficult. Finding a spot could take over half an hour, and minor scrapes were common.

Additionally, Lin Yanran’s personality was such that he preferred not to drive if he didn’t have to. So, during those rehearsal days, he chose to ride a bicycle instead.

On the way there, Lin Yanran passed a roadside stall every day.

An actress in the same cast really liked eating hot and sour rice noodles. When she learned that Lin Yanran passed a place that sold them, she sent him a WeChat message asking him to bring her a bowl when he came to rehearsal.

Being a small favor, Lin Yanran naturally didn’t refuse.

So, when he passed the stall in the morning, he parked his bike next to it.

He had eaten at roadside stalls with friends quite often during his school days, so after parking, he skillfully placed his order with the owner.

“Boss, two bowls of hot and sour rice noodles, one for takeout.”

“Alright, 14 yuan in total. Have a seat for a moment.”

Today was Saturday, and Lin Yanran had left early, so there weren’t many pedestrians on the road yet.

After paying, Lin Yanran pulled up a stool, sat at a low table, and took out his phone to read the day’s news.

A few minutes later, the noodles were ready, and Lin Yanran happily started slurping them up.

Since graduating high school, he had basically been studying abroad, only returning during vacations. It had been many years since he had slurped noodles at such an authentic roadside stall.

Though the shop was different, the flavor was exactly as he remembered.

After a bite, Lin Yanran felt very satisfied. He took a photo and sent it to Gu Siye, inviting him to slurp noodles together when he had time.

As the photo was sent, a mental image suddenly popped into Lin Yanran’s head: What would it look like if Gu Siye were sitting here?

As he left, Lin Yanran took the freshly packed noodles from the owner.

“Take care, young man.”

The owner was a middle-aged woman in her forties. She had been busy cooking and hadn’t paid much attention before.

Now, as she handed the noodles to the customer, she realized this handsome guy looked incredibly familiar, like a celebrity.

Because she didn’t usually follow the entertainment industry, she couldn’t remember who he was for a moment.

Only after Lin Yanran said “thank you,” took the bag, and cycled away did she finally remember his name.

Wasn’t he that big star who’s been so famous lately for being a genius student!!

He actually came to her little roadside stall to buy noodles!!

Once the owner remembered, she immediately fumbled for her phone and called her daughter.

Although she wasn’t a celebrity chaser, encountering a big star at her stall for the first time, especially one that all her friends praised for his good grades, made her voice uncontrollably excited when the call connected.

“Niuniu! Just now, just now that top-scorer star you like came to Mama’s place to eat noodles!”

The owner’s daughter was also a fan of Lin Yanran. Hearing this description, she exclaimed in disbelief.

After realizing her mom was talking about Yanran, she immediately asked, “Mom, did you give him extra toppings?!”

“I didn’t recognize him when I was cooking.”

“Is he still there? Mom, hurry and go get an autograph for me!”

“What do you want an autograph for?”

“I’m going to enshrine it!! I need to worship the God of Study before my postgraduate entrance exams in the second half of the year to pray for my ascension!”

The owner suddenly understood.

“But he already left…”

*

After the university applications were filed, the admission notices were sent out one after another.

Lin Yanran successfully received his admission notice from A University.

Although the netizens desperately wanted to know whether he went to A University or B University, they knew he definitely wouldn’t post it. They planned to wait until the school term started to see which school’s students would post chance encounter photos.

To their surprise, while netizens were completely caught off guard, Lin Yanran’s official fan club posted his admission notice from A University.

At the same time, Liang Zhishi also posted his admission notice for the Drama Academy.

Immediately following this, the official Weibo for “Becoming an Older Brother Again” spliced their two admission notices together and posted them with a caption.

Becoming an Older Brother Again: Come touch this little koi fish; you will harvest two handsome scholar-idols~

Lin Yanran and Liang Zhishi posting their admission notices together was a coordinated move between the team and the entire production crew.

“Becoming an Older Brother Again” was about to be released, and this was a very important promotion period.

This wave of real-life college entrance exam success tied in perfectly with certain plots in the movie. Therefore, the production crew’s first wave of marketing was planned around the two actors.

After the production crew reposted, the tags #YanranAdmittedToAUniversity, #YanranLiangZhishiAdmissionNotices, and #YanranBecomingAnOlderBrotherAgain quickly trended, appearing in the push notifications of all major websites.

As a result, almost the entire country learned two things:

1. Yanran got into A University.
2. The movie “Becoming an Older Brother Again” has some serious metaphysical luck attached to it. The two lead actors who starred in the movie actually got into top-tier universities, one in non-arts programs and the other in arts programs.

Whether people were superstitious or not, it was a very good thing. Consequently, as soon as this promotion came out, it immediately achieved excellent results.

The production crew followed up with a second wave of marketing, releasing a trailer of the scene where Lu Lan, played by Lin Yanran, finally receives his admission letter from A University.

Netizens photoshopped that movie frame together with Lin Yanran’s real-life Weibo post of his admission letter, and many began to make a meme of it.

#The actor most true to his character has been born#

#Truly the same onstage and offstage#

#《Immersive Acting》#

#I’d call this a case of: to more realistically experience the character, I went ahead and got into A University too#

#What upstairs said sounds like humble-bragging, but when it’s applied to Yanran, I actually feel the truth might just be that simple#

#Your production crew is amazing; did you do a background check when looking for actors? Stop making movies and open a training institute to share your experience instead#

This wave of positive heat and trending topics brought by the college entrance exam was already the best promotional method for a poor little production that didn’t have much spare cash to buy marketing.

It was completely unexpected.

While “Becoming an Older Brother Again” was being extremely frugal with its promotion, “Sparrow Feather,” which had previously used Lin Yanran and his fans, also began a massive marketing campaign.

“Sparrow Feather” was much wealthier than “Becoming an Older Brother Again”; its promotion and distribution budget was measured in the hundreds of millions. Consequently, the variety and intensity of its marketing were vastly superior to those of “Becoming an Older Brother Again.”

However, marketing is one thing, but some of “Sparrow Feather”‘s promotional tactics disgusted Lin Yanran’s fans once again.

While the crew was promoting the lead actor, Si Mingxu, they dragged Lin Yanran into it as well.

The press release read: A role that even Yanran, the second place in the college entrance exam, wanted to play, but in the end, the director chose him…

Looking at this advertisement article, Lin Yanran’s fans wanted to vomit.

[Bringing your father out again, aren’t you disgusted?]

[Does SMX not have a clue how he actually got the role?]

[One leeching session wasn’t enough, so you’re addicted to the “Double Happiness” encore now?]

[Pah!]

Last time, the team held them back from giving the topic heat, so the fans endured it without cursing.

But this time, they were trying to put other people down again and even bringing up someone’s hard-earned exam results to boost their own status. The fans truly couldn’t stand it anymore and directly tore into Si Mingxu’s team.

But Si Mingxu’s side had skin as thick as a city wall; they simply played dead and refused to delete it.

It was useless for fans to curse, because this marketing was extremely effective.

Many people who had recently become interested in Lin Yanran saw this announcement and developed an interest in “Sparrow Feather” as well.

Big director, big production, fantasy genre, hundreds of millions in investment, first-class special effects, and a lead actor who was supposedly an even better acting powerhouse than Lin Yanran…

With all these buffs stacked together, it was very intimidating.

Therefore, when many casual viewers discovered that “Becoming an Older Brother Again” and “Sparrow Feather” were clashing, they still prioritized the relatively safe and reliable “Sparrow Feather” for viewing on the first day of release.

Thus, when the final box office results for the first day came out, Si Mingxu’s “Sparrow Feather” doubled the score with 97 million, crushing the 15.5 million first-day box office of Lin Yanran’s “Becoming an Older Brother Again.”

Earning 15.5 million on the first day was actually a very good figure for a small-budget production with a total investment of only 30 million.

The production crew hadn’t spent money on other messy expenses or sky-high marketing.

So, that 30 million was the total investment for the entire movie, including promotion and distribution.

With a first-day box office of 15.5 million, after deducting the cinema share, the crew had already recouped more than half of their costs.

If they could maintain this over the next ten or so days, they would end up making a profit.

Seeing that his first movie hadn’t flopped, the director was so happy he directly sent out red envelopes in the production group chat for everyone to celebrate.

However, while the director and the crew were incredibly satisfied, netizens felt it was a flop on their behalf.

Because this was Lin Yanran’s first movie, and it was released under the spotlight of his academic prowess, people within the fan circles paid extra attention.

Accustomed to seeing movies that easily broke 100 million on their first day, many people felt that a movie failing to even break 20 million on day one was a failure. They believed Lin Yanran wasn’t capable of carrying the box office and had poor judgment.

Particularly Si Mingxu’s fans, who had already clashed with Lin Yanran’s fans before, now saw their own box office doubling the opponent’s and practically wanted to make giant posters to mock them globally.

[So this is the box office appeal of top-tier celebrities? That’s hilarious!]

[What??? Can’t even break 20 million on the first day?? Yanran is truly a loser, lololol.]

[Tsk tsk, with such trashy box office, can this crappy movie even break even?]

Faced with these taunts, someone came out to offer an explanation.

[To be fair, this movie only had a 5% screening share on the first day, and it’s a non-typical youth film, which is already a niche genre. Without any prime time slots, being able to bring in 15 million is already very effective at drawing audiences in… I checked its occupancy rate, and it’s also very high. Anyway, based on my years of experience tracking box office, this box office and occupancy rate are quite good. On the contrary, “Sparrow Feather,” with such huge investment and promotion, failing to break 100 million on the first day is actually a bit painful… If the subsequent word-of-mouth doesn’t hold steady, the box office will definitely collapse.]

Fan circles generally only care about their own internal affairs, especially haters, who usually don’t track box office or understand things like occupancy rates and screening shares.

Regardless, they only recognized the final box office numbers.

Therefore, they felt these words were just Lin Yanran’s fans trying to save face.

[Stop trying to save face; a flop is a flop. Why bring up occupancy rates and screening shares? Do you think I’ve never tracked a box office before?]

[Fans are still here daydreaming that it hasn’t flopped. In the time it takes to write these little essays, you’d better hurry up and go buy out theater halls to contribute some box office, or it might not even reach 10 million tomorrow.]

[Haha, don’t even say it. I heard some people have already started buying out halls. The fans must be going crazy seeing their idol flop.]

[Yanran’s fans are so hardworking both online and offline, sob sob. Unfortunately, your idol isn’t up to par; no matter how hard the fans work, there’s no hope.]

Just as Si Mingxu’s fans and the haters were joyfully labeling Lin Yanran a failure and claiming there was no hope for a turnaround, on the internet, many viewers who had watched “Becoming an Older Brother Again” on the first day began to post their tickets and recommend the film.

The movie’s word-of-mouth was slowly brewing and beginning to ferment.

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