Chapter Fifteen: The Martial World

At the end of March in the capital, it was the time when winter and spring battled for dominance. The old man said the weather was like cats and dogs—warm one day, freezing the next. Yet in Taipei at the end of March, daytime temperatures hovered comfortably around twenty degrees Celsius.

After an early morning run of ten kilometers, Lin Jianlu took a shower upon returning to the hotel and then went to the internal restaurant for a meal. Back in his room by around eight o’clock, he picked up the phone and began making calls.

The first call was to Zhang Aijia.

Zhang Aijia was slightly surprised but pleased. “Ah Lu, good morning!”

“Here’s the thing, Sister Aijia,” Lin Jianlu began. “Yesterday, Director Duan told me the results were pretty good and suggested I shoot a few more music videos to boost the follow-up promotion. Actually, I’ve already prepared the story scripts in advance. For the song ‘Fairy Tale,’ I plan to shoot it as a short film or microfilm. After much thought, I want to invite Miss Liu Ruoying to star as the female lead in the MV. Everyone says she’s an artist under your company, so I wanted to check if that’s okay with you?”

Zhang Aijia paused for a moment, then quickly replied, “Of course, no problem at all!”

It was more than just “no problem.” The album *Cold to the Bone* had become a huge hit, and the song “Fairy Tale” was already of such high quality. Since Rock Records planned to produce a music video, it was clear they intended to push it as a key track. The song was already ranked in the top ten of the Golden Melody charts, and with a new MV, it had a strong chance of reaching number one.

If the MV became popular, having Liu Ruoying as the female lead would undoubtedly boost her popularity!

She had originally risen to fame through her image in *Little Fisher Girl*, and her first album *The Beauty and Sorrow of Little Fisher Girl* had a good start in her singing career. Unfortunately, her follow-up album had almost gone unnoticed, and her popularity quickly faded—so riding on Lin Jianlu and *Fairy Tale*’s coattails might just revive her career.

This was Lin Jianlu’s way of inviting Liu Ruoying to dinner.

As her manager, Zhang Aijia didn’t hesitate and immediately agreed—no fee necessary for her to appear!

However, having been around the industry for twenty years, Zhang Aijia had just agreed when she suddenly came to her senses…

“That’s wonderful. Thank you, Sister Aijia. I’ll report back to Director Duan and have the company contact you.”

“Uh… okay.”

“You’re busy, so I’ll hang up now!”

Before Zhang Aijia could say anything else, the call ended.

In truth, there was little more to say—she was Liu Ruoying’s manager, so it was perfectly fine for him to call her. But, come on, Liu Ruoying was under Rock Records. This matter didn’t really need to go through her; they could have just spoken directly with Old Duan or even notified Liu Ruoying herself first.

Everyone was friends and familiar with one another, and since Lin Jianlu was clearly trying to support her, how could she be displeased?

Yet still, she dutifully made that call to her.

Sigh… it seemed he had chosen Old Ge instead.

What she didn’t know was that right after hanging up, Lin Jianlu immediately dialed again, and when the call connected, he said once more, “Good morning, Sister Ge, this is Ah Lu.”

Yes, he was planning to shoot another MV, this time for the song “Ten Years” as a microfilm. He wanted to ask if she had any suitable actresses to recommend, hoping they wouldn’t mind that this was just an MV…

After two calls, the matter was settled.

Lin Jianlu was in mainland China and hadn’t rushed to find any manager. Many had expressed interest, but he hadn’t accepted anyone. Not for any other reason but that he felt the money to be made in mainland China wasn’t enough yet.

He planned to prioritize earning from Hong Kong and Taiwan for at least the next two years.

He had low expectations—maybe after two years of earning well here, he could retire.

As for Hong Kong and Taiwan, he agreed with Old Duan’s opinion that he really needed to sign a manager. Both of the women were clearly excellent managers, well-connected and capable. As Old Duan said, choosing either would be great, and neither choice would be wrong—but, come on, how was he to know if they were petty? What if choosing one offended the other?

Forget it, he’d rather give each a gift and choose neither!

Even if they were petty, surely they wouldn’t be offended by that—if they were petty to that degree, honestly, they shouldn’t even be in the industry anymore because they’d have enemies everywhere!

In the entertainment world, wherever there are people, there is drama.

Having been forced to pick sides many times in his previous life as a livestreamer, he was experienced.

With that settled, Lin Jianlu felt relieved. He pulled out some writing paper and a pen, planning to draft outlines.

Originally, Lin Jianlu most wanted to shoot MVs for three songs.

First, *Fairy Tale*. The original MV was truly outstanding, arguably the pinnacle of Chinese-language music video production. Simply copying it would be a guaranteed hit across mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong!

Second, *Ten Years*. A love-themed song with deep, melancholic beauty. He couldn’t recall the original MV, but that didn’t matter—he had written a story-driven script himself.

This MV could also appeal to both Taiwan-Hong Kong and mainland audiences. The subtle, bittersweet tone of love was just right—a surefire hit!

The third song was *Super Cool*. Its so-called MV wasn’t important; it had no story. What Lin Jianlu really wanted was to create a dance similar to Psy’s *Gangnam Style*, using electronic dance music and choreography to try breaking into the Japanese and Korean markets!

Making money was nothing to be ashamed of.

But with limited funds and being a newcomer, no matter how promising his debut album was, it was impossible to get a huge budget for MVs right away.

So in the end, he had to be frugal. The money scraped from recording costs could only support MVs for the lead single *Cold to the Bone* and *Super Cool*.

Simply put, these two songs were easy to film—he just needed to pose with various emotional expressions for the former, and for the latter, get people to learn the dance well. These were low-risk shoots that saved on film.

However, shooting story-driven MVs like *Fairy Tale* and *Ten Years*, even in mainland China with lower labor costs, wasn’t something that could be done for just a few thousand yuan!

He demanded quality and used actual film stock!

Old Duan had known about all this through Xue Zhongding’s coordination.

Squeezing recording funds to shoot two MVs definitely meant he had pushed his limits.

But now, the situation was different. Mainland sales were expected to exceed three million copies, Taiwan was sure to break one million, Hong Kong had sold 170,000 copies in just two weeks and was likely past 200,000 by now. Singapore had surpassed 60,000, Malaysia over 30,000, and even Japan had shipped more than 100,000 copies. And sales data from places like Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia hadn’t even come in yet.

With Old Duan personally involved, the budget wouldn’t be tight this time!

So, they would shoot!

*Fairy Tale*, *Ten Years*, and one more, *Flower Field Mistake*.

Moreover, since the first two had stories and female leads, they wouldn’t play favorites—they’d write an outline for *Flower Field Mistake* too and gradually develop a story.

Just as he started drafting ideas—thinking of blending the opera troupe setting from *Farewell My Concubine*, the concept of distance from Jay Chou’s *A Thousand Miles Away*, and the alienation from *In the Mood for Love*—he was interrupted.

The phone in his newly changed hotel room suddenly rang.

“Hello?”

“Ah Lu, it’s Chen Shuhua. Let’s go out for tea and chat!”