Chapter 98: If Not Uncle, Then What?
The corridor in the private room area on the second floor of the coffee shop was covered with soundproof carpet. Yu Wei stepped on it, leaving only a few inaudible muffled sounds.
He stopped in front of the “Gilded” private room, took a deep breath, and rarely regained some of the nervousness from attending the interview…
But today, the one he was meeting wasn’t the interviewer, but the famous salted fish and enigmatic figure in the entertainment industry, Director Qi Yunming, known as the King of Bad Movies.
Qi Yunming was leaning obliquely on the leather sofa, his gaze scattered as he stared at the distant traffic flow. Only after hearing Yu Wei enter the room did he belatedly turn his head.
“Director Qi, sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Worth it.”
Qi Yunming pushed over another cup of coffee, his gaze unconsciously falling on the white folder in Yu Wei’s hand.
It couldn’t be a script, could it? He hadn’t rested enough yet…
Yu Wei sat down politely. Actually, he hadn’t had much direct interaction with Qi Yunming. Apart from phone calls, their few contacts were revising lines in Chao Yue Ban.
“Finished writing today’s new chapter?”
“Not yet.”
“Writing that many words in a day isn’t easy.”
Unexpectedly, Qi Yunming didn’t mention Qi Luo An or the script at all. Instead, he started talking about the novel right away.
And to Yu Wei, it felt like he wasn’t just making small talk; he was genuinely curious.
“Not that much, just a few thousand words.”
“A few thousand words isn’t much?”
For Qi Yunming, an composition over 800 words was already an epic tome. Writing that many words was so tiring…
“Not much. Among colleagues, it’s bottom-tier.”
Yu Wei looked up and saw Qi Yunming’s spine slumped as if the bones had been removed, his left shoulder noticeably lower than the right, forming an unbalanced curve.
He even sat in such an energy-saving posture?
This reminded Yu Wei of a term called energy-saving-ism: don’t do unnecessary things, and simplify necessary ones.
“You and An An… are friends, right?”
“Yes, she has a great personality. We get along very well.”
It was just politeness at first, but who knew Qi Yunming would actually crack a rare smile upon hearing it. Did he not know his own daughter’s temperament?
Her personality wasn’t great at all. Maybe only people on the same wavelength thought she had a great personality, or perhaps she treated Yu Wei differently from others…
Both were salted fish. In a sense, they were birds of a feather. Though they didn’t talk about much, occasional eye contact had a tacit understanding vibe.
Slacking off was a realm.
Yu Wei took a sip of coffee, feeling that today’s meeting was quite harmonious. Neither was restrained, and the overall chat was natural and casual.
What surprised him was that Qi Yunming didn’t mention Qi Luo An again afterward. Instead, they talked about all sorts of random things, as if his daughter wasn’t as important as these.
Qi Yunming certainly valued his daughter, but he felt there was really nothing to say. Children have their own blessings; meddling would be too troublesome.
As for metaphors like wild boar and cabbage, he was too lazy to overthink. It wasn’t like he hadn’t gone after cabbage back in the day. They were all wild boars; why make things hard for fellow wild boars?
“Right, Uncle, I finished writing the script you wanted. Take a look.”
Qi Yunming helplessly took the folder handed over. Sure enough, it had come. Now that he had the script, didn’t that mean he had to start work again…
This kid was on variety shows and writing songs, and still daily-updating his novel. Where did he find time to write a script? Why so eager?
Qi Yunming’s Adam’s apple rolled with difficulty. This seemed to be the trickiest issue today. He wanted it, but didn’t want it right now.
What to do if he took a cushy job while wanting a vacation?
“Aren’t you going to look, Uncle?”
These were all typed out word by word by An An. How could you bear not to see your daughter’s hard work…
“Don’t call me Uncle. It sounds awkward.”
Qi Yunming rubbed his brow. He usually kept a low profile and didn’t socialize much. People around him were peers, and juniors called him Teacher. Few called him Uncle.
Normally such a small thing didn’t matter, but with the script in hand like a hot potato, the more he thought, the bigger his headache, and hearing “Uncle” made it worse.
“?”
Actually, Yu Wei was in his twenties and Qi Yunming in his forties, so usually it’d be “bro.” Calling him Uncle made him sound old.
But he was teammates with Qi Yuan and good friends with Qi Luo An, so there was a clear generation gap. Calling him bro would be too weird…
Teacher and Director were too formal; no need after getting familiar.
If not Uncle, what else? Director of the Bureau?
“Just call me Old Qi. An An calls me that too. Same as her is fine.”
Calling him Old Qi made sense—unrelated to seniority and friendly. But what did the second half mean?
Yu Wei felt Qi Yunming lived very transparently. He understood many things but just didn’t want to mention them.
“Right, help me pass a message to An An. I have a plane ticket this afternoon to go back.”
“You’re not going to see her?”
“Nah.” Qi Yunming downed the cold coffee in one go. “She doesn’t like being managed, and I’m too lazy. Just a couple reminders is fine; nothing to see.”
So he came here without planning to find Qi Luo An at all, and specifically called him just to pass a message?
He was too good at saving effort…
Qi Yunming didn’t say much else, just some parental nagging. He was purely the messenger; the one at home wouldn’t rest easy otherwise.
Two megaphones docking for work, so to speak.
“I’ll read the script as soon as possible and give my evaluation.”
Qi Yunming dropped that line and left. With his personality, who knew when this “as soon as possible” would actually be.
In the early afternoon, Yu Wei went home and relayed Old Qi’s exact words to Qi Luo An. In the end, he even falsely transmitted an imperial decree by adding two lines, telling her to surf less and read more.
From Qi Luo An’s perspective, this was too strange. Dad came all the way but didn’t see her, instead called Yu Wei over, did nothing, and took the Charlotte Troubles script…
What she cared about most was the last part. That was her hard-typed work. Even as a typing machine, it had emotion. Giving it to Old Qi wouldn’t ruin it all?
“Didn’t I tell you to avoid him? Why are you rushing to cooperate?”
Qi Luo An didn’t believe in fate, but if luck really existed, her dad’s luck with movies might truly be exhausted.
There were good scripts for him before, but the results were baffling. Heard that screenwriter regretted it deeply afterward.
“Actually, your dad gave me twenty million to leave you. I didn’t agree. To keep being friends with you, I gave him the script.”
“Yeah, right.”
What old-school romance novel plot. Twenty million? Even for two million, she’d hope Yu Wei agreed, then split it half-half…
Yu Wei didn’t hide it and simply explained the script discussion they’d had earlier. It wasn’t him sabotaging the script; he wrote it for collaboration.
If he really chose himself, he’d definitely write a kung fu film first. Perfectly mastering the movie to learn a set of kung fu—wouldn’t that be great?
Wait… why not?
Though it was only kung fu at the acting level, that was still good. Who didn’t dream of becoming a martial arts master?
He didn’t write before due to no time, but now with a typing machine, writing a kung fu film would be perfect.
Just right, the protagonist had won a movie award. Now was the time to go further. The novel’s new plot was set.
“Writing, must write!”
This was Yu Wei’s strongest writing urge yet. One could say Chinese people all had a bit of martial arts soul, regardless of gender or age.
“Go, go. Finish writing early, and we’ll watch the program early tonight!”
Qi Luo An meant the second episode of Music Blind Box. Though the program team didn’t promote it as heavily as the premiere, they still did plenty of marketing.
“Watch the program, huh…”
In the second episode, Yu Wei didn’t do anything proper at all. He didn’t know what the audience would think after watching; anyway, the haters from back then probably wouldn’t feel good.
“Yeah, watch with mic on together. Watching alone is boring.”
Lately, due to scriptwriting, their calls had increased. Qi Luo An felt she’d gotten used to it; sometimes not hearing Yu Wei’s voice for long even felt off.
“Sure, I’ll show you something fun then.”
Thinking of Qi Luo An discovering Round Head Elder was him, Yu Wei wanted to laugh. Even just for online gossip, connecting the mic was worth it.
……
When opening the script, Qi Yunming felt like he was opening Pandora’s box—once opened, no turning back.
He’d tried hard to restrain himself, but with no internet on the airplane, it was boring. In a bid to kill time, he finally couldn’t resist and started reading.
Qi Yunming read intently, somewhat mouth-says-no-but-body-yes. When he saw Xia Luo drunkenly causing chaos at the wedding scene, he laughed. How did this kid come up with it?
It wasn’t some profound comedy technique, but it could subtly amuse in details, especially evident in dialogue design.
As the plot progressed, Qi Yunming’s reading posture shifted from lazy leaning to sitting upright. When Xia Luo transmigrated back to 1997 and passed off Blue Lotus as an original song, he clearly froze.
Ruthless enough to even plagiarize himself…
But this song hadn’t come out yet. Planning to debut it directly in the movie?
“Pretty sincere.”
After roughly browsing the story, Qi Yunming had a sense of the script’s quality. It was a very standard commercial comedy film, high quality.
Of course there were shortcomings, but nothing major—enough to recoup the ticket price. Logically, the box office shouldn’t be bad, but he really lacked confidence now.
He’d botched too many good films already…
After landing, Qi Yunming connected to the internet first thing, planning to chat with Yu Wei again. Was this great script really for him to test-poison?
As a poison master, even he felt it was a pity.
The moment the network recovered, a bunch of delayed notification messages poured in. Qi Yunming glanced over and spotted Yu Wei’s novel update reminder.
The chapter title was straightforward: New Script.
“New script?”
He’d just handed over the script, and so soon another new script idea?
Qi Yunming clicked it open, flipped a few pages, and soon noticed the titled new work, A Man’s Martial World.
Author not full-time, usually too busy. Weekend double updates for everyone.
