Chapter 316: President Pei’s Script
Chapter 316: President Pei’s Script
President Pei’s words were worth ten years of study.
Hao Yun felt that all the HR department knowledge she had learned before had basically gone down the drain—it was completely at odds with President Pei’s requirements!
But then again, this was Tengda. This was President Pei!
President Pei had always been a man who went his own way, and clearly he also had a unique and unconventional theory when it came to talent management.
Hao Yun nodded. “Understood, President Pei. Leave these matters to the Human Resources Department, we'll make sure everything is handled properly!”
Hao Yun had just received a long-term, epic-level challenge quest from the big boss. Fired up with motivation, she left briskly.
Pei Qian, on the other hand, took a short break and then continued working on the movie script.
…
November 2nd, Tuesday.
At 10:30 a.m., Pei Qian arrived at the company on time, turned on his computer, opened the document, and began making the final revisions to the script.
He aimed to finish revising it today and send it over to Huang Sibo and the others.
There was no helping it—President Pei simply got things done with lightning speed.
Based on the existing story framework, Pei Qian still needed to refine a number of details.
The more details there were, the less room Huang Sibo and Zhu Xiaoce would have to misinterpret his intentions.
First, he needed to add some sci-fi elements.
After some thought, Pei Qian decided it was best not to include anything too complicated or too conventional.
Things like space battleships or time travel were better left out entirely.
Why?
Because Pei Qian planned to burn a huge amount of money on special effects. If the effects turned out too good and the audience felt that “the visuals alone are worth the ticket price,” then what would he do?
Spending heavily on special effects, yet not letting the audience actually see any grand spectacles—that was President Pei’s ultimate pursuit.
Elements like time travel were also best avoided. The script he was writing wasn’t completely airtight, and he was afraid that Huang Sibo and Zhu Xiaoce—those two masters of wild extrapolation—would twist it beyond recognition.
Time-travel stories, relatively speaking, were perfect playgrounds for overactive imaginations, and Pei Qian simply couldn’t rest easy.
He definitely didn’t want some absurd script where “I cuckold myself, sleep with myself, kill myself, marry myself,” resulting in a movie where from start to finish there’s only one character.
So after some consideration, Pei Qian decided it would be best to hang up a sheep’s head but sell dog meat—to wrap the story in a sci-fi shell, yet avoid filming any major sci-fi set pieces, focusing instead on extremely boring everyday life.
During promotion, they would hype it up aggressively: “A domestic sci-fi masterpiece,” “a moving story,” “gorgeous special effects,” and so on, cranking up the audience’s expectations as high as possible.
Then, once audiences entered the theater, they would find no dazzling effects, no cool spectacles, and barely any sci-fi elements at all—just a modern story awkwardly wrapped in a sci-fi skin.
Not only that, but the plot would also relentlessly shove poison down their throats.
How infuriating would that be?
Angry audiences would surely shout “Refund!” right?
As for how exactly the story would poison the audience, that was something Pei Qian needed to think through carefully.
The main framework couldn’t change: the male protagonist would be a simp and end up with nothing. But how exactly would he simp, and how exactly would he end up with nothing?
That was where Pei Qian’s cleverness would come into play.
If the intensity was too low, the poisoning effect wouldn’t be obvious, and the deterrent effect wouldn’t be strong either.
So—he had to turn it up!
With the story framework in place, Pei Qian felt inspiration surge like a spring tide. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he poured all his ideas into the document.
…
…
In a future society, technology is highly advanced.
Robots have replaced humans and taken over the vast majority of physical labor. As a result, large numbers of manual workers have lost their jobs and fallen into extreme poverty.
Fortunately, there is still a basic level of social welfare, providing them with housing and the means to survive.
And the male protagonist is exactly that—a jobless pauper who can only survive on the most basic social welfare and relief payments.
He lives in a capsule-like living unit. When he sleeps, he has to curl up his legs, and when he sits on the bed, a slight lapse in attention is enough for his head to bump into the ceiling.
Every day, he receives an instant relief meal. It looks like a grayish-white paste; add hot water and it provides just enough nutrition to barely sustain life.
Inside the capsule compartment where the protagonist lives, there is a television—currently his only form of entertainment.
The TV programs are flooded with all kinds of advertisements, and since he has no money, he has no way to skip them.
The television can also be used to play games or chat online, but all of those require payment. The protagonist doesn’t even have the money to skip ads, so naturally he can’t afford any other forms of entertainment.
His daily life consists of watching ads and watching TV. Each day, he is only allowed three hours to leave his capsule and go outside for a walk.
That’s because the city’s external space is not something everyone can freely enjoy.
The rich are allowed access to the outside world from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.; ordinary citizens from 6 p.m. to midnight; and the utterly destitute—people like the protagonist—only from midnight to 3 a.m.
From 3 a.m. to 6 a.m., the outside world undergoes a major cleanup, ensuring that when the wealthy step out at 6 a.m., the entire world is clean and orderly.
For the utterly destitute who go out at the wrong time or linger beyond their allotted hours, the punishments are extremely severe.
Most of the destitute have completely reversed biological clocks. They treasure their chance to be released into the outside world, and to them, it is the most important moment of the entire day.
Of course, strictly speaking, people like the protagonist are not entirely without work.
They can choose TV programs they like to watch and vote for those programs.
Based on viewing time, these destitute viewers earn small amounts of virtual currency. This money can be used to purchase certain consumer goods, such as nice-looking clothes, tasty food, good drinks, or alcohol.
Every TV program has betting or prediction events. By using this virtual currency to participate, if one wins, they can earn even more virtual money.
Some programs even invite destitute individuals who made a fortune through these betting activities—rising into the civilian class or even the wealthy class—to appear on stage and share their experiences.
The protagonist is also enthusiastic about this. He both wins and loses, but he has decent talent and often manages to make small profits, occasionally rewarding himself with a can of beer.
One day, the protagonist once again enters the outside world.
There, he happens to meet the female protagonist, who is also one of the destitute.
She isn’t especially beautiful, nor particularly enchanting, but she is very pure and cute. To the male protagonist, she has a unique charm that causes him to fall deeply for her.
Relying on his natural sense of humor, the male protagonist strikes up a conversation, beats out several other competitors, and wins the girl’s affection.
From that day on, they meet every day during those three hours, eating some tasty food together or spending money on cheap forms of entertainment.
Before long, the two establish a romantic relationship.
The male protagonist begins to scrimp and save, handling every betting decision with extreme caution, terrified that a single mistake could wipe out everything.
He wants to save enough money to buy a living capsule that the two of them can share.
Focused single-mindedly on saving, he goes a long time without buying the girl gifts, and a long time without taking her out for lavish meals.
The girl doesn’t get angry because of this. On the contrary, she is very understanding, expressing her support for the protagonist’s behavior.
Until one day, the protagonist finally saves enough money to purchase a shared capsule space for the two of them.
But at that point, the girl suggests that making money this way is too slow, and that they will never be able to rise into the civilian class. She wants to participate in a talent show on television—if she can get screen time on a TV program, the speed at which she can earn money will be far greater than it is now.
The male protagonist is unwilling, and the two have their first argument as a result.
However, the next day, the male protagonist is consumed by deep guilt. After repeated consideration, he transfers the money he saved to the girl, letting her go pursue her dream.
On the day the girl participates in the televised talent show, the male protagonist, as a relative of a contestant, is granted a one-day ad-free privilege, allowing him to sit in front of the TV and watch the entire episode from start to finish.
On stage, the girl does her best to showcase her talents—singing and dancing. The male protagonist watches intently, never once feeling that a TV program had ever been this captivating.
After the girl finishes her performance, however, only one of the four judges nods in approval.
According to the show’s rules, a contestant only succeeds if at least three judges vote in favor.
The other judges show no mercy as they point out the girl’s flaws: her dancing is stiff, like a clumsy bear; her vocal technique is wrong, her breath control unstable, her pitch clearly off; she is far too nervous on stage and lacks any real stage presence.
The only male judge who does nod does so merely because he thinks the dress the girl is wearing looks nice that day—it had been rented at great expense before the show, giving her an air of innocence and an approachable, girl-next-door charm.
The girl leaves the audition in deep disappointment.
The male protagonist, on the contrary, feels a faint sense of relief, because he knows very well that if the girl had truly passed the audition, the two of them would only drift farther and farther apart in the future.
Now that the girl’s dream has been shattered, the two of them still have hope of a shared life together.
When they meet again, the male protagonist comforts the girl and resumes saving money with even greater determination, all for the sake of buying a capsule for the two of them to live in.
He spends even more time watching different TV programs, studying their patterns, and participating in the betting events with extreme caution.
He must ensure that every single bet he makes turns a profit.
During their subsequent dates, the girl begins to seem distracted. She often doesn’t hear what the male protagonist is saying, responding only with vague nods and half-hearted agreement.
The male protagonist doesn’t think too much of it, believing only that the girl is temporarily shaken by the collapse of her dream, and that she will eventually recover.
At last, the male protagonist once again saves enough money to buy a shared living capsule. Overjoyed, he tells the girl that they can finally live together.
However, for the first time, the girl explodes in anger. She hysterically screams at the male protagonist, shouting, “You don’t understand anything at all,” and then proposes a breakup.
In his confusion and breakdown, the male protagonist notices the slight bulge in the girl’s abdomen.
The girl confesses everything to him: during this period of time, she has been seeing that judge all along.
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