Huayu 05, our science fiction movie universe

Chapter 640 *Ghost Blows Out the Light 4*

"Director Wang, there are rumors that the artists under your company are under tax investigation. What is your opinion on this?"

At the opening ceremony of the new Galaxy Science and Technology Expo at the end of 2018, Wang Hao, who came with the main creative team of "The Martian", was surrounded by a large number of reporters at the entrance of the venue.

Recently, all sorts of rumors have been flying around online, with some saying that a celebrity has paid hundreds of millions of yuan in back taxes, and others saying that a celebrity has been taken away by the tax authorities for investigation.

In response, most celebrities choose to remain silent, preferring to say less and avoid making mistakes, and also to avoid offending anyone.

However, this naturally amplifies the public's distrust of these artists.

So now that the reporter had the chance, he naturally wouldn't let Wang Hao go.

Wang Hao also glanced at the microphone that the reporter who asked the question had extended.

Yes, a Hong Kong reporter, just as I suspected.

He knew the reporter was trying to stir up trouble, but it didn't matter.

"I don't know where this reporter got the inside information from. As a reporter, investigations should be rigorous, otherwise it's just third-rate media."

Regarding the tax investigation, the artists under Xinghe Group have always abided by the law, and our group's official website and its subsidiary Good Producers website have always had well-established reporting channels.

Dear journalists, if you have any leads, please report them on the website. Xinghe Group will offer a reward, and it's not cheap.

Wang Hao's words did not quell the reporters' pursuit of this hot topic.

Seeing that he seemed unfazed by the controversial nature of the topic, more reporters swarmed around him, eagerly handing over microphones and wanting to ask more questions.

There's nothing we can do; other people in the entertainment industry are too afraid to speak out.

Only Wang Hao has the confidence to not be afraid of offending people.

However, Wang Hao is not stupid. When answering these questions, he also made sure to mention his new movie, "The Martian".

On the same day, less than a few hours after the interview, related video content had already appeared online by noon.

Even the official Douyin account of the Galaxy Technology Expo edited an interview with its own boss and posted it online to attract traffic.

Netizens had varying reactions to Wang Hao's statement.

Some people believe that Wang Hao is magnanimous and dares to stand up, which must be because he has a strong foundation. Xinghe Group is a breath of fresh air in the entertainment industry, so it's no wonder that their company can produce so many good works.

However, some netizens commented that all crows are black, and Wang Hao's Xinghe Group and its celebrity artists must also have problems, but they just haven't been reported yet.

However, this view is ultimately in the minority online. Putting aside everything else, the currently popular film "The Wallfacer" is both politically correct and professionally competent, and people have an extremely good impression of Xinghe Group.

In fact, the exposure of tax irregularities in the entertainment industry and the public's disgust towards it have actually made the movie "The Wallfacer" even more popular.

On Bilibili, when the photo appeared in the end credits clip of "The Wallfacer" and the background music of "Floating Light" started playing, the barrage of comments was filled with "Long live xx".

On Douyin, the account that posted the relevant content earliest has even received over ten million likes for this storyline.

The people always have a scale in their hearts.

Although many people say that we live in an era of moral decay, where poverty is mocked but prostitution is not, the cultural and intellectual foundation accumulated over five thousand years of Chinese civilization cannot be easily shaken by decades of capitalist trends.

When people say those things, it's mostly with a teasing and open tone.

However, it would be a grave mistake to think that the Chinese people have no demands on certain things, or that entertainment stars can act as recklessly as those in Hollywood without fear of their careers collapsing.

Fortunately, people in the entertainment industry aren't stupid; at least they have some foresight. During this tense period, they didn't cause any further trouble.

And soon, after a period of calm, they immediately released new entertainment news in an attempt to ease the tense atmosphere in the industry.

On October 16th, when famous actress Zhao Liying celebrated her 31st birthday, she gave her fans a big gift by skipping the dating phase and announcing her marriage. It was also a shotgun wedding, and her husband was none other than Feng Shaofeng, who had been the subject of much speculation.

The two met through a movie, and rumors about them had circulated online before, including that Zhao was pregnant.

Zhao had been denying it, and most of his fans supported him. Unexpectedly, when the time came, the celebrity betrayed his fans.

However, this incident has somewhat reduced the level of attention paid to tax issues.

Then on October 28th, well-known actors Tang Yan and Luo Jin also announced their marriage, stating that the wedding would be held in Vienna, once again drawing a lot of attention.

After all, Tang Yan's romantic history is very similar to the characters she often plays. She has the figure of a mature woman, but the heart of a naive and innocent girl.

It was amidst this eerie silence in the entertainment industry that the film "The Wallfacer" saw its box office soar.

Domestically, due to the film's outstanding quality and the absence of any major films during the National Day holiday, "The Wallfacer" essentially dominated the box office, ultimately grossing 37.6 billion yuan.

If this figure were placed among the works of Galaxy Group, it would only be considered mid-level, with many other works achieving higher box office results.

However, compared with Zhang Guoshi's own works, the box office figures for "The Wallfacer" are already the best among all his works.

If this were to happen in China in 2018, it would have performed even better than many Hollywood blockbusters at the Chinese box office.

Even Marvel Cinematic Universe's major blockbuster, Avengers: Infinity War, only grossed over 2 billion yuan at the Chinese box office.

In addition, Aquaman, the best-received film in the DC Extended Universe, only grossed 20 billion yuan at the Chinese box office.

This shows that Hollywood's superhero narrative is already on the decline.

However, there are always people in this world who are out of touch with the times, especially in the entertainment industry.

For example, the film *Iceman: The Time Traveler*, a collaboration between Xi'an Film Group and Le Vision Pictures, is clearly outdated. Released on November 2nd, following *The Wallfacer*, it only grossed slightly over ten million yuan on its opening day, and its box office plummeted by half on the second day. The decline was almost visibly pronounced, with estimated box office revenue not exceeding 30 million yuan. Even *Ghost Blows Out the Light 4: Kunlun Shrine*, released a few days later by Galaxy Entertainment, generated more buzz.

As a spin-off TV series from the Galaxy Cinematic Universe, the Ghost Blows Out the Light series has a considerable following online thanks to the original novel.

Not to mention the television series produced after this work was integrated into the [Galaxy Cinematic Universe]. Whether it's the camera work, location scouting, casting, or special effects, its quality is almost comparable to top-tier American dramas.

In addition, Jackie Chan's character, the elderly Hu Bayi, made an appearance in the post-credits scene of "The Wallfacer" not long ago, which brought another wave of popularity to the series.

And "Ghost Blows Out the Light 4: Kunlun Shrine" is the last of the first four books in the series.

With all these factors combined, the show's first episode immediately became the most-watched show of the year after its release.

Furthermore, on the internet, most of the episodes released in the early stages of "Candle in the Tomb 4: Kunlun Shrine" received positive reviews.

It's worth noting that the "Ghost Blows Out the Light" production team actually went to the snow-capped mountains of northern Sichuan for location shooting in order to film this web series.

The real snow-capped mountain scenery alone is incomparable to any background created with computer special effects.

Moreover, the plot of "Candle in the Tomb 4: Kunlun Shrine" is also very well done in terms of suspense, and it responds to some foreshadowing and plot holes in the previous series and related movies.

In this drama, after their adventure in "Yunnan Insect Valley", the main characters Hu Bayi and his group obtained the artifact "Muchen Pearl (Phoenix Gall)" from the tomb of King Xian, which can lift the curse. However, the red marks of the ghost cave on their backs have not faded, and their condition is getting worse.

Fortunately, the special national department has new intelligence leads: a fragment of the ancient "Classic of Mountains and Seas" unearthed from a pre-Qin tomb, along with Shirley Yang's family's "Moving Mountain Taoist" scroll, pieced together another part of the truth about the Ghost Cave.

According to the pieced-together records and the speculations of historical experts, a meteorite with extremely strong radiation must have fallen into the northern frontier before ancient times, and formed the Ghost Cave and the Ghost Cave tribe there.

Then, to escape the radiation curse, these earliest Ghost Cave people fled to the Kunlun Mountains in Tibet, where they established the legendary Demon Kingdom.

After that, Hu Bayi and his companions encountered the second generation of the Ghost Cave Clan in the Jingjue Ancient City.

Therefore, to resolve the curse on them, we must find the original Ghost Cave Clan, the mysterious demon kingdom established near Kramir in the Kunlun Mountains.

Upon receiving this news, Hu Bayi naturally recalled his strange experiences as a soldier in the Kunlun Mountains in his early years.

That nine-story demon tower, the fireflies, and the eerie murals of the demon kingdom.

After that, Hu Bayi and the others set off together once again on their journey to the Ghost Mother's Tomb in the Kunlun Snow Region Demon Kingdom.

Upon arriving in Kunlun, they happened to encounter Uncle Ming and his group, antique dealers from Hong Kong.

According to Uncle Ming, his father disappeared while exploring the Kunlun Mountains. This time, he came to the Kunlun snow region to find the "Crystal Corpse of the Demon Kingdom Glacier in the Gesar Legend," which his father had always longed for.

During the conversation, Hu Bayi discovered that Uncle Ming possessed an ancient scroll map that recorded the location of the Ghost Mother's Tomb, and the map's clues coincided with the secret of the Muchen Pearl. Therefore, he decided to team up with Uncle Ming's group (including his mistress Han Shuna, bodyguard Peter Huang, psychic adopted daughter A Xiang, thug A Dong, etc.) and the divinely inspired singer A Ke to go to Kunlun.

The story that follows is the tense and exciting plot typical of the "Ghost Blows Out the Light" series.

Led by their guide, the expedition team first arrived at the Temple of Reincarnation near the ruins of the Guge Kingdom. There, due to the greed of the team members, they awakened the monster Balu (a hellish hungry ghost with a cat's head and a human body) depicted in the murals, and fought against it, resulting in casualties.

Then, as they continued on their journey, they unexpectedly encountered the White Wolf King and his pack of wolves, whom Hu Bayi had nemesis from his days as a soldier, and were relentlessly pursued and killed by him.

Additionally, at Longding Glacier, Uncle Ming's wife, Han Shuna, accidentally fell into an ice cave and discovered a golden mummy wrapped in gold leaf. As a result, Uncle Ming's greed led him to want to keep it for himself, which resulted in Han Shuna being burned to ashes by flames spewed from the mummy's body while trying to save Uncle Ming.

It can be said that the expedition team went through many hardships along the way.

Fortunately, there is always a way out. During the chase by the wolf pack, Hu Bayi and Uncle Ming compared the records in the scriptures and discovered that the projection of the Big Dipper in the sky pointed to the location of the Demon Tower.

The group successfully reached the top of the nine-story demon tower, thus escaping the attack of the White Wolf King and his pack.

Afterwards, Hu Bayi and his companions descended to the seventh floor of the Demon Tower, where they discovered the legendary Ice Crystal Corpse, countless ice worms, a hidden cave, and murals depicting a demon kingdom within the cave.

Based on the content of the murals, Shirley Yang deduced that this place pointed to the Demon Kingdom's main city, Eroha City—a legendary illusory city maintained by the power of the illusory realm.

While resting that night, Ah Xiang and Shirley Yang were attacked by a mysterious long-bearded monster and got lost. Hu Bayi and the others searched with torches and accidentally entered a cave that was an illusion created by the residual spiritual power of the snake god.

In a moment of crisis, Shirley Yang and Ah Xiang broke through the encirclement, and Shirley Yang even found the Ghost Mother's Crystal Eye (a sacred object of the Demon Kingdom).

Combining Ak's chanting and clues, she deduced that the Muchen Pearl (Phoenix Gallbladder) is the eye of the snake god, the red spot curse is actually a virus that comes into contact with the imaginary space, and the illusion passage is controlled by the altar. Closing the altar can lift the curse.

Following the guidance of the illusion, the group arrived at Evil Luo Sea City—a city that, though brightly lit, was as desolate as a graveyard, a phantom space where the memories of the Ghost Mother before her death were recreated through the illusion of the realm.

Time stands still in the city; scenes of freshly cooked beef and slaughtered yaks remain unchanged from thousands of years ago.

Based on clues from the murals and the crystal eyes, Hu Bayi and Shirley Yang discovered two eye-shaped pools at the altar.

After overcoming the difficulties caused by the monsters, they finally succeeded in placing the Muchen Pearl (Phoenix Gallbladder) and the Ghost Mother Crystal Eye into the pool respectively. The ritual was initiated, the altar exploded, the nine-story demon tower began to collapse, and the passage between the imaginary space and the real world was successfully blocked.

In the end, Hu Bayi and his group successfully escaped from the Kunlun Demon Kingdom Tomb. At the same time, they also discovered that the red marks on their backs had completely disappeared as the imaginary space closed. Hu Bayi and his group finally got rid of the curse of the Ghost Cave that had lasted for thousands of years.

However, in the final episode of "Candle in the Tomb 4: Kunlun Shrine", the story moves to the modern era.

Pan Yueming's character Hu Bayi was transformed into Jackie Chan's appearance. Viewers of this episode never expected that this web series would bring in an older version of Jackie Chan.

Although there are very few shots of this person's face, it is still considered a big production.

Through the interactions between Hu Bayi, played by Jackie Chan, and scientists from the special affairs department, more intelligence information about the Ghost Cave, the Demon Kingdom, and the Imaginary Space is revealed to the audience.

"In fact, the existence of the Trisolarans has many positive implications. At least they have proven that extraterrestrials and alien civilizations are not just fantasies."

And this undoubtedly resolves many of our historical doubts.

Huang Ji, a historian specializing in ancient Chinese history, who was specially hired by the special affairs department, said this to Hu Bayi.

(End of this chapter)