Reborn in the Chinese Entertainment Industry: You're a Director, But You're a Casanova?

November 2002, Beijing.

The campus of Beijing Film Academy is filled with handsome men and beautiful women who have come to take the entrance exams for art school.

These seventeen- or eighteen-year-old kids, their faces red from the cold, were still puffing out their chests and reciting their materials.

Niu Yuehua didn't squeeze into the crowd. He was wearing a worn-out jacket, his hands in his pockets, and he was comfortably lying on the bench next to the flower bed.

He would also wink at the little girl who was secretly watching him from time to time.

He wasn't nervous at all; he even felt like yawning. Looking at these young people who seemed to be facing a formidable enemy, his eyes revealed a kind of gentle affection, like that of someone looking after kindergarten children.

"Brother Yuehua."

"Take a sip while it's hot to warm yourself up."

A white dough ball was sent over, along with a cup of steaming soy milk, which was then handed to him.

Fifteen-year-old Liu Shishi had rosy cheeks and was huddled in a turtleneck sweater, with a faint fragrance emanating from her.

Niu Yuehua took a small sip from the warm paper cup, and his brows furrowed instantly.

"What is this stuff? It smells like raw beans, and it's diluted with more water than I've ever written a novel." Niu Yuehua smacked his lips and looked at the little girl.

"Shishi, did you buy this at the school gate? How much did it cost?"

"It costs three yuan," the quiet, unassuming girl from the future answered honestly.

Niu Yuehua sighed with deep regret, giving him a look of utter dismay as he looked at his spendthrift son.

"Shishi, it's not that I'm stingy, this is just called paying an 'IQ tax'."

"You spent three yuan on a cup of plain water, which could buy two baskets of steamed buns at the entrance of our alley. The owner would even give you a free dish of pickled vegetables."

"These unscrupulous merchants even cheat young girls out of their money; they're truly heartless."

Liu Shishi was so anxious that she stamped her feet and tugged at his sleeve with her little hands.

"Hey Yuehua! It's almost your turn to go into the exam hall, how can you still have the leisure to worry about three yuan!"

"My dad told me that one of the new examiners this year is Director Tian. He's quite strict. What if you can't answer his professional knowledge questions later?"

"So what? The examiner also has two eyes and one mouth. Is he going to eat me?" Niu Yuehua patted Liu Shishi's head.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."

Liu Shishi had just heard the first three words and felt a surge of anger, but after Niu Yuehua patted her head, she quickly blushed and started giggling foolishly.

"At worst, I can go to the Central Academy of Drama. My connections are there. Even if I get second place, they'll still change it to first."

Niu Yuehua certainly knew what was going on.

In their past lives, both Chengcheng, the son of Feng Gong, and Chengcheng were top students in science and engineering, but unfortunately, neither of them benefited from their family's success.

Under the influence of his family, Feng Chengcheng enrolled in civil engineering, while Feng Chengcheng studied computer science and later started his own company.

Niu Yuehua worked his way up from a construction site worker to the group's vice president, and from a migrant worker demanding unpaid wages to a land and resources official. What kind of monsters and demons hasn't he seen?

He finally achieved financial freedom, but the civil engineering industry crashed, so he just packed his bags and went traveling.

I stumbled upon a copy of what is said to be a dual cultivation technique of the Hehuan Sect, called "The Great Free Heaven Desire Demon Scripture," at a street stall.

I tried practicing it, and I never expected it to be real. I got so excited that I had a brain hemorrhage and died.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back to when I was twelve years old.

The baldness, fatty liver, and high blood pressure he suffered from years of socializing in his previous life remained, but he brought back only more than 20 years of memories and the cultivation manual from his previous life.

Over the past few years, he has come to understand that the "Demon Codex" is not a simple dual cultivation technique; it is an emotion collector. It absorbs the joys, sorrows, greed, anger, ignorance, and resentment of those around it.

While he was still young, he took advantage of his relationship with his uncle Niu Qun and Feng Gong to become Feng Gong's apprentice and would follow Feng Gong to perform during festivals.

The thousands of ordinary people in the audience were amused and burst into laughter. The simple joy emanating from them was absorbed into his body.

Thanks to countless years of free benefits, his physique during the Body Refinement stage is now as strong as an ox. He can wear only a single layer of clothing even in the dead of winter, and his mind is sharper than in his previous life.

But he's stuck now.

The joy in the crosstalk theater is too mild, like drinking white rice porridge every day to soothe the stomach, but it doesn't satisfy the craving, and the skill just can't break through the body-refining stage.

He needs lavish feasts, delicacies from land and sea, and the most intense and extreme emotions and desires.

So he came to take the directing exam.

Because the entertainment industry is a place where desires are strongest and obsessions run deepest.

When he becomes the director, he is the organizer, the contractor, and the project manager.

The awe of the entire crew and the emotions of the audience all over the world, aren't they all just laborers under my command?

Just as I was figuring out how to give Tian Zhuangzhuang a hard time, a commotion suddenly broke out in front of me.

A graceful woman, pulling a pretty, somewhat familiar-looking young girl along, struggled to squeeze into the crowd.

She held the little girl tightly in her arms, like a mother hedgehog, watching the cameras and gazes around her with fierce vigilance.

Just as Niu Yuehua was pondering whether the young woman who looked like Zhang Zetian was Zhang Zetian's mother, his demonic instincts made him clearly sense a strong sense of anxiety and ambition.

The entertainment industry is great! Meeting someone you've never heard of before can evoke more emotions than listening to an afternoon of stand-up comedy.

He threw the soy milk into the trash can. "Let's go, Shishi, it's our turn."

……

On the second floor, Liu Xiaoli quietly pulled Liu Yifei to a corner. The surging crowd had made her a little anxious and irritable, and her chest was heaving violently.

She lowered her voice and said, "Xixi, listen to your mother. I just heard that the probability of drawing a tragic question in this year's exam is relatively high. If you draw that question, you must cry, and cry beautifully. Hold the tears in your eyes before they fall."

"Listen to your mother, you won't go wrong. I used to be in the entertainment industry, I know this stuff all too well. Got it?"

The little girl was so nervous and flustered that she nodded unconsciously.

Just as Niu Yuehua was listening to Liu Xiaoli speak, he walked closer and realized that the aunt who looked so much like Zhang Zetian was actually Liu Yifei's mother. The little and adorable Liu Yifei next to her had such a distinctive face; how come he hadn't noticed her before?

Wait, wasn't Liu Yifei admitted without taking the entrance exam in her past life? Or am I mistaken?

Niu Yuehua offered a casual reminder, his tone tinged with goodwill.

"Sister, listen to my advice. The chief examiner, Ms. Cui, is in a bad mood today. She hates people who only know how to cry. She just yelled at one of them and he left."

Liu Xiaoli froze.

"Little sister, if you really get a crying scene, don't try to cry like a normal person. Try to smile and force a smile."

"The more dry, forced laugh it is, the more the examiners like it."

Before he finished speaking, the other person had already walked several steps away.

Liu Xiaoli turned around abruptly, staring at the young man who was taller than her and was walking past with a little girl.

Where did this brat come from, standing here and bossing around Xixi? You were probably nowhere to be found when I was performing for the leaders back in the day.

A strong sense of disgust and defensiveness, mixed with anger, emanated from Liu Xiaoli.

Niu Yuehua sensed the negative emotions behind him, and with a slight turn of the demonic seed, he transformed them into a warm current that flowed throughout his body.

"Brother Yuehua." Liu Shishi turned around and glanced at Liu Xiaoli's wary look, then tugged at her sleeve and muttered under her breath.

"We've been incredibly ungrateful. Look at the way that auntie looked at you, how could you still call her 'sister'?"

Niu Yuehua walked to the door of the directing department's exam preparation room and chuckled happily.

"Shishi, that's just how the world is. You can't reason with a damned ghost. I've delivered the message; whether he listens or not is his business."

"But just you wait and see. When her daughter comes out, no matter how awkward or embarrassed this aunt is, she'll have to come over and say thank you."