Literary Master: Starting with Refusing to Be a Child Star

Chapter 120 officially aired.

On December 24th at 8 PM, "Tales of Wonder" premiered on the Kiwi platform. The first two episodes were released together, officially kicking off the New Year's Eve season.

Luo Jinnian sat in his rented room in Zhanjiang. The computer screen displayed a playback page, but he didn't click on it. He just stared at the play button, which remained quietly there.

The phone was placed on the table, screen facing up, and notifications were already appearing in the message bar—Director Qin had sent a message saying "Started," and Director Mo had also informed him that he could begin watching.

Old Yan excitedly sent a message: "Brother, the drama you starred in is online, I'm watching it." Gu Yanxi replied with two words: "Together?"

Luo Jinnian replied to Gu Yanxi with a period, and then pressed play.

He didn't watch for long, only the beginning of the first episode, to confirm that the picture quality was fine and the subtitles were not misaligned.

The audio and video were synchronized, and then the page was closed.

He knew that people would watch the show, so he didn't need to wait in front of the screen for the results; they could just come to him when the results came.

Then there was a knock on the door. It was Gu Yanxi, who had come to the rented room to keep Luo Jinnian company.

"I thought you would be very worried, but I'm relieved to see that you're not nervous."

Gu Yanxi knew that Early Spring Culture had invested unprecedented resources in this drama, but she did not expect Luo Jinnian to have such a commanding presence, his expression as usual.

Although Luo Jinnian was very confident in the success of "Stranger Things", he was still very pleased to see the young girl: "Do you want to watch the show while eating some popcorn and sunflower seeds?"

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Gu Yanxi's eyes lit up: "Of course I wanted to! You have such a complete collection!"

"Actually, I have nothing here—"

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Gu Yanxi: "Ah, why did you bring that up when there was none?"

Seemingly knowing what the girl was thinking, Luo Jinnian immediately said, "So we can go shopping together, and you can accompany me for a walk."

Gu Yanxi took the boy's hand and ran quickly toward the world outside the door. "Hurry, I can't not go home before dark. If my mother finds out I'm sleeping here, she'll kill me."

Luo Jinnian thought about the gentle Gu's mother and felt that the girl was exaggerating.

"Don't disbelieve me, my mother actually has two faces. She was very strict when teaching me archery."

After the first two episodes of Stranger Things aired, the first batch of audience feedback began to appear on various social media platforms.

Many people are exclaiming, "There has never been such a wonderful start."

One netizen who had just tasted the fine chaff wrote in a short review, "Is this a domestic drama? Is this something a domestic drama could produce?"

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Many people commented on the forum: "The pacing is so fast it doesn't feel like a domestic drama; the ending of each episode makes you want to click for the next one." The most surprising comments were about the art style.

"The factory residential area from the 1980s and 90s is recreated in such detail. The honeycomb briquettes in the stairwell, the green window frames, the hopscotch squares drawn with chalk on the playground—every detail reminds me of my childhood."

Some netizens, always eager to find something to do, compared screenshots from the show with old photos of their own homes, even finding old factory photos from the 1980s to put alongside them, adding the caption: "Did the art department of this show travel back in time to film it?"

Some people even took a screenshot of the scene in the first episode where the group of children rode bicycles through the factory area and compared it with scenes from certain old movies, saying, "This is what I want to see in a domestic period drama."

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Douban gave it a score of 9.0 the following morning. This score is rare for a domestic drama, especially for a work with children as the main characters and science fiction as its outer shell.

In the short review section, Luo Jinnian pinned a comment that consisted of only one sentence: "I didn't expect that domestic dramas could be made with this kind of quality. From the visuals to the soundtrack to the pacing to the acting, everything is top-notch."

Below, someone replied, "Do you know who the screenwriter of this show is?" Someone else replied, "It's the big shot, Zao Chun De Cha. He single-handedly supported the entire domestic online film industry." Then, the replies on that floor suddenly increased, and some people started to introduce Zao Chun De Cha's works to newcomers: "The Hidden Corner," "The Long Season," "The Silent Truth," "Seven," "Saw," "Final Destination"—listing them one after another, like an endless list.

Luo Jinnian was having lunch when she saw that comment, with a piece of pork rib hanging in mid-air between her chopsticks.

In the afternoon, the popularity data was updated. The popularity on the platform exceeded 7000 on the afternoon of the broadcast and surged to over 8000 the following evening.

The data for advanced viewing wasn't as exaggerated as that for "The Silent Truth," but it still far exceeded iQiyi's internal expectations. Everyone in the group was saying, "The data for this show is particularly high among viewers aged 12-18, almost several times that of other age groups."

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"Finally, there's a work that's really for kids."

When Luo Jinnian saw this sentence, he knew that the children who had read "Charlie IX" were beginning to arrive.

Over the next few days, the discussion gradually diverged into several layers. One layer focused on the plot itself—Will wasn't right, where did Li Ming go, what exactly was that upside-down world, and what Eleven experienced before escaping from the lab.

These suspenseful moments were repeatedly dissected and reassembled by the audience, like piecing together the missing pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle.

Someone created a thread on a forum dedicated to analyzing "detail Easter eggs." The first post featured a screenshot of Lin Yuan's room from the first episode, with a red marker indicating a poster of "Charlie IX" on the wall.

Someone commented below, "I saw it, it flashed by in the background, about three frames," and someone else captured a corner of the school library from the second episode, saying, "That book is the fifth volume of 'Charlie IX,' the words on the spine are legible." Within a week, hundreds of floors were built, each searching for details from the show.

Another focus of discussion was on the actors. Gu Yanxi's portrayal of Eleven became the most talked-about character—a girl who hardly speaks, has a shaved head, and possesses a captivating and persuasive gaze.

"I watched the part where she ran from the other end of the corridor five or six times," someone replied. "Me too. The way she ran didn't look like she was acting. We should let the so-called idol trainees in China see what a truly worthwhile idol trainee system is."

,,.

Among the discussions about "October 1st" that Luo Jinnian saw, one comment was highly praised: "Even without any lines, this actor can move the audience with just his eyes."

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Some people also noticed Luo Jinnian's performance. The comments weren't praising his acting as phenomenal, but rather, "This kid's acting is quite natural," and "It doesn't feel like acting; it feels like he's filming his relaxed everyday life."

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"When he stood on that balcony looking into the distance, I really felt that he was waiting for someone who would never come back."

He paused when he saw the last line, recalling that when he was filming that scene, he wasn't thinking about "how I should act," but rather about Li Ming, the character who was missing in the script and never appeared on camera during filming, yet occupied everyone's attention in every scene.

After New Year's Day, all twelve episodes of the first season of "Tales of the Strange" were released online. The show maintained a stable rating of 8.9 on Douban, with hundreds of thousands of ratings. Its peak popularity on the platform exceeded 9000, making it the second most popular show in the history of the Mist Theater, second only to "The Silent Truth."

This data has made many people who were originally hesitant start to seriously examine this show—a children's science fiction series that has gained almost the same popularity on this platform as "The Silent Truth".

One weekend, Luo Jinnian received a message from Wang He that wasn't just a polite "congratulations," but a more practical one: "We've received inquiries about this drama from three overseas platforms. When do you plan to negotiate?" Luo Jinnian looked at the message but didn't reply immediately. She put down her phone and walked to the window.

He stood by the window for a while, recalling the first time he typed the name "Lin Yuan" into a document. It was winter outside, just like this, and back then he was wondering if the drama would ever be made. Now that it's finished airing, if everything went as expected, it should become a memory for a generation.

He returned to his table, picked up his phone, and replied to Wang He: "Next week. Have them come to Beijing to talk."

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Then he put down his phone, opened the drawer, and took out a brand new notebook. The cover was blank, and the pages were clean and untouched, without a single word written on them.

He turned to the first page of his notebook and wrote a line in the middle of the first line: "Next, begin."

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