Life countdown begins, ice queen bursts into security room

Su Yuyan walked ahead, pushed open the iron gate and went inside, her steps light and quick, as if she knew the way well.

The courtyard was small, and weeds squeezed out from the gaps between the blue bricks paving the ground.

A woman stood on the porch, in her early thirties, with a round face and short hair neatly tucked behind her ears.

Upon seeing Su Yuyan, his eyebrows immediately curved into a smile.

"Yu Yan is here, come in and sit down."

His gaze shifted to Jiang Fan, and he looked him up and down.

"This must be Jiang Fan? He is indeed a handsome man."

She turned her head and shouted into the house, "Old Ning! The person's here, get down here right now!"

Su Yuyan turned around and introduced, "This is my senior sister, Lin Wan."

Jiang Fan nodded in greeting.

Lin Wan had already nimbly walked towards the living room, talking non-stop: "What would you like to drink? I have Longjing and Tieguanyin tea here."

"Either is fine." Jiang Fan followed him into the living room.

The interior decoration is quite old, and there are several movie posters hanging on the wall, one of which is for the art film that Ning Yuan won an award for.

The bookshelf in the corner was crammed with DVD cases and movie-related books.

The sound of slippers hitting the floor came from the stairs.

A man walked down from the second floor.

Wearing a black T-shirt, gray shorts, and flip-flops, with a cigarette between his right fingers.

He looked to be around thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old, with his hair shaved extremely short, revealing his scalp at his temples.

His face has strong, defined features, giving off an air of being difficult to approach.

He went into the living room and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table.

"Yu Yan has arrived."

"Ning Yuan, this is—"

"I know." Ning Yuan didn't let Su Yuyan finish speaking before his gaze fell on Jiang Fan.

"The one who wrote the song. I really like listening to 'Sorrow,' the lyrics are really well written."

He extended his hand.

Jiang Fan shook hands with him, his grip quite strong.

"To be honest, I'm quite surprised." Ning Yuan let go of Jiang Fan's hand and sat down on the sofa opposite him, crossing one leg over the other.

"If you can't write songs, why are you coming to me? Do you think the music industry is too small?"

Just as Su Yuyan was about to reply, Jiang Fan handed her the brown paper bag in his hand.

"How about we take a look at the script first?"

Ning Yuan took the bag and glanced down at the cover.

"Goodbye Mr. Loser?" he read aloud, his brow furrowing slightly.

Who named it?

"I."

"..."

Ning Yuan looked at those words for three seconds, moved his mouth slightly but didn't comment, and put the paper bag aside.

"Please have a seat."

Lin Wan brought over three cups of tea and placed them on the coffee table, the fragrance of Longjing tea spreading out.

Ning Yuan lit another cigarette, took a drag, and exhaled smoke from his nostrils.

"Let me ask a few questions first."

Jiang Fan sat on the single chair opposite him and nodded.

"Who wrote this notebook?"

"I."

Have you filmed any movies before?

"no."

How much was the budget for this film?

"Forty million."

Ning Yuan leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees, a cigarette dangling from between his fingers.

"No team, no experience. You come to a director with just a script." He exhaled a puff of smoke. "Are you burning money, or have you been scammed?"

He waved towards the door.

"Go back and find someone more capable."

Lin Wan reached out and slapped the back of his head.

"How dare you talk like that? People have come all this way, you should at least give them a second glance."

Ning Yuan rubbed the spot where he had been hit, his expression remaining unchanged.

Su Yuyan picked up her teacup and slowly blew on the steam: "Old Ning, you can read the script before you kick people out."

"What's the point of watching?" Ning Yuan rolled her eyes at her. "It'll probably just be another bunch of clichéd plots. I don't have the patience to play along with people's act."

He muttered something, but still took the brown paper bag, tore open the seal, and pulled out the stack of papers.

Turn to the first page.

The living room quieted down.

Jiang Fan picked up his teacup and took a sip of Longjing tea.

Su Yuyan sat next to him playing on her phone, occasionally glancing at Ning Yuan's face out of the corner of her eye.

Ning Yuan turned the pages slowly, going through scene by scene, occasionally pausing on a certain line, his lips moving silently, as if reciting lines.

The cigarette I was holding was forgotten to be smoked; a long ash had accumulated, hanging there precariously.

ten minutes.

His posture changed; he held the paper in his hands, bringing it much closer to his eyes, and he put his legs down.

Lin Wan watched him from the side, exchanged a glance with Su Yuyan, and Su Yuyan slightly curled the corners of her mouth.

Another few minutes passed.

Ning Yuan chuckled.

It was very short, leaking from his nose. He quickly rubbed his nostrils and continued turning the page.

Then he laughed again, this time he couldn't hold it in and his shoulders twitched a couple of times.

"Hey—this fucking works too."

Ning Yuan finished speaking without looking up and continued scrolling down.

There were two more cigarette butts in the ashtray. He lit them casually while looking at them, only taking two puffs of each before putting them down, his attention completely focused on the paper.

Lin Wan tiptoed over and replaced the cold tea in front of him with a hot one.

The sound of turning pages stopped.

Ning Yuan looked at the last piece of paper in his hand twice. Then he turned it over to look at the back.

He picked up the brown paper bag and reached inside to feel around it.

Ning Yuan looked up at Jiang Fan.

"What happens next?"

"That's all."

"What do you mean by 'gone'?"

Jiang Fan put down his teacup and shrugged.

"I came in a bit of a hurry, so I only brought these with me."

Ning Yuan stared at him, her mouth opening and closing briefly.

"You fucking did that on purpose."

He paced back and forth in the living room twice, his slippers making a clattering sound on the floor.

He walked to the window, stopped, turned his back to everyone, and braced himself against the window frame with one hand.

There was silence for about ten seconds.

He turned around.

"Did you write this notebook yourself?"

"right."

"Is it all just you by yourself?"

"one person."

Ning Yuan narrowed his eyes, walked back to the sofa and sat down, picked up the stack of papers again, and quickly flipped to a page in the middle.

The finger is pointing at a scene description.

"Here, the camera zooms in from outside the window, the trajectory is handled in slow motion, and the focus gradually shifts to Charlotte's profile."

He looked up at Jiang Fan.

"How do you know the camera should move like that? Haven't you ever made a film before?"

"I just went through it in my mind while writing it, and I felt that this was the way it should be filmed."

Ning Yuan's lips twitched slightly. He closed the stack of papers and laid them flat on his lap.

"The first half has enough jokes." He tapped his fingers twice on the paper. "The structure is clear—time travel, rebirth, changing fate, and expansion—the four rhythms are well-timed. The dialogue has a natural flair; it's not the kind of stuff you just copy and paste from the internet."

He paused for a moment.

"However, the hardest part of comedy is never making the audience laugh. You put the characters on such a high pedestal in the beginning—how do you turn things around later? How do you pull the audience's emotions from laughter to tears? The more elaborate the setup, the harder it is to wrap things up."

He didn't finish speaking, staring into Jiang Fan's eyes.

"So when will you finish writing the second half of the book?"

"Finished writing."

"Then why didn't you bring them?"

Jiang Fan did not answer.

Ning Yuan looked at him, and after a few seconds, the corners of his mouth turned up slightly.

"Well done. You're an interesting kid."

He picked up his half-cold cup of tea, tilted his head back, and took a big gulp.

"Trying to keep me in suspense, huh?"

Lin Wan sat in the corner, her gaze shifting back and forth between the two people.

Su Yuyan crossed her arms, looking like she was about to watch a good show.

Jiang Fan stood up, took a business card out of his pocket, and placed it on the coffee table.

"If you want to see it, just come to the company and find me."

Ning Yuan looked up at him. One was sitting, the other was standing, and the height difference was obvious.

"You can also choose not to watch it."

Su Yuyan leaned back on the sofa, trying hard to suppress her smile.

Ning Yuan first looked away.

He took a cigarette from the coffee table.

"...What are the investors' requirements?"

His tone changed.

"I am an investor myself."

Ning Yuan paused for a moment, holding the lighter in his hand, and looked up at him.

"You're paying forty million yourself?"

"right."

Ning Yuan lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and remained silent, his eyes fixed on the business card on the coffee table.

Lin Wan came out of the kitchen with a plate of cut fruit, glanced at the atmosphere in the living room, put the plate on the coffee table, sat down next to Ning Yuan, and nudged him with her elbow.

"They've already offered very reasonable terms. You haven't worked for over a year; if this continues, your skills will rust."

Lin Wan turned to look at Jiang Fan: "Xiao Jiang, don't mind him, that's just how he is. I'll deal with him later."

Su Yuyan laughed out loud from the side.

Ning Yuan glared at her, then looked at Jiang Fan.

He opened his mouth briefly, then closed it again, put the cigarette back in his mouth, and took a deep drag.

"I have a condition."

"explain."

"I decide who gets cast. You can't just throw anyone in."

"Casting can be done through joint auditions. But the final decision rests with me."

Ning Yuan raised an eyebrow. "Why should I?"

"Because I wrote this script. No one knows the temperament, rhythm, and acting style of each character better than me."