Life countdown begins, ice queen bursts into security room

The lounge of Xinghuo Media in Shanghai.

Shen Feng leaned back on the sofa and rubbed his face vigorously with both hands.

The recently concluded offline tour ended in a dismal failure, with very few audience members present.

"Brother Feng, maybe we should just give up." Lunzi squatted in the corner, head down. "We're a bunch of amateurs, we probably really can't make a living on the big screen."

Ma Yue sat to the side, her eyes reddening.

Jiang Fan walked in.

He held a brown paper envelope in his hand, walked to the coffee table, pulled out a few pages from the envelope, and slapped them in front of Shen Feng.

"Take a look at this." Jiang Fan pulled up a chair and sat down.

Shen Feng straightened up, his gaze sweeping over the red seal at the top of the page.

Lunzi leaned closer, her gaze drifting downwards, and her voice instantly rose: "China...China Central Television, the final approval letter for the Spring Festival Gala's comedy sketches?"

The lounge fell silent instantly.

Rinko suddenly jumped up, her knee knocking over the trash can next to her.

Holy crap!

Shen Feng gripped the paper tightly.

Spring Festival Gala.

That's a pedestal that comedians across the country wouldn't even dare to dream of.

These ordinary people, who had struggled in small theaters, never even dared to dream of such a thing.

Shen Feng stared at the bright red seal for a long time before putting the pass back on the table.

"Brother Jiang, this is a huge opportunity," Shen Feng said, his voice hoarse. "But the Spring Festival Gala has extremely high standards, and the scripts we have are simply not good enough. If we force it, we'll just make a fool of ourselves."

Jiang Fan took a stack of freshly printed A4 papers from his briefcase and threw them into Shen Feng's arms.

"I've prepared the notebook. You only have three days."

Shen Feng quickly took the script.

Ma Yue, Lunzi, and the others immediately gathered around.

The first page.

Page 2.

Shen Feng's eyes widened further.

It lacks the pointless build-up found in traditional sketches; instead, it's packed with punchlines and its ingenious structure is mind-boggling.

Halfway through the page, Shen Feng couldn't help but burst out laughing, slapping his thighs loudly.

Ma Yue and Lunzi laughed so hard they almost fell over.

"Brother Jiang, those lines were absolutely brilliant!" Lunzi wiped away tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes. "They completely defied expectations!"

But as the script was turned to the second half, Shen Feng's laughter stopped.

He swallowed hard, his hand holding the script trembling slightly.

"Brother Jiang, this script is absolutely brilliant, the jokes are divine... but, it's satirizing cadres! Isn't this a bit too far-fetched? Will it pass the censors?"

Jiang Fan looked at him, his tone completely flat.

"What the Spring Festival Gala needs most right now is good scripts that dare to speak the truth and can hit the nail on the head. I'll take care of getting it approved; you just need to perform it to the best of your ability."

Shen Feng met Jiang Fan's gaze.

There's an absolute confidence in that.

Shen Feng gritted his teeth, rolled the script into a tube, and slammed it into his palm.

"Let's do it! The entire crew, listen up! From this moment forward, no sleep, no rest, grueling rehearsals!"

Three days later, in Kyoto, at the CCTV studio.

A biting wind was blowing outside, and one after another, black vans came to a stop.

Comedy stars and masters of traditional performing arts, bundled up in down jackets and surrounded by their assistants, strode into the building.

The atmosphere in the backstage rest area was oppressive and tense.

The final review of comedy sketches for the Spring Festival Gala has always been a fierce battleground where top talents clash.

From a dozen top teams, only four can ultimately remain.

The competition was extremely fierce.

Shen Feng and the others sat on chairs in the corner.

They were surrounded by familiar faces from television, and their palms were sweating with nervousness.

Jiang Fan sat on the far side, looking down at his phone, completely at ease.

A commotion came from the corridor.

Veteran sketch comedian Wang Dehai walked over with several of his apprentices.

Wang Dehai appeared on the Spring Festival Gala for ten consecutive years, making him a true "regular" in comedy sketches.

Wang Dehai stopped as he passed Jiang Fan and his group's rest area.

He looked Shen Feng and his companions up and down, his brows furrowing.

Wang Dehai's apprentice immediately understood and deliberately raised his voice: "The threshold for the Spring Festival Gala is getting lower and lower these days. Any random, makeshift crew can get into the final round? Who pulled some strings to get them in?"

People from several surrounding teams turned their heads, their eyes filled with amusement and anticipation.

Shen Feng and the others blushed and clenched their fists.

However, given that the other party was a comedy legend and that this was CCTV's territory, they managed to suppress their anger.

Jiang Fan turned off his phone screen and looked up.

"The Spring Festival Gala is a place to appreciate talent, not a retirement home where seniority is determined."

Jiang Fan's voice wasn't loud, but it had a very strong penetrating power.

"Your master's repetitive, overused internet memes, pieced together over a decade ago, have already made audiences sick of them. Why are you still putting on airs?"

The backstage chatter abruptly stopped.

Several pairs of eyes swept over at once.

Wang Dehai's facial muscles twitched, and he raised his finger to point at Jiang Fan.

"What an arrogant young man! I'd like to see what your makeshift team can come up with! Don't come crying to yourself later!"

"Don't worry about it." Jiang Fan turned his phone screen back on, not even sparing him a glance.

Wang Dehai snorted coldly and turned to leave.

The review officially began at 10:00 AM.

The first row was occupied by Chief Director Zhang Guoqiang, senior leaders from the State Administration of Radio and Television, and several veteran performers from the traditional performing arts community.

The performances of several big names were staged one after another.

It was Wang Dehai's team's turn.

The skit lasted fifteen minutes.

The first half of the performance pieced together several popular internet phrases from last year, while the second half forcibly played sad music and had the actors on stage burying their faces in their hands and crying, attempting to evoke emotion.

The leaders below frowned as they watched.

However, due to Wang Dehai's seniority, no one reacted on the spot.

As Wang Dehai stepped down, he gave Jiang Fan a provocative look.

"Next up, 'The Pit.' Performed by the Shen Feng Drama Troupe," the host announced.

Several senior figures in the audience whispered among themselves, clearly extremely dissatisfied with this team that had been brought in through connections.

A deputy director of the broadcasting bureau turned to the side and put pressure on Zhang Guoqiang directly.

"Director Zhang, the music director's privileges cannot be abused in comedy programs. If a piece is not good, shut it down immediately; don't waste time."

Zhang Guoqiang nodded: "It all depends on the quality of the work."

The stage lights came on.

The set was extremely simple: a desk and a few chairs.

Shen Feng, dressed in a cadre jacket and carrying a thermos, walked slowly onto the stage with a lazy, pigeon-toed gait.

He walked to his desk, pulled out a chair, sighed heavily, and plopped down in it.

"This pothole on the road, it's just a pothole."

Shen Feng unscrewed the thermos, blew on the steam, and his voice was slick and lazy.

My motto is: the more you do, the more mistakes you make; the less you do, the fewer mistakes you make; and if you do nothing, you make no mistakes.

As soon as these lines were uttered, Shen Feng's unique "cheekiness" and extremely lifelike performance instantly captured the attention of the entire audience.

The judges, who had initially been impatient, involuntarily straightened their backs.

The plot moves forward rapidly.

Ma Yue plays the newly appointed Director Ma, who, while traveling incognito, falls into a pothole and arrives at Director Hao's office covered in mud.

The two began to clash.

Shen Feng leaned back in his chair, looked at Ma Yue who was covered in mud, and dropped the first bombshell in the script.

"The East African Rift Valley is so big and no one has fallen in, how could you be so careless? Ultimately, it's because the general public lacks awareness of potential road risks."

The entire room fell silent for a second.

On the judging panel, Zhang Guoqiang spat out the mouthful of tea he had just taken a sip of.

He coughed repeatedly, and the thermos in his hand overturned on the table, with tea dripping down the edge of the table.

Immediately afterwards, bursts of laughter erupted in the studio.

Several veteran performers in the front row couldn't hold back their laughter and slapped their thighs.

The deputy director laughed and pointed at the stage, exclaiming, "Who wrote these lyrics?! They're absolutely brilliant!"

Shen Feng on stage remained completely unaffected, his rhythm as steady as a mountain.

He held his thermos and continued to argue with Ma Yue.

Laughter rose in waves.

Wang Dehai stood behind the screen, staring intently at the monitor.

The cold smile on his face froze completely.

His script, a patchwork of stale internet memes, looks like something from the last century compared to what's on stage.

On stage, Ma Yue revealed his identity as the bureau chief.

Shen Feng's expression shifted from arrogance and astonishment to extreme flattery in a single second.

"Officials like you who lie low and do nothing may seem harmless, but they are actually extremely dangerous! ...More importantly, you have broken the hearts of the people!"

The show ended amidst a burst of laughter.

Shen Feng, Ma Yue, and others walked to the front of the stage and bowed deeply.

The laughter from the audience gradually subsided.

The deputy director's smile vanished, and his brows furrowed into a knot.

He turned to look at Zhang Guoqiang and tapped his fingers twice on the table.

The microphone wasn't turned off, and the sound echoed in the studio.

"This program has a profound message, but the satire is too strong. Is it too harsh to perform on New Year's Eve?"