OBS Chapter 47 The Problem of Three Lives and Three Worlds
Chapter 47 The Problem of Three Lives and Three Worlds
"Regarding the production costs of 'Diamond Lover'," Sister Liu flipped to the third line, "the second batch of platform advance payments has arrived. It's an exclusive broadcast contract with iQiyi. The second batch is triggered on the 30th day after filming begins. Last week it was the 36th day, so they were six days late. This batch is 25% of the total contract amount. We negotiated a broadcasting rights fee of 6.8 million for 'Diamond Lover,' so 25% is 1.7 million. It arrived today as well."
Zeng Hao wrote down the number, "When will the third batch be triggered?"
"The third batch will arrive within 15 working days after filming wraps up," Sister Liu said. "At the current pace, filming will wrap up in about two weeks, so the third batch will arrive around the beginning of March. The third batch accounts for 35%, which is 238 million."
Zeng Hao turned to the next page of the ledger and added up the amounts received today: Crown Princess 7.5, Return 143 million, Diamond Lover 170 million, totaling 320.5 million.
The book value increased from 27.9 million to 3110.5 million, and today it has surpassed the 30 million mark.
He closed the ledger and pushed it back to Sister Liu, asking, "Has the loan repayment for this month been arranged?"
"It's all arranged," Sister Liu said. "The monthly payment after the extension is 18,000 yuan, which will be automatically deducted on the 15th of this month. There's enough money in the account."
"Okay," Zeng Hao stood up. "Give me a weekly report on the production costs of 'Diamond Lover.' Make sure the budget isn't exceeded before filming wraps up."
"Okay, I'll send it to you every Friday."
Zeng Hao walked towards the door, paused at the threshold, turned around, and said, "Sister Liu, thank you for your hard work."
Sister Liu reopened the account book without looking up, and said, "It's only right."
At 2 PM, Teacher Zhao arrived uninvited.
When he knocked on the door and came in, Zeng Hao was reading the script for "Three Lives Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms".
Teacher Zhao came in, sat down in the chair, and placed the evaluation book on her lap without opening it. "President Zeng, I came here today because there's something I wanted to discuss with you privately, it's not about Wang Yuxuan."
Zeng Hao put down his pen and said, "Speak."
"It's Xu Kunkun," Teacher Zhao said. "During the second period this morning, in the third group's stage practice, I noticed that when he was doing arm extensions, his eyes glanced to the left twice. Zhou Zhennan was standing on the left, and he was looking at Zhou Zhennan's angle before adjusting himself. This action happened three times. I stopped and asked him what he was looking at, and he said he was looking for a reference and felt that Zhou Zhennan's performance was better than his."
Zeng Hao did not speak immediately.
Teacher Zhao continued, "The reason I'm bringing this up separately is because Xu Kunkun's natural perception last week occurred when he was focused on himself. He wasn't thinking about any reference points when he asked that question; it just flowed naturally. Once he starts comparing himself to others, his attention shifts away from himself, and that perception is suppressed by rational judgment. These two things are mutually exclusive."
"Is he still doing this now?" Zeng Hao asked.
"This is the first time I've noticed this," said Teacher Zhao. "But once this habit is formed, it's hard to change because references give people a sense of security. When he sees that Zhou Zhennan's work feels good, he wants to move in that direction. It's human instinct."
Zeng Hao nodded. "In the next class, move his position to the far left and Zhou Zhennan to the far right, with two people in between, so they are not next to each other. Then, when you are giving Xu Kunkun practice alone, cover half of the mirror with a cloth so that he can do it without visual reference and force him to bring his attention back."
Teacher Zhao wrote these two points down in her notebook: "I haven't tried using a mirror to cover my face before, so I'm not sure about the effect."
"Try it in one class," Zeng Hao said. "If he can perceive it without a mirror, then he's right. If he can't, it means he has a problem with his dependence on the mirror, and we need to try other approaches first."
Teacher Zhao closed the notebook, stood up, and said, "Okay, I'll arrange tomorrow's classes."
He walked towards the door, paused by the door, and said, "President Zeng, I checked on Wang Yuxuan today. It's the third day of core training. He did extra training on his own last night. Today, during his medium-speed runway walk, his center of gravity didn't shift backward. I think this kid is really working hard."
Zeng Hao flipped the sticky note back to the front, picked up the pen, and said, "Okay, I understand."
Teacher Zhao closed the door and left.
Zeng Hao re-examined the logical break point in "Three Lives Three Worlds," wrote three lines, stopped, and put his pen on the table.
Xu Kunkun's case, which involved Zhou Zhennan, was more difficult to handle than Wang Yuxuan's issue of focus.
The reason is simple: the focus is on muscle memory, which can be built through repeated practice. Natural perception, on the other hand, is built on the condition of unconsciousness. Once someone becomes aware that they are trying to find perception, they can no longer find it, which is a paradox.
He went through the idea of covering him up in the mirror in his mind. The idea was right, which was to force him to find his own state again without external reference. But this could only solve the immediate problem. The fundamental problem was that Xu Kunkun himself had an unconscious reference mentality towards Zhou Zhennan, which would take time to work out.
There's still enough time. It's only early February, and he's set the timeline for his boy band to take shape by mid-year, so there are still four months to go.
That evening, he returned home, changed his shoes, put down his bag, and his phone vibrated.
It was a voice message from Zhang Tianai, lasting twenty-two seconds.
He glanced at the screen, didn't open it, put his phone on the coffee table, went to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water, drank it, came back to sit down, picked up the remote and turned on the TV, tuned it to a channel with no sound, and just left the screen on.
He didn't plan to listen to the 22-second voice message now.
It's not that I'm not interested, it's just that the question of "Three Lives Three Worlds" is still on my mind tonight.
The problem lies at the end of scene seventeen, where the female protagonist makes a decision, but this decision wasn't adequately foreshadowed in scene sixteen. Readers will find her actions disjointed in scene eighteen because a scene from scene sixteen was cut, breaking the chain of motivation.
The solution was to add three lines of inner monologue at the beginning of scene seventeen. Instead of adding a scene, the motivation was conveyed through psychological description. This would not affect the filming schedule or increase the budget.
I need to get Fang Qing to revise the draft tomorrow.
The next day.
Fang Qing came in without knocking, she just pushed the door open.
This was her habit, Zeng Hao knew, so he didn't look up.
"I spent all night looking at the seventeenth scene," she said, slamming the script on the table—literally slamming it, the pages lying open and frozen in place. "You said you'd add an inner monologue, I know, but the problem is that the rhythm at the beginning of the seventeenth scene follows the emotions at the end of the sixteenth scene. If you cut in three lines of monologue there, the whole rhythm will break."
Zeng Hao put down his pen, picked up the script, and turned to scene seventeen.
He glanced at the beginning of the passage. "Find out Scene Fourteen."
Fang Qing sat down on the chair next to her, flipped the script forward to scene fourteen, and pushed it over.