That night, Jiang Yue's Weibo Super Topic turned into a carnival for new fans.
The host of the Super Topic, an influential fan with the ID “Brother Yue's Little High Jumper,” pinned a post overnight.
【Subject: Welcome Home to the New “Moons”! New Fan Guide: Everything You Need to Know in One Post!】
Content:
“Everyone! There are so many new fans flooding in tonight! My hands are literally shaking with excitement! To help everyone get to know Brother Yue faster, I've compiled a fan guide below:
【Must-Watch Dramas】 The Grand Game, streaming exclusively on Kiwi Video!
After the initial six episodes on the first day, we get two episodes daily. Let's watch!
Manhunt as Shen Xu can also be watched to dig up his past work. Friendly reminder: don't fall in love with the villain!
【The Academic God Legend】 Donghai University Computer Science graduation defense, speaking French without a script [Video Link]. Watch this to see what an absolute intellectual beatdown looks like.
【The King of Contrast】 Donghai Police's anti-fraud promotional video [Video Link]. A college boy in pink cat ears getting arrested online. Anyone who watches it will be totally charmed.
【Today's Source of Joy】 999 Cold Relief Powder mid-roll ad cut [Video Link]. Please enjoy it alongside the main show. Not responsible for any abdominal pain from laughing too hard.
Finally, welcome everyone!
Our Brother Yue doesn't really do social media fan service, but we as fans need to step up.
Let's boost his stats and promote him!”
Beneath the post, comments refreshed at a rate of dozens per second.
[New fan reporting! I just came over from the ad. This guy is so hilarious!]
[I'm here, I'm here! I just finished watching the graduation defense video, and I'm completely dumbfounded. What kind of deity did I just stan?]
[Thanks for the directions, big fan! I've already rewatched the cat-ear video three times and the Chu Yan ad twice. I laugh every single time. How can someone be this funny!]
[Brothers and sisters, Bilibili and Douyin have been completely taken over by us! 'Assassin: I came to kill, but he wants to sell me medicine,' 'Chu Yan: Making money isn't shameful,' 'The most dedicated spokesperson in history: even assassins aren't spared'... All kinds of video clips are popping up like copy-pastes. The general public is totally hooked!]
Many passersby who hadn't watched The Grand Game came across this ad on short video platforms. They were thoroughly amused by Jiang Yue's expression, which practically screamed, “Although I'm resisting this with every fiber of my being, I must finish reading these lines.”
“Who is this handsome guy? He's so interesting.”
“The comments say he's Chu Yan from The Grand Game. No way, I have to go watch the actual show.”
The new viewers brought in by the ad flooded into Kiwi Video, causing the user acquisition curve at the point of Chu Yan's appearance in the third episode to spike once again.
They clicked on the first episode and found the production quality excellent. By the time they reached Chu Yan's entrance in the third episode, they were completely hooked.
According to the platform's release schedule, The Grand Game updated with two episodes daily after the initial six episodes on the first day, with the free-to-watch episodes lagging a day behind.
Having the story cut off right at the climax was more than the new viewers could bear.
“Buy it, buy it, buy it! It's just a membership!”
Jiang Yue was still unaware of all this. He could never have imagined that a single mid-roll ad could drive passersby who had never even watched the show straight to the membership purchase page.
The reason was simple: a viewer's enjoyment didn't rely solely on serious plotlines. This kind of humor, which took a serious character and turned him into a meme, was far more effective at catching a passerby's attention than a hard-sell commercial.
While the trending searches outside cycled one after another, pushing Chu Yan's name to the forefront of public attention, the set in Shancheng seemed to block out all the noise like a solid wall.
Jiang Yue's daily routine was a simple commute between the tenement building and the old factory. He left his phone with Jiang Kaiwen most of the time. When he opened his eyes, he saw the call sheet; when he closed his eyes, his mind was filled with Chen Jingan.
The moment Cheng Songran stepped onto the set, he became a completely different person.
This young director, who usually seemed rather unreliable, shifted gears the instant he sat behind the monitor. How the camera should move, where the lighting should be angled, whether the actors should restrain or release their emotions—he could pinpoint the exact requirements in just a few words.
The cast assembled for the crew was no mere window dressing either. Those who could hold their own were veteran actors refined by years on the theater stage, alongside a few drama school graduates who showed no stage fright in front of the camera.
Furthermore, with Jiang Yue's system traits backing him up, many major scenes were good to go on the very first take.
Occasionally, when he was asked to perform two or three different versions of a scene, Cheng Songran would sit behind the monitor with his chin in his hand, clicking his tongue in amazement as if examining some rare work of art.
It was worth noting that Cheng Songran's directorial skills and industry connections were certainly not things an ordinary film academy graduate could easily possess.
When Xu Pingqiu first introduced Cheng Songran, he only mentioned that the young man was a friend's child. Jiang Yue had a good idea of what that meant—Director Cheng was likely the descendant of some prominent director, he just didn't like to brag about his family background.
Jiang Yue didn't pry. Since the other party wanted to keep a low profile, he played along. Channeling all their energy into the work was the most comfortable way to collaborate.
The next afternoon, outside the old factory, they were scheduled to shoot an interrogation scene from Prisoner's Game in the Mirror.
The actor playing opposite Jiang Yue was a guest actor Cheng Songran had invited from God knows where, named Zhou Zhengfeng.
He only had a few scenes today, but even during their line reading in the morning, Jiang Yue could already feel the immense stage presence radiating from him. He was likely another veteran from the theater world.
In the plot of Prisoner's Game, shortly after the film crew commenced shooting, two consecutive homicides occurred in Shancheng. The victims' postures, the modus operandi, and even the details of the body disposal sites matched the crew's recently revised, unreleased script perfectly.
After the police intervened, the clues pointed directly to Chen Jingan, who played the profiler in Prisoner's Game.
Cheng Songran raised his walkie-talkie, his gaze sweeping from the monitor to the acting area.
“All departments in position. Three, two, one, action.”
Inside the dim police interrogation room, Chen Jingan sat on a cold iron chair with his hands resting on his knees. His shoulders and back were tense, clearly conveying the anxiety of someone dragged into the center of a storm.
Across from him, the moment Captain Li sat down, the air in the interrogation room turned heavy.
“Mr. Chen, where were you on the nights of the third and the seventh?”
Captain Li spoke in a controlled tone, devoid of any personal emotion.
Chen Jingan rubbed his fingers against the seam of his trousers. His gaze drifted away from the interrogation spotlight opposite him before he forced himself to look back.
“I was in my hotel room reading the script, Officer. I'm here to shoot a movie, not to kill people. Where is your evidence?”
Captain Li didn't answer. Instead, he pulled out a stack of photos and tossed them onto the table.
The photos slid across the surface. The top one showed a crossed X-shaped ligature mark on a victim's neck, while another photo depicted a victim holding half of a red theater ticket in their palm.
Captain Li pushed the photos a bit closer.
“You want evidence? Fine.”
He looked up at Chen Jingan, the scrutiny in his eyes not softening in the slightest.
“We checked your script annotations. You specifically noted that the killer would use a double-strand rope to strangle the victim in a cross pattern, and you also wrote that the victim would grab a brightly colored object near them right before dying.”
The sound of rustling paper echoed against the tabletop.
“Aside from the screenwriter and director, you were the only one who proposed this revision.”
He tapped a surveillance screenshot nearby.
“Even more coincidentally, the surveillance cameras near the crime scene captured a silhouette whose height and build closely match yours.”
Chen Jingan's eyes locked onto the photos. His pupils trembled violently, and the color was slowly drained from his face.
He of course knew he hadn't killed anyone, but the problem was that he had been blacking out frequently of late.
Sometimes when he woke up, there would be a few lines of unfamiliar handwriting on his script that didn't match his usual annotating habits at all.
Sometimes when he stood in front of the mirror, the look in his reflection's eyes would send a shiver down his spine.
Did I really do it? Was it Lu Zhichen?
This self-doubt welled up in his heart.
The corner of Chen Jingan's eye twitched involuntarily. His Adam's apple bobbed, and the words he uttered lost all coherence.
“It wasn't me. This isn't me.”
Even as the words left his mouth, he felt a wave of guilt.
But as his gaze swept over the photo of the ligature mark, Chen Jingan seemed to notice something, his fingertips trembling slightly.
The position of the crossed double-strand rope was wrong. The script specified the right strand over the left, but in the photo, it was reversed.
Just as this thought surfaced, Captain Li slammed his hand onto the table.
“Chen Jingan, don't think you can play dumb and get away with this!”
Rate on N.U.
