Chapter 0728: A Small Clue Reveals the Big Picture

The wisdom of life, it must be said, truly requires the accumulation of time. Those who are born with knowledge are prodigies and geniuses. At the very least, Zhao Fusheng knew he was not that kind of material.

After lecturing his son, Zhao Dad felt a great sense of spiritual satisfaction. After all, the result of the boy becoming more and more accomplished was that he, as the father, had almost no role to play.

Naturally, Zhao Fusheng did not know that his father had lectured him with such a mindset. If he had known, he truly wouldn't know whether to cry or laugh.

But since his father had found a way to cooperate with Ma Qianli, Zhao Fusheng felt relieved instead. His father was not stupid; he just hadn't been exposed to such things before.

Time passed quickly, and before they knew it, it was May.

At this time, there was no so-called summer blockbuster season, and there weren't that many theater chains. Watching movies was still a distant concept for most people living in third- and fourth-tier cities; their entertainment activities were truly scarce.

First-tier cities were a bit better, but that was only relatively speaking. At least in Zhao Fusheng's view, the entertainment life now was really boring.

Fortunately, he wasn't the type to enjoy lively crowds, so most of the time, Zhao Fusheng stayed at home with Fan Baobao.

Apart from attending classes and reading books, Zhao Fusheng's life couldn't be simpler.

"Why have you been so idle lately?"

Fan Baobao finally couldn't stand her boyfriend living the life of a homebody who ate and slept all day, and took the initiative to ask.

It wasn't that she disliked Zhao Fusheng; she just felt that this guy was taking it easy every day, not at all like an advertising planner, and was simply wasting his life.

Zhao Fusheng blinked: "Yeah, the company hasn't had any big orders lately. As you know, President Zheng's focus is now on film production. For now, I have no place to use my skills, so there's nothing much to do."

Of course, he wouldn't tell Fan Baobao that it wasn't easy to get him to do advertising planning now. First, the product had to be decent, and it had to be a big brand. Otherwise, either the advertiser had to offer a sky-high planning fee, or Zhao Fusheng wouldn't take the case at all.

The reason was simple: scarcity increases value. If he took on every order, then Zhao Fusheng, as a gold medal planner, would be too cheap.

Hearing Zhao Fusheng's words, Fan Baobao was silent for a moment, then thought it over: "Then maybe you could write another script?"

Clearly, she was thinking of the script Zhao Fusheng had written before.

Zhao Fusheng shook his head helplessly: "Come on, do you think everyone is like Old Jiang and Lu Chuan, letting me have free rein?"

This was the truth. Although Zhao Fusheng was the screenwriter for the last film, the supervisor was Jiang Wen, an old hand who was set on being a director, and the director was Lu Chuan, a rookie who had just graduated a few years ago. After Zhao Fusheng wrote the script, he didn't have to worry about anything and just waited for his share of the profits.

But if it were another screenwriter, it wouldn't be so easy.

In the film and television circle, screenwriting is not a simple profession. To put it bluntly, the division of status into different levels is inevitable. And not all screenwriters lack a voice.

Simply put, screenwriters can be roughly divided into four types. According to status, the lowest level of screenwriters are puppets of the director. To put it bluntly, these people have little status; they follow the director and distill the director's ideas and intentions into scripts or scenes. Jiang Wen had such people around him, specifically serving him.

Although these people contributed greatly to a film, they rarely had the opportunity to take charge independently.

Then there are screenwriters like Zhao Fusheng, who can independently create complete scripts. The scripts they write can attract investment, just like Ye Jing did back then, taking the script of "Party A, Party B" to Huayi for investment. The same thing was done by Andy Lau; he took the script of "Infernal Affairs" to Lin Jianle and secured investment. And after the film's success, he hoped Zhao Fusheng would write a sequel, because the entire concept of the film was proposed by Zhao Fusheng—it was his script style.

Apart from these two types, there is another kind of screenwriter with high status, such as Wang Shuo, Liu Zhenyun, Gu Long, etc., whom Zhao Fusheng had known. These people are themselves highly renowned writers whose original works have a large fan base. When adapted into films or TV series, they can guarantee high ratings and box office. Such people are treated with caution even by directors and investors.

As you can see, back in the day, Feng Xiaogang treated Wang Shuo like an ancestor, serving him devotedly.

To put it not exaggeratedly, without Wang Shuo's support, it's still unknown whether Director Feng could have risen from a set designer to the top commercial film director in China.

However, the most impressive are those big shots who are both directors and screenwriters, like Wong Kar-wai, or Wang Jing, who likes to dabble in vulgar humor. They can both write scripts and direct films, naturally favored by investors.

Fan Baobao naturally didn't understand the intricacies involved. She just felt that Zhao Fusheng was too idle, so she wanted to find something for him to do.

Hearing Zhao Fusheng's answer, Fan Baobao frowned slightly, glanced at him, and said, "So according to you, you can only work with Old Jiang and the others from now on?"

Zhao Fusheng chuckled and shook his head: "Not necessarily. It's mainly that I'm not interested in writing scripts. It's tiring and doesn't make much money. I'd rather spend that time writing planning proposals."

Fan Baobao remained silent, too lazy to comment on Zhao Fusheng.

"I chose him, I chose him..." Fan Baobao repeated in her mind several times, confirming that this was the man she had chosen. Otherwise, she really wanted to grab Zhao Fusheng by the neck and ask him what exactly made a lot of money.

But she did understand; after all, advertising planning seemed simple but wasn't that easy. It required inspiration.

And opportunity. Advertising was seasonal; the current season's ad campaign hadn't finished airing, so no new business would come in.

"By the way, don't you have an auditing pass?"

Fan Baobao's eyes suddenly lit up, as if remembering something, and she asked Zhao Fusheng.

Zhao Fusheng nodded blankly. This auditing pass was something he had asked Jiang Wen to help get so he could accompany Fan Baobao to classes. Although he had only used it a few times, it was still valid.

According to Jiang Wen, he had gone through connections to get the pass, costing him a considerable favor, for which he had extorted a big meal from Zhao Fusheng.

Zhao Fusheng suspected that the guy had said that just to mooch a meal.

But why did Fan Baobao bring this up?

Looking at Fan Baobao suspiciously, Zhao Fusheng nodded: "Yes, it's in the drawer."

"Come to class with me." Fan Baobao blinked and said to Zhao Fusheng.

Zhao Fusheng was taken aback, squinting at Fan Baobao. Intuition told him that this wasn't as simple as it seemed.

For the same thing, different purposes lead to different approaches, just like some people like fame, some like money, and some like a plain life.

Similarly, Zhao Fusheng didn't think Fan Baobao would really be angry because he stayed home all day. If Fan Baobao were that kind of girl, the two wouldn't have ended up together.

That is to say, there was something else behind Fan Baobao's suggestion.

Kind people are always bullied because of their timidity. Faced with such situations, some try to package themselves as unapproachable, conveying the message that they are not to be messed with. Others seek help.

Clearly, Fan Baobao must have encountered something.

Thinking this, Zhao Fusheng glanced at Fan Baobao without changing his expression, smiled, and nodded: "Sure, I'm free anyway."

Fan Baobao was quite surprised and looked at Zhao Fusheng in astonishment. In her impression, Zhao Fusheng wasn't a diligent person, so his agreeing so readily to accompany her to class was unexpected.

Zhao Fusheng's smile remained, but in his heart, he had already made up his mind. He wanted to see who was bold enough to dare provoke his girlfriend.