Translator: GodBrandy Editor: Kurisu
Blast the door open?
Have criminals become so bold nowadays? Anyway, did I carelessly post some death-seeking content online as of late, and have these people come to check my water meter for that reason?
Impossible! I’m a good citizen that abides by the law, and I’ve never written on the Internet anything about sensitive stuff. The only thing I did was to give one-star reviews to every movie to relieve my boredom!
Just as he was in deep thought, the door of his house was gently pushed open.
The young man lived in a very simple apartment: one bedroom, one bathroom, one living room, and no kitchen. The living room was where he would usually play games, and it directly faced the entrance.
Anyway, the door of the house wasn’t really blasted open. Instead, it looked as if an invisible hand had twisted the door lock open, finally opening the door. The scene was really frightening.
Next, two tall men entered the house.
One of two wore a smile on his face, giving off an aura of kindness. At first sight, he seemed someone trustworthy.
The other one seemed to be in a bad mood—he was obviously the person that threatened to blast the door open earlier.
“Who are you? Don’t come closer! Otherwise, I’ll report you to the police!” the young man said, frightened.
“Little brother, no need to be this nervous. We don’t have bad intentions.” After pondering for a moment, the man with the smiling face said, “Do you want money?”
They don’t have bad intentions, but still forcefully barged into my house? The young man immediately thought of those frightening scenes he had seen only in movies. For example, foreign organizations grabbing ordinary people and forcing them to hide drugs in their butts and stomach to transport it somewhere.
“Of course, I like money. However, I won’t do anything that goes against the law. Therefore, you’d better give up!” While speaking, the young man had already started dialing the number of the police.
“There is no point in using that phone. I’ve already blocked the signal in this area,” the man that seemed to be in a bad mood said.
The heartbeat of the young man couldn’t help but speed up. He was done for!
The man with the smiling face said, “You don’t need to worry. We really have no bad intentions. Little brother, recently, did you write a review about the villain of the movie ❮Apocalypse War❯?”
“F*ck, did you track me down due to that negative review?” The young man wondered if the world had gone crazy.
It was just an ordinary one-star negative review! And he didn’t even go that overboard… and yet, these people still bothered to come over to his place and forcefully barge inside?
Wasn’t this a little bit too crazy?
“Little brother, you are misinterpreting my words. We haven’t come here to give you a hard time,” the man with the smiling face said. “How can I say it… that one-star review of yours made my senior brother very happy, and he asked me to find you to give you a hand. After a little investigation, I discovered that your financial situation doesn’t look too good as of late, am I right?”
The young man didn’t reply.
“It seems I am right. Here, take it. This is the reward my senior brother prepared for you. No need to stand on ceremony, just take it.” The man with the smiling face passed him a big red envelope.
Given its thickness, if there was really money inside, the amount was fairly high.
“In addition, if you liked the reward, you can seize this opportunity and leave some other reviews related to ‘Evil General Mingyue’ online. It doesn’t matter if it’s a positive five-star review or a negative one; as long as you make a detailed post about Evil General Mingyue’s character, you’ll be able to obtain more rewards such as this,” the man with the smiling face said.
The young man cautiously opened the red envelope and took a look inside. There was really money inside, and at least 10,000 RMB at that! He raised his head again, looking at the man with the smiling face.
Were these guys really sane?
It didn’t matter if it was a positive five-star review or a negative one-star review… as long as it was a detailed review about ‘Evil General Mingyue’, they would give him this kind of reward?
Were they crazy?
Or perhaps he was unable to understand the mind of rich people?
“Do a good job. I’ll keep an eye on you,” the man that wore a smile on his face said.
After saying this much, he waved his hand and casually left.
After the man that wore a smile on his face left, the other man, the one that seemed to be in a bad mood, lowered his voice and said, “Remember, write a proper review. In addition, only write about Evil General Mingyue’s character, you don’t need to write about anything else. It doesn’t matter if your opinion is positive or negative, the review must be well-written and unique. We’ll be back tomorrow to check this review of yours.”
The young man was frightened. According to what the man with the smiling face said, he should seize this opportunity and quickly write another review about the movie if he wanted another similar reward. But this man that seemed in a bad mood directly threatened him. He said that he had to write a well-written review by tonight, and they would be back tomorrow to check it!
The young man swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and asked, “How long does this review have to be?”
“I almost forgot to tell you about the character limit. Anyway, at least 10,000 characters, alright? If you write less than this, you’ll have to bear the consequences,” the man that seemed to be in a bad mood said coldly.
After saying this much, he, too, swaggered off and left the house.
After a while, the young man pinched his face and looked at the red enveloped full of cash on the table.
Shiet… it wasn’t a dream.
A 10,000-character-long review about Evil General Mingyue… wasn’t this the same as asking for his poor life?
Just how many times had that villain appeared in the trailer, or in those stage pictures attached to the list of the actors? He had already criticized everything there was to criticize! What could he possibly write about now?
How was he supposed to write a 10,000-character-long essay based on this little information?!
He was suddenly reminded of his days in elementary school. There, they would give an assignment where one had to look at one or two strange pictures and then write an essay about it. That stuff was simply crazy!
Still, he felt that something very scary was going to happen if he didn’t write the review… but from where should he start writing? Should he start from the facial features or look in the eye of this Evil General Mingyue?
For example, he could write that from Evil General Mingyue’s pair of bright eyes, he could infer that Mingyue also had feelings albeit being a big villain… or something of the sort?
No, that was the same as asking for his life! He was specialized in writing one-star negative reviews, and not in writing novels! He simply didn’t have what it took to write something of the sort!
The young man was very worried.
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In the meantime, Venerable White had brought Song Shuhang and Su Clan’s Sixteen out of the ancestral land of the Limitless Demon Sect.
The trio didn’t immediately return to True Monarch Yellow Mountain’s movie company.
Venerable White brought Song Shuhang and Su Clan’s Sixteen along and went to hide the Jade Lake Realm in a secret place first.
The Jade Lake Realm was a place that the three of them had discovered together. Therefore, Venerable White made it so that Song Shuhang and Su Clan’s Sixteen would also have the authority to enter the Jade Lake Realm at any time.
In addition, Venerable White had finished assessing the ‘mana-restoring lotus flower’ that the nucleus in Song Shuhang’s body had projected out. After all, they had come to trouble the Limitless Demon Sect mainly because they wanted to test how good the ‘mana-restoring lotus flower’ was.
In the end, the mana restoring effects of the sealed lotus flower turned out to be even better than what Venerable White had expected.
Even in an environment where medicinal pills and spirit stones were useless, the lotus flower wasn’t affected, and the speed at which it was restoring energy was as amazing as before.
Although those 50,000 spirit stones were converted into this ‘mana-restoring lotus flower’ that contained a quantity of energy comparable to only 20,000 spirit stones, it had been completely worth it!
To sum things up, this ‘mana-restoring lotus flower’ was able to restore one’s spiritual energy at an extremely fast pace; there were no impurities in the restored spiritual energy, no side effects, no cooldowns. In addition, it wasn’t affected by special environments that limited the usage of medicinal pills and spirit stones.
When all these properties were added together, its worth could easily increase by eight times, and this was only the most conservative evaluation. After all, at a critical moment, this gadget could be used to preserve one’s life.
However, making the ‘mana-restoring lotus flower’ wasn’t easy, and it couldn’t be mass produced like Song Shuhang’s Saber Intent Condensing Lotus Seeds.
Venerable White suggested Song Shuhang found time to learn sealing techniques so that he could produce this mana-restoring lotus flowers on his own.
At that time, the ‘Saber Intent Condensing Lotus Seeds’ and the ‘mana-restoring lotus flower’ would bring Song Shuhang a lot of money.
❄️❄️❄️
Time flew by.
August 24th. In other words, the day True Monarch Yellow Mountain had set for the premiere of the movie.
During the past few days, Song Shuhang had enjoyed a hard-to-come-by peaceful time. He had practiced body tempering cultivation techniques every day, and his build had finally returned to normal.
Afterward, he would practice calligraphy, take a look at the post-production phase of the movie, listen to the seniors of the Nine Provinces Number One Group discussing profound principles, and so on. During this period, he could relax, and was relatively free from worries.
The only problem was that that super-duper good divination had yet to come true, and the place between his eyebrows was still a little black. As such, he was somewhat jittery.
During the evening of the 24th.
Usually, the premiere of a movie was just another form of advertisement.
However, ❮Apocalypse War❯’s premiere wasn’t used for advertisement.
The movie had been advertised enough. In just a few days, True Monarch Yellow Mountain had spread ❮Apocalypse War❯’s trailer everywhere—to the point that it had become part of everybody’s everyday life.
Therefore, this time, the only aim of the premiere was to see how ❮Apocalypse War❯ looked after the editing was complete, allowing the fellow daoists of the Nine Provinces Number One Group to have a quick look at it.
Young Master Phoenix Slayer, Northern River’s Loose Cultivator, and other fellow daoists had been closely following the editing process, and thus had a good idea of how the final product looked. However, watching the movie in the cinema was still pretty interesting and had a special feeling to it.
Strangers weren’t invited to the premiere of the movie. The only people invited were the available fellow daoists of the Nine Provinces Number One Group, as well as Gao Moumou, Tubo, Yangde, and the members of the Jacob’s Production Team.
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The next day, August 25th.
❮Apocalypse War❯ was screened during the last weekend of summer vacation.
A lot of people booked their ticket as soon as possible and couldn’t wait for the movie to get screened. Some people were relatively quick-witted and came over during the first hours of the morning and managed to snatch a lot of tickets.
On the other hand, some people got up a little later and took advantage of the fact that it was weekend to book a ticket for the movie. But it was at that time that they discovered that all the tickets for today’s show had been sold already—not even those for the midnight show were left.
Wasn’t this a bit too exaggerated? Although the trailer of the movie was pretty good and the actors really good-looking—with Senior Brother Gao Sheng deserving death—the tickets shouldn’t have been sold this quickly! Was it possible that the people behind the movie had bought all the tickets to artificially inflate the box office revenue data?
❄️❄️❄️
Inside a cinema in Wenzhou City.
There was still a little time before the start of the movie, yet the cinema was already packed.
“Husband, so many people have come to watch the movie! Do you think that they will look for our Shu— emh, that Senior Brother Gao Sheng and put a gunnysack on his head and beat him up after they are done watching the movie?” Mama Song said in a low voice after gazing at the completely packed hall, which had nearly 300 seats.
Papa Song replied in a low voice, “Now that you mention it, I’m also starting to get worried.”
