Whoosh! The Tianshan Rat Hare quickly rushed out of the cultivation area of Desert Cistanches. It ran to Fang Qiu in an instant, circling the Three Lives excitedly.
“Hey, little guy.” Seeing the rat hare, Fang Qiu shook his head with a smile. He said, “You have a keen sense of smell.”
However, the rat hare didn’t pay any attention to Fang Qiu at all. It was staring intently at the fruits on the Three Lives.
“The Three Lives. The vine, the tree, and the fruits.”
Looking at the little fellow, Fang Qiu squatted down, grabbed the excited rat hare, and made it calm down. Then he said, “This Three Lives is still a vine. Although it has fruits, it needs a lot of Qi of Heaven and Earth to grow into a tree. After it grows into a tree, there will be more fruits and the quality of the fruits will be better. Now one of the fruits on the vine has been eaten. Even with the help of the terrain, it will still take some time for the Qi of Heaven and Earth to restore the missing fruit.”
“Remember not to steal it,” Fang Qiu said to the little fellow very seriously. “Not only are you not allowed to eat it secretly, but you also need to protect it well. When it grows into a tree and the fruits are ripe, I will give you some to eat. Do you understand?”
The little fellow squeaked and nodded vigorously.
Seeing this, Fang Qiu released the little fellow.
Unexpectedly, as soon as he put it down, the little fellow immediately ran to the Desert Cistanche base and took out some high-quality Desert Cistanches which it had somehow stored previously. Regardless of the people there, it immediately dug a hole beside the vine of the Three Lives and stuffed the Desert Cistanches into it. Then it also got into the hole. After that, its head popped out and it stared at the Three Lives.
“Oh no.”
Seeing what happened in the distance, Zhu Benzheng and the other two were shocked. Sun Hao was speechless and said, “The hare has learned from the youngest.”
“I don’t understand. What’s so good about that vine? The fruits can neither be picked nor touched. The youngest and the hare are guarding it as if it is something precious. It’s just a vine. Is it necessary to protect it like that?” Zhou Xiaotian said, feeling bored.
“You shouldn’t think about it in that way.” Zhu Benzheng patted the other two’s shoulders. Then he added, “The youngest brought this plant back from Africo. Maybe it will be of great use in the future. We just need to be responsible for it. We will have more information about it at a later stage.”
“Okay!” Zhou Xiaotian nodded hard. “I just want to taste the fruit.”
Zhu Benzheng and Sun Hao were speechless now.
Time flew by and three days passed quickly.
Early in the morning, Mr. Zhao came over. He found Fang Qiu practicing boxing next to the Three Lives.
“Hello, Mr. Zhao.” Seeing Zhao Shanlin, Fang Qiu immediately beckoned to him.
“I came here to check on the outcome of the transplantation.” Zhao Shanlin nodded with a smile and then squatted down to observe the plant. He found that the Three Lives was growing quite well. It was not affected by the transplantation at all.
“There seem to be no problems, right?” Fang Qiu asked.
“Yes.” Zhao Shanlin nodded. Then he said, “It’s all right. The transplantation is successful. This vine is able to thrive here.”
“That’s good.” Fang Qiu heaved a sigh of relief.
He immediately began to make plans.
With the help of the terrain, the Qi of Heaven and Earth around would become richer, and the Three Lives could absorb the Qi at a rapid pace. Even if the fruit was picked, another fruit would grow in a few days.
In about half a month, the Three lives would grow into a tree, and the fruits would be ripe.
At that time, the Three Lives should still be a seedling.
He would ask Mr. Zhao to try to cultivate it. If he succeeded, it would be great!
“Mr. Zhao,” Fang Qiu said, “I guess this plant will grow into a seedling in two weeks. At that time, I hope you can help cultivate it.”
“Well, I had the same thought.” Zhao Shanlin nodded. Then he said, “Although I’ve never seen this kind of plant before, I’ve seen a lot of similar species. I’ll try my best.”
At this time, there came a squeaking sound.
They saw the rat hare coming out of the hole. It was sitting on the ground, eating a Desert Cistanche and staring at the fruits on the vine of the Three Lives. It seemed to be enjoying itself.
“Oh, look at this little guy.” Fang Qiu gave a wry smile. He knew that not only did the little fellow crave the fruits of the Three Lives, but more importantly, it was there to protect the Three Lives as a guardian beast. If it didn’t guard it well, the Three Lives would likely attract other animals. At that time, it was inevitable that there would be a fight.
Since the little fellow wanted to guard it, Fang Qiu was happy to let it do so.
Suddenly, Fang Qiu’s phone beeped.
He took out his phone and found that it was a call from Director Chen Xiaogang.
“Hello, Director Chen?” Fang Qiu answered the phone.
“Are you back to our country?” Chen Xiaogang asked directly. “If not, hurry up and buy a ticket back. Don’t forget that the premiere of our movie will be held at eight o’clock tomorrow night.”
“Director Chen, don’t worry. I’ll be there on time,” Fang Qiu said with a smile.
“Okay!” Chen Xiaogang breathed a sigh of relief. Then he said, “I will wait for you.”
As a famous director, Chen Xiaogang had directed no less than ten movies. Therefore, he knew that on such an important day, if Fang Qiu, the protagonist, was absent when the premiere was being screened, it would have a negative effect on the publicity. The bottom line was that Fang Qiu couldn’t miss this premiere.
It had been several years since he directed his last movie. Now, his new movie would be officially screened tomorrow night!
Early the next day, Fang Qiu directly flew to the capital.
While waiting for the flight, Fang Qiu surfed the Internet on his mobile phone to search for information about the movie.
Fang Qiu was dumbfounded when he saw the box office figures from the advance sale.
“Two, two hundred million yuan?” Fang Qiu was stunned by the number of digits shown.
“It’s just an advance sale!” He didn’t expect that so many people bought tickets for the advance sale of the movie.
Perhaps the box office couldn’t be compared with that of a popular movie, which always rakes in several billion yuan. However, the box office of 200 million yuan was the dream of many directors.
Every year, at least 90% of the movies’ box offices could not even reach such a high target.
Even some of the most popular movies didn’t manage to achieve such high box offices on their advanced sales.
Fang Qiu was not the only one who was surprised.
On the Internet, various media reporters also took this box office as a selling point and made large-scale reports. The netizens were also discussing it very enthusiastically.
This movie was so popular now that it was like a blockbuster!
“According to the box office at this time, its profit is almost equal to the cost of the movie. It is so high,” Fang Qiu sighed with emotion.
Of course, he also knew that the cost of this movie was low because the leading actors were not paid, such as himself, and the other actors and actresses didn’t get high salaries from it. Besides, there were very few special effects shots since the action direction team could act directly without having to resort to special effects and their actions were much better than the special effects.
The most important thing was that the entire action direction team was only paid one million!
Therefore, this movie didn’t cost much.
Even the good food and drinks for the crew didn’t cost much.
Now, it was much easier to cover the cost.
After reading the news, Fang Qiu directly clicked on the official Weibo of the movie, “Yang Yizhi”. Only then did he see that the box office amount of 200 million yuan had broken the record of the movie market and directly moved to the first place on the pre-sale list of movies in a day!
“The movie hasn’t even been screened yet, but it is already in the first place. I am feeling a lot of pressure.” Fang Qiu smiled bitterly.
Indeed, he was under a lot of pressure.
After all, this was the first time for him to act in a movie, and he played the part of a character who he quite respected. His acting had to be good and if he failed to do it, he would be widely criticized.
Fang Qiu didn’t want to be criticized by the audience. After all, he had only read the script and had not seen the finished movie. So he was very worried about the quality of the whole movie.
“I should watch the premiere of the movie tonight.” Fang Qiu thought with a nod.
At two o’clock in the afternoon, Fang Qiu finally boarded the plane to the capital. Before he took the plane, Director Chen called him and asked him for his ETA so he could arrange for someone to pick him up.
Fang Qiu landed at Capital International Airport after spending 3.5 hours on the plane because the destination was quite a distance away.
After leaving the airport, Fang Qiu hurriedly went to the hotel that Director Chen had booked for him.
The premiere was held in the largest cinema in the capital. Fang Qiu couldn’t return to Beijiang after the premiere was over because it was held at eight o’clock in the evening. Therefore, after the phone call, Director Chen booked a room for Fang Qiu in a hotel close to the premiere. He also prepared a suit for Fang Qiu in the room, even if Fang Qiu didn’t want to wear it.
Getting the room card at the front desk, Fang Qiu went to the restaurant at the hotel to order some food before going back to his room.
“What?” Entering the room, Fang Qiu found that there was a suit on the bed.
However, this suit was a little different from a normal one. It could be said to be a “young” version. The clothes and the pants were ordinary black ones and looked quite novel. They were not too formal and with a white shirt, the suit looked quite good.
After taking a shower, he waited for the food to be sent to the room. After his meal, Fang Qiu put on the suit.
Although Fang Qiu was very young, when he wore the suit, he appeared even younger and had a fresh-faced look about him. However, Fang Qiu’s masculinity was so prominent that his naivety was visibly suppressed.
“Director Chen, you must have spent the money meant for publicity in making these suits, right?” Fang Qiu muttered to himself.
There was almost no other publicity for this movie, except for Fang Qiu’s reputation. Fang Qiu didn’t expect that Chen Xiaogang would have such a plan.
However, when he thought about it now, it seemed that the effect of the publicity would not be much better than what it was now if more money had been spent on it. In other words, they saved lots of money.
“The richer you are, the more frugal you will be.” Fang Qiu sighed, shaking his head. He forgot that he was also rich.
Soon, it was half-past seven.
At Myriad Towers Square outside Myriad Towers Studios, there was already a large crowd of people. These people were all holding light boards and light sticks in their hands. There were barricades which had been set up to hold back the large crowds.
He glanced over and found that there were obviously more girls than boys, and most of them were holding light boards which featured Fang Qiu!