Carrying the Entire Movie Forward with the Power of Abstraction

Zhou Le was not simply idling about with nothing better to do, nor did he eagerly volunteer to shoulder this responsibility out of pure altruism. He certainly had no desire to perform thankless tasks for others; rather, he felt that this movie was, thus far, the finest work of his acting career, and he had no intention of letting himself be dragged down and smeared along with the film.

Besides, whether in Zhou Le's own eyes or those of anyone else, it was generally agreed that his effort and the acting performance he delivered in the film were the greatest. Consequently, he felt a certain sense of ownership toward the movie.

Once all these matters were settled, Zhou Le took the receipts straight to the accounting department for reimbursement.

When Xu Zheng learned of this, he deliberately gave Zhou Le an extra five thousand yuan as a bonus for his hard work. After all, while Xu Zheng personally felt that whether or not this matter was handled made little difference, at least doing it brought no harm.

Even with this red envelope included, Zhou Le had received a total of two wrap-up bonuses. The other wrap-up envelope contained twenty thousand yuan—the largest of them all. This was partly because his character died in the story, and partly due to the massive amount of weight he had lost throughout the production.

"Le, you truly worked hard for the sake of this film. But don't you worry, no matter what happens, we'll make sure you get an award later on. Putting everything else aside, just look at the current entertainment industry—how many people could pull off what you did?"

Zhou Le smiled. "It's all part of the job. Brother Zheng, if you really feel bad about it, just treat me to a few more decent meals over the next few days."

"Hahaha, consider it done!"

And so, that very evening, Zhou Le was whisked away to a nightclub. He had a thoroughly wild time there; apart from sleeping, he partook in every other imaginable activity. Having dieted for so long, Zhou Le also finally managed to eat a truly satisfying, full meal.

"It has not been easy at all," Zhou Le muttered, his eyes welling up with touched tears as he devoured the delicious food. "To hell with diet meals! To hell with black coffee, buckwheat noodles, and broccoli! I've had more than enough of this!"

The moment Zhou Le returned that night, he informed Su Yingxia that for at least the next half year, none of those aforementioned items were allowed to appear anywhere on his menu.

By now, it was already mid-July.

*City of Rock* had been in theaters for half a month, and its box office revenue had already reached three hundred million yuan. It had successfully achieved half of Da Peng’s initial prediction of five hundred million yuan in total box office earnings.

To celebrate this milestone, Da Peng specially arranged a live stream, inviting Gulnazar and Zhou Le to do some promotional work. The format was relaxed: they set up a hot pot with a table full of dishes, chatting with the audience while eating.

Because Zhou Le and Gulnazar still had quite a few lingering romantic rumors surrounding them—partly due to previous hype, and partly because of their numerous interactive moments during the earlier roadshows—the staff members acting as moderators in the live stream chatroom maintained extremely strict control over the comments. Otherwise, they were genuinely terrified that Gulnazar might suddenly snap emotionally, given that there had been plenty of precedents for such outbursts in the past.

Yet, while they could control the comments, they could not control Zhou Le.

Zhou Le currently harbored an overwhelming enthusiasm for all kinds of delicious food, especially hot pot. Ever since he began his diet, the cast and crew had held numerous banquets where hot pot was served, but Zhou Le had been restricted to eating mere vegetable leaves. Consequently, inside the live stream room, he dumped meat into the pot with frantic abandon.

*Patrick Star's Boxer Shorts:* "Brother Le, where did you go? Stop focusing solely on eating, at least say some promotional lines!"

*Hahahaha, this is the first time I've ever seen someone promoting a movie in a live stream where you can't even see their face the entire time."*

*Dragon Desert Xuan:* "Is it really that good? Now you've got me craving hot pot too."

*Fatty Obe Brother:* "Does anyone actually use sesame paste as a dipping sauce for hot pot? Shouldn't it be an oil-based sauce?"

*Riding Rolling Beasts Against the Heavens:* "Absolute nonsense! Soy sauce is obviously the correct choice!"

*Swith:* "A heretic! Around here, we dip everything in yogurt!"

*Father of Both Sons Brother Li:* "Take your yogurt dipping sauce and get the hell out of here!"

The atmosphere in the chatroom started off well enough, but it soon dissolved into a fierce argument over what constitutes the proper dipping sauce for hot pot.

"Stop getting distracted by the food, someone else is treating this meal anyway. Eat up, don't go ending the broadcast on an empty stomach." Remembering halfway through that he was supposed to be working and manufacturing chemistry with Gulnazar, Zhou Le hurriedly used serving chopsticks to pile a generous portion of mutton into Gulnazar's bowl.

After swallowing a couple more bites, it suddenly dawned on him that he still hadn't promoted the movie. He swallowed the meat in his mouth, wiped his mouth, and said, "Our movie, *City of Rock*, is currently playing in theaters. Anyone who enjoys this genre can go check it out. If you think the tickets are too expensive, see if there are any group-buying discounts online."

No sooner had he finished speaking than a staff member nearby whispered a reminder, "You shouldn't tell people to go if they like it. You're supposed to say that anyone who likes you and Gulnazar can go watch it."

Zhou Le paused, looked up, and thought about it.

"No, that's not right. You shouldn't say that either. Why would people go watch a genre they don't like? It'll end up on streaming platforms eventually anyway, where people can watch it for free. We shouldn't force people to spend money; nobody earns their money easily."

"We make movies to entertain the audience, not to lecture them. The whole point is to get the audience to open their wallets willingly. If we practically compel people to go, doesn't that just make it outright robbery?"

The staff member wanted to say more, but Da Peng, who had been closely monitoring the live chat, noticed that Zhou Le's remarks seemed to draw even more support. Viewers were flooding the chat, declaring that they were definitely going to head to the theater to watch it, while those who had already seen the film were enthusiastically recommending it to others.

Da Peng immediately stopped the staff member and instructed someone to edit the live stream footage into a short video to be published later.

Earlier, when negotiating with theater chains and distributors, he had fallen into despair; because of the fallout from *煎饼侠 (Pancake Maker)*, those capitalists had been utterly unwilling to allocate sufficient screening schedules. He had already given up hope, yet Zhou Le had somehow revitalized the film's prospects time and again by trending on hot searches through utterly absurd methods.

He had a premonition that this live broadcast of Zhou Le and Gulnazar eating together would successfully claim at least three spots on the trending topics list, even without him purchasing paid traffic. The first topic would be about eating, the second about Zhou Le's remarks, and the third about *City of Rock*.

Naturally, he would never let such an opportunity slip by and immediately arranged to buy promotional traffic on the spot.

However, just as he went online to track the latest developments, he suddenly spotted a film critic with the online moniker [February Bird-Song] on Douban, who had given *City of Rock* a scathing one-star review and written a lengthy critique lambasting how terrible the movie supposedly was.

The sight made his blood boil with fury. He immediately posted a moment on his WeChat Moments demanding to know who knew this idiot named February Bird-Song, vowing to track the person down offline and give them a few hard slaps across the face. After posting that, he forwarded it to several chat groups.

As if he wasn't angry enough already, when he checked Weibo, he discovered that certain individuals were still trying to stir up trouble by claiming Zhou Le was suspected of drug use.

This malicious narrative had existed previously, and the best response then had been silence. But right now, he was at the absolute peak of his temper.

Without a second thought, he screenshotted the profiles of several perpetrators and published a post on Weibo:

"Are these few brainless idiots going to keep hounding this? Even the official police drug test results aren't enough for you? You might as well just pack up and leave China. You few morons just wait—for malicious rumor-mongering, I'll be sending you all official court summons."

Meanwhile, Zhou Le was still wholeheartedly dedicated to the serious business of eating, until he was completely full.

He raised his head and looked at the staff member. "How much time is left in our live stream?"

The staff member checked the clock. "Another half hour."

Zhou Le instantly frowned. "Another half hour? That's quite a while, but just talking is dry and boring..." He pondered for a moment before asking, "Can we mix in something else while doing the promotion?"

The staff member felt an ominous premonition. "Mix in what?"

"I mean, half an hour is just enough time to start a match of a mobile game. If things go fast, we might even squeeze in two."

The staff member was dumbfounded.

They could do that? An idol playing video games during a live stream meant to promote a movie? Unheard of!

Seeing that nobody spoke, Zhou Le took silence as consent. He wiped his mouth clean, pulled out his smartphone, and announced:

"Nazar, log on! You take mid, I'll take jungle, I'll carry us!"