BXBX NOVEL Chapter 25: 025
Chapter 25
"Are they here yet?" asked someone inside, scribbling furiously.
Pei Luming shook his head, "No, keep writing!"
It was impossible to watch a 90-minute video in less than an hour, so the trainees focused mainly on the group performances, watching the individual stages at double speed.
Just as they were quietly complaining about their aching fingers, Pei Luming at the door suddenly became excited. He abruptly stood up, ran a few steps, and then slid on his knees to the others, exclaiming, "They\'re coming! Walking really fast!"
"Quick, quick!" Upon hearing this, everyone hurriedly put away their notebooks, with the fastest already standing at attention.
Outside, Jiang Juyou, thinking she was late, quickened her pace. She strode in briskly, startling the trainees despite their mental preparation.
It seemed their fear of the chief producer was ingrained in their bones.
"Sorry, I had to deal with something and was delayed," Jiang Juyou said as she entered, scanning the practice room. She noticed the screen was on, paused on yesterday\'s performance video.
After sitting down, she pointed at the screen and asked, "Did you watch it?"
"...Yes," came voices from various corners, though they clearly lacked confidence.
Jiang Juyou didn\'t express any dissatisfaction. "Whether you watch or not is your business. The process is yours, but I only look at results. If anyone thinks they can improve without watching, they don\'t have to in the future."
She glanced at the time and continued, "...It\'s mealtime, so I\'ll be brief. You know about the elimination system starting next month, right?"
The trainees responded in unison: "Yes―"
"Good, but there\'s been a change," Jiang Juyou said, shifting gears. "We\'re going to produce a survival reality show. Only twenty-one people will survive."
After she finished, the trainees looked at each other. If they remembered correctly, there were only twenty of them.
"Over forty new people will be joining this week. Including you, there should be nearly sixty people. Do you know what you need to do before the next performance?" Jiang Juyou asked. The trainees were clearly stunned, their minds unsure whether to focus on the forty newcomers or on the question at the end.
Jiang Juyou continued: "I want to see you grow."
"Your skill levels vary. The only way to evaluate is by how much you grow in this month. Some of you started at a high level but haven\'t shown much improvement after training for so long. Others started low and may not rank high now, but have shown the most progress."
"What I want to see is that you can absorb what you learn, not just rest on your natural talents, training for months without much change."
"Filming will likely begin after the next performance. There will also be the first elimination after the performance, narrowing the number of participants to forty-nine."
Jiang Juyou was only stating the initial requirements. She continued, "The goal of the show is to select—the debut group."
"There will be twenty-one positions in the debut group. After the show ends, these twenty-one will go abroad for three months of training. When they return, we\'ll start the second round of filming to select the final debut members. Currently, I\'m thinking of a group of seven or fewer, possibly an odd or even number."
"Starting next week, your classes won\'t be held here anymore. You\'ll receive details later." As she stood up to leave, Jiang Juyou added, "Make the most of your practice time before those forty-plus people arrive."
Every time the chief producer visited, their minds and hearts were left in tatters. They had just finished a performance yesterday, saw the news of Ye Xing trending this morning, and now faced a survival competition.
Though less than 24 hours had passed, it felt like they had aged a year, an incredibly long time.
The trainees were so stunned by the news of the survival show that their brains had delayed reactions. After a while, someone finally spoke, "...We\'re done for."
Meanwhile, Jiang Juyou returned upstairs after leaving the practice room. Only after sitting down in her chair did she let out a long sigh.
She had thought of the survival show idea last night before bed, without even having time to discuss it with the department heads. However, the forty-plus new trainees joining soon was true. The New Talent Development team always submitted profiles to her when scouting trainees. She combined the profiles from a few months ago with recent ones, bringing back those young men who had been previously cut.
The task she had given the New Talent Development team was simply to find trainees, with only one condition: they had to be good-looking.
Those scouted on the streets had all come to the company to take profile photos and perform some routines. Those currently in the practice room were the ones who had been selected, while the majority of those cut were due to lack of company space, forcing them to choose only the best of the best.
Now that the practice venue was changing, it was an opportunity to give those who had been cut a chance, allowing them a month to grow and find a way to stay.
Sitting at her computer, Jiang Juyou buried herself in writing a project proposal, skipping lunch and working all day.
Producing a survival reality show would require significant investment. At first, Jiang Juyou only had the idea, not rushing to implement it. But everything changed just before she went downstairs.
A month ago, the system had unexpectedly issued four tasks. These tasks weren\'t to be completed simultaneously. Apart from the first unlocked building that gave a roulette reward, the subsequent contract-signing task didn\'t provide any rewards. It wasn\'t until the other two tasks were completed that Jiang Juyou received a reward.
"Virtual Film Studio"
"Description: A film studio that can adapt to the user\'s purpose, design, and planning. When in use, it will automatically rationalize the location and assemble a work team. Usage time is unlimited, but after use, there will be a cooldown period equal to the filming time, e.g., 3 months of filming requires 3 months of cooldown."
"Download?"
At that time, Jiang Juyou had already opened the door, ready to go downstairs, when this reward suddenly tripped her up. It took her brain three attempts to process what it meant.
It meant that if she wanted to start filming, she only needed the cast to be ready. Everything else would be handled by this app. It was—
"What a useless app. Doesn\'t Beijing have film studios? Don\'t we have production teams? Ridiculous. And it charges based on the scale of production. What scale do we need?" Jiang Juyou closed the door and thoroughly criticized the reward the system had just given.
Although she wanted to film a survival show, she could easily find a production team herself. Why use this app? Just as Jiang Juyou was about to say more, the system immediately generated a demonstration animation.
Suddenly, the sea surface was covered with yellow earth, the covered area growing larger and larger. Then mountains and forests appeared, followed by towns, even people, and finally docks and ships. It was a complete, realistic island town.
Jiang Juyou\'s mouth hung open from the moment she saw buildings rising from the ground. "...This is... magic, right?"
"Download?" The system\'s polite tone was mixed with a familiar impatience.
Snapping back to reality, Jiang Juyou blinked, her mind catching up. "Oh my... If you had given me this earlier, why would I have bothered with the entertainment industry? I could have opened a resort and made a fortune!"
The system didn\'t respond, instead asking again, "Download?" Its tone even more impatient.
"Yes, yes, yes!" Jiang Juyou said, immediately clicking download. "I was shortsighted earlier. Please forgive me, and maybe offer a discount in the future?"
The system remained silent, but that didn\'t stop Jiang Juyou from continuing, "Oh no, now I\'m not thinking about the survival show anymore, but all sorts of horror movies. It would be so interesting to set up a big escape game here. Can I create a haunted house and go in to play myself?"
"Can I please? I\'m begging you!" Jiang Juyou, a suspense and horror enthusiast, was now completely distracted from her work.
She clung to the doorknob, twisting like a pretzel, engaging in hardcore wheedling, "Do I have to pay to go in and play by myself? Just open it for a little bit, does it cost money to open it for one day?"
Jiang Juyou was prepared to be ignored, but the system suddenly spoke up, "Yes, it does."
It even startled Jiang Juyou, "You scared me to death!"
Jiang Juyou refused to admit she was startled by the system\'s sudden response, so she twisted her words, saying: "How come you charge even for one day! That\'s so heartless!"
After returning, Jiang Juyou wasn\'t much better off. While writing the survival game plan, her mind wandered, imagining how to create a grand haunted house world.
If it cost money to open for just one day, she might as well film for several days, and hopefully get to play inside herself.
"Ah..." The more Jiang Juyou\'s mind wandered, the less she wanted to work.
But without work, there would be no money.
At the mention of money, Jiang Juyou picked up her phone again.
She remembered she had concert venues in several other cities too, though they weren\'t unlocked yet.
"If I recall correctly, the seating capacity seems to differ in each city," Jiang Juyou said as she flipped through those buildings.
The capacities written on them were indeed different. The Chengdu venue could hold 3,200 people, the Shenzhen venue 5,900, and Shanghai\'s was the largest, accommodating 6,200 people: already twice the capacity of Beijing\'s venue, which had the smallest capacity.
Although the capacities varied, the unlock cost was the same for all.
Jiang Juyou quickly used the recently received two million to unlock the Shanghai venue, then immediately switched to the company\'s internal software to message the performance department.
"Head Producer: Urgent! Quickly ask if Li Nayou has booked the Shanghai show. If not, we have a venue in Shanghai!"
Over six thousand people: that could mean several million in revenue!
Jiang Juyou thought: If we act too late, the opportunity will fly away like a duck!
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I\'ll add more chapters for everyone once I\'ve saved up some more content. Right now, I really don\'t have a single drop left...
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