Chapter 31: Teaser

Mu Qian had worked with the script of Rising Sun before; he had even directed part of the production himself. Therefore, he knew very well that the teaser released for Rising Sun did not align with the original intent behind Jin Mu’s creation of the script.

They hadn’t even used the original voice recordings…

Mu Qian was quite familiar with Gu Sinian’s voice. Although his breath control was somewhat weaker than that of most actors, it wasn’t so poor as to render it completely unusable.

He couldn’t understand—why not use the original voice?

When the voice didn’t belong to the actor, and it appeared alongside Gu Sinian’s indifferent expression, the sense of discord in the teaser became even more jarring to him.

Mu Qian couldn’t hold back and dialed his friend’s number.

His friend, however, was completely unaware of anything happening outside the set.

“They promised me they would respect my opinions and the script,” Jin Mu sighed. “But I’ve had no say in the editing process at all.”

When Mu Qian had still been with the crew, whether it was in shooting specific scenes or guiding the actors’ performances, the team had shown considerable respect for his input as the screenwriter.

Though the team had appeared strong-willed, their assertiveness had been reserved for areas where a director’s authority was warranted. When it came to the script, the screenwriter, or even actors who could perfectly embody their roles, Mu Qian had always been accorded proper respect.

The new director, Xiao Bo, was different. On the surface, he showed respect, but he had never once adopted any of Mu Qian’s suggestions.

While it was true that editing rights belonged to the director, ever since the production of Rising Sun had wrapped, Mu Qian, as the screenwriter, felt as though he had been set aside. He had no idea what the episodes looked like after editing.

Rising Sun was, after all, his labor of love.

Jin Mu said, “If I had known this, I would have waited a little longer.”

But Jin Mu knew very well that if given another chance, he might still make the same choice—he had always longed to see Rising Sun adapted into a drama.

The process of taking a script from being selected by investors, to assembling a production team, to finally airing on television, was incredibly lengthy. Missing one opportunity didn’t guarantee another would come along.

This was also why, despite his dissatisfaction with Gu Sinian, he had still agreed to collaborate with Lin Ge Entertainment.

Mu Qian didn’t know how to console his friend. All he could do was sigh silently over the phone.

Although Mu Qian wasn’t satisfied with the teaser for Rising Sun, he couldn’t stop Lin Ge Entertainment and Grape Film from heavily promoting the drama.

Lin Ge Entertainment had purchased over ten trending hashtags for Gu Sinian on Weibo, strategically releasing them at different times:

#Gu Sinian Improved His Acting Skills

#Gu Sinian’s Breakthrough Was Instantaneous

#The Art Of Performance With Gu Sinian

Grape Film, on the other hand, focused on emphasizing the drama’s emotional appeal. Images of young patriots committing to their country and writing their aspirations under the dim glow of kerosene lamps became iconic:

#Another Masterpiece Like Torchlight

#Passion That Never Dies

Torchlight and Rising Sun shared similar themes. The former, which aired a decade earlier, was a classic that told the story of a group of young individuals who planted seeds of idealism in their hearts during their prime. Over the following decades, they devoted themselves to the cause of human liberation, building dreams with their lives.

Torchlight had broken viewership records for its time and won numerous prestigious awards. Its success had proven to the industry that dramas of this kind could achieve great things.

Although similar productions had aired in the years since, none had achieved the same level of success.

The phenomenon of Torchlight’s explosive popularity was largely seen as a fluke. The production team had neither renowned directors nor star actors, and the filming budget was modest. However, the director and screenwriter had devoted great effort to refining the script, and the actors had gone to great lengths to prepare for their roles.

Subsequent productions, however, had blatantly prioritized “profit” over quality. With production teams showing little concern for craftsmanship, how could such works ever move audiences?

Seeing Rising Sun comparing itself to Torchlight only darkened Mu Qian’s expression further.

He couldn’t understand why Grape Film was so enamored with this kind of exaggerated marketing.

With this level of quality… comparing it to Torchlight?

Do they really think the audience is blind?

Yet, under the trending hashtag #Another Masterpiece Like Torchlight, all Mu Qian saw were waves of enthusiastic comments:

[Gu Sinian is so handsome!!

[I told you Gu Sinian’s acting isn’t that bad. The role in The Watchers just didn’t suit him. Plus, he was a newbie back then with no experience, so it’s normal for his performance to be lacking.]

[+1. It was totally Lin Ge Entertainment’s fault for forcing that role on him, and he got unfairly criticized because of it.]

[Can’t wait for Rising Sun! Wishing it a massive hit!]

[Lately, only shows like My Baby Prince have been popular, and I was starting to worry about the audience’s taste. Thankfully, Rising Sun seems like a proper drama—so touching!]

[This time, Rising Sun is up against Cloud Film’s Son of Heaven. Have you seen the teaser for Son of Heaven? Umm… its leads are just a bunch of unknown old guys.]

[Who’s going to carry that drama? The most famous person in Son of Heaven is Cheng Yun, right? But even when he was young, he couldn’t lead a show, and now that he’s older, barely anyone remembers him.]

[Isn’t there also that one actor? The one who got a little buzz from My Baby Prince? Now Son of Heaven is banking on him to make it big too, huh. Tsk.]

If not for reading the comments, Mu Qian wouldn’t have known that Son of Heaven had also released its teaser early.

Both dramas were set to air in the same time slot, and their quality was yet to be determined. Mu Qian couldn’t fathom the overly optimistic attitude of Gu Sinian’s fans.

Son of Heaven was, after all, the project Lu Xu had taken on after being rejected by the production team of Rising Sun. This made Mu Qian quite curious about its quality.

For some reason, he had a vague premonition that any project chosen by Lu Xu wouldn’t be too subpar.

Generally speaking, actors with outstanding skills had a knack for selecting good scripts. After all, only a script of sufficient quality could allow their performances to truly shine.

Actors with the ability to interpret scripts often excelled at picking the ones that suited them best from a pool of choices.

A quick search of the keywords brought up the teaser for Son of Heaven before Mu Qian’s eyes.

It was slightly longer than the teaser for Rising Sun, running just over two minutes.

The opening scene was a dimly lit palace, with endless bas-reliefs and long staircases stretching toward the azure sky, their true end almost invisible.

Above the palace, a cunning chancellor wielded political power to eliminate his enemies one by one. His face radiated triumph, as though no one in the world could stand in his way—save for the slightly weary emperor seated on the throne.

But in the next shot, the once-glorious chancellor had fallen, now a prisoner awaiting execution. Before his death, he cried out to the emperor, recounting all he had done for the empire.

The emperor’s eyes were cold and indifferent as he replied, “This is my realm.”

Not yours.

Beyond the borders, thousands of miles away, foreign enemies invaded. The snowy mountains and barren deserts loomed as blood filled the eyes of young soldiers.

“Men, once we win this battle, we’ll finally go home!”

Galloping horses and soldiers surged forward like waves, their charge bathed in blood. Ultimately, they became corpses, their bodies nourishing the grasslands when spring returned.

Most of them never made it back home.

The emperor, usually unreadable in his emotions, could not stop tears from welling in his eyes when he heard the news.

“They fought this battle so there would be no more wars, and peace would reign at the borders for decades.”

“This debt of gratitude—I will remember.”

The next shot featured the crown prince, gazing at his father with admiration in his youthful eyes.

“How could we trouble Father with such trivial matters when he reigns over the four seas?”

“Even as the crown prince, I should not burden Father with too much worry.”

But years later, the once-timid yet sincere young man had transformed. His gaze toward the emperor was now filled with icy disdain, and his words, sharp as blades, stabbed mercilessly at his father:

“You wanted a weak and useless crown prince—a failure. As long as he exists, your other sons won’t slaughter each other!”

Each word pierced like an arrow to the heart.

It was a long time before Mu Qian finally removed his finger from the screen.

Somehow, in just a brief two-minute teaser, he had silently pronounced Rising Sun’s doom.

Although Gu Sinian’s scenes in Rising Sun weren’t many, if you isolated them and compared them to Cheng Yun’s performance in Son of Heaven, the gap was staggering—almost as if they weren’t on the same level.

Cheng Yun was too seasoned!

Even through the screen, Mu Qian could feel the aura of the emperor—a ruler in every sense of the word.

But what shocked Mu Qian the most was Lu Xu, who didn’t even appear until halfway through the teaser.

Mu Qian had worked with Cheng Yun and Guo Yining before, and their acting prowess needed no further acknowledgment. But Lu Xu…

To be honest, it wasn’t until his second viewing of the teaser that Mu Qian realized the younger and older versions of the crown prince were played by the same actor.

Perhaps it was the contrasting costumes and styling, but the transformation between the timid youth and the hardened crown prince was astonishing.

And then there was that later scene, where Lu Xu’s explosive confrontation with the emperor took place. Even without mentioning the raw power of that moment, his portrayal of the crown prince’s evolution alone was enough to leave one stunned by his range as an actor.

What’s more, in that scene, the crown prince, played by Lu Xu, went toe-to-toe with Cheng Yun’s emperor without the slightest sign of being overshadowed. His acting had improved dramatically compared to his audition for Rising Sun!

The teaser for Son of Heaven left a far stronger impression on Mu Qian than Rising Sun.

Although Son of Heaven didn’t feature any major stars, it was often the case that a high-quality production created stars rather than stars making a production successful.

Meanwhile, Grape Film continued to spare no effort in marketing Rising Sun. Among the dramas slated for release in February, it had undoubtedly garnered the most attention.

Yet, Mu Qian couldn’t shake the image of Emperor Cheng’s gaze in the final shot of Son of Heaven teaser—a gaze filled with profound loneliness from someone who stood at the pinnacle of power.

This was the longest-reigning emperor in history. As he grew old, those who had competed with him for the throne in his youth were long gone. The ones who died young lingered in his memory, while the others inevitably succumbed to greed and ambition, losing their true selves and ultimately meeting their end at his hands.

The generals who had always guarded him were gone, as were the soldiers who could protect the nation. The younger soldiers who now served were too unfamiliar, too youthful—they made him feel as though he should have entered the grave long ago.

His sons, as expected, were embroiled in bitter conflicts. Ruthless, like his younger self, they reminded him of the eldest son who had once cried out in anguish.

That boy had said he wished he hadn’t been born into the imperial family. Perhaps now he had been reincarnated into a better life.

Mu Qian was deeply moved by Cheng Yun’s gaze in that scene.

As a friend of Jin Mu, the former director and screenwriter of Rising Sun, Mu Qian naturally paid attention to the popularity of February’s dramas.

It so happened that Rising Sun and Son of Heaven premiered on the same day.

Cloud Film had put a lot of effort into promoting Son of Heaven, but the issue was that actors like Cheng Yun and Guo Yining were too old and lacked mainstream popularity. Lu Xu, on the other hand, had garnered a fair amount of buzz, but the problem was that his character, Crown Prince Qin Zhao, wouldn’t appear until later episodes.

As a result, on its first day, Rising Sun far outshone Son of Heaven in terms of buzz.

Mu Qian ended up following both dramas.

The moment Mu Qian saw the finished version of Rising Sun, he felt a slight sense of relief. At the very least, Xiao Bo had followed Jin Mu’s original work without making major changes, and the plot logic held up reasonably well.

What dissatisfied him, however, were several aspects. The main characters carried too much of a “delicate, powdered” aesthetic, and the overall tone leaned too close to an idol drama.

And then there was the dubbing.

The dubbing was a major failure.

As for Son of Heaven…

It opened with a stormy court session. At this point, the powerful chancellor had yet to dominate the imperial court entirely. Instead, he launched an attack on his rival over an old Ministry of Personnel case. The back-and-forth between the chancellor and the Minister of Personnel painted a web of hidden intrigue, every word dripping with layered meaning.

Who doesn’t love watching wily old foxes spar?

After all, the court was also a battlefield.

At first, Rising Sun seemed decent. But when compared side by side with Son of Heaven, its flaws became glaringly obvious.

The common issue of slow pacing in historical dramas was nowhere to be found in Son of Heaven. And when it came to acting… it was a merciless, barefaced domination.

While Rising Sun’s script focused on youthful aspirations and passion, the execution in the drama left this element feeling somewhat weak and underwhelming.

No sooner had Mu Qian finished reflecting on this than he opened Weibo, only to be bombarded by comments praising Gu Sinian’s acting:

[What an improvement!!!]

[Gu Sinian was born to act!]

[A great actor paired with a script that suits him—it’s a mutual triumph!!]

Mu Qian: “…”

What exactly was triumphant here?

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