Chapter 107: Arrogance
[Could Deception really climb to second place tomorrow?]
[Judging by the current trend, it’s very possible. Deception now has a score of 9.4, while Eternal Night has dropped to 8.8. I even think that in a few more days, Deception might take the top spot on the daily chart.]
[…It really could happen.]
This Spring Festival film season was exceptionally crowded. Any movie that was repeatedly mentioned on film forums had to have a significant presence. A few days ago, it was Eternal Night and The Train Home dominating the discussions, but in the past day or two, Deception was being mentioned more and more frequently.
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that Lu Xu had used this opportunity to knock on the doors of the film industry.
In terms of total box office revenue, Deception was on par with When I Was a Child and couldn’t compare to Eternal Night or The Train Home. However, Deception had one major advantage—it was the only movie in the Spring Festival lineup whose box office revenue was still climbing.
That alone was enough to stir the audience’s curiosity.
Compared to other films that focused on warmth, perseverance, or pulling at the audience’s heartstrings, Deception took a different approach. Its minimal promotional efforts centered on solving puzzles, which led viewers into heated discussions. The film’s official account even dropped occasional hints to keep fans engaged.
As for the actors—during the roadshow events, the production team incorporated interactive activities that allowed the cast to engage with the audience.
Fans came away with one particularly strong impression: no matter how brilliant the characters Lu Xu played were, he himself was, in fact, a complete fool.
Of course, fans had already started to realize this during the airing of Voice of the Dead.
[Lu Xu gets punished every single time. Just how stupid is this guy?]
[I can’t stop laughing. The director told him to strike a Yan Huan pose, and everyone thought he was about to pull off something amazing. But in the end, he still got sent straight into the pit.]
[Lu Xu even complained bitterly, saying that every time he played Werewolf, no matter what role he had, he was always the first to get taken out.]
[It feels like Lu Xu was just the target of group b*llying on the Deception set.]
[Well, what can you do? Yan Huan survived till the end—of course, everyone else would be full of resentment.]
On the fourth day of its release, the well-known film critic Movie Diary published an in-depth review of Deception.
[…This is a suspense film in the style of And Then There Were None, interspersed with elements of locked rooms, adventure, and strategy. The director and screenwriter employed numerous red herrings, making the plot increasingly enigmatic. However, the storyline of Deception is anchored by one consistent thread: Shi Xinshan’s acts of retribution against criminals.
[As for Shi Xinshan’s true identity, opinions vary. It seems we’ll need to wait for the planned sequel to Deception to get a definitive answer.
[Following this main thread, the audience is led to uncover cases involving Zou Yun, Zhao Ji, Xue Xiujun… One by one, hidden crimes come to light. These cases form the flesh and blood of Deception. Each case is complex enough to sustain a full-length film, yet Deception does not drag its pace. Instead, it uses these stories to enrich its narrative.
[The structure of Deception rests on the design of its game-like sequences. Who is the creator of these games? What role does Shi Xinshan play in them? These questions remain unsolved, but as a viewer, the games themselves are already captivating enough for me—they are anything but boring. The scenes are gory and violent, effortlessly triggering a rush of adrenaline.]
The review also included several promotional stills from Deception, showing the moments when Zou Yun and others were on the brink of death.
Zou Yun represented greed, Xue Xiujun represented lust, Zhao Ji represented brutality, and Chang Qing represented malice…
They had all inflicted harm upon others and ultimately met their demise through acts of violence.
[Deception may appear chaotic at first glance, but it avoids being deliberately mystifying. Instead, it provides as much information as possible, encouraging the audience to actively piece things together. The deeper one explores, the more immersed they become in the world Deception has created.]
Movie Diary recommended that Deception attempt to break into international markets, noting that this genre of film tends to perform better overseas.
On Weibo, Movie Diary was a film critic with a substantial following. Though occasionally accused of taking sponsorship deals, his reviews were generally considered objective, which was why fans trusted him.
Movie Diary had previously watched Deception once but refrained from recommending it at the time because he hadn’t yet fully sorted out the plot.
When he reviewed Eternal Night earlier, amidst widespread praise, he subtly pointed out some of its flaws, which earned him some backlash.
Now, with the Spring Festival box office trends becoming clearer, Movie Diary’s critique of Eternal Night had proven accurate.
…
Movie Diary’s extensive review, spanning thousands of words, was read in its entirety by Zhang Che, who could not conceal his growing frustration.
The critic had written thousands of words praising Deception. Yet, when Zhang Che’s The Swordsman was released, fans had asked Movie Diary to share his thoughts. The critic had outright refused, dismissively responding: [You’re asking me to review a movie like this? Do you have a grudge against me? Please spare me!]
That comment had turned into a long-running joke in the film industry—“If you hate someone, make them watch The Swordsman.” From a certain perspective, Movie Diary had played a role in the film’s disastrous flop.
The very thought of this made Zhang Che grind his teeth in anger.
It wasn’t just The Swordsman’s failure that stung. The fact that Deception had succeeded at a time when it wasn’t supposed to—unexpectedly surging in popularity—felt like a blade twisting in his gut, over and over again.
Movie Diary did have a real influence on box office performance. Even without mentioning his massive following, a quick search for Deception brought his review up on trending lists.
Zhang Che even suspected that Deception’s box office had spiked shortly after Movie Diary published the review.
“Can it happen that fast? Don’t give these critics too much credit,” his manager said softly, trying to calm him down.
Lately, nothing was going right for Zhang Che, and it was clear he was becoming obsessive.
“So what if Lu Xu is popular? Let him have his moment. Just focus on your own career,” the manager suggested.
But Zhang Che couldn’t take the advice to heart. With so much idle time on his hands lately, he had been visibly lacking motivation.
In the past, when Zhang Che acted dejected, it was at least partly for show. Now, it was completely genuine.
Even when he stayed up late posting on Weibo or randomly joined group chats unannounced, fewer than a third of his fans bothered to respond anymore.
For a celebrity, fans were important, but tangible achievements mattered even more. If the accomplishments were strong enough, fans would naturally flock to them.
When Lu Xu first took on My Baby Prince, his situation was far worse than Zhang Che’s current one. Back then, he barely had any fans; the entertainment industry was filled with his haters. Yet, he managed to claw his way out of the abyss.
Lu Xu’s looks were undeniably top-tier among male stars today. Many claimed he rose back up on his appearance alone. But in truth, his comeback was built on one solid performance after another, earning the audience’s trust over time.
Everyone agreed: if anyone else had been cast in Deception, the outcome would have been entirely different.
The manager glanced at the screen Zhang Che was staring at—the day’s box office rankings. The gap between Eternal Night and Deception was 960,000 yuan.
It was only 11 a.m.
The final result was already set in stone.
The key detail lay in the fact that, on the fifth day of the Spring Festival film season, Eternal Night still had a 20.7% screening share, while Deception had only 14%. Perhaps due to its unique genre, theaters had been cautious about allocating screens to Deception.
But in reality, Deception had already won.
Refreshing the box office data even slightly would show fluctuations in real-time. Before long, Deception overtook Eternal Night. In this fiercely competitive Spring Festival season, a film with a mere 70 million yuan opening day box office managed to defeat a rival with six times its earnings.
No one had seen this coming.
[A double Best Actor lineup, yet in the end, it couldn’t outperform Deception. Unbelievable.]
[Deception isn’t that bad, okay? Yue Hui is also a Best Actor, and Lu Xu just won the Stellar Award for Best Actor.]
[…Is Deception’s box office going to surpass yesterday’s numbers again today? This is insane. If it does, all its competitors this season are going to lose their minds.]
[I’ve got a profitability chart here. Guess how many films from this year’s Spring Festival season have broken even so far? You’ll never believe it.]
[Only two so far—The Train Home is close, but Eternal Night hasn’t yet. Its initial investment was just too high.]
On the single-day box office rankings, Deception was trailing only slightly behind The Train Home.
As of the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, Deception’s total box office had reached 621 million yuan. Its production costs had long been recouped, and thanks to its excellent word-of-mouth, the marketing expenses for the film had been kept to a minimum.
While the theater revenue shares had yet to be distributed, Lu Xu understood one thing very clearly: if he had taken a standard actor’s fee, his earnings wouldn’t even come close to what he was making now.
With a long run still ahead before it left theaters, Deception was already pulling in over 100 million yuan daily, cementing its position as the most unignorable film of the season.
If Deception had been a conventional film, its trajectory might have been easier to predict. However, Deception refused to follow the usual path.
To be honest, even though Lu Xu was one of the film’s lead actors, he couldn’t predict its future box office performance. For everyone involved, from the director to the cast, Deception had always been regarded as a low-budget, ordinary suspense film.
After one week in theaters, Deception surpassed 800 million yuan in earnings. A marketing account published an article titled ‘Lu Xu Officially Takes a Seat at the Table’, which analyzed the current crop of young male actors who had managed to establish themselves in the film industry.
Lu Xu was prominently featured in the lineup. He was one of the few young actors who had transitioned from the TV drama scene into films and achieved notable success. Most of the current rising stars in the movie industry had been groomed within the film sector from the very beginning, never having appeared in TV dramas.
It was hard to classify them as true A-listers. While their box office results were solid, their commercial value remained average, falling far short of Lu Xu, whose fanbase significantly bolstered his marketability.
But when compared to someone like Lu Xu—who had jumped from idol dramas to TV dramas and then to films—they were considered far more “prestigious.”
[One Deception doesn’t prove anything. Has Lu Xu ever starred in a movie that grossed over 5 billion yuan?]
[Qi Di only had a supporting role in Do You Know?, but even supporting roles count towards box office performance. Isn’t Lu Xu just the second male lead in Deception? What’s there to be so arrogant about?]
[Popularity ≠ box office potential, FYI. Lu Xu should focus on refining his craft. Forget everything else—he hasn’t even been invited to star in any high-budget productions yet. Deception’s total box office definitely won’t exceed 2 billion yuan, and it won’t even make the top 50 in domestic box office rankings. Nothing to brag about here.]
At this moment, Lu Xu was calmly reading the reports while simultaneously reviewing a film script that had just been handed to him.
The success of Deception triggered a chain reaction: both Lu Xu and Yue Hui received thick stacks of film scripts.
As a fellow Best Actor winner, Yue Hui’s presence in the industry wasn’t as pronounced as the two leads from Eternal Night, primarily because his box office track record wasn’t as strong.
Yue Hui held a greater edge when it came to awards, boasting an impressive portfolio of accolades. However, his commercial appeal had always been somewhat lackluster.
While Deception wasn’t enough to fully compensate for Yue Hui’s shortcomings in the commercial arena, everyone in the industry understood that Deception was Yue Hui’s project from the start. Without him, the film might never have come to fruition.
Naturally, many low-budget films began targeting Yue Hui for collaborations.
Meanwhile, Lu Xu received offers from both low-budget and big-budget productions. Unfortunately, while the roles in low-budget films seemed well-crafted, the parts he was offered in larger productions were uninspired—they only intended to cast him as a bland, decorative figure.
These roles offered limited room for artistic expression, only slightly better than what he had experienced in The Swordsman. But…
Could those even be called films?
After exploring a few so-called “master directors” and “grand productions,” Lu Xu couldn’t help but feel disappointed. These veteran directors, late in their careers, seemed to be self-destructing with increasing intensity.
Couldn’t they leave something beautiful in the minds of their audience?
Was being a father to their own children not enough? Did they have to play father to their audiences too?
If, perhaps, they still had the drive of their younger years and dared to conquer international markets as “fathers to the world,” Lu Xu might have had more respect for them.
“Fathers for all, and global unity,” he mused sarcastically.
In Lu Xu’s view, while these directors’ technical skills remained intact, their outdated ideas were dragging them down. They were trying to impose decades-old mindsets onto modern stories. The narratives were technically coherent, but audiences found them increasingly awkward and out of touch.
Slumping into his chair, Lu Xu groaned, “Is there really no halfway decent script out there?”
“The film industry is different,” Xu Wen said, looking at Lu Xu. “Even if there are good projects, people will hide them away, preferring to promote their own newcomers rather than give you a shot.”
Unless Lu Xu actively aligned himself with the right circles, even with Deception’s achievements in hand, he would need to show ample respect and maintain enough humility.
It was like Eternal Night and The Train Home: although Eternal Night’s box office performance fell far short of expectations, whether a film flopped or succeeded, it remained an internal matter within the film industry.
But Deception’s success was different.
It had barged in uninvited, digging out over 800 million from the Spring Festival box office pool, with the potential to claim over 1 billion more.
If Deception hadn’t diverted that share, it might have gone to Eternal Night or The Train Home.
This was part of why the film industry had been gradually declining in recent years—it allowed outsiders to invest but was unwilling to let them profit.
As a result, anyone entering the film industry on a whim often ended up taking a massive financial hit.
Yet, directors within the industry still blamed the lack of audience support or claimed that domestic cinema was in a downturn.
The truth was, there had been periods of brilliance.
But during those times, audiences’ experiences were nearly ignored. While a few quality films had emerged, the problems that arose far outweighed the achievements.
Lu Xu could only sigh silently. “No wonder they’re so arrogant.”
Contrary to what many in the industry might think, Lu Xu wasn’t entirely focused on breaking into the film world.
If a suitable movie script came along, he was happy to take it. That was it. He wasn’t going to give up television dramas entirely, nor would he rest on his laurels just because he had won the Stellar Award.
If a script piqued his interest, he would accept it. Simple as that.
The film industry might have sat high on its pedestal, but he was an actor, and his responsibility was only to the audience.
Lu Xu even found it irritating.
He couldn’t understand—what exactly were these so-called film industry elites being so arrogant about, with all those nonsensical scripts?
They all deserved to be scrapped.
Lu Xu had sifted through scripts for a long time. Even after Deception’s box office exceeded 1 billion, he still hadn’t found a suitable script he wanted to act in.
The media, however, seemed eager to spread rumors about him being courted by various productions. One moment, it was a claim that renowned director A had invited him to collaborate; the next, it was director B. Yet, when Xu Wen specifically inquired, the responses were vague, with the other side merely saying they hadn’t received any official news.
“They’re just toying with you,” Xu Wen remarked. “Instead of working with those people, it’d be better to focus on new directors’ works.”
The manager, slightly out of breath, hauled in a stack of scripts. “Here are some TV scripts too. Take your time—read through them carefully and choose. There’s no rush.”
In just over a month, Lu Xu had already won the Stellar Award for Best Actor, and his film had grossed over 1 billion. He still couldn’t understand the arrogance of those in the film industry.
To his manager, Lu Xu absolutely had the right to be selective.
