Chapter 163: The Big One Is Coming
This was the final scene of the movie’s climax, and also the core of the entire story.
After that, the plot progressed quickly.
He Miao returned to the real world. No one knew that he had once struggled countless times for his own existence in a virtual world.
He was still the same ‘problem student’ in the eyes of teachers, neighbors, and everyone around him. The only difference was that he fought less and was rarely late anymore. His grades were still like a fish stuck in place, but at least now, they gave a few flops.
Time passed, second by second. Unexpectedly, He Miao ended up getting into a second-tier university in the college entrance exam. Although he barely made the cut, it was still good enough for him to proudly show off his admission letter to his grandparents.
He left the place he once loathed with all his heart and moved to a nearby big city.
He walked through a sunlit college campus, studied a major he actually liked, occasionally played games at internet cafes, and used the prize money to help out at home. Before long, a professional team noticed his talent and invited him to a trial.
At this point, the story finally came to a close.
The brave young man had once been trapped in the mud, but through a fantastical experience, he came to understand himself. Whether it was his college entrance exam results or his new beginning as a pro gamer, everything in his past had shaped his present. It made sense, it was realistic—and of course, full of hope.
This ending was also a great fit for the Chinese New Year movie season. By now, people finally understood what Xi Zhao meant when he said, “This movie is perfect for the New Year.”
A happy ending, grand and dazzling scenes, and…
Well.
All those crackling, firecracker-level sound effects.
Oh, right.
That familiar die belonging to Xie Xizhao—a fan favorite—dutifully played the comic relief. It was the chirpy little guide fairy that helped He Miao along the way, constantly chattering as he fought his battles. Only at the very end did it reveal its true form: a glowing green die, slumping listlessly to the ground.
A perfect fit in terms of physics.
Snapping back to reality, everyone in the audience couldn’t help but feel a bit amused.
But more than anything, they felt moved.
As the movie ended, people began to file out of the theater.
Xie Xizhao walked at the tail end of the crowd, tugging the brim of his cap lower.
Just before exiting, he turned back to glance at the screen. The credits had just reached the end, where one final line had been added:
“This film is also dedicated to my best friend. I hope that after all his hardships, happiness and peace will follow him for the rest of his life.”
Xie Xizhao paused for a moment, then let out a small, helpless smile and walked out the door.
—
Almost the moment Xie Xizhao stepped outside, he was swarmed by fans who had come after hearing he was there.
He had, in fact, mentally prepared himself for this before leaving. After all, when the lights came on during the end credits, he hadn’t been paying attention—he was sipping water with his mask pulled down, and the guy from the couple next to him had glanced at him…
He held it in. He thought.
He signed a few autographs and, under the guidance of the cinema’s security, exited through the back door.
Opening WeChat, he found his messages had exploded.
That same friend who had previously mocked him for not booking out his own movie theater had now spammed him with a dozen messages. Xie Xizhao glanced over them and caught a few of the most down-to-earth, classic exclamations from a Chinese friend:
[Holy shit. That was insane…]
And so on.
He typed back: [It’s the first day of the New Year and you’re not even celebrating—paid your own way to watch my movie’s premiere. You must really love me.]
The reply: “…”
“Heh :）”
A moment later, the friend sent a screenshot over.
They had posted about him on Weibo.
The caption read: [Any of Xie Xizhao’s fans here? 😊 Can y’all keep him in check, please 😊]
Joking aside, the point of that Weibo post was clearly to help promote his new movie. Xie Xizhao shared it with a quick comment, and—boom—instantly racked up a wave of likes and comments.
Right before locking his phone, he took a peek—just as expected, the movie had already landed five trending topics.
Three were about the plot—purely movie-related. One was about that suspiciously sentimental line at the end. And the last one?
#The Player No Post-credit Scene
He tapped in. The top trending post was from a film blogger:
[AAAAA it was amazing! So intense! I cried TT. Not sure why, but I felt like I saw a shadow of XXZ himself in the main character—am I imagining things?! Also maybe I’ve been brainwashed by all the promotion, but I kept watching with this weird anxiety, totally expecting a twist at the end like ‘it was all a dream’ or ‘just an illusion’ haha. Xuan Yang, you’ve done too many shady things…]
[LOL same, totally felt like something he’d pull.jpg]
[It was very Xuan Yang, tbh—gorgeous and surreal. But honestly, no twist was the right call. I left feeling super inspired. It was like a beautiful fairytale.]
[Agreed +1. The heart of it was really in that whole resistance arc. No twist needed, and it’s Chinese New Year—come on, what’s better than a big, loud, happy ending? Just watched it and already want to go for round two TT]
[Haha I’m on a different page from y’all—I saw that one sentimental line and immediately thought, ‘Yep, this whole movie was totally inspired by XXZ’s real life.’ I even wondered if sister-in-law might’ve been sweet enough to slip in a twist ending just for him, like he wakes up from a coma at the end after a car crash or something. Kkk. Okay, I’m just rambling now. Wishing both of you a box office smash!]
Reading that last comment, Xie Xizhao couldn’t help but let out a laugh. Then he clicked off his screen, slid his phone into his pocket, and moved on.
—
Funny thing is, that last comment? By pure coincidence, they actually got half of it right.
Because originally, the movie did have a post-credit scene.
And yes—it was related to Xie Xizhao.
It featured those clips he filmed in the hospital bed, the ones where he had to overcome his psychological hurdles just to shoot.
In the earliest version of the script, there were supposed to be three worlds: the real world, the dream world, and the game world.
In that version, He Miao got into a car accident in the real world. While in a coma, he dreams of another version of himself—one who enters the game world. There, he fights, grows, and finally finds peace with who he is. Then he wakes up in the real world, takes that whole dreamlike journey, and turns it into a novel.
And thus, The Player is born.
That version of the story came after a deep conversation between Xuan Yang and Xie Xizhao. Xuan Yang really had wanted to link Xie Xizhao with He Miao somehow—take that intense battle of consciousness he had gone through, and weave it in as a hidden thread in the movie.
But even after filming it a bunch of times, he just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
So in the final cut, Xie Xizhao made the call to cut the post-credit scene entirely.
Xuan Yang had a hard time wrapping his head around it at first. Xie Xizhao eventually explained:
“If you’re trying to say something just for the sake of saying it, it usually ends up feeling forced. Whether it’s a drama or a movie, at the end of the day, the most important thing is just telling a good story.”
His experiences happened to align with the film—
But that alignment was at the core, the spirit of it.
In reality, aside from the shared will to survive, He Miao’s personality, his journey, even the content of the game—none of it matched Xie Xizhao’s own life. Forcing the two together would’ve just made the story feel fragmented.
And besides, this wasn’t like Tao Yan’s Summer.
In Tao Yan’s Summer, the line between dream and reality was clear—it was the harshness of real life versus the fantasy of imagination. The open-ended finale gave logical viewers a glimmer of hope, while offering the more sentimental ones a fairytale.
But The Player was different.
In this story, most viewers wanted He Miao’s journey to be real.
Even if it was “just” a movie plot, the fact that it existed within the movie was enough to bring comfort to some people. But if the whole story had ultimately been framed as just a fictional novel inside the film, it would’ve left people with an unshakable sense of disappointment.
Simply put: a twist wasn’t necessary.
Forcing a twist just for the sake of one? That’s how you ruin a good thing.
Xuan Yang had thought he’d already graduated from that lesson.
Xie Xizhao gave him one more class.
And honestly? He was right.
Even with its more traditional happy ending, the film’s premiere still kicked off an explosion of conversation.
First up: family.
At its core, The Player is about He Miao’s growth.
But it’s not just about his growth.
He represents something bigger.
He’s a textbook case of a “left-behind” child—or more accurately, one abandoned by his parents entirely. He grew up in a rough environment. And what’s more—he wasn’t alone in that.
There are many kids just like him.
They grow up in areas with poor educational resources, under tough conditions, with little or no parental care.
One netizen commented:
[It’s amazing he made it out. Same with my hometown—any young person with even a hint of ambition is fighting like hell to get out. But I also totally get why He Miao would fall into that pit in the beginning. Environment really does shape people.]
[Yeah, yeah, let’s not even talk about that kind of environment anymore. The atmosphere at a top-tier high school is totally different from anywhere else. For a teenager going through puberty to stay strong and independent in a place like that? That’s really tough. So honestly, Miao Miao is incredible just for that.]
Next up in the conversation: the line between virtual and real.
The movie presents a choice—stay in the virtual game world and become part of a utopia, gaining a kind of fake immortality, or return to the real world and face life head-on. Naturally, that sparked a huge debate online.
And on this point, some fans discovered a little hidden “Easter egg” in the film:
The movie doesn’t actually take sides.
At first glance, it seems like Xuan Yang ditched his usual open-ended style. But even here, he left space for the audience to decide.
Both choices in the film come with pros and cons. And even though the main character, He Miao, ultimately chooses reality, the film never paints the other option as wrong or inferior. The NPCs in the virtual world are calm, self-aware, and never shown regretting their decisions or turning evil.
[Yep, you can tell Xuan Yang’s from our generation, lol. He’s basically like: ‘Uhh… I don’t really know which one’s right either. Y’all figure it out.’]
[Honestly, I love that. Everyone can take away their own version of the truth from the film. It’s not some black-and-white, moral high-ground kind of thing. Doesn’t need to be ‘I’m right, you’re wrong.’ Props to young directors for that.]
[Correction: props to our indecisive, introverted young director with choice paralysis, lolol.]
…
Of course, out of all the conversations happening, the one that came up the most often was still about He Miao.
And about Xie Xizhao himself.
Xuan Yang’s dedication to that character made a lot of people connect the dots—seeing parts of Xie Xizhao in He Miao. And honestly, even without the accident, there’s always been that same quiet resilience in both of them.
That resilience was what made so many people fall for Xie Xizhao back then.
And now, it’s what made He Miao feel like a fully fleshed-out, living, breathing character on screen.
He Miao was lonely—but he was also brave.
The game world stripped away all the noise and chaos, laying bare the rare and beautiful part of his spirit that had been buried deep in the mud. And that purity—that was what moved so many people.
Whether it was casual viewers or longtime fans, everyone was touched by this character. Overnight, the internet exploded with mini-essays about the plot and deep dives into character analysis. Within hours of the premiere, The Player had already taken over social media, even people’s WeChat Moments.
In just two days, The Player shot to the trending charts on nearly every major platform.
To audiences, they had just witnessed another film worth standing up and cheering for.
But for the production team behind the movie, all those moments of joy and emotion had already wrapped up the moment filming ended.
Now that the film was out, there was only one thing left on their minds:
The numbers.
Because of scheduling limits, The Player had barely scraped into third place in terms of presale box office. That ranking had once been fuel for the flames of online mockery aimed at Xie Xizhao.
Two days after the premiere, the mockery had quieted down a lot—but the ranking still hadn’t budged.
However, the old-timers in the entertainment biz—those with a keen sense for box office trends—had already picked up on something in the air. A shift. A storm on the horizon.
Especially as The Player’s word-of-mouth buzz continued to build.
That afternoon, a well-known film forum posted its daily box office gossip thread as usual. But this time, the title had changed to:
[Ready or not, the big one’s coming.]
