Chapter 172.1: Heading to K Corp
Everyone: “!”
Translation — What kind of garbage is this?
It hit the nail on the head instantly!
But—what a savage comment!
As soon as the words left his mouth, the room fell into a deathly silence.
Everyone’s gaze instinctively turned to the center of the crowd—where Shen Xiu stood, surrounded yet with no one daring to get too close—and to Yu Shaoyuan beside him.
Yu Shaoyuan’s face turned from pale to green, like a Sichuan opera face-change.
His lips were trembling with rage, his complexion a sickly green. But when he saw Shen Xiu’s cold, sharp profile, he simply couldn’t summon the courage that Shen Xiu had displayed earlier when arguing with their team leader.
Since even Yu Shaoyuan was silenced, the rest of his team naturally didn’t dare make a sound. They glanced at Yu Shaoyuan awkwardly, waiting for him to speak.
Team leader: “…”
Jin Can: “…”
Seeing Yu Shaoyuan and his subordinates so thoroughly humiliated, the two people standing beside Shen Xiu exchanged a glance, doing their utmost to suppress the corners of their mouths from lifting into wide grins.
Goodness—no wonder he’s called the Demon King Xiu!
If it had been them saying something that blunt and ruthless, they probably would’ve gotten into a full-blown fight with the hired VFX team on the spot.
Veterans love picking on the weak, but this time? They kicked a steel plate.
Shen Xiu’s gaze fell back on the visual that had confused him. After he made his comment and no one responded, he frowned slightly, thinking he hadn’t made himself clear. He reluctantly tore his gaze from the computer screen and turned to Yu Shaoyuan, who was supposed to answer him.
Yu Shaoyuan’s palms were sweating from nerves as he racked his brain for something—anything—that could satisfy this terrifying Buddha he dared not offend.
But before he could think of anything, Shen Xiu’s cold and indifferent gaze landed on him once again.
“!”
He’s—he’s about to speak again?!
Yu Shaoyuan swallowed hard with difficulty.
Out of courtesy, Shen Xiu forced himself to meet Yu Shaoyuan’s eyes and spoke again: “I’m asking you—what is this thing?”
Yu Shaoyuan: “……”
It was already bad enough being verbally flayed once, but why did he have to be dragged out and whipped a second time?
For some reason, he was having the sudden urge to die.
He knew they had been sloppy, but this was just how VFX worked in the domestic industry. Based on Shen Xiu’s description and reference images, what they delivered actually wasn’t that bad compared to how they usually handled other productions.
Seeing Yu Shaoyuan still silent, Shen Xiu’s brows furrowed even more as he questioned,
“Is there something wrong with your ears? Hm?”
“!”
Fatal blow!
Upon hearing that, everyone around them sharply sucked in a breath.
As expected of the Demon King Xiu—not just sharp-tongued, but lethally so. Just three short sentences, and the entire crowd silently wept for Yu Shaoyuan.
Yu Shaoyuan’s expression turned even uglier, yet under Shen Xiu’s cold, piercing gaze, he couldn’t summon even a shred of courage to talk back.
Shen Xiu: “……”
Three questions in a row—and not a single reply.
Shen Xiu didn’t know if Yu Shaoyuan was embarrassed, but he certainly was. It felt like he was performing a one-man stand-up routine, and his toes were curling from secondhand embarrassment hard enough to dig up a villa.
Those three sentences had already drained all his social battery. Shen Xiu locked eyes with Yu Shaoyuan, deciding he wouldn’t speak again until he did.
One-man monologues? Absolutely not.
Everyone watched as Shen Xiu’s frosty gaze bore into Yu Shaoyuan, his thin lips tightly pressed together, looking like he might explode any second. The atmosphere grew even more suffocating—so quiet that even breathing felt like a death sentence.
Yu Shaoyuan’s mind was in chaos under Shen Xiu’s piercing gaze. Feeling guilty, he wanted to brush Shen Xiu off, but didn’t dare—not when he feared Shen Xiu would get even angrier and say something even more cutting.
Suddenly, Yu Shaoyuan caught sight of another image on a different computer screen. In a moment of desperation, it felt like he had glimpsed a ray of hope. He raised his hand and pointed at it, his voice trembling as he spoke.
“D-Director Shen, I’m sorry, but i-it’s really not that we’re trying to be sloppy. Getting it to look like this already took a lot of work. Actual modeling and rendering isn’t as simple as drawing. Trying to replicate the artwork you had someone illustrate—it’s just too hard.”
“Really. I’ve worked in this field for years, and it’s always like this. If you don’t believe me, have the illustrator who drew that concept art try making it himself. I guarantee he wouldn’t be able to pull it off either! He was just enjoying the drawing process and didn’t consider the technical limitations of VFX at all.”
At this point, Yu Shaoyuan had given up trying to save face.
Since he couldn’t shift the blame onto New Life’s original author—that is, Shen Xiu himself, who provided the detailed text descriptions—the only one left to blame was the concept artist.
“From the text, I understand the effect you’re going for. The concept artist visualized it and turned it into art. But he hasn’t actually seen it either—it’s just an interpretation based on the written description. So how do we know his version is the correct one, and not the version we created? Director Shen, I don’t know what that artist told you or your team, but he’s definitely exaggerating. If you don’t believe me, get him to do a render himself. I bet what he comes up with won’t look half as good as ours.”
Hearing this, Jin Can and the team lead exchanged looks, both casting a sympathetic glance toward Yu Shaoyuan.
He could’ve just calmly explained or offered to redo it. But no—he had to try and throw someone under the bus.
Yu Shaoyuan absolutely did not expect that the original author of “New Life” and the one who provided the VFX concept art—were both Shen Xiu.
Shen Xiu patiently listened to everything Yu Shaoyuan said. As he kept his eyes fixed on Yu Shaoyuan, a vivid mental image of VFX operation procedures suddenly flashed through his mind.
This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened to Shen Xiu.
He’d had a similar experience the last time the system allowed him to browse its database—these familiar, auto-generated operational scenes would simply materialize in his head.
Back then, Shen Xiu just thought he was a genius. To test that theory, he went out and bought stacks of computer science books and read them thoroughly.
As he read, he realized something strange: whenever it came to the content or actual coding in the books, his hands always moved faster than his brain—so fast, so natural, it startled even him.
Perplexed, Shen Xiu furrowed his brows again.
Jin Can and the team leader: Director Shen is frowning—he must be furious!
Yu Shaoyuan, still having no clue why Shen Xiu was staring at him with that icy gaze and staying silent, nearly jumped out of his skin when Shen Xiu suddenly spoke—his voice cold and calm.
Shen Xiu tore himself away from the visuals playing out in his mind and turned his attention to the computer.
In a soft, eerie voice, he said: “Alright.”
Perfect. He’d just take this chance to test whether he was overthinking things.
Let’s just… lightly try it out. For one hour.
Yu Shaoyuan, dazed: “Huh?”
Director Shen’s response seemed connected to what he had just said… Wait—does that mean he’s actually going to let the concept artist…
Oh hell.
After just a second of thinking, Yu Shaoyuan finally pieced it together. He mentally slapped himself across the face.
But how could he have known—that the concept artist was Shen Xiu himself?!
He had heard that Shen Xiu was insanely hard-working, but he always assumed that was just a persona—like every celebrity in the industry liked to curate for themselves.
He didn’t expect that while for others it was a façade—for Shen Xiu, it was the real deal.
The man actually knew how to draw. And he wasn’t just decent—he was good.
After realizing he had once again offended Shen Xiu, Yu Shaoyuan was so nervous it felt like his throat was on fire. Watching Shen Xiu sit down in front of the computer and start operating it, he didn’t dare utter another word.
Shen Xiu opened the VFX software directly, pulling up the vertical green screen AI motion capture footage they had previously worked on. Since all the concept art had been drawn by Shen Xiu himself, he didn’t even need to reference the images while working.
With his thin lips pressed into a line and an expression of cold detachment, Shen Xiu sat in front of the screen. His slender, well-defined fingers moved swiftly and fluidly between keyboard and mouse, creating a rhythm that cut through the oppressive silence of the room, mingled with shock and curiosity.
Shen Xiu hadn’t told them to leave, so no one dared move. Instinctively, they all stayed where they were—standing behind or beside him, watching in stunned silence as he worked.
It was already unbelievable enough that Shen Xiu was the concept artist—but now, he was doing VFX too?!
At that moment, everyone couldn’t help but recall a popular saying from netizens: “Is there anything you can’t do? What surprise are you going to drop on us next?”
Shen Xiu worked for a full hour. And everyone else watched that screen—for a full hour.
They saw a previously crude, laughably basic green screen video be transformed, in just one hour, into a perfectly rendered nightmare—an evil, twisted horror scene that matched the concept art exactly.
When the clock in the lower right corner hit the one-hour mark he had set for himself, Shen Xiu stopped, then played the one-minute sequence he had finished.
Once the video finished playing, Shen Xiu lowered his gaze, staring at his own hands. His brows furrowed even deeper.
If the last time—when he accessed the system’s database and found his hands moving faster than his mind to modify it—could still be explained by the fact that he had taken a required course of his major in computer science in college…
This time, he was absolutely certain: in the twenty-plus years of his life, he had never been exposed to anything related to “VFX production.”
So then… how was all of this possible?
For the first time, a deep sense of confusion and helplessness settled in Shen Xiu’s heart.
The one-minute VFX video, crafted with precision and perfectly replicating the reference artwork, finished playing. As the group remained immersed in the twisted, overwhelming impact of that brief minute of footage, their gazes naturally shifted—filled with awe and reverence—toward Shen Xiu.
Only to see him staring blankly at the screen, expressionless, brows furrowed, and his whole body radiating a chilling coldness in complete silence.
After the video ended, Shen Xiu didn’t say a word. The original VFX team members in the room felt like they were being slowly tortured.
To them, this silence was no different than a deliberate public execution.
Recalling the visuals from that one-minute sequence, Yu Shaoyuan’s whole body broke out in goosebumps.
And when he remembered the things he had said earlier, his face burned with shame.
Right now, Yu Shaoyuan deeply regretted it—he never should’ve treated Shen Xiu the same way he brushed off other clients in the past.
Catching Yu Shaoyuan’s pleading look, Jin Can—unsure if they would still be working together in the future—carefully spoke up, “Director Shen.”
