Chapter 19
Xuan Mo immediately placed another call to his good-for-nothing emperor.
After two beeps, a prompt indicated that the other party had disconnected.
…He forgot he was in solitary confinement.
Xuan Mo scratched his head, thought for a moment, and decided to discuss this matter after he returned. His device had been recording the screen the whole time anyway.
After Xia Anran’s explanation, the discussion about the Beastman race in the comments finally subsided a little. Seeing that the broadcast was nearing its end, Xia Anran, in response to the audience’s enthusiastic requests, went to the backyard again. She had mentioned earlier that there were fruit trees planted there, but since they weren’t bearing fruit yet, she hadn’t originally planned to show them.
The fruit trees in the backyard had just been planted the day before—persimmon, pear, and peach trees. They had chosen saplings that had already sprouted branches and would bear fruit this year, so even without fruit, they looked quite lush.
Xia Anran led everyone on a tour, with the production team and their pile of equipment following closely behind. The round archway to the backyard had a few high steps. Sister Wang, not watching her step as she entered, nearly twisted her ankle and let out a startled cry, but quickly clapped a hand over her mouth.
From the introduction of the Four Great Classical Novels onwards, Xia Anran had been holding the camera. Hearing Sister Wang’s cry, she instinctively turned around, directly capturing the somewhat sneaky-looking production team in the shot.
[!!! There are other people!]
[Ahhh, so many primitive humans!]
[Show some respect? They are all our ancestors.]
[The old man at the front does look a bit old. He can’t be a hundred already, can he?]
[Wow, there’s a pretty older sister too!]
[What are those things they’re holding?]
[Hahahaha, why are they being so sneaky?]
[Are they Anran’s friends?]
Director Huang hadn’t expected such an accident. Their current plan was not to have anyone other than Xia Anran appear on camera. They might consider adding some local color or inviting some professors as guests later on, but he never thought that on the second day of official filming, the entire production team would be exposed.
Director Huang froze for a moment, his mind racing through countless contingency plans. He was more flustered than when there had been an accident on the Olympic stage years ago.
Conversely, Xia Anran, the amateur in the film industry, was the calmest one there. She was only slightly surprised and quickly recovered. She didn’t treat it as a broadcast accident. Turning the camera back to herself and seeing the constant stream of questions about who these people were, she smiled and said, “These are the other staff members of our livestream. They are all very outstanding literary and artistic workers from our Hua nation!”
Xia Anran gestured to Director Huang. He snapped back to reality, quickly straightened his clothes, adjusted the hat on his head, and walked in front of the camera. He almost started walking with his left arm and left leg in sync.
Suppressing a laugh, Xia Anran pulled him over and introduced him. “This is our Director Huang Yong. He is the most outstanding director in the Hua nation and has filmed many excellent works. He is responsible for all the coordination of our livestream. All the beautiful shots and lighting you see are filmed under his guidance.”
She looked at Director Huang. It was now his turn to greet everyone.
Director Huang, a man who had faced countless grand scenes, was, for the first time in his sixty-plus years, at a loss for words in front of the camera lens he knew so well.
“Hello, friends from the interstellar era. I am Huang Yong, the director of this livestream.”
Behind him, Sister Wang, Little Yan, and the others were grinning from ear to ear. They never thought they would live to see such a flustered Director Huang.
The interstellar audience, however, was very friendly, flooding the screen with “hellos.” Director Huang finally breathed a sigh of relief when he saw their reaction. He had been worried the audience would be hostile to such “uninvited guests” in their stream.
[Welcome, welcome! I was just saying that Anran’s stream scenery has suddenly gotten so much better!]
[So Director Huang is the one filming for us? It looks so good! So beautiful!]
[Director Huang, can you film more fruit! I want to see!]
[I want to see animals! The animals are so cute too.]
[Please tell us more historical stories about the Hua nation, please, please!]
[I want to see the Four Great Classical Novels! Can you talk about them in detail? I want to see Journey to the West!]
[Director Huang looks very energetic. Is he a hundred years old?]
[…Weakly raises hand. Am I the only one who doesn’t know what a ‘director’ is?]
Director Huang looked at the dazzling array of comments, trying hard to remember every viewer’s request.
“Alright, we will consider adding more cultural content in the future, and we will also take everyone to appreciate the scenery of our Hua nation. Uh… I am sixty-four years old this year. One hundred is still very far away.”
Then he saw a comment scroll by.
[Huh? You look that old at sixty-four?]
Director Huang: … He was clearly one of the most energetic sixty-somethings around! Everyone said he looked like he was only fifty! He silently clutched his heart, which had just been pierced by an arrow and was now bleeding.
Xia Anran saw the comment asking what a director was and explained, “A director is the leader of a film or television production. Simply put, the director has the final say on all matters, big and small, on a film set. The quality and style of a production are also largely determined by the director.”
Soon, the interstellar audience had a new question: what is a film or television production?
This time, it was Xia Anran’s turn to be stumped. Had humanity, in its evolution to the interstellar age, completely evolved away this entire category of spiritual nourishment, like movies and TV shows?
“Simply put, a film or television production is when actors play roles to perform a story,” Xia Anran tried to explain in simple terms. “An actor is a profession, a practitioner in this industry.”
Fortunately, the interstellar audience quickly grasped the concept.
[I get it! Is it like our Empathy Plays?!]
[Yes, that should be what it means.]
[Speaking of Empathy Plays, can the writers in the United Star System be a little more creative? Stop using those old, tired tropes!]
[At this point, Empathy Play No. 25815, looking for one more, quick!]
[Speaking of which, I haven’t played an Empathy Play in a long time. The good ones are too expensive, and the bad ones make you want to vomit.]
[The Empire’s latest release, “I Transmigrated as the Emperor and Ascended,” is pretty fun. Recommended!]
[Does your Interstellar Empire really not have a review board?]
[I can’t imagine the United Star System having an Empathy Play called “I Transmigrated as the Consul General…”]
[Currently in jail. Doing well.]
Now it was Xia Anran’s turn to be confused. Director Huang was also clearly very interested in the interstellar cultural industry, so they both asked what an Empathy Play was.
After a jumble of explanations from the comments, Xia Anran understood that the so-called Empathy Play was actually an evolution of film and television. The audience no longer needed to watch actors perform; instead, they could directly project their consciousness into a character through some kind of external link and experience the story for themselves.
There were generally two types of Empathy Plays. One was to enter as a single character, with the remaining roles being automatically generated by a system AI. The advantage was that it was convenient for socially anxious people to play a single-player game. The disadvantage was that the system-generated characters would only follow the scripted storyline, making it rather monotonous. The other type was similar to Earth’s modern murder mystery games. People could form groups, each choosing a character, and have complete freedom to improvise within a roughly fixed story framework. The companies that produced Empathy Plays made money by selling scripts and optimizing the experience.
Director Huang listened with great interest, deeply feeling that only technological development could bring about such a huge change.
The Empathy Play merchants in the interstellar era also seized this opportunity, madly advertising in the livestream.
Yang Yu, the head of the largest Empathy Play production company in the United Star System, was also watching the stream from his own nutrient pod. His assistant was diligently recording every detail that appeared in Xia Anran’s stream. They were already preparing to launch an Empathy Play with ancient Earth as a selling point. If all went well, it was sure to be a massive hit.
Listening to Xia Anran introduce Earth’s film and television industry, Yang Yu’s eyes darted around. He suddenly slapped the armrest of his chair, startling his assistant.
“Hahaha, I’ve got it! We can also adopt Earth’s film and television method! We can hire people to act out our Empathy Plays as promotional material!”
A live-action performance would definitely be more interesting than a text summary.
“The plot details for the actual release will need some changes so that customers don’t lose the novelty by knowing the story in advance,” Yang Yu continued to mutter, immersed in his grand vision. “Actors… that’s a great name. If someone performs well, they’ll surely attract a lot of fans. Then we can make money through the actors too. So, we must sign the actors to contracts to ensure they’re in our own hands.”
In just a few minutes, Yang Yu had completely figured out Earth’s entire celebrity-making industry chain.
Unaware that she had inadvertently introduced the idol industry to the interstellar era, Xia Anran was now introducing the other members of the production team.
“This is Sister Wang, our makeup artist. Hahaha, of course, Sister Wang does all my makeup. I don’t have such good skills. Pretty? Of course, it’s pretty! Okay, okay, we’ll consider doing a makeup livestream in the future to show everyone Sister Wang’s divine skills!”
“Brother Cheng, our cameraman. All the beautiful shots you see are filmed by him. His angles and lighting are simply amazing.”
“Little Yan, Xixi, they are in charge of our costumes and jewelry. My clothes and hair accessories are all prepared by them. The long hair style from last time? Yes, Little Yan braided my hair. The beautiful jewelry on it are antiques from our Hua nation’s ancient times, which Xixi was responsible for borrowing.”
The audience was still reminiscing about the last classical-style stream and kept asking for more broadcasts in that style. Director Huang, standing by, was greatly encouraged. As expected, their traditional culture was the most attractive.
After the final introductions, the broadcast time was almost up. Xia Anran and the entire production team said goodbye to everyone. The comments were also filled with reluctant farewells and anticipation for the next stream. Only Xuan Mo, ever since Journey to the West had appeared, had been persistently commenting.
[Little-Little-Hut: Damaging the image of the Beastman race is forbidden in this livestream!]
[Little-Little-Hut: Insolent United Star System people! Detestable!]
[Little-Little-Hut: How can primitive Beastmen exist on Earth? What have you all done to our ancestors!]
[Little-Little-Hut: The picture of the primitive Beastman was only shown for such a short time? This is too much!]
[Little-Little-Hut: Show some more, quickly!]
[Little-Little-Hut: …Still want to see the animals.]
[Little-Little-Hut: Can we see the animals, please?]
[Little-Little-Hut: Host, host, can we see the animals again?]
However, his comments had long been drowned in the flood of other messages.
Xuan Mo stared at the black screen, so angry that smoke was about to come out of his ears. Detestable, detestable!!! Fuming, he opened his comment history and began frantically deleting.
Insolent Earthlings! This is bullying a beast!