After Defying the System, I Became a Genius Director

In A City during March, the weather was fickle. Just yesterday it had been sunny, but today heavy rain was pouring down.

This weather made the already poorly-lit D University graduate student dormitory appear even gloomier. Shao Yichen lay quietly on her dormitory bed in this mold-inducing atmosphere, eyes wide open, listening to the pitter-patter of rain outside, motionless like a salted fish.

After a long while, an abrupt sound broke the dormitory’s silence.

“Gurgle—”

It was her stomach growling.

Yet Shao Yichen on the bed seemed not to have heard this embarrassing sound. She remained motionless, not even blinking as she stared at the ceiling, as if there was something worth studying there.

—Until a line of text appeared out of thin air before her eyes.

[Warning! Current Director System task progress is 0%. Host must begin the task before 24:00 today, or all current assets will be confiscated again!]

Seeing this text, Shao Yichen could no longer pretend to be a mushroom on the bed. She jumped up with a look of despair and shouted into the void: “I got it! I’ll go film a movie right now, okay? Don’t confiscate anything else—wasn’t last time enough? I’ve been eating instant noodles for a week already!”

No one—or no system—answered her. Only the warning text continued to flash before Shao Yichen’s eyes in the void.

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Shao Yichen, a well-known rich second-generation only daughter in A City’s upper-class circles, had spent her life idle and unproductive. In her twenty-something years, apart from occasionally raising stray cats on a whim, she had never made the slightest contribution to society. Fortunately, she had neither developed bad habits nor interfered much with her family’s business operations, content to be a money-spending salted fish.

At least, that was how Shao Yichen used to be.

Until one day, Shao Yichen slipped in her family villa, hit the back of her head on the ground, and gloriously became a member of the vast army of the reincarnated.

Reincarnation was one thing, but what Shao Yichen found difficult to accept was that she had reincarnated into a parallel world! In this parallel world, she wasn’t a rich second-generation, had no money, and wasn’t a salted fish—instead, she was a graduate student studying directing at D University. The only similarities with her original self were her name and appearance.

Shao Yichen was thunderstruck.

Her blissful life of idleness and waiting for family dividends had vanished forever!

Not only that, after calming down, she discovered she had been bound to a Director System. When she first saw the system, she initially felt relieved, thinking she could easily make money with this Director System, return to the peak of her life, and continue living as a salted fish. However, after carefully reading the system’s rules, she was outraged to find that this system was completely different from other easy money-making systems!

First, the system did indeed have a free cash withdrawal limit, which would supposedly increase as task levels improved. But the system’s management of this cash was extremely strict. More precisely, this money could only be used for filmmaking! At most, it could reimburse meal expenses, but using this money to buy houses, cars, or for entertainment was absolutely out of the question.

Second, the system’s dividend settings were very strange. What was strange about it… After each film was screened, the system would settle accounts, but regardless of whether the film lost or made money, completing the settlement was considered task completion, enabling free withdrawals and upgrading the filmmaking budget. Moreover, all assets settled in the previous process would be divided—even if it was a loss! And the ratio was always one-to-one!

For example, if Shao Yichen spent 100,000 yuan to make a film, and the film’s revenue was only 50,000 yuan, meaning she lost 50,000 yuan, the system would split the loss with her at a one-to-one ratio—which meant Shao Yichen would actually receive 25,000 yuan, the same dividend as if she had earned 150,000 yuan!

This was clearly encouraging losses!

Shao Yichen couldn’t figure out what the system’s purpose was, and could only reach one ridiculous conclusion: Perhaps this system enjoyed charity…

Finally, the point Shao Yichen focused on most was the system’s built-in punishment. The system had two types of punishment: one for task failure and one for task financial loss. Task failure meant not achieving the required completion percentage within the specified time. When Shao Yichen initially thought the system was a joke and lay in her dormitory for three days, using the original body owner’s living expenses for fun, she triggered this punishment—confiscation of all the system host’s current assets.

Indeed, Shao Yichen had already forfeited the original owner’s living expenses for the next few months, which was why she had been eating instant noodles for a week straight. As for asking the original owner’s parents for money, on one hand, Shao Yichen wasn’t familiar with this world’s “parents,” and on the other hand, the original owner’s bank card had nearly 10,000 yuan that had suddenly disappeared. Any ordinary family would naturally ask where all that money went. How could Shao Yichen answer?

Making up an excuse definitely wouldn’t work. She was already unfamiliar with the original owner’s parents, and even telling the truth might reveal inconsistencies, let alone finding an appropriate reason to ask for money from home. If Shao Yichen had that kind of psychological resilience and eloquence, she might make money faster by becoming a con artist.

What if she told the truth?

“I got a Director System, failed a task, and had my money confiscated”?

With that answer, Shao Yichen would probably not only fail to get any money but also be sent to a mental hospital.

With no other choice, Shao Yichen had to tighten her belt to survive.

Back to this system. Besides task failure, Shao Yichen noticed there was another punishment—punishment for financial loss in tasks. Though this was nominally a punishment, Shao Yichen’s heart leaped when she read it.

Because this punishment stated: [If tasks are completed but result in consecutive financial losses three times, the host will be forcibly returned to their original world, with no physical issues.]

Return to the original world! With no physical problems!

Wasn’t this exactly what Shao Yichen truly wanted? After all, she neither wanted to be a director making movies nor had any interest in playing this task-completion game with the system. If it could send her back to her original world to continue being a happy salted fish, that would be exactly what she wanted!

Therefore, after studying this bizarre system, Shao Yichen decisively determined her next goal—first, ensure the system’s tasks were completed; second, ensure the films she made would lose money! The more losses, the better; even small losses were fine. As long as she lost money three times in a row, she could return to her original world and continue her wonderful idle life as a salted fish!

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Making decisions was easy, but taking action was difficult.

Although she had already decided on her goal of losing money on films, actually implementing it presented certain difficulties, which was why Shao Yichen preferred to lie hungry on her bed rather than take action. There were two main problems: the film’s content and the film’s actors and equipment. Both aspects were essential for filmmaking, but Shao Yichen had neither.

However, now that the system had issued a warning, it seemed impossible not to act.

Shao Yichen sighed, walked to the table, pulled out a bowl from a bulk-purchased box of instant noodles, poured in hot water to soak it—which would serve as both her breakfast and lunch today. Meanwhile, she grabbed a draft paper, fished out a ballpoint pen from the drawer, and began to write and sketch on the paper, planning her money-losing film.

The first task issued by the system was to use 100,000 yuan of system funds to make a film that would be screened in theaters within one month.

In this parallel world, from what she understood, there was a subtle difference from her past world. Specifically, this world had more relaxed film production and review processes, making it easier for films to pass censorship, and independent films could be screened more easily. The system’s task requirements included “theatrical release,” not just making a film, so the fact that independent films could be screened more easily was indeed a relief for Shao Yichen.

After completing the market research for the film’s release, the next question was the film’s theme. If the theme was chosen purely based on Shao Yichen’s interests, the result would be indifference, as she had no real understanding of film; but considering the film only had a budget of 100,000 yuan, the range of choices would instantly narrow.

No money for special effects; couldn’t hire famous actors; no funds for sets… With a budget of 100,000 yuan, the options were quite limited.

But Shao Yichen already had a target in mind.

She bit her pen cap, then with a grand flourish, wrote three characters on the draft paper.

—Horror film!

Yes, Shao Yichen’s initial choice was a horror film.

On one hand, the cost of horror films was easy to compress. By reducing the scope of the storyline again and again, down to a school, a villa, or even a single room, costs could be rapidly reduced. In fact, in Shao Yichen’s original parallel world, there were many ultra-low-budget horror films that were not only released but became famous, including so-called pseudo-documentary films shot with DV cameras, such as “The Blair Witch Project,” which cost only 60,000 US dollars to produce.

On the other hand, precisely because of the low threshold for horror filmmaking, anyone could join in, which meant horror films were objectively quite likely to produce flops. Among the many horror films, one more terribly made horror film wouldn’t attract much attention. It would be easy to lose money without damaging the original owner’s reputation too much, so that after Shao Yichen was returned to her original world after three money-losing films, the original owner wouldn’t be unable to continue in the industry because of a few bad films.

Shao Yichen put down the ballpoint pen, held up the draft paper with the three large characters for “Horror Film” written on it, and felt like a genius.

Author’s Note: The new story begins! It’s the journey of female protagonist Shao Yichen who tries to lose money but ends up succeeding instead!

If you find the female protagonist’s name familiar, please remember we’re in a parallel world…

Welcome to my new story! Please add it to your favorites!