After Defying the System, I Became a Genius Director

The first to emerge from the room wasn’t the “Xiao Li” mentioned by the mentor, but a little girl with a small braid—Shao Yichen recognized her as Mentor Zhao Kang’s precious granddaughter based on the original owner’s memories.

The little granddaughter ran to her grandfather’s side, her face full of “finally no more tutoring” happiness, while Zhao Kang amusedly tweaked her nose: “Look at you, running so fast at the mere mention of no more tutoring! Have you finished this week’s homework?”

“Tongtong did quite well this week,” another voice interjected into their conversation.

Shao Yichen looked up at the sound, froze for a moment, and instantly felt alarm bells ringing in her mind.

The reason was simple—this person was simply too perfect-looking! This “perfection” wasn’t merely about being handsome (though he certainly was very handsome), but rather about cinematic perfection. Although Shao Yichen wasn’t a real director, with the original owner’s inherited memories, she knew clearly that this person’s appearance would be highly photogenic on the big screen, without any unflattering angles—what people in the industry would call heaven-blessed looks.

And this person was most likely the one Mentor Zhao Kang wanted to introduce. Having someone with such perfect looks as the protagonist of the film might affect the probability of the film becoming a flop!

Just as Shao Yichen anticipated, Mentor Zhao Kang turned toward her and introduced: “This is the person I wanted to recommend to you, Xiao Li, Li Xingyu.”

He then turned to the puzzled Li Xingyu and introduced: “Xingyu, this is the person I wanted to introduce you to—my graduate student, Shao Yichen, who’s graduating this year. You should call her Senior Sister.”

“Nice to meet you, Senior Sister,” Li Xingyu nodded with a bland expression despite looking somewhat confused. If the mentor hadn’t mentioned it beforehand, Shao Yichen wouldn’t have guessed this person was currently in financial difficulty.

Meanwhile, Shao Yichen was observing him carefully. Although initially she thought his excessive good looks made him unsuitable as the male lead, upon closer observation she realized that even with his handsome appearance, he might not necessarily attract audiences!

The reason was simple: Li Xingyu’s demeanor.

From the moment he emerged from the room until he greeted her, this person’s emotional fluctuations seemed minimal. Though his appearance was handsome, it was also a sharp, austere kind of handsomeness. Combined, regardless of whether he was actually keeping people at a distance internally, his demeanor came across as somewhat cold and aloof.

If not for Mentor Zhao Kang’s enthusiastic recommendation earlier, even someone as interpersonally obtuse as Shao Yichen would suspect this person harbored some prejudice against her.

Zhao Kang was obviously aware of this point as well, and specifically mentioned during the introduction: “Xiao Li is just like this by nature, not very forthcoming when first meeting people, but once you get to know him, you’ll get used to it.”

“I’ll get used to it once I know him better… so he’ll still be the same?” Shao Yichen mocked internally. Didn’t that essentially mean he was just like this by nature, and others had to adapt to him…

Despite her internal criticism, Shao Yichen didn’t develop any prejudice against Li Xingyu. On the contrary, this kind of personality made her think he was quite suitable—with such a deadpan face normally, how could he suddenly transform when acting? He must be the type to just recite lines! In a normal film, perhaps with his looks, he could pass as a lip-syncing pretty face without issue, but in an already convoluted horror script, if he maintained his expressionless face while reading lines throughout, it would surely have a devastating impact on the final product!

And wasn’t that exactly what Shao Yichen was hoping for?

Moreover, the male protagonist in this film needed to create a sense of relatability rather than just looking handsome, and Li Xingyu’s handsome face immediately created a certain distance from the audience, directly contradicting the core audience need.

The more Shao Yichen looked, the more satisfied she became, completely forgetting her initial instinct to “absolutely not choose this person,” and instead trusting her analysis.

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Zhao Kang naturally had no idea about the convoluted thoughts in the mind of his soul-swapped student. Looking at Shao Yichen’s expression, he asked: “What do you think of Li Xingyu…”

“I think he’s very suitable for our production,” Shao Yichen made her decision.

Hearing this, Zhao Kang immediately broke into a smile: “I knew Xiao Li would be suitable!”

He turned his head and explained to Li Xingyu, who still didn’t know what was happening: “It’s like this, Senior Sister Shao here wants to produce a low-budget web film…”

After listening to Zhao Kang’s introduction, Li Xingyu’s typically unchanging expression showed a rare hint of surprise. He first thanked Zhao Kang, then turned to Shao Yichen to express his sincere gratitude. After all, being able to join the production so easily was partly thanks to Zhao Kang’s connection, but he also understood that this Senior Sister had likely learned of his current situation and therefore given him this opportunity so readily.

Shao Yichen knew well that her film was intentionally being made as a flop, and having such a handsome man as the lead might turn out to be either good or bad for him—it might become an embarrassing part of his past if he were to become famous later. Therefore, she felt somewhat guilty about his gratitude. She simply nodded to Li Xingyu and said: “The filming period will be about a week. You’ll have a role in it and assist with the filming. The weekly wage is 40,000 yuan. Any objections?”

Li Xingyu shook his head, even more surprised by the 40,000 yuan salary—this was only for one week’s work, and he would likely just be playing a bit part while helping out. For someone as unknown as himself, this salary was already quite unexpected. He thought Shao Yichen had deliberately increased the salary for his sake and began: “Senior Sister, you don’t need to—”

“You’re worth this 40,000 yuan; in fact, the salary might even be too low,” Shao Yichen thought, in terms of adding to his future embarrassment. She glanced at the smiling Mentor Zhao Kang beside her, feeling that if she continued talking with Li Xingyu, the true situation of her film with its total investment of only 100,000 yuan might be exposed to her mentor, so she decided to make a quick exit.

She stood up, checked the time, pretending to be busy, and said to her mentor and Li Xingyu: “Professor, Junior Brother Li, I have something else to attend to, so I won’t stay any longer. Let’s do this—I’ll leave my WeChat for you, Junior Brother. After we add each other as friends tonight, I’ll send you the script and tell you which role you’ll play. I’ll bring the contract next time we meet. Looking forward to working with you!”

With that, she left behind a note with her phone number and quickly departed.

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That evening, Li Xingyu entered the mysterious Senior Sister Shao Yichen’s phone number in WeChat’s contact search bar and pressed the search button.

After the page loaded, a profile picture with a black character for “loss” written in a flamboyant calligraphic style against a white background appeared in the search results.

Li Xingyu: …

This Senior Sister’s profile picture style seemed extremely unique, distinctive, and… inauspicious.

Could this be her taking practical action against feudalistic superstitions, starting with herself, starting now?

Li Xingyu shook his head, dismissing the strange speculation. He sent her a friend request, which was approved within seconds, so quickly it was as if this Senior Sister had been staring at her phone screen, thus able to see his message immediately.

But on second thought, Li Xingyu considered that Senior Sister Shao was Mentor Zhao Kang’s highly recommended star pupil. After she left that morning, Mentor Zhao had greatly praised Senior Sister Shao’s talent and diligence, emphasizing that she would one day produce works that would shock the film industry. Even accounting for a mentor’s inevitable exaggeration when praising his students, one could still see his trust and support for Senior Sister Shao.

How could someone like this Senior Sister be playing with her phone before seven o’clock? Impossible!

After this analysis, Li Xingyu successfully missed the correct conclusion and instead attributed everything to coincidence.

While his thoughts were turning, Shao Yichen, who had accepted his friend request, didn’t exchange any pleasantries with him, but directly sent a PDF document. This appeared to be the script Senior Sister had mentioned during the day. She then sent another message: [The character you’ll play is Wu Pu in the script. Don’t feel pressured, just act naturally.]

With a bit of curiosity, Li Xingyu opened the script titled “Horror Rental.”

His first impression was—the handwriting looked like chicken scratch.

Of course, he quickly suppressed this thought. In today’s digital age, people willing to write scripts by hand—even relatively short ones—were quite rare, and from what Senior Sister had said this morning, she had completed this script alone. Being willing to put in this effort for the script itself demonstrated her serious and responsible attitude. What did it matter if the handwriting was a bit ugly?

Shao Yichen probably couldn’t have imagined that her script, handwritten for convenience in organizing her thoughts, could generate so many interpretations.

Li Xingyu’s second impression was: Why does Wu Pu’s scene appear right at the beginning? Could this character be a minor role appearing briefly at the start, who would soon die?

With confusion and curiosity, he continued reading.

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Several dozen minutes later, Li Xingyu exited the scanned script interface and fell into deep thought.

The content of this script was truly beyond his expectations.

The most surprising point for him was—the “Wu Pu” role he had been given was actually the male protagonist of the script! And he played a very important role in the plot development! In fact, the entire script was written around this male protagonist!

He hadn’t expected that after just one meeting, Senior Sister Shao Yichen would entrust him with such an important role.

At first, he also wondered if Senior Sister Shao Yichen didn’t take this project seriously enough, hence the casual casting. But he quickly dismissed this idea. Whether it was the handwritten script that had been scanned, or Senior Sister Shao Yichen’s determination to visit the mentor specifically for this script (of course, he didn’t know Shao Yichen visited mainly to borrow the mentor’s camera), both demonstrated her commitment to the script.

If so, then choosing him could only mean one thing—Senior Sister Shao Yichen believed he could play this role well!

Even someone as composed as Li Xingyu was somewhat moved by this trust. He made a silent resolution—he would thoroughly understand this character and not disappoint his senior.

Author’s Note: Female protagonist: I chose you as the male lead, not for you to sabotage my money-losing enterprise!

Corrected a typo.