MMB Chapter 94 Looking Forward
Chapter 94 Looking Forward
When the fourth episode of "The Long Season" aired, its Douban rating rose from 9.0 to 9.2.
By the time the sixth episode aired, the rating had risen from 9.2 to 9.3. On the night the entire series of twelve episodes finished airing, the rating jumped from 9.3 to 9.4 and remained there steadily.
Seeing the result in front of Luo Jinnian, Uncle Qin was like someone who had run a long marathon and finally sat down to catch his breath.
9:40.
This is the highest-rated domestically produced online drama in the past decade.
When Luo Jinnian saw that push notification, he was making instant noodles in his rented room. He held a mouthful of noodles between his chopsticks, stared at the screen for two seconds, ate the noodles, and continued eating.
This was actually an outcome he already knew.
In its previous life, this drama had a score of 9.4 on Douban, making it the top-rated domestic drama of the year and another masterpiece by director Xin Shuang after "The Hidden Corner." In this life, the good script and production remain the same; only the director and actors have changed, but the outcome will not.
Gu Yanxi's WeChat message popped up on the phone screen: "9:40!!!" followed by three exclamation marks.
Old Yan's voice messages were long. When he opened the first one, Old Yan's voice trembled a little: "Brother, have you seen the Douban rating? I've been acting for more than ten years, and many dramas combined don't have this high rating!" In the second voice message, he had already started to cry.
Luo Jinnian put down his phone and leaned back in his chair.
These days, Douban's ratings are still quite authoritative. It's understandable why Lao Yan was so happy after knowing the results; for him, the actor's artistic success outweighs his commercial success.
Luo Jinnian is still showing a TV series on TV; every extra view count count count is a bonus.
Gong Biao and Wang Xiang sat in the taxi waiting for fares, bored out of their minds. Wang Xiang started talking about his youth. He said that after graduating from university, he was assigned back to a factory and thought he was destined for greatness. The first time he drove a train, he felt he could drive it to the ends of the earth. He said that now, the farthest he'd driven in a taxi was the airport. Gong Biao didn't speak, and after a long silence, he suddenly blurted out, "Brother, do you think life is just about moving from one cage to another?" Wang Xiang still didn't speak, but the camera gave him a close-up.
When Lao Yan performed this scene, he did it in one take.
Director Qin later said that after Lao Yan finished filming, he sat alone in a corner of the set, head down and silent. Director Qin went over and saw him still diligently studying the scenes in his script.
After the huge success of "The Long Season," Lao Yan's Weibo followers increased by hundreds of thousands overnight. In the comments, some said, "Gong Biao reminds me of my dad," others said, "Gong Biao reminds me of my second uncle," and still others said, "Gong Biao reminds me of my uncle-in-law." Lao Yan read through all these comments until 3 a.m., and then posted a Weibo message: "Thank you everyone for liking Gong Biao."
In short, Lao Yan's portrayal of Gong Biao was so convincing that countless people remembered his face. Luo Jinnian's initial goal of cultivating a middle-aged actor to help his good brother Gu Yanxi beat up his biological father has taken another step closer.
In the drama, Gong Biao soon faced his last scene, where he unexpectedly won the lottery. This unexpected joy, however, brought an even more unexpected result.
In the interview, Lao Yan talked about this scene: "Gong Biao is a man who has been waiting for an opportunity all his life. The lottery was the closest he ever came to that opportunity, but after he won it, he realized that this opportunity wouldn't change anything. He would still live his life as usual. But he chose to smile, and I think that's Gong Biao's greatest quality—knowing that nothing would change, he still chose to smile."
The reporter asked him, "What do you think you and Gong Biao have in common?" He thought for a moment and said seriously, "We've both been through a lot of 'almost' moments—almost succeeding, almost being seen, almost becoming the person we wanted to be. But I'm also lucky because I met a good mentor."
Then the interview topic shifted dramatically, with Lao Yan repeatedly praising the tea of early spring. The reporter, knowing that this up-and-coming writer had a large following, didn't stop him from engaging in high-intensity conversation throughout.
Luo Jinnian's eyes remained fixed on the television.
Gong Biao's lottery-winning ending is the most heartbreaking moment in the entire series. In that scene, Gong Biao's car overturns into the river, trapping him in the driver's seat as the water slowly rises. He doesn't struggle, doesn't cry for help, just sits quietly, his eyes fixed on the sky outside the car window. The final shot is his young face superimposed on his old face—two moments of the same person, separated by a river spanning twenty years, reuniting at the moment of death.
Luo Jinnian didn't cry when he copied this scene, but when he saw Lao Yan come out of the water after filming the scene, soaking wet, standing in the middle of the set, his tears and the river water indistinguishable, he turned his head away.
Now that the show has aired, the online reaction is even more overwhelming than he anticipated. Someone wrote a long review on Douban titled "Gong Biao is not just a character, but a way of life," which garnered over a million views. Countless people said, "I cried until I couldn't breathe." Someone else said, "The cruelest blow in the whole series wasn't Wang Yang's death, but that Gong Biao treated Wang Xiang to a meal the day he won the lottery." Someone posted in the early hours of the morning, "I haven't slept for three hours; all I can think about is Gong Biao's last look."
Luo Jinnian didn't read the long reviews. He closed the forum, opened a blank document, and typed a line in the header: "November issue headline candidate." Then he wrote below: "There is only one true heroism in this world: to see the truth of life and still love it." He stared at this line for a few seconds, then deleted it. It wasn't that it was poorly written; it just didn't belong to *Story Club*. It belonged to Romain Rolland, to *Michelangelo's Biography*, to all those who choose to live on despite hardship.
The phone vibrated. Gu Yanxi sent a screenshot—the Douban page for "The Long Season," with a 9.6 rating and over 500,000 ratings. Below the screenshot was a line of text: "Look what you've done." Luo Jinnian replied with a period.
A while later, she posted another message: "When are you going to tell them that the person who wrote this script is only ten years old? As an outsider, I feel so good for you."
Luo Jinnian looked at the message but didn't reply. He placed his phone face down on the table, pulled the notebook from the drawer, flipped to a blank page, and wrote a line on it:
The Long Season has ended.
Another favorite drama has ended. As someone who raised Luo Jinnian from the very beginning, he participated in a lot of the production process of this drama. Now that it's really over, he must be very reluctant to let it go.
But all good things must come to an end, and we should learn from Gong Biao's spirit of letting go and looking forward.