Chapter 70

In the world of domestic Chinese animation, 3D gets way more hate than 2D — and a big part of that is because the bar got set so high.

All the big IPs went with the 3D animation plus weekly-episode format —

Opening credits, ending credits, 'previously on,' dialogue paced so slow it makes you want to tear your hair out, and then the actual episode is maybe 15 minutes once you cut the fat.

One episode a week.

You blink and it's over before it even started.

On top of that, the character rigs walk like they've got a stick up their spine, faces frozen stiff, everything feeling rough and unfinished — so yeah, 3D got dragged into the dirt.

But 2D's got just as many problems.

The stiff walks and frozen faces? Also a 2D disaster zone. If 3D moves like a shadow puppet, 2D moves like a ghost floating two inches off the ground.

Because the frame rate is just... painfully low.

It's not just choppy like a slideshow — when there's actual action, it looks like everything's falling apart.

The 'rushed job' energy is off the charts.

Sangyu had noticed some of that slideshow-style stuff before — like, what's the rush? Didn't they announce the adaptation like one or two years ago?

Then he found out.

The production team outsourced it. The outsource team outsourced it again. Outsourcing all the way down, infinite recursion.

The studio actually responsible for the project at the end of the chain? Probably some tiny private workshop.

From animation to post-production — every critical step — whether the people actually doing the work could even fill out a two-digit headcount was anyone's guess.

That few people, that little budget, somehow producing anything at all — that little slideshow studio was basically running on subsidies. Honestly, a joke straight out of hell.

So when Sangyu categorized Yaozu University as a 2D animation, it was partly coincidence, but also some gut instinct that 2D would just look better.

2D gives off that 'original flavor' feeling you get from light novel adaptations — more concentrated, more anime-coded.

Just a better fit.

Sangyu didn't want to see the usual 2D domestic animation problems in his own work anymore.

Not just sloppy production — there's also the character design homogeneity issue —

No matter the genre or the character, swap the hair color, swap the eye color, tweak the hairstyle slightly, and the actual facial structure is identical across the board.

Put the screenshots side by side and you'd go face-blind. Like nonuplets.

And it's not just the characters — the backgrounds are assembly-line too.

The coloring gives you a headache —

No lighting or shading, fine, understandable. But when a character walks, the stripes on their clothes don't move at all — looks like someone just slapped a flat texture layer on top.

...Honestly, if you can't pull it off, just don't draw characters in patterned clothes, okay?!

So immersion-breaking.

Ugh.

What a headache.

Oh right, the biggest headache of all.

[Flat line delivery].

Maybe Sangyu just hadn't watched enough domestic animation, but he'd hit this landmine several times in a row recently — every time he heard the voice acting, it felt hollow and weightless.

Like the voice actors all had something in their mouths?

Sounds that need the tongue raised — like 'sh' — every actor was hitting them so full and round, pressing down on the throat, like they were about to blow a whistle.

Girly voices squeezed high, cool-older-sister voices pushed low, elderly voices doing the trembling thing — all so tired.

This part needs serious attention during casting.

Oh right, I Am Live Streaming in the Infinite Flow is the same deal.

Voice casting has to be extremely selective.

No settling.

What's the money for if not this? — Sangyu leaned back against the boss chair, nose tilted skyward, fully embodying the face of someone who'd just unlocked a god-tier money system.

The person in charge left looking like they'd just been injected with adrenaline, face flushed, practically glowing.

Sangyu wondered if they'd actually understood anything he said. Same as last time or not?

But he didn't ask.

Gotta maintain the mystique.

No rush anyway — once the animation dropped, they'd figure it out.

Hmm...

What to do this afternoon?

Sangyu wandered around aimlessly.

Might as well go out and have some fun.

·

Sangyu finished signing off on the rest of his 'imperial decrees,' dusted himself off, and headed out to check out a martial arts hall mentioned in the adaptation materials for The Martial Way.

— Several of the iconic sparring scenes in The Martial Way would be filmed there.

Sangyu was going, obviously not because he liked watching muscles — he was just curious. This was a Martial Arts hall written about in classic wuxia novels, after all.

Huanle Martial Arts Hall!

Martial Arts was something Sangyu only learned about when his teacher recommended extracurricular classes back in elementary school.

After that, whenever he saw students on the street wearing those matching red short jackets, his brain would go, 'Oh, Martial Arts kids.'

Little Sangyu had wanted to pick up a hobby — Martial Arts was fine, piano was fine too — but the family budget didn't allow it, so he was deeply envious of anyone who got to do those things.

Grew up and still couldn't learn.

It wasn't just money and time — mainly his brain couldn't keep up and he couldn't stick with things. After Sangyu made it big, he bought an instrument.

Treating himself, cultivating some taste — and then the early theory lessons absolutely destroyed him.

Did he learn? He did. Does he remember it? Sort of yes, sort of no — the vibe was 'I have vague memories of this.'

His fingers never listened the way he imagined they would. He practiced for a while and then the motivation just evaporated. His current skill level remains firmly 'below beginner.'

So whenever he saw someone who'd actually mastered a skill, he genuinely thought they were impressive.

Especially Martial Arts...

Sangyu didn't quite know how to put it. In his mind it felt almost like entering a monastery — you had to leave the mundane world behind, focus entirely on training, the kind of skill that demanded total dedication.

He was going to watch people train.

Just going to check it out.

Huanle Martial Arts Hall was inside a large scenic area up in the mountains, covering roughly eight thousand square meters, backed by hills on three sides, gorgeous views.

Might as well treat it as a day trip.

·

Meanwhile.

A Cultivator Becomes a Rural Internet Celebrity in the Modern World had started filming.

Xuan Leron had felt much more at ease since they began. Whether a script works — as long as the actors have any real thinking ability, you can feel it.

Xuan Leron's earlier worry wasn't about anything else — it was that the official recommendation was to cast some local residents as actors.

A 'straight to the source' approach.

Xuan Leron had no objections.

He'd also mentally prepared himself to reshoot scenes dozens of times, since these weren't professional actors and might freeze up in front of the camera.

The result blew past all expectations.

These people... had natural talent!

Especially several of the aunties — no need to teach them how to act at all. Just explain the character's background from the script, and they'd launch straight into it, dialogue and all.

They even optimized the lines.

Optimized. Them.

There was a new setting that needed to be established.

The original host had died of a heart attack. The protagonist transmigrated into the body, didn't know the local dialect, only spoke the 'official language of the cultivation world' — Mandarin.

The clueless protagonist gets dragged around by family to the hospital, gets briefed on modern appliances, the household situation.

That's how the protagonist learns about this world, learns about the village's crops.

The villagers all assume their brain got fried, so they also switch to Mandarin when talking to the protagonist. Along the way, misunderstandings from different word meanings spark some comedy.

— This setup weaves the dry background exposition directly into the plot.

Beyond that, some of the author's original scenes were a bit too literary — but once the aunties got their hands on them, expanding and reworking them, everything became natural and grounded.

Especially the scene where the villagers gossip about the protagonist at the village entrance, and one auntie goes off about the time she stormed her daughter's ex-husband's house to raise hell for the kid's sake — that scene was pure soul.

Beyond the aunties, the older generation of village actors also brought their own magic.

Some of them had shaky Mandarin to begin with, and the way those old ladies delivered their lines with that chewy, accented Mandarin — completely authentic, straight from the source.

Xuan Leron was having a blast filming.

The previous project, The Demolition Office.

The protagonist had a special identity, moving between the world of the living and the dead, couldn't do things openly — the information sources were murky, everything had to be roundabout.

Once the female lead became his official partner, things got easier, but still not totally free.

Rural Internet Celebrity is different.

Eyes open, go — 'go' as in throw hands; also 'go' as in get to work.

The whole 'a gentleman waits ten years for revenge' philosophy simply does not exist in a slice-of-life farming story.

— The villains are just seasoning before the protagonist gets rich. Not the main dish.

Got beef? No need to hold back.

Out in the countryside, you can go all-in on every physical advantage and every verbal one.

Who gets that kind of satisfaction? Xuan Leron gets it.

Every time a conflict scene wrapped, he felt cleansed from the inside out.

He'd picked up some wild new insults too — genuinely a two-for-one deal.

Xuan Leron had gotten a bit tan — his assistant had been diligently applying sunscreen — but even tanned, somehow, he hadn't gotten less attractive.

Probably radiating energy from the inside out.

Anyway, once Xuan Leron got into the zone, filming was genuinely fun.

Xuan Leron's cousin — who also doubled as his assistant — was applying a face mask after a night shoot one day, chatting about some fresh gossip he'd just picked up.

Even industry insiders love a good tea session.

First-hand gossip is sometimes even wilder than what netizens think is outrageous.

Cousin: 'Chen Liqi went to the States.'

Xuan Leron nodded.

Taxes paid up, blacklisted and can't get work, go wherever you want.

Every time Chen Liqi came up, Xuan Leron got hit with this 'did I leave the stove on' kind of self-panic — his own taxes better not have any issues. Better do a self-audit. Fast.

He had a hundred Jiguang productions left to star in!

His cousin dangled the hook: 'You know why she went to the States?'

Xuan Leron: 'Why?'

'Word is — she's there to have a baby.'

Xuan Leron: '...Huh?!'

Having a baby?!

What the —

But also... not that surprising.

Chen Liqi was done. No more place for her in Domestic Entertainment. She had to find a way out somehow.

'Whose is it?'

'Guess.'

'...Has to be someone unexpected,' Xuan Leron was already running through names in his head, then suddenly froze. 'No way — not someone we know?'

His cousin nodded.

'— Xi Xingfa?!'

Xuan Leron craned his neck forward, jaw half-dropped, nearly shocked into a long-necked goose: 'Didn't those two break up?!'

Got back together?

When?!

His cousin leaned in and whispered: 'Not confirmed — nothing solid out there.'

Source unknown, but it had already spread everywhere — so it was probably everywhere.

'How are Chen Liqi's fans reacting?'

'Fans don't believe it.'

Of course they don't.

For artists who aren't quite at the 'serious actress' level — more on the idol side — just dating someone is enough to send fans into meltdown, male or female.

If the partner is especially hard to defend, the meltdown gets worse.

Let alone Chen Liqi's particular situation.

His cousin added, 'The fan groups are split though. Different takes.'

'Some are saying it's fake news — actually a rich family power struggle, maybe Xi Xingfa's siblings set her up, and Chen Liqi got caught in the crossfire.'

That reason actually tracks.

'Others are saying marrying into a wealthy family is the best move right now, and they get it.'

For Chen Liqi's current situation, honestly, yeah.

But Li Ruzhi as a mother-in-law from that family... that's not going to be easy to deal with.

Wait and see how that goes.

A few days passed, and Xuan Leron had almost forgotten about the whole thing — when suddenly, a major Hollywood film officially announced a cameo actor —

None other than Chen Liqi.

Wait.

What's going on?