Huayu: This producer has no bottom line.

Chapter 17 Wang Dachui is still Wang Dachui

The two quickly reached a cooperation agreement.

It was almost four o'clock when Ren Pingsheng got back to the company. He locked himself in his workstation, opened a document, and started building the framework for "Diaosi Men".

This show is completely different from "Unexpected".

"Unexpected" is an absurd comedy about an ordinary guy who is repeatedly crushed by fate in the game world.

"Men's Diary" is the opposite; the protagonist is still a loser, but he lives in reality.

A young office worker, addicted to the game JX3, has a crush on the company's ideal woman. He musters up the courage to pursue her, but is repeatedly torn between a rich and handsome man and a womanizer.

Each episode is an independent short story, but when strung together, they form a history of a modern loser's obsessive pursuit of love.

The terms "moved but rejected," "welcome," "simp," "backup plan," and "jack" didn't exist in 2009, but the phenomena they describe were already etched into the minds of every ordinary man.

What Ren Pingsheng had to do was to voice these emotions, which were still unnamed, ahead of time.

He typed away for forty minutes, and the synopsis for the three episodes was ready.

At five o'clock, Dapeng strolled over. Ren Pingsheng turned the screen to him, and Dapeng scanned it, his expression becoming increasingly subtle.

"Isn't this exactly what happened to me in college?"

Did you have a crush on your "white moonlight" in college?

"I did pursue her, for a whole semester, but in the end she got together with the student council president," Da Peng rubbed his nose. "That guy even drove to school."

"So, do you think this script is suitable for filming?"

"They're really good at filming, incredibly good at filming!" Da Peng pulled up a chair and sat down. "But who's going to play this rich and handsome guy? Qiao San? And it'll be me acting opposite him again?"

"It's not Qiao San, it's the new guy, the one named Luo Hongming."

"Can he do it?"

"It's not decided yet, we'll talk about it later. You should get yourself ready first. This time it's not a period drama, it's a modern drama, so the acting style is different."

"I'm good at modern dramas, much better than wearing that sour and smelly theatrical robe."

Da Peng patted his butt, stood up, and swayed behind Bai Ke again.

Bai Ke turned around with a start, and was stunned for a second when he saw Da Peng's face.

"Peng... Hello, Brother Peng."

"Oh, you know me?"

"Who doesn't know Wang Duoyu?"

Da Peng's lips curled up slightly; he liked this answer.

"I heard you're going to act opposite me?"

Bai Ke glanced at Ren Pingsheng, but Ren Pingsheng didn't look up, so he had no choice but to nod reluctantly.

Dapeng circled around him, looking him up and down.

"Thin, fair-skinned," Da Peng counted on his fingers, "quite a contrast to me."

"It's this face..." He leaned closer to look, "It's too serious. Won't it be too stiff for him to play a comedic role?"

"I think so too," Bai Ke said honestly.

Da Peng chuckled and turned to Ren Pingsheng, saying, "This kid's pretty honest."

Then he plopped down next to Bai Ke, crossing his legs.

"Let me tell you, to act in this kind of play, you have to be thick-skinned. You should start practicing now. Make funny faces in front of the mirror for ten minutes every day until you feel like throwing up. That'll be about the beginning."

Bai Ke nodded attentively, as if listening to a professor's lecture.

"Also, don't be fooled by Ren Pingsheng's quiet demeanor. When he's filming, he's like a tyrant. If he tells you to have dead fish eyes, you have to have dead fish eyes; if he tells you to be expressionless, you have to be expressionless. Don't argue with him, you can't win."

"Um."

"He almost killed me before, but it turned out well, so just bear with it."

Ren Pingsheng interjected from the other side, "Brother Peng, are you helping me or sabotaging me?"

"I'll help you," Da Peng stood up, "to give the newcomers a heads-up beforehand, so they don't end up wanting to quit like I did."

As he left, he casually took a sip of the mineral water from Bai Ke's table.

"By the way," he turned to look at Ren Pingsheng, "what's the name of that new character?"

Ren Pingsheng looked at Bai Ke.

What do you think?

Bai Ke thought for a few seconds.

"How about calling him Wang Dachui?"

"Wang Dachui?" Da Peng repeated it twice, then clicked his tongue. "Sounds like a fool."

"You have to act like a fool," Ren Pingsheng said, placing his hand on the partition. "Wang Duoyu is a loser, and Wang Dachui is a fool. If a fool can bully a loser, wouldn't that make you even angrier?"

Da Peng pondered for a moment, then nodded, "Okay, Wang Da Chui it is."

"Are you sure he can handle the roles of two main characters? This kid looks like a high school student."

"You're going to be a senior soon, Peng," Bai Ke corrected softly.

"What's the difference between a senior in college and a high school student? They're both people who haven't been toughened up by society."

Bai Ke didn't dare to reply and shrank back.

Da Peng patted him on the shoulder, the force not too light or too heavy, "Alright, work hard with Ping Sheng. This kid may be young, but he's really smart."

After saying that, he swayed and walked away.

Bai Ke watched him leave, then turned around and saw Ren Pingsheng staring at him.

"Don't be nervous, that's just how he is, a chatterbox but a good person at heart."

"I know," Bai Ke paused for a moment, "Brother Pingsheng, the name Wang Dachui... I actually just made it up randomly. If you have a better one..."

"This is it."

Over the next three days, Ren Pingsheng finished the complete script for the first three episodes.

The scripts submitted by Bai Ke and Xiao Ai had a few bright spots, but overall they were far from perfect and couldn't be used directly.

Ren Pingsheng extracted the usable ideas and strung them into his own notebook, while sending the rest back for them to rewrite.

Once everyone was present, Ren Pingsheng held a meeting where he outlined the roles and responsibilities of the "loser men" (a term used to describe men who are perceived as undesirable or lacking in ambition).

The biggest difference from before is that this time he doesn't have to do all the work by himself.

Da Peng and Bai Ke starred in the film, with Xiao Ai providing the voiceover. Sister Zhao continued to direct the film, and Xiao Lin assisted her with production duties.

He also handled the screenwriting, directing, and post-production himself.

We still need a photographer; we need to hire one before filming starts.

"There's a rule to make clear beforehand," Ren Pingsheng said, scanning everyone around him, "No part of the second season's content is to be leaked through any channel."

Everyone nodded.

"Also, Ms. Aoi will not appear in the new work."

Upon hearing this, both Xiaolin and Xiaoai exclaimed "Ah!" at the same time.

"Why? She's the one who boosted the data for the first season." Kobayashi didn't understand.

"You can't rely on a single trick twice. Once the audience's interest wears off, the effect of using it again will be at most half."

"So what will we rely on to attract traffic this time?" Sister Zhao asked a very practical question.

"Rely on the content itself."

Sister Zhao remained silent, and Ren Pingsheng offered no explanation.

The data for "Unexpected" contains a signal that everyone has overlooked—the completion rate.

The tenth episode featuring Ms. Cang did indeed garner explosive viewership, but the completion rate was only 27%.

Many people wanted to see it, but after failing to see what they wanted, they naturally left.

The first nine episodes, consisting of purely comedic content without any gimmicks, maintained a consistent completion rate of over 62%.

Traffic can be generated through gimmicks, but user retention can only be maintained through content.

What the second season needs to do is turn retention into word-of-mouth, and word-of-mouth into organic word-of-mouth.