Chapter 278: Nothing Left Except Perfection
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
In this movie, Hong Dali could almost be said to have selected all of the classic scenes from the five novels by Mister Jin Yong. It started with the protagonist’s family being killed—this storyline was taken from “The Smiling, Proud Wanderer,” in which the main character Lin Pingzhi’s family was also destroyed. The motive of the enemies was to get their hands on protagonist Duan Wuji’s family’s secret manual, “Sword Manual of Exorcism”!
The background music played through high-quality speakers was suppressed, hasty, and created a relatively heavy atmosphere on the entire opening of the movie. Meanwhile, the protagonist Duan Wuji was an optimistic person. Though he’d witnessed his family being killed, he did not give up because of that, and instead, strove for improvement and worked hard in practicing martial arts.
The audiences, too, started to anticipate the rise to success of the protagonist, as they hoped that he would succeed in his training and sought his great revenge.
In conclusion, the images, music, scenes, and lightings in this portion of the movie were all remarkable, especially the martial arts moves during his training. It was relatively explosive and spectacular.
After a short opening, the scene was diverted to a forest. The surrounding river banks, woods, and wild grass were filmed to perfection. Many people marveled at it, and Lin Hao, too, could not help but become proud. These were the effects created from Young Master Hong Dali’s heavy investments as well as the setting that he provided.
Compared to the effects at the present moment, those film tapes previously looked like child’s play.
Though the protagonist Duan Wuji had managed to escape from the sudden ambush by his enemies, he’d suffered serious injuries. Just then, he met an injured little fox in the woods and instantly empathized with the misfortune they both shared. Out of goodwill, he treated the injury of the little fox.
A reporter below mumbled, “It’s very common, nothing special. I’ve seen quite a lot of such storylines.”
However, he regretted right after he finished what he said—the storyline afterward could be described as a great twist.
After the little fox had recovered, it accompanied the protagonist day by day. Then, one day, when the protagonist returned from finding food, the little fox brought him to a cave. Just then, the first climax appeared—in that cave, every step that Duan Wuji took seemed like he was walking on smooth and flat ground, as if he were walking on slab stone. He thought that the passageway in the cave must have been smoothed out by someone, as the passageway constantly slanted downwards and appeared to be lower and lower as he walked.
Upon reaching this scene, the audiences’ curiosity was elevated to the max. The protagonist walked further, when suddenly, his right hand touched a cold, round object. It was actually a door knocker!
Duan Wuji lifted the door knocker and knocked on the door three times. A while passed, but nobody answered. He knocked another three times, but there was still no answer. Thus, he stretched out his hand to push the door open.
When the door slowly opened, what appeared in front of his eyes was a ray of light. It was a round-shaped room made of stone, and though the light entered from the left side, it was still rather hazy.
Just then, Duan Wuji slowly walked forward when suddenly, someone from the audiences let out a sound of exclamation. It turned out that the source of the light was from a window, and there were occasionally one or two huge carps slowly swimming past!
By then, the audiences cheered in awe. Who would have thought that there would be such scenery in a small cave?
After an obvious enhancement to the scene, it was unimaginably gorgeous. Director Lin Hao was gleeful. Humph, humph, this place that Young Master Hong Dali had set up is absolutely awesome! Back then, it had cost a lot of money to install that crystal window!
Just then, the scene changed again, as Duan Wuji all of a sudden discovered that a bronze mirror that was facing the east had reflected the light which shone towards the southwest direction. There seemed to be a crack on the stone wall, and he hurriedly pushed that stone wall. It was, as expected, a door, and it revealed another cave as he slowly pushed it open. As he looked inside the cave, he saw a flight of stone steps.
By then, the curiosity of the audiences had been hooked, as their eyes were glued to the huge screen.
In the screen, Duan Wuji went down the flight of steps, and, after he had gone down more than ten flights of steps, it seemed that there was something like a door in front of him. He pushed the door open and there was suddenly brightness in front of his eyes, as he loudly exclaimed, “Aiyo!”
The audiences below, too, echoed Duan Wuji’s scream!
It turned out that in the exact center of the screen, there was a beautiful woman dressed in palace robes, holding a long sword which pointed directly at Duan Wuji’s chest!
Who would have thought that an enemy would appear here? The audiences below were instantly astonished.
However, very soon, some discovered the abnormal aspect of this enemy. Time stayed still for five seconds, and yet, that lady didn’t move an inch! Just then, the scene moved forward following the direction Duan Wuji was staring towards. It was shown that, though that lady was elegant and graceful, she didn’t appear to be a living being. As the scene was enlarged bit by bit, it was actually a statue sculpted from white jade. This jade statue was of the same size as a living human, and a piece of yellow silk clothing worn on the body trembled a little. The most mystical thing was that the pair of pupils glistened with light. It turned out that the pair of eyes were actually made from black gemstones, and the more one looked at it, the deeper it seemed, as it appeared vibrant and lively. Meanwhile, there was a faint color of red along the veins of the white jade of the face of the jade statue, with absolutely no difference from the skin of a normal person!
Reporters with keen eyes below studied it carefully for a moment and suddenly exclaimed loudly, “Director Lin Hao, this statue… It couldn’t be real, right?! Why do I feel that it doesn’t look as if it were created by computers no matter how I look at it!”
Though it was a movie premiere, after all, it wasn’t the same as a screening in the movie theater. Thus, it was considered normal for reporters to raise questions on the spot. Lin Hao said gleefully, “Young Master’s production works have to be real—this statue is made from the jade won by Young Master from stone-gambling previously. Just this piece of jade alone is worth over two million yuan!”
Upon hearing that a single prop in this movie was already as high as over two million, the hall was filled with sounds of people taking in cold breaths, and the speed and efficiency of that were almost equivalent to a 2,000-watt exhaust fan. Quite a number of people thought: “Such big spending definitely lives up to Young Master’s name!”
The movie continued, and the image showed the protagonist slowly moving forward according to his point of sight. Duan Wuji said, “Sister Fairy, you must be Sister Fairy! I only hope to receive Sister Fairy’s blessings in my revenge!” Instantly, he knelt down on both knees and kowtowed.
As Duan Wuji knelt down, he instantly realized that there were originally two praying mats in front of the statue for people to kneel on. What he was kneeling on was a larger praying mat, and in front of the foot of the statue was another small praying mat, which was perhaps for people to kowtow on.
Originally this wasn’t a big deal, but it just happened that there was a line of small characters carved on the foot of the statue. Just then, the scene zoomed in suddenly, and the characters, “Kowtow one thousand times, then obey my orders” embroidered on the right shoe, and on the left shoe, the characters “Whoso follows my instructions, will never have regrets” 1 embroidered on it.
By then, there were already some smart audiences who had guessed that this jade statue must be concealing countless mysteries within. Thus, they couldn’t help but become extremely excited. They unknowingly stretched their necks, as if that would allow them to crawl into the scene and witness by themselves just exactly what was the mystery behind that jade statue! The couple, Yang Chao and Su Yan, also stared intensely at the screen—this storyline had really awed them; nobody would have thought that it would progress to such a stage of mysteriousness and strangeness!
Duan Wuji did not have the slightest hesitation and instantly counted out “5, 10, 15, 20…” as he respectfully bowed towards the jade statue. After he’d kowtowed for 500 to 600 times, he already felt that his back was sore and painful and his neck slowly became stiff. However, he was determined to persevere to the end until he had kowtowed for 1,000 times. If he couldn’t even obey one order from Sister Fairy, how could he say that he would never regret even if he should die a hundred times? After he had kowtowed over 800 times, a thin layer of the praying mat was already torn, revealing that there was supposedly something inside!
By then, the audiences had already held their breaths. Everyone wanted to know what that thing was, but at this time, the protagonist was still kowtowing. For a moment, the audiences were extremely anxious, then everyone cheered in unison!
After Duan Wuji finished kowtowing, he discovered something under that praying mat. After he took it out, it was actually a secret manual. On it was written four impressive characters—”Nine Suns Divine Art”!
Up till here, everyone present wanted to smack their thighs at the same time. The arrangement of this storyline was too fantastic!
The reporter that had previously said that the storyline was ordinary regretted it badly. He mumbled, “So this is the ability of Young Master? This storyline is seriously… Seriously…” He repeated that word for a long while before it was left with, “Nothing left except perfection.”
From the first episode of “Unexpectedly” by Hong Dali previously, everyone already had a deep impression of the “Nine Suns Divine Fist.” Now that a “Nine Suns Divine Art” appeared, of course, everyone cheered!
Moreover, it was obvious that, by this point, the audiences’ passion had all been lifted. Soon after, the protagonist just had to bump into the female lead, Xiao Xian’er, who was bathing by the lakeside!
Now that the statue had already kept the audiences hanging, everyone was pondering about who that statue was referring to, and now that there was suddenly this mildly suggestive scene, they were instantly stunned.
The entire place was completely silent!
And when the scene of Xiao Xian’er, played by Bao Feng, and Big Turtle playing with each other in the water was displayed in front of the audiences’ eyes, everyone agreed as a whole that the Bao Feng in this movie totally deserved 100 points!
After all, Bao Feng’s looks were lacking a little bit even when compared with the caretaker, Xiao Ming…
By this point, the passion of the audiences had been fully ignited as their gaze was directed towards Bao Feng on the platform like lasers shooting at her, and it almost didn’t shoot her down to under the table as a result…
Soon after, the storyline went strong and fast-paced. The male and female leads met and got to know each other and trained in their martial arts together warm-heartedly yet affectionately at the same time. The audiences watched in mesmerization. Unexpectedly, because the female lead, Xiao Xian’er, made a dish of beggar’s chicken without much thought about it, it actually attracted a top expert!
A voice sounded from the top of the tree. “Little lass, divide the pheasant into three parts and leave me the chicken butt!”
Everyone “wow”-ed.
Duan Wuji said, “Xian’er had a hard time making this, why should we give it to you?”
The expert on the tree said, “Why, I’m just about to snatch your food, and you’re still asking me why you should let me?!”
Afterward, that mysterious expert and Duan Wuji actually started fighting for real!
These series of actions made everyone below marvel at it!
Geezer Wang’s movements were really agile, as his whole body surrounded and spun around Duan Wuji effortlessly. Duan Wuji had just learned the Nine Suns Divine Art; thus, his style of martial arts was energetic and powerful as he fought vigorously. The audiences present had really thought that this was the Nine Suns Divine Fist!
After several more exchanges, finally, Duan Wuji smashed his fist against Geezer Wang’s palm, and it was as if an explosion had erupted from the collision. A few sharp-eyed audiences could even see the leaves being blown away!
Thunderous rounds of applause sounded throughout the theater!