Superstars of Tomorrow

At the retirement home for former government officials in Yanbei.

Great-Grandfather Fang had been spending most of his days at home. He was constantly online, browsing for news about the Corale Film Festival.

Before Fang Zhao had set off for the Corale Archipelago, Great-Grandfather Fang had sent him this message: "Take plenty of shots of the scenery. I hear the Corale Archipelago is quite pretty."

Fang Zhao had taken his great-grandfather literally, sending along only pictures of the scenery. There was no sign of Fang Zhao himself.

A disgruntled Great-Grandfather Fang blew at his mustache. "Don’t youngsters these days love to take selfies? Aren’t those celebrity photos online all selfies from different angles? How come this kid is different from the pack? I wonder who he takes after."

Great-Grandfather Fang threw his wife a glance and sighed.

If Fang Zhao wasn’t in the picture, what was the point of showing his friends the photos? If they wanted to check out the scenery from the Corale islands, they could just search for photos online.

After venting, Great-Grandfather Fang sent Fang Zhao another message. "Xiao Zhao, when you take pictures, make sure you’re in them too. Take plenty of pictures of yourself and the scenery."

Great-Grandfather Fang finally received photos he was happy with.

"Our Xiao Zhao takes the best pictures. Look at how upbeat he is. If only he could smile some more. Oh, he went fishing. That’s a great catch. Just looking at it makes me yummy."

Great-Grandmother Fang put on her glasses and joined her husband. "I thought film festivals were all about red carpet events. Who knew you could fish as well? Judging from the picture, this must be a fishing area built off the coast?"

The pictures Fang Zhao sent were all panoramas that provided a clear view of the surroundings.

"There’s this one too. He took it while he was scuba diving. No wonder they call Corale the island of reefs. How gorgeous!" Great-Grandfather Fang bookmarked the picture. He was going to send a select few to his chat group.

After posting the photos in his chat group, Great-Grandfather Fang began counting the days on his fingers. "It still isn’t time for the awards ceremony. How come time is passing so slowly for me?"

Great-Grandfather Fang was nervous.

How could he not be?

"Who knows if Xiao Zhao will win an award this time."

Even though many online comments predicted that Fang Zhao was a likely winner, there were no guarantees. They had no way of finding out the results in advance.

"Film awards like this love playing games. Everything is announced at the last minute. Wouldn’t it be so much better if they were like the Galaxy Awards, where everything is decided in advance? All you need to do to go on stage and accept your award." Great-Grandfather Fang was going to fret until the moment the results were announced.

"Our Xiao Zhao was nominated for both best newcomer and best supporting actor. Judging from the online commentary, he should bag at least one of the two awards, no?" said Great-Grandmother Fang. She was quite uncertain herself.

"Which carries more weight, the Best Newcomer Award or the Best Supporting Actor Award?" Great-Grandfather Fang posted this question online. There were all sorts of answers. Some said the Best Newcomer Award was just a token of encouragement and completely dispensable. Others said the Best Supporting Actor Award was a sideshow, an award for hard work that didn’t carry much heft. Great-Grandfather Fang had no idea who was right. The bottom line was that neither award mattered as much as awards like best actor.

That annoyed Great-Grandfather Fang. The way he saw it, whenever one of his descendants shined in a certain area, he wanted them to be honored. But personal preference played no role in the way things actually unfolded.

Great-Grandmother Fang was clueless too. She never followed the entertainment industry. If not for Fang Zhao, she would pay the least bit of attention to entertainment news, let alone film awards.

"Actually, if you think about it, none of these awards carry as much weight as the Supernova Award," Great-Grandmother Fang said.

"That’s true!" Great-Grandfather Fang felt better instantly. "We’ve bagged the Supernova Award already. As for the Best Newcomer Award and the Best Supporting Actor Award, it’d be great if we won those too, but it’s no big deal."

At that point, a deliveryman arrived.

Great-Grandfather Fang forgot all about the awards. He bolted from his chair, tossed his walking stick, and made for the door in his flip-flops.

"The package from Xiao Zhao has arrived!"

Great-Grandfather Fang didn’t open the delivery boxes immediately. He took a picture of them first, then unwrapped the boxes and took another picture, which he posted in the chat group for his fellow retirement home residents.

"Our Xiao Zhao has sent us stuff again. [photo][photo][photo] Sigh, kids these days. How many times have I told him not to waste money? This shipment is going to last forever! He also went fishing in Corale. Go figure! When the rest of the folks are walking the red carpet, he holes up fishing instead. What an odd style he has!"

——

Meanwhile, on the Corale islands, Fang Zhao had already returned to his hotel on the main island. He mailed the stuff he had bought and brought Nanfeng and company snacks he’d bought on the outlying island.

After replenishing its feed, Fang Zhao examined his "rabbit," which was resting in its water tank. The small fellow had gotten all excited after returning to the main island. It had finished its last batch of feed in 10 minutes.

When Fang Zhao knocked on the walls of the tank, the little fella’s "ears" pricked and the sea slug started dancing in the water. He had to send Ren Hong a message to place an order for more feed.

In the next few days, Fang Zhao ventured out for a few movies occasionally, but the rest of his time he spent holed up in his hotel room composing and writing papers.

Nanfeng, Zuo Yu, and Yan Biao were seated on the balcony of their hotel room in single file, each armed with a bag of snacks.

"Boss isn’t heading out again today."

"What should we do next?" Yan Biao felt he still hadn’t fully utilized the skills he’d picked up from his bodyguard course. He felt underutilized. He also felt guilty being paid such a hefty salary while goofing around and downing baked fish chips.

"I’m gonna head out in a bit to gather some intelligence. You guys do what you want. Boss gave us the day off, after all," Nanfeng said as he tossed a baked fish chip into his mouth. Having signed up to work for a boss like this, all he could do was compromise. He had planned on escorting Fang Zhao to premieres, red carpet events, and the like, but it appeared that his boss was taking a pass.

What was more important, the red carpet or homework?

But if Nanfeng posed that question to Fang Zhao, he could kiss his assistantship goodbye.

"Zuo Yu, what should we do today?" Yan Biao asked.

"Let’s deal with the paparazzi," Zuo Yu said while pointing outside. "The two entertainment journalists that have been tailing us for the past few days. When we go out for a smoke, let’s drag them into the men’s room for a chat."

Yan Biao nodded. "Sure thing!" He was bored to death anyway.

Inside his hotel room, Fang Zhao sent his completed paper to his instructor, Prof. Carter.

Douglas Carter, the Twelve Tones instructor in charge of arrangement classes and Mo Lang’s most senior disciple, was well respected at HuangArt.

Before receiving Fang Zhao’s paper, Prof. Carter was chatting with an old friend about the Corale Film Festival.

"You’re not coming over this year?" the man on the other end of the videoconference asked.

"No. There’s nothing going on that concerns us. Besides ’Founding Era,’ I haven’t done work for any other productions in the past year," Prof. Carter responded casually as he browsed the nominations for the awards ceremony at the Corale Film Festival. Even though he had been part of the team that had written the score for "Founding Era," he hadn’t been nominated for a prize. He knew that with Mo Lang in the running, everyone else was bound to be sidelined. Judging from the list of nominees, many of the nominated musicians were destined to be sideshows.

The other man asked, "So Venerable Old Mo won’t be attending the prize ceremony this year? The song he wrote for the ending of ’Founding Era’ is a shoo-in!"

"It’s been years since the old man has attended a film festival’s prize ceremony. He passes on everything except the Galaxy Awards. He’s in no physical shape to keep up. The old man also likes to avoid big crowds these days." As Mo Lang’s senior disciple, Carter knew his teacher well.

"And I thought the old man took ’Founding Era’ seriously. He lived on Planet Wai with the crew for such a long time. Who knows, maybe he’ll make an exception?"

Carter pondered the response. "That makes sense, but so far I haven’t heard anything. If he were to attend the prize ceremony, he would have confirmed his itinerary in advance."

"Well, it’s par for the course if he skips the ceremony. He’s won so many awards, after all. What’s one more to him?"

Carter received Fang Zhao’s paper during the conversation.

The email took Carter by surprise. He scanned the first two pages of Fang Zhao’s paper, oblivious to the fact that his friend was still on the call.

"What’s up?" the friend asked after noticing Carter arch his eyebrows.

"Fang Zhao just sent me a paper. I read the first two pages. Even though I haven’t read the entire paper, I can tell this is a high-quality paper. Based on our grading standards, I think it deserves an A+."

"It’s that good? Isn’t the kid at the film festival? Where did he find the time to write a paper?"

"There’s more. He just sent me a message saying he’s working on another paper." The smile on Carter’s face grew. As a teacher, he naturally wanted his students to dedicate the bulk of their attention to music. "When he asked for time off, I was worried that he might let the pomp and circumstance of the entertainment industry get to his head. Who knew he could find the composure to write papers."

"Young men like him are like a needle in a haystack. No wonder he got into Twelve Tones at such a young age."

"Fang Zhao is indeed a decent student. I look forward to reading his other paper after the film festival," a delighted Carter said.

Five days later, before the prize ceremony at the film festival took place, Carter received another email from Fang Zhao. Attached was his second paper and the scan of a handwritten score.

Carter spent most of the day reading the paper and studying the score. Then he took a deep breath and sent Mo Lang this message: "Teacher, are you sure you don’t want to take any more students?"

If you’re going to pass, I’m going to take him on! Carter thought to himself.