I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords
Chapter 254 - 254 253. Breaking the Fourth Wall_1

Chapter 254: 253. Breaking the Fourth Wall_1 Chapter 254: 253. Breaking the Fourth Wall_1 May 1st. It should have been a day off for goofing around.

But within the film circle, everyone felt extremely serious.

The movie by Lu Ban was not just any box-office hit.

The clues conveyed by this movie were astonishing.

On the renowned role-playing website “Get It?”, new hot replies to the question “How do you rate ‘The Madman’s Mouth’?” kept popping up.

[Movie Man Aping]: I take back my previous comment. ‘The Madman’s Mouth’ is groundbreaking for horror films, and even for domestic films. Its content goes beyond just the work itself, extending outside of it, blending reality with fantasy and blurring the boundaries. This method is very novel, and I must say, the viewing experience of the whole film peaks at the final revelation. Honestly, I’m a bit curious now, are we actually living in a novel? Are we just characters in the novel, being manipulated by others?

[I’m Zhao, the Teacher]: I think those who can assess this movie rationally now are in the minority. Most people are still in a state of mental chaos, as if their brains have been stirred up. Think about it, Lu Ban, who keeps shocking and reshaping our cognition with film after film, isn’t he just like the novelist in the movie? After watching this film, I seriously considered the possibility that I’m a fictional character. Of course, if this is a novel’s plot, then perhaps Lu Ban is the absolute protagonist of this chapter, while I am just a faceless extras praising him.

[Deep Blue Melancholy]: My face hurts a little. I thought, given the normal production pace, Lu Ban’s movie wouldn’t come out for at least two more years. Who knew it would be released in just half a year? Did he secretly store a dozen movies and release them one by one? This leaves no room for other directors. With someone making excellent movies so quickly, how can anyone outdo him? It’s just unreasonable!

However, more people were still caught up in the shock that the movie provided.

Before Lu Ban’s film, the discussion about the fourth wall in movies was very superficial. In most films, actors would ignore the audience and perform completely immersed in the world of the film, and the themes would not make the audience feel like they were “acted out.”

But in ‘The Madman’s Mouth,’ the interaction between the novelist and the protagonists, the main plot of the movie, clearly breaks the fourth wall of horror stories in films, connecting reality and fantasy. The audience can either view the movie as the story in the novel ‘The Madman’s Mouth,’ with the novelist existing outside of the story, or they can believe that the novelist is also part of the story, and the film itself is about how the novel is completed.

This easily leads to contemplation: are we, the viewers watching the film, just characters in some event called ‘The Madman’s Mouth’? Is our world real?

When Bai Qiquan returned from the premiere, he was utterly dumbfounded.

He got up very early today; he barely slept last night, with dreams filled with spiders crawling over human bodies, suited men with twisted heads, and heads of beasts with tentacles exploding.

He woke up in the morning and rubbed his eyes.

Suddenly, he saw a man in a suit standing in his dorm room.

Upon hearing Bai Qiquan’s movement, the man turned his head.

“Holy shit!”

Bai Qiquan sat up as if electrocuted, nearly knocking his head against the wall. A shiver swept through his body, and he even felt his limbs twitching.

“What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

The man in the suit asked.

Only then did Bai Qiquan realize it was his roommate.

“Why, why are you wearing a suit for no reason?”

He asked with a trembling voice.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you I found an internship? I have an interview today, so I got this suit.”

The roommate explained with a smile.

“Oh…”

Only then did Bai Qiquan relax.

He soon fell back into an inexplicable sadness.

“Do you think it’s possible that we are just characters in a book, and the whole world is fictitious?”

He suddenly asked his roommate.

“Huh?”

The other person didn’t understand and asked a question in return.

“Forget it, you don’t get it.”

Bai Qiquan shook his head.

He now felt like the first scientist who grasped the heliocentric theory while everyone else remained in darkness, with only himself having glimpsed the truth.

Lying in bed, he picked up his phone and searched for knowledge about the cosmic doomsday, the end of time, the destruction of Earth, and the like.

“Do you know?”

Bai Qiquan asked his roommate again.

“Know what?”

His roommate was confused once more.

“In five billion years, the sun will expand into a red giant star, and by then Earth will be completely devoured, marking the end of human civilization!”

Bai Qiquan said earnestly.

“Oh, five billion years, that’s a long time away.”

Suddenly, his roommate wondered if Bai Qiquan was suffering from some serious illness.

“Are you really okay? Do you want to go see the campus doctor?”

“I’m fine, I’m totally fine…”

Bai Qiquan waved his hand and lay back down, searching for some thought experiments like “brain in a vat,” Ship of Theseus, and became melancholic again.

This mood lasted all evening.

When it was the usual time for the guys in the dorm to team up and play some games, they got Bai Qiquan to join in for a few rounds. After he lost five games in a row, all thoughts about cosmic destruction, the end of time, and brains in vats slipped his mind.

“Damn it, I’m not going to sleep until I win a game today!”

Bai Qiquan clicked furiously with his mouse and launched into the next game.

Then he stayed up all night again.

…

On May 1st, “The Madman’s Mouth” box office reached 1.7 billion, setting a new domestic first-day box office record for horror movies.

Moreover, as the holiday continued and word of mouth fermented, its box office revenue kept climbing.

The next day, the box office for “The Madman’s Mouth” hit 2 billion, and on the third day, that number became 2.5 billion, a rare feat for a movie that continues to perform well after ample initial marketing.

It’s worth mentioning that before this, the domestic box office record was held by a military-themed movie, with total revenue surpassing 5 billion, and the actor’s total box office exceeding 8 billion.

Now, according to data projections, Lu Ban’s “The Madman’s Mouth” could potentially surpass 3 billion, reaching 4 billion. Combined with “Cry,” he could almost rank among the top five directors and actors in terms of total domestic box office revenue.

In this context, mainstream media also began to chase after the hot topic of Lu Ban.

After the Golden Week ended and “The Madman’s Mouth” secured a box office of 1 billion, he received a phone call.

The caller was the person in charge of a program team from Xiangnan TV Station, inviting Lu Ban to participate in a talk show to discuss his creative insights.

Lu Ban happily accepted.