Chapter 369 - 366: The Cat and Mouse Movie

Chapter 369: Chapter 366: The Cat and Mouse Movie

Not long after leaving the School of Art Building, the bell rang, signaling the end of class.

Lin Yanwan and her three roommates emerged from the School of Economics and Management Building and immediately spotted Jiang Xia waiting quietly for them in their usual spot.

"Hehehe, our dear lady boss, the rest of us will head to the company first. You and the boss can take your time and chat~"

Cui Jiaying giggled, grabbing Qiuting and Si Si. They hopped on their bikes and rode off in the direction of the company.

Watching her roommates leave, Lin Yanwan looked a little exasperated. She walked up to Jiang Xia and asked softly, "What did the teacher say?"

"What else could he say? I came clean to Old Zeng about starting the company, and I bet he’s secretly thrilled. From now on, I probably don’t even need to formally request time off to skip class. I can just give him a heads-up," Jiang Xia said with a smile.

’This world has never been fair,’ he thought. ’As the owner of a major company, what’s wrong with having a few special privileges?’

"If I had such an outstanding student, I’d probably wake up from my dreams laughing," Lin Yanwan chuckled. "Did he think you were bragging at first?"

"Isn’t that obvious? Even our parents wouldn’t have believed it at first. It’s just because your husband is so incredible, isn’t that right, Mrs. Jiang?" Jiang Xia said, winking.

Seeing his smug expression, Lin Yanwan retorted, "Yes, yes, my husband is so amazing. You’re getting so high and mighty, your butt is practically pointing at the sky."

"You’re the one whose butt points to the sky, not me. That just means I’m even more amazing in bed," Jiang Xia whispered, leaning close to her ear. His warm breath tickled her sensitive skin.

"Hmph!"

Lin Yanwan’s face flushed red as she shoved him away. ’So many people are watching out here!’

’Tonight, I’ll definitely show him who’s boss! We’ll see who gets tired out first!’

’If I don’t knock him down a peg, his ego will be soaring through the roof.’

She hopped onto the back of the bicycle, and Jiang Xia started pedaling slowly. He lowered his voice and said, "Honey, should I go get my driver’s license sometime soon?"

Now that their relationship was what it was, riding a bicycle was getting inconvenient. They were especially missing out on a lot of... fun activities they could try. If he had his own car, they could just roll up the windows, and no one outside would see what was happening inside.

Unless the car started shaking, of course.

"Do you even have time for that right now?"

Lin Yanwan was highly skeptical. ’The guy is busy as hell every day. Getting a license takes a ton of time, where is he going to find any?’

"I’ll find some time to check with a driving school and see if I can just take the final exam directly," Jiang Xia said.

He just hoped that at this point in time, the Imperial Capital’s vehicle administration wasn’t as strict about licensing as it would be in the future. If worse came to worst, he could pay someone to log the mandatory training hours for him, and he would just show up for the test.

In his past life, his father, Jiang Wende, had personally taught him how to drive, and he was quite good. Even though it had been a long time since he’d been behind the wheel, he was confident he could easily pass the driving test.

In fact, for someone like him who was essentially just re-taking the test, the practical driving and road tests weren’t a big deal. The real challenge was usually the written theory exams, Subjects One and Four.

However, with his exceptional memory after rebirth, the theory questions were actually the easiest part. He just needed to cram by running through some practice questions before the exam, and he’d pass with flying colors.

"Well, if you can take the test, you should. It would be nice to have a car," Lin Yanwan said.

Otherwise, they had to take their bikes everywhere. It was a waste of time and exhausting. In the summer, they were baked by the sun, and in the winter, the biting headwind made their faces ache.

"Babe, what price range do you think we should look at for a car?" Jiang Xia asked with a smile.

With his current financial resources, he could afford just about any car.

That was the great thing about having money—you could buy things without worrying too much about the price, as long as it was what you wanted.

"Let’s just get a cheap one, something to get us around. If you buy something too expensive, aren’t you worried you’ll attract too much attention?"

Lin Yanwan wrapped her arms around his waist. Just then, a Volkswagen drove past. The driver looked very young, probably a student from the university as well.

At Tsinghua, there were plenty of rich kids, so cars were hardly a rare sight.

"Mmm... I was thinking the same thing. We’ll just get a run-of-the-mill car for now and upgrade later."

"Okay."

"Oh, right. Don’t you have to do some voice acting for Haruko today?"

"Yeah. The voice acting for everyone else in episode fourteen is pretty much done. I’m the only one left. Teacher Meng is waiting for me."

"Then let’s hurry."

Jiang Xia picked up the pace, and they chatted the rest of the way, arriving smoothly at the company building. There, they saw the locked bicycles belonging to Qiuting and the others; they must have arrived a while ago.

They took the elevator to the fifteenth floor and went their separate ways. Jiang Xia first made the rounds through the various offices to check on the latest progress of the project teams, then returned to his own office to continue working on the storyboards for *Slam Dunk*.

Whenever inspiration for the *Cat and Mouse* feature film struck, he would immediately jot down notes for the script.

He figured that by working on it intermittently, he could finish the entire script for the feature film by around June of this year. Then, he would need another six months to polish the animation quality, which should be just enough time to make this year’s Spring Festival release window.

The theme for the movie was also clear: he would use China’s ancient folk culture as the core, combine it with the animation style of *Cat and Mouse*, and create a Chinese Zodiac series for a domestic audience.

He got the idea from the zodiac series of *Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf* from his past life. He knew all too well how important the Chinese Zodiac was to the people.

In his previous life, the *Pleasant Goat* movie for the Year of the Ox was a massive hit, raking in nearly 90 million at the box office in 2009. Besides the extremely high quality of the animation itself, another key reason was that the content perfectly aligned with the Year of the Ox. Boosted by the Spring Festival release, its box office success was practically guaranteed.

Therefore, Jiang Xia planned to recreate this success with *Cat and Mouse*.

If he followed a schedule of producing one *Cat and Mouse* zodiac feature film per year, the entire series would take a full twelve years to complete. Throughout that time, the main *Cat and Mouse* animated series would also have to be updated continuously.

Jiang Xia was determined to make *Cat and Mouse* a milestone in the history of world animation—a true masterpiece in every sense of the word.

◇

Later that evening, their advisor, Zeng Yifei, sent a message in the class group chat announcing a class meeting for that night.

Everyone attended except for Jiang Xia, including Su Qing and Luo Peng. The meeting’s agenda covered a few points about the new semester, but the most important item was—

He wrote on the blackboard with a piece of chalk: *Re-election for Class President.*

Song Qingshu had been doing just fine as class president. When he saw that Jiang Xia hadn’t shown up again, he had assumed their advisor would take this opportunity to fiercely reprimand and humiliate him in front of the entire class.

But as it turned out, the advisor didn’t say a single word about Jiang Xia’s frequent absences. And now, the class president position that Song Qingshu had fought so hard to win last semester was up for re-election. His entire mood soured.

He stared at the advisor in disbelief.

’Wait a minute... ’

’Teacher Zeng, you must have made some kind of mistake, right?’