Novel Marketing
Guinaifen heads to a special funeral parlor to film an ad.
The Day of Filming
Guinaifen swung her bag around, skipping along her way across the Xianzhou Luofu, mouthing out words like “buy one get one free coffin”, “speed burials”, and other related terms while twisting and turning through the crowds trying to get to wherever they were. She was surprised that no one had recognized her as the famous livestreamer that she was, and all it took was simply wearing a uniform courtesy of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, which she found herself in front of by the time she looked up from her phone.
She strutted right in to find the directors Hu Tao and Zhongli sitting in the lobby, with Hu Tao crawling over the latter as if Zhongli were her dad. But the sound of Guinaifen opening the door immediately caught their attention and Hu Tao jumped towards her, buzzing with even more energy. “Finally, you’re here! Come on, let’s go make some great advertising. Oh, and Sushang and Huohuo are already downstairs.” Guinaifen couldn’t even say anything before she found herself dragged to the basement of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor where they kept all the bodies. Either to be embalmed, or to be burned.
Hu Tao and Guinaifen arrived in front of a slightly-less-excited Sushang and a terrified Huohuo, who’s Mr. Tail was busy playing with Hu Tao’s own Boo. “Sorry I’m late, guys!” Guinaifen apologized. “Took you long enough, Gui,” Sushang shot back. “Well, let’s get to shooting?” she continued, tapping Huohuo and gesturing to her to get up. Huohuo stood up timidly, managing to say, “Can we please make this quick? This place scares me.”
Hu Tao laughed. “Come on, what’s so scary of dead bodies? What are they gonna do to you, come to life? That’s not possible right- wait, that’s not possible, right?” Hu Tao looked at Guinaifen for confirmation, to which she only shrugged. “Well, who’s to say?”
Sushang laughed. “Come on, Huohuo, Hu’s just messing with you. Let’s get to work!” Sushang lifted her up towards Guinaifen, taking out a tripod and a flashlight from her bag. The quivering Huohuo looked behind towards her Mr. Tail, as if to ask him to help her out.
“Aw, looks like your friend is already acquainted with my Boo over there! Look at them having fun. Just two kids at the end of the day,” Hu Tao remarked, making sure Huohuo could hear her.
“I’M NOT A KID!!!” Mr. Tail yelled out.
“Alright, let’s get to work!” Guinaifen shouted, looking at a Sushang dragging Huohuo to the cameras.
One Week Later
“I am sure you are aware why I have called in the two of you,” Zhongli said, with a TV screen behind him. Hu Tao and Guinaifen tried to look confident in front of the actual boss of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor – the distinguished Zhongli. “It has come to my attention that you, along with some of your friends, Guinaifen, have filmed an advertisement for our funeral parlor in the basement – which as you are now aware, is filled with dead bodies.”
“OK, come on boss, everyone knows we keep the bodies down there! It’s common sense!” said Hu Tao. “But we get it, we won’t film down there again, it’s alright, can we go now?” Hu Tao continued, gesturing to Guinaifen to get up and get out.
“Not quite, there is still more,” Zhongli continued, his voice now firm. He grabbed the TV remote and scrolled through the ad, quickly stopping at a section depicting a Huohuo and Sushang walking in a street, only for them to suddenly blow up as if they stepped on a mine. Immediately after that, the cheery voice of Hu Tao said over the now frozen video, “You never know when you could die!”
“It’s the truth!” the Hu Tao of reality exclaimed in response to the ad. Guinaifen nodded in agreement, adding, “So, what did you think of the explosion effect? I think it went well, but if that’s the issue, then I can get another one of my friends to redo it.”
“You two are not getting it, are you?” Zhongli sighed in exasperation, as he fast-forwarded through the ad, depicting Hu Tao in the basement of the funeral parlor, excitedly saying, “And don’t worry! For those who have other matters to attend to in the day, our burials are so quick that it’ll be no issue at all!”
“Wait, I thought we deleted that?” Hu Tao asked. “That was a joke! We don’t actually do speed burials.”
“Oh, what?! Whoops, I thought that’d be a thing you do, Hu Tao!” Guinaifen replied. “No no no, we gotta give each body its appropriate time before it’s ready to go out there in a coffin,” Hu Tao replied.
“I am glad we have an agreement over something, at least. Speaking of coffins…” Zhongli said, before trailing off as he further scrolled through the ad, reaching the end with Guinaifen, Sushang, Huohuo, “Boo Tao” and Mr. Tail roughing with each other, as Hu Tao stood in front of the camera, cheerily announcing, “So what are you waiting for? Head on over to the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor right here in Xianzhou, and if you decide to book a funeral within 48 hours, you’ll get an extra coffin, completely free of charge! Just for those unexpected moments!” Zhongli turned off the TV. “I think we have seen enough, and that we can make the conclusion not to air this ad,” he dryly said.
Guinaifen groaned. “But we spent so much time on this ad!”
“Yes, an ad which contains multiple pieces of false information regarding what we do here and begins with a child being blown up by what appears to be a landmine as your launchpad into your main points of why people should go to us. Novel, yes. Accurate? No,” Zhongli continued. “And you, Hu Tao. I thought I had already told you not to try pulling off this stunt again.”
“Wait, what?!” Guinaifen quickly turned to Hu Tao, who had already begun explaining herself. “I thought the problem was that it looked bad! Okay, I was really only using my phone as the camera and microphone,and I had no idea how to use the video editing software-”
“So that is where our money went. The one labeled “business expense” with no further explanation. Do you know anything about that, Hu Tao?” Zhongli asked, staring straight into her soul.
Hu Tao paused, processing what she just said. She slammed her face with her hands as she realized she had just given herself away. “Look, we can use that editor for our other ads! It really is a business expense!”
Zhongli nodded. “I’ve heard enough. You can go,” gesturing to the door, to which Hu Tao immediately ran out of. Zhongli then turned his attention to the other fiery girl that he had largely ignored. “I am sure you already noticed, but Hu Tao is a genuinely good girl. If I did not like her, I could have found another successor. Please do not take this the wrong way.”
“Thanks. So, um… what happens to me?” Guinaifen asked.
“Nothing, besides the fact that we are still not going to air the ad you made, for reasons which have already been stated between the two of you just now.”
“That’s fair.”
“But you can stop by some other time. It does not hurt for Hu Tao to have more friends – not that that is a problem for her, she is quite the… social butterfly,” Zhongli continued.
“Yeah, I sure can tell,” Guinaifen responded, unsure.
Zhongli smiled. “Alright, Miss Guinaifen, you can be on your way now.”
“Thanks!” Guinaifen said, as she walked to the doors leading outside the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. Zhongli grabbed a piece of paper and pen, and wrote on it:
NOTE: MAKE A PROPER AD WITH MISS GUINAIFEN AND HER FRIENDS
Notes
And this is my first submission for the Little Gui Takeover! When I saw that June was for AUs, I immediately knew I wanted to have Guinaifen team up with Hu Tao for some novel marketing. The ad itself was inspired by the ad seen in Ruben Östlund's The Square because I am that kind of person.
I hope it went well. I basically did zero research on Guinaifen or her friends on the Star Rail wiki, primarily using my memory from the events she's been in so far. I also didn't really proofread this because I wanted to get this out as fast as I could. I hate that last line because I feel it could be a lot more powerful, but I just can't think of anything else for now.
But it was pretty fun to have something I could write fanfics for with a deadline! Even if I was basically two weeks late to it. I hope I can write more for the Little Gui Takeover in time! I already have an idea for the doomed love one and July's theme.
OH MY GOSH!!! This was such a fun surprise to see in the little gui takeover tag. Thank you SO much for participating!! <3 <3 <3 Also there is no such thing as being late for this event, do not worry. I'm literally still working on a past month's prompt myself lmao
This is so neat and silly eeee I love love love the idea of Guinaifen and Hu Tao hanging out together! They're both such high energy gals in their own fun n unique ways :D
Super looking forward to any and all future Gui fics you write!!!
