Chapter 732 - 367: I’m Just Afraid They Can’t Afford to Play

Chapter 732: Chapter 367: I’m Just Afraid They Can’t Afford to Play

When it came to top-tier, blockbuster film and television productions, he could absolutely go head-to-head with Penguin and iQiyi. He could even beat them both.

The problem was that these shows would take time to produce. In the short term, he had no new shows. To reactivate the users who had claimed free memberships within the first quarter, he needed to release a hit show soon.

He would have Sun Ji’s team immediately start collecting information on new film and television productions that were currently selling their copyrights.

As for high-quality variety shows, he needed to think about which ones were massive hits in his past life. He also had to consider which hit shows from after 2019 hadn’t appeared yet. If he could create a couple of hits, he could make up for this deficit.

The only issue was anime; he really had no way to tackle that. He was completely unfamiliar with it.

However, he had another advantage: he could use his short-video platform for promotion to attract traffic.

In the future, many shows would rely on word-of-mouth promotion on Tiao Yin to stage a successful comeback. Short-video platforms were a crucial battleground for promoting film and television.

And this was precisely his advantage.

As Chen Jincheng thought about this, he began typing up a proposal on his computer. However, with Li Lixing kneeling under the desk, helping him in her own special way, he found it difficult to concentrate on his work.

When the stimulation became too intense, he simply took both hands off the keyboard and reached under the desk.

...

When Li Lixing crawled out from under the desk and grabbed a tissue to wipe her mouth, he picked up his phone and saw that Sister Hehe had been texting him again—a long string of question marks.

He had stood her up last night and then turned off his phone. This was her silent interrogation.

The other girls had also sent a lot of messages, and he hadn’t replied to any of them. That included Xiaojie, Jiang Xiaobai, and Yinyin. They hadn’t just sent WeChat messages; they had also called, but his phone was off, so he hadn’t answered.

So, he took out his phone and typed out a WeChat message: "I drank too much last night and had someone take me to a hotel to sleep it off. My phone died, so I didn’t get your call!"

Copy, paste, paste, and paste again. He sent the same message to every girl he hadn’t replied to, considering it explanation enough.

Time flew, and a week quickly passed.

The golden week of sales for "Damn It, I’m Surrounded by Beauties!" had passed. As expected, total sales broke 1 billion, and thanks to good promotion, they even reached over 1.2 billion.

Pretty much everyone who was going to buy it already had. From now on, sales would plummet to a freezing point.

Second-Life Star had no plans to develop a sequel to the game. After all, audience fatigue would make a second installment pointless.

More importantly, a series of copycats would soon flood the market, leading to extreme homogenization.

However, Music Elements had spent 50 million to purchase the mobile game adaptation rights for "Damn It, I’m Surrounded by Beauties!," which was a nice little profit.

From the total sales revenue, Chen Jincheng magnanimously allocated 200 million to the game department with only one requirement: they could spend it however they saw fit on developing "Sheep Herding" and those grass-cutting and tree-chopping games. Only after these games were developed could they consider green-lighting other projects.

After all, he was certain these games would generate buzz and make money.

Afterward, Chen Jincheng didn’t pay much more attention to the game department. It had been an accidental side project from the start, initially created just to cash in on "Damn It, I’m Surrounded by Beauties!".

The next step was to use those grass-cutting and tree-chopping games to help increase the daily active users on the Second Life Star Official Website.

The Second Life Star Film and Television Network app was also slated for launch, and embedding the grass-cutting and tree-chopping games as mini-programs within the app would serve its purpose then.

Beyond that, he could only let the game department develop on its own. He had rarely played games in his past life.

During that week, the biggest effect of "Damn It, I’m Surrounded by Beauties!" was bringing in over 30 million registrations and free membership claims for the Second Life Star Film and Television Network. This fell far short of expectations.

The main reason was an unexpected incident, and that bastard Old Xue was the one who caused it, siphoning away most of the public’s attention.

As for the cause, it was a follow-up to Xue Qian’s incident from last year—the aftermath of Ms. Li providing hard proof against him.

A whole year had passed, but for some reason, Ms. Li had suddenly, out of nowhere, started hammering Xue Qian again. The buzz from the original incident was instantly revived, and everyone started grabbing their popcorn again.

Seriously, no one expected the drama to be this endless. It had already been a year.

Only Chen Jincheng knew this was just the beginning. The issue would still be ongoing in ’24, with Ms. Li occasionally hammering Xue Qian on Weibo.

Because of that, by that point in the future, many of the people who had initially condemned Xue Qian would start to sympathize with him.

Honestly, for a relationship issue to drag on for seven years, it’s time to move on and live your own life. There’s no need for all this. This was also why more and more people came to believe that the whole affair between Xue Qian and her had started because of a dispute over money.

The crucial part was that this incident also dragged in another Ms. Li—Li Xiaolu, the one who had previously been thrown under the bus by Zhou Huapeng of Si Rui Film and Television to take the heat.

Previously, Zhou Huapeng’s reputation had taken a hit when it was exposed that he had intentionally leaked the news about Li Xiaolu to divert attention from the money laundering scandal in his production’s costume and makeup department. This had paradoxically allowed Li Xiaolu to escape relatively unscathed.

Who would have thought that this time, Xue Qian’s ex-girlfriend, Ms. Li, would drop a bombshell about Xue Qian and this Li Xiaolu.

Chen Jincheng hadn’t expected there to be a story between that guy Xue Qian and Li Xiaolu. ’Did he also get his "hair washed" and "styled" by Li Xiaolu?’

’If that’s the case, he’s got decent taste.’

’This Ms. Li was much more "moist" than his ex-girlfriend Ms. Li—the kind who looked juicier and more flavorful.’

The key was that as the two of them slung mud at each other, they really did drag up Li Xiaolu’s previous "hair washing" and "styling" incident. Then, a reporter actually released a short video of Li Xiaolu, and the internet exploded.

The strange thing was, during Zhou Huapeng’s exposé last time, which generated so much buzz, this reporter hadn’t released the video. That didn’t make sense.

If they were going to release it, they would have done it back then.

Releasing it now probably meant this Ms. Li was being used as a scapegoat again. Something else was definitely being covered up.

Heaven spares no one. Once you do something like that, people will hold it over you everywhere.

The unfortunate result was that his Second-Life Star film and television plan had fallen far short of its goal.

However, his focus now had to shift to another matter: the Jinglan City and Hanfu Travel Day event was just the day after tomorrow.

Therefore, he had to delegate the matters of Second-Life Star and LeTV Film and Television to Sun Ji.

Just as he was thinking about this, Chen Jincheng’s phone rang. It was a call from Fu Zhan of the Coastal City Publicity Association.

He answered immediately. "Mr. Chen, Jinglan City is having a trial run tomorrow evening. We’ve gathered the traditional artisans you mentioned, so it’s a perfect time for you to come and inspect their work."

"Alright. President Lei is also coming over tomorrow, so I’ll bring him along." Chen Jincheng was very much looking forward to the real thing, eager to see how spectacular it would be to have crafts like "striking iron flowers" all appearing in Jinglan City at once.

"That would be for the best, of course," Fu Zhan said, his voice full of delight.

He had just hung up when his phone rang again. It was Sun Ji. Chen Jincheng was just about to delegate the film and television matters to him, so he answered right away, only to hear Sun Ji’s urgent voice on the other end. "Boss, something big has happened! We’re being targeted."

"I’ve been trying to negotiate with companies that have new film and television productions, but Penguin Film and Television and iQiyi are following right behind us, driving up the prices. It seems like the two platforms are trying to block us on the content front."

Chen Jincheng was taken aback by this.

He really hadn’t expected these two platforms to pull a move like this on him. He wasn’t afraid of this tactic in the slightest, because his cards were basically on the table.

But if the two platforms wanted to play, driving up prices and disrupting the market, he was afraid they wouldn’t be able to afford it. His Second-Life Star currently had over 1 billion in profit from the game, plus nearly 3 billion from the Hanfu marketing videos.

He was also confident enough to throw money at the problem by taking out loans against Second-Life Star.

’Since my cards are already on the table, I can spend as I please. It’s just a price hike, right? Anyone can do that.’

As long as he didn’t lose money, it was a pure win, especially since he’d be striking a blow against the two platforms in the process.

’If they want to play this game with me, I’m afraid they can’t afford it. Even if Penguin Film and Television has the backing of the Penguin Group, it’s still just an independent department. The group can’t provide unlimited financial support. The shareholder structure is complex, and a lot of people would object.’

With this in mind, he gave Sun Ji a direct order, "President Sun, for the time being, don’t do anything else. Just gather all the information on upcoming new dramas and variety shows and compile it for me."

"Yes, Boss!" Sun Ji replied immediately. For some reason, he could hear a trace of domineering confidence in his boss’s voice.

He had a feeling the boss was about to make another big move.