“Wait. Come back.”
?
Qiuyun turned around, still smiling. “Is there something else, Young Master?”
Jiang Lin’an thought that Qiuyun was clever—and a woman at that—so perhaps she could give him some advice.
“Ahem. There is something I wanted to ask you.”
“Go ahead.”
Jiang Lin’an hesitated. “It’s about… my ex-girlfriend. After we broke up, she got another boyfriend. The thing is, that boyfriend of hers isn’t a good person, and I don’t know how to warn her.”
After all, he had no intention of getting back together with her. If he brought it up too abruptly, it would make him look as though he still had lingering feelings.
Qiuyun praised him, “You really are a good person.”
“…”
It was clearly meant as a compliment, so why did it sound so sarcastic coming from her?
Jiang Lin’an said, “Just tell me straight. Is there a way or not?”
“Of course there is.”
Qiuyun thought for a moment. “How about creating a WeChat account and exposing that man as a scumbag while pretending to be your ex-girlfriend’s current boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend?”
Jiang Lin’an hesitated. “Would that really work?”
Qiuyun smiled. “I suppose I’m the first person to know about this, right?”
That was true.
Who would want other people to know about something like this?
“I understand. Thank you.”
“It’s nothing. You’re welcome.”
A relaxed, pleased look showed in Qiuyun’s eyes as she left the eldest young master’s study.
They say that when it came to his sister’s friends, a younger brother would go to great lengths on her behalf. Thanks to this, Qiu Ze could now truly be said to have connections at MR.
After leaving Mingsi Pavilion, Sun Qiao sensibly lifted the bamboo curtain and opened the door for Qiuyun.
Qiuyun smiled. “Sister Sun Qiao, you don’t have to be so formal. We’ve known each other for ages.”
Sun Qiao gave an awkward laugh.
She nodded and bowed as she saw the woman off.
Good heavens! How could she not lower her posture?
Her third uncle, the assistant manager serving beside the vice president of the First Residence, now became timid, cautious, and hesitant whenever Qiuyun was mentioned. He no longer dared to show off or cause trouble, and had become completely docile!
As someone who still had to depend on her third uncle’s favor, how could she possibly afford to offend Qiuyun, this living Buddha?
Sun Assistant Manager was full of regrets too.
When a newcomer had first begun to emerge, he had not been without thoughts of suppressing her. But after several attempts, not only had he been defeated every time, he had also been outmaneuvered every time. Now, as he watched her gain more and more of Mr. Jiang’s favor while his own position gradually became dispensable, he had finally learned his lesson.
At last, he had become obedient.
Whatever materials Assistant Qiu needed or whatever tasks she instructed him to handle, he arranged everything clearly and efficiently. His attitude and effectiveness were both impeccable, to the point that Qiuyun felt unaccustomed to it and wondered whether he was secretly preparing some major scheme.
After things remained peaceful for a month, she gradually realized that Sun Assistant Manager had accepted that he could not beat her and was trying to atone by making himself useful.
It was early November.
The relevant restructuring at MR was complete, and Seventh Miss visited the company with Yu Heng.
After finally getting a day off, Qiuyun was busy finishing the first story in Dream Probe and did not go along. However, she had already organized and handed over the company’s remaining projects to Seventh Miss.
After the handover, Jiang Yifeng took away the company’s most profitable film projects, along with seven or eight signed first- and second-tier celebrities and their agents. Most of what remained were web dramas, online variety shows, a group of barely known third-tier-or-lower entertainers, and a number of trainees who had yet to debut.
Although MR was now little more than an empty shell, even a starving camel was still bigger than a horse. MR was, at the very least, a well-known company in the industry. With the Jiang Group backing it, even after most of its pillars had left, it still had more strength than the other small companies struggling merely to survive.
Jiang Chuling made a circuit around the building with Yu Heng.
Yu Heng followed one step behind Seventh Miss, proper and restrained. Without anyone she trusted enough to act spoiled around, Seventh Miss was always very composed when she was outside.
“Fourth Uncle really is ruthless. He took almost every project worth anything.”
The company was now deserted. Aside from a few third-tier entertainers who still had occasional jobs, it had barely received any income over the past few days.
Jiang Chuling flipped through the reports and asked the company’s acting CEO, “CEO Liang, what was your previous position?”
Liang Siqi replied respectfully, “I was the director of the artists’ division.”
The former president and vice presidents of MR had initially thought that the eldest young master would take over, and had hesitated over whether to leave. But when they later heard that the new owner would be a ten-year-old Seventh Miss, they did not need to think twice. They packed their things and left immediately.
That was how Liang Siqi got the opportunity to become the company’s new CEO.
Jiang Chuling asked, “Then you should know the company’s artists very well, right? Are there any who could become popular? Find two suitable people and build them into new pillars as quickly as possible.”
“There are.”
Liang Siqi was thirty-six years old. To reach the position of director of the artists’ division in the entertainment industry—a place steeped in outdated, feudal attitudes almost comparable to those of the late Qing Dynasty—she had to be exceptionally capable.
Now that an opportunity had presented itself, she had leaped four ranks in one go and become the company’s CEO. She wanted to achieve something even more desperately than Seventh Miss did!
“These female celebrities are all people I’ve personally evaluated. Their acting skills, character, and professionalism are all good, and they have a favorable reputation among ordinary viewers. They’re simply lacking a signature work, so they haven’t yet made a lasting impression on the public.”
Liang Siqi handed over another file. “These two male celebrities are in the same situation. However, they seem to be considering terminating their contracts, so I’m deciding whether we should recruit new talent.”
“Let them go. Recruit new people.” Jiang Chuling had no patience for people who did not want to stay and whose hearts had already wandered elsewhere.
“Understood.”
Liang Siqi handed over another report. She was worried that the child might not understand it, so she had specially made it using the simplest icons possible, with the goal of making everything immediately clear.
“These are several projects the planning department drafted over the past week. We then sent them to industry professionals for evaluation, and these are the ratings they received.”
The projects had been taken away, and the company could not keep a group of people sitting around doing nothing while drawing salaries. Apart from the few mediocre online variety shows already in production, it was time to launch the other films, television dramas, and variety programs as well.
Jiang Chuling took the report. Compared with films and television dramas, she preferred variety shows, while Yu Heng happened to be more interested in scripted productions. So the two of them each looked through the projects they liked.
There were more than ten variety-show proposals. Jiang Chuling immediately noticed one called The Exes Must Avoid Each Other.
The program would invite four pairs of exes who had broken up for different reasons, along with two single newcomers who had never been in a relationship, for a total of ten guests. Except for knowing their own ex, none of them would know who anyone else’s former partner was.
They would all move into a romantic villa together and complete various tasks designed to make sparks fly between the guests. The audience, meanwhile, would try to guess which two people were connected by a past relationship.
A reality show built around uncovering gossip and solving mysteries was practically tailor-made for Jiang Chuling!
If it really aired, wouldn’t she have to analyze every frame to figure out who had once been involved with whom?
Unfortunately, because the dating-show market was already relatively saturated, industry professionals had given the project only an A rating.
As for Yu Heng’s selections, since she herself came from a small place, she instinctively had little interest in those grand but hollow romance scripts. She preferred stories about people relying on hard work and perseverance to climb their way upward step by step.
So the projects she liked included a traditional power-progression xianxia story and an ancient-era business drama about building a livelihood from the ground up.
Xianxia dramas had now become practically synonymous with terrible productions, and that project had also received an A rating. The ancient business drama, however, was adapted from a hugely popular intellectual property and had received an S rating.
