Chapter 734: Too Vulgar!

“Sister Bing?” Su Yang mulled over the name for a while before recalling her resume.

Sister Bing debuted in “Huanzhu”. At the time, she was the third female lead in “Huanzhu”, and she shot to fame because of it. She’s a smooth and slick person within the entertainment industry. In the beginning, she relied on her portfolio and obtained a lot of resources. Later, when the portfolio lost its effect, she relied on Beijing Circle and her resources became endless.

However, the most amazing thing about her was that even though she had plenty of resources, she did not have any representative work. Whenever she was mentioned, everyone seemed to know her, but if they were to be asked what her filmography was, they would probably think about it for a long time before recalling “Huanzhu”. As for the others, they could not recall no matter how hard they tried.

Coupled with the fact that she loved to appear on the red carpet, many people have cooked up a rumor that she was a celebrity for such occasions.

Of course, no matter what outsiders said or how they evaluated her, she was still one of the most popular actresses within the entertainment industry in the past 10 years. She was known as the Double Ice Goddess and was one of the top actresses.

After hearing that she was almost confirmed to be the female lead, Su Yang hesitated for a moment before asking, “How far are they at before being confirmed?”

Tan Mei said, “I think it’s basically done, just short of signing the contract.”

Su Yang thought for a while and said, “Contact the production team and tell them that we’re interested. Let’s see how they react to that.”

Tan Mei replied, “Okay, Mr. Su.”

After hanging up, Su Yang gave Wu Feng a call. He did not know much about the entertainment industry, nor did he know much about the inner workings of the entertainment industry. Hence, he had to ask someone who knew a thing or two.

The call connected very quickly.

When Su Yang told Wu Feng about his matter, Wu Feng did not hesitate at all. He said directly, “Brother Su, why do you care about such things? As long as the contract hasn’t been signed, it’s still a normal competition. Furthermore, there are many people within the entertainment industry who have already reached an agreement but changed their minds right at the last minute, so it’s not surprising at all. In the end, it’s still a competition to see who has the better conditions.

“As long as you are willing to give a better offer, it will not be a problem to kick Fan Bing out.

“You don’t need to feel burdened. Fan Bing herself has done this many times already.

“The entertainment industry is very realistic, where the strong feasts on the weak.”

Wu Feng paused. He seemed to take a few steps and walked to the window. Then he said softly, “Also, let me tell you something… Fan Bing is not a good person. I heard that she and some of Beijing Circle’s big shots have been playing some investment games and they have been skipping taxes. Such people should just leave the entertainment industry. Otherwise, sooner or later, they will destroy the entire film and television industry.

“So, if you really think highly of this show, then just snatch it from her fair and square openly. You have my support!”

After listening to Wu Feng’s words, Su Yang made up his mind. ‘Since this drama is indeed good to Han Yi and I don’t have any other suitable projects for her, I’m going to compete with Sister Bing and see who gets the female lead!

‘Of course, the premise would be that the production team is willing to consider me and Han Yi at this time.’

After hanging up the phone, Su Yang chased Little Hus away and laid down on the bed. Then, he picked up his book and continued to add his special effects server while waiting patiently for Tan Mei’s reply.

Half an hour later, Tan Mei called.

When he picked up the phone, Tan Mei’s hesitant voice came through the receiver. “Mr. Su, I’ve talked to them. They’re willing to consider Han Yi as the female lead, but…”

The most important thing in a sentence was’ but ‘, so Su Yang asked, “But what?”

Tan Mei said, “But they’ve put forward their own conditions. They want Han Yi to bring funds with her into the team.”

Su Yang rubbed his chin as he pondered. “They want us to invest into the project in exchange?”

Bringing funds into the crew literally meant investing in exchange for their participation, which was actually very common within the entertainment industry. After all, what was the entertainment industry for? Fame and fortune, where both must exist together.

Putting aside fortune, what is fame for? Isn’t it so that one could gain more fortune?

At the end of the day, the entertainment industry is no different from other industries… Money makes the world go round.

This made it easier for those who were rich themselves or had rich people backing them to succeed. For example, a certain “Woo…”

There were two reasons why the production team had made this request. One, they did not have enough money. Two, they thought that Han Yi was inferior to Fan Bingbing on her own, so they wanted to gain something more in return.

If it was a normal company, they would have given up immediately upon hearing this condition. After all, it was too difficult to succeed in a film project since 90% of them failed, 8% managed to break even and only 2% earned a profit, which was the current state of the film industry.

Therefore, unless they wanted to promote a certain celebrity, no one would agree to the request of bringing funds into the production team. If they could earn their remuneration without any risk, who would be willing to take a gamble?

But, who was Su Yang?

He was a man with cheats!

With Little Hus around, the success or failure of the project was practically transparent in front of him. The only problem was that he had to supervise the expenditure of the funds and not let others rip him off.

Therefore, Su Yang said directly, “I have no problems with bringing capital into the project. Tell them to give us a ratio and I’ll pay for it. However, we’ll send a professional finance team to confirm the financial issues.”

Tan Mei tried to persuade him. “Mr. Su, is this…”

Su Yang said directly, “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. You can go ahead. I’m very optimistic about this project.”

Hence, Tan Mei stopped persuading him.

After hanging up the phone, Su Yang sent Han Yi a message saying that a project had been decided and she could prepare to report to the production team.

Han Yi was probably playing a game at the time, so she replied in surprise. ‘That quick?’

‘I’m efficient in my work. This is considered to be slow already.’

In fact, Su Yang really thought that he was a little slow, but Han Yi did not think so…

…

In a high-class district in the Imperial Capital.

Han Yi was sitting cross-legged on the sofa at home, looking at her phone screen in a daze.

The screen showed her conversation with Su Yang.

Seeing that Su Yang said that he would find a suitable project for her in three days, Han Yi did not know how to reply.

What could she say?

It was said that B-list and A-list actresses loved to cherish their own feathers. Unless they were like Sister Mi who gambled because of their performance, they would rather not have anything than to have something substandard.

Or could it be that the A-list actresses were very cautious about the choice of the project? If the project was good, it had to be helpful to their career? And it would be best if the ratings were the highest during the same period?

However, Han Yi could not bring herself to say it.

After all, the person she was facing was her boss.

Putting down her phone, Han Yi sighed deeply. She felt like she had just stepped out of a tiger’s den and entered a wolf’s den again. Previously, at Sister Mi’s company, she had been forced to film non-stop, take on jobs and work tirelessly. On top of that, her career had also been rising and falling. Hence, it was easy for her to receive some lousy shows that did not have any reputation or achievements.

The reason why she chose to work at Su Yang’s company was not only because of her feelings for him, but also because she did not want to film a lousy drama without any reputation or results.

Unexpectedly, her new boss placed a lot of importance on her and had been personally choosing projects for her as well. However… He had been too careless with his choice in her opinion.

‘Even though there’s a possibility that this would just so happen to be a good project, investigating whether a project could produce good results or whether the project suits me or not needs time, right?

‘Yet, it’s only been three days.

‘He definitely couldn’t have done it since there’s not enough time.’

Therefore, she had already silently labeled this project into the trash category.

Then, she picked up a peeled watermelon from the table, stuffed it into her mouth, and sighed. “Let’s see how it turns out first. After all, I haven’t earned any money in three months.

“Anyway, the contract is loose anyway. If the cooperation this time doesn’t turn out well, I’ll request to terminate my contract.

“After repaying the penalty fee to the agency, plus filming this television series, I would’ve repaid all the debts I owe them. After that, I’m going to have to plan for myself.”

After making this decision, Han Yi relaxed instead.

‘I’ll wait for this project to get filmed and released first then.’

…

In this era, with money, everything was simple and fast.

When Su Yang accepted the request to bring funds into the production team, the producers and directors had a detailed chat with Tan Mei on the same day.

The other party’s condition was that Su Yang would invest 0.9 million yuan, which would take up one-third of the production’s investment. Then, Han Yi would be the female lead of the movie.

In the end, Su Yang was even more generous. He felt that it was meaningless to invest so little, so he requested to invest 180 million yuan, which would make up 60% of the quota.

When the production team heard Su Yang’s request, they were dumbfounded because they had seen many investors before, but none of them were like him.

‘Is he bringing money into the crew? He’s literally buying over the production crew, isn’t he?’

However, the company’s producers were ecstatic that they could invest so much money. After all, most of the investments in television dramas were fake. So, if they really received so much investment, even if they gave up their dominance, they would require even less money to invest, making it a definite profit for them.

Therefore, after a day of negotiation, the original production company agreed to this condition. However, they requested that only 130 million of the 180 million yuan would be used for filming. The remaining 50 million yuan would be used to buy their shares and would be directly transferred to their account. To put it bluntly, the 50 million yuan would be absorbed for their personal gain.

Su Yang, who was already aware of this, agreed without any hesitation. ‘Anyway, with Little Hus’s ability, the profits of this drama will be more than double. So, I can earn it back very soon.’

Hence, Su Yang successfully took out 180 million yuan and gained control of the production team, proving just how rich he was.

As for the original production company, they had previously invested 120 million yuan, plus the 50 million yuan that Su Yang had given them, that was equivalent to investing 70 million yuan to obtain 40% of the profits from the actual investment of 250 million yuan. Hence, the risk was greatly reduced and the production ratio was greatly increased.

Both parties felt that they had made a profit, so they quickly came to an agreement, signed the contract and settled the payment.

After everything was settled, the script was delivered to Han Yi very quickly. After Han Yi read the script, her impression of the script changed quite a bit. ‘The script isn’t particularly outstanding, but it looks stable and very impressive.

In particular, recently, the market had been particularly fond of the female lead, the palace drama, so Han Yi felt that this drama was very popular.

As a result, her worries about Su Yang choosing this film so quickly were dispelled.

That day, she signed a contract with the production team. With her status as an A-list actress, her participation in this large-scale drama earned her a pay as high as 712 thousand yuan for each episode. Throughout the entire project, she would participate in 82 episodes, so she would effectively receive a total remuneration of 58,384,000 yuan, which accounted for 23.35% of the project’s cost.

On the contrary, the male lead was an experienced actor who was paid much less than her, but he was being paid 457 thousand yuan for each episode. Since he acted in 51 episodes, he would earn 23,307,000 yuan, which was 9.32% of the total cost.

Thus, the male and female leads account for more than 30% of the entire movie’s cost. That’s the state of the domestic entertainment industry…

After Han Yi signed the contract, things progressed quickly. Because she brought in funds, Han Yi skipped the audition stage and directly joined the cast to set her makeup.

Since Su Yang had already become the first producer of the production team, he also received a set of the makeup photos.

There were four photos of Empress Wu in total. The first was her innocent look when she first entered the palace, the second was after the ceremony where she became a concubine, the third after she became Empress Wu and the last was of her majestic appearance when she completely took over.

All in all, the costume design of the production team was very beautiful. Su Yang did not know if it had been restored according to history, but at least it looked pleasing to the eye.

From this, it could be seen why the production team was spending so much money.

In the photo, Su Yang also noticed that Han Yi was different from his impression of her. In the photo of the empress and the empress, Su Yang realized that Han Yi was really a domineering young actress that was rarely seen in recent years. Her aura was not inferior to that of the most beautiful female celebrity.

Plus, when he saw the first photo of her when she first entered the palace, looking at the deep ravine and the half-covered breast, Su Yang realized for the first time… That Han Yi had rather large assets.

‘How have I noticed this in the past?

‘Perhaps it’s because we didn’t have much contact.’

In fact, when Su Yang saw Han Yi’s photoshoot, he admired it and wanted to scold the production team for being vulgar. ‘The clothes are so revealing, but… They are so huge.

‘Cough cough.

‘I’m getting a little worried for the director. There are so many beauties in the production team, would they have a nosebleed everyday?

‘So, I mustn’t let them suffer such “grievances” alone. I have to fulfill my responsibility as the producer and visit the production team more often to supervise and share the director’s worries.’

Just as Su Yang was letting his imagination run wild, Little Hus’s head popped out from under Su Yang’s armpit and its eyes darted to the table.

Su Yang covered the photo instinctively and scolded it, “What are you doing?!”

Little Hus obviously did not see the photo. It looked at Su Yang suspiciously. “What are you hiding?”

Su Yang replied, “Nothing.”

Little Hus looked at Su Yang suspiciously and gave him a husky stare. “Why do you seem guilty?”

Su Yang chuckled. “You’re the one who’s guilty. Don’t try to trick me, I’ll really explode.”

Su Yang changed the topic. “Why are you looking for me?”

“Oh,” Little Hus said. “By the way, I smelled the stench earlier, so I came to take a look.”

“The stench?” Su Yang’s heart skipped a beat. “Where is it coming from?”

Little Hus nodded at the two photos that Su Yang was holding. “Just those two photos.

“It seems to be from the same source as “The Legend Of Wu Zetian”. Didn’t I smell a stench from that project? It seems to be coming from it.”

Su Yang hesitantly pressed down on Little Hus’s head and took a look at the two photos. Then… He roughly understood.

Little Hus had smelled that this project would be very helpful to Han Yi. It could help her reach the status of an A-list celebrity, but at the same time, it also had a stench on it.

Su Yang did not understand before, but when he saw the photos, he understood. ‘These clothes are too revealing and would easily affect Han Yi’s reputation.

‘In fact, other than these costumes, there might also be some other costumes and plots that would have a certain impact.’

With that thought in mind, Su Yang took out the proposal for the project and wrote down the suggestions on the changes to the costume and script. He then asked Little Hus to take a look.

As expected… The stench disappeared completely. However, the fragrance faded slightly as well.

‘So, it seems like this show will get more popular with these revealing scenes, but it would also affect the actors’ reputation.

‘However, the popularity of these factors aren’t as high as I have imagined?’

Su Yang pondered for a moment and felt that the reason why this drama was successful was mainly because of the costumes. The actors were all very beautiful, and the script was also very good. So, it was a very stable project.

‘These few points would be enough to attract people’s attention, so the influence of the revealing scenes is relatively small.’

With that thought in mind, Su Yang made a call to the production team…