Rekindling the Youthful Era

Chapter 761 Sisters bickering makes for a better meal

Friday night arrived in the blink of an eye.

After the final night of practice for the Sheng Sheng Bu Xi band, Li Luo and Yan Zhusheng returned to Bi Hai Lan Ting.

Since tomorrow is the weekend and everyone has no classes, Xu Youyu and Ying Chanxi also went home.

The three girls seem to have reached some kind of unspoken understanding.

During the weekdays, everyone tacitly agrees to stay in the dormitory and not come back, only returning here on weekends.

But that doesn't mean they actually live in the dorm room all the time.

Whenever they had the chance, whether it was Ying Chanxi, Yan Zhusheng, or the battle-hardened Xu Youyu, they would secretly take Li Luo home to spend the night.

Or, like Xu Youyu, they could simply open up a second front and lure Li Luo into the car.

Only on weekends would the four of them get together and return to Bihai Lanting to sleep together under the same blankets.

"By the way, you guys are going to perform at the music festival tomorrow, right?"

Xu Youyu was lying bored on the living room sofa when she heard the noise at the door. She looked up at Li Luo and the other person who came in, and then asked while sucking on Little Pudding.

"Hmm." Li Luo nodded, changed into slippers, walked to the sofa, patted Xu Youyu's shapely buttocks, and sat down. "Are you coming to watch tomorrow night at seven?"

"I'll bring my roommates with me," Xu Youyu said with a grin. "I'll definitely be there to support your concert. Do you need me to go on stage to give you flowers? Or even a kiss?"

"Just rest and don't cause any trouble," Li Luo said helplessly. "Xi Xi will probably be going over with her roommate tomorrow too."

"Scared?" Xu Youyu chuckled, lifting her foot to hook Li Luo's chin. "I thought you weren't afraid of anything."

"Get your stinky feet off me." Li Luo slapped someone's feet away.

Xu Youyu snorted, touched her foot, and then muttered to herself, "I wonder who it was. They were kissing just now."

"What are you doing?" At this moment, Ying Chanxi had just finished taking a shower and came out of the bathroom. She was drying her hair when she came to the living room and saw Li Luo and Xu Youyu playing around.

"We were talking about the music festival tomorrow." Xu Youyu propped herself up, leaned against the back of the sofa, and asked Ying Chanxi, "Xixi, are you going?"

"Yeah." Ying Chanxi nodded. "I made plans with my roommate to go see it together, but we'll probably only go during Li Luo's performance in the evening, and we won't go during the day."

"Yeah, me too." Xu Youyu nodded, then said with a smile, "So, does Xixi want to go on stage to present the flowers?"

"Is it okay?" Ying Chanxi looked at Li Luo with some anticipation.

"Um...the lead singer is Zhusheng, isn't it a bit inappropriate for you to send flowers to the guitarist?"

"Is someone that narcissistic?" Xu Youyu scoffed. "I only said I was sending flowers, not that I was sending them to you. Can't we send them to Zhusheng too?"

"Then let's spread the love evenly," Li Luo said with a smile. "Let's prepare some for Senior Sister Niu and the others too, otherwise it'll be too pitiful."

"How do you know no one sent them flowers?" Yan Zhusheng glanced at Li Luo. "Doesn't Xie Shuchen have a girlfriend?"

"His girlfriend is still a senior in high school at the affiliated high school, what's the point of sending her anything?" Li Luo rolled her eyes.

"Tomorrow is Saturday," Yan Zhusheng reminded her. "Our school doesn't prohibit people from other schools from coming in."

"That's true." Li Luo nodded, realizing what she meant. "What about Shao Youpeng?"

This guy is really pitiful. Li Luo felt a little embarrassed when he thought about the last time he was in the BMW with Sister Yu, while Shao Youpeng was passing by outside the car.

"Don't think about it too much," Xu Youyu waved her hand and said. "It doesn't really matter whether we send flowers or not, we'll see when the time comes."

After chatting for a while, Xu Youyu got up to take a shower, planning to start writing as soon as he finished.

Li Luo was pulled by Yan Zhusheng to take a shower in the bathroom inside, and they even went in right in front of Ying Chanxi.

Ying Chanxi snorted softly, finding Yan Zhusheng's actions childish and laughable in her eyes now.

Thinking about how she had secretly done something naughty while Yan Zhusheng was on the phone with Li Luo last weekend, she secretly chuckled with pride.

However, after Li Luo finished showering, Ying Chanxi approached him and started talking about serious matters.

"There's something I need to tell you," Ying Chanxi said. "Today is Friday, and I was supposed to be there continuing negotiations with Douyin."

"Hmm, what's wrong?" Li Luo asked while drying Yan Zhusheng's hair.

"That's right, didn't you tell me before that I could mention to Douyin again about Ruan Lin joining Douyin, but..."

"What was the result?" Li Luo raised an eyebrow, seeing Ying Chanxi's unspeakable expression, and thought there was a problem. "They didn't seem to care?"

"No..." Ying Chanxi said, somewhat amused and exasperated, "On the contrary, they seem to care quite a bit over there."

"Originally, as you said, the price I prepared was a signing fee of 600,000 yuan."

"But after discussing it with me, Attorney Tian felt that Ruan Lin's actual price should be higher than Zhu Sheng's, so the bottom line could be around five million."

"But when it comes to quotes, we definitely had to go for high. So after we discussed it, we prepared a price of eight million, but then..."

Ying Chanxi didn't know what kind of expression to make when she got to this point, and finally could only laugh and say, "Douyin agreed right away."

"Huh?" Li Luo was stunned for a moment. It wasn't until Yan Zhusheng said it was hot that he quickly came to his senses, shook the hair dryer in his hand, and continued to dry Yan Zhusheng's hair.

"Why am I only worth three million, and Zhu Sheng is only worth four million, but Ruan Lin is worth eight million?"

Hearing Li Luo's puzzled and even somewhat indignant words, Ying Chanxi covered her mouth and laughed, then explained, "Actually, it's mainly because we were a bit presumptuous."

"I only realized it after Attorney Tian reminded me."

"Think about it yourself. You're a behind-the-scenes worker, and you only get three million. Zhu Sheng is a singer who hasn't even debuted yet, and he only gets four million."

"Ruan Lin is an actress who played a major role in the hugely popular TV series 'A Little Reunion,' and the role was quite outstanding, earning her the title of 'National Daughter' from netizens."

"This influence is actually already quite significant."

"Otherwise, Douyin wouldn't have agreed so readily."

With such a simple analysis, Li Luo could naturally understand the logic behind it, though he was somewhat speechless.

Ultimately, it was Ruan Lin who appeared on screen.

Whether it's Li Luo or Yan Zhusheng, they mostly stand behind the scenes of their work.

If it weren't for Yuan Wanqing's fame, their online influence would probably be much smaller.

To Li Luo's surprise, the combined signing fee for herself and Yan Zhusheng was less than that for Ruan Lin alone.

"However, Douyin says that the price is acceptable, but could the other actors in 'A Little Reunion' also be included?" Ying Chanxi added.

"Right now, Ruan Lin is signed with us. As for the others, Douyin will also be contacting them. Do you and Director Wang want to help us get in touch with them as well?"

"If the actors from 'A Little Reunion' could join the platform, Douyin could also create a special event related to 'A Little Reunion,' which would be a good form of promotion."

“That’s a good idea.” Li Luo stroked his chin and nodded. He had to admit that the Douyin team had a lot of ideas. “Then I’ll talk to Director Wang and see if the others are willing.”

"A fool wouldn't take the money." Li Luo originally thought that Ruan Lin's commercial value might only be realized after the release of "The Beginning."

Unexpectedly, not long after signing the contract, Ruan Lin was able to bring in at least eight million in revenue for the company.

According to the terms of the previous contract, this revenue will be split 50/50, with Reign Culture receiving four million.

Thinking about this, Li Luo couldn't help but feel a little emotional.

No wonder people say capitalists have it easy; looking at it this way, they really do have it easy.

As long as a company controls both resources and monetization channels, it can easily extract commercial value from others.

With just a simple transaction, he earned four million, much more easily than any other four million he had ever earned.

To put it in perspective, such a huge sum of money, if converted into online novels, would require even someone with Xu Youyu's achievements to write one or two more books and then combine all the royalties to reach roughly the same amount.

To put it another way, TikTok is really rich.

The fact that they agreed to the eight million offer so readily shows their decisiveness.

It's really comfortable doing business with such a big shot.

However, only Douyin (TikTok) can extract something from people nowadays.

Once Douyin grows bigger and stronger and becomes a complete behemoth, it won't be paying others to join; instead, others will be scrambling to join Douyin as soon as possible to capture traffic and seize the next big opportunity.

"That's the situation," Ying Chanxi nodded and said. "We've almost reached an agreement this time, and the contract should be formally signed at the next round of negotiations."

"I'll have Attorney Tian send you the detailed rules to your email. Please remember to take a look."

"We hope that the three of you will join Douyin together and then launch a cover song event around the new song 'Misplaced Time and Space'."

"Now, just one last question: when is the move-in date?"

"Well," Li Luo stroked his chin, pondered for a moment, and then asked, "Has Douyin said when their live streaming function will be launched?"

"Live streaming?" Ying Chanxi was taken aback. "Isn't Douyin a short video app?"

"Once we grow bigger, we definitely won't let go of the live streaming section," Li Luo said with a smile. "Anyway, you can ask around and see when the live streaming function will be available, and that's when we'll join."

"At that time, we will not only be able to achieve the most basic traffic generation and interaction, but also attract fans by broadcasting live at the same time."

"I think TikTok would be very happy to see this."

"Okay," Ying Chanxi nodded to indicate that there was no problem. "Then I'll ask next time."

After the two finished talking about this, Yan Zhusheng's hair had dried.

So Ying Chanxi pulled his little sister onto the bed, while Li Luo stayed at his desk to continue writing.

When Xu Youyu finished typing and strolled over in the evening, Li Luo stopped clapping and got into bed with him.

The four of them slept together, with one person on each side of Li Luo's body, and a foot of someone straddling her stomach resting on her stomach. She drifted off to sleep comfortably like that.

……

The next morning.

Li Luo and his two companions got up early, went for a morning run, and then returned home.

In the morning, Li Luo finished writing his content for the day ahead of time, then called director Wang Jun to mention the matter of the "A Little Reunion" crew joining Douyin, and asked him to recommend other actors in the crew to contact Douyin.

Wang Jun never expected such a good thing to happen. It just so happens that there are two actors in the crew of "The Beginning" who played major supporting roles in "A Little Reunion".

After hanging up the phone, he went up to the place and gave them the contact information for the Douyin team that Li Luo had given him.

After some negotiation, both actors received good prices and were overjoyed, never expecting such a good thing to happen.

Often, some people possess commercial value, while others control platforms that need to leverage that commercial value.

However, the two groups could not get together, lacking an opportunity for communication.

Just like this time.

The Douyin team is so busy every day that they probably didn't immediately think of using the hit TV series "A Little Reunion" from this summer for marketing.

However, after Ying Chanxi's suggestion to Ruan Linyi, the Douyin team immediately realized that this was a good topic that could be expanded upon.

And so, people who might not have otherwise received this wave of wealth ended up getting it.

This is similar to selling copyrights for online novels.

Many people believe that as long as online articles are well-written and of high quality, people will naturally come to buy the copyrights.

But in reality, the staff responsible for purchasing online literature copyrights can't possibly read through every single online novel in person.

In the end, don't you still have to look at the website's various rankings and data?
You say your writing is good, so why is your ranking so low? Your grades aren't even as good as others'?

Look at them, they've topped the monthly ticket charts several times, how could the story be bad?

Even if the final adaptation doesn't meet expectations after purchasing the copyright, the staff can still have an explanation, since the company is number one on the monthly ticket chart, and the data speaks for itself.

If we choose your supposedly higher-quality work, but the final adaptation is only mediocre, how will the staff responsible for purchasing the copyrights explain themselves?

Just to take a gamble?
They're all on fixed salaries, and at most they'll get some bonuses. It's not worth jeopardizing their future.

Therefore, for online novels, relying on subscriptions to make a living means exchanging content for readers.

But if you want to sell the copyright, you need to tell more stories beyond the content itself.

The reason why Li Luo's "A Little Reunion" was able to sell its copyright was due to external factors; otherwise, no one would have bought it.

"Want to go to the music festival this afternoon?" Li Luo asked the three girls at the table during lunch.

Ying Chanxi shook her head: "I'm going to the city this afternoon. I plan to talk to the people at Douyin about what you asked yesterday as soon as possible to see if they're actually working on the live streaming feature you mentioned."

"I'm not going either," Xu Youyu waved her hand and said. "I'll go when you guys perform on stage tonight. You can stay with Zhusheng this afternoon."

"Sister, go ahead and get busy." Yan Zhusheng turned to Ying Chanxi. "I'll take good care of Li Luo."

Ying Chanxi: "...Don't be too smug. Right now, I'm the one running around doing all the work for Reign Culture. You, as a signed artist, are of no use at all."

“I earned 150 million for Li Luo,” Yan Zhusheng said. “Oh no, it’s 200 million now.”

“That extra money was negotiated by me, okay?” Ying Chanxi said irritably. “If anyone should be charged, it should be charged to me, and the eight million from Ruan Lin as well.”

"Sister is amazing." Yan Zhusheng clapped her hands to encourage her. "Keep up the good work this afternoon. Li Luo and I are going to the music festival."

Li Luo watched the two sisters bickering, feeling both amused and exasperated.

Xu Youyu, who was standing next to him, watched the play with great interest, and even his meal tasted better.

(End of this chapter)