Rekindling the Youthful Era

Chapter 784 Taking Shape
After a brief chat with the platinum-level expert, Li Luo took advantage of her afternoon class time to contact the staff of the Writers Association Secretariat via WeChat.

After the selection of the vice chairpersons of the listed online writers' association, Li Luo added a bunch of people on WeChat, including the other vice chairpersons and the chairperson, some council members, and some casual writers' association members.

Besides that, there are the WeChat accounts of the staff members within the Writers' Association who are responsible for daily operations.

Many people have a misunderstanding about this, thinking that once a writer joins the Writers Association, it's similar to passing a civil service exam and receiving a fixed salary.

In reality, even the chairman of the Writers' Association, unless he is a resident member, does not receive any salary. At most, he receives some symbolic meal and transportation allowances when attending meetings and activities organized by the Writers' Association.

Only positions like the executive vice chairman, who are permanently stationed within the writers' association and have daily office duties, will receive regular salaries.

As for ordinary members of the Writers' Association, not only do they not receive subsidies or salaries, but they also have to pay their membership fees.

Li Luo is currently serving as a part-time vice chairman, a position that he considers a voluntary, public service role.

But now that you're in this position, there will naturally be some hidden benefits.

Such as now.

After Li Luo finished talking with the staff of the secretariat, she quickly received a document from them in her email.

The form above is blank and is titled "Recommendation Letter for Key Supported Works of Qianjiang Provincial Cultural Excellence Project".

This key support project has a total of fifty slots across the province, and Yuhang City, as the capital of Qianjiang Province, has been allocated fifteen slots.

Ten of the spots were allocated to the Municipal Writers Association, while their Municipal Online Writers Association only received five.

Even these five points represent a significant step forward for online literature.

After all, in the early years, online literature wasn't even worthy of sitting at the same table as those traditional literary works.

Being able to share a spot now is already quite good.

Li Luo was just elected as vice chairman and hasn't enjoyed the benefits yet. As long as he fills out and submits his work, and as long as the other vice chairmen and the chairman don't interfere, his work will definitely be selected.

This is also one of the hidden benefits of being a part-time vice chairman of the Writers Association.

If there were no benefits, any writer who could become a vice chairman based on their own merit would earn at least several million a year.
People who have money want power; this has always been the case.

In his previous life, Li Luo disliked the Writers' Association because he was just a young writer back then. Xu Youyu took him to a writers' gathering once, but the experience wasn't pleasant.

At the time, he felt that joining the Writers Association did not bring any substantial benefits to his online writing, so his impression of the Writers Association was naturally so-so.

But now that he's in the vice-chairman's position, his perspective has naturally changed.

The Writers' Association is great.

It's only right that we contribute to the development of the Writers' Association.

With these thoughts in mind, Li Luo was already figuring out how to fill out Xu Youyu's letter of recommendation.

Thinking about these things, the afternoon classes quickly came to an end.

Ying Chanxi drove to the entrance of his teaching building, picked up Li Luo, and then went to Times Square.

However, this wasn't their date, because Ying Chanxi also had an appointment with the manager of the office building in Times Square. The colleague he was having dinner with was also there to discuss business and talk about the future leasing of office space.

"Didn't you rent a space as an office before?" Li Luo asked as he got out of the car and followed Ying Chanxi up in the elevator.

“We only rented 50 square meters back then,” Ying Chanxi said, hugging Li Luo’s arm close to him. “We gave it all to Zhao Rongjun’s small team. Five or six of them filled it up. We definitely need to rent more.”

"Are you planning to start hiring?"

"Yes." Ying Chanxi nodded gently. "I took some time today to write a few job postings and plan to post them on a few websites."

"I expect to hire 15 to 20 employees here, and we will need to rent an additional 300 square meters of office space."

"The offices of various departments, as well as places like live streaming studios, all need to be well planned."

"A live stream?" Li Luo raised an eyebrow and asked, "There's something like that too?"

“Yeah.” Ying Chanxi rolled her eyes at him, then said, “You don’t know about Douyin live streaming?”

"I think Douyin hasn't launched live streaming yet," Li Luo said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "But it seems to be written in the contract..."

"It's Aunt Yuan's live stream, isn't it?" Ying Chanxi reminded her. "Douyin wants to pilot live streaming this time, and the best way is to use Aunt Yuan's popularity to pave the way."

"In the live streaming industry, several large companies have already dominated the market. If Douyin wants to overtake them, it definitely needs to do something."

"This is also a very good opportunity for them."

"That's true." Li Luo nodded to show that he understood. "Then let's do it your way. I'll have to trouble you during this period."

"It's good that you know I've worked hard," Ying Chanxi hummed, clinging to Li Luo's arm. "Then how should you repay me?"

"Like this?" Li Luo smiled and lowered his head to kiss her rosy cheek.

Just then, the elevator stopped on the first floor. After the doors opened, two girls walked in together and saw what was happening.

Ying Chanxi blushed slightly, secretly punched Li Luo, and muttered, "Don't kiss like that in public, people will see us."

"So, is this way of repaying the debt acceptable?" Li Luo whispered with a chuckle in her ear.

"How can you call that?" Ying Chanxi snorted and replied in a low voice, "It's clearly a reward for you, not a repayment."

"Then what should we do?" Li Luo asked with a chuckle. "Should I repay you with my body?"

"Well..." Ying Chanxi was quite tempted by the idea, and couldn't help but agree, "It's not impossible."

"Wouldn't you say this is a case of the company CEO sexually harassing his employees?" Li Luo asked with a smile.

"What do you mean?" Ying Chanxi widened her eyes and glared at him, annoyed. "You're the major shareholder of the company, okay? It's clearly you who sexually harassed me."

"Is this considered an unspoken rule?" Li Luo chuckled, his left hand, which was wrapped around her waist, began to grope her a few times. "We haven't even done anything more outrageous yet."

"What are you saying..." Ying Chanxi's cheeks flushed slightly, and she pushed him away.

The elevator had already reached the fourth floor, and the two of them got out together, finally putting aside their embarrassing conversation. They went to the restaurant they had booked and met with the manager of the office building.

After the meal, Ying Chanxi finalized the deal for a 300-square-meter office space on the tenth floor, and planned to come and sign the contract tomorrow when he had some free time.

Because it also involves office decoration and layout, especially for spaces like live streaming rooms that require special design, some of the procedures are quite troublesome.

These are all matters that Ying Chanxi needs to oversee.

She was happy to be busy with these things and help Li Luo with these trivial matters. Otherwise, even with the memory palace, Li Luo would probably be exhausted if he had to do all the work by himself.

Ying Chanxi did not want to become a dispensable decorative vase. Although she knew that Li Luo was very rich now, it was not a reason for her to lie down and enjoy life.

"When do Brother Jun and the others usually work in the office?" After dinner, Li Luo had nothing to do that evening, so he asked Ying Chanxi.

“They should be here right now,” Ying Chanxi recalled. “Huanhuan said that they basically spend all their time in the office now, except for classes and sleeping.”

"Oh no."

"It seems like I sleep there all the time. Sometimes when I work late, I'm too lazy to go back to my dorm, so I just bought a few folding beds in the office and I can just lie down and sleep."

"Working so hard?" Li Luo was surprised, and somewhat amused.

“After all, it’s a legitimate school project,” Ying Chanxi said. “The team members were introduced by Xin Yan, who even asked me about them at the time.”

“Our student union secretariat at Zhuyuan College knows a few senior students who have participated in the competition, so I acted as a go-between.”

"Several senior students in the team have participated in at least two formal competitions, and one of them even won an award."

"They all seem to be very optimistic about this project, and they are very invested in it now."

Li Luo hadn't expected these people to be so enthusiastic, considering the school had only provided a few tens of thousands of yuan in project funding.

Even if you can participate in the Dandelion Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, how far you can go in the end is still unknown.

But for these third- and fourth-year students, having such an opportunity is already a rare privilege.

In particular, experiences directly involved in school projects can be included in one's resume.

With nothing else to do, Li Luo took Ying Chanxi's hand and led her to the tenth floor of the Times Square office building.

Led by Ying Chanxi, they found the office where Zhao Rongjun and his colleagues were located.

Pushing open the door, Li Luo saw his team members furiously typing on their keyboards.

Because they were so focused, they didn't even notice that someone had come in from outside.

It wasn't until Zhao Rongjun noticed Li Luo and Ying Chanxi and quickly stood up to greet them that the others came to their senses.

Li Luo gave a brief greeting and then gestured for them to keep up the good work, saying he would just take a look around.

A short while later, footsteps could be heard outside the door again.

Hello~

Xu Yinghuan came running in from outside, full of energy, carrying two large bags of boxed lunches in her hands. "Dinner's ready! Huh?"

As soon as she finished speaking, Xu Yinghuan saw Li Luo and Ying Chanxi there, and immediately beamed with joy: "What brings you here? Have you had dinner yet?"

"I've already eaten." Li Luo waved his hand. "You guys go ahead and eat."

During the meal, Li Luo briefly learned about the progress of the software design.

However, he didn't understand computers, so he could only understand some of the basics.

After learning a little more about it, I packed my bags and said goodbye, telling them to keep up the good work.

After delivering dinner, Xu Yinghuan didn't bother them any further. Since she was going back to her dorm anyway, she hitched a ride with Li Luo and Ying Chanxi.

On the way, Xu Yinghuan asked some questions about Douyin videos.

Reminded by her words, Li Luo suddenly remembered something and turned to Ying Chanxi, saying, "I remember there was a pre-launch promotion plan on Douyin, wasn't there?"

"They have many pre-launch plans, which one are you referring to?" Ying Chanxi asked, puzzled.

"It's the one about filming collaborative videos," Li Luo reminded her. "Didn't they say they wanted to find some currently popular bloggers on Douyin and film some simple collaborative videos with Aunt Yuan?"

"That's true," Ying Chanxi nodded and said. "In the past week, I estimate that quite a few bloggers will fly to Yuhang City specifically to see Aunt Yuan."

"Isn't that a perfect coincidence?" Li Luo raised an eyebrow and smiled. "It shouldn't be too much to ask Douyin to add one more person, right?"

"What do you mean?" Upon hearing Li Luo's words, Ying Chanxi immediately realized what he meant, turned to look at Xu Yinghuan in the back seat, and then looked away. "I understand. I'll ask Miao Yifeng when I have time tomorrow."

"Hmm, go ask around. It's just a matter of allocating a little more bandwidth."

"What? What?" Xu Yinghuan was completely confused and had no idea what was going on. "Are you going to shoot some kind of collaborative video? And it's related to Aunt Yuan?"

“Aunt Yuan is officially joining Douyin.” Ying Chanxi explained simply, “Last week we went to Jingzhao City specifically to sign the contract, including Zhusheng and Li Luo.”

"Oh, oh!" Xu Yinghuan suddenly realized, "I think I saw it on the news these past few days, so that's what it is."

“This time, Douyin’s promotion efforts will be huge. If you can shoot a collaborative video with Aunt Yuan and put it in Douyin’s backend tag traffic pool, you’ll definitely benefit a lot,” Li Luo analyzed simply. “You should mention this to Brother Jun. If it’s feasible, you two should take some time to shoot it.”

"No problem!" Xu Yinghuan patted her chest and agreed happily. Then, as if remembering something, she hesitated for a moment and said, "If that's the case, isn't there something we need to discuss?"

"Huh? What's wrong?"

“It was Ah Jun who reminded me privately,” Xu Yinghuan said softly. “He said that the inspiration for our videos came from you, and now you’re providing this kind of resource for our account…”

"So I share the same opinion as Ah Jun. Why don't we also sign an agency agreement with your company?"

"Like Zhu Sheng, she told me that she also signed an artist contract with your company, right?"

Upon hearing this, Li Luo frowned slightly, feeling that Zhao Rongjun was being too formal.

But after a moment of deep thought and figuring things out, his brows gradually relaxed, and he looked at Ying Chanxi: "What do you think, Xixi?"

"I think it's fine," Ying Chanxi nodded and said. "We can make the profit sharing a bit more generous, and correspondingly, the company's obligations can be reduced a bit as well."

“Let’s keep it business. That way, when you provide them with inspiration or something in the future, you won’t have to worry about any of them feeling embarrassed.”

Ying Chanxi understood Zhao Rongjun's personality quite well, knowing that he was just embarrassed to always take advantage of Li Luo.

Signing a contract would benefit everyone.

"Then let's do it this way. Xixi can just ask Lawyer Tian to draft a contract for this."

"No rush," Ying Chanxi said with a smile. "Once I've set up our company's legal department, we can leave these kinds of small matters to them."

Ying Chanxi is very thoughtful, and he is becoming increasingly adept at planning the series of initiatives to rekindle the culture.

(End of this chapter)