Entertainment: I just want to be the boss behind the scenes

Chapter 4 Just Let Them Believe

"A teahouse with dancing?" Li Qin tilted her head, frowned and thought for a long time, and finally shook her head: "I can't imagine what it would look like."

"It's normal. Most people can't imagine it." Meng Bai spread his hands and pointed at the store: "So you can see there are not many customers."

"Wow, Brother Meng! I'm going to tell the boss that you're slandering our store's reputation behind her back again!"

As soon as Meng Bai finished speaking, a girl's voice sounded beside the two of them.

Li Qin turned around and saw the girl she saw at the front desk when she entered the room just now standing aside with a bamboo scroll in her hand.

"What do you mean by 'slander'? I am just describing it truthfully." Meng Bai said nonchalantly.

The little girl curled her lips at Meng Bai, then looked at Li Qin on the other side and said with a smile: "Hello, sister. My name is Hua Yan. What's your name?"

"Uh, hello, my name is Li Qin."

"Li Qin? This name sounds familiar..." Hua Yan muttered softly. She couldn't think of where she had heard it before, so she didn't think about it anymore and asked, "Sister, are you Brother Meng's friend?"

"Ah, not really. We should be, uh..."

Li Qin was not quite sure how to describe their current relationship, so she could only look at Meng Bai and let him answer.

"Partner!" Meng Bai gave an appropriate title: "Partner who will work together and cooperate with us."

"Oh, I see." Hua Yan responded, not quite understanding, and then she put the bamboo scroll in her hand on the table in front of Li Qin and spread it out, saying, "What would you like to drink?"

Li Qin took a look at the bamboo scroll and realized that it was actually a tea ordering menu, with the name and introduction of the tea written in exquisite small calligraphy.

Li Qin took a look, and then pushed the bamboo scroll to Meng Bai: "I don't usually drink tea, you can order it."

Meng Bai did not refuse, and glanced at Zhu Juan and said, "Give me a pot of Biluochun, which happens to be a specialty of your Jiangsu province."

"I'm from Kunshan." Li Qin corrected.

Meng Bai was a little confused: "Isn't Kunshan... in Jiangsu?"

"Yes, but... never mind. It's okay. This is all I need."

Meng Bai didn't ask any further questions. He added another portion of sock-bottom crisps and asked Hua Yan to prepare it.

"Is this girl the boss?" Li Qin asked, looking at Hua Yan's busy petite figure.

"No, Huahua is a student at the nearby Zhongcai University, and she works here part-time." Meng Bai said, "The owner of this teahouse is a girl of the same age as you."

"Hmm..." Li Qin nodded, then looked at Meng Bai suspiciously and said, "You seem to know a lot about me, don't you?"

"Hey, as the second party, you have to know more about the boss who pays you so that you can please him."

Li Qin's expression darkened, and she whispered, "I don't have any money now."

Meng Bai coughed lightly and asked again: "By the way, I never asked you before, how much money were you cheated of?"

"About 600,000." Li Qin said in a low voice.

"Tsk!" Meng Bai sighed: "Otherwise we have to say that you actors make money!"

Li Qin bit her lip, looked at Meng Bai with red eyes and said, "This is all the salary I received for filming for six years..."

Six hundred thousand in six years, that is, one hundred thousand a year, and a monthly salary of more than eight thousand...

Well, it’s not too much in northern Beijing.

Girl, you say that people make millions or tens of millions of dollars from investment, and they don't feel bad when they lose. You made a million or eight hundred thousand, even if you were not cheated, you would still feel bad if you lost in the end.

What? No compensation?
Don't be ridiculous. There are at least 800 film crews of all sizes working across the country every year, but if only one in ten projects can make money each year, it's considered high.

Moreover, investors often do not make money just because the project is successful. For those outsiders or novice investors, producers and directors have many ways to turn the crew's money into their own money.

In fact, Meng Bai initially thought that "Producer Lin" was trying to get some money from the investors through this method. But he didn't expect that he didn't do these "fancy tricks" and was just a pure liar.

Yes, high-end scams often only require the simplest methods... and a silly girl like Li Qin.

Seeing that Li Qin was about to start emoting again, Meng Bai knocked on the table in time to interrupt her emotions: "OK, since the money is gone, don't think about 'what if' anymore. What we need to do now is to think about how to make up for the loss."

"The police are chasing the scammers. I won't talk about when they will be caught. Just like what the police said, even if they catch them, it is still unknown how much money they can recover in the end."

"So, if we want to make up for the losses, it is not enough to just catch the scammers, we must think of other ways."

"What other methods?" Li Qin leaned forward on the table, staring at Meng Bai closely with an expression that said "I'm listening to you carefully."

Meng Bai was very satisfied with Li Qin's serious attitude. He took out his mobile phone, opened a document, and then put it on the desktop and pushed it over, saying: "My idea is to finish what we haven't done yet, for example, continue filming this script."

Li Qin looked at Meng Bai’s mobile phone. The first page of the document opened on the screen had four words written on it - "Soul Ferry".

This was the script that led to her being defrauded of all her pay.

"Keep filming?" Li Qin looked confused: "Just the two of us?"

Meng Bai had a look on his face that said "are you mentally retarded?" "What I mean is, you and I will be the main creators of this drama, and then we will work together to find a way to set up the crew."

"Oh..." Li Qin nodded suddenly, and then asked: "Then what should we do?"

"To build a crew, there are two core elements, one is people, the other is money. The problem of people is easy to solve. As long as there is sufficient funding, I can pull out ten crews for you in one day."

"But, but I have no money..." Li Qin's originally cold and indifferent face wrinkled and she said pitifully.

"I know, and I don't intend to ask you for money." Meng Bai looked at Li Qin and said, "What I need is your person."

Li Qin frowned when he heard this, sat up straight and leaned back, and asked Meng Bai suspiciously: "What do you mean?"

Seeing this, Meng Bai sighed and said helplessly: "Girl, we are not that familiar with each other, so you can understand what I said literally. There is no need to think in a crooked way."

Li Qin looked at Meng Bai's expression, which was indeed very serious. Only then did she realize that she had misunderstood.

Her cheeks flushed slightly, and she couldn't help but muttered softly, "It's because your words were ambiguous that I misunderstood."

"OK, it's my fault. Let's not discuss it." Meng Bai didn't intend to dwell on this issue any more. He took the responsibility on himself and said again: "What I mean is that I need your fame and background as an actor to solve our current funding problem."

"Wait a minute, I understand fame, but what does 'background' mean?" Li Qin asked in confusion, "Why don't I know what my background is?"

"Your agency, Rong Xinda."

Li Qin blinked, thought for a while, and then said with an expression of "suddenly understanding": "You mean, you want me to recommend the script to the company?"

Meng Bai choked when he heard this, and after a few seconds of silence, he said, "If you have the confidence that you can convince your company to invest in the film, then that's fine."

"Hmm..." Li Qin pursed her lips in embarrassment, thought for a while, and shook her head: "I feel that Aunt Li will definitely not agree to film a web drama."

Meng Bai was stunned for a moment, then realized that the "Aunt Li" that Li Qin was talking about should be Li Shaohong, one of the "Big Three" of Rong Xinda. Li Qin was discovered by Li Shaohong, so she has a close relationship with her.

Meng Bai was not surprised by Li Qin's dilemma: "Online dramas are still in a wild state. Most traditional film and television companies don't like this 'little snack', so if we really want to find funding, we still have to rely on video websites to pay."

"But how do we convince the website to pay?" Li Qin asked, "Should we take the script to negotiate?"

"I've been there before, but the deal didn't work out." Meng Bai spread his hands and said, "These video websites don't have the ability to produce movies and TV shows at the moment, so they prefer to accept cooperation from professional film and TV companies. I'm a nobody, so they don't believe me."

"Then isn't our current situation still the same?"

"No, no, didn't I just say that we have the company behind you?"

"I just said that our company will not agree to cooperate."

"Alas..." Meng Bai sighed, looking at Li Qin with an expression of "a child who cannot be taught", and patiently explained: "We don't need to 'cooperate with your company', we just need those video websites to believe that 'we are cooperating with your company', do you understand?"

(End of this chapter)