Entertainment mogul: Starting his business with the internet

Chapter 148 A World for Two
After a little over an hour's drive, everyone arrived at their destination without incident. After seeing off the bodyguards and assistants, Song Ci and Liu Shishi prepared to spend a few days enjoying some quality time together.

The large apartments in Phoenix Mansion on Longhua Middle Road are all one unit per floor, with fully furnished units priced at nearly 5 yuan per square meter. Song Xueying helped with all the purchase procedures.

This was Song Ci's first visit since acquiring the luxury house. The main reason he chose this house was its proximity to Tangren Film and Television, which would be convenient for Liu Shishi's work.

Upon entering and passing through the foyer, one is greeted by a spacious, comfortable, and lavishly decorated living room. However, the floor-to-ceiling windows on one side of the living room are currently covered by curtains, making the entire living room somewhat dimly lit.

Song Ci walked to the French windows, pulled back the curtains, and was immediately greeted by the bustling Donghai street scene. Sunlight streamed in, illuminating the entire interior space.

Liu Shishi pulled Song Ci's suitcase straight to the bedroom and thoughtfully helped her boyfriend pack his clothes, while Song Ci walked around the house looking at things.

I first glanced at the study, which was completely empty. Then I went to the kitchen, where the utensils were neatly arranged and not a trace of oil or smoke.

The tableware was set out quietly on the dining table, untouched. The entire house was devoid of any signs of human presence, making it seem as if no one lived there.

Upon entering the bedroom, Song Ci looked at the meticulously made and tidy bed and asked, "Shishi, haven't you been staying here for a while?"

As Liu Shishi hung up a few of her boyfriend's clothes, she replied with a smile, "I haven't stayed here. I've been staying at Sister K's house since I came to Donghai from Hengdian. You're not usually here, so the house is empty and spacious. I'm a little scared to live alone in such a big house at night."

Song Ci shook her head helplessly: "You can't stay at Cai Yinong's place forever. Anyway, there are plenty of rooms at home. If you're scared, you can have Jiang Yuanyuan stay with you. I'll feel more at ease if you have someone to keep you company."

Liu Shishi nodded, "I'll come back to stay today since you're here. I'll have Yuanyuan move in after National Day."

Song Ci stood by the bed, looking around the bedroom. It was fully equipped with a bathroom and a walk-in closet, quiet and cozy. Watching Miss Liu bustling around, helping her tidy up, she suddenly felt a sense of belonging to this place.

"Honey, don't rush to pack, I have something important to tell you."

Song Ci and his girlfriend hadn't seen each other for a month. Now that she was by his side, looking at her seductive half-squatting posture, he was filled with creative desire and wanted to compose a poem!
Upon hearing this, Liu Shishi stood up and looked at her boyfriend with a puzzled expression, wondering what he wanted to say.

Song Ci stared at the pretty face so close to his eyes, reached out and grabbed his girlfriend's soft hand, pulling her arm firmly.

Caught off guard, Liu Shishi stumbled and fell into her boyfriend's arms. Song Ci caught her and they rolled onto the bed together.

She let out a soft gasp, and before she could react, someone had already leaned down and showered her with passionate kisses, her brow, cheeks, and red lips all feeling the warm touch.

The flames of desire were instantly ignited, and Liu Shishi instinctively embraced her boyfriend, responding passionately.

Their breathing became rapid and hot, their clothes loosened, and their figures gradually intertwined and overlapped, closely pressed together and inseparable. It was a perfect fusion of love and affection, a direct expression of their feelings in poetry.

More than an hour later, the clouds and rain dissipated, and Liu Shishi's enthusiasm gradually faded from the lingering notes of her soft singing. "This is the important thing you were talking about! In broad daylight, you didn't even close the curtains, are you trying to kill me?"

Having just achieved a balance of Yin and Yang, Song Ci felt refreshed and his hand stroked from Miss Liu's hair down to her smooth back. He said in a serious tone:

"It's a high floor, so it's fine. Important things are often understood intuitively, not explained in words. Just now, you were clamping your legs so tightly together, so I thought you had grasped the important thing I wanted to say."

Liu Shishi shrank her snow-white body under the quilt, covering her burning face with one hand, while pinching and twisting the soft flesh of Song Ci's waist with the other.

That scoundrel of a man takes advantage of her and then acts innocent, teasing her after every encounter, saying that his own arousal and acquiescence were simply human nature.

"Don't pinch me, baby, it hurts!" Song Ci quickly begged for mercy, but Miss Liu's grip was quite strong and it hurt a lot.

Liu Shishi wasn't really angry. Young women are easily embarrassed, and she was just annoyed by Song Ci's lewd remarks. When her boyfriend begged for forgiveness, she let him go.

"Yi-yi, what are we going to do later?"

"Didn't I say that you can arrange my time these next few days?"

After thinking for a while, Liu Shishi decided to spend a few days living the life of an ordinary couple with Mr. Song: "Let's go see a movie after dinner. Let's watch 'So Young,' starring Brother Qiao. Then we can have some fun in Donghai for the next few days."

Has the movie version of "So Young" been released yet?

"You, the boss, don't even know that Tengda Culture produced a movie?"

"I don't concern myself with such trivial matters as a subsidiary's movie release," Song Ci said matter-of-factly.

Zhang Zhao had informed him that he wanted to invite him to the premiere, but he only knew that "So Young" had finished filming and didn't know the exact release date.

He's very busy these days, so he naturally refused outright. If Liu Shishi hadn't been in the movie "Nightclub," he wouldn't have bothered to join the fun and attend the premiere.

"The movie was just released yesterday. Brother Yu even invited me to the premiere, but unfortunately, with Lao Hu's incident at the company, I wasn't in the mood to go."

Song Ci readily agreed to Miss Liu's arrangement: "Since you want to see it, let's go take a look."

"Okay, turn your head away, I'm getting up."

His girlfriend was actually shy, but Song Ci, with a roguish air, said, "We're an old married couple, what haven't I seen before?"

Liu Shishi kicked Song Ci and said through gritted teeth, "Song Yiyi, you bastard! I'm young and beautiful, in the prime of my life, who would want to be your old married couple!"

As dusk settles, the night unfolds like still water.

On the lively and festive National Day night, Liu Shishi and Song Ci had dinner and then went to a brightly lit movie theater. Coincidentally, it was one of the theaters under the Southern Cinema Circuit.

As Liu Shishi went to queue for tickets, Song Ci looked around. The cinema was exquisitely decorated, and classic movie posters hung on the walls of the theater, ranging from black and white to color, from retro to modern, seemingly witnessing the changes and development of film art.

He couldn't help but nod in satisfaction. He could see the whole picture from a single glimpse. It seemed that his own Southern Cinema Line was indeed developing well. Liu Rong was indeed capable and had not let him down.

Perhaps because it was the National Day holiday, the cinema was quite crowded, and long queues formed to buy tickets. Liu Shishi queued for more than half an hour before she could buy a movie ticket.

"Honey, let's go in, the movie's about to start." Liu Shishi bought the tickets, grabbed some popcorn and drinks, and called to her boyfriend, who was looking around nervously.

Song Ci casually took a bucket of popcorn, followed Miss Liu through the ticket check, and walked towards the theater entrance following the signs.

Liu Shishi, arm in arm with her boyfriend, said as they walked, "Actually, I really wanted to see 'Rob-B-Hood,' but then I thought better of it and decided to support Brother Yu's movie instead." "I know 'Rob-B-Hood,' starring Jackie Chan and Gu Tianle." Song Ci had just seen the movie's promotional poster at the ticket office. At that time, Jackie Chan and Gu Tianle's box office appeal was still very strong, and many viewers chose to see this movie today.

Pushing open the theater door, the room was pitch black, and advertisements were already playing on the screen, indicating that the movie was about to start.

Liu Shishi's seats weren't great; they were in the back row, towards the edge. The two of them groped their way to their seats and sat down, waiting for the movie to start.

A moment later, as the familiar golden dragon logo and Tengda logo flashed by, "So Young" officially began to play.

Song Ci glanced around the theater and saw that the occupancy rate was about 70%.

After all, Qiao Zhengyu was at the height of his popularity after "My Own Swordsman," and with Gao Yuanyuan as the female lead, their second collaboration in the film version of "So Young" still had a certain appeal to movie fans.

Song Yang and Liu Shishi sat side by side in the movie theater, surrounded by dim lighting and occasional rustling sounds. As the movie plot unfolded, everyone's attention was drawn to the huge screen.

"So Young" is a film about youth, love and growth. Ten years from now, it may be an old-fashioned theme, but in 2006, the youth film market was still a blank.

The memories of youth, the pursuit of dreams, and the sweetness and bitterness of love in the film touch the audience's hearts so realistically and profoundly.

The film quickly reached its climax. When the protagonists faced the helplessness and choices of reality, many audience members had tears in their eyes, and faint sobs could be heard from the front row.

Faced with the deeply moving film "So Young," Liu Shishi, unlike other viewers who felt the same way, watched it with great interest but without any sadness, occasionally offering her comments on the performances of the main actors.

After all, her first love was her childhood sweetheart, Mr. Song, who doted on her. He drove her luxury cars and lived in a big villa. The pain of being forced by life and unable to get the love she loved in the movie had nothing to do with her and she couldn't relate to it at all.

Taking a cheerful sip of her cola, Liu Shishi leaned closer to her boyfriend and whispered, "Yiyi, how could you write such a heart-wrenching plot?"

Song Ci casually made up: "I have had a crush on someone since I was a child, but unfortunately, that person only treated me as a brother back then. I could only express my feelings through writing because I could not have him."

Upon hearing this, Liu Shishi was so shocked that she almost spat out the cola in her mouth. She forced herself to swallow it down, choking and coughing repeatedly.

Song Ci gently patted Miss Liu's back and asked with concern, "Why did you choke? Drink slowly."

Liu Shishi was skeptical and asked in surprise, "Yiyi, did you really have a crush on me before?"

Song Ci nodded sincerely.

Liu Shishi initially believed it, and shyly fiddled with the hem of her dress, saying bashfully:

"She was too young to understand these things about love and romance, but she came to her senses later. Actually, we were in a relationship too, but she didn't wait as long as you."

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Song Ci's ambiguous smile and immediately realized that the scoundrel was probably just trying to fool her again: "Wait, if you had a crush on me, why did you reject me when I confessed to you?"

"Well!" Song Ci was speechless for a moment, unsure how to answer Miss Liu's question.

Liu Shishi frowned and said unhappily, "Song Yiyi, you're lying to me again."

Song Ci coughed lightly: "Don't worry about those details. We're together now, so whether you have a crush on someone or not doesn't matter."

Liu Shishi, however, held her head high and became arrogant: "Hmph, I don't care. Anyway, you just said that you have a crush on me, and I took it seriously."

At this moment, Miss Liu was already daydreaming. One day, when her relationship with Song Ci was fully exposed to the public, she would say that Song Ci had a crush on her and that the nation's male god had pursued her first, making those wicked women on the internet so envious that they would call Song Ci "husband" on the forum every day. They were truly shameless.

"as long as you are happy."

Soon after the movie ended and the theater lights came on, Liu Shishi was still feeling unsatisfied and couldn't help but say enviously, "Brother Qiao and Gao Yuanyuan acted so well. I really want to act in another movie."

Although "Nightclub" did well at the box office, and she was considered the female lead, her screen time was too short. She could only be said to have benefited from the popularity of Xu Zheng and Qiao Zhengyu, unlike Gao Yuanyuan, who had a significant role in "So Young" and was a standard co-lead actress.

Song Ci took Liu Shishi's hand and walked towards the exit, patting his chest and assuring her, "Making a movie is no big deal. If you want to act in one, I'll have Zhang Zhao arrange one for you next year."

Tengda Culture plans to produce three or four films next year, and it would be perfectly feasible to have Liu Shishi star in one of them, but the script needs to be carefully considered.

Ms. Liu's acting skills still need improvement. The big screen will magnify the actor's shortcomings. If she wants to stand out, she needs to find a role that matches her temperament, such as a school beauty or a blind girl, which would be a good fit.

With the prospect of acting in movies, Liu Shishi couldn't help but feel a little hopeful: "Is that possible?"

"If you pass the audition, that's fine. After we get back, I, the chairman, will personally audition for you."

Liu Shishi instantly remembered the last time Song Ci auditioned for her in Hengdian, and her cheeks flushed red. She said softly, "I brought back all of Mu Nianci's costumes. Which one would you like to try on tonight?"

Song Ci, however, had a serious expression and said sternly, "What nonsense are you thinking!"

Liu Shishi was momentarily surprised. Could it be that she had misunderstood? Was Mr. Song's attempt a serious trial run? After all, he was a renowned screenwriter and had a deep understanding of some characters.

"One set isn't enough, of course we'll replace them all."

Liu Shishi rolled her eyes. Sure enough, she had overthought things. She punched her boyfriend in annoyance. He was always up to no good and just bullied her.

During the National Day holiday, Donghai, this international metropolis, was adorned in festive attire, and a joyful and peaceful atmosphere permeated the air.

Over three days, Song Ci and Liu Shishi wandered through this bustling city, experiencing the unique charm of the East China Sea.

The two went to the Bund and admired the towering buildings along the Huangpu River; they took a boat trip on the river and enjoyed the picturesque scenery on both sides; or they strolled along the pedestrian street and tasted authentic Donghai snacks.

After spending a few days having fun with his girlfriend, Song Ci and Zhang Yong went to Shentong and Best Express companies on the mornings of the 5th and 6th. After reaching a preliminary agreement on cooperation, they left the rest to the professional team.

After bidding a reluctant farewell to Liu Shishi on the morning of the 7th, Song Ci boarded a flight to Beiping.

(End of this chapter)