"Achoo!!"
Pei Muchan sniffled, her eyes rimmed red as she wrapped herself in a little blanket in the office.
"Here, take your medicine."
Xu Qingyan passed a steaming cup of cold remedy to her, pushing it towards her face with curiosity.
"So... you caught a cold from the office air conditioning?"
Pei Muchan's expression barely changed as she pretended to be nonchalant, sipping the cold remedy in little gulps. For some reason, Xu Qingyan thought this action resembled a cat lapping up water.
"That's right."
"Ridiculous." He leaned against his new desk, glancing at the little trinkets laid out, "Couldn't you have turned off the AC when you felt cold yesterday?"
"Mind your own business?" she retorted, looking up.
"Getting a cold twice in ten days, do you really want to get an injection?" Xu Qingyan made a gesture of slapping the back of his hand where veins would be drawn for a shot, which scared Pei Muchan into retracting back immediately.
He laughed. Such a grown-up and still scared of needles?
Pei Muchan felt deflated and turned her head away, remaining silent. She wrapped herself up in a little blanket amidst the sweltering weather, her cheeks showing an unhealthy red.
The office was so hot, yet they couldn't open the windows, just halfway for some ventilation.
Xu Qingyan felt increasingly restless, the stifling air filling his short-sleeved shirt. At this rate, even his shorts would be drenched with sweat.
He glanced at her and couldn't help but sigh.
Forget it, just endure it.
"Are you very hot?"
"No."
"I feel much better now, you can turn on the air conditioning if you're hot." Pei Muchan was lying on the desk, her head on her arms, turned sideways to look at him, "You're sweating, your forehead is all sweaty."
"Nonsense, I come from an impoverished family, how can I be afraid of heat?"
"Impoverished family?"
"Yes, the Xu family used to be considered a prominent family with a grand entrance. But because of feuds and national hatred, they all went to war; the family nearly met with extinction, with a village of thousands of strong men reduced to less than a hundred."
"The martyrs from that generation were truly remarkable, sacrificing themselves to bring peace." Pei Muchan's eyes drooped, speaking faintly, "Defending the land, dying for the rivers and mountains."
The topic became a bit heavy, and Xu Qingyan fell silent for a while.
Some things are fundamental, unable to be skipped or imagined; the fearlessness in the face of death displayed by people of that era. The weight of an individual is light, but millions piled together become the foundation of a nation.
So-called reclaiming the land and rivers was nothing more than pushing forward inch by inch with blood and flesh.
.....
Noon, Cloud Wing Entertainment building.
"How much?"
"Six... six hundred thousand, the estimated first-day sales could break seven hundred thousand." The little assistant stammered while holding the phone, "She sought out promotion, maybe she paid for..."
"Bought what bullshit! She still owes our company money, unable to produce more than a million. She had to sell her house just to pay her debts, from what money could she buy data?"
The product manager of Cloud Wing Entertainment couldn't help but curse, "Hundreds of thousands of manipulated data, without several millions how can it be done? How could she release a song in such a short time?"
Throwing mud needs logic; Lin Wanzhou's compensation wasn't for equity but for time. Even if the commercial losses she brought to the company were added, the court would never agree to compensation of eight or nine million.
This was purely because Wen Yun did not want the company to drag on with Lin Wanzhou and chose to settle the matter privately with money.
"Maybe she used our company's money to buy the song; she's been wanting to leave, which is why she terminated the contract so decisively." The little assistant was trembling, trying her best to shift the blame onto Lin Wanzhou.
Portray Lin Wanzhou as negatively as possible. The boss would be pleased to hear it, and it would divert the attention of the immediate superior. As long as she doesn't take the fall, it's fine if anyone else does,
Hearing this, the product manager frowned and fell into a deep thought.
"It's not impossible; go check with finance to confirm if our company's resources were used. If it's true, we'll pursue the matter to the end and make her spit out everything she's swallowed."
"Okay."
The main revenue for Cloud Wing Entertainment actually doesn't come from the music sector but from the artist management. Simply put, it's about top-tier celebs and idols, the fastest way to cash in.
It doesn't matter if there are no works, spend the money to hype it up, get someone to boost their profile. There will naturally be brain-dead fans flocking to them, consuming the idols' looks, and tirelessly blowing bubbles to deify them.
The profit from artist management accounts for nearly seventy percent of Cloud Wing Entertainment's income. In comparison, the returns from the music development sector seem less important.
This was also the confidence Cloud Wing had in exploiting their pop divas: the company has plenty of money. If you won't do it, there are plenty of others who will, and they can hype up a new diva at any time.
However, what they didn't expect was that Lin Wanzhou's artist management team also resigned.
Wen Yun was a veteran manager who had cultivated a quite capable executive agent named Qi Ting. Anyway, this was also part of the company's loss.
Of course, the manager hoped to see Lin Wanzhou and her crew empty their wallets, unable to pay the compensation and subsequently struggle in the music industry, release an unsuccessful song, and then disappear quietly from the scene.
That way, he would have another living example.
When the Artist Development Department brought in batches of newcomers, he could lecture these rookies. For instance, there was once someone who defied the company and expound on their miserable fate.
What they least wanted to see was a singer leaving the company and then soaring to stardom.
Then there would be an outpouring of public opinion.
Where would the company put its face? Where would he put his own face if the artist left the company yet achieved better development? Wouldn't it be like getting trampled publicly?
While waiting, the product manager opened Penguin Music and searched for Lin Wanzhou.
In the search results, many songs had turned gray. According to the termination agreement, the copyright to Lin Wanzhou's previous songs would belong entirely to the company and have nothing to do with her from now on.