Chapter 385: Smoke

Lu Yan He didn't win an award, but you can't say he didn't win an award.

*Friends* won the Best TV Series award that night. As the lead actor and screenwriter, no one can erase his glory.

The result is that although Lu Yan He did not win any major awards for his personal nominations, he became the most eye-catching person at this awards ceremony because of this Best TV Series award.

His speech was also evaluated as a "textbook-level" speech again.

Many media outlets made text versions of his speech and spread them on the Internet.

Especially the sentence "Work is art, but art is made by all types of work together. Without the dedication of everyone in front and behind the scenes, art is not art, just a rough craft," was forwarded by many behind-the-scenes staff in the film and television industry, expressing emotion.

"We all know that star artists are the occupation that occupies the most dividends in the film and television industry, while behind-the-scenes lighting engineers, sound engineers, makeup artists, etc., they don't appear directly in front of the stage, so unless they reach the top position of the industry, it is generally difficult to be seen. We always hear many star artists say thank you to all the staff in front and behind the scenes. This sentence is heard tired, but I didn't expect Lu Yan He to say such a sentence." Entertainment critic Guan Su Chen posted, "Lu Yan He said this sentence really well. It's not that only performance is art, and other work is not art. He is also a rare actor who can truly see the importance of every type of work. With such an actor, we can believe that the film and television industry will get better and better."

Then, someone found the speech Li Zhen made at the media press conference that day.

"*Young Days* all artists took out part of their income and shared it with behind-the-scenes staff. Really, we always see all kinds of things like tax evasion, or only one or two million left in the card, very anxious, as if the group of artists in the entertainment industry are all brain-damaged people whose brains are structured differently from ordinary people. Fortunately, there are still artists like Lu Yan He who have clear brains and empathy. Otherwise, I really don't know what kind of idols we usually pay attention to."

"Isn't Lu Yan He always a clear stream? For the movie *Late Spring*, 99.99% of male actors in the entire entertainment industry, especially male actors of his age, would not take it. Those without acting skills will mess it up, those with acting skills will dislike it as a group play, the male lead's play is not enough, or dislike the low pay of this play. With an actor like Lu Yan He, the film and television industry should steal joy. How many newcomers did Lu Yan He bring out this year? *Friends* promoted Yan Liang, Wen Minglan, Zhan Yun, Yin Xincheng in one breath, *Three Mountains* sent out three pure newcomers Chen Jiang, Sui Fangran, Wang Lu, and *Late Spring* is even more so. This movie, except for Lu Yan He, is all newcomers. Do you know why Lu Yan He's status can be so high at a young age? Because he is an actor who can really carry a play by himself. I don't say he is the only one, but in recent years, besides him, which actor has carried it like this?"

A group of people were so excited that people mistakenly thought Lu Yan He was smeared or attacked, but when they looked carefully, they found that there was no such thing? No one attacked Lu Yan He? Why are these people so excited?

"Why? Of course, because it is rare to encounter such a strange popular star, and I can't help but be excited."

At the internal meeting of Ye Mai Net, when talking about such a phenomenon on the Internet, Xin Zixing analyzed it according to her own understanding.

"Isn't this the same as our mood? What kind of star artists did we cooperate with before? Each one is well protected by the team, glass-hearted, and arrogant. When we cooperate with them, we have to specially list a budget to do the artist's popularity marketing, hehe." Xin Zixing said, "We have cooperated with Lu Yan He for so long, has he and his team ever made any inexplicable and unbelievable request?"

"Zixing, we all know that your relationship with Lu Yan He is very good, but you don't have to praise him so much." Zuo Yu, who was sitting opposite her, joked with a smile, "Of course, Yan He is indeed an excellent artist, but you praise him so much, will your Mr. Huang be jealous?"

Others followed and laughed.

Xin Zixing didn't expect Zuo Yu to mention Huang Kairen out of the blue.

But this is not the first time.

Since her relationship with Huang Kairen was made public, Xin Zixing has often encountered this situation of being teased to her face.

Of course she is very annoyed, but although she is very annoyed, she can only endure it.

The whole environment is like this. If she cares, it will make her look too calculating.

"General Manager Zuo, you are so concerned about me, won't your wife be jealous?" Xin Zixing replied with a soft and hard sentence, looking smiling, "I can't bear your concern."

Zuo Yu was slightly stunned.

Others were also stunned, not expecting Xin Zixing to fight back like this.

Xin Zixing said: "My relationship with Lu Yan He is indeed good, but in business, why do I say he is strange, and many people are excited because of the appearance of such an artist? One truth, we have made magazine brands, documentary brands, and as one of the most authoritative websites for film and television and work ratings in China, we actually gather far more literary youths than other platforms. This is also our platform's biggest advantage—investors, brand customers, what do they like about us? To put it in the simplest two words, it is style. Other platforms are popular, only our platform is doing elite. This is where we differ from other platforms. Just now General Manager Zuo said that we want to make traffic bigger and increase investment. I also agree with this point, but I think the premise of this point is not to destroy the positioning and image of our website—or do you think the positioning and image of our website can be destroyed?"

Zuo Yu said: "The positioning and brand image of Ye Mai Net have always been far ahead in the market, but why is the market share of such a website with good reputation and brand image so small? Have you thought about this question?"

Others looked at each other.

"Actually, I don't need to say, everyone knows the answer. This is not an era where wine is not afraid of deep alleys. Not only is it not, but it has also become an era where time is very fragmented. Everyone think about it, how much time do we spend on the Internet on average every day? Every day we will receive countless information, what star cheated, I want to click in and see, what play came out, I want to chase an episode, what seeds from a thousand years ago were actually re-cultivated in this era, so strange, I want to see. There are too many such situations, right? Every online platform is thinking of various tricks to make people click in and keep more time on their platform." Zuo Yu said, "But where does our website's traffic come from? Or what does it mainly come from? We have done data analysis. More than half of the traffic comes from registered users. What does it mean? We have many loyal users, but we have very few new users, which shows that our new user acquisition is too poor."

Zuo Yu looked at Xin Zixing: "Zixing has made two very good works, one is *City Travel Notes*, one is *Jump Up*. Our background data also shows that these two works have the most loyal users. Every month, millions of users are active on our Ye Mai Net because of these two works, but on the other hand, we must also see a fact, that is, their new user acquisition is done very poorly. Some people say that they have reached a bottleneck, the data can't go up, saying that the threshold for these two works is very high, and it is impossible to have millions of users like popular works."

Xin Zixing frowned slightly.

This argument has indeed appeared for a long time, and it is also a main reason why many of Xin Zixing's ideas are restricted and cannot get more resources.

Senior management is no longer optimistic about them further expanding the user scale. Many people feel that as long as they can maintain the current volume and not decline, it is already very good.

Does Zuo Yu also want to emphasize this argument again?

Xin Zixing is not very familiar with this new executive who has been dug for less than half a year. She doesn't know what his routine is, only that his profession is to do promotion, marketing, and promotion.

Zuo Yu changed the subject and said: "In my eyes, they are far from the bottleneck. They still have sufficient markets to tap. In fact, it is our positioning of the high threshold of these two works that makes us voluntarily give up many markets and give up a large number of users."

"What does this mean?"

Zuo Yu said: "I'll give an example. *Jump Up* is not just a magazine, it is now also a very successful self-media. In fact, all the content that appears on self-media can appear on Ye Mai Net. If we could have had a long-term vision at the beginning and pulled self-media under our Ye Mai Net, everyone think about it, how many users can the several major self-media brands under *Jump Up* with tens of millions of fans bring to our Ye Mai Net?"

The conference room became silent.

Even Xin Zixing didn't speak.

"I have been in the company for less than half a year, and I have been seriously studying our website's core business, operation mode, advantages and shortcomings. I can say such a sentence, Zixing is a person who is very good at making content, and unfortunately, our company has not been able to match the people who can spread her content 100% or even 1000%."

After Zuo Yu's voice fell, the conference room exploded.

Even Xin Zixing looked at him in shock, not understanding why he would say so.

However, apart from other things, Xin Zixing also felt that what Zuo Yu said actually made some sense.

"Sticking to the rules will only retreat. At this time, everyone think back, just now I made an inappropriate joke about Huang Kairen in front of Zixing, everyone should still have an impression, right?"

In the discussion, Xin Zixing frowned, looking at Zuo Yu in confusion, not understanding why he mentioned this matter again.

Does he think it's interesting?

Everyone looked at him, waiting for his follow-up.

"When I made such an inappropriate joke, although it was inappropriate, everyone's attention was on me, and then on Xin Zixing. Is it that everyone doesn't know that Xin Zixing's relationship with Lu Yan He is very good? Everyone here has been in the company longer than me, and must know this better than me. Is it that everyone doesn't know that Xin Zixing and Huang Kairen are lovers? Must also know. However, when I combined these two things and said them out, I especially remember the look Zixing looked at me. Of course, she is a good person, didn't fight back directly or scold me, I am already very grateful, but in fact, the look she looked at me, besides thinking I have a sick brain, there is also a very important point, she is questioning me with her eyes, how did I link these two things together without any basis. Everyone here is actually this reaction. No matter how outrageous I am, at that moment, everyone's attention was caught by me, so no matter what I say later, you will listen very seriously, even if the things I say later have nothing to do with this matter."

Xin Zixing vaguely seemed to have grasped something.

"This is the most important thing about promotion. It is not that every promotion has to find something that has never appeared before, nor is it that we have to constantly push through the old and bring forth the new. If things are good enough, then the core task of our stage is definitely not to further improve quality, but to let more people know its goodness." Zuo Yu said, "We have to find a way to let more people know and enter brand works like *City Travel Notes* or *Jump Up*. It is not to emphasize how good they are again and again. In this day and age, good is not enough to make people willing to try."

He looked at Xin Zixing: "Although the short film plan is very novel and can cultivate many of our own talents, however, our Ye Mai Net is not a video platform after all, right? You said to cooperate with other platforms to do this plan, then it is very likely that this thing will be done beautifully, the reputation is very good, and I also firmly believe that you will do the content well. But no matter how well it is done, it may be that other video platforms have seized the greatest traffic and benefits. What aspect should we exert effort in to achieve twice the result with half the effort? This is what I have been thinking about, so, Zixing, I don't agree with the short film plan you proposed. It is not that I don't agree with your plan, but that we have already had several gold mines that have not been fully tapped, and we went to dig new places, which is too wasteful of resources. We don't solve the problem that the digging tools are not precise and powerful enough. Even if we find a hundred gold mines, we can only dig out that little gold, and we will never be able to dig to the biggest, best, and most places."

Xin Zixing really didn't want to admit one thing. After Zuo Yu said this, she began to waver about the short film plan.

Is this really a good time to launch the short film plan?

*City Travel Notes* and *Jump Up* have reached this point, and they have been restricted by the senior management's concept problems from further expanding and strengthening. The short film plan is likely to be the same encounter.

She thought deeply for a long time, and when she came back to her senses, she found that it was already 8:30 in the evening.

She took her bag and walked out of the office with the lights off. Some colleagues were still working overtime, and most of them had already left.

She greeted the colleagues who were still working overtime and walked to the elevator entrance.

As a result, as soon as the elevator door opened, Zuo Yu was in the elevator.

"General Manager Zuo, what a coincidence." Xin Zixing greeted him.

Zuo Yu smiled at her and asked, "Just off work?"

"Hmm." Xin Zixing couldn't say that she had been thinking about what he said, so she forgot the time, and smiled vaguely.

"I haven't officially explained to you before. You wanted to add production funds to *City Travel Notes* before, and this time you proposed to do a short film plan. I voted against it. Please believe me, I am not targeting you, but based on my professional judgment."

Zuo Yu smiled, with a very sincere posture, but whether it is worth believing is still an unknown. In the workplace, there are too many masked people. Xin Zixing's heart was tense, and her face also wore a free and easy mask. She nodded and said, "The content you said today is indeed thought-provoking."

"My past work has more or less been related to promotion and marketing. Coming to Ye Mai Net actually surprised me a little. I have rarely seen a company that has reached this scale, but many management and employees still retain idealism and so-called literary feelings."

Xin Zixing said: "If it weren't for such people, they wouldn't have joined our company at the beginning, more or less some like-minded people. What about you, General Manager Zuo, why did you come to our Ye Mai Net?"

"Because for me, this place is like a place that is well-known but has not yet become a world-class famous scenic spot. The value I can exert here is the greatest." Zuo Yu said, "This place is not short of good content, but it is short of good pushers. It just so happens that I am good at pushers."

Xin Zixing realized that Zuo Yu's words had a professional sense that made people believe.

At this time, the elevator reached the parking lot.

Zuo Yu blocked the door with his right hand, signaling Xin Zixing to go out first.

Xin Zixing nodded, expressed her gratitude, and walked out.

"Zixing." Zuo Yu suddenly called her again.

Xin Zixing turned to look at Zuo Yu with some surprise.

"Apologize to you for the joke about you and Huang Kairen and Lu Yan He today." Zuo Yu said.

Xin Zixing hesitated for a moment and asked, "Did you make that joke just to use it as an example later?"

"Of course not, it just happened to be mentioned." Zuo Yu said, "It's because I found that for a period of time, it seems that no matter what I say, you subconsciously resist what I say, probably because I opposed your previous proposal, or even ignored me. I think I might have to attack you, so you will face me with a fighting posture, listen carefully to what I say, and understand my way of thinking."

"Ha?" Xin Zixing looked at Zuo Yu with a look of disbelief.

"Very happy, today you finally know me." Zuo Yu said with a smile, "Next time there is a chance to eat together again, I believe we must have a lot to talk about. You are good at making things, I am good at selling things, one upstream, one downstream, should have dug through the river channel."

Xin Zixing nodded and said with a smile, "Okay."

When Xin Zixing told Huang Kairen about this, Huang Kairen's first reaction was: "Why do I feel like you've been circled in?"

"How was I circled in?" Xin Zixing asked.

Huang Kairen: "He said and said that he actually just wanted to highlight the importance of his work. What about your work? He means that your work has been done well enough, there is no need to do it better, you are no longer the core business sector of your Ye Mai Net, and the next core business sector will become the promotion and promotion he is responsible for. Do you really accept all this and hand over your position to others?"

Xin Zixing's head was like being smashed hard, and she was woken up again.

She suddenly realized.

"This person speaks in sets, first teasing you, then apologizing to you, finding a high-sounding reason for himself, he says everything, everything has a reason, everything has a reason." Huang Kairen sneered, "Really engaged in promotion, can really fool people."

Xin Zixing: "Yes, it is his business how he does promotion. I am doing content. I don't care how he feels. My task is to make the content better and better, and let there be more and more good content."

She looked at Huang Kairen in disbelief and asked, "Why didn't I even react to this? I actually felt that what he said made sense. What's wrong with me?"

"Spokesperson? Ye Mai Net spokesperson?"

Lu Yan He looked at Chen Ziyan in disbelief, "We have cooperated for so long, why are you looking for me to be a spokesperson now? Is there any need? I have cooperated with Ye Mai Net so much, basically my fans know Ye Mai Net. What is the significance of them looking for me to be a spokesperson?"

"Hope you can appear on Ye Mai Net frequently, cooperate with some planning of the website, and do some topics." Chen Ziyan said, "A new executive named Zuo Yu came to talk to me personally, and also wanted to see you. To be honest, the cooperation plan he put forward has many good ideas. At a glance, it is a hot spot and may set off a social discussion."

Lu Yan He shook his head subconsciously.

"Sister Ziyan, my hot searches are already enough. Let's forget about this kind of high-exposure cooperation method." Lu Yan He said.

He felt that he really needed to reduce his popularity. Otherwise, if he always appeared in front of everyone, everyone would definitely be annoyed.

Chen Ziyan said: "I think so too, but after all, it is Ye Mai Net, I think it is better to communicate with you."

Chen Ziyan means that Lu Yan He's cooperation with Ye Mai Net is too deep, not an ordinary partner, and she doesn't want to refuse it so arbitrarily.

Zuo Yu showed an expression of disbelief.

"General Manager Chen, with Yan He's relationship with our Ye Mai Net, who else can it be if it's not him? Why don't you want to? Is it a problem with the endorsement fee? If it is this aspect, we can discuss it again."

"General Manager Zuo, no, it's not this problem. Our cooperation with Ye Mai Net has been long-standing, how can it be because of this reason? I also tell the truth, Yan He is too popular, especially this year, one topic after another, he has never rested. We plan to keep a low profile for a year or a half next, let him withdraw from the audience's sight. This is completely contrary to your cooperation plan, it is not suitable."

Zuo Yu never thought that it would be such a reason.

From Zuo Yu's perspective, he can't even understand this matter.

For star artists, shouldn't hot searches be the more the better? Shouldn't topics be the more the better?

How could there ever be too much?

Zuo Yu didn't come back to his senses for a long time.

This reason is really confusing.

Chen Ziyan added: "Actually, if Ye Mai Net is looking for a spokesperson, I have some ideas. General Manager Zuo, let's find a time to talk face to face? I think the best endorsement is an endorsement that makes people feel that the person and the brand are very fit. I recommend a few people to you, all of whom are popular first-tier."

Zuo Yu hasn't come back to his senses yet.

He said: "Okay, okay."

After subconsciously agreeing, he hung up the phone, and Zuo Yu was still frowning, unable to figure out this matter.

Not long after, the news that Lu Yan He refused to be the spokesperson for Ye Mai Net spread in the industry.

The reasons and reasons for the refusal also spread.

Different people heard this news, and their moods were different.

Some people are envious, some are jealous, some complain that Lu Yan He is really pretentious, some move with the wind to find middlemen, wanting to win this endorsement of Ye Mai Net.

For a time, undercurrents surged.

Xin Zixing received many calls. She found that the popularity of this matter on the Internet is getting higher and higher. One is discussing that Lu Yan He refused to be the spokesperson for Ye Mai Net because he didn't want high-intensity exposure, and as a result, he was on the hot search again because of this matter. Second, marketing accounts are constantly breaking out that xxx is actively contacting Ye Mai Net, wanting to be a spokesperson. Third, it is hotly discussed why so many artists are fighting to be the spokesperson for Ye Mai Net? The topic under this is relying on *City Travel Notes*, *Jump Up* and other brand works and the website's literary image to shape the website's style. Fourth, it is directly related to her. Shouldn't the most suitable spokesperson be Huang Kairen who has a deep connection with Ye Mai Net?

The traffic of Ye Mai Net soared by a large margin.

Huang Kairen's agent sent a message to Xin Zixing, saying: Your company's new vice president has two brushes, didn't spend a penny of endorsement fee, and slipped seven or eight artists to drain traffic for him.

Xin Zixing saw this sentence, her cheeks were red, hot red, feeling embarrassed.

At the same time, Chen Ziyan sat in her office, looking at the list of artists who were rumored to be actively contacting Ye Mai Net's endorsement, several familiar names were among them, all of whom were her clients...

Chen Ziyan really hasn't been played like this for a long time.

She was almost angry and laughed.

She thought to herself, she was really used to smooth sailing, and suddenly she was used, and she still dared to call herself a gold medal agent.

Chen Ziyan, are you living back?

She looked at the name Zuo Yu and took a deep breath.

At this time, Xin Zixing's message came: Sister Ziyan, I heard about what Zuo Yu did, it's too unkind, and used me and Kairen, but no matter what, I hope it won't affect our cooperation because of his behavior.

Chen Ziyan typed and sent it over:

Of course it won't affect, but, Zixing, after such a thing happened, can you still tolerate him?

Xin Zixing replied after a long time: Some things, I am just a worker, and I am powerless.

Chen Ziyan: Haven't seen each other for a long time, do you have time tonight? Let's get together. ===== CHAPTER 386 =====