Chapter 236: I Like Hitting It Off

At this stage, there's no hot money flooding into the entertainment circle; the stock market is the best reflection of a company's situation.

Especially film and television companies—everyone can see it clearly. *Painted Skin 2* failed to break 100 million in box office over three days, falling far short of expectations.

Hua Yi's stock price dropped from 15.1 yuan that day to 13.8 yuan, a decline of 7.7%, evaporating over 780 million in market value.

And it was still on a downward trend.

This caused star shareholders like Huang Xiaoming and Li Bailian at Hua Yi to suffer heavy losses.

Actually, the Hua Yi stock drop was just the fuse—the entire stock market is falling now; it's just that Hua Yi's failure with *Painted Skin 2* made it more conspicuous.

The movie lost money, the stock dropped, and Xiao Wang couldn't swallow his anger, so he came out on Weibo to shout: "This film market has been stirred into a foul mess by someone—a piece of rat shit has spoiled the entire film market."

Calling the Principal rat shit! "I haven't even put in any effort, and you've already fallen—you really can't take a hit." This was posted on the Tu Piaopiao Weibo.

This post also had a picture attached—a PS image of *Lucy 1* stepping on *Painted Skin 2*, with promotional shots of Cheng Kun, Yan Zi, Young Master Zhou, Da Mimi, and others on it.

It was a picture of Liu Tianxian alone stepping on all the actors of *Painted Skin 2*.

Utterly arrogant—making enemies for Liu Tianxian.

Xiao Wang saw this post and was furious too—reportedly he tore up a painting worth several hundred thousand belonging to his older brother.

So angry he almost wanted to rush over and take on Fang Hong, but luckily he was held back.

This round, Tu Piaopiao really didn't put in much effort—the other side just collapsed. You have to know Tu Piaopiao planned to burn through 400 million, but didn't expect that burning a few tens of millions would be enough to take the opponent down.

Companies in the film and television industry really can't take a hit—looks like Fang Hong overestimated the film industry's leading dragon! Even if *Painted Skin 2* could take a hit, it still has to be burned—burn it for the full 15 days before talking.

Otherwise users will say their Tu Piaopiao doesn't keep its word, suddenly stopping the ticket subsidies.

Anyway, the announcement was made in advance—those who want to grab tickets, hurry up.

Fifteen days is enough to make *Painted Skin 2* completely collapse. In the original timeline, this movie only made good box office in the first seven days.

It took about 560 million in box office in those 15 days, and after that it was completely done.

Anyway, just don't let *Painted Skin 2* make a complete comeback—completely kill this movie dead.

Same old saying: if I don't make money, I won't let others make money either.

Under this kind of blow, on the fourth day *Lucy*'s box office was 82.54 million, a decline—after all, there are only so many viewers, and there's a limit to how many people discounts can pull in.

People nowadays haven't yet developed the habit of going to movie theaters, and the entire Hua Guo's theater count hasn't reached the exaggerated figure of ten thousand.

The pie is only this big—cinemas haven't completely covered every corner of the country.

Correspondingly, *Painted Skin 2* was still falling, dropping to around 12 million in box office.

On the fifth day it continued to decline, breaking below ten million.

Actually, even if Fang Hong didn't press this hard, didn't pull viewers away like this, *Painted Skin 2* wouldn't have risen anyway—because the word of mouth was rotten. Basically everyone who'd seen it said it was bad; Douban only gave it 6.1.

Meanwhile, looking at *Lucy 1*, its Douban rating is 7.8—another representative work for Liu Tianxian.

This round of blows against Hua Yi made the attitudes of all the major film and television companies, actors, and stars in the entertainment circle subtly shift.

Before, they didn't think Yutu was that powerful—Hua Yi was still the leading dragon of the entertainment circle. But looking again now, it seems Yutu's strength is even stronger; Hua Yi has been beaten into dropping its helmet and armor, with no power to fight back.

This forces people to reassess Yutu, reassess Hua Yi, reassess the entertainment circle landscape.

Before anyone realized it, Yutu had already become a hegemon of the entertainment circle.

Back then at the Shanghai International Film Festival, so many people snubbed their Principal—suddenly feeling chilled.

Now undercurrents are stirring beneath the entertainment circle. This round can be said to have greatly damaged Hua Yi's prestige; Yutu's rise cannot be stopped! Just at this juncture when all sides' attitudes were unclear, Wang Baoqiang, Deng Chao, and other stars originally at Hua Yi announced they were leaving Hua Yi and would not renew their contracts.

Their explanation was that their contracts had expired! But the outside world believed Yutu was behind it, because both were acting in movies invested by Yutu Investment—Wang Baoqiang in *Lost in Thailand*, Deng Chao in *American Dreams in China*.

This inevitably makes people let their imaginations run wild, and combined with the fact that Chen Sicheng, previously at Hua Yi, had also defected to Yutu.

*Lucy 1* had Chen Sicheng's participation in filming—meaning taking down Hua Yi also had Chen Sicheng's share in it.

Former Hua Yi people helping Yutu take down Hua Yi—this is a bit funny.

Not only that, Hua Yi artist Wang Kai was also privately contacting Yutu, wanting to sign over.

Now Yutu's reputation in the circle is booming, and the number of artists wanting to sign on has noticeably increased, beyond the few from before.

Cai Wenjing, Guo Jingfei, Zhou Yiwei, and Xie Miao also signed on; Lei Datou was also contacting Yutu wanting to sign.

This is the influence that reputation brings.

Even Liu Tianxian benefited greatly from this wave—many brand owners and luxury goods companies contacted her team, wanting her as spokesperson.

Among them, the Louis Vuitton originally belonging to Fan Xiaopang chose Liu Tianxian.

She also took over Versace from Da Mimi!

Of course, it's all the Asia region, including the China region, given to her—the specific endorsement fee is unknown.

For this kind of luxury endorsement, the fee generally isn't too high, because it elevates one's worth and class. Some stars even pay money to the luxury brand for free, and the luxury brand still doesn't want them, afraid of affecting the brand's class.

But Liu Tianxian isn't like other stars—she's more reasonable. Since you're giving her work, you have to pay; an unpaid endorsement has no appeal.

It's not about whether she cares about money—work means payment, that's just how it is.

This wave of Liu Tianxian's commercial value rising naturally blocked other stars' money paths—a wave of smearing is inevitable.

"Is Liu Tianxian's heaven-defying new endorsement because of her godfather?"

"Today's achievements—Liu Tianxian ultimately cannot escape 'godfather' Chen Jinfei!"

"If you want to do well, a godfather is indispensable!"

"Debuted at 15, climbed to the peak with the support of her 'godfather,' now red-hot again!"

Such headlines were everywhere online for a time, appearing without any warning.

No need to think—it's those female stars buying Publicity Drafts again!

Who exactly is unknown; this kind of thing isn't easy to track down, though Liu Tianxian should be able to guess.

She's been smeared for so long—she has a good idea in her heart.

Anyway, Liu Tianxian's movies and endorsements all rely on her godfather, not on her own ability and effort. Without the godfather there would be no her today; her today was given to her by the godfather. That's the logic!

The deeper meaning of this logic is that Liu Tianxian is being kept, and has an unclear relationship with her godfather.

After all, the word "godfather" has been ruined — ruined by Hong Kong's entertainment circle, ruined by Neidi's entertainment circle, ruined by people like Guo Meimei.

In the past, "godfather" was a complimentary term, not a pejorative one. Fang Hong remembers he had a godfather too when he was little.

It was just a close brother of his dad's — the two of them sat together giving red envelopes and that was how they acknowledged it, a kind of relationship to draw the two families closer.

To put it bluntly, it was just an old family friend of his dad's! It was a kind of child-rearing custom in the countryside — easy to raise, basically. If a child wasn't in the best health, they'd "adopt a dry kinship" to ward off disaster and protect the child.

Children back then were prone to dying young — it was a kind of superstition. The other purpose was to deepen the affection between the two families.

There's a lot of nuance in this, completely different from what's spread online. How old was Liu Tianxian when she acknowledged hers? Back in the eighties or nineties.

That was exactly when this practice was in vogue.

During this period, Fang Hong had been busy with the Rabbit Ticket-Ticket matter, worried about going over budget. If they stuck to this budget, the spending would come to roughly 300 million.

300 million in exchange for a million daily active users — if they could keep 300,000 people a day buying tickets on the platform, that would count as a success.

300,000 people, each buying just one movie ticket a day, that's 12 million.

Of course, that also depends on the release schedule. If the schedule is bad, there might only be a few tens of thousands of daily active users. Even in the slow season, with only 100,000 a day, the wealth created would still be 8 million.

One month would be 240 million. Of course, that's the slow-season calculation — the peak season would certainly far exceed this number.

In any case, this round had gotten Rabbit Ticket-Ticket's name out there. They'd keep topping it up later, raise another round of funding, and keep developing.

That day, Fang Hong was at home eating breakfast, biting into a baozi, putting on a suit, getting ready to head to work.

"Hold on, son — got something to tell you."

"What is it?"

Fang Hong looked at his mom.

"That Jiang Shuying, she said she wanted to ask me for a favor — to see if you've got any good roles for her. What do you think?" Xu Liyun said, a bit embarrassed.

She knew that girl had an agenda; she just didn't expect it was to use back-door connections.

Actually, Jiang Shuying wanted to get close to Fang Hong, but Fang Hong was too self-disciplined — a straight line between two points — completely unreachable.

Even when they did bump into each other, his attitude was so cool and distant that she really couldn't bring herself to ask.

"Sure, I happen to have a role for her right now."

Fang Hong agreed in one breath, then walked over to his mom, one hand propped on the table: "Best you don't do this kind of thing in the future."

"I know. It's just that girl kept me company for so long, it wasn't easy to turn her down."

Xu Liyun's heart softened. She looked up at her son: "I didn't make things hard for you, did I, son?"

"You didn't!"

Fang Hong shook his head.

What he gave her was the female second lead in Now You See Me — the Interpol agent from the original, with very few scenes.

That role had originally been meant for Shuchang, at Liu Xiaoli's request.

But since his mom had spoken up, he'd prioritize his mom's IOU first — how could a mother-in-law be closer than one's own mother?

Anyway, casting hadn't been locked in yet!

Today was the day Liu Tianxian was returning to the country. She'd been out running around for about ten days — everywhere in Southeast Asia that needed visiting had been covered.

At the airport, the moment Liu Tianxian got off the plane, she was swarmed by a surging tide of reporters firing questions nonstop.

Luckily she had bodyguards with her.

Behind them, a large crowd of fans held up signs, shouting "Liu Yifei" and "Wife" at the top of their lungs. The scene was extremely chaotic.

"Liu Tianxian, can you talk about your relationship with Song Chengxian?" a reporter asked.

"Song who?" Liu Tianxian cupped her ear — she hadn't heard clearly.

"Song Chengxian. There are South Korean media reports saying the two of you were on a date in South Korea," the reporter added.

These reporters didn't ask about the movie — they only asked about her gossip. That's just how movies are: blow a wave based on the box office and that's enough.

Gossip is the new hot point — reheat it and stir it up again. Who told her to be so popular now?

"Him? I didn't go on a date with him, and I won't go on a date with him. I went to South Korea for work, not for a date. With him, we're barely acquainted." Liu Tianxian's clarification was very direct.

She barely had any contact with that person, yet he kept stirring up rumors, which annoyed her greatly. She clarified to avoid any misunderstanding from Fang Hong.

The two of them hadn't had any scandal cooked up in years — they respected each other! A reporter asked: "Some say Song Chengxian is pursuing you — is that true?"

"That's his business, nothing to do with me," Liu Tianxian said.

A reporter asked: "Then would you accept him?"

"No. We can't even communicate — we don't speak the same language, we can't even talk to each other. I Like someone I can actually chat with." Liu Tianxian was very patient — whatever they asked, she answered straight.

No beating around the bush!

Hearing Liu Tianxian say this, the fans outside shouted even more enthusiastically. They hated those Korean guys the most — they said that guy was just riding on their Xianxian's popularity.

How could Xianxian possibly like a Korean guy!

The reporters figured they'd hit a hot scoop and asked again: "What about your godfather? Some say you rose to fame thanks to your godfather."

"Don't reheat this cold rice anymore, it's really boring."

Liu Tianxian didn't get angry either. The interview went on as usual — a word, a smile — and she brushed it off quickly.

The airport couldn't be held up too long; the interview ended here.

Surrounded by her bodyguards, Liu Tianxian waved to the fans and got into a commercial MPV.

That car would first go to her work studio, then she'd switch cars to go home — public business and private life kept separate.

(End of chapter)