Chapter 311: Group-Style Architecture

This place is full of that kind of Ming and Qing dynasty ancient architecture, with an old-world charm, and young men and women walking along the road dressed in Ming dynasty-style ancient clothing.

The horse-face skirts, fully pleated skirts and such — they look really good, very ornamental.

Nobody wears Qing dynasty clothing — even South Korea won't steal that stuff — it's just a bunch of film and TV dramas that love to yap about it nonsense.

The scene was packed, the lights dazzling, and Liu Tianxian was still being held up by Fang Hong, not put down.

"Put me down, aren't you tired?" Liu Tianxian grabbed his head, her view still excellent, still able to see the fire-breathing performance inside.

"Not tired, you're so light," Fang Hong said.

That remark made Liu Tianxian laugh out loud with a "hehe": "Aren't you afraid I'll fart and stink you to death?"

"Not afraid, smells so good," Fang Hong said.

"Don't talk nonsense, put me down quick." Liu Tianxian patted his head.

Fang Hong suddenly let go.

Liu Tianxian let out a "ya!", didn't have time to jump down, her balance unsteady, but luckily Fang Hong caught her in his arms.

"Can't you just hold me a bit, who lets go like that all of a sudden?" Liu Tianxian pouted.

Letting go all at once almost made her tumble.

"Aren't I holding you right now?" Fang Hong laughed.

Liu Tianxian gave him a smack.

The two moms watched the two of them flirting like that, didn't say anything, just smiled at each other.

"Young people love to play around." Liu Xiaoli chatted with Xu Liyun.

"Usually they're always like this, I've told my son many times, he just won't listen." Xu Liyun said with a sigh.

Her son just loved to bully Liu Tianxian, and bullied her right in front of her mother.

"Hehe, young people, that's how they are. What do you usually do at home?" Liu Xiaoli didn't mind, steering the topic to everyday matters.

"Dong Dongdong!"

Another wave of drums and gongs shook the air, ahead a blessing-praying procession was walking toward them — lion dancers, and various Taoist-style costumed performers waving their arms and dancing.

They strolled along, the two moms chatting a line or two every now and then.

They didn't talk about their kids, just about what they usually did.

Fang Hong and Liu Tianxian looked here, looked there, seeing all kinds of traditional music, opera performances, and folk handicraft making.

The handmade goods were those peace charms, and Liu Tianxian, very thoughtful, bought four peace charms.

She hung one peace charm around Fang Hong's neck: "You have to be safe and sound, mom has to be safe and sound, and auntie too."

As she spoke, she hung one on each of them.

Liu Xiaoli and Xu Liyun showed kind smiles.

There was also that kind of official evening gala — poetry recitation, program performances and such — they didn't go, found it really boring.

Too solemn, no entertainment value, they had come here to have fun in the first place.

The four of them wandered around here for a long time, all the way until late at night, taking in the traditional charm of Chinese culture.

Deeply "shocked" by "traditional culture."

After finishing the temple fair, the four came to Yinxiang Shanzhuang in Jiantou Cun for a meal — it was close to Shisan Ling, surrounded by lush trees, the scenery superb.

Though you can't really tell in winter, it'd be great to come in summer.

The dishes were also very distinctive, the private room clean and spacious, the tables and chairs in a European style, Liu Tianxian ordering.

Liu Xiaoli and Xu Liyun sat together, chatting: "Order whatever you like to eat, don't be polite."

"I'm easy, I eat anything, when I go out with Xixi, she arranges everything too," Xu Liyun said.

"Auntie Xu isn't a picky eater," Liu Tianxian added.

Liu Xiaoli went "oh" and asked: "What year are you?"

"'68," Xu Liyun replied.

She had Fang Hong when she was about 20.

"Then you're still very young, I'm from '59, nine years older than you. From now on I'll call you little sis!" Liu Xiaoli spoke very softly, with an elegant air of a well-bred lady.

"Okay." Xu Liyun relaxed a little inside.

Along the way the other woman had seemed quite warm, not stiff at all — it was she herself who hadn't talked much, a bit reserved.

The two chatted there, while on the other side Liu Tianxian leaned close to Fang Hong, showed him the menu, pointed at a dish: "Can you eat this?"

"What's this?" Fang Hong said.

"Pepper beef, both numbing and spicy." Liu Tianxian knew he didn't eat spicy food.

"Whatever, it's not just me eating, if I can eat it I'll eat more, if I can't I'll eat less," Fang Hong said.

Liu Xiaoli told them: "Little Fang's right, take everyone's taste into account."

"Actually I can eat spicy, I just don't like it too spicy," Fang Hong laughed.

"Eating too much spicy isn't good either, not sweet not spicy is just right." Liu Xiaoli spoke quite elegantly.

"Actually I don't eat spicy either, I only eat it occasionally." Liu Tianxian finished ordering, told the waiter to hurry, they'd been wandering for ages and were all hungry.

"You're a spicy girl."

"Hahaha!" Everyone at the dinner table laughed — Liu Xiaoli could casually tease Liu Tianxian.

Liu Tianxian watched her whole big family laughing happily in harmony, and while in a pleasant mood, also felt a sense of happiness.

This meal wasn't a formal meeting, just getting to know each other, letting the two moms understand each other's personalities.

Liu Xiaoli was poised and generous, elegant in manner, and talkative; Xu Liyun seemed comparatively ill at ease.

But that was normal — Liu Xiaoli had lived a wealthy life for so long, seen too much scheming and deceit, and carried a bit of personality-driven assertiveness.

After the fifteenth Lantern Festival, Liu Tianxian, who had been off work for several months, finally returned to activities, starting to take on all kinds of commercial work and engagements.

When she appeared at the event venue, Wangyi all sighed: "Liu Tianxian, you've become lazy, and you've become zen."

These days, Liu Tianxian's mind is certainly more on herself, or on her family, not on her career.

With Fang Hong helping out on the business side, she only needs to act well. From start to finish, she's only ever wanted to act well — that has never changed.

Time entered March. On the 1st, Yutu once again kicked off its annual conference.

This conference would re-establish the Yutu structure. Attendees, besides the main leaders of each department, also included the main deputies and key personnel of each department.

Those without sufficient rank could not attend this meeting.

Of course, Yutu Digital Technology did not need to attend this meeting — it was a separate company.

However, Yutu Technology would definitely have to change its name. Yutu Film Industry was going to become a group, and the two were easily confused — people who didn't know would think Yutu Technology was a subsidiary of Yutu Group.

Attendees included President Office President and Director Chen Zhixi; under her, Vice President Chen Qingyi was in charge of film and television distribution; Vice President Sun Chen was in charge of film and television publicity.

Although distribution was outsourced, it still needed someone specifically responsible for it — a point of contact with theaters and cinema chains.

Publicity also only formulated publicity plans targeting film and television.

There was also Vice President Wang Xin, who was concurrently Director of HR and Administration. Chen Zhixi's team was now growing ever larger and ever more professional.

And among these people, the lowest education was an undergraduate degree; master's degrees were common. "Education doesn't matter" simply did not exist here.

It's not that education doesn't matter — it's a matter of cognition!

If you let someone who has never studied anything, never seen anything, take an important position, no matter how brilliant, they will make cognitive mistakes.

Fang Hong himself often made mistakes, because he had never managed an enterprise at the billion-yuan level and above, and had no idea what an enterprise of that scale even meant.

So don't be fooled by how diligent he looked every day — in truth he was just being extremely careful, terrified that some problem might cause the whole thing to collapse.

But he knew that to find people, one had to either look for those with high education, or those who had worked at top-tier enterprises — because people like that knew what an enterprise at the billion-yuan level and above was all about, and how the structure should be designed.

Their cognition was vastly different from ordinary people's.

For example, Huawei spent 2 billion specifically to hire IBM to teach them management — that was because once a certain stage was reached, they felt the enterprise had many problems and severe internal friction. That's all there was to it.

Besides these, there were also Best Special Effects Department's Yao Qi; Animation Department's Shi Zhimou; Public Relations' Huang Bing, and other regular department personnel.

Newly joined was Legal Department's Hou Jun — this person held a Master of Laws and had previously served as Legal Manager at Founder Group.

In addition, there were the Procurement Department, Internal Audit Department, and so on.

Internal audit was internal auditing — managing and controlling enterprise risk.

Finance's Meng Jun also specifically rushed back from the United States to attend this meeting. He had gone to the United States on the 17th, having been there roughly ten days or so.

After the meeting he would continue on to the United States. His Finance Department now also had over a dozen people.

This meeting had over fifty key or non-key attendees; last year there had only been over twenty.

The meeting's goal was very simple: to turn Yutu into a group.

The four main businesses — film and television, Best Special Effects, Animation, and talent management — would operate independently, forming corporate-style operations.

That meant four pieces — a film and television company, a special effects company, an animation company, and a talent management company — plus a subsidiary called Tu Piaopiao, equivalent to five companies.

Among them, the film and television company was subdivided into three major pieces: film, TV drama, and Variety. Chen Zhixi mainly oversaw this piece. Separating her talent management business meant she no longer had to agonize over casting.

In other words, she no longer had to insist on using Yutu Company's in-house artists to act — she could bring in outside artists.

In fact, production and talent management were inherently two conflicting domains. Artists wanted to raise their fees; production wanted to lower them. Putting the two together simply couldn't be reconciled — it would trigger conflicts of interest.

Better to separate them, operate independently, let both sides negotiate — if it works, it works; if not, forget it.

Of course, in-house artists would definitely get preferential treatment. A film or TV project would first look for in-house artists; only if no suitable one was found would they look outside.

After all, Chen Zhixi was still the President. This time she would be allocated shares in the entire group, so that she could consider the company's overall development from a higher vantage point.

If she only had shares in the film and television portion, she would only consider film and television and ignore everything else.

With this restructuring, the General Manager of the Special Effects Company was Yao Qi; the General Manager of the Animation Company was Shi Zhimou; the General Manager of the Artist Management Company was Huang Bing — of course he also doubled as head of public relations.

Departments like Finance, Legal, Internal Audit, and Procurement were merely service departments supporting the four main businesses.

With this adjustment, the entire company structure became much clearer.

Since this meeting had been prepared long in advance — preparations had started roughly three months earlier — the meeting's purpose was merely execution.

Next came the list of Yutu Group board members: Chen Zhixi received 3% of the group's shares, meaning she would receive dividends from the entire company's revenue; in addition, her 6% in the film and television company remained unchanged.

Chief Financial Officer Meng Jun joined the board, with his previously agreed 3% shares unchanged.

Yao Qi held 5% of the Special Effects Company; Shi Zhimou held 5% of the Animation Company; Huang Bing held 5% of the Artist Management Company. These three only held shares in their respective companies, not in the group.

The three business segments — Special Effects, Animation, and Artist Management — had not yet taken off, meaning they weren't making much money. Only Artist Management had earned some money thanks to Chen Xiaozhuan.

Currently the board had only these five members; adding Fang Hong made six. Others would not join the board for the time being.

(End of this chapter)