Chapter 504: Even Nine Oxen Can

This year's Charity Bazaar Gala was held as usual in Beijing, with many new faces attending, such as Yaqian, Xiang Zuo, Xiang Tai, Yang Gongru, Chen Qiaoen, Chen Yanxi, and Ye Xuan.

Flow stars exploded in popularity, and Hong Kong, Taiwan stars and capital began large-scale entry into the Neidi market.

This time, Liu Tianxian didn't go to the Charity Bazaar, nor did she bring Fang Hong, and she didn't even mention it, as if she didn't know about the Charity Bazaar Gala.

The reason, naturally, was that she was somewhat dissatisfied with Harper's Bazaar's actions; Liu Tianxian didn't speak up, but that didn't mean she had no feelings.

For this matter, Su Mang specifically called Liu Tianxian to explain the situation, pleading and persuading her to come and bring the Principal along.

Without Liu Tianxian, the starlight dimmed considerably; many viewers and fans came just to see Liu Tianxian.

If the Principal didn't come, the event's status dropped, given her standing—but she had no way to contact Fang Hong.

Fang Hong didn't even bother with her; how could he possibly have contact with her!

During their phone call, Liu Tianxian showed no strong emotion; her voice remained gentle as she dodged: "Sister Su, I've had too much on my plate lately, really no time for the Charity Bazaar."

"It won't take much of your time, just half a night, and didn't you previously promise to come? Why suddenly change your mind?" Su Mang said over the phone.

"Ah, I've just got too much going on—busy with my career, busy with brand events, truly can't find the time," Liu Tianxian said, lying on the sofa, one leg propped high over the other, utterly relaxed.

In truth, she had time—she just didn't want to go.

"Are you still holding a grudge over Harper's Bazaar's September issue? I tell you, that was an accident; no one intended to pair you together—it was a new editor who didn't know and added it last-minute," Su Mang explained.

Meaning, they got paid—she had no control over it!

"No such thing—I'd never hold a grudge over this. We're all eating from the same pot, Sister Su, no need to explain. I really don't have time; next year, I'll go next year," Liu Tianxian said, her tone still gentle.

"You can't even spare a few hours?" Su Mang asked.

"If I could spare the time, I'd go myself—you wouldn't need to call me," Liu Tianxian said.

Hearing this, Su Mang felt dejected and spent hours further explaining, saying nothing but kind words.

This kind of person just talks endlessly, never stopping.

Liu Tianxian, however, listened with great patience, her tone unchanged as she communicated with her—no matter what was said, she still wouldn't go.

She wouldn't offend you—she just had things, couldn't get away!

That's how she was: once she dug in her heels, even nine oxen couldn't pull her away, no matter what you said or did!

Su Mang could only give up; actually, this was normal—many stars promised to come but suddenly didn't, like Fan Xiaopang, who was nowhere to be found, phone unreachable.

In truth, Fan Xiaopang had hidden away; others thought she wouldn't come, but after the Bazaar red carpet ended and Guoji Zhang sat down, she appeared.

The reason was that Guoji Zhang had planned to be the final guest, the red carpet's grand finale, but after everyone had walked, Fan Xiaopang still hadn't shown, and staff kept urging her to hurry.

With no choice, Guoji Zhang walked the red carpet first, with Su Mang accompanying her as the finale.

But as soon as Guoji Zhang finished, Fan Xiaopang appeared, becoming the final closing female star—perfectly timed.

Fan Xiaopang instantly became the center of attention on-site and online, with the Publicity Draft declaring: "Fan Xiaopang Closes the Charity Bazaar Red Carpet."

This enraged Guoji Zhang; her face turned black.

But she had no recourse—she'd already walked; she couldn't go back and walk again, and they'd never let her say she walked twice.

One had to admire these actresses—fighting tooth and nail over a red carpet, with Fan Xiaopang outmaneuvering them all, more skilled.

This level of maneuvering was beyond ordinary actresses; it required not just skill, but thick skin and no fear of offending anyone—Liu Tianxian simply couldn't do it.

Although Guoji Zhang had faced scandals in recent years, this year she had become wildly popular thanks to *A Master of Martial Arts*, her reputation restored, back among the top mainstream stars.

Logically, she should have closed the show—but Fan Xiaopang was used to stealing the spotlight; how could she yield?

Fan Xiaopang had no major works; without such tactics, she never would have reached where she is today—she had both skill and beauty.

But the Charity Bazaar's rules had always been chaotic, never properly regulated.

This was fundamentally a battle of interests and status within the entertainment circle; netizens commented, but the heat wasn't that high.

But unfortunately, Li Bailian liked a Weibo post mocking Fan Xiaopang, pushing the matter to the forefront.

The Weibo post read: "It's disgusting to watch! How could the people of Qilu give birth to such a lowlife?"

Originally, the post had few views, but after Li Bailian liked it, its popularity exploded, becoming news with added momentum.

Of course, Li Bailian later claimed it was a slip of the finger—celebrities slipping, or having accounts hacked, was standard practice.

These actresses all stirred up trouble; they weren't afraid of offending anyone, openly fighting, personally stepping into the ring.

But if they met face-to-face, they'd still become good sisters.

For instance, when encountering Fang Hong, they acted as if they were very familiar, very close—both were masters of manipulation.

The most notable figure at this Charity Bazaar was Yaqian, favored by Su Mang, photographed with Wang Zong, the General Manager of Huayi, and showered with praise by other stars.

Fang Long also expressed encouragement and optimism, as if seeing a young talent!

In short, Yaqian was treated like a favorite in the entertainment circle—normal, since he had capital backing and connections in Beijing's elite circles.

Fang Hong didn't pay attention to the Charity Bazaar's situation—he was glad not to attend, so he wouldn't have to donate a single cent, and that felt great.

Previously, the movie *Dear One* had a massive promotional campaign, premiering three to five days early, on the 25th.

On its opening day, box office reached only 12.3 million.

The next day, it rose to 29.07 million; on the third day, a weekend, it reached 33.53 million.

On the fourth day, it dropped back to just over 20 million.

After four days, it hadn't crossed 100 million—a performance far below expectations for such a cast and production.

Remember, this film had a huge promotional push—even the original inspiration behind the adaptation was brought out to speak—but the box office still underperformed.

Yet the film received rave reviews, with online praise for the acting, explosive word-of-mouth, and so on.

Sometimes box office is a matter of mysticism: audiences dislike overly heavy realistic themes, while *Xinurufang* promoted releasing pressure and reclaiming joy!

Besides, there are plenty of flowers beyond Tianya—why not just try a new one? It covered romance and humor entirely.

This film still used internet-targeted advertising: directing promotional videos specifically to audiences aged 25 to 40.

Toutiao, Bilibili, Chang'e Video, and Xiaohongshu precisely pushed the ads to post-90s audiences.

This promotional method had been used before, but earlier versions were immature; with technological advancement and increasing user data collection, it became ever more precise.

Today, Xiaohongshu is growing rapidly, with monthly active users exceeding ten million, most of whom are women; Chang'e Technology will gradually invest one hundred million dollars this year as development funding for it.

We've lost much more money already; this amount doesn't matter.

However, this sum is insufficient for Xiaohongshu; as its business expands and user numbers grow, losses are inevitable and will only increase.

We expect losses to match those of Bilibili and Chang'e Video starting next year.

Plus, 6.3 billion in interest payments are due soon, and money is needed everywhere—Hero Glory's game cannot sustain itself.

Because Today's Headlines, Bilibili, Chang'e Video, and other divisions are all growing; each loses over a hundred million dollars a year, so several together mean hundreds of millions—who can afford such losses? Take Today's Headlines as an example: its user base has reached 220 million, with 20 million daily active users, and over 600,000 pieces of content are added daily.

That's daily; in a month, that's 18 million pieces.

These contents include videos, news, education, lifestyle, and countless other categories.

Some videos are sourced from Bilibili's video library, enabling mutual traffic引流.

Today's Headlines' user base and content volume are increasing exponentially, and all this content must be reviewed and screened—how else can you know there's no harmful information?

What if someone reports and accuses someone of posting content harmful to the state?

Another wave of inspections and rectifications is coming!

Of course, Today's Headlines primarily functions as an information feed platform and doesn't lose as extravagantly as other platforms—it does generate revenue.

This year's revenue is around 300 million, but it's still negligible compared to expenditures.

Because operational costs and programmer salaries keep rising; employee count surpassed 20,000 this year, and payroll alone costs about 200 million per month—truly terrifying.

Not even counting other administrative expenses; labor is always the largest cost.

This year, Bilibili is also staggering: 130,000 new videos are added monthly, all requiring storage and computation to ensure smooth viewing for audiences.

Please... collect... 6191 Book 1!

User numbers are also continuously increasing, and all of this requires funding.

However, Fang Hong is unsatisfied with this platform's growth; he hasn't prepared to push hard yet—he'll likely do so next year.

No other reason: smartphone ownership and 4G and wireless network penetration are still developing; everything must align with the nation's internet infrastructure progress.

If we move too fast or too far ahead, we risk wasting resources and capital, because the infrastructure isn't ready to support it.

Moreover, videos differ from text—they require vastly more computation and bandwidth.

Currently, Bilibili earns money through games; it's a distribution channel—many game developers release versions here and must pay Bilibili a channel fee.

The 30% commission rate is cheaper than those of other mobile manufacturers.

Bilibili has many young users, making it ideal for game companies to buy traffic and use it as one of their channels.

Chang'e Technology can still absorb its losses; Fang Hong has injected another 200 million dollars, and this funding does not dilute partners' shares.

The partners were meant to be management team members; those shares were essentially gifted by Fang Hong—"partner" just sounds better.

This money comes from selling Tesla stock; if fully sold, it would total roughly 700 million dollars.

We must sell slowly; selling all at once could trigger volatility and panic.

These shares were bought for 100 million dollars when Tesla's market cap was around 2 billion; they've appreciated about sevenfold.

Fang Hong thought Tesla's market cap had increased fifteenfold, so his stock value should've risen fifteenfold too—worth 1.5 billion dollars.

He didn't expect it to rise only this much—he was overconfident.

Stock value cannot be calculated by market cap alone; market cap only proves the company's value is growing, not that the stock has earned that much.

Because stock prices fluctuate!

Take a simple example: you buy Stock A for 100,000 yuan; the next day, it drops 50%—you lose 50,000.

Your principal is now 50,000; on day three, Stock A rebounds to its original price, gaining 50%.

That 50% is earned on 50,000 principal, meaning you only gained 25,000—so you now have 75,000, still 25,000 below your original 100,000.

Stock A's price is unchanged, but your money is gone.

Where did your money go? It went to contribute to the nation—you're great.

That's roughly the idea!

On September 30, Xinurufang premiered; this film was marketed as a comedy, and due to strong presales.

It grossed over 103 million on its first day; though this didn't break any records—daily box office of 200 million had already been surpassed—it was still explosive.

Any film grossing over 100 million in a single day in this era counts as explosive—it's equivalent to a dark horse film.

But the ticket subsidies from Tutupiao are losses; however, that's unimportant—the key is the impressive numbers.

On the second day, National Day, box office surged to 120 million.

On this day, Dear's box office collapsed to 15.01 million—it was no match.

Even The Golden Era, hyped by Baidu, opened on National Day with only 7.93 million on its first day; by the second day, it dropped to around 5 million.

This film has failed beyond redemption—though of course, whether it made money or not remains unknown, given today's market.

In today's market, it's hard to lose, since a few tens of millions can already cover costs for an art film.

But this incident reveals to people and filmmakers just how unreliable Baidu is—your Big Data predicted a 300 million box office? The gap is absurd.

Black and White did okay: 31.88 million on National Day, dropping to 27.58 million the next day.

This National Day, Xinurufang stood alone, succeeding again through Big Data promotion and ticket subsidies.

The combination of Shen Teng and Zhang Songwen produced a chemical reaction: Zhang Songwen's upright acting style and Shen Teng's dark humor mixed with absurdity immediately caught the audience's attention.

The comedy was performed so naturally, utterly unforced.

This man is like this: give him an opportunity, and he shines, leaving a lasting impression on audiences—his acting style is exceptionally outstanding.

Just like Xing Ye in The Stuntman back then, still exploring absurdism, he stunned everyone at once.

Others need years of accumulated roles to develop such a style; they don't—they only need to find a hint of potential and wait for the chance.

Of course, Shen Teng had prior experience performing skits and theater, which shaped this style.

In short, gold will always shine.

But he himself didn't know, still thinking it was the Principal who had given him a leg up. A reporter asked him, "Heart Unleashed broke a hundred million in single-day box office — how do you feel about that?"

"I'm daring to think whether tomorrow we can break two hundred million!"

Shen Teng had to crack a joke at every occasion, which made everyone present burst out laughing.

After he finished, he said in earnest, "Of course I'm very happy that this movie's box office is doing so well, but I still have to thank the Principal. Without him letting me act in this film, I'd still be stuck in some forgotten corner somewhere."

He said this on many occasions, and no one knew whether he was saying it for others to hear or for Fang Hong to hear.

The current Shen Teng could be said to be very popular, and people had taken notice of him. Among actors of his style, with Xing Ye not appearing in the world, there was only this one.

It's just that compared with a female star like Liu Tianxian, his cash-in value wasn't high — his image positioning simply wasn't suited for fashion endorsements to cash in.

Of course variety shows were still fine — he was humorous and witty in speech, so in his past life he often went on variety shows.

(End of chapter)