Chapter 413: Smashing Your Rice Bowl

The next day, in the afternoon, Luo Mo headed to the semi-finals venue of *King of Love Songs* and ran through the rehearsal twice.

Afterwards, he specifically went to check on the rehearsal site for Tong Shu and the Fengge Group.

The perfectly fine rehearsal suddenly turned into a visit from a big boss, making both Tong Shu and the Fengge Group even more serious and hardworking.

The semi-finals of the second season, just like the first, adopted the Guest Singer format.

Every competing Singer could invite one Guest Singer, or invite a group as well.

Per the old rules, the production team did not publicly announce the list of Guest Singers, and even threw out many smoke bombs, creating a lot of fake news.

Take the 【Ordinary Heavenly King】 Zhao Xueqin, for instance; his position as a Heavenly King has been precarious during this period, and since *King of Love Songs* was the place where his dreams began, he would often have nightmares after visiting, dreaming that he was on the same stage as Luo Mo again.

He was certainly ten thousand times unwilling to go to *King of Love Songs* again, but the production team was determined to trot out all the contestants from the first season.

——Ke Ming, you have no heart!

In reality, a portion of the singers from the first season did indeed come to be Guest Singers.

For example, Wei Ge, Wei Ran, who had not appeared for a long time, was invited over by Luo Mo to be a Guest Singer for Tong Shu.

As for the Fengge Group, they invited Wei Ge's good buddy, the Rap singer who also hadn't appeared for a long time—Li Ge.

These two were both mentors to Luo Mo during his *Creating Idols* period, but as they hung out, they just ended up becoming close friends.

Actually, the Fengge Group is a relatively well-rounded group, so it didn't really matter whether they had a guest or not.

Bringing in Li Ge and Tian Ming to perform Rap together was just for the sake of the program's format and to make the audience feel it was fresh.

In Luo Mo's impression, among the stages where Phoenix Legend collaborated with others, the one that left the deepest impression was the time they collaborated with the Chopstick Brothers for "Most Dazzling Folk Style" + "Little Apple".

After the rehearsal ended, everyone returned to the hotel arranged by the production team to rest.

And when night fell, with the latest update of *Nirvana in Fire*, Penguin Video released a piece of news.

Once this news came out, it caused a sensation throughout the entire entertainment industry.

——The total number of Penguin Video members has exceeded 50 million!

………

………

Shencheng, a certain high-end residential complex.

Wang Shisong has been very busy these past few days; besides being busy with work, he also has to be busy arguing with his own brother, Wang Shibai.

The reason for the argument was the same old thing: because of Luo Mo!

In Wang Shibai's eyes, if they had successfully signed Luo Mo back then, Pineapple TV would have taken off long ago; what business would Penguin and Qiqu Video even have?

It can be said that all the efforts of the major video platforms in recent years have been to be the first to break through the 50 million total member count.

If Penguin Video were to overtake them on a curve, and it was with Luo Mo's help that they surpassed them, then the two brothers would absolutely be miserable to death!

Pineapple TV's current total member count is still about 600,000 short of breaking the 50 million mark.

Judging by the momentum, with the support of various promotional activities and numerous operations, there is a chance to break 50 million by Sunday!

They estimated the situation over at Qiqu Video and figured it was about the same as theirs, leading by 100,000 or 200,000 at most.

As long as the traffic idols of Pineapple Entertainment put in some effort, help Pineapple TV by Shouting, and harvest the fans, there is still a high chance of winning.

However, it was only nine o'clock on Saturday night, and Wang Shisong's phone was already being blown up.

For several consecutive days, Penguin Video, which had been doing activities silently without making a sound or being flashy at all, had actually bought the number one spot on the Hot Search across all platforms just a few minutes ago, high-profilely announcing—Penguin Video's total member count has exceeded 50 million!

Besides that, this time, they even brazenly displayed their recent growth data chart.

One must know that Penguin Video's style has always been to grow silently in a low-profile manner.

They had never shown data charts or anything of the sort before.

But this data, as long as anyone who knows the industry takes one look, feels like their eyes are about to be blinded!

"A daily increase of 600,000 to 700,000?" Wang Shisong even felt they were faking the data.

It's watered down, absolutely watered down!

And there's a lot of water!

Even if *Nirvana in Fire* is fierce, the paying capacity shouldn't be this exaggerated, right?

This has already exceeded everyone's cognition, reaching a level that makes one feel it is unrealistic.

However, no one would think Penguin is stupid.

With Penguin's style, it is impossible for them to play such tricks in such a high-profile way.

"Luo Mo, Luo Mo..." Wang Shisong muttered this name, only feeling his chest very tight, as if a mouthful of old blood was stuck there.

This trainee who hadn't even debuted back then was, in his eyes, nothing more than a small character he could manipulate at will.

Now, not only has he swallowed up much of Pineapple Entertainment's market share in the music industry, but he has also disrupted Pineapple TV's plans for these past few years.

The various losses involved here are all in the hundreds of millions.

However, Wang Shisong, who was already furious, could never have imagined that this was actually just the first shot of the day.

………

………

Hangzhou, inside the hotel, Luo Mo received a call from Cheng Wen.

Cheng Wen did not beat around the bush, nor did he say any polite or perfunctory words, going straight to the point.

"We have been holding meetings for the past few days; after our discussion, we have agreed to all your conditions."

Upon hearing this, Luo Mo smiled and said: "Brother Cheng, is there a... 'but' after what you just said?"

Cheng Wen gave a dry laugh and said: "There actually is. But... we will also set some targets for your studio, such as the broadcast data for 【Mist Theater】."

Regarding this, Luo Mo did not find it strange.

Friendship is friendship, but in business, one talks business; cooperation is originally about you taking a step forward, and I can take a step back, but I want to take a step forward in other areas.

Since Luo Mo put forward such outrageous conditions, then we must have requirements for the results.

Many people should have heard that there is such a thing as a 【Betting Agreement】 in the entertainment industry.

Therefore, this kind of cooperation model is actually very normal.

"Then tell me the specifics," Luo Mo said.

He listened to the details Cheng Wen laid out, occasionally responding with a sound.

For others, perhaps the many indicators involved here would bring pressure.

But for Luo Mo, it was a piece of cake.

For example, Penguin Video's requirement for the debut drama of 【Mist Theater】 is to at least reach the same level of performance as Pineapple TV's "Nine Sins".

It was too easy, so easy that Luo Mo even felt he could raise the bar a little; otherwise, he would feel quite embarrassed for making so many conditions to Penguin that were unheard of in the industry.

Admittedly, "Nine Sins" can be considered a fairly excellent web drama in the suspense genre in recent years.

However, it can only be considered "fairly excellent."

Not to mention anything else, let's just take the drama "The Bad Kids" as an example.

This suspense web drama, which did not have a high production cost on Earth and whose early promotion was not particularly powerful, ultimately achieved the following: with 2.56 billion in topic volume, it topped the 2020 Weibo 【TV Power List】!

Luo Mo knew very well just how terrifying this kind of phenomenal data was.

Finally, after hearing everything Cheng Wen had to say, Luo Mo smiled and said, "Fine, I agree to all of it."

He agreed so readily that Cheng Wen was stunned, thinking to himself, "Did we set the indicators too low?"

Good grief, this posture was like going to bargain with a boss, cutting the price in half, thinking you had already made a huge slash, only for the boss to not even look at you, immediately start packing it up for you, and even want to give you some freebies.

If Cheng Wen didn't know Luo Mo's personality, and didn't know that this young man had unparalleled confidence—or even arrogance—in his bones, he might have really felt he had been bested.

"Then that's how it is," Cheng Wen finally said. "Oh right, we plan to take advantage of the happy occasion of breaking 50 million today to announce the news of 【Mist Theater】 all at once. Do you think that's okay?"

The Contract hadn't been signed yet, so even if Penguin wanted to promote it, they had to be careful with the wording and could only indicate that everyone had the intention to cooperate.

Logically speaking, there was no need for Cheng Wen to be this rushed; being in such a hurry for just a day or two didn't seem to have much meaning.

But in reality, whether it was breaking 50 million for the first time with the help of "Nirvana in Fire," or continuing to develop new cooperation with Luo Mo Studio—especially the 【Mist Theater】 which would launch four dramas in a year—this was of great benefit to Penguin's subsequent development and money-making.

Any video platform is in great need of money, and they have to keep pouring money into it.

Luo Mo understood his thoughts, but didn't care, so he said, "Fine."

And so, at 9:30 in the evening, a piece of news once again climbed to the Hot Search list on major platforms.

After reading it, netizens exclaimed, "Good grief!"

"Luo Mo might continue to cooperate deeply with Penguin!"

"Wow, they might launch a suspense-themed theater, tentatively named—Mist Theater!"

"Launching four web dramas a year, hahahaha, Mom doesn't have to worry about me running out of dramas to watch anymore!"

"Fine, just contract my spring, summer, autumn, and winter!"

At the same time, many people couldn't help but recall that after Pineapple TV launched "Lost Sins" and "Nine Sins," they had stated many times that if the word-of-mouth and performance were excellent enough, they would spare no effort to build a suspense-themed theater.

This was equivalent to another head-on confrontation!

This was the second shot fired at Pineapple today!

When Wang Shisong saw this news, his whole person was so angry his face went stiff.

"Mist Theater?"

"Mist Theater!"

"Luo Mo, what exactly are you trying to do!"

Wang Shibai called again immediately, and the two brothers had another big argument on the phone.

Although Luo Mo had never touched the suspense drama genre until now, this person had done too many unexpected things, and he was too good at crossing boundaries.

If he said he was going to stick a foot into the suspense field, it was very likely to be a big foot.

And this foot was very flexible; it wouldn't just occupy a piece of territory, it wouldn't just seek to stand firm, it would be like a Shadowless Kick, kicking you out before you even reacted.

"He's not just trying to surpass us and grab our market share..."

"He's trying to smash our rice bowl!"

(PS: First update, asking for monthly tickets.)

(End of this chapter)