Global Film Emperor

Chapter 209, Page 208: Intrigue and Schemes
"Hello, Mr. Li, this is Lu Ze."

"Lu Ze, are you filming? I hope this isn't disturbing your work at this hour?"

Lu Ze couldn't understand why President Li would call him. After all, the two had only met twice at the company and exchanged a few greetings. When Lu Ze was sick, President Li had only come with everyone and stayed for a few minutes before leaving. Moreover, Lu Ze was clearly on Hu Zhiguang's side, so there was no reason for him to call Lu Ze personally.

"Here's the thing, I had only been working at the company for a short time, so I did some research on the schedules of the company's debut artists. Then I found that your exposure was still lacking. This should have been your manager's job. I'm just offering some suggestions now, you don't have any objections, do you?"

Lu Ze realized what was going on. President Li was trying to find him work. Someone had probably asked him to let Lu Ze perform a role or make a appearance, but the person was making comments from the perspective of Lu Ze's career development. This made Lu Ze a little unhappy, but after all, the person was the boss, so what could Lu Ze say?

"Of course I have no objection, Mr. Li, please speak."

"Here's the thing, artists these days all need exposure. Although I know you're aiming for the path of a serious actor, and your need for exposure is less than that of idol artists, it's still necessary overall. I contacted a friend who's the director of the New Year's Eve Gala on Jiangsu TV. I mentioned to him that I'd give you a great time slot to sing a song and increase your exposure. It's paid, and the price isn't low. What do you think?"

Lu Ze knew what was going on. He guessed it wasn't that President Li begged the director to put him in the role, but rather that the director begged President Li to let him act in it. After all, although "The Boss" hadn't been released in mainland China, it had actually received a pretty good response there. In particular, Qian Shijia's online promoters got some big influencers to promote Lu Ze, which solidified Lu Ze's reputation as a leading figure among the new generation of actors.

If Lu Ze's abilities didn't match, he would definitely be criticized so harshly that even his grandmother wouldn't recognize him. But Lu Ze proved his abilities, so there weren't many people who disagreed with him.

It's likely that the director felt Lu Ze had a very good reputation, with the vast majority of netizens having no ill feelings towards him and even liking him. They wanted Lu Ze to fill a gap in the program schedule during a relatively important time slot.

However, this relieved Lu Ze. He would have found it difficult to refuse other things, but this was the only one he could easily decline.

"Mr. Li, to be honest, I just apologized to the Jiangsu and Zhejiang TV New Year's Eve Gala, saying that I can't go. This is indeed a difficult situation, don't you think?"

The ball was passed back to General Manager Li. Lu Zeming clearly told General Manager Li, "I've already rejected one company. If I go on another TV station's gala, won't I offend someone?"

The director asked you for a favor, not me. Whether it works out or not is your business, not mine. Anyway, I'm not going to risk offending a major TV station to give you face.

And you can't force me. After all, you're the CEO of Qian Shijia. You can't sacrifice the company's interests just to do someone else's personal favor for you, can you?
"That's true. Sigh, it's my fault. I tried to help you get more views without asking about your situation first. I'll talk to the director. I didn't think it through. I'll hang up now. You can continue filming."

"Okay, I'm really sorry, Mr. Li."

This whole thing was done haphazardly by Manager Li. He didn't contact Shen Jinghan before directly arranging commercial performance jobs for Lu Ze. And at the last minute, he even tried to make Lu Ze have a good impression of him, as if he had done something wrong with good intentions. Lu Ze just ignored what he said.

On the other end of the phone, after hanging up, Mr. Li frowned as he looked at the six million yuan check on the table. After thinking for a moment, he reached into the drawer, crossed his arms, leaned back in his chair, and let out a heavy sigh.

He had been at Qian Shijia for several months, but his work had not progressed. Hu Zhiguang's faction was too deeply entrenched in the company, and he simply couldn't get any real opportunities to work. He could only resort to the oldest method: using money to bribe his way in.

His first target was Lu Ze. Six million for a few minutes of performance, plus three days of rehearsal, was a lot, far exceeding Lu Ze's normal net worth. This was all from President Li, who wanted to tell Lu Ze, "Work with me, money is like paper, you can make money as easily as you want."

But he didn't expect Lu Ze's attitude to be so firm, directly contradicting himself without any hesitation.

In reality, it's just a matter of attitude. Lu Ze's attitude is tough, so naturally it's like this now, no matter what, he can't go. After all, there are plenty of reasons. Even if Lu Ze says he has diarrhea and poops all over his pants on stage, President Li can't do anything about it. Can he force Lu Ze to go?

If Lu Ze has any ideas, is offending a director really a big deal? It's a serious matter for a small-time artist, but for the top boss of Qian Shijia, it's a minor issue, because Qian Shijia's CEO, Mr. Li, will take out money to settle things for Lu Ze.

Could he not see through Lu Ze's scheme? To put it bluntly, Lu Ze simply didn't want to work for him. Loyal members of the Hu faction were really hard to sway. The office was quiet, except for the clicking sound of the two reddish lion head lion heads being played with in General Manager Li's hands. After thinking for a long time, a soft sigh finally came from the room.

This incident did not have much impact on Lu Ze, and he was not worried at all. After all, President Hu was taking the lead, and they, as the foot soldiers, could just stay behind and watch the outcome.

In the afternoon, the two directors, both big roosters, finished arguing. Of course, they both stuck to their own opinions and didn't come to any real conclusions; they simply moved on from the matter.

Lu Ze's scenes in the afternoon were few and relatively simple, while Wang Zhen's scenes were more difficult, requiring two takes and resulting in a brief stalemate.

It wasn't that Wang Zhen's acting skills were lacking, or that she couldn't express her emotions. On the contrary, her emotions were too intense and she couldn't control them at all. During the first take, Wang Zhen completely broke down, sitting on the ground and wailing. It took a long time for her to calm down.

Lu Ze knew why; only those who had truly suffered from the illness could deeply understand how desperate the script was, and Wang Zhen was such a person.

She withdrew from the entertainment industry for nearly ten years due to illness, which many people know, but only a very few people know what illness she had, and Lu Ze was one of them.

She had lost her fertility, which is why she liked Song Guiyuan's child so much. She had suffered from uterine cancer and had her entire uterus removed.

Like Lu Ze, she could feel the despair in the script and the torment of illness. In fact, her understanding was even deeper than Lu Ze's, after all, she had been tormented by the disease for several years and almost died.

But Wang Zhen is, after all, an excellent actress. On the third take, she overcame her inner turmoil, suppressed her surging emotions, and finished filming the scene.

After she finished filming, applause rang out on set, which greatly encouraged Wang Zhen. After putting on her coat, she wiped away her tears and thanked all the staff.

She is a strong woman, without a doubt.

After finishing work that evening, Zhuang Yu, to express his apology, treated Wang Zhen and Lu Ze to hot pot, but did not bring Guo Mingde.
During this time, Wang Zhen was very dissatisfied with Zhuang Yu's strictness on set. She had said that she would shoot the next scene first so that she could take a break, but Zhuang Yu just wouldn't agree and forced Zhuang Yu to drink half a jin of baijiu before it was over.

But with Zhuang Yu's alcohol tolerance, he was completely drunk after drinking half a jin of niu er (a type of Chinese liquor). Lu Ze and Wang Zhen had to exert a lot of effort to help this drunkard, who was still muttering about movie sets, back to the hotel.

After returning to his room reeking of alcohol, Lu Ze took off his clothes, went into the bathroom to take a shower, and then went back to bed to read the script. He hadn't drunk too much, after all, his alcohol tolerance wasn't as low as Zhuang Yu's.

After watching the scenes to be filmed tomorrow, it was already ten o'clock. I yawned, turned off the bedside lamp, turned to my side, plugged in my phone to charge, and planned to play on my phone for a while before going to sleep.

He opens Weibo. Although he doesn't like posting on Weibo, it's still the primary channel for entertainment news and he can often get the latest gossip, so he still browses it frequently.

I saw the Weibo post from my own studio, gave it a like, and replied to a few interesting comments, much to the delight of my fans who were still awake.

Then I looked at the recent hot topics. The first was the accident of a popular celebrity who broke his arm. The second was another popular celebrity showing off his love with his girlfriend. This person even knew Lu Ze, which made the single Lu Ze feel like he was being fed dog food.

Thirdly, there's Liu Yunzheng, a senior executive at Tianhe Media, who owns 8% of the company's shares. He was arrested for driving under the influence of drugs, causing an accident, and fleeing the scene. This is quite a big story.

But as Lu Ze ate, he felt that something was off about the taste of this melon.
"."

(End of this chapter)