The Birth of Shanghai's First Conglomerate

Guangzhou, Tencent Pictures headquarters.

The group had already begun planning its Douyin development as early as June.

As the name suggests, it means making early moves in the newly established short video market.

Several months later, the Douyin development team had received a total of 500 million yuan in funding.

The team has a standard staff of 500 people and occupies five floors of office space at its Guangzhou headquarters.

It's only been a week since Douyin officially launched.

Tencent Video's advantage in the short video field is undoubtedly unique.

However, these newly established short video platforms need time to mature.

Firstly, the platform's user base needs time to grow, which is a challenge for influencer live-streaming e-commerce companies that rely on the platform for survival.

That will definitely take some time to settle down.

This period is what they use to cultivate internet celebrities.

Tencent is quite generous; during this development period, all signed talents receive a basic salary of 1.5 yuan.

They also provide apartments and the best living and dining environment so that they can focus on building their fan base in the early stages.

They will only consider monetization once the Douyin platform has truly grown and become a major player with a substantial user base.

This period could take six months or a year; no one can say for sure.

Anyway, the big boss has already allocated 500 million yuan, so in the early stages they only need to consider how to accumulate fans.

There's no need to consider how to monetize it.

The task assigned to Chen Pingsheng was also to grow together on the same platform.

……

September.

It wasn't just the Douyin development team that prepared in advance.

The same goes for Shuiyunjian, which cost more than 3 billion yuan to purchase the Shanghai University.

School officially started on September 15th.

This day is destined to be a historic day for the beauty and wellness industry.

It covers an area of ​​1,200 acres and enrolls 10,000 rural girls from all over the country.

They provided two years of professional training and paid these rural girls 3,000 yuan a month.

This is absolutely a historic day for the entire industry, because Shuiyunjian has truly transformed its training academy into a professional technical college comparable to top-tier universities.

Even graduates from here often surpass those from typical 985 universities in terms of employment and income.

This is the real reason why the number of applicants quickly exceeded 100,000 after the registration quota was announced.

Countless employees who graduated from Shuiyunjian have spread the word about it.

One pass ten, ten pass a hundred.

It was from this day that Shuiyunjian truly began to influence the entire industry.

It's not just Shuiyunjian University that has opened.

On September 18th, Huadu spent 3.2 billion yuan to purchase, redesign and renovate the Tengying Entertainment Senior Arts School.

On this day, school officially started.

The first batch of recruits consisted of 5,000 students, all of whom were from rural areas.

The smallest is only sixteen, and the largest is only eighteen.

The school has a very strict elimination system, regularly recruiting new students and eliminating those who want to coast along.

In addition, dating is absolutely forbidden.

Whoever talks will leave.

I don't know what's going on, but it's all universities run by Chen Pingsheng.

If a girl is dating someone under the age of 18, she should get lost immediately.

Just like in Shuiyunjian, you can receive a salary of three thousand while learning your craft.

As for the teachers who taught them acting skills, they were all from Hong Kong.

A professional teacher who has been in charge of TVB's top-level artist training program.

He values ​​acting skills more than anyone else, and anyone who doesn't meet the standards in this area is unacceptable.

It's absolutely impossible for them to obtain any further acting opportunities from Tencent Film Studio.

It's impossible for her to grow up to look like Liu Yifei.

Rural girls are already at a disadvantage in the entertainment industry, and if they can't even pass the acting test...

Go back to where you came from as soon as possible.

There's no need to be polite about this; he spent so much money to open the door to the entertainment industry for rural students.

They're not here to kill time, and it's not like a regular school where both high-achieving and low-achieving students are accepted.

There are monthly placement tests, and those who fail are dismissed immediately.

These are the rules at Tengying Art School; they're extremely harsh.

The entertainment industry doesn't need so many expressionless faces with no acting skills.

Tencent Entertainment is even less of a need; they already have a ton of big-name stars. Why would I support you here for free?
It can only be said that the entertainment industry is cruel, and the rules of survival of the fittest are very clear.

Of course, this also includes family background and so on.

For these 5,000 rural students, there is only one path.

That is to learn from Zhao Liying, who is the true senior sister of Tengying Entertainment.

If someone from the countryside can't endure more hardship than the privileged kids, they should just find a factory to work as a screwdriver as soon as possible.

In his opening speech, Chen Pingsheng made his point very clearly.

Of the 5,000 people, one-third will be eliminated in the first month, and another third will be eliminated in the following three months.

From then on, a regular elimination tournament will be held every month.

Those who are willing to endure hardship and work hard will stay; those who want to slack off will have to get out.

No one expected that the rules at Tengying Art School would be so strict.

It has even reached a perverse level of strictness.

This is nothing like a university; it's more like a company conducting a three-year selection and elimination process for its employees.

No way.

Chen Pingsheng set such a rule because the art school was different from Shuiyun School.

Over there, if you study diligently for two years, you can become an excellent employee at Shuiyunjian in the future.

Art schools are different. It's true that Tencent Entertainment is among the top three in the industry, but it doesn't have enough resources to reach 5,000 students.

They can only offer a few, or even a few dozen, opportunities to become big stars.

When Tencent's resources cannot be made available to everyone, then they need to compete for resources from outside themselves.

He had neither a powerful background nor a privileged family.

In this situation, if you can't even act with basic skills like those expressionless faces...

So, where will your future lead you?

He even put it more bluntly: some girls might think, "I'm pretty, I'm outgoing, I can get resources by sleeping with directors and investors."

Chen Pingsheng directly answered their question: Before you become famous, if you try to acquire industry resources in this way, you're not even worth as much as a chicken.

Even if a chicken gets slept with, it still has at least a few hundred yuan.

And if you get slept with, people will only laugh at you for being delusional.

That's just how it is. Without a top-tier background, you have to endure hardships that no one else can bear.

If you can't even do this, you should leave as soon as possible.

Zhao Liying's example is right there; she spent five years as an extra, and not a single day was a day without her improving herself.

When an opportunity arises, seize it immediately.

This is what makes her a unique figure in the drama industry.

It can only be said that reality is cruel, and Tengying Art School is not a sanctuary for them.

It is not a modern art school, but a prestigious institution that is full of modern rules.

Its phase-out is calculated on a monthly basis.

If you want to spend your time on romance, go out and talk about it. Who knows who can make it through all that?

But one thing is certain: those that survive to the end will definitely transform from ugly ducklings into swans in the future.

Tencent Entertainment has the capability.

It also has the confidence to stand out from thousands of ugly ducklings.

If you can't even do that, then don't expect any resources to fall into your lap.

You wouldn't even dream of doing that.

The teachers, including professors, are all top-tier, highly paid. They have no resources and don't need to rely on connections to get in.

Therefore, only by having the ability can we live up to our youthful selves.

Compared to Shuiyunjian and Feiyangyang's training academy.

The arts school at Tengying Entertainment is absolutely grueling.

We recruit 1,000 new employees every month and we also lay off 1,000 employees every month.

It's just so perverted.

If you don't whip them and push them hard, they'll really think that the entertainment industry is something you can just walk into.

Some can even become big stars without relying on acting skills, only on resources.

To put it bluntly, at least 90% of celebrities in the industry think this way.

This has led to countless popular actors who could be the main characters simply having a blank, expressionless face throughout the entire show.

Even if the audience wants to criticize, they don't know who to criticize.

The opening of Shuiyunjian University was widely praised by the community.

After all, it truly ensured that students had access to education and provided tens of thousands of rural girls with a clear path to big cities.

However, the opening of Tengying Entertainment's Huadu University was met with a barrage of criticism.

No university in China has ever used this method to reject students.

It can be said that as long as no major mistakes are made, students can complete those three years on schedule no matter what.

Tencent Entertainment is different. They don't care if you make mistakes or not. If you don't perform well in the performance competition at the end of the month, you will be eliminated.

The naked laws of capitalism are brutally honest and hurtful.

As soon as the news came out, most of the people who had originally planned to enroll in Tengying Art School simply disappeared.

The remaining countless keyboard warriors continue to hurl insults and abuse online.

The gist is that it refers to unscrupulous capitalists.

Why set up such a brutal elimination system in a university? Do they even want people to study there?

Regardless of the controversy online, Chen Pingsheng will not change his decision.

His influence is growing, and countless important figures want to meet him every day.

He still took seven days to stay at the Tengying Art School, which was not yet open for business.

The purpose, of course, is to establish learning rules.

He can open the door to the entertainment industry for rural students, but they also need to fight their way out of the crowd themselves.

Until I become the most dazzling superstar.

The road in the entertainment industry is never easy.

The saying "A kind heart should not command an army, and a righteous heart should not manage finances" has been around since ancient times.

With the opening of Tengying Art School, Tengying short dramas also officially went online.

This means that Tencent Video has developed a short video platform in addition to its two major industries of film and television.

No one knows what the future holds.

At least for now, it has quietly launched online, relying on these five thousand students.

It's unclear when exactly, but Tencent Entertainment's reach has extended into various industries.

They all have that feeling of launching a full-scale attack.

Now, two universities have been established on land that is thousands of acres in size.

This level of influence is truly unmatched.

I returned to Shanghai on September 20th.

Douyin (TikTok) was launched quietly, and no one realized that it was a revolutionary internet product.

Even Chen Pingsheng himself was unaware that he simply felt Xin Teng's live streaming was too profitable, so after Douyin was launched, he wanted to replicate Xin Teng's live streaming.

……

When Song Yanxi got home, she sensed that something was off about the atmosphere.

One adult and two children are shaking their butts together here. What's going on with her husband?

"Twist and turn, we are all a happy family."

After learning that Lao Douhua had invested heavily in building a team on another short video platform, Chen An'an simply registered on Douyin as well.

I finally convinced her dad to film a family dance video with her, so it has to be a good one.

"Honey, why are you being so indecent too?"

"well enough."

Chen Pingsheng said happily, "An'an wanted to film a family-friendly movie, so I'm playing with her."

"Come on, don't you know how many people want to see you?"

Song Yanxi turned off her daughter's phone. It's one thing for the little brat to be mischievous, but she certainly couldn't let her husband appear in public like that.

Chen Pingsheng wiped the fine sweat from his forehead. "Actually, it's not too bad. Douyin has only just launched and has very few users. Whether it can succeed is still unknown."

"You only invested 500 million in it, how can you say such things?"

Song Yanxi looked at him suspiciously, as if he didn't have much confidence in this newly launched short video.

"It's only five hundred million, do you expect me to keep bringing it up every day?"

Chen Pingsheng said, "You too, if your daughter likes to play, just play with her. Why stop her? Look how happy they are."

Chen Pingsheng went with her to the study, which faced a large tree in the courtyard, offering a beautiful view.

It is a perfect and elegant room for self-cultivation.

"I'm just worried that you'll cause controversy by showing up like this. Don't you even look at how many employees our group has? It's almost a million."

"There's no need to overthink it. We're not making money to live for others."

Chen Pingsheng said, "I'm getting more and more into being more easygoing. It's quite interesting to grow up with my daughter. Let me tell you a little secret: she's incredibly smart. I taught her 1+1 today, and she remembered it immediately."

"I'm truly impressed by you."

Song Yanxi rolled her eyes at him, "You only realized this today? This little one seems like a child prodigy. No matter what you teach her, she can remember it immediately, and then she thinks it's normal. She has no idea how smart she is."

"Hehe, if it weren't for her sister to compare me to, I would really think there was something wrong with my genes."

Not only Chen Pingsheng noticed, but even Chen An'an, who had always bullied the little girl, noticed.

A two-and-a-half-year-old little rascal, she already knows that 1 plus 1 is pretty amazing, okay?

How can he still recite ancient poems?

Chen An'an is, after all, a fourth-grade student, no matter how bad her grades are.

I can definitely still recognize the characters.

If one can recite two poems, "The bright moonlight before my bed, I suspect it is frost on the ground," then one must certainly know them.

But she's already nine years old, so why does her two-and-a-half-year-old sister seem to know these things too?

Shouldn't a father's genes be naturally lost as soon as he learns them?

How could something like this happen to her sister?

Chen An'an looked her strange younger sister up and down. Chen Xinyi was puzzled by her gaze and followed her footsteps, looking left and right.

Then, in a childish voice, she asked, "Sister, why are you walking back and forth like that?"

"Chen Xinyi, you don't really look like my sister. How about we get a sisterhood test tomorrow?"

Chen An'an said with a serious expression, "That makes absolutely no sense."

How can you be so smart when I'm so useless?

Everyone should be the same.

(End of this chapter)