Internet moguls are being held hostage by the entertainment system!

Chapter 344 Pony Ma Wants to Talk

After the meeting ended and everyone left, Pony Ma gave Liu Chiping a wink.

The two went upstairs in tacit agreement, entered Pony Ma's office, closed the door, and started a small meeting.

Squeezed into the creaking sofa, Pony glanced at the refrigerator, pursed her lips, and decided to suppress her craving for alcohol for the time being, intending to talk about business first.

"Martin, did you deliberately let Lincker give the report just now?"

"Correct."

Liu Chiping smiled and nodded, admitting it without hesitation.

Pony's expression darkened, and he asked, "Why?"

"He's in charge of Weishi, so he'll have a clearer understanding of the specifics of the work. I'm only responsible for reading reports, and there are some things I might not be able to report clearly."

"From your perspective, what should we do?"

"Operating normally, everything is proceeding according to plan."

Liu Chiping's smile was very professional, and his words were impeccable.

However, Pony Ma, who had known him for many years, still saw through Liu Chiping's standard professional attitude to his true feelings.

After a moment's thought, Pony Ma pursed his lips and said, "You don't think Weishi and Douyin have a good chance of competing?"

“Pony, I only believe in facts. Our plan for Douyin has only been out for a week. Nobody can say for sure how things will develop in the future. Before we draw any conclusions, we need more data analysis. We need to wait until at least the end of April to have a month's worth of data for reference…”

Liu Chiping's attitude is objective and rational, without any personal subjective bias.

After he finished speaking, Pony Ma changed his questioning style and went straight to the point: "So, based on the current situation, what do you think Chen Xiu's attitude is?"

"Chen Xiu".

This was a question that couldn't be avoided. Liu Chiping thought about it carefully for a long time before giving his answer.

“He is a very cautious person. These countermeasures are, on the one hand, to show his attitude and that Douyin is not afraid of challenges; on the other hand, they also set a bottom line and show that he does not want to completely break ties with us.”

In other words, there is room for discussion.

Pony Ma's expression softened slightly as he stared at the distant view outside the floor-to-ceiling window, lost in thought for a long time.

Liu Chiping waited quietly, neither getting up to say goodbye nor disturbing the conversation.

About three minutes later, Pony Ma looked away and turned to Liu Chiping: "Find some time to go to the capital and talk to Chen Xiu."

"We cannot go to the capital."

"why?"

"He went to Hengdian today to prepare for filming."

As soon as he finished speaking, Pony Ma, whom Liu Chiping had been looking at, suddenly froze. Then, he sat on the sofa expressionlessly and stared blankly at him.

Looking at the scene before him, Liu Chiping couldn't help but recall the first time he heard Chen Xiu say she was going to act in a movie and asked him to help her get a role...

“Ahem, Pony, if you want to talk to Chen Xiu, we can have Thirty (Sun Zhonghuai, CEO of Tencent Pictures) sound him out first and see what his attitude is.”

Why Thirty?

"The drama Chen Xiu filmed in Hengdian was a collaboration with Tencent Penguin Pictures. Thirty commented that this drama is very important and is Tencent Video's most anticipated series this year."

Upon hearing this, Pony Ma's feelings became even more complicated.

From the initial funding of Didi, to the establishment of Douyin, investment in Mobike, and switching to Meituan... he felt that Chen Xiu could succeed at anything he did, and the benefits of cooperating with Tencent were far greater than those of competing with them.

"Ah~"

Pony sighed, a hint of retreat already creeping into his heart.

"OK, contact Thirty and have him go to Chen Xiu under the guise of visiting the set, and see what his attitude is."

"Okay, I'll contact you right away."

Pony nodded to Liu Chiping, watched him leave the office, then silently got up, walked to the refrigerator, and took out an ice cup...

……

Hengdian, the hotel where the crew of "The Xuanwu Gate Incident" was staying.

On her first day on set, Chen Xiu didn't take any time to rest before immediately joining the script reading session with both new and veteran actors.

As a sequel to "The Song of Qin King Breaking the Formation", "The Xuanwu Gate Incident" features characters who survived to the end in the previous TV series, but their screen time has been significantly adjusted.

For example, Zhang Ruoyun, who plays Liu Hongji, Huang Haibing, who plays Qin Qiong for the second time, and Ding Haifeng, who plays Yuchi Gong... these military generals have had a much smaller screen time this time.

Then, Liang Guanhua, who played Li Yuan, and Qiao Zhenyu, who played Li Jiancheng, who didn't have many scenes in "The Song of Qin King Breaking the Formation," all had their roles greatly expanded.

Chen Xiu's screen time remains unchanged; he is still the absolute protagonist, unmatched by anyone else.

All of the above-mentioned characters were present; not one was absent.

In addition, "The Xuanwu Gate Incident" also introduced some new characters, such as Tian Xinwei, who plays Princess Yang of Qi.
The script reading session was held in the conference hall on the 5th floor of the hotel. When Chen Xiu arrived, there were already two circles of people sitting inside, and the discussion was lively and bustling.

An actor sitting on the periphery spotted Chen Xiu first and immediately turned to the actor next to him.

Chen Xiu glanced at his face, pondered for a moment, and then realized that he was Aru Na, the actor who played Li Yuanji. To be fair, at least they looked alike.

Aruna said something to the person next to her, and that person looked over at Chen Xiu, then immediately went to speak to the person next to her.

Right after the two shared the information, the news spread to both sides of the large circle in a relay, and in less than a minute, everyone present knew that Chen Xiu had arrived.

They stopped their discussion with perfect understanding, stood up from their seats, and looked at Chen Xiu without saying a word to each other. Seeing this, Chen Xiu had no choice but to take the initiative to greet them: "Good morning, everyone. I'm sorry, I had some things to take care of and only just joined the group today."

"No, no" *N
A cacophony of agreement arose, and everyone thought: We know all too well what you, Mr. Chen, are doing!

Seeing that everyone was so friendly, Chen Xiu didn't say anything, but just gave a wink to director Lu Yang who was standing to the side.

"Cough cough!"

Lu Yang coughed twice and stepped out from the crowd.

Although there were many veteran actors present, with Chen Xiu in charge, no one dared to put on airs and allowed Lu Yang to walk over and stand in front of Chen Xiu to begin speaking and maintaining order.

"Everyone, please sit back down. Let's continue our script reading."

"Okay, okay." *N
The crowd responded in unison, and the atmosphere was less bustling than before.

After arranging the actors, Lu Yang turned to Chen Xiu and asked, "President Chen, what do you think?"

"I'll find a seat myself later. Are you adjusting well? After filming 'The Xuanwu Gate Incident,' you're going straight to filming 'The Longest Day in Chang'an.' It's a tough job!"

"It's not a big problem, they're all familiar actors."

Lu Yang smiled, not feeling too embarrassed.

The reason why the previous film, "The Song of Qin King Breaking the Battle Formation," was difficult to film was because it had more war scenes and fewer dialogue scenes; "The Xuanwu Gate Incident," on the other hand, has more dialogue scenes and fewer war scenes, so the difficulty is naturally different.

In addition, the production team of "The Longest Day in Chang'an" is still in the early stages of preparation, and the actual start of filming is expected to be in early June, which will just avoid the conflict with "The Xuanwu Gate Incident".

"That's good."

Chen Xiu nodded encouragingly, then went to ask for leave for someone: "Meng Ziyi's recording of the program hasn't finished yet, and he probably won't join the crew until the day filming starts. Will that be a problem?"

"Um... She has a lot of scenes with you. If you don't come to study the script, you two might have to rehearse it together more often on your own."

"..."

Chen Xiu stared at Lu Yang's long, narrow face for a while, inexplicably feeling that he was implying something, but still nodded.

"OK, I'll arrange it."

"Mr. Chen, shall I arrange a seat for you?"

"Okay, trouble."

Chen Xiu followed Lu Yang toward the crowd. Halfway there, they saw a large empty space between Tian Xinwei and Zhou Ye, and Tian Xinwei was waving at them, indicating that they should sit there.

Lu Yang glanced at Tian Xinwei, then turned to Chen Xiu, feigning difficulty: "President Chen, what do you think?"

"I'll just sit there, could you please give me a chair?"

Lu Yang turned around, grabbed a plastic chair, and handed it to Chen Xiu.

Watching Liang Guanhua and Qiao Zhenyu rehearsing their lines in the crowd, Chen Xiu slowed her pace as much as possible, not wanting to disturb them.

When Chen Xiu arrived at Tian Xinwei and Zhou Ye's side, she didn't bother with any formal greetings. She simply placed a plastic chair down and sat down.

As soon as Chen Xiugang touched the chair, before he could even turn his gaze to the scene of the actors rehearsing, Tian Xinwei's eyes lit up and she came over.

"Boss, you're here?!"

"Hehe, hello there."

"I'm not good."

"Ok?"

Chen Xiu turned around in surprise, thinking to herself: Why does this cute girl with big eyes not follow the rules when she speaks?

Meeting his gaze, Tian Xinwei pursed her lips, revealing dimples, and said confidently, "My character only has a few scenes, most of which are with you. I've been on set for several days, and you haven't come, and no one has rehearsed with me. If I can't even act well, how can I not act well?"

"Oh, that's definitely my fault, I'm sorry..."

"Could you rehearse with me later?"

"sure."

Chen Xiu didn't see anything wrong with rehearsing with her co-star.

Seeing that he had agreed, Tian Xinwei was overjoyed, her almond-shaped eyes sparkling with anticipation.

Just as Xiaotian was hoping that the rehearsal in the circle would end soon so that she and Chen Xiu could go up and rehearse their lines, a polite greeting suddenly came from behind them.

Excuse me for interrupting.

Liang Guanhua and Qiao Zhenyu stopped rehearsing and turned around, and everyone else followed suit.

Sun Zhonghuai, the nominal producer and one of the producers of "The Xuanwu Gate Incident", was standing behind the group, looking firmly in one direction.

Everyone followed the gaze and saw that Chen Xiu was standing at the end of the line of sight.

Sun Zhonghuai looked at Chen Xiu across the distance and smiled somewhat awkwardly, "President Chen, can we have a private chat for a bit?"

"Sure! Let's go outside and talk."

Chen Xiu smiled knowingly, not at all surprised that Sun Zhonghuai had requested a private chat.

These people in the entertainment industry were well aware of Chen Xiu's feud with Tencent during this period, and after Chen Xiu left, they all continued rehearsing as if nothing had happened.

Only Xiaotian, sitting in her seat with a gloomy expression, cursed inwardly: "Scumbag! He just agreed to be with me, and then he ran off with another man..."

(End of this chapter)