AM: Chapter 68

There was still some time before Folding Paper was officially released on July 10th. Cheng Xia was full of expectations but the official publicity hadn’t come out yet. He was worried about any changes and didn’t dare say anything in advance, even to his parents.

In the next few days, Cheng Xia continued to concentrate on filming ‘Disappearing Traces’. Director Zhu’s requirements were very strict. Each scene had to be shot several times over and over again. Cheng Xia learned a lot of expression management skills and details during the continuous honing process.

Since Pei Shaoyan bought snacks for the crew every day, Cheng Xia was very popular in the crew. He was the youngest actor casted and all those who acted in other roles with him were his seniors. They wouldn’t deliberately embarrass him when he was a newcomer. In addition, Cheng Xia himself worked very hard. He memorized the script well, politely consulted the director when he didn’t understand something and the number of NGs was small. Director Zhu liked him very much and taught him like he was an apprentice.

At the end of June, Linghu TV and the Folding Paper crew held a joint promotion for the first time. They released a poster that said, “Folding Paper is scheduled to be broadcasted exclusively on Linghu TV on July 10th.” The moment the poster was released, the original fans of the novel rushed over with excitement. The original author Lemongrass also cooperated with the publicity. However, the number of novel fans was limited and this wave of promotions didn’t cause any splashes in the circle.

The vice presidents responsible for procurement for the other three platforms knew about this and secretly watched this joke. Pei Shaoze who had high expectations actually chose Linghu TV which had relatively low traffic as the broadcasting platform? This was simply terrible for an unknown online drama!

Where on earth did he get such confidence from?

In the fierce battle of TV series during the summer vacation next month, Pei Shaoze would become Pei Shaoze (continues to suffer a financial loss) and he wouldn’t even have his pants left. (TL: They made a pun on his name by using characters with the same pinyin but different meanings)

***

The vice president’s office of the Tianxuan Group.

Cui Jue saw this piece of news and couldn’t help smiling. “Sure enough, he is a newborn calf who isn’t afraid of tigers. He smashed 10 million for an online drama and went with Linghu TV, this low-traffic platform. He definitely won’t be able to recover the cost. In the beginning, he insisted that Tianxuan be divided into three groups and the three groups should be responsible for their own profits and losses. If the financial report of Group C is too ugly at the end of the year’s shareholders meeting, I am very curious about how he will explain it to the shareholders.”

The deputy director of the finance department had a smile on his face. “Vice President Cui, our xianxia drama Flowers in a Mirror and the Moon Reflected in the Lake is being released on July 10th. It happens to be the same day as their school drama. The cast of Flowers in a Mirror and the Moon Reflected in the Lake are all first-tier stars. The broadcast volume of that day will definitely smash Folding Paper.”

Cui Jue picked up a cup of tea and spoke while drinking. “After all, Pei Shaoze is young. Does he think being an investor is easy? He is Chairman Pei’s oldest son and Chairman Pei is used to spoiling him. Young people always have to fall a few times to learn a lesson.”

His tone was gentle like an elder talking about a junior but the sharpness in his eyes couldn’t hide his heart.

Cui Jue was one of the three senior members of Tianxuan. He founded the Tianxuan Group with Pei Sheng back then. He always believed that Tianxuan could gain a foothold in the industry so quickly due to his unique vision when he was young. Almost all of Tianxuan’s current first-tier stars were discovered by him. The other one, Vice President Yang Mingwei was a good man who only managed personnel and internal affairs. The company’s business development and star training were all handled by him, Cui Jue!

If it wasn’t for Cui Jue then there wouldn’t be today’s Tianxuan. Why did Pei Shaoze get to take over as the boss of Tianxuan? Just because of the blood of Pei Sheng in his body?

Previously, Pei Shaoze had a bad reputation and fooled around with a group of rich second generations every day. Cui Jue never cared about the heir Pei Shaoze. In his opinion, this was a useless hedonistic son of rich parents. The moment Chairman Dong announced his abdication and handed the group to his son, Cui Jue started to seize power. He acted low-key and secretly transferred assets. Pei Shaoze didn’t come to the company at all during this time and didn’t know about his little actions.

Later, for some reason, Pei Shaoze completely changed and he ran to the company to hold a shareholders meeting. He proposed the ‘group plan.’ Everyone might be saying that Pei Shaoze had become serious and motivated but Cui Jue never thought that this young rich second generation posed a threat to him.

Young people needed to fall a few times before finding out that this business wasn’t so easy to mix up in.

Cui Jue just needed to watch the show. Group C invested 20 million in two dramas this year. Once the year-end financial report was given, he would happily watch shareholders lose trust in Pei Shaoze and implement the next step.

***

The president’s office on the top floor.

Pei Shaoze turned on the laptop and looked at Weibo while asking, “After the poster was published, what did the people in Group C say?”

The group’s year-end bonus was linked to the performance of the group so the other agents were paying attention to the drama President Pei invested in.

As an assistant, Zhang Fan was Pei Shaoze’s eyes and ears and he helped President Pei keep an eye on the internal movements in the company. He heard this question from his boss and immediately replied, “Everyone thinks our scheduling is too unlucky. Folding Paper happened to collide with the big IP xianxia drama that Vice President Cui cast for last year. Flowers in a Mirror and the Moon Reflected in the Lake has Tianxuan’s alpha older brother, Zhao Xinghe and Lin Ruoxi, the omega sister of Binfen Films. It’s a handsome and beautiful AO combination and the special effects alone cost tens of millions of yuan. It’s receiving the exclusive promotion of Little Bear TV and the traffic of Folding Paper can’t compare to it at all. It’s likely to be reduced to drags in seconds…”

Pei Shaoze casually told him, “It isn’t bad luck. I deliberately arranged it.”

Zhang Fan stared. “Did you deliberately pick the date of July 10th?”

Pei Shaoze looked calm. “Yes, it’s released at the same time, and traffic, in the beginning, will naturally flow to their xianxia drama while our drama won’t receive too much attention. However, their drama is the advance-on-demand mode and costs 2 yuan per episode. There are 60 episodes and it’s long and abusive. Once they start to abuse the hearts of the audience to make them feel sad, our drama will become better. It will heal the audience members who are crying and abused by the xianxia drama. It’s only 0.5 yuan an episode. If it was you, how would you choose?”

Zhang Fan instinctively replied, “If I watch a sad drama and feel uncomfortable, I must find a sweet drama to adjust my mood.” At this point, he understood Pei Shaoze’s thinking. “President Pei, did you release it at the same time because you want to use that xianxia drama to reverse boost our Folding Paper?”

Pei Shaoze had a slight smile on his face. “Publicity isn’t effective just by spending money. It should be set off by the time, place, people, and peers.”

There was a saying: Rely on peers to set you off.

In order to schedule Folding Paper, Pei Shaoze studied all the dramas of the same period on all major platforms. July 10th was the best date that he determined after several days of calculations. On the Linghu TV side, the scale of the platform might only be fourth in the country but a small platform also had its advantages. Many things were relatively easy to discuss, including the issue of scheduling. They listened to Pei Shaoze’s opinions.

Pei Shaoze looked at Zhang Fan and asked, “Has Vice President Cui taken any action?”

“Vice President Cui attaches great importance to Flowers in a Mirror and the Moon Reflected in the Lake and has spent a lot to promote it. Today’s hot search is #Flowers in a Mirror and the Moon Reflected in the Lake released July 10th Little Bear TV#. The drama has two stars with a lot of traffic, Zhao Xinghe and Lin Ruoxi. Add in the early promotions and the ratings definitely won’t be bad.”

‘Thank you, Vice President Cui for your hard work promoting it. At that time, there must be a large number of viewers who’ve been tortured to tears by the xianxia drama that will come looking for a sweet drama to heal their wounded hearts. Folding Paper can take advantage of the small fire. At the time, just find some people to cut videos and spread it everywhere. This will save on publicity expenses.’

As for Vice President Cui’s seizure of power in the later part of the original novel which killed Pei Shaoyan, this wouldn’t happen. Pei Shaoze was now in Tianxuan and he naturally wouldn’t allow the company to fall into the hands of others. He would also protect his younger brother. He believed that the old fox would soon show his feet.

***

On July 2nd, Folding Paper officially released a one-minute promotional video. The editing company that Pei Shaoze found was very powerful. The one-minute promotional video aroused the audience’s appetite. It also showed the fresh, natural, and beautiful filming style of Folding Paper.

The readers of the novel rushed to forward it and many passersby who saw it left messages saying, [It’s so beautiful. The scenery is comparable to anime!]

[Just watching the trailer, the production is very good!]

[I was shocked by the snow scene. Was it shot by a drone in the air? It’s spectacular!]

Many netizens also expressed doubts. [Maybe the essence of the drama was cut into this one-minute video, right?]

[This trailer can’t be countered. I don’t believe in the acting skills of two newcomers. I will talk about it again after watching the drama.]

Cheng Xia cooperated with the crew’s promotion and personally reposted it on his Weibo. [July 1st at 8 p.m., I will wait for everyone at Linghu TV. See you! [Jiayou][Jiayou]]

After posting it, many passerby fans who were looking forward to the drama said they would watch it. However, some passersby and water army soldiers who scolded him some time ago because he was playing Xu Ziyang sneered. [Okay, I must go watch you and see how you roll over.]

[How did you get the role of this drama? You can play the main character as soon as you debut. Sure enough, your background isn’t simple!]

[After all, Cheng Xia is an omega who can reverse genders and act as an alpha police officer? Isn’t he the most powerful?]

[Speaking of ‘Disappearing Traces’, the filming hasn’t finished yet, right? Director Zhu is probably losing his hair every day encountering an actor who was stuffed in by capital.]

[A 12 episode drama is taking one month to film. Isn’t it because some people are too bad at acting? Director Zhu has no choice but to teach him personally.]

Cheng Xia didn’t care about these sarcastic comments. He closed Weibo and told his parents the good news that his drama was going to be released. Cheng Xia’s parents were more excited than they were during the Spring Festival. They bought a few kilograms of peanut seeds in advance, downloaded Linghu TV, and prepared to cast it onto the TV screen to follow their son’s drama in the future.

July 7th, three days before Folding Paper was released.

The official Weibo of the drama and the platform Weibo linked up for publicity. This time, the promotion video had some of the scenes of Cheng Xia and Shen Kai. There were a few simple shots of them walking beside each other or smiling at each other. The aesthetics were so beautiful that the expectations of the original novel fans were instantly full!

Pei Shaoze asked the publicity department to spend some money to find the Weibo big verified accounts that recommended school dramas. These big Vs had many fans and most of the fans who followed them were really willing to watch the drama. This could be called the ‘precise pinpointing of the customer group’ and the recommendation effect was immediate.

Sure enough, the popularity of Folding Paper gradually increased after a few rounds of forwarding. It might not be comparable to the large-scale summer big IP dramas that went on the hot search but in the circle of school dramas, everyone knew that such a drama would be airing on Linghu TV.

This was the first time that netizens other than the original readers paid attention to the Folding Paper drama. Some netizens bought the novel out of curiosity and thought the plot was good, so they started to look forward to the TV drama. Some were attracted by the beauty of Shen Kai and Cheng Xia and the aesthetic style in the promotional video. They turned on Linghu TV and followed the upcoming Folding Paper drama.

July 9th, just one day before its release.

Linghu TV paid close attention to the number of members who followed Folding Paper. There were only 100,000 members.

At the same time, Flowers in a Mirror and the Moon Reflected in the Lake was affected by the hot search promotion and the fans of the first-tier traffic stars. It was going to be broadcasted tomorrow and the followers had already exceeded 5 million. Comparing the data of the two was… too cruel.

The whole series of Folding Paper only cost 0.5 yuan. If there were 100,000 viewers then the final income would only be 500,000 yuan even if all of them bought it!

Mr Liu was crying as he sent a message to Pei Shaoze. [President Pei, do you want to invest more money to promote it? The drama will be broadcast tomorrow but there are only 100,000 members following it. Even our platform can’t bear to see it…]

Pei Shaoze was very calm. [There is no hurry. After it airs tomorrow, there will be a push notification on the website homepage and it will become more popular. Moreover, many viewers who follow the drama might not click the follow button. They will just turn it on to watch once it’s released. This part of the population can’t be ignored.]

Mr Liu sent a row of bitter smiley face emojis. [To tell you the truth, the effect of the push notification on the homepage of Linghu TV is very limited. You invested 10 million and you must be prepared to not get your money back. However, you’re young. It’s already very good that your first drama can be broadcasted successfully. Many young investors spend money only for the drama to end up dead due to various releases and unable to be aired!]

Pei Shaoze, “……”

Mr Liu had already started to comfort him because he felt like the outcome was decided. The drama next door had 5 million followers before the broadcast while Folding Paper only had 100,000 followers. This data was really incomparable.

However, they seem to have forgotten that most of the ‘advanced-on-demand’ big IP dramas were for ‘members who can spend money to watch the finale in advance.’ The stacking party and the large ‘free party’ didn’t mind delaying watching it for a week and could still watch it without spending money. Meanwhile, Folding Paper had the profit share model. During the six-month protection period stipulated by the law, they needed to go to Linghu TV and pay for it if they wanted to see this drama.

Copyright protection in this world was done very well and there were no websites with pirated videos. This meant that once word of mouth for Folding Paper spread and it gained popularity, people who liked school dramas would come to Linghu TV for the next six months to buy this drama for 0.5 yuan. There were 20 episodes so this wasn’t expensive. People who liked it could afford it.

This was a long-term profit process. How many days had it been broadcasted? Of course, Folding Paper couldn’t fight initially. These IP dramas had hundreds of millions of yuan invested and contained top stars in the circle.

Then what about the long term? Pei Shaoze firmly believed that not only would this drama help Cheng Xia become famous, but it would also make him and Linghu TV a lot of money.

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The author has something to say:

President Pei: I raised my little seedling for a long time. It’s finally time to take him out and show off to everyone 🙂

Proofreader: Cat