Chapter 42

Chapter 42

Gu Yifan kept his word. The so-called "hotel" fence required a special card to enter. After entering, the tightly closed gate immediately closed, and then the nanny van had to drive for another two minutes before entering the actual building area.

After parking, they went directly to the private room from the garage connected to the underground parking garage.

Gu Yifan skillfully ordered four signature dishes, then handed the menu to Lan Xu's manager: "Order a few dishes that Lan Xu likes."

Lan Xu's agent quickly selected Lan Xu's favorite dishes from the menu, and thoughtfully took out a bag of Chinese herbs from his pocket, replacing the waiter's actions to brew Lan Xu a bowl of herbal tea.

When Lan Xu's manager turned around and saw that Gu Yifan and Lan Xu were both looking at him, his hands immediately started trembling.

Gu Yifan looked at him with sympathy and said bluntly, "Lan Xu, I think you should know very well that your manager is not suitable to be a manager at all; but he has done his best to take care of you. Why not consider just letting him be your assistant and handing over the manager's work to someone else? GIGABYTE should have no shortage of managers who are willing to sincerely plan your entertainment career."

Lan Xu paused for a moment, then smiled awkwardly and said, "I think my brother is great. Besides, I don't lack work."

"A memorable scene of yours was cut from the TV series you recently starred in." Gu Yifan directly exposed Lan Xu's pretense.

Lan Xu's smile faded, but she still forced herself to add, "The amount of money is the same, it doesn't matter how much I act. My fans don't like me for not focusing on my singing career anyway."

Gu Yifan completely ignored Lan Xu's attempt to cover up his actions and continued from where he left off. He took out some documents from his briefcase, placed them in front of Lan Xu, and pointed to the survey data on the paper, saying, "Judging from the work that GIGABYTE arranged for you this year, the company's initial goal for your career transition was to increase your public awareness through TV variety shows, and then move into film and television—GIGABYTE provided you with several film and television projects to choose from, and you chose the worst one."

Jiang Mingyue curiously craned her neck to peek at the words on the paper.

The first option is to play the fourth male lead in a big-budget mythological movie. Although it will definitely be a bad movie, it will likely provide plenty of exposure. Lan Xu won't need to carry the box office, and no one will care about his acting skills. It will also give Lan Xu's music fans a sense of shared honor that "because Lan Xu is popular and has enough popularity, he is qualified to participate in the movie."

The second job was to give Lan Xu the role of the fourth male lead in a historical drama. Although the exposure wasn't as strong as in a movie, the benefits were the same. In fact, the fact that he would be acting alongside veteran actors throughout the filming process would greatly help his acting skills development, making it a good choice.

My third job was as the second male lead in an urban idol drama. He was the kind of typical second male lead who loved the female lead unconditionally.

This kind of product is a fan-driven product that purely exploits the idol's appeal.

Furthermore, directors and screenwriters in mainland China are actually not very good at creating youth idol romance dramas, and it is impossible for them to produce any widely acclaimed masterpieces.

Gu Yifan's assessment was extremely accurate.

Moreover, Gu Yifan didn't stop his sharp criticism: "Your fan base is almost entirely composed of music fans. For them, choosing a youth idol drama is equivalent to being half-hearted in their approach to music. As a result, you will definitely lose some fans. After the idol drama is released, the fans who watch it will find your terrible acting skills and lose even more fans. And because of your poor acting skills and declining popularity, the resources you can get next will be even worse than those for this idol drama."

Lan Xu finally couldn't keep up the act any longer, and he retorted defiantly, "I can go back to singing."

Gu Yifan couldn't help but laugh: "Singing? Of course you can sing if you want, but in recent years, due to poor internet management and the booming piracy market, there are very few singers whose record sales can steadily exceed 100,000 after being dehydrated."

"Of course, you can say that you can hold concerts, but the problem is that you have only released your second album so far. The number of copyrighted songs is simply not enough to support the expenses of a concert, let alone the issue of arranging different songs in different cities."

Gu Yifan raised his eyebrows at Lan Xu, "I don't think you'd be willing to pay other singers royalties to sing other people's songs after investing so much in the early stages, would you?"

In fact, even if such an option were available, Lan Xu couldn't afford the cost, making the opening meeting pure nonsense.

Therefore, according to Gu Yifan's analysis, the sales of the second album will shrink even more than the first; at the same time, Lan Xu's film and television resources are not going up much.

This leads to the slow death of the performing arts industry.

Gu Yifan's words came from the bottom of his heart. Although Lan Xu was embarrassed by them, he was not so as not to admit that what Gu Yifan said made sense.

He frowned and glanced at Gu Yifan: "What do you want to do by telling me all this? You don't mean to make me switch jobs, do you? The GIGABYTE boss is the only one who supports my singing, and I won't betray him and leave GIGABYTE."

Gu Yifan smiled and nodded: "If you're willing to switch jobs, that would be best. After all, this should be your last moment of glory. Once your popularity has completely faded, I won't need to apply for funds from the company to pay your breach of contract penalty."

After listening, Lan Xu stood up and said, "Then we have nothing to talk about."

Gu Yifan caused all this trouble today just to bring Lan Xu over, so how could he let Lan Xu just leave like that?

Jiang Mingyue quickly tried to smooth things over: "You've had a long day, and you ordered so much food. Let's eat before you leave. You haven't even drunk the throat-soothing tea your brother made for you."

Just as we were talking, the waiter knocked on the door to serve the food.

One plate after another, filling the table to the brim.

With the interruption of the food being served, Lan Xu's mood gradually calmed down.

He wasn't stupid; he clearly understood that what Gu Yifan was talking about was the most likely future.

But leaving GIGABYTE?

No, he still wanted to stay and repay his boss for his kindness.

Lan Xu sat down again, picked up her chopsticks, and asked Gu Yifan, "If I don't leave, I mean, I don't want to go to court, and I don't want to leave a bad reputation for betraying my former company, is there any way to change my situation?"

“Let’s get a new agent.” Gu Yifan said, raising his hand to dial a number on the phone. In front of Lan Xu, he said, “Wait two minutes—Tong Xin, bring your people over—Lan Xu, I’ll introduce you to a new agent.”

What?

Didn't Gu Yifan say he wanted to poach Lan Xu from Golden Star Pictures? How did the situation suddenly take such a turn, and he ended up introducing other agents to Lan Xu?

Jiang Mingyue was completely baffled.

Sure enough, less than two minutes later, Gu Yifan’s agent, who was called “Tong Xin”, brought three young men who were about the same age as Lan Xu and equally handsome to the private room.

Tong Xin directly told the three young people she brought, "After you terminate your contracts, just find Gu Yifan, and he will arrange new contracts for you with Xingchen."

Then, he began to scrutinize Lan Xu with a slightly critical eye.