Chapter 164: Thousands of Sailings

Watching Su Yun get on the car, the few people who stayed behind waved goodbye to her with smiles on their faces.

Seeing Tom staring at the direction where the car was going away, the impish Marian poked him lightly with her finger and asked, "Did you kiss like the prince and princess in the cartoons last night?"

Tom was startled at first, then he lowered his head with a smile and looked up at his little sister anxiously: "No, it's not what you think..."

Before Tom could finish his words, Marian turned around and ran away with a look of disgust on her face that said "you're such a loser".

Tom sighed helplessly, turned around and saw the scrutinizing looks from Vivian and his other family members, and quickly explained stammeringly, "We just danced, and then Mary said the lake outside the garden was beautiful, so I went to play by the lake with her for a while..."

Vivian patted his shoulder silently and walked away silently.

The two sisters slapped him each, feeling very disappointed with him, then walked away, shaking their heads.

Tom's parents who were left behind looked at each other: Although they also wanted to leave, if they just walked away, Tom would probably change from stammering to aggrieved...

But even in this situation, it's not right to praise him as a gentleman against one's conscience - compared to his three sisters who have never-ending luck in love, Tom, who didn't inherit any love genes, is simply too stupid to be a biological child!

Fortunately, in the relative silence, Tom spoke again: "I plan not to go to college next. I want to enter the entertainment industry."

"Why do you suddenly have this idea?" Because Tom had clearly preferred to go to college, his parents were very puzzled. "Since you got the pen that Mary gave you, haven't your grades improved a lot?"

"I...I still don't feel that much interest in studying. I like performing more." Tom pressed the reading pen in his left breast pocket and said softly.

"But..." Tom's mother was still a little hesitant.

"Well, Mary, didn't you want to be an actor when you were young? Now Tom wants to inherit your dream. Isn't this a very good inheritance?" Stepfather Seth persuaded Tom's mother and winked at Tom, "This is all for 'Mary', right?"

Coincidentally, Tom's mother's name is also "Mary".

This double meaning naturally made Tom lower his eyes: "I guess so..."

Tom's parents looked at each other again, and after confirming what was in each other's mind, Seth, the stepfather who was the financial pillar of the family, spoke again: "Tom, no matter what you want to do, we as a family will always support you behind your back."

After discussing with his parents about going to New York later to try his luck, Tom was so happy and touched that he wanted to give his parents a hug, but he hesitated when he thought about how tall he had become.

So his parents came forward and gave him a hug each, saying, "But if there is no chance, you still have to come back to study. You are still young, don't hang yourself on a tree."

Tom nodded repeatedly, and finally looked up at a streak of airplane cloud crossing the azure sky, as if he could see the future and the distance just like that.

Under the same sky, Su Yun, who hurried back to Hong Kong, also took a car to the TBB headquarters building right after having lunch with Grandma Su at home.

The Mei sisters have been busy with the "Happy Tonight" program here recently. They often don't have time to go home for lunch or even dinner. Grandma Su feels sorry for the two sisters and has to eat boxed lunches with everyone else. Unfortunately, it is not easy to make special arrangements for them and ask Jennifer, the Filipino maid at home, to bring them food and soup every day. Today, she took this rare opportunity and followed Su Yun here.

"Jennifer, I've asked, Damei and Xiaomei are currently rehearsing at the second factory. Can you please take my mother-in-law there?" Su Yun pointed the way and then said to Grandma Su, "I have to go to another place to do some work, so I won't be going with you."

"I understand." Jennifer nodded, carrying a five-layer wooden lunch box.

"Be careful and watch the road!" Seeing people coming and going in a hurry here, Grandma Su couldn't help but give a reminder.

"Okay!" Su Yun responded crisply, turned around and walked towards Fang Mona's office with the file bag in her arms.

When she arrived at Fang Mona's office, it seemed that Fang Mona was waiting for her. As soon as she knocked on the door, she was immediately "invited in".

"What are the details now?" Su Yun put the file bag on the table and asked with concern: A TV station that big must have undercover agents. It is very common for each other to place their own undercover agents in the opponent's house. Su Yun is naturally not surprised.

Many times, all the actions, big or small, that the opponents are going to take privately are basically transmitted by these hidden undercover agents.

"According to the report, Liying received an investment this year, and they are determined to succeed or die." Fang Mona briefly told Su Yun about the bet agreement between Taiwan Liying and a wealthy businessman, and then continued: "Currently, Liying has been producing martial arts dramas to compete with us. We have just finished broadcasting the popular "Shanghai Beach" and "Spring Dream in Peking". For the time being, we can only use the long drama "True Feelings" and some short dramas like "The Invincible Kindness" with more than ten episodes to deal with it."

"But now is not the most tense time." Fang Mona pushed a form in front of Su Yun, "Rumor has it that Liying is preparing to launch a 'September Offensive' like Jiayi's 'July Offensive', to sink our big ship with a thousand sails."

Even though Jiayi's "July Offensive" initially destroyed itself due to a broken funding chain, TBB and Liying benefited in the end; however, the fact that most of the attention was snatched away and a large number of internal artists and staff fled still makes senior executives like Fang Mona feel uneasy.

Although Liying's "September Offensive" which has not yet been launched sounds a bit unlucky, compared with Jiayi, which has a weak foundation, if Liying, an old ship with more than 3,000 nails, really wants to launch an attack at all costs, TBB may not be able to withstand it.

From the "Battle of Wutai Mountain" to the "Battle of Broadcasting Channel", although the number of participants was smaller, it was also obviously more evenly matched and unpredictable.

If they fail, the current status of TBB and Liying may be reversed!

"What do you want me to do?" Su Yun asked in a calm voice.

"I plan to release the second part of "The Thousand Faces of the Girl" in mid-July. As for the final chapter of the third part, the follow-up will depend on the situation." Fang Mona gestured at the arrangement of the table with a pen, "You don't have to worry about the TV series for the time being. During this period, I have recalled Qiu Guan, DoDo, Li Siqi and other ratings guarantees, as well as Lin Chi-yang and Chen Baiyang, whose popularity has risen sharply recently, to shoot a big-budget feature drama to follow the second part of "The Thousand Faces of the Girl."

At this point, Fang Mona is still quite confident: last year, facing the huge hit "Heavenly Canopy" of Liying, she made a prompt decision to cancel all the unit dramas in the same time slot, and then quickly recalled Zheng Zhaoqiu, Wang Ningquan, Chen Shulian and other signature martial arts stars to shoot "Chu Liuxiang" to deal with it. This was considered that she barely withstood the fierce attack of the Heavenly Canopy Divine Art.

Of course, the more secretive details of the matter were not easy to tell Su Yun: Li Ying originally borrowed the little-known actor Xu Zhaoqiang from Zhao under the guise of a guest appearance in a movie, and then secretly made Chen Cang take advantage of his popularity for playing a heroic hero in Zhao's previous martial arts films to become the male lead in "Heavenly Silkworm Transformation", which caught Zhao and TBB off guard.

However, due to the severe rush to shoot TV dramas in recent years, they naturally focused on the disadvantage of "Rebirth of the Silkworm" being filmed and broadcast at the same time. They used all kinds of black and white means, and finally caused Xu Zhaoqiang to be absent from filming frequently. Later, Liying had to use the strategy of "training martial arts to change appearance" and replaced the actor of the male lead, which allowed the show to keep up with the filming progress.

"Chu Liuxiang" gathered a star-studded cast, while the leading actors of "Heavenly Canopy" were replaced. With one increase and one decrease, the two sides finally ended up in a tie.

Fang Mona would definitely not tell Su Yun such a secret inside story when she was not yet considered a real friend and judging from her expression, she was temporarily unable to tolerate such a tactic.

Su Yun, who was still unaware of the dark battle between TV stations for ratings, took a careful look at the contents of the table: the cast was a guarantee of ratings, the supporting roles were also hot newcomers, and even the behind-the-scenes staff included well-known behind-the-scenes bosses from old Hong Kong films and dramas such as Gan Guoyang, Wang Jiawei, Du Lifeng, and Qi Qiyi, and the theme song was the "Hui Huang" combination of Huang Zhan and Gu Jiahui... It was indeed a rare big production.

"So, you are waiting for my variety show proposal?" Since she is not needed in the TV series, she must be needed in another aspect.

"That's right." Fang Mona patiently explained to Su Yun, "Happy Tonight is a long-standing brand in Taiwan. Although there is still room for improvement, the audience has begun to be aesthetically fatigued. New variety shows must be put on the agenda."

The best thing about variety shows is that as long as the script is stable, other aspects will not be restricted by the actors like TV dramas. TBB used the power of capital to defeat Li Ying in this regard. This lesson and experience must be remembered.

Besides, the characters that guarantee the TV series' ratings are all old faces, and newcomers have not been able to really take on the role. Relying on variety shows to increase familiarity, popularity and audience appeal has been done many times by "Happy Tonight" and it is definitely feasible.

What TBB lacks the least is hosts and artists. When it comes to making TV series, Liying can follow suit, but it is absolutely difficult for Liying to follow suit in variety shows - their talent pool is not as good as TBB, and plagiarism in variety shows is easier to judge than plagiarism in TV series.

After listening to Fang Mona's explanation, Su Yun nodded thoughtfully, then motioned for her to open the file bag on the table.

"'The Cooking Man'?" Fang Mona was a little surprised when she saw the name of the variety show. "Let a man cook? Will it be good?"

Even in the 1980s, trendy yet traditional Hong Kong still had many contradictory customs. On the one hand, it clamored for gender equality, while on the other hand, it followed those "good" patriarchal customs.

The kitchen is a woman's world, and a gentleman should stay away from the kitchen - this is a particularly typical example.

"It's important to let men cook, that's what makes it interesting!" Su Yun said meaningfully, "In addition to the host tasting the food, they also have to taste their own and others' 'labor results'."

She almost laughed out loud when she thought about the male artists and the selected male audience members, who used the dark dishes they cooked up to poison themselves and hurt each other.