SAE CH3

Returning to his rented room after shooting scenes that night, Jiang Fanxing received contracts from the three suckers, along with the first batch of “resources” promised upon signing.

The best resources offered by these three companies were the second male lead in an A-tier drama, the male lead in a million-yuan vertical-screen web drama, and the male lead in a web movie.

The company offering the A-tier second male lead provided a contract that showed an astounding lack of respect for national laws. All payment was split 30-70—30% to the artist, 70% to the company—after taxes. The contract term was signed for ten years right off the bat, with the penalty for breach of contract soaring into the hundreds of millions. The only negotiable clause stated that after the artist became famous and earned five million yuan for the company, they could apply once a year to increase their revenue share. However, whether the application would be approved depended on the artist’s various data metrics.

Good heavens, they were treating him as the sucker.

Jiang Fanxing studied the contracts and couldn’t help but marvel that these three companies had actually spent money to hire lawyers. The contracts patched up almost all the loopholes. If he wanted to take them to court, he’d need to gather a mountain of evidence. At a glance, it was obvious they were habitual offenders.

This wouldn’t do.

I’m in the entertainment industry to make money, not to make money for other people. I work my ass off just so the boss can buy a new house, a new car, and a villa?

No way.

Jiang Fanxing politely rejected the three companies that tried to play him for a fool. In his heart, he was also curious: he had sent them his resume and a photo of his university admission letter, so they all knew he was a professional law student. How could they still send him such scam-like contracts?

“This must be what the jokes call ‘capitalist arrogance.’ What a pity, I, a member of the proletariat, won’t fall for this!” Jiang Fanxing muttered to himself. He ignored the three companies for now, deciding to wait until they came back with a better contract.

Following that, two more studios sent him contracts.

One was a celebrity studio owned by a current popular young actor. The contact was a junior manager willing to offer him three “bundled” resources.

These three resources were a TV drama, a variety show, and a brand fitting model gig.

They were all resources the boss already had. The boss would play the male lead and bundle him into the crew as the 4th or 5th male lead. With good luck, he might even be able to fight for the 3rd male lead, depending entirely on how much say the boss had in the production.

Jiang Fanxing specifically looked up this popular young actor’s latest drama and some news.

Uh, wish him luck, he thought. The guy looked like his career could implode at any moment; he hadn’t joined a film crew for over a year and was just constantly shooting variety shows.

Skip, skip.

Actors who only shoot variety shows have a hard time making breakthroughs and are basically on a permanent downward slope.

The other contract was much the same, if not worse.

It wasn’t until around 10 PM that the final contract belatedly arrived.

The resources offered by this last one, called “Niannian Studio,” were almost absurdly good.

Jiang Fanxing took a look—oh, it was Sucker No. 6.

“Not only are they giving me the male lead in a B-tier web drama, but upon signing, they’ll also gift me a three-month acting masterclass and singing/dancing training, and guarantee me a spot in Class A of the top 505 idol survival show? The revenue split is 50/50, and if my artist rating goes up after a year, my share directly increases by 10%, capping at an 80/20 split?” Jiang Fanxing read through the contract from front to back, including the hidden clauses, and still couldn’t find anything wrong.

Jiang Fanxing’s first thought wasn’t that this studio had a conscience, but rather, Do they have water on the brain?

There is no such thing as a free lunch in this world, and even if there were, it shouldn’t be me eating it.

Jiang Fanxing immediately opened a corporate database app to look up this studio.

Frankly, he worried they were evading taxes or were simply a shell scam company.

But when he searched it, the results left even Jiang Fanxing speechless.

How to put it… this studio was the real deal, and they had once been filthy rich.

At its peak, the studio boasted a top-tier young actress and a top-tier young actor. Their cash flow was phenomenal, and they had even produced a historical idol drama that scored over an 8.0 on a major review site. It was an incredibly glorious era for them; they had basically drank the very first bowl of chicken soup in the internet traffic era.

But they lived by traffic and died by traffic.

It would have been one thing if the top-tier actress was merely exposed for having a secret marriage and a child. The critical issue was that the pig-headed rich businessman’s ex-wife dropped the “hammer of Thor”—irrefutable evidence—completely exposing her as a mistress who usurped the wife’s position. The actress directly quit the industry to have her baby.

The other top-tier young actor directly became a “legal case celebrity.” Not only did he evade taxes, but his fandom was also suspected of illegal fundraising. Ultimately, one of the actor’s assistants went straight to jail.

You could say they were VIP clients across all platforms. Who knows how much KPI they contributed to these apps; the operations teams of Weibo, Douyin, and Zhihu should have been kowtowing and sending gifts to this studio.

After all this, the studio’s other artists either terminated their contracts or simply walked away. Now, there were only two or three “kittens” left, leaving a massive generational gap in their talent pool. As for the resources this studio could offer, they would probably have to be heavily discounted; they were basically ruined.

As for this B-tier web drama, it was originally an S-tier project greenlit for that top-tier young actor. After his scandal blew up, investors withdrew their funds left and right. The director left before filming even started, so it was downgraded to B-tier. However, it could still be filmed. Since the sets were already built in the early stages, not filming would mean losing even more money. Furthermore, there were bound to be a ton of troublesome aftermath compensation issues regarding those two disgraced artists. If the studio didn’t want to go straight into bankruptcy liquidation, their only option was to quickly elevate another high-traffic star in a short amount of time.

Obviously, this contract was the best Niannian Studio could offer right now.

Jiang Fanxing thought for a moment and sent a WeChat message: “Is it convenient to have a video chat?”

“Of course,” the other party replied instantly.

Soon, Jiang Fanxing put his phone on a stand and started the video call.

The person on camera was undoubtedly the man who had added his WeChat during the day. He looked much more relaxed and appeared to be in his office.

“Manager Shen Tianqing, right?” Jiang Fanxing had done his homework and knew exactly who this manager was—a man who originally had ambition and capability but was ultimately knocked dizzy by bad luck.

“That’s me,” Shen Tianqing nodded. “I’ve finished reading your resume, and to be honest, it’s excellent. Your education, your major, and you personally—all of this can easily be marketed to generate heat. Furthermore, I looked into it; when you first enrolled in university, a fancam of you got over 100,000 likes. Talent agencies approached you back then, but you rejected them.”

A prime seedling like Jiang Fanxing wouldn’t be overlooked.

But the reason he hadn’t signed until now was partly because he sneered at those contracts, and partly because, at the time, he was entirely focused on becoming a lawyer.

“The people from those companies were a bit uneducated. I pointed out several loopholes in their contracts in one breath, and they refused to give me a straight answer. Naturally, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to let them harvest me like a leek,” Jiang Fanxing replied. “I read the contract you sent me. It shows great sincerity. If I didn’t know your studio was recently in trouble, I would have suspected you were scammers.”

“Although our studio has issues, those belong to the other two artists and have nothing to do with any newly signed talent. Moreover, if our studio truly goes bankrupt, I will transfer your contract to a company with a good reputation; I won’t just randomly sell off your contract.” Shen Tianqing was at 120% attention. He knew the Jiang Fanxing in front of him was difficult to deal with. Not only was he highly educated, but he also had a clear plan for his future and wasn’t easily fooled.

But exactly because of this, Shen Tianqing was even more determined to sign Jiang Fanxing.

He had had enough of those empty vases with beauty but no brains.

If it weren’t for them, how could he have been dragged down to this state?

“I’m very curious. How did your two artists deceive you so thoroughly that you were completely kept in the dark? The one with the tax evasion used yin-yang contracts. If that had passed through your hands, you’d be blacklisted by now too.”

“The year before last, he already swapped his parents in to act as his managers. I only took a revenue cut and had no control over anything else. Plus, his contract was about to expire, and he had explicitly stated he wouldn’t renew, so naturally I didn’t expend much effort on him.” Shen Tianqing’s eyes looked a bit scary, but he managed to maintain his composure. “The two of them conspired to fool me. It’s my fault for not being on guard against them; I thought they didn’t have the brains to pull off things like this.”

Ultimately, it was his own carelessness. He never expected those two to be so stupid as to think they could get away with such massive transgressions by pure luck. If they had only told him beforehand, he might have been able to salvage things a bit.

Now look at it—not only did it bury their own careers, but it also dragged his studio down with them.

“This B-tier web drama—when can it start filming?” Jiang Fanxing asked.

“I’ll try my best to pull in a bit more investment and streamline the script. Previously, to sell it at a higher price, the script was written for 50 episodes. Now we can cut it down to 30. If we’re going to start filming, we’ll probably have to wait half a year. However, after your training, I’ll do my best to get you a cameo or special appearance in an S-tier production to build up some hype for you early on.” Shen Tianqing was being very sincere. Since Jiang Fanxing hadn’t signed yet, he naturally had to highlight the positives.

“I can sign, but we need to add another clause to the contract. I will manage my own personal social media accounts, and I don’t need a so-called ‘persona.’ I just want to be myself,” Jiang Fanxing smiled. “However, you can also add a clause stating that if I do anything during the contract period that violates laws and regulations and ruins my career, I will pay all the breach penalties I owe, and I will also provide the studio with corresponding compensation. Of course, the same applies if you unilaterally breach the contract. Let’s set the amount at 30 million.”

This penalty amount wasn’t small; any higher and the courts wouldn’t recognize it.

Shen Tianqing didn’t agree immediately. Instead, he thought for a good while before asking, “Are you sure people will like the real you?”

“Of course. Everyone praises me. I’m law-abiding, highly educated, highly intelligent, and highly attractive—a triple-high demographic. Why wouldn’t they like me? I like myself very much.”

This level of narcissism actually had the air of a big star. Interestingly, such greasy words coming out of Jiang Fanxing’s mouth didn’t feel greasy at all; instead, they made him seem interesting.

Perhaps it was because his handsome face was very naturally appealing to audiences?

Shen Tianqing realized that the artist in front of him was probably entirely different from the ones he had managed before. At the very least, his psychological endurance was far higher than that of an average star.

This person is definitely going to be famous. I must sign him!

Seeing the other party stay silent, Jiang Fanxing worried he had seen through his true nature and proactively said, “If you agree, I can sign an electronic contract now, and you can bring the paper contract to me tomorrow.”

“No need. I’m right near Hengdian. I’ll print the contract out and bring it to you right now,” Shen Tianqing said immediately. He knew many people had approached Jiang Fanxing, and he didn’t want to get poached at the last second.

Jiang Fanxing sent over his address.

In less than an hour, Shen Tianqing drove over directly, accompanied by a young assistant.

Jiang Fanxing took out a copy of his ID card and briskly signed his name on the contract, while Shen Tianqing directly stamped it with the company’s official seal, meaning the contract officially took effect.

“Jiang-ge, let me clean this up,” the young assistant was very perceptive, stepping in to pack things up after the contract was signed.

“Mm. Shen-ge, don’t just stand there either. Go brew a pot of tea for me. We need to have a good talk about my debut drama,” Jiang Fanxing said slowly, leaning back in his chair.

Shen Tianqing and the assistant both froze.

Shouldn’t Jiang Fanxing be brewing tea for them? Shen Tianqing was the boss of the studio, and Jiang Fanxing’s boss.

“Shen-ge, the contract says that if your studio unilaterally terminates my contract, you have to pay me 30 million,” Jiang Fanxing waved the contract in his hand, smiling as his true colors showed. “So, don’t expect me to respect you like a boss. From now on, please take care of me like a cash cow, Brother Shen.”

After all, a boss who could offer such great terms even to himself wasn’t worth that much respect anyway.