Chen Shu guessed correctly. The next morning, Zhou Mingxing arrived with a stylist and hot breakfast to pamper his future cash cow.
"Assistant Jiang, is Can Can awake yet? Hurry up and tell her to get up and change her clothes. I just received news that several leaders from the station are coming to visit and offer their condolences later. I heard that the station is also going to donate money to Langshan Primary School. This meeting may be related to the benefits and treatment Can Can will receive in her future contract. You should keep that in mind. If there is anything you are not comfortable saying, you can tell me first."
The styling and changing clothes are secondary; the main issue is Jiang Cancan's future market value.
Last night's battle with Tianlai has finally put the station leaders at ease.
Zhou Mingxing felt that unless the leader was possessed by a ghost, he would never let a ratings darling like Jiang Cancan fall into someone else's hands.
Moreover, he had been trying to get Jiang Cancan signed with his side, and his visit at this time was also intended to create the illusion for the station leaders that he had been assisting with Jiang Cancan's management affairs...
In this way, when the station signs Jiang Cancan and chooses an agent for her, do they still need to look for someone else?
So don't assume that agents are all aloof and superior; it depends on the individual.
Just like seasoned fishing enthusiasts, in their eyes, ordinary people are just small fish like minnows and catfish in the river, which is a waste of their time. Only geniuses like Jiang Cancan are the precious wild Yangtze River knife fish in their eyes!
At this moment, in Zhou Mingxing's eyes, Jiang Cancan is his little ancestor for the next twenty years!
Chapter 82
Jiang Xia wouldn't stand on ceremony with a vampire manager.
His idol, the movie star, was with a greedy and insatiable agent when he first entered the industry, and he had to give up almost half of his fortune to break free from that agent.
Although the TV station that signed Jiang Cancan this time has a state-owned background, we still can't be too careful.
"Mr. Zhou, our Cancan is only nine years old this year. Her family hopes that she can finish university. Therefore, when signing the contract, we hope to add the clause guaranteeing her normal schooling time."
"No problem, no problem. TV stations aren't like those talent shows. Even if parents want their kids to participate in more activities to make quick money, TV stations are afraid of complaints about us illegally using child labor."
Zhou Mingxing explained with a smile, "We signed Cancan mainly because we need her to cooperate on several shows. Without a management company, the procedures would be very troublesome."
"You can rest assured about the school schedule. We usually film the show on weekends. If we really need to go on location and ask for leave, the production team will arrange for tutors to help us catch up on our studies."
"What is the contract term?"
“I don’t know the term yet, but I hope you can understand that raising a child like Can Can requires a lot of time and resources. We can’t have a standard five- or ten-year contract. Based on my experience, it will be at least a fifteen-year contract,” Zhou Mingxing said frankly.
“Fifteen years? That’s too long!” Jiang Xia frowned.
"Don't rush, let me do the math for you. Can Can is only nine years old this year, and she'll be 24 in fifteen years. At that age, she'll have just graduated from university, right? She'll be young and able to make money. If she really succeeds by then, when her contract expires, the company will definitely offer her more favorable contract terms to keep her."
"Even if Cancan is no longer suitable for the entertainment industry by then, she is only 24 years old and has just graduated from university. She can easily take the civil service exam or pursue a master's degree, which will not hinder her bright future."
"The most important thing is that you need to think this through. During this 15-year contract period, the TV station will arrange some activities and programs for her every year, and these will be paid."
"You've probably all heard about the income levels in the entertainment industry. With these savings from the past fifteen years, Cancan will be financially secure for the rest of her life, even if she doesn't go out to work."
Zhou Mingxing smiled slightly, "I know that even if I didn't say it, you would definitely sign a contract with the TV station. Mr. Jiang is an adult and has been working in society for many years. He should understand how many years it would take for a kid from the mountains to save up ten million after graduating from a top university."
"However, once she signs with the company, with Cancan's qualifications, as long as she maintains this level of performance, I can guarantee that within five years, her annual income will not be less than ten million!"
“Can Can still go to school and can’t participate in too many commercial activities.” Jiang Xia couldn’t help but frown.
"Haha~ Mr. Jiang is overthinking it. Aside from commercial activities and variety shows, as a singer, Can Can's song copyrights and music albums are much more lucrative than those messy business activities." Zhou Mingxing shook his head and sighed.
These foolish mortals ultimately failed to recognize Jiang Cancan's terrifying money-making ability in the future. Fortunately, they had a discerning mentor like him!
Hearing Zhou Mingxing mention his music album, Jiang Xia felt a pang of pain in his heart.
His biggest obsession in life is that he has never released an album that can be sung by the public. Let alone an album, he has sung so many theme songs for movies and TV series, but he doesn't even have a classic hit. He is often ridiculed for this. People say he should just focus on acting. The path of "acting well and then singing" is not suitable for him.
So God is really unfair!
Some people work hard for half their lives and still can't achieve their goals.
Some people are not even ten years old, yet God has already arranged a golden future for them.
Jiang Cancan eventually signed a contract with the entertainment company under the television station.
However, this news has not been announced yet, because once it is announced, it will have a negative effect on Jiang Cancan, who is currently participating in the competition, making people think that she signed a contract with the TV station in advance in order to reserve the championship.
Although with her talent, the championship was practically hers for the taking, but then there's her daughter, a TV Queen. That daughter has connections and ability; she's already got the title for sure.
"You didn't actually reserve the championship, did you?" Zhou Mingxing asked, quite annoyed, as he followed his leader around.
As a professional agent, he knew that for Jiang Cancan to win the championship in such a competition would only be icing on the cake. It would be a huge upset if she didn't win, which would make fans and casual viewers feel bad and make everyone remember this talented contestant who clearly had the ability to win but lost because she had no background or connections. This is how the industry has been promoting people for years.
But when you think of Jiang Cancan, who was almost always the last one to leave the karaoke room every day since joining the group, and who would run downstairs to the garden to practice her voice before dawn, her fierce determination to fight with all her might was so moving that even a cold-blooded manager like Zhou Mingxing couldn't help but be moved.
Furthermore, I genuinely feel that such a low-level fan-attracting tactic as manipulating fans shouldn't be used on someone as sunny and positive as Jiang Cancan...
"What reservation?" The station leader looked over with a look of amnesia. "Didn't Director Chen tell you? The rules for the finals have changed. Now the total score is calculated by combining the judges' scores, the audience's scores, and the support from fans outside the venue. Sigh~ The station has no choice. We're afraid that enthusiastic netizens will suspect that we have shady dealings. If they report us and take it down, it will be troublesome."
Zhou Mingxing: "..."
No wonder he can become the head of the provincial TV station, while I'm just an agent!
If you don't want to offend the Best Actress but also want to favor your own people, that's easy! Just change the rules in a way that benefits your people.
Zhou Mingxing has every reason to believe that if the Best Actress dares to use fans to garner votes, the station's leaders will probably personally intervene and hint to their programs and the stars they frequently work with, asking them to help find their big fans to pretend to be ordinary people and garner votes... In terms of fan base, can a Best Actress really compete with half of the entertainment industry's traffic stars?
Having figured out the key point, Zhou Mingxing felt refreshed and opened his tablet to start choosing a school for his precious child.
Oh dear, how about the affiliated primary school of the J Province Conservatory of Music?
Or is the Capital Conservatory of Music Affiliated Primary School better?
Let's pick a reliable assistant first!
He had already investigated the background of Jiang Cancan's relative. She was a die-hard fan of the movie star Jiang Yuan. Ugh!
How can your own artist's assistant be a fan of someone else?
Jiang Cancan won the group stage and was even assigned to Wei Sheng's group as she wished. Not only did she receive a huge red envelope of 10,000 yuan from the chief director Chen Shu, but she also received more than 20,000 yuan in red envelopes from her new bosses—several station directors—as well as a 6,000 yuan red envelope from her agent Zhou Mingxing.
My uncles and aunts said it was a gift to greet me, and I couldn't refuse it.
Jiang Cancan still prepare for the group's first stage performance and the finals, so she entrusted all the red envelopes she received to Jiang Xia, asking him to help transfer the money to Jiang Xiaoman.
“My grandma is blind, and Yueyue is too young to understand. Brother Jiang Xia, could you please tell Xiaoman for me that some of the money here should be given to my grandma, and the rest should be used to help me find someone to repair my old house and kitchen? If there is anything left, I want to give it all to Principal Dad, because I want to treat all the students and teachers in our school to a meat feast!”
"With so much money, we can afford to buy chicken, duck, and fish, not just meat." Jiang Xia smiled and patted her head, telling her to go to the karaoke room to meet up with her fellow contestants while she went off to assign tasks to Jiang Xiaoman.
When Jiang Xiaoman received the transfer, she was on her way to the county to deliver the last truckload of konjac.
Just then, after finishing the express delivery, he spent money to buy several boxes of frozen chicken legs and duck products from his classmate Lin Mao's shop. He also bought two boxes of shrimp and a box of frozen beef. This was a small token of Jiang Cancan's appreciation. He bought extra, mostly for the school, and kept a little of each to send to Grandma Jiang and the others.
Jiang Cancan's contract with the company also requires the signature of her actual guardian, Grandma Jiang.
The TV station originally wanted to call Jiang Cancan's parents, but luckily Jiang Xia had been with them the whole time and quickly managed to smooth things over by saying that her mother had passed away, and that her father had remarried and taken his new wife somewhere, and had changed his phone number and hadn't been home for several years. Currently, her only guardian in the family was her grandmother.
The TV station had no choice but to send the document by express to Langshan Primary School, entrusting the school to have Jiang Cancan's guardian sign it.
"Braised beef, braised duck parts, braised prawns, chicken legs with potatoes, fish stew with tofu... This time, we've got all the chicken, duck, fish, and meat! Cancan is treating all the students and teachers in the school to dinner!"
Jiang Xiaoman posted the recipe out of the box and even had Fang Xingchen film it and upload it to the official video account of Langshan Elementary School, so that some trolls online wouldn't pick on it and make sarcastic remarks, saying that Jiang Cancan had stopped associating with her former classmates after becoming famous.
So, that evening, after dinner, fans of the official Langshan Elementary School account came across a video of the school's unique "bench feast."
Speaking of this bench banquet, it's not just a specialty of Langshan; it's found in many places in the area.
In rural areas, apart from weddings and funerals, small gatherings, such as hiring help with household chores, don't usually involve a special feast. Instead, a few main dishes are prepared and placed on the table, and then a circle of benches is set up in the yard, with everyone having a large bowl to serve themselves as much as they want.
After the food is served, people sit on stools with their bowls in hand, chatting and enjoying the rare meat dishes. More particular families might even provide inexpensive bulk liquor.
Jiang Xiaoman originally intended to distribute the meat and vegetables as usual in the cafeteria, but Fang Xingchen told her that many fans were curious about whether they had a "bench banquet" (a traditional Cantonese feast).
Isn't that simple? It's hot and stuffy to eat in the classroom in the summer, so Jiang Xiaoman and the others helped move all the benches out of the classroom and put a row of benches under the cool and ventilated eaves. At the end of the corridor is an L-shaped passageway, which is just right for four desks. They put them together to make a large square table to put the dishes.
"Time for a feast!" The children, holding large bowls and chopsticks, happily lined up in the corridor. Fang Xingchen was quite the troublemaker; starting with the oldest child at the back of the line, each child shouted into the camera, "Jiang Cancan, thank you for treating everyone to meat!"
Goodness, one sound after another, you'd think the video was stuck.
The children were incredibly excited; this was so much fun! Usually, when they go to banquets with their families, they only get a small bowl, and if they want something, they have to run to an adult and have their parents serve them. They never get to sit at the table. But now, they can sit at the table too!
Watching the children happily devour the meat, Jiang Xiaoman distributed a bottle of pure milk to each child as they walked along the line, bringing smiles of contentment to the fans' faces.
However, several voices in the comments section quickly raised questions—
"Well, I'm not trying to be argumentative, but if I remember correctly, I haven't seen the kids drink milk at the school cafeteria every time it's open for meals, have I? I remember our country has a nutrition program for students in impoverished areas, right? Why does Langshan Elementary School seem to have none of that?"
“I’ve always wanted to say this: Langshan is such a poor place, the school even built its own canteen. I heard that students used to bring porridge or roasted potatoes from home for lunch. Isn’t that in line with the nutrition program?”
"As a long-time fan who has followed the show since the first episode, I swear on my eyes—eyes that could get me into military academy—I really, really have never seen any students from Langshan Elementary School receive any nutritional meals or milk!"
Oh dear, things have gotten really out of hand.
Chapter 83
Everyone at school was busy today because they had to attend this special bench banquet. None of the teachers and students went home. After dinner, Jiang Baichuan, along with two student teachers, divided the children into male and female teams and took turns leading them to the bathroom to wash up and prepare for rest.
Jiang Xiaoman wasn't idle either. He was busy tidying up the kitchen and washing and soaking the corn grits for making porridge tomorrow morning.
After finishing his work, it was almost 10 p.m. Before going to sleep, Fang Xingchen forced himself to stay awake and edited the videos from today. He then uploaded them and went to bed.
Anyway, their video accounts don't accept ads or sell products, so there's no need to monitor the data.
Besides, it's just a meal for the students, and the funds are donated by students from our own school. What problems could possibly arise?
That night, all four slept soundly, completely unaware that a huge uproar had already erupted outside because of this video and the other videos previously released by Langshan Elementary School...
Why is a poor mountain primary school, which is so poor that it can't even afford pork cracklings, not eligible for the national nutrition program for impoverished students?
Who exactly is responsible for reviewing the distribution of this benefit?
Is the school deliberately playing the victim to attract attention, or has the nutrition allowance that should belong to these students in impoverished mountain areas really been embezzled by some corrupt officials?
Since it concerns the future generations of our nation, netizens felt both heartache and anger. Many netizens who clicked in by chance even watched all the videos previously released by Langshan Primary School carefully from beginning to end!
Good grief, I was already angry before watching it, and after watching it, I was so angry I felt like I was going to explode!
The school's dilapidated thatched-roof canteen was built by the principal using money saved from his meager salary!
The school's daily food expenses are saved up by all the teachers and students raising pigs and chickens and growing potatoes to sell!
The school grows its own vegetables every day. In order to save money, the principal even came up with the absurd and heartbreaking idea of "selling the local eggs and buying cheaper factory-made eggs, just to ensure that every child can eat eggs regularly!"
The video of Jiang Xiaoman "outwitting" her uncle in order to cook a stew with pork cracklings for the children has been flooded with comments from countless netizens urging justice.