Around noon, Sister Shan kept her promise and took Lin Shuwen along with the Chen sisters to a private kitchen restaurant.
Lin Shuwen had mentioned wanting to eat king crab, so Sister Shan specially ordered a large one for them.
The Chen sisters ordered whatever they liked, picking their favorite dishes off the menu.
Crab is considered cold in nature, and by the Sunday after next, Lin Shuwen probably wouldn’t dare to eat it anymore—otherwise, it wouldn’t just be a few days of mild discomfort. But since her period had just ended last week, Lin Shuwen had no worries and dug in with gusto.
“You all eat up, and I’ll take this chance to go over next week’s schedule.”
“Sister Shan, can we not talk about work during mealtime? It’s such a mood killer!” Lin Shuwen put down the half-eaten crab leg she was working on and complained.
“You don’t even have to listen—Chuchu just needs to hear it.”
Upon hearing this, Chen Sichu quietly set down her chopsticks and pulled out a notebook.
Sister Shan nodded in satisfaction and began laying out Lin Shuwen’s work arrangements for the following week.
Thanks to the explosive popularity of “Light Years Away,” Lin Shuwen had unsurprisingly landed some commercial performance gigs. Sister Shan had booked four in total, one each day from Tuesday through Friday, with three in Shanghai and one in Hangzhou.
Back in 2013, celebrity appearance fees hadn’t yet inflated to the point where they started at a million. Lin Shuwen was currently getting 100,000 yuan per show, and after splitting with the company, she’d take home 40,000.
Each of these four performances required Lin Shuwen to be on stage for 20 minutes, which meant she needed to prepare at least four songs, not counting the time spent interacting with the audience.
After laying it all out, Sister Shan turned to look at Lin Shuwen.
Given Lin Shuwen’s personality, having her run around doing four commercial gigs in a week was going to be a tough sell.
Sister Shan had already prepared her arguments to talk Lin Shuwen into going along with it.
But to her surprise, Lin Shuwen didn’t object at all this time—she just kept her head down eating crab, acting like she hadn’t really heard what Sister Shan had said.
“That king crab was money well spent!” Sister Shan thought to herself.
Before Lin Shuwen could snap out of it, Sister Shan quickly moved on to the next item on the agenda.
“Aside from all that, Monday morning there’s the company’s monthly routine meeting. Wenwen, remember to come.”
Lin Shuwen looked up with a bewildered expression. These meetings were usually meant for agents—artists rarely attended.
“Sister Shan, why are you suddenly asking me to go to this meeting?” Lin Shuwen asked.
“Why are you asking so many questions? Just show up!”
Since she’d just been treated to a meal, Lin Shuwen couldn’t really argue and had no choice but to agree: “Fine~_~, I’ll be there on time!”
After a satisfying meal, Lin Shuwen and the Chen sisters headed back home.
The moment she walked through the door, Lin Shuwen flopped onto the sofa without any regard for dignity. “Next week’s schedule is so packed. Guess I’ll only get Saturday and Sunday to rest.”
“Wenjie, what songs should we prepare for the commercial gigs? Let me know so I can get the backing tracks ready,” Chen Sichu walked over and asked.
“‘Light Years Away’ is a must. As for the rest, just pick whatever you think works and let me know when you’ve chosen.”
“Got it, Wenjie.”
Around 7 PM, Lin Shuwen figured Luo Ming was probably home by now. She snapped a photo of the songs Chen Sichu had picked and sent it to him on WeChat, then dialed his number.
Luo Ming had just walked through his front door when his phone rang. He answered, and Lin Shuwen’s voice came through the speaker: “Hey~ Luo Ming, you’re home, right?”
“Yeah, just got in.”
“Wow, my timing’s pretty spot on then. Luo Ming, you’re going to be busy next week!”
“Huh? Do you have a lot of gigs lined up?” Luo Ming asked as he took off his jacket.
“Let’s just say I’ll be working five days.”
“Uh, what kind of work?”
“Monday’s a company meeting. Tuesday through Thursday are commercial performances—all kinds of them.”
“Commercial performances—so you’ll be singing?”
“Yep. I just sent you a picture on WeChat. It’s the songs Chuchu picked out.”
Luo Ming switched out of the call interface, opened WeChat, and glanced at the image.
Four songs. Aside from “Light Years Away,” he’d never heard of the other three.
“You want me to learn these three songs?”
“Exactly! Each of these commercial gigs is 20 minutes long, so four songs should fit perfectly.
If learning three songs is really too much for you, then at least learn two. With ‘Light Years Away,’ that’ll give you about 11 or 12 minutes, and you can stretch out the remaining 8 or 9 minutes with your silver tongue.”
“That’s way too hard!”
“Come on, just try your best!”
“It’s not that simple—”
“Pretty please, I’m begging you!” Lin Shuwen’s voice suddenly turned sugary sweet, giving Luo Ming goosebumps all over. “Pretty please, dear~ I put all my money into your company, and I’ve only got 60,000 left in my card. On the 10th of every month, I have to pay Miao Miao and Chu Chu their salaries, and this month I also need to settle the nanny van rental. Please, just help me out, won’t you?”
“Alright, alright! I’ll learn them, okay?”
“Great! It’s a deal then!”
“Don’t get too excited yet. I have conditions.”
“Name them!”
“Over the next week, you need to try participating in the production of Plants vs. Zombies.”
“Huh? Can I even do that?” Lin Shuwen paused for a moment and asked.
“Making Plants vs. Zombies isn’t as hard as you think. This game is essentially a sprite-based game—the backgrounds for every major level are the same across the board.
What you need to do is work on everything outside the game backgrounds. For example, tweaking the balance values, creating new advanced zombies, setting the pseudo-random probabilities for different types of advanced zombies appearing in levels, and—”
“Stop, stop, stop! Enough! That’s plenty! You don’t need to say any more—the more I hear, the more stressed I get. I’d rather just figure it out on my own!”
“Fine, I won’t say another word. You can figure it out yourself slowly.”
“Then it’s settled. You practice singing, and I’ll get involved in the game development.”
“Mm, deal!”
Hearing Luo Ming agree, Lin Shuwen finally felt the weight lift off her shoulders.
She hadn’t been making things up earlier—she really was in the middle of a financial crisis.
The Chen sisters’ combined monthly salary plus rent came to 25,000 yuan. The nanny van rental was paid biannually, at 4,000 a month, which came out to 24,000 for half a year.
That was already nearly 50,000 yuan gone. Add in various other miscellaneous expenses, and the 60,000 in her card probably wouldn’t even be enough.
The royalties from “Light Years Away” had to go through the company’s accounts, and it’d take at least a month before the money reached her. As for these commercial gigs, Sister Shan had booked them, and the payments would pass through Sister Shan’s account—after the company took its cut, the rest would go straight to her.
If it weren’t for the money shortage, Lin Shuwen wouldn’t have pretended not to hear Sister Shan mention arranging four commercial performances. Besides, next week it was Luo Ming who’d be running around doing four shows—what did that have to do with Lin Shuwen? She was going to be sitting in an office next week.
After reaching an agreement with Lin Shuwen, Luo Ming shifted the conversation to 2048.
When Lin Shuwen learned that 2048 should be available on the Apple and Google stores next week, her voice immediately perked up with excitement.
“Does that mean our company’s going to start making money once the game launches?” Lin Shuwen asked eagerly.
“Not necessarily. Developing and releasing the game is only half the battle—whether we actually make money depends on how the market responds.”
“Luo Ming, when the time comes, post about it on my Weibo. I’ve got nearly 10 million followers now! That should help a bit.”
