In the afternoon, Sister Shan came to the company.
Luo Ming briefly and concisely told Sister Shan his idea.
After pondering for a moment, Sister Shan asked, “Why do you think those platforms won’t create new patents once they’ve got yours?”
Luo Ming made this judgment partly because, in his past life, Denuvo—the company that developed the Denuvo encryption—made money off both game companies and platforms with this algorithm.
They offered the patent to platforms at a very low price but charged game companies a hefty sum. Facts had already proven that this kind of operation was completely viable.
Of course, he definitely couldn’t tell Sister Shan that reason.
So Luo Ming brought out a written reason Sony had once given for choosing Denuvo: “Sister Shan, the reason I made this judgment is actually very simple—because my algorithm is good enough. Even if the big platform companies want to work around it, it would take them a lot of effort. They couldn’t get it done in less than a year or two.
Rather than spending time researching a new patent, they’d be better off just using mine directly.”
“Luo Ming, is your technology really that strong?” Sister Shan asked curiously.
“Let me put it this way—just in terms of technical skill, Sister Shan, I’d say Alibaba’s current CTO, Old Zhang, and I are about on the same level.”
“Hiss—” Sister Shan drew in a sharp breath.
Luo Ming clasped his hands behind his back, a mysterious smile on his face.
Frankly speaking, Luo Ming’s words weren’t baseless. In his past life, he had worked his way up to head of the technical department at his second game company—not a low position at all, essentially the third-in-command of the department.
And their company’s technical director had originally been an Alibaba P9-level employee—about the pinnacle for a working person.
This technical director was clearly inferior to Luo Ming in many respects, and it was for this reason that Luo Ming had climbed to P8 level at his company and become the technical head.
Of course, given the company’s size, Luo Ming’s company definitely couldn’t compare to Alibaba, but if Luo Ming had gone to Alibaba, getting a P7 level and stock incentives shouldn’t have been a problem.
And Luo Ming’s direct supervisor had told him that anyone who could reach P6 (senior engineer) or above at an internet giant was very impressive—there wasn’t that big a gap between them technically, just different areas of expertise.
At that level, whether you could climb higher wasn’t about technical skill anymore.
So strictly speaking, Luo Ming wasn’t really fooling Sister Shan.
And after hearing Luo Ming’s explanation, Sister Shan had no more doubts.
“In that case, leave the patent registration to me. I’ll have someone register the patent in your personal name.
Today is Thursday, so we should be able to submit the patent application by around next Monday, and the relevant patent should come through in about a month.”
“What about international patents? We can’t make patent fees from foreign game companies without international patents.”
“Don’t worry! I’ll help you get the international patents sorted too. I specifically asked about it—international patents related to software have different review times depending on the software’s purpose. Patents for games basically nobody blocks, and if we’re lucky, it might even be faster than the domestic one.
If it were a tech patent, it’d be three years minimum, and it might not even get approved.
For privacy-related ones—like Alibaba’s facial recognition, which is directly banned for commercial use in the US—you could forget about getting approval at all.”
Luo Ming nodded to show he understood.
“Luo Ming, let me give you some advice,” Sister Shan said, changing the subject.
“What advice?”
“Find some time to chat with strangers more. I feel like you talk too little. If you want to grow the company, you’ll inevitably need to socialize.
Even with Rong Mu around, there will be times when you have to show up yourself. You need to practice your speaking skills—stop always using body language to express your thoughts.” After saying that, Sister Shan left without looking back.
Early the next morning, Tong Mingwei arrived at Zhuoguang Technology as promised.
Luo Ming assigned him directly to the technical department. He spent the morning familiarizing himself with the development of the Plants vs. Zombies mobile game, and by the afternoon, he was officially working—his efficiency even a bit higher than Zhao Ningyuan, the team leader.
Xu Jiale was stunned. He felt like his skills had been improving by leaps and bounds lately—so how had the boss found a newcomer who effortlessly outclassed him? Didn’t that just make him look useless?
Zhao Ningyuan was also somewhat surprised. Luo Ming had found someone from who-knows-where whose technical skills were actually a bit stronger than his.
This put some pressure on Zhao Ningyuan too—if he didn’t work hard, he might really end up being overshadowed by this guy.
If the head of the technical team felt the pressure, the others felt it even more.
The arrival of Tong Mingwei—this “catfish”—instantly tightened the work atmosphere in Zhuoguang’s technical team, which had grown a bit slack after the huge success of Plants vs. Zombies.
Meanwhile, on the other side, at Huayue Entertainment’s self-built studio, Lin Shuwen was filming an MV.
The filming of this MV had really been a rollercoaster. Initially, the company had decided the MVs would be for “The Initial Dream” and “Snail,” while “Light Years Away” was being handled by Director Liu’s crew.
But just as the MV scripts were finalized, Huayue Entertainment received a call from CCTV saying that the episode of “Splendid Tang Dynasty in Chinese History” that Lin Shuwen had participated in would air on the first Friday after the New Year holiday.
When the company’s CEO, Mr. Zhu, learned that one of the songs on Lin Shuwen’s album had premiered on that show, he had his secretary go to the filming site to inform Lin Shuwen that the MV for “Snail” should be canceled and replaced with an MV for “Qingming Rain,” and he also wanted to insert a trainee into the MV.
Lin Shuwen knew immediately that Mr. Zhu wanted to ride CCTV’s coattails—the song had premiered on CCTV, so they could invoke CCTV’s prestige during promotion.
As for inserting the company’s trainees into the song’s MV, that was actually pretty normal—many trainees’ first proper filming experience was in senior labelmates’ music videos.
Lin Shuwen figured that the reason Mr. Zhu hadn’t inserted anyone into her MVs before was most likely that he didn’t want the trainees he’d spent so much on to have an MV shoot as their first official filming assignment.
And that was indeed the case. Just as Lin Shuwen thought, the company had poured massive resources into those trainees who were originally supposed to debut as a girl group.
Sending them to South Korea to learn singing and dancing for two years, plus all sorts of other investments—altogether, at least ten million.
Of course, Huayue Entertainment wasn’t a charity. With such a huge investment, the contracts these trainees signed were child labor contracts with a 1:9 revenue split—almost no autonomy at all. Even their personal social media accounts had to be checked by the company periodically, and the contract terms were all over ten years.
What Mr. Zhu wanted was to cultivate these trainees into a hugely popular girl group, exploit them, and harvest their fans.
Although in the end, due to that incident, they couldn’t debut as originally planned, Mr. Zhu didn’t want to just bury them. He kept thinking of ways to have them show themselves in various ways and seek new opportunities.
Mr. Zhu had initially considered Lin Shuwen’s MV too, but ultimately gave up on the idea. It wasn’t that Lin Shuwen’s status wasn’t high enough—even Mr. Zhu had to admit that Lin Shuwen was genuinely popular now, and the songs on her album were getting better one after another. Mr. Zhu thought Lin Shuwen’s album would be very hot, so he valued her commercial value highly.
It was just that Mr. Zhu felt his cash cow’s first filming experience being an MV was too beneath her—it didn’t quite match his investment.
But when CCTV was involved, everything changed. In 2013, CCTV’s prestige was still very high. Being able to participate in this MV shoot meant they could later claim in promotions that they’d been on a CCTV program—wouldn’t that instantly raise their cachet?
However, Lin Shuwen wasn’t someone without a temper. At first, Mr. Zhu inserting someone was one thing—seniors mentoring juniors was an unspoken rule. But now everything was already set, and suddenly they wanted to change the MV and insert someone—did they really think she was easy to push around?
So Lin Shuwen refused without a second thought.
“Miss Lin, Mr. Zhu is doing this for your own good. Your album releases on February 10th next year, and the variety show airs on the 7th—perfect timing to promote your album alongside the program, isn’t it?”
“Secretary Wang, is that why I’m refusing? You should know very well why I’m refusing, shouldn’t you?” Lin Shuwen asked with a blank expression.
Secretary Wang looked troubled—how was she supposed to respond to that?
Lin Shuwen smiled slightly. “Secretary Wang, just go back and tell Mr. Zhu what I said.”
Secretary Wang tried to persuade her a couple more times, but Lin Shuwen’s attitude remained firm, so she could only go back and report to her boss.
After hearing Secretary Wang’s report, Mr. Zhu rubbed his brow. “Qian Shanshan’s people are just like her—stubborn as rocks in a latrine. I said from the start that this studio Qian Shanshan set up was never going to work.
An artist actually dares to give me attitude—if her contract were with the company, would she dare?”
“Mr. Zhu, please calm down. Right now, getting things done is more important,” Secretary Wang advised.
“Go tell her I apologize… Forget it, I’ll go myself!”
Half an hour later, Mr. Zhu arrived at the studio. He looked around but didn’t spot Lin Shuwen.
At that moment, the filming crew was shooting the MV for “The Initial Dream.”
The script for this MV was actually quite cleverly designed—there were two protagonists: little-girl Lin Shuwen and grown-up Lin Shuwen.
After makeup, the little girl looked somewhat similar to Lin Shuwen.
When Mr. Zhu walked in, they happened to be filming the little girl’s last shot—a kind elderly woman holding the little girl, who was humming the melody of “The Initial Dream.”
“Wenwen, what’s your dream?” the old woman asked, stroking the little girl’s head.
“Grandma, when I grow up, I want to be a big star and sing the songs I wrote for everyone to hear,” the little girl answered crisply.
“Our Wenwen has such a beautiful voice—you’ll definitely achieve your dream someday.”
“Cut!” With the director’s command, the shot was done.
Just then, Lin Shuwen, fully made up, walked out of the dressing room.
Mr. Zhu was stunned for a moment when he saw her.
What kind of makeup was this?
Lin Shuwen’s skin had been deliberately made darker, she wore thick black-framed glasses, her smooth black hair was simply tied in a ponytail, she wore faded jeans and a denim jacket, and on her hands were a pair of worn-out gloves.
“Mr. Zhu? What are you doing here?” Lin Shuwen asked with feigned surprise upon seeing him.
“I’m here to apologize to you! Sorry, Wenwen—I suddenly had the crew change the MV and caused you trouble, didn’t I?”
“It really was quite troublesome. We had the script all ready and had already rehearsed twice, and now suddenly changing the MV—wasn’t all that preparation wasted?”
“Yes, I didn’t think it through. But CCTV suddenly called—how could we miss such a great promotional opportunity? As for inserting the trainee—”
“Mr. Zhu, I have no problem with that. Seniors mentoring juniors is our company’s tradition too. When I first started filming TV dramas, the company’s seniors gave me a lot of help. I just feel that changing the MV is a bit unfair to the crew’s hard work preparing these past few days.
But since you came in person, Mr. Zhu, I don’t dare have any complaints now. I’ll change the MV—have the person you arranged come tomorrow.”
Seeing Lin Shuwen change her tune so readily, Mr. Zhu’s anger dissipated somewhat.
He felt it was well worth coming in person to apologize if it could solve the problem.
After watching Mr. Zhu leave, Lin Shuwen sighed. The adult world is always full of compromises!
She could have kept stonewalling, but there was no guarantee Mr. Zhu wouldn’t make things difficult for her afterward. So having Mr. Zhu apologize in person, as compensation for wasting her time, was enough.
She also understood Mr. Zhu—as long as he could achieve his goal, he was willing to sacrifice some dignity.
That was exactly why Lin Shuwen dared to put on such an act.
“Sister Wen, you’re up,” Chen Sichu reminded her from the side.
Lin Shuwen nodded and walked to the filming area.
Then a props crew member brought her a box—about the same size as a delivery driver’s box.
The box was empty, so Lin Shuwen could easily lift it.
“Ready, Sister Wen?” the director called out loudly.
“Ready, let’s go!”
“Okay, 3, 2, 1! ACTION!”
Lin Shuwen walked forward carrying the box as the script described. Then, on a TV in a shop window beside her, a girl in a long red dress appeared.
The girl’s figure and appearance resembled Lin Shuwen, but her face couldn’t be seen clearly. She stood on a stage, singing, and her radiant appearance made Lin Shuwen stare somewhat entranced.
Lin Shuwen had already filmed the later segment yesterday—in her eyes, the girl in the red dress became herself, and the song she sang was “The Initial Dream” that she used to hum to her grandmother as a child.
In the next part of the MV, Lin Shuwen chooses to pursue her initial dream.
Lin Shuwen signs up for a singing competition, fights her way through round after round to the finals stage, and just like she’d imagined that day, she puts on a red dress, stands on stage, and sings “The Initial Starting Point.”
The MV finally freezes on the shot of the judges scoring, leaving the audience with endless imagination.
“Cut!”
