Luo Ming could tell from Sister Shan’s expression that she still cared quite a bit about Zhou Ping, so he suggested, “In that case, Sister Shan, why don’t we go visit him tomorrow? Our flight is on Sunday afternoon anyway. If the concert is canceled tomorrow, we won’t have anything else to do.”
“That works. Tomorrow you’ll come with me to the hospital. After we see Zhou Ping, you can have the day off. Aren’t your parents right here in the capital? Go home and see them. We’ll meet up directly at the airport on Sunday.”
“Deal!” Luo Ming agreed without a second thought.
“I’m heading off, then.” Sister Shan turned and left.
Early the next morning, Chen Sichu drove Luo Ming and Sister Shan to the Capital’s No. 3 Hospital. On the way, Luo Ming made a point of buying a fruit basket. You had to bring something when visiting a patient, right? Sister Shan pursed her lips but said nothing. Naturally, she didn’t get out of the car to buy anything either.
Soon, they arrived at the hospital. Sister Shan had clearly already found out which ward Zhou Ping was in. She led Luo Ming and Chen Sichu straight to the right floor and right to the door of Ward 6.
“Sister Shan! You’re here!” A woman greeted them, her face full of delighted surprise.
“How could you let this happen? How could you let him get into such serious trouble?”
“I… I didn’t see it coming either. Sister Shan, A-Ping told me he was just having dinner with friends, and he promised me he absolutely wouldn’t drink. But then…”
Sister Shan’s face darkened. She jabbed the woman’s forehead hard twice. “You really are a blockhead. What man goes out to dinner at night and doesn’t drink?”
The woman didn’t dare argue and just lowered her head obediently.
After giving her a good scolding, Sister Shan’s mood visibly improved. She pointed to Lin Shuwen. “This is the new artist I’m managing, Lin Shuwen. Wenwen, this is Zhou Ping’s agent and also his wife, Ming Lan.”
“Hello, sister-in-law.” As she greeted her, Luo Ming wore a bright, sunny smile, impossible to fault.
Inside, however, Luo Ming’s mind was reeling. Zhou Ping was actually married! And his wife was his agent! After learning she would be participating in Zhou Ping’s concert, Luo Ming had specifically looked him up. Zhou Ping’s level of fame was comparable to a top-tier star like Lu Han from her past life—an absolute megastar. How could a heartthrob-idol, someone whose career depended entirely on fan economy, be secretly married?
“Wenwen is truly beautiful. I almost don’t dare stand next to you,” Ming Lan said with a smile of her own.
“Lan-jie, you’re too kind.”
After exchanging a few pleasantries, they established the beginnings of a friendship. Then, the three of them entered the ward together, while Chen Sichu stayed outside at the door.
Seeing Sister Shan enter, Zhou Ping, who had just had surgery and was still tormented by pain, managed to force a weak smile.
“Oh, stop that, stop smiling! Your smile looks worse than crying! A grown man like you, why can’t you just let people worry a little less? Just look at the state you’re in. Honestly, I should…”
From the moment she walked in, Sister Shan’s mouth didn’t stop. She rattled off, scolding Zhou Ping non-stop for twenty minutes like a machine gun.
“Look at you, such a sorry sight. I can’t even be bothered to lecture you anymore. Alright, just focus on recovering. I’ll handle things with the company for you.”
Hearing this, a corner of Luo Ming’s mouth twitched. If this was her “can’t be bothered to lecture”, having talked for twenty minutes, how long would it have gone on if she did want to? An hour or more?
Zhou Ping and Ming Lan both looked like chastened students obediently absorbing a lesson. When they heard Sister Shan say she would sort things out with the company, they both breathed a long sigh of relief.
Clearly, the last-minute concert cancellation had caused significant losses for the company. Ticket refunds were a given, but the venue had already been booked—there was no way to cancel the rental with the organizers now. That money was effectively down the drain. The upfront promotional costs had also been considerable. Just the trending topics Luo Ming had personally seen numbered seven or eight, not to mention the ones she hadn’t.
Zhou Ping would undoubtedly have to shoulder a portion of these costs, but the bulk would definitely fall on the company. The company’s profit relied on the final share of ticket sales. Now that the concert was off and tickets had to be refunded, wasn’t that a brutal loss? Sister Shan’s willingness to settle this for them was a massive help.
“No wonder Sister Shan didn’t even bring a gift when she came. This is the best gift,” Luo Ming thought to herself.
After leaving the hospital, the three of them returned to the car. Sister Shan immediately called the company’s higher-ups. Luo Ming listened attentively to the conversation from both ends.
She heard Sister Shan say, “The costs you put into this time—you’ve already recouped them and then some just from the scalper ticket sales. Refunding the regular tickets won’t result in a big loss for the company. I’ll talk to Zhou Ping afterwards and have him concede some future benefits to the company.”
After a brief silence, the person on the other end of the line agreed upon hearing Sister Shan’s words.
“Then that’s settled.”
“Wait! Sister Shan, Zhou Ping’s new agent really isn’t working out. Would you mind taking the trouble to…”
“No, let’s leave it at that.” Sister Shan hung up.
“Sister Shan, the company was actually involved in the scalped tickets?”
“What did you think? Let me tell you, it’s not just now. Even if they introduce all sorts of purchase restrictions in the future, it’ll never completely eliminate scalpers. For big stars’ concerts, the management company behind the star, the concert organizers, even the official ticketing platforms—they’re all scalpers. The tickets actually released for direct public purchase are, at most, twenty to thirty percent. The profit margins on normal ticket prices are too thin. Sell them as a scalper, and the profit at least doubles. Nobody can resist that.”
Luo Ming fell silent. No wonder, in her past life, even with a gigabit fiber connection, she could never snag Jay Chou concert tickets. So this was the reason.
“What, unhappy? Think capitalist maneuvering is disgusting?”
“A little, I guess.”
“But that’s the rule of this circle. You have to follow the rules if you want to make it to the top. Unless you’re some major capitalist—a behemoth like Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, Wanda—able to toy with the entire entertainment industry in the palm of your hand. At the very least, you’d need the influence of a platform like Weibo. Otherwise, you just have to obediently follow the rules.”
Sister Shan wasn’t wrong, but Luo Ming felt uncomfortable hearing it. She didn’t want to be bound by anyone’s rules. If, in the future, her own company, Zhuoguang, could grow to the scale of giants like BAT, could she then ignore the rules?
Luo Ming gazed out the car window at the delivery riders in their blue uniforms zipping through the streets. Her eyes gradually hardened with resolve.
It was November 23, 2013. 4G was on the verge of nationwide adoption. This was, without a doubt, a pivotal moment, a launching point in time. By the end of 2013, the food delivery wars had already erupted. That battle for the food delivery market would rage for nearly two years, spanning the entirety of 2014, only reaching its conclusion at the end of 2015.
And as the food delivery industry matured, big data algorithms would increasingly enter the public consciousness. In her previous life, ByteDance had seized the momentum of big data, using it to revolutionize the recommendation engine of Toutiao. Later, building on that foundation, they launched Douyin—China’s third national-level super app.
But in this world, there was no Toutiao, and certainly no ByteDance. Luo Ming felt this was her opportunity! At least at this stage, no one understood big data better than she did. She would make Zhuoguang into this world’s ByteDance, into a new internet giant, into the one who dictates the rules of the entertainment industry!
