When they walked out of the room, Shu Han still hadn't quite collected his thoughts.
Even Liu Rulan kept glancing at Xiao He repeatedly.
Clearly, neither of them had expected that Xiao He would actually manage to persuade He Jinnian to "sell" his studio to their Linghui Studio.
—Of course, there were quite a few additional conditions attached.
First was the basic treatment and arrangements for the original studio staff led by He Wenming. Some of them were originally from Shanghai—those willing to return to Shanghai would follow the studio back, while those unwilling to go with the studio would receive proper compensation and work handover arrangements.
Additionally, Linghui Studio would jointly invest with He Jinnian in his upcoming production projects, and when conditions permitted, Xiao He and Shu Han would also participate in He Jinnian's filming...
Although this consumed a significant amount of liquid funds, overall it was still a worthwhile deal. After all, He Jinnian could have completely sold his studio to his former employer Yunheng Entertainment, or other companies, rather than to them.
This was largely thanks to Shu Han's presence, which made He Jinnian prefer having He Wenming become Shu Han's agent. On the other hand, it was naturally because Xiao He's group offered money more readily than other companies.
The charm of money remains so captivating in any situation.
Especially for He Jinnian at this moment.
"Is He Jinnian very short on money?"
Shu Han had roughly guessed a bit and asked Liu Rulan somewhat puzzledly, while looking at Xiao He, "How did Little He know about this?"
"I haven't received any news about it, so I assume he hasn't explicitly sought investments yet." Liu Rulan shook her head and also looked at Xiao He.
Xiao He shrugged: "I was just making a random guess. After all, if he wants to transition behind the scenes without being restricted or constrained, the best approach is to invest himself. So I thought, what if the project he wants to create lacks sufficient funding? Then our opportunity would arise—and it turned out I guessed correctly."
Liu Rulan: ...
Shu Han: ...
How is this possible? Really? Do we look stupid to you?
This reasoning and idea are just too crude!
But Xiao He didn't continue explaining further.
He Jinnian was indeed quite short on money, but not to that extreme extent.
It was simply because what he wanted to film turned out to be a science fiction movie.
As everyone knows, in the film and television industry's money-burning rankings, science fiction films take first place without any dispute.
And who would have thought that He Jinnian, claiming to retreat behind the scenes and wanting to switch careers to become a director, would choose a science fiction film as his first work to direct!
Forget about finding familiar investors to fund it—even approaching his former employer Yunheng Entertainment might not necessarily dare to directly pour money into He Jinnian's project.
This thing purely burns money—who would dare to film it?
Moreover, He Jinnian is just an actor who's been in the industry for some years, feeling overly confident about switching careers to become a director, thinking he can fulfill his entertainment circle dreams, complete his value transformation, and prove his achievements in another field—making the probability of this project flopping massively even greater.
As long as investors aren't fools, they wouldn't invest large sums in He Jinnian, unless He Jinnian had truly gone mad and stubbornly signed an astronomical gamble agreement, betting that his work would become a massive blockbuster in the future, earning overflowing profits—otherwise, he'd have to sell himself to work off debts.
And clearly, although He Jinnian has ambition, he hasn't gone that crazy.
Gamble agreements, with the word "gamble" in them, have always been nine losses out of ten bets—while some in the industry have succeeded, more have quietly failed and worked to repay debts.
He Jinnian wants to make a big project, but simultaneously doesn't want to be completely without fallback options if he fails.
Even if he loses money, he can earn it again, but if he loses his freedom, even his past reputation would shatter along with it. If these major companies get their hands on him, they'd squeeze him dry without leaving a drop of blood.
He Jinnian originally came from these major companies, so he naturally understands the complexity inside.
Thus he'd rather spend more money investing in himself than dig a pit for his future self. He can accept investments from other companies, but only investments—any with impure purposes he completely refuses to accept.
—Of course, regarding He Jinnian's thoughts, Xiao He isn't that concerned, and he doesn't care whether He Jinnian succeeds or fails.
Although he agreed to He Jinnian's conditions and will continuously invest a large sum as support after the project is established, Xiao He never expects this money to be recouped—
He's already decided: being able to use this money to acquire a competent studio, someone with connections and abilities not inferior to Liu Rulan in He Wenming, and successfully pull Shu Han into the studio makes this money well spent.
After all, having one Liu Rulan already made Xiao He feel he hit the jackpot—adding another He Wenming whom even Liu Rulan acknowledges, Xiao He would smash money to get him over.
The funds promised for project investments can be considered as building relationships, thrown out there.
Now that the goal is achieved, aside from his suddenly deflated wallet making Xiao He's heart ache faintly, his mood isn't that bad.
"Forget it, this guy sometimes has information channels more outrageous than mine."
Liu Rulan shrugged, not pressing Xiao He further, and said to Shu Han: "Although the general situation is mostly settled, tomorrow I'll still have our studio's legal team come to discuss contracts and procedures in detail. You keep an eye on it then, and have a good communication with He Wenming."
This meeting didn't include He Wenming, and tomorrow there might be some condition changes—He Wenming might have his own ideas, so Liu Rulan still needed to separately brief Shu Han.
Shu Han nodded: "Don't worry, Sister Liu, I'll talk with him."
As the group walked to the corridor, they unexpectedly encountered Tong Junhui again!
Only this time, Tong Junhui was accompanied by a man wearing a mask and hat, with sharp eyes and eyebrows.
This encounter, no one greeted each other again, just normally passed by shoulder to shoulder.
Only Xiao He's gaze fell on the unfamiliar man, his eyes slightly widening, filled with surprise internally.
The man glanced at Xiao He, frowned, and finally looked away.
Xiao He also immediately withdrew his gaze, forcibly suppressing the shock on his face.
This guy! This guy actually triggered his Hound Intuition!
He's a police officer?!
What's going on?
Why is a police officer being all secretive, acting more mysterious than us artists... and why is he with Tong Junhui?
Could it be...
Xiao He's intuition told him this matter was very important, but encountering them here made him feel it wasn't a good thing.
Xiao He stepped forward, preparing to urge Sister Liu and the others to speed up so they could quickly evacuate this "dangerous" place.
"It's here, I've knocked several times already, no movement."
Tong Junhui turned his head and whispered to the person beside him.
"I'm worried... something happened—"
Cheng Bei frowned in thought, suddenly carefully sniffed the air, then his expression changed. He pulled a universal room card from his pocket and quickly swiped open the door.
The next moment, the door was pushed open a crack, followed by thick smoke spreading from inside the room, mixed with rolling heat waves surging into the corridor—
"Woo woo woo—"
Instantly, the corridor's safety fire protection system was triggered. The localized sprinkler heads on the ceiling automatically popped out and began "raining" frantically.
Xiao He hadn't even had time to remind everyone to walk faster and quickly take the elevator to escape, when he was the first to be drenched head to face by the sprinkler head above.
He hurriedly walked a few quick steps, evacuating outside the "rainfall" range of this sprinkler head. Half speechless and half despairing, he wiped the water from his face and let out a sorrowful long sigh.
Seriously, couldn't it have waited for him to walk a few more steps?
Just a few more steps, only a few steps!
Did it have to happen right at this moment?
Who did he offend for heaven to treat him like this!