“Brother Xiang, I don’t mean to look down on live streaming.”
Li Lu really wasn’t worried about saving face. An artist is basically in the business of selling looks.
Times are different now. Those top livestreamers make several hundred million a year, way more than celebrities.
“The main problem is, the live rooms you sent me to had copy that was way too fake.
Take the face masks and bird’s nest from last time, for example.
I’m not saying they’re bad, but the sales pitch they gave me was so exaggerated it went through the roof.
Isn’t that cheating consumers?
I can’t even say it out loud.”
“Hmph, are you stupid?
Don’t their products have quality certificates? The warranties haven’t expired, have they?
Other people can sell them, so why can’t you?
What are you afraid of?”
Sun Xiang was exasperated. This kid was just too stubborn.
Even though he’d cooled off now and had a bad reputation, nobody was asking him to act or sing anymore.
He still had name recognition. Going on livestreams could still make the company a lot of money.
Even haters are still haters. People curse you in your stream, then end up placing orders.
“Yeah, they have certification.
Take a ten-dollar item, hype it up a bit, and sell it for a hundred.
I just can’t say that stuff.”
“We can negotiate everything else, but livestreaming? I’m absolutely not going.”
“My dad taught me since I was little that you absolutely must not lie.”
Li Lu couldn’t help mocking him. He wouldn’t let others scam him, and he definitely wouldn’t scam anyone else.
If he really signed the contract, they’d make him stand in the livestream room.
In black and white on the contract: whatever they told you to say, you had to say it.
Given his current popularity and reputation, the products he’d be promoting would definitely all be the same rebranded goods as last time.
Big-name products with guarantees would never hire him.
Why make life hard for himself?
“Your dad, your dad, your dad’s just a farmer. What else did he teach you?”
Sun Xiang felt like he was mocking him, and his temper started to rise.
“My dad taught me a lot.
Filial piety, brotherly duty, loyalty, trustworthiness; propriety, righteousness, integrity, and shame; self-improvement and diligence; broad virtue and balance.
To put it simply: do good deeds and have no shame in your heart.”
Li Lu’s expression instantly turned cold. After he finished speaking, he poured out the tea in his cup.
Sun Xiang regretted it as soon as he said it and realized he had gone too far.
He poured him another cup.
“Little Lu, I misspoke, but I really am doing this for your own good.
Back then, I picked you out at a glance from a pile of newcomers and fought for the best trainee contract for you.
In less than two years, I turned you into the youngest top star. No one wants you to stay popular more than I do.
Now you’ve ended up in this state. Have you ever thought about why?”
Sun Xiang changed the subject and started playing the emotion card.
“Maybe I just wasn’t hardworking enough.”
Li Lu brushed him off. There were reasons he had cooled off so badly, but the company wasn’t exactly innocent either.
“I thought about it for a long time. I was too permissive with you.
After you blew up, the company helped revise your contract. It was set too broadly.
I let you do whatever you wanted, and you fell too fast.”
Sun Xiang was also grumbling in his heart about that contract. The biggest mistake was giving him the right to choose for himself.
Whether it was a business contract or an entertainment contract, as long as it wasn’t an A-rank contract, he could reject it unilaterally.
That made the company very passive later on. As long as he didn’t want to go, he didn’t have to take low-level commercial gigs, livestreams, or appearances.
When he was hot, that didn’t matter. Every day there were endless big-name deals.
Later, after he cooled off, he still held himself above it all and wouldn’t take small endorsements. For the company, the past two years had all been losses on him.
“Heh.”
Li Lu let out a cold laugh. The contract was changed because a competitor offered 300 million to poach me.
Out of loyalty, I signed a new contract with you, and I already compromised a lot.
“Me cooling off… the company has some responsibility for that too, right?
You never gave me any decent resources. No good songs, no good scripts.
Even when I was getting hit the hardest online, you didn’t even help clean it up much.”
Li Lu didn’t care anymore by this point. Whatever he wanted to say, he said.
“How else could the company help you? The resources we gave you were all top-tier.
Tell me, were you actually up to it?
The first sci-fi blockbuster we gave you, Space Guardian, took 500 million to invest in, and the box office only brought in 300 million.
It nearly drove the company and the other investors bankrupt.
You attended a top-tier compilation concert and held the microphone upside down while singing.
You were constantly embroiled in rumors with actresses, nonstop.
You turned your work into that kind of mess. How else was the company supposed to clean it up for you?”
Sun Xiang was getting a little worked up. Setting aside everything else, just a few major black marks were enough to get the whole internet mocking him.
He debuted and became a top star within a year, and the few idol dramas he filmed were all pretty good.
His singing and dancing were average at best; it was all riding on his face.
But he was only popular for three years.
From the moment he made his first movie, he went downhill all the way and ended up like this.
The past two years had been especially miserable. He hadn’t had a single decent contract.
On top of that, he still carried himself like a big shot, so his commercial value dropped straight to zero.
If it weren’t for the occasional scandal pushing him back onto the trending list, the entertainment industry would have completely erased him.
“So that’s my fault?”
Li Lu raised his voice too.
“Setting everything else aside, that movie… what did it have to do with me?
You said you invested several billion. Do you really think everyone is an idiot?
The pay they gave me for that film mostly flowed right back into your pockets anyway.”
He was only acting in accordance with the contract. He couldn’t control the dirty tricks behind it.
That movie was nothing but a way to fleece his fans.
He got dragged through the mud by the whole internet, and he could only endure it.
“And you said I lip-synced and held the microphone upside down.
Others may not know, but don’t you know?
Even when the organizers wanted lip-syncing, no matter how badly I sang, I couldn’t bring myself to do something like that.
Then they just cut my mic. Was I not allowed to voice my protest?”
Li Lu was furious by that point too.
“And you say I kept hyping fake couples and rumors. Wasn’t some of that something you people asked me to do?”
The room fell silent for a moment. Sun Xiang was also stunned by his forcefulness.
Did some things really need to be said that plainly?
Once it was exposed, it would look terrible.
“Sigh, you kid.”
Sun Xiang let out a long sigh, and his tone softened too.
“I said you’re too stubborn, and you just had to be obstinate.
Other people can lip-sync and match their lips perfectly. Only you had to show how different you are.
As soon as something happens, you hit the front page. Who can clean that up for you?
Do you want to offend all your peers?”
“The investors wanted you to film with artists from other companies while hyping fake couples during the shoot to increase exposure.
They never told you to actually make it real.
Back then, I had to apologize to their agent like I was some errand boy. The two companies almost became enemies.”
“Now that the wall is falling, everybody’s pushing it over. How would the company dare keep investing in you?”
Sun Xiang was still rambling on and on when Marry, the assistant who had been waiting outside, walked in.
“Mr. Sun, Li Lu just hit the trending searches.”