Chapter 234: Who Snitched?

Everyone online was talking about how the Qi Cheng Film Company had been played. Now, everyone was waiting for the show to air and dying to see how it turned out.

If it turned out to be extremely popular, then the Qi Cheng Film Company would be a laughingstock for ages to come.

The a.s.sistant grumbled as he went to try to contact Director Liu.

But, in no time at all, he came back holding his phone.

“Mr. Yao,” the a.s.sistant mumbled, “Director Liu rejected our investment.”

“What?” Mr. Yao stood up immediately. “Since when did Liu Runlin become so tough and stubborn?”

“Does he really think that just because he has received an investment from the Tan Yue Group this time around that he’ll be set for life? Sure, the Tan Yue Group will invest this time, but what about next time? Who will he find then? Won’t he have to come crawling back to us?” Mr. Yao said, as his blood started to boil.

“What Director Liu said was that the Tan Yue Group had already invested to make up the part that we pulled out of. Even if we were to invest again, it would be wasted money. There’s nowhere else for us to invest anymore. The entire production is at its peak. If we did invest, costs would go up and profits would go down. We’d have earned less anyway, so that would be our loss,” the a.s.sistant said.

“Also, we can’t expect him to reject the investment made by the Tan Yue Group.” The a.s.sistant didn’t dare repeat to him what Director Liu had actually said.

What Director Liu had originally said was that the Tan Yue Group had been the one who’d offered him fuel in cold weather, and now you expected him to reject this investment just because the Qi Cheng Film Company had come crawling back?

Liu Runlin wasn’t going to bite the hand that fed him. He wasn’t that kind of an ungrateful person.

If he had been, he would’ve gotten rid of Tan Mo ages ago.

But Tan Mo had helped him out of one of his biggest problems in the most dire of times. If it hadn’t been for her, maybe this production wouldn’t have even happened at all.

Which was why there was no way that he would’ve gotten rid of her just for some investments.

Now, there was definitely no way that he would just reject the investment from the Tan Yue Group and use yours.

It was your decision. There’s no such luxury as being able to pull out or invest whenever you want to.

The a.s.sistant knew just how fiery his boss’s temper was, so he didn’t dare to repeat exactly all that Director Liu had said.

But at the same time they were quite curious about Director Liu and his att.i.tude toward their company. He had been harsh and hadn’t held back. Did this mean that he wouldn’t consider working with the Qi Cheng Film Company in the future?

When Director Liu had been talking to Mr. Yao’s a.s.sistant, Tan Jinqi had been around too.

Director Liu didn’t have any reason to say all this directly in front of Tan Jinqi.

But the fact that he had said it in front of him, it still had an impact.

“Director Liu, by speaking to them like this, does this mean your cooperation with the Qi Cheng Film Company is over?” Tan Jinqi asked.

Director Liu was frank in answering him. “I more or less understand Mr. Yao’s a.s.sistant. He’ll watch their words when he reports back to Mr. Yao. That a.s.sistant knows his way around things and likes to leave things on a good footing in order to leave room for further developments in the future.

“But then, even if he did tell Mr. Yao exactly what I said, it doesn’t matter. Let’s not even talk about other industries, but just in our own, all people care about are profits and benefits. When you’ve got benefits, you’ll have friends all around. But once you turn out to be useless, all your friends will start to look for other targets. Once your reputation hits a low, you’ll lose your friends completely. But if you regain it , then your friends will pop out from everywhere. That’s why I just need to continue working hard and shoot my productions. If I succeed, then Mr. Yao’ll have to find me himself to invest.

“But if I have just one series that fails, he won’t be investing in me anymore, no matter how close our relations.h.i.+p is.” It seemed as if Director Liu had thought this through extremely well. “Sure, he’s angry right now that I’ve rejected his investment, but wait till my next series. Once he sees that he’ll profit off it, he’ll definitely find me again. In our industry, other than benefits, everything else means nothing.

“Of course, you’ll still have friends. Like Director Hou, he’s one of my few righteous friends. If we didn’t have your family around this time round, he’d still be investing. As his student, you really are lucky. You don’t really come across many people who would work that hard for their students. He didn’t have anything to shoot at this time, so he recommended you to me. He even came over to visit just to praise you. That says a lot.”

Tan Jinqi nodded. “I understand.”

…

Soon the gossip about this died down online. There were still some internal issues to resolve.

Just exactly who in the group had leaked all these details about the production?

“Okay, this entire issue has blown over online, but not for us internally.” Director Liu pulled his a.s.sistant and Tan Jinqi over for a short meeting that night after work.

Director Hou had left the day after he’d arrived. He had only planned to stay for a short time.

He had basically only come for Tan Jinqi, to show him some support.

Once he’d done that, he could leave.

“I want to know who spread this gossip about us? This person better come clean now!” Director Liu yelled.

“This time was really screwed. The details were way too specific. Sure, nothing important was leaked this time round, but what if some important internal affairs are leaked next time? For example, costumes, pictures, lines, and even an entire script could be leaked. Then what’s the point of us even making a film? The audience would know everything in advance,” Director Liu said solemnly.

“This production is huge. There are numerous actors and not everyone gets along with everyone else. If any kind of scuffle starts and gets leaked, that would be negative news for us,” Tan Jinqi said. “It doesn’t matter what kind of reports there would be, it wouldn’t benefit us at all.”

“Jinqi is completely right.” Director Liu nodded.

Ever since the Tan Yue Group had become their biggest investor, Director Liu had started getting closer to Tan Jinqi.

“But how can we find out who snitched?” The a.s.sistant scratched his head. “There are so many people here. I can’t even remember who everyone is. There are also the technical people who are in charge of many things like props and sets. There are way too many people to ever be able to figure out who leaked that story..”

Tan Jinqi gave it some thought and said, “I don’t think that it’s got anything to do with the minor groups.”

Director Liu raised his eyebrows. “Keep talking.”

“I’m not sure if I’m right in my a.n.a.lysis, but do hear me out,” Tan Jinqi said humbly.

Director Liu nodded.

“This is what I’m thinking. If it was just some paparazzi or any other outsiders, the details would never have been so accurate. Most of them only guess at things that they see from a distance, so the news and rumors they spread are usually false.

“Additionally, most people on set are from the outer circles and don’t really know that much about internal affairs,” Tan Jinqi said as he a.n.a.lyzed the situation. “So the main issue is, could some outsider know this much about us?

“Some cast members and supporting actors don’t even know who the scriptwriter is. They only receive a few pages at a time, and we only notify which people are going to be filmed a few days beforehand.”

There were lots of groups of different actors around for this enormous series, as well as a lot of outside companies that were contracted to do certain tasks, like supplying food, for example.