Chapter 535: The Joy of a Cheater (Part 3)

Chapter 535: Chapter 290: The Joy of a Cheater (Part 3)

“I’ll personally coordinate with Shengxuan Decoration to ensure the renovations meet your standards!”

Zhou Huaiping now fully understood the joy of being carried by a powerhouse.

Just the properties the group owned itself would be enough to keep them swamped.

“By the way, for the display screen project at the Twin Towers, talk to the government and see if they can help share the cost.”

Qi Sheng was just taking advantage of the opportunity.

“As for the manufacturer, let’s go with the domestic company, BOE. We’ll be supporting a national brand.”

“I understand.”

Zhou Huaiping left, feeling absolutely delighted.

He even walked with his back held a little straighter.

Although Shengxuan Property’s profitability was arguably the weakest among all the companies under his boss, the fact that their boss was carrying them to success made all the difference.

Shengxuan Financial Center, Huashang Financial Center, the Financial City Twin Towers, and Jingyao Qiantan T6.

Just those four buildings would be enough to keep them busy for quite a while.

Their rate of expansion might not even be able to keep up with the rate at which their boss was buying up properties.

…

Qi Sheng motioned for Liu Shiwen to pour some tea. She curiously sized up the man, who was sitting ramrod straight.

“President Zhang, I’d like to hear your thoughts on the current major long-form video platforms.”

Zhang Wei was clearly prepared for this question.

He gave a detailed and eloquent breakdown, covering everything from the user bases of the three major platforms to their respective core strengths.

“Chairman Qi, in my opinion, the core competitiveness of a long-form video platform comes down to the ratio and quality of its original series.”

Zhang Wei concluded, “If your company, Universal Entertainment, has strong in-house production capabilities for film and television, then our platform will have a real chance to overtake iQiyi, Youku, and Tencent Video.”

“You won’t be disappointed by Universal Entertainment’s production capabilities.”

Qi Sheng thought for a moment. “How about this: I’ll put up two billion as seed money and assign some of my top people to you. Can you create a functional app within three months?”

“No problem!”

Zhang Wei’s eyes lit up. ‘As expected of a true tycoon.’

‘Casually dropping two billion… who could even handle that?’

Developing a video app wasn’t exactly easy.

But if Qi Sheng assigned him an elite team, he was confident they could get it done for Qi Sheng in three months, even if it meant working around the clock.

“However, shouldn’t we acquire some content rights first? Otherwise, if the platform is too bare, it’ll be hard to retain users.”

After his initial excitement, Zhang Wei started to worry again.

‘Two billion was certainly a lot of money.’

‘But just licensing a few film and TV series would cost several hundred million.’

‘Factor in bandwidth costs, and there’d only be enough left to license a few decent shows.’

‘Leaving aside the third-place straggler, Youku…’

‘…iQiyi and Penguin Video (Tencent) each spent no less than twenty billion a year on content.’

‘They would have to hope every single show they licensed was a massive hit just to keep users on the platform.’

‘The problem was, that was completely unrealistic.’

“Your top priority right now is to get the app developed. As for licensing content, that’s not an immediate concern.”

Of course, Qi Sheng understood Zhang Wei’s concerns.

But he was basically a cheat; why would he fight a battle he wasn’t sure of winning?

Universal Entertainment’s screenwriting department alone had assembled no fewer than ten outstanding writers.

Every single one of them was an Expert Level talent.

And Qin Wen had even been promoted to Master Level by him.

It was no exaggeration to say that in the entire Chinese Entertainment industry, the quality of Universal Entertainment’s screenwriting talent was second to none!

‘Otherwise, how could scripts like *Mountain and Sea Love* have appeared out of thin air?’

‘Qi Sheng might have been reborn, but he wasn’t omniscient.’

Universal Entertainment had no shortage of directors, scripts, or actors.

The only thing was, Qi Sheng had no desire to give iQiyi, Youku, and Tencent Video a free ride.

That was the only reason he was sitting on these scripts and holding off on production.

But now, his very own video platform was finally about to launch.

Three months was just enough time to shoot and produce some small-to-medium-budget series.

Besides, Universal Entertainment’s predecessor company had a back catalog of high-quality licensed properties.

It would be enough to keep the newly launched platform from looking too bare-bones.

“Chairman Qi, what do you think we should name our video platform?”

Zhang Wei naturally had no objections.

But he needed the big boss to pick a name first before he could hold meetings with his team.

“Hmm… let’s call the platform Xingchen Video, and the company will be Xingchen Film and Television.”

Qi Sheng named it off the top of his head. “Go see if anyone has already registered the trademark. If they have, buy it from them.”

“Understood.”

Zhang Wei didn’t care much about the name, as long as it didn’t sound strange.

‘iQiyi, Youku, Penguin… their names were all pretty ordinary, too.’

‘For a long-form video platform, content was still the most important thing.’

‘As for the platform itself, all that mattered was smooth, lag-free playback and a clear picture.’

“Right, what about our platform’s subscription fee? What pricing did you have in mind?”

Zhang Wei suddenly remembered the most critical point.

“9.9 a month, or 99.99 for a full year.”

Qi Sheng replied without a moment’s hesitation.

“Er… isn’t that a little too low?”

Zhang Wei’s mouth twitched. “The big three’s annual plans are all basically over 200. Even during major sales events, the lowest they go is around 128.”

“Don’t worry about their pricing. Our price will never go up. That’s final,” Qi Sheng added.

“Sir, would you perhaps reconsider?”

Zhang Wei simply had no confidence that the platform could remain profitable with subscription fees that low.

“You can rest easy. The licensing quote Universal Entertainment gives you will be more than fair—excellent quality for a low price.”

As the owner of both companies, Qi Sheng naturally wouldn’t let one rip off the other.

For Universal Entertainment, the money earned from producing TV series was just small potatoes.

As long as they could make their actors into stars, there were plenty of other ways to make money.

Even if they sold the content rights to Xingchen Film and Television at cost, they still wouldn’t be at a loss.

From the perspective of the video platform, Zhang Wei naturally saw the low subscription fee leading to serious losses.

‘But did Qi Sheng really care about a mere few billion?’

‘That wasn’t even as much as a single month’s reward from his system.’

Only by lowering the barrier to entry could they attract a larger audience.

This would, in turn, boost the popularity of the shows and make the actors famous.

Compared to the big three—iQiyi, Youku, and Tencent Video—Qi Sheng’s advantage was enormous.

Against the talent provided by his system, the other three were facing a completely different level of competition.

If Qi Sheng wanted, he could even compress costs to their absolute minimum.

After all, the actors, directors, and screenwriters were all talents completely loyal to him.

They would complete their work perfectly even if he didn’t pay them a dime.

When it came to burning money, the system provided him with over nine billion in “ammunition” every month.

He could fight the big three until they were completely bankrupt without feeling the slightest bit of pressure.

What could he do? The joy of a cheater was just that simple!