enjoyebooks Chapter 56 My head is spinning.
Chapter 56 My head is spinning.
Zeng Hao did not respond to that sentence.
She signed quickly not because she didn't care, but because she had already thought it through before coming: asking about things that couldn't be changed would be a waste of time. This judgment is simply part of her character.
This kind of person is the most useful on set.
When Meng Ziyi arrived, she brought an agent with her. The agent was a woman in her forties with neatly combed hair and carrying a dark briefcase. She scanned the conference room before finally fixing her gaze on Zeng Hao with a professionally cautious expression.
Meng Ziyi walked behind, tall and slender, wearing a black suit jacket over a white shirt, her hair pulled back to reveal her entire face, her eyes held a deep look, unlike Tian Xiwei's dramatic tension, more like a habit formed after maintaining a certain distance from the outside world for a long time.
She sat down in the chair, opened the contract at a moderate pace, and flipped to the page about payment. She didn't speak, but continued flipping through. After she finished, her agent spoke up, "Ms. Meng's current market price is twice that figure. Your company's clause..."
"I know," Zeng Hao said, "that's why I prepared this for her."
He pushed the resource planning form over.
Meng Ziyi received the paper before her agent. She lowered her head, looked at it once, and then looked at it again. The first line read: Historical drama with political intrigue, 2017, female lead, confirmed by the main production company.
The agent leaned over and glanced at the paper. "What does 'main producer confirmation system' mean?"
"It means that the cast list must be confirmed by me," Zeng Hao said. "Other production companies do not have the right to replace them."
The meeting room fell silent for a few seconds.
Meng Ziyi put down the resource planning sheet and looked at Zeng Hao, "Should this clause be written into the contract?"
"Write it in the attachment."
She flipped back to the page about her salary in the contract, looked at it for about five seconds, picked up her pen, and signed it.
Her agent hadn't even had a chance to say another word.
Turin came alone, without an agent or assistant. She carried a very ordinary canvas bag, wore a loose dark blue shirt, and casually tucked her hair behind her ears. Her features were not stunning, but she had a clean look that made people take a second look, like a blank sheet of paper with a good background, on which anything could be drawn without looking dirty.
She sat down in the chair, opened the contract, and carefully read every clause. When she reached clause eleven, her finger paused on that line of text. "This clause concerns copyright ownership. Does the copyright of the materials I worked on during filming belong to the company?"
"right."
"Including the performance adjustments I proposed myself?"
"The performance adjustments are credited to the director, and your name will appear in the list of key creators," Zeng Hao said. "The copyright belongs to the company, so we won't discuss that."
She removed her finger from that line of text, continued flipping through the pages, signed it, pushed the contract back, and said nothing more.
Xu Wen put the contract away. Turin stood up, slung his canvas bag over his shoulder, walked to the door, turned back, and asked, "Have you worked on that kind of project before?"
"No," Zeng Hao said, "you're the first one."
She responded and went out.
When Zhou Ye came, her mother accompanied her. She was an ordinary middle-aged woman who changed into shoe covers at the door before coming in. After coming in, she stood next to her daughter, holding a cloth bag in her hand.
Zhou Ye was standing next to her, barely reaching her mother's shoulder. She was wearing a light yellow T-shirt and denim overalls, her hair was tied in two buns, and she had no makeup on. Her skin was very good and clean. She had round eyes, a small nose, and her whole face still had a bit of baby fat that hadn't completely disappeared. No matter how you looked at it, she was still a child.
But she walked in very steadily; she wasn't pushed in by her mother, she walked in by herself.
Zeng Hao did not show her the contract.
On the table was a reserve agreement, a single sheet of paper with few clauses. The core terms were a two-year training period, company-provided course resources, and formal contract negotiations to take place after she reached adulthood.
"This isn't a contract," Zeng Hao told her mother. "It's a training agreement. She'll be 18 in two years, and she can decide for herself whether she wants to continue."
Her mother took the paper, looked at it carefully, and then handed it to Zhou Ye, saying, "Look for yourself."
Zhou Ye took the agreement, lowered her head to look at it, and her lips moved slightly as she read, as if she were silently reading it. After reading it, she looked up, not at Zeng Hao, but at her mother first. Her mother nodded, and only then did she put the agreement back on the table, pick up a pen, and sign her name.
The characters are small, but written very carefully.
Xu Wen put the agreement away, and Zhou Ye stood up, pushed her chair back to make room for her mother to go first. This action was very natural, as if it were a habit she had developed since childhood.
After they left, Xu Wen organized the stack of contracts and agreements from today, arranged them in order, and placed them on the table. He looked up at Zeng Hao and said, "President Zeng, including yesterday and those from before, our company now has..." He counted in his mind, "...more than a dozen artists?"
"Fourteen," Zeng Hao said, "plus one in reserve."
Xu Wen clicked his tongue over the number. "It feels like there weren't many people last month."
Her mind was blank.
Has it escalated to this extent?
It seems the company has completely turned things around.
She thought to herself.
Zeng Hao didn't respond to that sentence. He picked up the stack of contracts, which was about two centimeters thick and looked like just an ordinary stack of papers from the outside.
My phone vibrated; it was Peng Bing's daily report: Filming went smoothly today, with an estimated five days left.
Five days.
He turned his phone over and put the stack of contracts back on the table.
Xu Wen waited across from him for a while, and when he realized that Zeng Hao didn't say anything more, he pushed his chair back and stood up. "Then I'll go file it."
He took the contract away, leaving Zeng Hao alone in the conference room.
The light from the window slanted in and fell on the spot on the table where the stack of contracts had been taken away; there was nothing there but the tabletop.
These fourteen people know nothing right now.
They thought they were just signing a contract today.
Zhao Liying's agent's surname is Lin. Zeng Hao knew this from his previous life. She has been in the industry for eleven years and has managed three second-tier artists. Zhao Liying is her most important asset at present.
These agents have a set routine when entering a negotiation room: first, they scan the room; then they observe the other party; and only then do they sit down. It's not arrogance, but a professional habit used to determine whether the other person is worth taking seriously.
When Manager Lin came in, he did just that: he scanned the conference room, lingered on Zeng Hao's face for two seconds, then sat down in the chair, put his briefcase on his lap, unzipped it, and moved very steadily.
Zhao Liying walked behind her.
She was taller than Zeng Hao had expected, nearly 1.7 meters. She wore a deep burgundy trench coat with a tight belt, and her hair was all pulled back into a low ponytail with a few stray strands falling around her ears. She had beautiful features, thick eyebrows, big eyes, and a deep profile. When she stood at the door, the light shone from her side, making her cheekbones very prominent. She had the kind of face that would look even better on camera.
She came in, sat down next to Agent Lin, and glanced at Zeng Hao first without looking at the contract.