Chapter 93: Worry Turns the Hair White (Please Subscribe)

The strongest promotional push he had planned could not even get off the ground, and Huang Guokun was nearly driven mad with worry.

If he did not hire a top-tier superstar to help drive traffic and publicity, and instead only paid second-tier stars for advertisements, the money would still be spent, but the results would not even be guaranteed.

Huang Guokun hesitated for two days and could not bear to take the million that Huang Guolun had sent him in a moment of timely relief and hand it over to those second-tier stars for ad spots.

He still wanted to secure a super-popular star to advertise My Fair Corpse, because only then would it truly strike like a shot to the heart.

Unfortunately, there were only a handful of celebrities in the industry with whom he had any genuinely solid relationship.

The only one who could really help, Bao Beier, was himself caught in the middle of a public storm and having a hard time keeping his own head above water. At a time like this, Huang Guokun truly did not want to burden him any further.

In truth, Bao Beier got along quite well with many stars who wielded considerable influence in the business.

He was on friendly terms with the cast of Running Man, for instance. He could also speak to Xiao Ming and Baby as a couple.

When Huang Guokun had been desperate before, he had even thought of asking Bao Beier to help reach out to Deng Chao and the others, to see whether those superstar names might be willing to lift My Fair Corpse up a little.

If either Deng Chao or Sun Li had been willing to do the ad, Huang Guokun would have sold pots and pans, spared no expense, and scraped together every last cent of the fee.

As long as the other side named a price, he would have paid without hesitation and asked them to help promote the film.

But stars of Deng Chao's level did not lack advertising money in the slightest. Unless they had water in their brains, why would they lower their own value to advertise an online feature film?

To force Bao Beier to swallow his pride and beg those big names for help would simply be asking the impossible.

Besides, Bao Beier himself was mired in trouble lately. Huang Guokun decided not to make things harder for him; that would have been far too disloyal.

He would just have to shoulder this mountain of pressure himself.

Previously, the only person Huang Guokun thought might still have a sliver of hope of helping them with publicity was Yang Mi.

Although Yang Mi's management team had tactfully turned down Kunlun Culture's proposal for cooperation, Huang Guokun felt that Yang Mi herself might be willing to lend a hand.

Back in school, he had done her a tremendous favor, and she owed him a great debt of gratitude.

Years ago, before Yang Mi had truly become a major star, they had run into one another at an industry gathering. Yang Mi had taken the initiative to bring up that old school matter, calling him "Brother Kun" over and over and thanking him profusely. She had said with her own lips that she owed Huang Guokun a very large favor, and if there was ever a chance, she would definitely repay it.

At that time, Huang Guokun was still the sort of rich young heir in the entertainment world who could casually throw out ten million or more to invest in a film, a little patron with money to burn.

When a female star like Yang Mi, who had not yet fully broken through, came over to curry favor and say such things, they might well have been nothing more than social niceties, a way of building connections. It was impossible to know whether they were sincere.

But whether genuine or not, Yang Mi had indeed said those words to Huang Guokun.

As for Huang Guokun, he had never expected Yang Mi or any other artist he had helped to return those favors.

Like Huang Guolun, Huang Guokun was the sort of person who would help others whenever he had the ability to do so. He never asked for anything in return.

But now he had truly reached a wall he could not get past. After much inner struggle, he wanted to reclaim a little of that goodwill.

He and Yang Mi had not been in touch for a long time, and they had not seen each other again, but Huang Guokun did have Yang Mi's private WeChat.

After hesitating for a full two days, he finally sent her a long message, explaining the matter in simple terms.

He told her that her management team had already politely declined the possibility of working together this time.

Still, he hoped that if she had time, she might watch My Fair Corpse. If she thought it was good, he still hoped her team could help promote the film.

Huang Guokun was afraid Yang Mi might have forgotten who he was, so he wanted to mention their old school connection in the message.

In the end, though, he could not bring himself to lower his face and use that old relationship to pressure her. He said nothing of the sort, and instead addressed the matter straightforwardly and properly, from the perspective of a business collaboration.

After receiving the message, Yang Mi took most of the day to reply. She only said one sentence: "I never heard about this. I'll discuss it with my team and get back to you later."

There was no form of address in her reply, and her tone carried a clear sense of distance.

From the way she wrote, it seemed Yang Mi either no longer remembered who Huang Guokun was, or was pretending not to remember.

That left Huang Guokun deeply discouraged.

Thinking it over, he could also understand her.

Yang Mi was already one of the top divas in the entertainment world, and she even ran her own studio as the boss.

Though she was not married and did not have a family to look after, she was already swamped with filming and company matters. How could she possibly have time to think about who he was?
In this timeline, Yang Mi was unmarried, had no children, and was a single woman in her prime.

After getting such a reply from Yang Mi, even the most optimistic Huang Guokun could guess that this matter was probably dead in the water.

He would have to find some other way to save his film.

That Wednesday afternoon, at a company meeting, and following the team's advice, Huang Guokun made a slightly risky but unavoidable choice: he planned to hire a few film influencers and film public accounts with more than a million genuine followers to help write and post promotional pieces for My Fair Corpse.

Paying such big-name accounts for advertorials was no small expense.

They were only willing to publish promotional copy of fifty characters or fewer, and their asking prices all started above eighty thousand, with full payment required in advance. It made Huang Guokun ache with pain.

The effect of such publicity would certainly not compare with what a top superstar could achieve, but there was no helping it. They could not get the big names they wanted, so this was the only Plan B left to them.

The total advertising budget of six hundred thousand had already been transferred this afternoon by Huang Guolun's staff to the cooperating film influencers and public account managers.

Starting tonight, those film influencers and accounts would begin posting one after another to promote My Fair Corpse.

If even this round of publicity failed to work, then the film would be half-buried in the ground before it ever had a chance to breathe.

The agony of waiting was nearly turning Huang Guokun gray-haired.

By nature, he was optimistic. After every failure, he would see it as the tempering that came before success.

He always comforted himself with the thought that if everything went smoothly, then even after the dream came true, one would not feel especially happy.

Only after repeated defeats, repeated struggles, and in the end a great reversal that overcame every hardship could one truly savor the highest pleasure of entrepreneurship.

But all of that depended on his actually being able to stage such a reversal.

If he kept going through storms but never once saw a rainbow, and every time ended up drenched and laid low with a terrible cold, then in the end he would likely become a chronic invalid, with no confidence left to ever look for a rainbow again.

He was truly afraid of losing that confidence.

And he was truly in desperate need of a long-awaited victory.

Yet that victory always seemed just within reach, while in reality it remained endlessly far away.

Such a reality was tormenting beyond words.

This time, Huang Guokun felt his confidence close to breaking apart.

For two days straight, he had been smoking two packs a day, plus several cigars on top of that. He was practically smoking himself to death.

The body was the capital of revolution.

No matter whether My Fair Corpse won or lost, he needed to take care of his own health first; otherwise, he would have no capital left to fight again in the future.

He had to rein himself in a little and could not keep smoking like this.

That night, he drove to a gas station near Purple Star Manor.

After filling the car, he parked by the roadside.

He got out, then walked back to the gas station and paced back and forth in front of it, lost in thought.

No matter whether My Fair Corpse lived or died, it would at least recover some of its costs in the end. Huang Guokun figured that even if this battle was lost, he still could not admit defeat. Afterward, he would have to keep moving step by step along the company’s online-film plan.

After My Fair Corpse, Kunlun Culture was planning to raise funds and prepare a fourth installment in the My Fair series, a courtly supernatural drama called My Fair Consort.

They wanted to film a story Chinese cinema had never before attempted: the love-and-hate entanglement between an emperor and a ghostly imperial consort.

Earlier, Huang Guokun had wanted to make My Fair Consort into a major production costing tens of millions.

But looking at the situation now, they would almost certainly have to slash the budget drastically and return once again to the stage of modest, small-scale productions.

Huang Guokun now had to use every resource wisely and strive to make the next film in the most economical way possible.

For a court drama like this, the music was an important part of the whole.

Huang Guokun felt he needed to speak to Huang Guolun about it in advance, and have him begin preparing the soundtrack for My Fair Consort ahead of time.

Their company’s cash flow was already painfully tight, and they certainly could not afford to hire an outside team to score the film.

Even if Huang Guolun was not especially good at this sort of Chinese classical court style, Huang Guokun would still have to put the duck on the rack and make him do it.

He stood outside the gas station turning these messy thoughts over in his mind for more than half an hour.

The attendants there saw Huang Guokun pacing endlessly in front of the station, his face dark with anxiety, and they thought it looked rather suspicious. Was this guy planning to do something destructive?

At last, a manager came over and asked carefully, "Sir, you have been walking around our station for quite a while. Is there something you need?"

Huang Guokun pulled out a pack of cigarettes and said awkwardly, "Nothing. I’m trying to quit smoking."

The manager was baffled. It was the first time he had ever seen someone come to a gas station in order to quit smoking. Huang Guokun really was a strange one.

He glanced at the time. It was already nearly seven in the evening, and hunger suddenly surged up from his stomach.

He had not eaten all day, surviving on tobacco alone, and he really could not hold out any longer.

Huang Guokun called Huang Guolun and said he was coming over to his house to mooch a meal, and while he was there he could also talk with Huang Guolun about the next film and have him make preparations in advance.

That night, Old Lady Zhou had something to do and had gone out to meet friends.

Only Bai Yao, Huang Tao, and the others were at Huang Guolun's place.

When Huang Guokun called, Huang Guolun and the others were in the middle of dinner.

Hearing that Huang Guokun was coming over to eat, Huang Guolun quickly called the property manager and asked the neighborhood restaurant to rush over a few dishes.

After making the call, he returned to the table and heard Huang Tao smiling as she asked Bai Yao, "Sister Bai Yao, there’s something. Before it goes in, it’s dry and hard, but after it comes out, it turns wet and soft, and it can leave you with endless aftertaste and bliss beyond the mortal world. Do you know what it is?"