Chapter 19 – End of Year Party (1/2)

In the coming days, Bai Lang spent half of his time at “The Regal Suit” learning tailoring with Li Fu. Actually most of this time was spent helping Li Fu receive his clients. Of course Bai Lang had to disguise himself slightly. Luckily most of the clients would never have expected a star from the television screen to be running about here, so they only commented that he looked like Bai Lang and didn’t think anything else.

At this time Outside Gold and Jade’s female lead and other roles were also casat.

The situation was just as Fang Hua said. Because this film didn’t have many resources so the popularity of the people they found was only ordinary.

The actress for the female lead was called Shen AiRu. The supporting male role was Luo Feng. Both weren’t names that Bai Lang was familiar with from the next ten years. Only the old actor that was playing the villain was someone that Bai Lang knew would win the “Gold Emperor” award for best supporting actor in a few years. With the addition of him who was an actor without any movie experience, then “Gold” was just as some poisonous industry people said: just a rich second generation’s movie dream. After all the investor was a textile company boss and the director was his friend.

Even so, Bai Lang trusted that Zhu Kuan definitely had his own ideas and among them was definitely not wasting the money his friend had entrusted to him. Everything would become clearer when shooting started in the next month. Right now all he had to do was do his best to prepare himself.

Of course this included trying to find the funds that the movie would need in the future.

These days Fang Hua had helped him to contact Total Entertainment’s overseas copyright department and already received an answer.

However according to their valuation, this author was someone that had never had any previous works and also the western fantasy background of the books was probably not something most Chinese people could accept. So they rejected Bai Lang’s proposal to purchase together.

Bai Lang didn’t also did force them. In any case, this way the book’s rights would fully belong to him and he could get a better price when it came to reselling it. So Bai Lang proposed to pay off the cost in one go and the overseas copyright department would be his mediator with G country. The time limit for negotiation was within two weeks as the first book was already on the market and Bai Lang guessed that if things didn’t get settled within one month, then they would miss the chance.

Since their time was limited, the copyright department was not able to settle the price at below 1.5million and finally settled on 2.3million. As for the extra 800,000, Bai Lang struggled for a while then finally made up his mind and went to the bank to get an information pack on applying for a loan.

Bai Lang guessed that base on his small fame as well as the reasonable amount of money currently in his bank account, he could approximately make the cut for this kind of small-medium sized loan. However the only difficulty was that he need to provide some kind of collateral for security. However right now Bai Lang didn’t have a car or a house. He was also too embarrassed to ask Qiu Qian to be his guarantor, since this would be bothering him too much.

As for repayments, there was still quite a few jobs whose payments hadn’t entered his accounts yet. Perhaps he should ask Sister Fang to arrange some more jobs for him.

It’s just that in the same evening that Bai Lang came home from the bank, Qiu Qian pressed him down and licked his ear and said huskily, “If you borrow 800,000 from the bank then tomorrow I’ll go to the bank to pay it back. If you have to owe money, you should owe me.”

Bai Lang sighed. “You have too much free time.” Enough free time to investigate what he was doing at the bank.

Qiu Qian lightly bit his earlobe. “If I don’t watch you closely, what should I do if you run away?”

Bai Lang paused for a second then said, “It’s a buyout so where would I go?”

Qiu Qian met Bai Lang’s gaze, frowning. “If it’s a buyout then does it really all belong to me?”

Bai Lang looked at Qiu Qian expressionlessly. “When you find the next one then be firm and get rid of me ba.”

Qiu Qian heard this and a light flashed in his eyes. But what he said was, “You’re not as clingy as some others.”

Bai Lang lowered his eyes. He answered, “No-” But his next words were blocked by Qiu Qian’s lips and his tongue which entered his mouth.

It was not until Bai Lang’s breathing became difficult that Qiu Qian slowly let go. He said in a husky voice, “…Fine. But until that day, you have to be good.”

Bai Lang vaguely felt that the second sentence was somewhat unnecessary. However he didn’t have time to think about it because Qiu Qian’s evil mouth once again stole away all his thinking.

After the “measuring” incident before, Qiu Qian now loved to explore every inch of his body. Perhaps the previous ways made Qiu Qian feel bored so Bai Lang could only work hard to accustomize himself to this change that was both embarrassing and stimulating.

***

A week later, with Qiu Qian’s help, the Chinese copyright for that series of books was purchased by Bai Lang. This set of books had only been on the shelves of G city for three weeks and it was just about to enter a period of furious sales. So all Bai Lang needed to do was to now patiently wait for a buyer. {T/N: i.e. if there is a publishing house in China that wants to publish in Chinese, they will have to purchase the rights from BL.}

The time was the beginning of December. In January of the next year “Gold” would start filming. Fang Hua had also helped Bai Lang accept a few advertisements that had a young and healthy image. Following on from “Partners” it was a good way to increase Bai Lang’s exposure on the screens.

At this time Bai Lang can be said to have officially gone down a different path to his previous life. He successfully graduated from “Partners” with both his fame and reputation intact and audiences deeply remembered him as being a healthy, warm and friendly newcomer. The company had also used this opportunity to organise a meet and greet event for Bai Lang. This was something that had never happened in his previous life.

However this made Bai Lang very busy for some time. Because this type of meet and greet was scheduled in most major cities, you couldn’t pick and choose too much. So Qiu XiaoHai began to complain that now the person that was always away working changed from daddy to Ah Bai. If there wasn’t Ah Bai then there wasn’t yummy food to eat. Qiu XiaoHai definitely understood the importance of this connection.

***

Since it was the end of the year, other than work, there was also a lot of events planned for end of year parties. {T/N: So the word used usually indicates a formal type event, a bit fancier than the regular office Christmas party. Kind of like a gala.}

In the last few years, the end of year parties of many large enterprises would ask entertainers to come and perform in order to reward their employees for their hard work that year. Thus at this time of the year, artists such as singers, comedians and hosts had profitable jobs.