Chapter 187: The Profiteering Industry

Let it be! Xiao Ran smiled bitterly inwardly. Shadow still had many challenges to face, and piracy was indeed a damned problem. Chen Jiale of Tianlai took a deep breath. Two years ago, Tianlai was far behind, but ever since it acquired several singers from New Art Treasure, it began to gain momentum.
“Currently, Tianlai has 32 signed singers, six of whom are non-Chinese!” Chen Jiale was well aware that these so-called 32 singers were merely an illusion, or rather, a reserve force. “Judging from overseas record sales, Hong Kong holds 15% of the market in Southeast Asia, while Tianlai accounts for about 30%!”
Of course, no one thought Chen Jiale meant Tianlai held 30% of the overseas record market—it referred to Hong Kong’s share in the foreign market. This was understandable, as Hong Kong pop music first became popular thanks to Leslie Cheung, who reached its peak before being followed by the Four Heavenly Kings, who further boosted its idol appeal.
Thanks to Shadow’s Starlight Project, singers like Liu Hua and Leslie Cheung gradually became popular idols in Southeast Asia. Back home, Tianlai still couldn’t compete with British labels like PolyGram, nor with local labels such as Huaxing and Warner. But in the Southeast Asian market, it had a slight advantage.
Tianlai was quite impressive now. Aside from Kwok Fuk-shing and Lai Ming, two of the Four Heavenly Kings being promoted currently were under Tianlai. Of course, Leslie Cheung also thought about retiring, which troubled Chen Jiale for a while. Xiao Ran thought it was a good thing—less work for Leslie Cheung, making him happier and avoiding future tragedies.
“Last year, Tianlai’s profits mainly came from record sales, but it also had some income from concerts and other activities,” Chen Jiale announced cheerfully. “After deducting all expenses, we made a profit of 110 million. I believe with this year’s Starlight Project, we’ll achieve even greater breakthroughs!”
Xiao Ran smiled. This result was completely beyond his expectations. In his mind, most Hong Kong record companies would still be losing money even after more than a decade. He founded Tianlai merely to find suitable distribution channels for movie music and songs. To think it could achieve such results was truly surprising.

“After receiving several ideas from President Xiao in the second half of last year, ATV’s ratings soared significantly, often outperforming TVB’s programs.” Li Guangli didn’t look happy, as he had just realized that ATV’s performance was far worse compared to other subsidiaries. “After deducting all expenses, the profit was 90 million!”
The main source of income for TV stations is advertising. Since ATV has managed to establish satellite broadcasting partnerships in parts of Southeast Asia and added several channels in different languages, it’s been a very good start.
Bai Pengfei from Shuxiang Media was frustrated, as Shuxiang’s performance wasn’t great either. “Currently, Shuxiang controls one newspaper, three magazines, and one publishing house. ‘Influence’ is extremely popular outside, so we distributed it along with ‘Power’ on a large scale. We plan to launch a weekly magazine again next year. Last year, the profit was 60 million!”
Xiao Ran and Wei Dongling were well aware that ATV and Shuxiang’s performance was already quite good. After all, Shuxiang had spent a lot last year to discover the talents designated by Xiao Ran. ATV also started to make progress in the second half of the year. Perhaps out of caution towards Xiao Ran, they didn’t take immediate action against ATV.
Liao Jingping threw the documents on the table, stood up, glanced at everyone, and said with a smile, “The annual box office revenue for Yinghua was 970 million! After deducting all expenses, the profit was 200 million!”
Don’t think that Yinghua Company only has these over 60 theaters locally. Don’t forget that there are also Yinghua theater chains in Taiwan, South Korea, and France. Adding them up, the figure is already quite substantial.
Since Mingxing Company and Qiji Company were split up only in the second half of the year, they surely hadn’t made much profit, so there’s no need to mention them. Next was Dongli. Tang Yan wasn’t a serious person; even in such an occasion, he spoke cheerfully, “Last year, the Dongli Investment Fund made a profit of $1.1 billion from karaoke operations, which is 8.8 billion Hong Kong dollars. This year, it’s expected to make a profit of $2 billion. As for investments in other areas, the current profit is only 250 million!”
Sigh! The whole room was filled with gasps of shock. Shadow Group had 14 subsidiaries (including four like Dolby and Lumimag). But the combined profit of these 14 subsidiaries was definitely not as high as Dongli’s profit, which is no wonder it shocked everyone so much.

Although everyone knows that karaoke is now extremely popular and has even made its way to Hong Kong, no one has actually calculated the exact figures, so the precise numbers remain unknown. Now that Tang Yan mentions it with such a smile, it seems almost like a ghost has appeared. It’s truly a terrifying figure—thanks to Xiao Ran’s wise investment in karaoke, the Phantom Group achieved a total annual profit of 13.2 billion. Xiao Ran is almost dizzy; could this be too fast? Even the people involved are so surprised—how could anyone else not be shocked? Xiao Ran and Wei Dongling, who is equally astonished, exchange a glance and can’t help but laugh. Back then, when he suggested letting Yang Qi and Pan Disheng invest, the two refused; now they must be regretting it bitterly. However, although the profit is 13.2 billion Hong Kong dollars, one must not forget all the expenses. The administrative costs of the headquarters aren’t much, but the key lies in the computer department, which spent 2 billion last year. Moreover, don’t forget that Light Magic, Skywalker, and Pixar were acquired using profits, each costing several billion Hong Kong dollars. In any case, Phantom indeed achieved its most crucial development and expansion in 1989, not in Southeast Asia or Europe, but with those four companies. It’s no exaggeration to say that Xiao Ran would even be willing to give up last year’s entire profit just to acquire those four companies. Nevertheless, given Phantom’s current strength, acquiring a Hollywood company shouldn’t be too difficult. Soon after, while various magazines across Hong Kong were busy calculating the wealth of the rich, Forbes took the lead. Unfortunately, Forbes was still slower than Power, which was the first to conduct a wealth assessment for Xiao Ran. The Phantom Group has 5 billion in liquid assets, and Power has 1 billion, plus the liquid assets of other subsidiaries, bringing the total to over 7 billion—already exceeding last year’s market value. This time, Power’s valuation surpassed that of the parent company; just by controlling karaoke, its market value is as high as 3 billion US dollars, or 24 billion Hong Kong dollars. Phantom and all its subsidiaries combined don’t even reach this market value. However, since Phantom controls Dell stocks worth 6 billion, along with other stocks, the total is about 9 billion. Adding the value of other subsidiaries, it’s at least 5 billion.

I have to admit that getting Karaoke this time was truly the right and lucky decision. In just this one year, Phantom Company’s market value soared from 7 billion last year to 45 billion Hong Kong dollars this year. Fang Xiaoqiang and Wei Dongling, each holding 5% of the shares, saw their wealth skyrocket to over 2 billion in just three years, instantly placing them among the wealthiest bachelors.

What’s more interesting is that Wei Dongling, with the highest salary of the year plus the rise in his share value, earned an annual income of 1.8 billion, making him the world’s highest-paid employee. This figure shocked not only Hong Kong but the entire world—after all, it was the first time an employee’s income exceeded 100 million dollars. Wei Dongling’s income even surpassed that of the U.S.’s highest-paid employee by 1.1 billion, which brought him quite a few troubles.

Only Xiao Ran smiled slyly—now Ah Dong couldn’t extort him anymore. However, when Wei Dongling reminded him of his own wealth, Xiao Ran was stunned, because if calculated by wealth, being extorted seemed entirely justified.

Xiao Ran’s personal assets accounted for a small portion of his total wealth, as Microsoft hadn’t yet thrived. Still, his wealth was still 42 billion, placing him among Hong Kong’s top ten richest people. Moreover, he ranked 86th on Forbes’ latest list of the world’s richest people.

This caused Xiao Ran great headaches—firstly, Wei Dongling’s extortion was frustrating, and secondly, he feared being kidnapped. Fortunately, with Yang Guang and Monkey around, he wasn’t afraid. Besides, he didn’t believe anyone in Hong Kong would dare touch him, unless that person wasn’t local.

On the entertainment industry power rankings in “Power,” although Xiao Ran didn’t release any films last year, he still ranked first. However, his ranking in terms of annual influence dropped to second, with Chen Kexin, the director of “The Unfinished Story,” taking first place. Of course, this magazine didn’t rank wealth but rather the influence and power of people behind and in front of the camera. So it was already quite impressive that Xiao Ran ranked second despite having no films last year.

But in Hong Kong’s personal power rankings, Xiao Ran was tenth. This was naturally because every move he made affected the film market in Southeast Asia—this was the real ranking of influential figures.

In short, Xiao Ran now hated these so-called rankings. Now that Wei Dongling became richer, he became more stingy. Every time Xiao Ran made it onto a ranking, he had to endure extortion—what an unfortunate situation.

But Xiao Ran wasn’t concerned about this at the moment. As soon as he got home, his younger sister pestered him nonstop. Xiao Han kept clinging to Xiao Ran, wishing she could hang on him like a koala for comfort: “Brother, I want to be a star!”
“You’re still too young; it’s not suitable for you. It’s better to study hard and help me manage the company in the future!” Xiao Ran felt he was speaking against his conscience. Strictly speaking, first, he didn’t think Xiao Han could handle such a job. Not to mention managing a large corporation—even handing over a small company to her would likely end in chaos.
Second, Xiao Han was actually quite pretty, at least in Xiao Ran’s eyes, which had been blinded by Lin Qingxia. To anyone else, even a fool could see that Xiao Ran was already good-looking, and his sister Xiao Han was even more gifted, with a lively charm.
“I’m already eighteen or nineteen—still too young…” Xiao Han was even more frustrated than Xiao Ran. Everyone at school was pursuing her eagerly, yet her brother still treated her like a child. “If you don’t agree, I’ll tell Sister-in-law!”
“It won’t help!” Xiao Ran chuckled. Lin Qingxia usually wouldn’t interfere in company matters, let alone pay attention to Xiao Han. “Besides, you’re still so young. How about this—wait until you finish college?”
“Aran, you’re back!” Liang Wenhui’s eyes lit up with joy when she saw her son. She waved him over. “Come, try the soup I made for you!”
Reluctantly, Xiao Ran dragged Xiao Han, who kept grabbing his clothes, over to his mother. He lifted the spoon and took a sip, immediately giving his mother a thumbs up. He knew that ever since his parents learned about the growing success of Shadow, they had been worried that Xiao Ran might overwork himself, so they often made soup for him to replenish his strength.
“Mom, look at Xiao Han…” Xiao Ran really didn’t know what to do with his sister. He wondered if Superman treated his son the same way at home—it was quite interesting. “Will you agree or not? She’s driving me crazy!”
“Better not!” After some thought, his mother decided she wasn’t entirely opposed to Xiao Han entering the entertainment industry. Her previous opposition stemmed from several sensational “Silver Chicken cases” in the early 1980s, which made her distrustful. Now that Xiao Ran had reached his current status, she wasn’t worried that Xiao Han would end up like those people. She just wasn’t sure what her husband thought.

“Now that your company has grown so big, your father’s company has also grown significantly thanks to your investment. Our family doesn’t have many relatives. If Xiao Han enters the entertainment industry in the future, who will take over the business?” My mom really thinks ahead—she even considered the family business so quickly!
If it were technically possible, Xiao Ran would definitely sweat a little to show his agreement. But since he doesn’t have those special powers like in the comics, he could only raise his eyebrows and sit down. “Mom, I’m just in my twenties. Do we really need to think about this so soon?”
“That’s right…” Seeing that her brother finally agreed to speak up for her, Xiao Han beamed and rushed at Xiao Ran, saying, “I knew my brother would be the best to me!”
Xiao Ran was frustrated. Xiao Han was already quite grown up and had everything she needed. Although she wasn’t as clingy as before, she still rushed at him regardless of her age, which made him feel upset. My mom, noticing Xiao Ran’s expression, scolded, “Xiao Han, don’t do that. You’re already so old!”
“It’s okay!” Seeing Xiao Han walk away with a sulky face, Xiao Ran quickly laughed and said, “How about this? If Dad agrees, then let Xiao Han enter the entertainment industry!”
Just as he said that, Dad pushed the door open and entered. Seeing the whole family—well, except for Lin Qingxia—all looking at him, he was slightly surprised. Then he saw Xiao Han rushing up to him with a pleading expression and saying, “Dad, I want to act and sing. Please let me go!”
“Ask your brother first. And Ah Ran, let’s talk after dinner.” Dad was always so cool—Xiao Ran admired him greatly. He even thought maybe he could get Dad to play Ghost Fear in “Gunfire” and win an award or something.
“Great!” Xiao Han cheered happily. Since Dad said that, it meant he agreed. As soon as her gaze landed on Xiao Ran, he waved his hands frantically, afraid she’d rush at him again, saying, “If you want to sing and act, you have to follow my rules. If you don’t, you’re out. Do you understand?”
“I don’t quite understand, but I know you want me to listen to you. Don’t worry, I always listen to you!” Xiao Han stood there smiling and shouted a few words at Xiao Ran. It was true—when there were no conflicts between them, Xiao Han did listen to Xiao Ran more often. It made Xiao Ran wonder what he had done in the past to earn his sister’s admiration.

“Very good. Then you need to understand that once you enter the entertainment industry, you absolutely must not say she’s my sister, and even less must you use your power to bully others.” Xiao Ran wasn’t unwilling to help Xiao Han; he planned to include her on next year’s Starlight Plan list. But with Xiao Han’s personality, she would surely spread the news widely. That wasn’t a big issue—after all, it would be strange if Xiao Ran didn’t help his sister enter the industry. The problem was that once she started spreading the news, she might not be able to tell who her true friends were, which would surely put her at a disadvantage in the industry. “In short, if you want to become famous, I’ll help you. But you still have to keep studying! If you can’t graduate from college, then do whatever you have to do!”
Xiao Han naturally nodded repeatedly, not caring about so many details. This was a privilege she had fought for with her whole family for years—how could she refuse to take it? Was she waiting for her family to regret it?
After dinner, Xiao Ran and Xiao Shaohao sat in the living room. Xiao Ran felt uneasy, wondering if the atmosphere was too serious. Xiao Shaohao let out a deep sigh, which surprised Xiao Ran greatly—he had never seen his father like this, not even during the toughest times.
“Mingxuan Real Estate almost went bankrupt today!” Xiao Shaohao closed his eyes slightly, his expression showing pain. “That’s what happened today!”
*****
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