"Yuanguang, I hope you remember that these are only temporary achievements. You can't rest on them and stop striving forward.
I'm not the kind of mother who likes to throw cold water on things. Seeing you achieve such success in both research and writing naturally makes me happy for you from the bottom of my heart, but it also reminds me of your father.
Back when your grandparents' house was demolished and relocated, the family suddenly became wealthy. He had houses, shopfronts, and cash in hand. He quickly quit his job and, in today's terms, became a complete couch potato.
I don't want you to follow the same path as your father.
Life is a process of constantly striving onward." Chen's mother seemed somewhat wistful.
Chen Yuanguang nodded silently and said nothing more. He did not want to stir up his mother's unhappy memories.
In his memories, his parents had been very loving when he was young. It was only after the family became rich from the relocation that they began arguing every few days. It continued until his father cheated, then they divorced. He went with his mother, who was busy with her career, and he was raised by his maternal grandparents.
People from different eras naturally had different ideas and perspectives.
The Post-70s Generation had caught a good era: the Gaokao, the rejuvenation of the cadre system, the real estate boom, and thirty years of rapid economic growth in China. They had ridden the wave of the times, reaping every benefit the era had to offer.
So to them, there was nothing in life that could not be attained through struggle and effort.
By the time it came to the Post-90s Generation, the benefits were gone. The same amount of effort brought far less sense of gain. It was like playing a game: the previous generation of players had a 10% drop rate, while today's players had a 1% drop rate—or perhaps it had even been secretly nerfed, with a 0.5% drop rate advertised as 5%.
As a writer, Chen Yuanguang's observations were sharper. At the tail end of the golden age in 1819, he had already realized this, while the general public would not broadly come to understand it until three years later.
Considering that she was his mother, Chen Yuanguang outwardly agreed, but inwardly felt that his father's laid-back philosophy was actually better suited to the current era.
He was already financially free. Why keep working nine to five every day, waiting for an opportunity to come his way?
As for his father, because he had started another family and their relationship was not particularly close, Chen Yuanguang had merely shared a meal with him. Unlike his mother, his father did not nag. He only told him to take care of his health, then spent the whole time talking about his fishing experience.
As Chen Yuanguang drove back in the secondhand Volkswagen his mother had discarded, his father sent him a map of the best fishing spots in Yangcheng and its surrounding areas.
Over the years, he had clearly put all his skill points into eating, drinking, and having fun.
While Chen Yuanguang had gone back to spend time with his parents, Lin Jia was arguing with Goose Factory over every clause.
That was until Goose Factory's internal information management system discovered that Chen Yuanguang had long ago signed a contract with Goose Factory.
When Jenny saw the email Guo Wei had sent her, her already excellent mood from the explosive success of "Kuala Lumpur Affairs" improved even further.
She called Guo Wei. "David, handle the next stage of negotiations with Lin Jia on my behalf. Show her the contract Chen Yuanguang signed with Yuewen.
The operating rights for his works were already in Goose Factory's hands. The only difference is whether they belong to Yuewen or Goose Factory Pictures. There is no way they can bypass Goose Factory and sign with another company."
Jenny was very pleased with herself. Lin Jia's refusal to yield even an inch had infuriated her earlier.
Yet she could not pressure Lin Jia the way she did ordinary authors. The company backing Lin Jia, while far inferior to Goose Factory in both influence and strength, was not one she could afford to offend personally.
Moreover, according to the information she had gathered, Lin Jia was capable of turning around and seeking cooperation with Alibaba or Enlight Media.
Faced with a negotiating threat that had both the strength and willingness to act, Jenny had no choice but to trade concessions for time.
At last, during the time she bought, she discovered Chen Yuanguang's weakness. In the contract Chen Yuanguang had signed with Yuewen, the operating rights to all his works had already been granted to Yuewen.
When Guo Wei handed the contract to Lin Jia, she knew she had lost this round. "David, right? Tell Jenny to put forward her terms.
If the terms are unsuitable, we would rather not cooperate. There will be no sequel to 'Kuala Lumpur Affairs.'
That would be a lose-lose situation.
And if you find another screenwriter to ghostwrite a sequel using the same premise and backstory, we'll see each other in court. Even if we ultimately fail to win, we can drag you through litigation for years. Let's see who can bear the loss.
I have the capital to play this game with Goose Factory. The army of corporate lawyers my family keeps are worried they have nothing to do."
This was her last resort. Lin Jia knew she had lost her bargaining chip.
"Yuanguang, we've finalized the negotiations regarding the follow-up copyright operations for Kuala Lumpur Affairs. Since you signed an author authorization agreement with Yuewen, we were at a serious disadvantage in the negotiations.
In the end, we signed for five years, with one sequel released each year: a fixed copyright fee of one million, plus a 2% investment share.
This is the absolute limit of what I could negotiate. If you think it's acceptable, I'll have Goose Factory send over the contract. You can review it first, then sign it," Lin Jia informed him over the phone.
Chen Yuanguang quickly did the math in his head. His pay had increased, but his investment returns had been cut in half. "Fine. Let's sign it like that."
To Chen Yuanguang, the money was only seed capital anyway. He would just treat it as having squeezed an angel investment round out of Goose Factory.
One novella of fewer than a hundred thousand words a year was ridiculously easy for an online fiction writer.
Chen Yuanguang simply regarded it as an outlet for his desire to express himself. In the future timeline, he had barely seen any real people.
Considering the possibility of threats, Chen Yuanguang had not left the University of Malaya.
Lin Jia put down the phone and reviewed the gains and losses of the negotiation in front of her computer.
She realized she should not have been so aggressive. She should have left the other side some room. If she had compromised even a little at the beginning, Jenny would have signed long ago.
Then she would not have discovered that loophole.
Lin Jia gained an entirely new understanding of leaving one side open when surrounding an enemy, and of advancing by retreating. She even extended the lesson to relationships: never giving the other person any space of their own, and having too strong a desire for control, was more likely to create problems.
"Lin Jia, you really do have an eye for people. When you brought Chen Yuanguang to meet us before, we all thought he had no merits other than being handsome.
Who would have thought he would rise so quickly? Sure, he still can't compare with your family background, but at least there's hope.
Taking the academic route is also a path to glory. There have been plenty of examples in recent years of scholars entering officialdom after excelling in academia.
First, they settle their administrative rank at a university, then they get parachuted into a position of power.
By then, the two of you will be a union of strengths."
Because the negotiations ended earlier than Lin Jia had expected and Chen Yuanguang was still in Yangcheng, she went to Shanghai to see her close friends.
When she attended Jiang University, she had not lived on campus. Coupled with her aloof personality, she had made almost no friends besides Chen Yuanguang. The few friends she did have were daughters of her parents' childhood friends.
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