Chapter 4
Sure enough, the capital in the entertainment industry were all cunning merchants. Fortunately, she would be joining it soon too.
The theatre looked no different from when it had just been built, with even the performance venue completely bare, not to mention the stage and seats. Seeing this, Jiang Juyou immediately understood, "You want me to lend you money, right?"
"Every company needs some initial investment in the early stages." Gao Xiayu shrugged, "It's fine, I'll earn it back later."
Since it was all still bare concrete, she didn't bother looking around anymore, and instead went to the backstage area, to where she would be living. Compared to everything else, Jiang Juyou was looking forward more to the place she would be staying in the future.
After she verified her fingerprint to enter, Jiang Juyou was immediately soothed by the interior decoration. Using the tactic of setting low expectations certainly worked well. At least after seeing all those bare concrete rooms in front, Jiang Juyou was quite satisfied with the simple decor here. Anyway, she would only be coming here to sleep at night, she didn't need too many things.
Unlike the stinginess of the front venue, the room had even prepared bed sheets and quilts for her. Seeing them, Jiang Juyou almost wanted to dive right in, but she was still wearing her coat which wasn't convenient to lie down in.
Of course, she hadn't forgotten the purpose of her coming here. Jiang Juyou went to the study to take a look, and as expected found the business license there, with the name she had randomly come up with on the way written on it.
Jiang Juyou sat down at the computer desk, first preparing the documents the school had required, and carefully checked them to make sure everything was there. After confirming it was all ready, she also sent a message in the class group chat to the supervisor, saying she would bring the documents over soon, and asked where to find her.
After she sent the message, the group fell silent, because the supervisor completely ignored her.
"Forget it, I'll head to the school first." Jiang Juyou didn't want to drag it to tomorrow, so she tidied up her things again and got up, planning to go to the school first. If no one was in the office, she would leave it with someone else first, and get them to help hand it in later.
With this, the internship matter that had been giving Jiang Juyou a headache was finally dealt with.
-
"Ding-"
Hearing the sound in her sleep, it took Jiang Juyou several seconds to react before fumbling for her phone in the dark. Squinting, she looked at the message with knitted brows.
"Newbie mission complete!"
"You have a reward to claim!"
"Upgraded to Level 2!"
"You have a reward to claim!"
Jiang Juyou immediately woke up, turning on the bedside lamp while rubbing her eyes.
After going to the school, she had run around all afternoon. Feeling tired when she got back, she had taken a shower, eaten something, then went to bed for a nap.
It was a little past 9:40 now, not too far off from the estimated mission completion time given by the system.
It was just like gaming, with stamina restored, and many more things that could be done. The previously somewhat drowsy Jiang Juyou immediately became spirited.
She opened the app, and what popped up was the reward to be claimed.
"Reward: Randomly unlock the prize wheel [1] time"
"Reward: Randomly unlock the prize wheel [1] time"
Jiang Juyou read the instructions carefully, then confirmed it. The number under the prize wheel immediately changed to "1".
The prize wheel was grey, but when she pressed confirm, it started spinning rapidly. Jiang Juyou's heart also tightened, praying in her heart that it would land on the stage. If that was really impossible, the audience seats would do as well. Those two were just so expensive!
As its speed slowed down, Jiang Juyou's gaze followed the words [Stage], even wanting to manually make it stop at the pointer.
Finally the wheel slowed to a stop, and the partition under the pointer was - the practice room.
"Well, the practice room is fine too!" Jiang Juyou breathed a sigh of relief. At least this showed her luck wasn't too awful.
There were two practice rooms. The app provided 3D diagrams of both rooms. Jiang Juyou chose the bigger one, because she remembered that room seemed to have a practise studio.
There was still one spin left on the wheel. Jiang Juyou didn't wait, immediately using it up.
This time, she even closed her eyes, as if doing so could delay facing reality a little longer. When the "ding-" sounded, only then did Jiang Juyou open her eyes to check.
"Square sunshade"
"..."
She was rendered speechless.
After unlocking two new venues, she closed the interface to look at the mission instructions.
The completed newbie mission was signing one artiste. The mission story wrote about the process of signing today, all in second person point of view.
"You drove to Yongqing High School, and after waiting for half an hour, break time arrived..."
It then described the process of persuading Gao Xiayu, and at night there was also a section about convincing Gao Xiayu's parents before getting him to sign.
The conditions were also simple. The company would not take up his academic class time, only arranging training after class and on weekends. The expenses incurred during the trainee period would be borne by the company, but this was conditional. If the company persuaded him to withdraw or dismissed him, the expenses incurred during the trainee period would not need to be repaid. If he took the initiative to terminate the contract, the expenses incurred during the trainee period would need to be repaid. If the debut was successful, there would be no need to repay the trainee period expenses, and wages would be directly settled.
Apart from this, there was one major premise - within one month of signing, if he was unable to adapt to trainee life, he could terminate the contract at any time without paying a penalty.
Persuading Gao Xiayu was not difficult, since he already had intentions of entering the entertainment industry himself. He did most of the work convincing his parents. The issue was -
"Why is it in second person point of view?" Jiang Juyou was completely bewildered.
"Because the virtual character Jiang Juyou was used, so in their eyes, it was you who signed the contract with them. This makes it convenient for you to manage them later, and easier for the parents to trust you," the system explained.
Jiang Juyou froze for a moment after hearing the response, then asked, "...Can she help me write my thesis? Help me with my defence?"
"...No."
For some reason, Jiang Juyou seemed to detect a hint of speechlessness in the system's brief response just now.
Leaving that aside for now, Jiang Juyou also remembered this signing method would incur expenses after completing the mission, so she scrolled down the contract details, and saw the expenses generated, indicating it had been automatically deducted.
"...Twenty thousand?" Jiang Juyou counted the zeros, rubbed her eyes then counted again to confirm she hadn't miscounted. She wanted to say something, but in the end just opened and closed her mouth without speaking. "Forget it, I already owe two million, this little bit doesn't make a difference."
Next was the notice about upgrading to Level 2. After Jiang Juyou tapped in to read the explanation, she finally understood. Unlocking indoor sections was linked to level. She had to reach Level 2 before she could unlock the Level 1 indoor sections. She could only unlock sections one level lower than herself.
For example, the theatre was a "gift" from the system, so after reaching Level 2, she could unlock all the indoor section blocks, as long as she had enough money. But if she wanted to unlock the company building, she would need to level up more.
The loan amount from the system was also not unlimited. It was the level plus one, so now at Level 2, she could borrow three million from the system. Once that limit was used up, apart from repaying and levelling up, there would be no other options.
However, the experience points were not transparent, so Jiang Juyou didn't know how many missions she had to complete to reach Level 3 either. She looked at the mission board. New missions were displayed - recruiting staff and teachers, as well as signing new trainees.
Because the first person she signed was in the idol section, the subsequent signing missions had changed accordingly too.
"Mission: Sign 5 male trainees [1/5]"
She had signed one, so needed to sign four more.
Now she had to ration things out properly. She had less than one million left of her loan amount. She had to complete signing and recruitment while unlocking some indoor sections, because she discovered even the toilet required money to unlock!
Jiang Juyou gnashed her teeth. "Unlock the backstage toilet first!"
Fortunately the toilet and bathroom were together, otherwise she really would have flipped the system's table.
"Ding-"
The prompt sounded, and the backstage toilet was unlocked.
After tapping into the toilet, she discovered it could even be upgraded, of course by spending money. But Jiang Juyou felt there was no need for that yet. The toilets were divided into male and female, both with five squat toilets. The bathroom wasn't inside, but was next to it instead to prevent odours. Similarly, there were five shower stalls.
Jiang Juyou felt the current setup was already very luxurious.
It took seventy thousand to unlock the bathroom, so we have nine hundred and ten thousand left. To sign a trainee, it will cost eighty thousand, so how much do we need for recruitment?" Jiang Juyou asked the system after calculating.
"Recruitment only requires paying salaries."
"Will you come?" Jiang Juyou asked.
"I can help post recruitment notices for you, but you'll need to conduct the interviews yourself."
Jiang Juyou couldn't help but recall the days of social security, weekends off, and nine-to-five.
Great, she was confident there would be quite a few interested people.