Chapter 74: Chapter 74: External Consultant

Public opinion was spinning more and more out of control.

Meanwhile, Tianwen Entertainment called an emergency meeting.

“Lan Yuyan, the current public opinion on the Star Network is already affecting our company’s reputation. Don’t you have anything to say?”

One of the shareholders chimed in, “I’d also like to know why that young woman was given one of the confirmed slots.

Our company has plenty of composers with higher Levels than her. Why her, of all people?

Besides, she’s not even a composer signed with our company. If she were one of ours and you wanted to promote her, we wouldn’t have an issue with it. But she’s not.

So she has no right to take up our company’s resources.”

“Hah, what other reason could there be? Love makes people blind.”

To be honest, if the Lan family didn’t hold the real power at Tianwen Entertainment, these shareholders would have been even nastier.

Lan Yuyan’s expression was calm.

After they had all finished speaking, he said, “You are all incredibly short-sighted.

Our company does have a few veteran composers, but which of them hasn’t competed before? And who among them has ever won?”

“That’s no reason to send an outsider! What’s in it for us if she wins?”

Lan Yuyan gave the man a cool glance, a hint of irritation in his eyes.

Seeing his own father sitting securely in the head seat, clearly intending to just watch the show without saying a word, he realized he had to explain it to these fools himself.

“Do you have any idea how much importance the Federation places on the entertainment industry these days?”

“Forget it. You wouldn’t understand even if I told you. Since you don’t get it, just sit there quietly and wait for your dividends. If you’re that worried, sell your shares.”

The shareholders: …

’Don’t we know how much honor a victory would bring the company?’

’The problem is, who can guarantee she’ll actually win?’

’That’s why for an opportunity like this, it’s obviously better to send one of our own veteran composers to compete.’

’Even if they lose, it’ll just be the same as usual.’

But choosing that young woman… right now, the Star Network is full of accusations that they’re engaged in shady dealings. If she then goes on to lose the competition, Tianwen will become the main culprit for embarrassing the Federation.

Therefore, the best way to mitigate the risk is to replace her. Let the more established composers take her place.

There’s no fear in losing that way; it would just be the same as every other year. The Federation people are used to it by now, anyway.

But it’s a different story when you hand everyone a ready-made reason for the loss. They’d be flamed to death.

When the public starts a boycott, how much will their company stand to lose?

So no matter what Lan Yuyan said, the majority of the shareholders were against him.

They didn’t want to take such a risk; they just wanted to play it safe.

Meanwhile, Father Lan, who sat at the head of the table as the chairman, hadn’t said a word from beginning to end.

Only when the argument had more or less run its course did he speak. “That’s enough on this matter. Minister Lan was right about one thing—you all really should learn to take a more long-term view. Meeting adjourned.”

Lan Yuyan: ’…So he watched us argue for that long just to say that one sentence at the end?’

He had to admit, his father was really getting more and more pretentious.

Only his mother could put up with him.

The thought of his parents at home, occasionally acting out some romantic drama about a High-level male falling in love with a female from the slums…

…gave him goosebumps all over.

***

The netizens on the Star Network waited and waited, and finally, they got a response from Tianwen Entertainment.

But as it turned out, all they posted was a single video.

It was the clip from Jiang Qin’s livestream where she had responded to the plagiarism accusations.

They then tagged Jiang Qin and added the caption: Tianwen believes in Miss Jiang’s abilities. She is the Heavenly Representative we hired at a high price.

On August 15th, let’s all wait and see what happens!

Jiang Qin… Jiang Qin didn’t respond.

She didn’t even respond to the online accusations that Tianwen had bought the movie’s rights just to boost her reputation.

She had said it long ago: she would no longer respond to these kinds of matters.

If you have questions, fine. Bring evidence.

Stop spending all day playing Conan online, speculating about this and that.

Despite the loud chorus of doubts, the box office numbers for *Mutual Affection* continued to climb.

The people from the Ancient Culture Research Institute, in particular, not only watched it repeatedly but also stayed up all night searching through various ancient texts and records.

In the end, they managed to piece together a few images.

However, they still couldn’t make sense of it, so their only option was to contact Jiang Qin.

Their intention was to hire Jiang Qin as an external consultant. She would help clarify their questions from time to time, and the Ancient Culture Research Institute would pay her a monthly salary.

Furthermore, she would be entitled to all the benefits of their institute.

For example, participating in archaeological work, visiting museums not open to the public in the Federation, or receiving invitations to private auctions.

People without the right status wouldn’t even hear about these places, let alone get to participate.

So, Jiang Qin was tempted.

Back on Earth, she had always been quite interested in archaeology, but unfortunately, she never had the time to study it.

Now, she was just as interested in the history of the Interstellar era.

So, she replied with a single sentence: [What’s the exact salary?]

The Ancient Culture Research Institute quickly replied: [A monthly salary of 500,000 Star Coins, plus various benefits and bonuses. You can also get paid for answering difficult questions on our forum.]

Jiang Qin thought it was pretty good. It was another step closer to paying off her debt.

[Okay.]

“Professor, Miss Jiang agreed!”

Professor Gu quickly leaned in, exclaiming excitedly, “Quick, ask her if ancient humans had a unique Cultivation System, like the Martial Arts that appeared in the movie.”

The researcher did as he was told.

“Send her the records we have in our database, too. Ask her if they’re real.”

“Professor, are you sure she really knows? What if what she says isn’t true either?”

Professor Gu stated with conviction, “The records she has must be more complete than ours. We can’t even be sure if what we have is real or fake.

We only have some absurd and exaggerated descriptions, and we can’t even begin to imagine what kind of abilities they describe.

But she was able to turn it into a movie and clearly has a deep understanding of the architecture, clothing, and culture of that era. That alone proves she must know more than we do.

Furthermore, I suspect she might have something like a video recording from that era in her possession.”

They had returned to the mother planet for archaeological digs before and had even excavated video recordings, but without exception, none of them were playable anymore.

The technology of that time was too primitive. The items had been buried underground for so many years that by the time they were excavated, they were almost completely decayed.

They could only piece together bits of information.

…

Jiang Qin stared at the files sent by the Ancient Culture Research Institute, a look of utter confusion on her face…

On a tattered and blurry piece of paper, it was written:

Ye Fan let out a great roar and summoned a Five-clawed Golden Dragon. Its body was so immense that it covered the entire sky above Chang’an City.

But the black-robed elder didn’t back down in the slightest. He cackled sinisterly and sneered, “It’s nothing but a little golden worm.”

Then, with a wave of the Soul Summoning Banner in his hand, he summoned a mountain of corpses.

A dense mass of skeletons and rotting corpses roared at the golden dragon!

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep