Chapter 153: Chapter 153: Kick-off Red Envelopes

This was the first show Jessie Sterling had spearheaded since starting her new job, so she went to the set on the day of the opening ceremony.

Thorne Pictures had already generated a lot of buzz for Nina Walsh, and the male lead in her new youth idol drama was also a popular A-list star.

Stars with a huge online following naturally generate their own buzz. Even before signing with Thorne Pictures, Nina Walsh had already amassed a large number of fans on her personal social media account. So, on the day of its opening ceremony, *Youth Handbook* immediately started trending.

Jessie Sterling kept a low profile at the ceremony. She was the company’s owner, but she wasn’t the producer or in a similar role, and she had no intention of mingling with the actors.

She sat in her car, watching from a distance as the host kicked things off. That was followed by a speech from the original author, and then the director and others spoke. Before they even got to the ritual of praying to the cardinal directions and burning incense, Jessie’s phone suddenly rang.

She glanced down and saw it was a call from Victor Morgan. Jessie was a little taken aback.

“Is something wrong?” Jessie asked the moment she answered.

’It’s the middle of the workday. Victor is always swamped at the office; when would he have free time to call me?’

Hearing Jessie ask that question right away, Victor couldn’t help but reflect. ’What kind of person am I in my wife’s eyes? Why does she immediately assume something is wrong whenever I call? Can’t a husband and wife just chat for no reason?’

“The show you picked out starts filming today, right?” Victor asked.

Jessie nodded, humming in affirmation.

She was a little puzzled. ’I don’t think I mentioned work to Victor yesterday.’

In fact, Victor never seemed worried about this being her first time managing a company. He never pried. He would only offer solutions when she ran into trouble and asked for his help. Otherwise, he never interfered.

Jessie really appreciated that about him.

“You give out red envelopes at the opening ceremony, don’t you? Check the trunk,” Victor said.

Victor had left Aethelburg early that morning to attend some meeting in Marinus, so Jessie had driven to the office by herself.

Hearing his words, Jessie opened the car door and stepped out.

After hearing the CLICK-CLACK of high heels on the other end of the line, Victor asked, “See it?”

Jessie had already opened the trunk. Inside was a large cardboard box, filled to the brim with red envelopes.

What’s more, she could tell at a glance that the envelopes were custom-made.

They were each imprinted not only with the initial “S,” but also an adorable cartoon avatar.

Jessie asked in surprise, “When did you prepare these? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Victor’s laughter came through the phone. “Would it be a surprise if I’d told you?”

Jessie smiled, pressing her lips together. “So, President Morgan, you’ve provided all these envelopes… is there anything actually in them?”

Recently, many film crews had been trying to save money. Forget fifty-dollar envelopes; some just stuck a two-dollar lottery ticket inside.

Whether you struck it rich or not was all up to luck.

Jessie wasn’t that cheap. She had followed the standard for a feature film and put 188 in each of her envelopes.

Hearing this, Victor almost sputtered with laughter.

“Is your husband that cheap?”

’How could I not put money in them for her? Was I supposed to just give her a box of empty envelopes?’

“Open one and see,” Victor said.

Jessie would have opened one even if he hadn’t said anything.

President Morgan was indeed not cheap. But he also didn’t want to create too much of a hassle for the finance department, so he had simply put a round two hundred in each envelope.

“That’s a lot,” Jessie said, beaming. Of course she was pleased.

Even though the money wasn’t for her, this was Victor’s way of making her look good.

“I’ll be back to pick you up for dinner tonight,” Victor said. “Have a successful first day.”

After hanging up, Jessie called her secretary, who came jogging over from the set a moment later.

“President Sterling, you were looking for me?”

Jessie’s secretary was a woman in her early thirties who had already been with Apex Films for several years. People called her Ms. Celia. She was efficient and meticulous.

Jessie pointed to the red envelopes in the trunk. “Ms. Celia, could you please hand these out for me in a bit?”

Ms. Celia was surprised. “President Sterling, didn’t you already have the finance department prepare a box of envelopes?”

’She herself had brought that first box to the set this morning. How did her boss suddenly materialize another one?’

Jessie explained with a hint of resignation, “It’s fine. These don’t need to go through company finances. Consider them a personal contribution from me.”

Ms. Celia was only surprised for a moment. After all, ever since Jessie had joined the company, their budget had become much more generous. And from what she had observed, their new boss was definitely not short on cash.

’Handing out a second round of red envelopes on a whim was exactly the kind of thing she’d do.’

“Understood.” Ms. Celia nodded readily. “I’ll go make the arrangements.”

As she lifted the box, Ms. Celia couldn’t resist turning back to ask, “Should I have the PR department handle this?”

“Hm?”

Ms. Celia explained, “Thorne Pictures’ *Youth Handbook* also started filming today. They’re livestreaming their opening ceremony. Since they have a few fairly famous online celebrities, *Youth Handbook* is all over the trending topics on several social media platforms. We, on the other hand, have no buzz at all.”

’With the red envelopes as a gimmick,’ Ms. Celia thought, ’PR would definitely know how to blow the topic up.’

Jessie thought about it for a moment before refusing outright.

“There’s no need.”

’It’s not like it’s a huge amount of money.’

’She’d be embarrassed to brag about giving out just two hundred per envelope.’

But the crew of *Glory* started trending anyway.

It wasn’t because her subordinates had gone against her wishes and hyped it up. Instead, a logistics staffer on the crew had posted a picture of their red envelopes online.

“I’ve been in this industry for almost ten years, but this is the first time I’ve run into such generous bosses!!! Look! Three huge red envelopes! Our bosses gave us two, adding up to almost four hundred! And the original author gave one too! It’s also one hundred and eighty-eight! Plus a few smaller ones from the main cast. Wow! The money I got from red envelopes in one day is way more than my daily wage!”

As soon as the post went up, it started getting attention—anything related to money, especially the money of ordinary people, tends to draw a crowd. What’s more, most of the poster’s mutual followers were also people who worked in the film industry.

“Wow! Those are some huge envelopes! I’m crying, for last month’s opening ceremony, I only got sixty total, and that was from three envelopes combined.”

“Holy crap, our feature film crew only gets two-hundred-dollar envelopes. Manny, aren’t you on a web series crew?”

“For real? Which production is that loaded?!”

“Isn’t Thorne Pictures the one that started filming today? I heard their female lead is a legit rich heiress. Supposedly even richer than Junko’s family. Is that the production the OP is on?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep