After Rebirth, I Accept The Arranged Marriage-Chapter 143: "He Just Gave Too Much!

The moment Jessie Sterling updated her latest manga, Lynn Jennings was on her case.

[Lynn Jennings: @Jessie Sterling, you have absolutely no principles! How could you ditch your five adorable backup boyfriends so quickly?]

Lynn Jennings sent this message in their small temporary group chat, which also included Quincy and Serena Lynch.

Although Quincy and Serena Lynch didn’t know each other personally, Quincy had surprisingly mentioned when they first created the group that she remembered seeing Serena at a summit once.

Serena Lynch, who didn’t usually read manga, had started following Jessie Sterling’s "New Marriage Diary" after Lynn Jennings shared it with her. However, Serena wasn’t following it because she loved manga, but rather to get a front-row seat to all the drama.

Right after Lynn Jennings sent her message, Serena Lynch chimed in.

[Serena Lynch: Exactly! You finally had a chance to get the upper hand with Victor. Jessie, you should have given him the cold shoulder for a while longer!]

Seeing everyone’s complaints in the group chat, Jessie Sterling sighed lazily and sent a voice message to them all—

"What can I say? He just gave me so much."

[Lynn Jennings: ??? Jessie Sterling, it’s been two days, and now you’re cracking dirty jokes so casually?]

Jessie Sterling nearly blew a gasket when she saw that. One second she was completely listless, and the next, the tone of her voice message sounded like she was charging at Lynn Jennings with a forty-meter blade—

"Lynn Jennings! What kind of filth is rattling around in that brain of yours all day?!"

[Lynn Jennings: Just research data.]

Jessie Sterling: "..."

[Quincy Sterling: @Jessie Sterling, so what did my brother-in-law use to buy you off?]

Jessie Sterling looked at the group chat and couldn’t help but give her little sister a mental thumbs-up.

’Look at my sister, she really gets it!’

[Jessie Sterling: Victor Morgan gave me an entertainment company!]

[Lynn Jennings: ??!!]

[Serena Lynch: ?! What? Spill the details!]

[Quincy Sterling: Which one? What’s its name? I’ll look it up for you.]

Jessie Sterling hugged her phone, grinning like an idiot. To be honest, even she hadn’t expected that after Victor Morgan had humbled himself to apologize for the New Year’s Day incident, there would be subsequent "compensation" clauses.

When Victor Morgan handed her a gift agreement the previous night, she had been so surprised she’d even asked him what it was.

"It’s Apex Films," Jessie Sterling typed into the chat.

[Serena Lynch: Huh? It’s that old, established film company? I heard back in December that the company had a new boss, but I never thought it would be Victor. If that’s the case, I admit it, Victor’s offer really was too good to refuse. If it were me, I’d drop the five backups too. Once I have the company, will I be short on backups? Hahaha.]

[Serena Lynch: Victor really kept that under wraps.]

[Lynn Jennings: I know that film company. But haven’t all of their most popular actors already left? They all started their own studios. How many people are even left there now?] 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Jessie Sterling had only just taken over the company yesterday, and she had no prior experience. However, Victor Morgan hadn’t intended for her to manage it when he acquired the entertainment company. He had hired a professional team.

The Morgan Group was primarily focused on industrial enterprises and had no entertainment companies in its portfolio. His sudden acquisition of an established film company had left everyone wondering what he was up to.

"Don’t you dislike Thorne Pictures? Take this company and play around with it."

Those were Victor Morgan’s exact words from last night.

It even took Jessie Sterling a moment to realize which company Thorne Pictures was.

’Isn’t that the film company owned by Arya Thorne’s family?’

Although Apex Films was a major, long-established domestic film company, it had been poorly managed in recent years and was on the verge of being surpassed by Thorne Pictures.

"I don’t have any experience managing a company," Jessie Sterling said, naturally a little uneasy now that she had it.

"It’s not like we can’t afford the loss," Victor Morgan had said.

Jessie Sterling: "..."

But of course, she wouldn’t share what Victor Morgan had said with her friends in the group chat.

She was afraid of getting kicked out of the group again for "public displays of affection."

[Quincy Sterling: Apex Films was basically run into the ground by its former owner. I’ve heard some rumors. Their previous boss had some real skill; as a talent scout, he was second to none. He could always find stunningly beautiful men and women among ordinary people, which is why Apex Films dominated the domestic market in its early days. But while the boss was good at picking people and making them famous, he just couldn’t retain them.]

Jessie Sterling had never been interested in this kind of gossip before, but seeing how much Quincy Sterling seemed to know, she asked her directly, "Why couldn’t he retain them?"

[Lynn Jennings: The boss treated his most popular artists like dogs. Of course he couldn’t keep them, hahaha.]

It wasn’t exactly a well-kept secret; most people in the industry had heard something about it.

Jessie Sterling just hadn’t been paying attention, so she didn’t know.

[Quincy Sterling: That’s right. Once those actors became famous, who would let themselves be treated like that? So one by one, they all had falling outs with their old company and left to start their own businesses. The film industry today isn’t like it was decades ago. There are more and more independent studios. Those studios are anchored by popular actors and have their own resources, so many newcomers choose to sign with a star’s personal studio.]

Over time, Apex just fell into decline.

But back in its early years, Apex Films produced quite a few good TV series. At least by the standards of today’s film and TV industry, their crews could be called legendary.

It was these classics that propped up Apex Films, allowing it to coast for a few more years.

[Lynn Jennings: How do you plan to manage it?]

Even if Jessie Sterling wasn’t involved in the day-to-day management, she was the owner and could decide the company’s future direction.

[Jessie Sterling: I haven’t really thought it through, but I’m kind of thinking about buying the rights to manga for adaptations.]

She rarely read novels, and most of the TV series on the market were adaptations of novels.

Jessie Sterling had seen plenty of them, but she felt that she had also read many excellent manga that, if adapted, wouldn’t be any worse than those based on popular novels.

[Quincy Sterling: You could handle the entire rights pipeline—produce live-action TV series, and also make animations.]

[Jessie Sterling: !!! I was thinking the same thing! It’s just that Apex Films doesn’t really have anyone who works on animation right now.]

[Quincy Sterling: So, are you bullish on the animation industry?]

[Jessie Sterling: I actually think the domestic animation market has a lot of potential. The domestic animation from many years ago was really good. But over the last decade or so, it’s been flooded with Japanese anime, and a lot of people think our country doesn’t have any real animation to speak of.]

[Quincy Sterling: Then do it. If you want to do it, just go for it.]

Quincy Sterling didn’t think it was a big deal. In her eyes, her older sister just lacked experience, but she certainly had a lot of ideas.

If she were given a chance to spread her wings, Quincy figured that Jessie Sterling would probably do quite well, at least fueled by her initial burst of enthusiasm.