Reaching the age of thirty, my income randomly doubled-Chapter 1078 - 804: Short Drama Company and the Boss

Chen Pingsheng was driving his Maybach to work.

Their company was well-known in the short drama circle, but in the capital market, it was just a small fry.

Forget the entire short drama circle; even the entertainment circle is merely a place producing beauties in the face of capital.

And the biggest commercial value of these beauties isn’t just endorsing a brand or ads.

It’s more about building bridges when encountering water, or carving roads through mountains.

Those who understand, understand: whenever a big boss has an unsolvable project or some tricky issue.

They’ll invest in a big entertainment project, and by exchanging resources, have these beauties accompany the figures behind the boss. Once it’s successful, it’s more beneficial than endorsing a hundred ads.

But the entertainment industry was completely reformatted by the short drama circle in 2025. The fast-paced, short dramas killed off those lengthy series of forty or fifty episodes, where twenty episodes would be filler, leaving them audience-less.

Short video explanations made it rare for domestic viewers to even visit cinemas.

Since the super A-list female star’s "Towards the Sunflower," the movie investment path completely abandoned the old style of big investments with flow stars and large IPs.

Nowadays, movies are mostly small-budget investments, with lead actors reducing their pay in exchange for salary-based shares.

What does that mean?

The era where flow stars casually earned tens of millions in fees is long gone.

Now, the stars are participating and sharing the risks together.

If it makes money, everyone earns together; if it loses, you can’t even get your basic fee.

This model has brought many entertainment companies back to life.

Tengying Entertainment was also a pioneer of this model, and later, no matter whether it was long dramas or films, they all adopted this model.

Sharing risks, sharing achievements.

Whether it’s short videos or short dramas, they’ve greatly promoted the development of the entertainment circle.

The most significant change remains the significantly improved status of screenwriters in the industry.

Previously, domestic screenwriters’ status was inferior to a dog; slightly big stars brought their own screenwriters and could change lines and scripts whenever.

Especially those second-tier supporting roles backed by capital; if unsatisfied, they’d crazily add more scenes for themselves.

This situation greatly changed after the entertainment industry’s overall reformation.

Whether small-budget movies or small-budget long dramas, as long as the script is good and the actors have passable skills, they can become popular, if not huge hits.

In contrast, those big investments, with screenwriters who like to add scenes for themselves, including first-tier stars, often lose money to the point their own mothers won’t recognize them.

This has led the circle to increasingly value the status and development of screenwriters, to the point where a gold-level screenwriter can criticize lead stars, including big names.

Besides censorship, in many other aspects, the domestic entertainment circle still follows the development of the Korean wave; it’s been like that from the early days, except that screenwriters’ status wasn’t as high as in the Korean circle.

After these years of profound lessons, eventually, good screenwriters were finally given top priority.

They are the best controllers of the script and quality.

If the script is garbage and randomly changed, no matter who you get to act, it’s pointless.

The entertainment circle is like that; even more so in the short drama circle, where valuing screenwriters first started with short drama development.

Because whether a short drama becomes a hit or not depends on the script, and the actors come last.

A good short drama company must have good screenwriters.

Chen Pingsheng started promoting this very early, and it didn’t gradually improve until 2026.

He was assigned to a newcomer group, which was also his own intent; each group’s primary task each month is to write a good plot and release a decent short drama.

And their bonuses and income are tied to the performance of that short drama.

This is the prevailing achievement-sharing trend in the entertainment circle now.

If it’s successful, everyone benefits; if it’s not, it’s not just the boss who bears it alone.

The team had six people: three screenwriters and three newly graduated female interns.

Even though they’re all newcomers, they come from legitimate backgrounds, and each one looks pretty good.

If you don’t have a bit of good looks, how can you mix in the entertainment industry?

The three newcomers were named Yue Yuting, Ye Qi, and Li Yuxin.

All fresh beauties in their early twenties.

To be assigned to such a newcomer group, along with such an old-version group leader.

There’s always a sense that the future looks somewhat bleak.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Chen Pingsheng was the oldest in the company; other group leaders were at most no older than thirty-five.

Being too old, he might just take them to shoot an elderly version of "The Dominating CEO Falls in Love with Me."

"Let me introduce myself; you can call me Old Chen, Chen of Old Chen. From now on, you all can just call me Old Chen. It’s the first day at work, so I’ll treat you all to a buffet lunch next door."

Working at the short drama company is quite leisurely for him, unlike those actors who might suddenly shoot for fifteen or sixteen hours a day.

Many short drama actors get paid daily; naturally, investors want to speed up the process, as finishing quicker saves money.

The investment cost for a short drama can be as little as seven to eight hundred thousand, but four to five million isn’t uncommon.

The short drama circle has had many scammers who rally the public for crowdfunding; if they win, the boss takes 90%, but if they lose, the loss naturally spreads among everyone.

"Leader, you’re finally here. At the end of the year, the boss said he would assign us a new leader, and we’ve been waiting."

Yue Yuting had a great appearance, a "chosen one" for historical roles, capable of being pure or alluring. This boss still put some thought into sending such a newbie to his group.

Ye Qi leaned more towards the sweet style, extremely cute when smiling, and the other, Li Yuxin, belonged to the Korean beauty type, a kind of cool, fragile beauty.

All three had great looks; if not for Zhang Wanyi giving him a heads-up, how could beauties of such caliber all end up in his newbie group?