Reaching the age of thirty, my income randomly doubled

Late April.

After the simultaneous opening of four Water Cloud Space salons, Chen Pingsheng visited Tengying Headquarters again.

The number of employees here kept growing, and so did the scale of the company.

Artist training classes are a common occurrence in major entertainment and film corporations, nothing out of the ordinary.

He was just doing what everyone else was doing.

As for whether he could nurture another superstar, that was up to luck and fate.

The entertainment industry works like this: minor success relies on luck, major success on resources, and explosive fame depends on destiny.

However, with the opening of these four Water Cloud Space stores, he had invested another ninety million around the third and fourth ring roads.

Nine more salons were planned to open simultaneously, expected to launch before October.

Now over three hundred beauticians were already recruited, following the same protocol of six months of unified training before starting.

Having reached this stage, he had almost spent the 1.4 billion previously earmarked for Water Cloud Space's development.

The marketing department also had statistics showing that Water Cloud Space, targeting only the high-end beauty and wellness market,

could only fit 25 to 30 salons even in cities beyond the first-tier.

Any more would be unsustainable.

To saturate the Capital City market, he could probably invest another hundred million to 150 million.

After that, it would be time to expand into other top-tier markets.

Those were considerations for the second half of the year; for now, Water Cloud Space's market strategy and expansion for the first half of the year were complete.

What followed was refining the details.

Having not been to Tengying Headquarters for a month, it seemed like the staff operated as if there was no boss at all, working incredibly relaxed.

Arriving on time and clocking out at exactly the end of the workday was the daily routine at Tengying.

There were no performance appraisals and certainly no KPI targets.

Even Bai Xin often marveled that Tengying was the most unconventional company in the entertainment industry.

Apart from Zhao Liying who was always busy filming, the rest were just chatting and farting around, waiting for the tenth of every month to receive their salaries.

If you think it's not making money, you're sorely mistaken.

The boss's investments have never failed.

After much effort in preparing the artist training classes, everyone thought they would be busier, but the boss hadn't even shown up.

Fine then, everyone became laid-back again.

The busiest would be Jiang Yilei's online marketing department.

Since they were responsible for the online promotions of the boss's other companies, she was a bit busier.

But just a bit busier.

After all, the department wasn't just her alone anymore, but had expanded by more than twenty younger members.

"Peiyao, where shall we eat lunch today?"

Bai Xin had gotten a raise, a significant one at that, and thought the boss would work her to the bone.

Who knew that, the next thing she knew, he was nowhere to be seen.

So much so that her life revolved around eating.

There were still many drama crews seeking investments, but without the boss's approval, Tengying wouldn't invest a penny.

Jiang Peiyao had just finished a class; she was quite frugal and usually ate the staff meal downstairs.

"Isn't there a buffet downstairs? They've changed the menu recently and the cooking is quite good."

"I know, it's from Fei Yangyang's place," Bai Xin said. "With my income, if I don't go out and spend money, I'm afraid the economy won't grow."

Jiang Peiyao giggled, finding her remark somewhat amusing.

A skyrocketing salary yet still looking to boost Capital City's GDP.

Just finding excuses to spend money on herself.

When Chen Pingsheng arrived, Bai Xin immediately stepped in place, her expression exaggerated, "Oh my gosh, Uncle, you're finally here."

"What's the matter? The company can't function without me?"

It had been a while since Chen Pingsheng had seen this little cousin of his, and he noticed she'd gained a bit of weight, particularly in all the right places.

Not bad, just two sizes smaller than Yang Mi.

Great potential.

"Peiyao, how have you been doing with your studies recently?"

"Pretty good, the teacher is very responsible," Jiang Peiyao replied with a cheerful smile.

Chen Pingsheng nodded and did not ask any further.

"How's the arrangement for the artist training classes going?"

"Uncle, there's been a lot of people signing up. After three rounds of selection by me, only these few were left."

Bai Xin opened her computer to show him the audition videos.

Each person had recorded an individual video, and Chen Pingsheng clicked on the first one. The candidate was quite good-looking.

But what was up with her laugh?

A pretty young girl, yet she laughed like a pig's snort.

"What's her name? She's quite interesting."

"Bai Lu, a small online celebrity. I think she has a real talent for comedy."

"Indeed, a bit."

He continued watching the others, and he couldn't deny that being an entertainment mogul meant seeing all kinds of people—comedic, cool, charming, adorable, and even female scholars.

At a glance, there was a complete variety.

Some had obviously plastic surgery faces. They were pretty, but they didn't look natural.

Unable to make too many facial expressions, what use was keeping these women?

Chen Pingsheng immediately eliminated all the candidates with plastic surgery. Not one of them was to stay.

"During the training period, they'll only get three thousand a month, and we'll regularly arrange for them to dance at Fei Yangyang."

"Boss, what do you mean by that?"

Bai Xin looked completely bewildered, her forehead full of question marks.

With such a group of beautiful women dancing at the restaurant, would those men have any appetite left to eat?

Chen Pingsheng said, "Do you think I'm just handing out salaries for nothing? Most of these people will be eliminated after a year. While they're here, they should obviously be making advertisements for me, right? Why not use them as live billboards? Meanwhile, we can also use it for online promotion."

Well, it was nothing new that their boss didn't play by the rules.

If it were any other boss who had hired such a group of pretty girls, they'd probably be thinking about how to exploit them every day.

Their boss, on the other hand, simply arranged for these women to do hard labor.

"Uncle, we haven't invested in a TV drama for a long time."

"There's no rush. We'll invest if there's something good. If not, we'll just continue with our own business."

In the era of high traffic, celebrity salaries had skyrocketed faster than housing prices. A few million used to be enough to make a big production.

Now, without a small goal, you can't even get a decent star.

Chen Pingsheng decided, for now, to invest all his money in his other businesses.

The main reason was that he hadn't seen any drama crews that seemed particularly profitable.

Otherwise, he'd be willing to splash out a few tens of millions.

"Oh," Bai Xin responded lightly.

After Chen Pingsheng came over and found there wasn't much to do at Tengying, he decided to go to his home in the afternoon with Jiang Peiyao.

His wife was due to give birth in a month, and it was a time when she needed care at home; his mother, Peng Ying, would be arriving in a couple of days.

And with May Day approaching, Chen An'an was going to be on holiday as well.

The little rascal was never still for a day, and the house had been seeing relatives over quite frequently.

Especially the in-laws from Capital City; taking advantage of Song Yanxi's pregnancy, they had been sending all kinds of gifts.

There's a saying that when you're wealthy, even distant relatives in the mountains become close—this is by no means a joke.

If he was still selling durians on the street like before, would these self-conceited Capital City relatives ever come to his door with gifts?

It would've been good if they even bothered to take a detour past his place.

Now, however, they were all showing up.

Each one was so caring and considerate, they'd probably even take care of his wife's toenails if they could.

Don't think it's an exaggeration, that's just how reality is.

If his wife so much as moved an eyebrow now, there would be a horde of relatives analyzing all kinds of meanings behind that gesture.

And then they'd offer their perfectly targeted advice.

When you have a lot of money, every little movement you make attracts countless people ready to bend over backward to cater to it.