Chapter 5: Young People Should Be Ambitious
Upon seeing Yang Ruoqian's somewhat darkened expression, Gao Naiyun felt a twinge of anxiety. After all, how could a streamer with not even half an audience demand such a high monthly salary of 2,500?
Gao Naiyun lowered her head and clenched her hands, waiting for Yang Ruoqian to negotiate down the salary. She only hoped that it wouldn't be so low that she couldn't even cover her rent, or else she'd have to take on several part-time jobs...
Seeing a hesitant girl, Yang Ruoqian sighed and took the initiative to speak, "For renting my room, the monthly rent is 1,500, right?"
"Um..."
"For your monthly meals, let's estimate on the lower side, at least 2,000, right?"
Gao Naiyun hesitated for a moment and said, "No..."
But Yang Ruoqian didn't give her a chance to speak and continued, "You're a girl, so you'll need to buy cosmetics, and you'll need new clothes, right? An expense of 500 is quite reasonable, isn't it?"
"Uh, well..."
"On weekends, you'll want to go out, right? For leisure activities during the week, you might want to buy in-game items if you play video games, right? You should have some savings for emergencies, right? You'll need transportation for work... When you add all these up, isn't 2,000 per month reasonable?"
"Your mother needs medical treatment, which is definitely costly. I'm suggesting 1,500. Is that reasonable?"
If it weren't so absurd, Yang Ruoqian almost wanted to include compensation for emotional distress.
Yang Ruoqian rambled on for a while and then summarized, "No, 2,500 is definitely not enough. Here's the deal: an 8,000 base salary with all the benefits, the company deducts 10% of your livestream earnings as operating expenses, and we provide meals and accommodation. I'll waive the rent for you. Does that sound reasonable to you?"
The higher the no-liability base salary, the more likely employees were to slack off.
So, the higher the salary, the more they would earn in the future!
Compared to the upcoming fifty million, these amounts were all insignificant.
Yang Ruoqian didn't care at all.
Gao Naiyun was left dumbfounded by Yang Ruoqian's words. Her naturally somewhat confused eyes were now filled with bewilderment. When Yang Ruoqian initially calculated the salary, he included the rent, but now he was waiving the rent, and the salary remained unchanged. What kind of operation was this?
How could a girl possibly spend 2,000 on meals in a month?
In general, a streamer could receive 45% of the total gifts, but Yang Ruoqian mentioned that the company would only deduct 10%?
In other words, Gao Naiyun would have to receive 80,000 in gifts every month just to cover the 8,000 base salary, and that didn't even include other operating costs!
What kind of wealthy corporation could afford to do this?
Seeing the girl remain silent, Yang Ruoqian asked thoughtfully, "Is it not enough, or do you think the operation cost deduction is too much?"
"No, it's… Mr. Yang, it's way too much..."
"How can a young person think their salary is too high?" Yang Ruoqian scolded her sternly. "Young people should always feel that their salary is too low and strive to improve!"
An 8,000 no-liability base salary every month wasn't enough? And it was still considered striving for improvement?
Gao Naiyun suddenly felt like she didn't understand the language anymore.
So, this was what it meant to strive for improvement?
"The salary is settled then. I'll give you the company's address, and you can report to work tomorrow. Sign the employment contract while you're at it."
Yang Ruoqian crumpled the rental contract in his hand and threw it into the trash can. "When can you start, and what time slot do you plan to livestream?"
Gao Naiyun snapped back to reality and said softly, "Can I start next week? I need to visit my mother in my hometown this week."
Next week? That meant it was already the next month, but the system calculated payments for artists and streamers at the end of the month. If Gao Naiyun didn't livestream, the system wouldn't start counting her followers, wasting a whole month's settlement period! Rounded up, that was a loss of one hundred million.
"It's fine, you can livestream casually when you visit your hometown. You should learn to be flexible and not be confined to a specific location," Yang Ruoqian advised with a straight face, fabricating more nonsense. "Understand how to broaden your horizons, expand your perspectives, and break free from conventional thinking to achieve success."
What nonsense.
Without a professional team to shoot outdoors, outdoor livestreaming would be of terrible quality. Blurry visuals, shaky camera, and noise would make it hard to even gain a single follower.
This one hundred million reward was practically a sure thing!
Gao Naiyun blinked her eyes, and a weak question escaped her lips, "But, sir... My hometown is just a vast grassland. What should I livestream?"
"A vast grassland? A vast grassland is great!" Yang Ruoqian pretended to be enthusiastic. "You can livestream the scenery, focus on herds of sheep and cows against the backdrop of the blue sky and white clouds. Let the viewers see how the animals graze."
"But, but we don't have cows..."
"It doesn't matter. Just focus on the sheep. The key is to show these kinds of scenes to the audience."
Gao Naiyun listened in a daze, feeling that something was wrong but not knowing where. So, she could actually attract viewers with this?
"Will anyone watch this?" she asked.
Yang Ruoqian said seriously, "In this day and age, it's all about differentiated competition. Everyone else is dancing and looking the same, but we're different. We focus on purifying the soul and letting the audience feel the charm of the grassland! Rest assured, it will definitely catch on!"
The young girl, who hadn't seen much of the world, was inspired by Yang Ruoqian's words. She nodded earnestly and said, "Okay, I'll give it a try."
Adhering to the advanced concept of accepting whatever comes, Yang Ruoqian continued to fabricate, "Create a new account for livestreaming, don't use the old one. Out with the old, in with the new. We need to completely sperate the ties with your previous account's popularity. We need to break it to make it, bury it to resurrect it!"
Gao Naiyun was inspired by Yang Ruoqian's words. She nodded vigorously and said, "Alright, break it to make it!"
"Good, I'll head back now."
After that, Yang Ruoqian stood up and left, closing the door behind him.
It wasn't because he had something urgent to do but because he was afraid that if he stayed any longer, he would run out of nonsense to say.
As for whether Gao Naiyun's livestream would have viewers and whether it would be profitable, it was not within Yang Ruoqian's consideration at all.
However, he didn't see the sudden surge of fighting spirit in Gao Naiyun's eyes behind him.
"Since the boss has such confidence in me, I ought not to let him down. I ought to become successful!"
...
A few days later, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.
Yang Ruoqian and Chang Zhiqing were at the bank handling company business.
After careful consideration, Yang Ruoqian decided on the company's name: " Xplendi Entertainment Ltd."
On the surface, it seemed like the expending the horizon of the company profile and explore the untouched area of predecessors.
But in reality, it was a homonym for "expenditure", squandering money without profiting.
This name symbolized Yang Ruoqian's hope that none of the artists under his company would gain any followers, allowing the company to lose all its radiance, an ambitious ideal indeed.
Chang Zhiqing handed over the completed forms and returned to sit beside Yang Ruoqian, stretching her sore arm.
Setting up a new subsidiary company required quite a bit of work.
Seals, financial stamps, tax registration, opening a bank account, and so on were all troublesome tasks.
Being short-staffed, Yang Ruoqian had to personally handle every trivial matter.
As for recruiting new employees, Yang Ruoqian felt it was difficult to find ideal candidates for his entertainment company that preferred flops over stars...
Because normal employees usually tried to help their company grow positively, but Yang Ruoqian's requirements were just the opposite.
He couldn't possibly tell his employees directly to intentionally waste the company's resources, right?
While Yang Ruoqian was pondering how to recruit employees, Chang Zhiqing suddenly poked his arm. "Yang Ruoqian, isn't today Gao Naiyun's livestream debut?"
When Yang Ruoqian decided to recruit Gao Naiyun, Chang Zhiqing didn't completely agree with it. She knew her roommate very well; she was soft-spoken, introverted, and somewhat insecure, making her unsuitable for becoming a streamer.
However, since it was the boss's decision, there must be a deep reason behind it.
Even in such a difficult situation, Yang Ruoqian insisted on entering the livestreaming and entertainment industry. He must have done thorough research and preparation; it couldn't have been a rash decision.
As an employee, Chang Zhiqing had to follow the boss's instructions.
"Yeah, it's her debut, and she's probably been streaming for a little while already," Yang Ruoqian smiled. "Concerned about your roommate?"
Chang Zhiqing sighed. "We haven't even joined a livestreaming platform, we haven't formed a guild, and we don't have any way to promote her livestream. How can we get any traffic if we don't spend money out of our pockets to send gifts?"
Without special contracts, streamers had two basic ways to gain viewers.
The first was to join a guild, and such guilds usually had "items" similar to recommendation cards that could prominently place the streamer in the guild's broadcasting section. The number of these items depended on the guild's total revenue, and generally, there weren't many to go around. That's why guilds recruited lower-revenue streamers—they aimed to accumulate enough revenue to obtain powerful promotion items like homepage recommendations.
Then, they would use these items on their top streamers to maximize their benefits.
In other words, the lower-tier streamers in a guild were essentially "consumables" for the top streamers. These lower-tier streamers worked tirelessly to generate revenue, but they would never be able to enjoy the benefits of the promotion items they helped earn.
The second method was more direct: donations. If a streamer received real money gifts and completed certain recurring live stream tasks, they could obtain promotion items for their own use.
However, the effectiveness of this second method was much worse than the first.
So, Gao Naiyun, without a guild, could only rely on the second method to get traffic.
A completely empty livestream room could be very demoralizing for a streamer, especially one as introverted and self-conscious as Gao Naiyun.
Yang Ruoqian understood the situation and nodded. "Makes sense. How about we send her a couple of airplanes?"
Since this money could be considered a company operating cost, it could be paid from the company's official account.
"Sure."
The two of them took out their phones and searched for "Yun Nai" on the Shark Live app.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone