Chapter 16: Trying to Persuade
Li Qin waited for more than ten minutes with some trepidation, and finally heard Li Shaohong beside her let out a long sigh and finished her work. Then she changed her glasses, stood up and sat down on the sofa next to Li Qin.

“Why did you suddenly come to Jingbei?” Li Shaohong asked gently, looking at his “favorite disciple” in front of him.

Li Qin showed a fresh and sweet smile, and said in a coquettish tone: “The TV series has ended. I have nothing to do recently, so I thought of coming to see Auntie.”

“That’s thoughtful.” Li Shaohong patted Li Qin’s hand and nodded with satisfaction.

Li Shaohong has a daughter who is also in the film and television industry. Because she studies and works abroad all year round, they don’t see each other for a long time. Therefore, for Li Qin, the girl whom he took great efforts to pull away from school and brought up, he can’t help but invest some feelings for his daughter.

After a few pleasantries, Li Shaohong turned the topic back to work: “The performance of your recently aired series Brilliant Life is very good. Both the platform and the brand are very satisfied. This will be a great help to the priority of your future works and the recognition in the industry.”

The “Brilliant Life” that Li Shaohong mentioned is a TV series that has just been aired on Mango TV. The starring actors are Li Qin and Peter Ho. The theme is still the sad love drama that Rong Xinda loves. The content is basically a collection of classic bloody plots such as childhood sweethearts, best friends turning against each other, two women fighting for a husband, generational grievances, real and fake daughters, etc.

But you know what, there are quite a few viewers who like this show. The show was broadcasted in the prime time of Mango TV, and it took only four or five episodes to win the first place in the ratings and audience share in the same period.

However, Li Shaohong was not satisfied with this result because although the ratings of the entire drama were very good, Li Qin’s personal popularity did not increase much.

In fact, this is also a common problem for TV dramas of this type, because the main audience group is generally older, and this group of people rarely participate in online discussions, so it is easy to have a situation of “high ratings but low popularity”.

All I can say is that this kind of Korean-style tragic love and Taiwanese misery drama belongs to the last era.

“So I discussed this with Xiao Wan before, and asked your agent to change the subject matter when accepting scripts for you in the future.” Li Shaohong said: “The most popular subject matter in the past two years is ancient idol dramas, you can try this route.”

As he spoke, Li Shaohong stood up, walked to the table, took out a document and handed it to Li Qin.

“This is a script I got two days ago. It’s produced by the same producer as “Brilliant Life”, and the subject matter happens to be a historical romance drama. With your performance in the previous film, it will be no problem for you to get this role,” Li Shaohong introduced.

Li Qin took the document, which was a script with the title “The Best Bride” written on the cover. She opened the script and took a quick look. As Li Shaohong said, it was indeed a costume idol comedy.

If she had received the script a few days ago, Li Qin would have agreed without hesitation.

A TV drama that is broadcast on satellite TV, a popular ancient idol drama, a regular production, a female lead, and a good salary…

In comparison, Meng Bai’s online drama project, for which he doesn’t even know where the investment will come from, looks like a soap bubble that could burst at any time.

Objectively speaking, anyone would know what to choose.

but……

Li Shaohong, who was standing by, saw Li Qin staring at the script in her hand for a long time without saying anything, and thought that she had found something wrong, so she couldn’t help but ask: “What’s the matter, is there something wrong with the script?”

“Ah, no, no.” Li Qin came back to his senses and shook his head quickly.

Li Shaohong nodded: “Since there is no problem, I will let your agent discuss the specific contract with the production company.”

“Uh, wait, Auntie!”

Li Qin hurriedly called Li Shaohong, who was about to stand up. Under her puzzled gaze, she steeled herself and said, “Auntie, I actually came here to tell you something… I have a friend who is going to film a drama recently. I read his script and found it quite interesting. The role of the heroine is also very suitable for me, so… I want to give it a try.”

After hesitating for a long time, my subjective feelings finally prevailed.

Li Qin anticipated that as soon as she finished speaking, she would be met with fierce opposition from Li Shaohong.

But what she didn’t expect was that Li Shaohong didn’t rush to say anything after hearing that. After thinking quietly for a few seconds, she frowned and asked, “Your friend’s play?” The topic was already on the table, and Li Qin no longer had the previous anxiety and simply nodded, “Yes.”

“which company?”

“The producer is Leshi.com.” Although she didn’t know what the result would be on Meng Bai’s side, Li Qin could only believe that he could succeed.

“Leshi.com? That video website?” Li Shaohong’s expression finally changed. She looked at Li Qin and said, “So, it’s an online drama?”

“Yes, because the subject matter is sensitive, it may be difficult to pass review through conventional channels, so we chose to broadcast it on video websites.” Li Qin said.

“Is the subject matter sensitive?” Li Shaohong frowned.

Just as Meng Bai and Gan Wei said, because the current online dramas are not popular, many of them are produced by amateur teams or small companies. In order to attract attention, many producers take advantage of the lax supervision of the Internet and make all kinds of vulgar jokes and show nudity.

Li Shaohong obviously thought that the “sensitive subject matter” that Li Qin mentioned was of this type, and immediately planned to stop her severely.

What a joke! The company worked so hard to establish a pure and sweet persona for you, and now you tell me you want to do those messy things?

Li Qin also realized the misunderstanding and quickly explained: “This script is a supernatural suspense theme, involving a lot of traditional folk customs and ghost legends, so it is more sensitive.”

After that, she added: “The plot is really like a ghost.”

After hearing Li Qin’s explanation, Li Shaohong’s face looked better. It sounded like at least it wasn’t one of those “bad dramas” that skirted the line and messed with color.

However, she still wasn’t going to agree.

Nowadays, audiences’ impression of online dramas is “cheap”, “rough” and “unfashionable”.

Although Li Qin is only a third-tier actress now, she is still a rising star that Rong Xinda is promoting. How could he allow her to lower her status to act in an online drama?

Li Qin looked at the change in Li Shaohong’s face and probably guessed what she was thinking. She couldn’t help but get anxious. She quickly recalled the excuses she had prepared in the past few days and the conversation with Meng Bai. Thoughts flashed in her mind, and then a new idea came to her like a flash of inspiration.

Without waiting for Li Shaohong to express her opinion, Li Qin took the initiative to speak: “Aunt Li, actually the reason why I want to take on my friend’s play is not only because I think the script is good, but also because I want to give it a try.”

“Try?” Li Shaohong’s refusal was interrupted by Li Qin, and she subconsciously followed her words and asked, “What try?”

Li Qin quickly organized her words in her mind and blurted out, “Just like what you just said, Auntie, the performance and ratings of several dramas in the past two years are good, but the popularity and heat are not high. The biggest reason may be that the subject matter and character settings are no longer suitable for young audiences.”

“Several popular dramas in the past two years, such as “Empresses in the Palace”, “Scarlet Heart”, etc., are very different from traditional romance dramas in terms of subject matter, setting, and characters. It is this sense of novelty that attracts audiences to discuss and exchange ideas, which in turn creates extremely high popularity.”

“So I was thinking, should I also try some new types of roles, no longer limited to the kind of ‘little white flower’ type of heroine, but explore some more styles of images.”

“That’s a great idea.” Li Shaohong interrupted Li Qin and said, “The style of the heroine in the script I gave you this time is a little different from the previous ones. It’s a good opportunity for you to try a new route.”

“But Auntie, no one knows what the effect of this change will be. There will always be successes and failures in attempts. I think it will cost much less to try with the performance of an online drama than with a TV series on satellite TV.”

Li Qin spoke more and more fluently. At the beginning, she was racking her brains to think of something to say, but in the end, it seemed as if she had always thought so.

　It looks like it will be on the new book list this week, and I hope all the readers will vote for it. If you have any opinions, you can also leave more comments. Let’s at least try to get into the top 100 (bow to everyone!)

　
(End of this chapter)