Chapter 27: A House Worth Over One Hundred Million, A Loss of Tens of Millions

Another new day dawned.

Early in the morning, Li Wenyu exercised and had breakfast with Pang Bing before heading to the set of *Wonder Boy*. Yesterday’s press conference had concluded, and today marked the official start of filming with the cast and crew.

Pang Bing had used every trick in her book to convince him to come and hold down the fort, and incidentally, to stake her claim. On the way there, she asked curiously, "Is the beauty pageant website ready? The '2001 Most Beautiful Faces in Asia'?"

"How many votes do I have? What’s my ranking? It better not be too far off from the outside world, or I’ll be the laughingstock."

The driver was a professional, an assistant and translator provided by Wang Jinghua. In the backseat, Pang Bing was whispering, her expression a mix of anticipation, nervousness, and yearning.

Last night at midnight, the massive tech giant Penguin had launched the pageant site, "Penguin Net." The moment it went live, it was flooded with hired posters and Penguin’s own army of bot accounts.

In the mainland, internet users who had been drifting between NetEase, Sohu, Tianya, and various university bulletin boards were already debating this very topic. Once the mainland version of the "Most Beautiful Faces in Asia" went live on Penguin Net, featuring professional registration and real-time voting, the homepage was filled with photo profiles of the freshest young beauties in the mainland.

Each profile included stunning galleries, and the rankings updated in real-time.

Currently, Pang Bing sat firmly in first place with over 300,000 votes. Clicking on her profile revealed an internal link similar to a Tieba forum, essentially her exclusive fan base.

In second place was the "mute girl" Huang Shengyi, with 190,000 votes. Her link led to her own exclusive forum, where hired posters were busy sharing every detail about her. As for other beauties like Gao Yuanyuan and Hu Jing, Penguin had seeded them with a few bot-driven activities.

It hadn't even been eight hours since the site went live.

Starting today, the hired posters would lead the charge, calling on friends and rallying the scattered netizens to Penguin Net’s "Most Beautiful Faces in Asia" to vent their passion for this internet carnival and debate.

The mainland version would also regularly update the rankings from the international version!

This was the kind of drama that could keep countless netizens entertained to their hearts' content.

Penguin had effectively sniped Baidu’s "Tieba" concept. Since "Du Niang" wouldn't launch until the end of 2003, Penguin had stepped in early. For now, they were only doing beauty pageants, but they would surely expand into a large-scale portal site later.

Logging into a Penguin account or searching for "Penguin Net" to visit the "Most Beautiful Faces in Asia" page, getting addicted to the voting, and debating on the forums—this was the new trend.

Li Wenyu laughed. "You’re definitely number one. With professional posters and Penguin stepping in to manipulate the votes, plus your own qualifications—you’ve even become a method actor now..."

It was just like that line in *Shaolin Soccer*: "The referee, the linesman, the organizers—they’re all my people. What are you going to play with?"

Pang Bing giggled for a few seconds before asking curiously, "That woman A-Zhi, she’ll make the top ten, right? She’s not a good person, but her face, really..."

Pang Bing couldn't help but sigh. It was certain that the twenty-something A-Zhi would break into the top ten. If she had known, she wouldn't have picked this *Wonder Boy* project. Now she had to play best friends with A-Zhi in the movie—childhood sweethearts who grew up together from kindergarten.

She really wanted to kill A-Zhi; Li Wenyu had already received over twenty harassing text messages on his phone.

Going out on a yacht to surf, sunbathing, applying sunscreen—was that something a decent girl would do?

After a while, the group arrived at the set. It was a villa that would serve as the protagonist's family home in the film, located in a prime area. After a few rounds of pleasantries, Li Wenyu stood to the side, watching Brother Wah preside over the opening ceremony outside the villa, when he saw a car pull up nearby.

Stephen Chow stepped out and walked straight toward him. "A-Yu, if you have time, let’s have dinner? You pick the time, my treat."

Li Wenyu smiled and called out "Brother Sing." At a banquet late last month, he had consistently addressed everyone as Brother Rong or Brother Wah, as they were all together.

Before he could even speak, Stephen Chow told him to address him as "Mr. Chow" or "Brother Sing" based on his age, insisting he shouldn't call him "Master" like a fan, as he couldn't handle that.

"Dinner is easy. Brother Sing, aren't you still busy with your project? Any progress?"

*Shaolin Soccer* had been a massive hit, but what Stephen Chow earned was just so-so. His share of the Hong Kong box office was around 20 million, and overseas sales were less than 10 million. Later, he earned 20 to 30 million USD from DVD rights, but the collection cycle for DVDs was too long—often dragging out over five or ten years.

And even then, the main investors of *Shaolin Soccer* took a huge cut!

The results weren't bad, but it hadn't been released in the mainland!

For the past six months, Stephen Chow had been working on a new project: *Kung Fu Hustle*. The investment for *Kung Fu Hustle* was large, attracting money from Hollywood's Columbia Pictures, but they kept trying to interfere with the script.

Whether it was during the script development or the filming, Columbia caused plenty of trouble, making the production process anything but smooth.

Stephen Chow smiled and handed out cigars. "A-Yu, you’re a marketing genius. Now that Penguin Net’s 'Most Beautiful Faces in Asia' ranking is out, as long as you need me to, I can go on record saying Bingbing is the most beautiful of the new generation."

"I just wonder, when my new film comes out, can we cooperate? If it could be like Brother Rong’s setup, I’d talk to Columbia and give you 5% of the box office. We could consider Bingbing for the female lead, give her a high salary of several million to boost her status. Since I’m here visiting the set today, I’ll take a look at her acting."

Stephen Chow was in a tough spot.

The 90s had been his golden era of frantic filmmaking and money-making. He had poured all his earnings into real estate. The skyrocketing property prices in Hong Kong before the handover had earned him several quick fortunes, far exceeding his acting fees.

However, in 1995, Stephen Chow spent 36 million HKD on a penthouse on Bowen Road, and in 1996, he spent over 83 million on a five-story villa on Pollock’s Path.

His entire family was living in that five-story villa now.

He had spent over 100 million in cash twice in the 90s, and now the market value of that five-story villa had plummeted to around 45 million HKD, with the Bowen Road property also dropping significantly.

It wouldn't be until 2004, when emerging mainland tycoons flocked to Hong Kong to buy property, that prices would surge again.

In 2004, Stephen Chow would again be spending hundreds of millions to buy buildings and shopping malls, earning hundreds of millions more a few years later. He wouldn't have the heart to make movies then.

Right now, he was stuck at a point where he was watching his 100-million-plus property investment lose half its value! Not knowing if it would ever bounce back... that was why he was being so amicable and easy to talk to.

After all, this was "Brother Sing," whom even the Heung family couldn't afford to hire with an eight-figure salary; he rarely even did commercials.

But the profit model Brother Rong was operating under—led by old Li—was earning hundreds of millions! It was enough to make anyone green with envy!

Li Wenyu smiled and lit his cigar. "Brother Sing, if you want to collaborate, I’ll seriously consider the 5% cut and a high salary for Bingbing. I just hope you can speed up your production cycle; being too slow hurts the bottom line."

The other party only mentioned the box office, not the overseas distribution share... Li Wenyu, who was preparing to invest 8 million in NetEase, didn't care about that point. He was curious if this collaboration could flap the butterfly's wings: after Stephen Chow made a fortune of 100-200 million from *Kung Fu Hustle*, would he move straight into *Kung Fu Hustle 2*?

If he could make hundreds of millions in 2003 with *Kung Fu*, that would be more profitable than real estate.

If his focus on speculating in property shifted back to movies, he wouldn't wait years to tinker with *CJ7*, and he certainly wouldn't push *Kung Fu Hustle 2* back twenty years.

Stephen Chow was overjoyed. "My ideas are already set; I've been dictating them to my writing team to fill in the framework. Speeding it up is fine. By the way, can *The Shallows* really break 80 million in the mainland?"

He was genuinely envious of Brother Rong’s 60-million-plus in overseas sales, and he was just as hungry for the mainland market.

Li Wenyu’s smile was steady. "The odds are decent. Just put your heart into it."

He told Pang Bing a hundred million was just for the people on the inside; he always had to be a little more low-key in public.

Stephen Chow: "!!!"

He also started puffing on his cigar. Once the opening ceremony ended, he gestured to Li Wenyu, and the two walked over together to offer their congratulations.

After the New Year, he would turn 40. He really wanted to make those hundreds of millions!

Watching over 100 million in property lose tens of millions in value—it was truly infuriating.