Chapter 178: The Purpose of Working is Not to Work! Bai Ling, Who Aspires to Be a Kept Woman

Even without Bai Ling using new songs as bait, they were all working this hard.

Not to mention now.

Almost that very evening, as the popularity of Bai Ling's songs continued to soar, she received even more candidate recommendations from these singers.

Instantly, Bai Ling had overfulfilled her mission.

Counting them all up, there were dozens of backup candidates. Let alone picking out a second male lead, she could easily secure several supporting male roles for multiple dramas entirely without any issues.

Bai Ling even pondered whether she should pull out the script for Chinese Paladin and start filming it as well.

To give this world a minor shock?

After thinking about it, though, she didn't dare to operate quite that boldly.

After all, she currently only knew one Ouyang Ruofeng.

Even Ouyang could not possibly launch two productions simultaneously.

Looking through the entire history of cinema, such a thing simply didn't exist.

Unless...

Bai Ling could act as the director.

Having such a thought was really not a wild fantasy.

When she first acquired the system, her attribute panel already contained director-related content.

In other words, the system was fully capable of granting related skill rewards or attribute rewards.

It might even help mold Bai Ling into a competent female director.

However, Bai Ling wasn't actually all that excited about this prospect.

Being both an actor and a director at the same time sounded exhausting.

Besides, with Ouyang acting as her laborer, why bother distressing herself?

By the same token, although Bai Ling could provide the script, wouldn't the specific adaptation details still have to be handed over to Zhuge Ming?

Taking everything upon herself was just too tiring.

Bai Ling wanted to develop properly, not grind herself to death.

"How about I call it a day once I earn thirty million?"

She silently set a flag in her heart, but immediately laughed at herself a second later.

What thirty million? Just from these few songs alone, her earnings had already far exceeded that figure.

Otherwise, she wouldn't even have been able to sustain this studio.

If it weren't for the fact that she regularly set aside a portion of her income for charity work, her profits would probably have been even higher.

Thinking of this, however, she began to miss her good-for-nothing younger brother.

She wondered how that brat's progress on scamming people with his video game was coming along.

Thus, Bai Ling reached out to chat with Bai Zihao for a bit.

Although Bai Zihao was a shut-in who turned a blind eye to the outside world and barely qualified as an ACGN enthusiast, he still had a celebrity sister after all.

Therefore, he naturally paid attention to certain happenings in the entertainment industry.

And so, after Bai Ling caused yet another massive stir, Bai Zihao—though a bit slow on the uptake—still came to congratulate Bai Ling on executing a brilliant comeback.

Consequently, Bai Ling brought up the topic of the video game.

As soon as video games were mentioned, Bai Zihao opened up.

Fortunately, Bai Ling had also been a gamer in her past life; otherwise, she really wouldn't have been able to keep up.

After chatting with him for an entire evening, Bai Ling gained a clear understanding of the situation.

Bai Zihao's startup company was actually shaping up quite nicely.

So far, they had developed an *otome* game which had already gone live. While its influence wasn't exceptionally massive, its reputation within the industry was quite good.

As a result, they had secured a certain amount of investment. Combined with the money Bai Ling had previously sponsored him with, their mobile ACGN game project was looking better and better by the day.

They had even managed to poach quite a few rather exceptional designers and modelers, and were gearing up for a period of rapid advancement.

Hearing about Bai Zihao's progress, Bai Ling felt deeply gratified.

"Zihao, just tell me if you run short on money."

"Though your sister isn't exactly a mega-tycoon right now, I can certainly still manage to give you a hand."

"However, when you achieve wealth and honor, don't forget your roots. You'd better work hard in the future so your sister can become a wealthy woman who lives off effortless ease!"

Bai Zihao was utterly speechless. "Sis, aren't you happy with your life right now?"

"Why are you always thinking about becoming a freeloader living in luxury?"

Bai Ling chuckled softly. "Isn't the whole motivation for going to work just so you won't have to work in the future?"

"Never mind, I won't ramble with you anymore. Go back to your busywork."

Ending the conversation, Bai Ling returned to her own life.

Games or no games, it didn't have much to do with her.

After resting for two days, Bai Ling began to arrange the matters regarding the auditions.

This matter wasn't particularly huge, but it wasn't trivial either.

Bai Ling didn't participate in the specific procedures; Miaomiao and the staff of the newly formed crew had already put everything into action.

All Bai Ling had to do was act as an interviewer alongside Ouyang.

The vast majority of the work was still handled by Ouyang, while Bai Ling merely observed the candidates' performances and used the Potential Tester to evaluate them.

After all, the number of uses for this gadget was limited, so she still needed to conserve it.

Only when a candidate's performance was relatively brilliant would Bai Ling check whether they possessed the potential to be nurtured.

However, the reality left Bai Ling deeply disappointed.

On the day of the auditions, Bai Ling saw no fewer than thirty-odd people in total.

Out of those, only ten were worth testing for potential.

After using up the remaining eight chances, she discovered that the first six all had potential values of forty or sixty.

Such potential values couldn't be called low, but they were certainly underwhelming.

It was only then that she realized bumping into Yu Wenyan and Su Zhaolin had actually been quite a stroke of incredible luck.

Still, the final two individuals brought Bai Ling a minor surprise.

One had a potential value of 88, and the other 91.

Although there was still a gap compared to Su Zhaolin, they were already much stronger than the vast majority of people.

They fell into the category where, given an opportunity, they had a strong chance of becoming first-tier actors.

Consequently, Bai Ling and Ouyang made the joint decision to finalize these two.

They also inquired whether the pair were willing to sign with Bai Ling's agency.

However, not everyone was willing to sign.

Among them, the candidate with the 91 potential value was somewhat reluctant, while the one with the 88 potential value had no objections whatsoever—he was ready to switch agencies as long as Bai Ling offered sufficiently good conditions and treatment.

So, as for who would get the role of the second male lead, did that even need to be asked?

A few days later, Bai Ling successfully signed the candidate with the 88 potential value, whose name was Lu Jianchao.

As for the one with 91, Bai Ling didn't bother committing his name to memory.

Having settled the actors, Ouyang quickly took Bai Ling to organize the boot ceremony.

Following the ceremony, Ashes of Love would officially commence filming!

However, this boot ceremony was going to be somewhat different from the previous one.

When filming Go Princess Go, neither Ouyang nor Bai Ling had made extensive preparations.

Bai Ling's fame was also far inferior to what it was now.

Therefore, not many media reporters had been invited back then, and virtually not a single industry insider had come to show support.

This time, things were different.

As the first drama produced after the establishment of the studio—or rather, the maiden production of Bai Ling's studio—its intrinsic significance was quite weighty.

Thus, Bai Ling and Ouyang intended to throw a proper event.

They wanted to invite as many industry insiders as possible and bring in more reporters for publicity.

Consequently, within a very short span of time, the news of Bai Ling's new drama starting production spread rapidly across both the music and film circles.