As one of TikTok's shareholders, Jiang Cheng had once asked Li Songbo to help pull their related hot-searches when the crash happened at the last SSCC Super-Car Day.
Forgetting the favor so quickly really was a bit hard to justify.
Fortunately, Wang Congcong had given a timely reminder.
Jiang Cheng patted Wang Congcong's shoulder in gratitude.
Then he turned to Li Songbo and said, "President Li, I never properly thanked you for last time. When you're free, let me treat you to dinner."
"Haha, that would be lovely. It was nothing; if anything like that comes up again, just let me know."
"Then I won't stand on ceremony. This is Su Wan, an artist under our company."
Seeing Jiang Cheng personally introduce her to someone, Su Wan felt deeply honored.
She quickly extended both hands politely and greeted Li Songbo: "President Li, hello—my name is Su Wan."
"Hello, hello."
With impeccable manners, Li Songbo gave a gentle shake and released her hand.
After greeting Su Wan, he turned back to Jiang Cheng and said, "Chairman Jiang, I've been following your Star Studio. The new artists you've launched recently show a lot of potential."
"The company's only a few months old, and they're all newcomers; we'll still need President Li's guidance. By the way, from now on our artists' PR on Sina will be in your hands."
After Jiang Cheng's half-joking, half-serious remark, Li Songbo laughed heartily in return.
After all, everyone here belonged to the same capital-circle ecosystem.
Jiang Cheng's status was on an entirely different level compared with most of the others present.
Frankly, if any other entertainment-company boss had said that to Li Songbo, he might not have refused outright, but he would have brushed it off with a couple of perfunctory sentences.
Yet judging from the capital plays Jiang Cheng was currently involved in,
he was definitely no ordinary newcomer content with small-time investments.
Take that Fengtai Wang land parcel in Kyoto: the upfront commitment alone exceeded five billion yuan.
Add to that the massive TikTok financing round, where Jiang Cheng had casually stumped up more than ten billion in one go.
All told, his cumulative outlay now approached twenty billion yuan.
Was that a lot?
Objectively speaking—absolutely, it was enormous.
He himself had bought into TikTok before it exploded in popularity.
If asked today to fork out ten billion to buy into ByteDance, Li Songbo probably couldn't do it.
At the last ByteDance shareholders' meeting, the individual with the deepest pockets hadn't been him but Shen Nanpeng.
Yet even someone like Shen Nanpeng, the helmsman of Sequoia Capital (Huaguo),
had a personal net worth of only a bit over twenty billion yuan.
The total fund size Sequoia Capital (Huaguo) managed was merely several billion U.S. dollars,
but in Huaguo's investment circles that was already titan-level.
In contrast, Jiang Cheng's displayed capital strength rivaled Shen Nanpeng's.
Therefore, giving him face was only natural.
In excellent spirits, Li Songbo laughed boldly: "Haha, no problem—we're family; these are small matters."
Watching Jiang Cheng chat with Sina's chairman as happily as old friends,
the rest of the room couldn't help focusing on the four of them.
From Jiang Cheng and Li Songbo's conversation it was clear Su Wan was no ordinary artist.
As one of the main platforms celebrities used for daily promotion, Sina's influence spoke for itself.
Moreover, it hosted the much-followed Weibo Awards.
In such a setting, industry titans like Jiang Cheng and Li Songbo naturally became the center of attention.
Right now the cocktail party had split into several distinct social clusters.
Although several top-tier stars and a few name-brand directors were present,
they all behaved exceptionally meekly.
Many stood quietly in a corner, furtively scanning the room as if hunting for the right moment to break in.
In truth, they dreamed of rubbing shoulders with the capital-circle power brokers.
A few words with an investor might let them barter their bodies that very night for huge returns.
If the tycoons were pleased, the starlets could land the film-and-TV resources they craved.
With better luck, catching an investor's eye could rocket them into high society, marriage, and retirement from showbiz.
Naïve fans sometimes lamented that certain actresses who married into wealth and faded from view were wasting their talent.
They didn't realize those women had worked every bit as hard to reach that goal as they had on their acting careers.
Tonight, for instance, many uninvited minor stars would move heaven and earth to get a ticket, just to show their faces.
Yet reality disappointed them: the real big shots preferred peers of their own rank.
Whether A-list celebrities or famous directors, they were destined to be supporting characters at this party.
Just like Su Wan standing beside Jiang Cheng right now.
Though Jiang Cheng introduced her to Wang Congcong and Li Songbo, that didn't mean she could truly enter their circle.
Li Songbo merely smiled politely, then focused entirely on Jiang Cheng, barely glancing at her.
After all, such cocktail parties might spawn billion-yuan deals in a single conversation.
Starlets could be played with any day of the week.
Clearly, Su Wan's role at this party had already been set.
Even so, she remained deeply grateful to Jiang Cheng.
Without him she wouldn't even have set foot in such a venue.
"Isn't that Su Wan? Who on earth is the guy in the middle??" someone exclaimed.
"Never seen him, but he doesn't look like us. Su Wan's standing beside him the whole time—must be some new director or investor, right?"
"Could he be her company boss?? I heard their boss is super young and that he's keeping her."
"What did you just say??"
"Come on, stop acting innocent. You know the drill. If it's true, Su Wan hit the jackpot—if he were your boss, would you say no?"
"M-me? Do you even need to ask??"