Chapter 36: The Correct Way to Enter the Production Team

Of course Gu Cheng was no stranger to the renowned Jiangnan Club.
In another timeline, with the rise of Jack Ma, this club was once jokingly dubbed by insiders as "China's Premier Club."
Countless business elites scrambled for connections, desperate just to secure an invitation letter issued by an insider, which gave them the eligibility to pay a 200,000-yuan entrance fee. Once inside, one practically had the opportunity to rub shoulders with the country's top tycoons.
Gu Cheng was naturally too proud a soul; he had plenty of artist friends who mooned over the wind and the moon, but very few copper-smelling merchant friends. Since Jack Ma had pulled him in, he was quite happy to go along passively for the ride, treating it as a chance to expand his network.

In less than a week, Jack Ma got back to him, saying the matter was preliminarily settled and inviting everyone to gather for a grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony.
When Gu Cheng received the news, he was utterly shocked, thinking that even a simple renovation couldn't possibly be that fast.
Fortunately, Jack Ma quickly resolved Gu Cheng's doubts: "The property was sorted out by Lao Guo and Lao Song. The Garden Administration, the Bureau of Commerce, and the Land Bureau managed to secure the 'Sages Garden' by Yanggong Dyke for us through investment attraction. The decoration isn't urgent; the crucial part is securing the title first."

After doing some research, Gu Cheng learned that Jack Ma and his associates had acquired six ancient structures in the Sages Garden for their first phase. Those buildings were located within the scenic area along the West Lake, constructed during the Southern Song Dynasty, much like the Confucius Temple in Jinling, alongside shrines to local ancient luminaries such as Chu Suiliang, Luo Yin, and Lin Heding. (Though the Confucius Temple in Jinling was built in the Ming Dynasty, their nature was identical.)
Although the old houses from the Song Dynasty had long since collapsed and been rebuilt repeatedly, currently standing as antique reconstructions, the original site of the garden remained entirely unchanged, and all the plum trees, pines, and cypresses were ancient specimens dating back to the Song Dynasty.

All of this was enough to leave Gu Cheng quietly clicking his tongue in amazement, thinking that fortunately, among the shareholders was a major real estate tycoon with heaven-reaching influence, capable of turning even cultural relics and historical sites into objects of "investment attraction."

On Jack Ma's invitation cards, it was clearly written: "The Mid-Autumn Festival Elegant Gathering, inviting Elder Jin to inscribe the plaque for the 'Jiangnan Club.'"
It also instructed the various shareholders that if they knew any literary or artistic figures, they were entirely welcome to bring them along to join the lively occasion.
Gu Cheng pondered for a moment and invited three friends—Gao Dongsong, Fang Wenshan, and Jay Chou—to grace the occasion and accompany him. He also planned to bring his sisters and a few trusted confidants from his company along to broaden their horizons and see the world.
……
The Elder Jin whom Jack Ma invited to do the calligraphy was, naturally, Louis Cha.
The elder was a native of the province; in his youth, due to the Japanese invasion, he had left his hometown and fled to Xiangjiang, and was now an octogenarian. In his later years, he had been invited by Qianjiang University as an honorary professor and honorary dean of the School of Humanities, and recently he had grown quite fond of returning to his hometown for visits.

A few years prior, the elder had also selected an ancient residence on Yanggong Dyke, investing 14 million to convert it into the "Yunsong Scholarly Abode," originally intending to house his books and live in seclusion, but later changing his mind and donating it to the municipal government, turning it into a tourist attraction.
The Jiangnan Club was not far from the Yunsong Scholarly Abode, so they could be considered neighbors. Coupled with the fact that Jack Ma and Louis Cha enjoyed a good personal friendship, inviting the elder to do the calligraphy felt entirely natural and unforced.

When the auspicious day arrived, Gu Cheng and Gao Dongsong each drove their own cars, arriving discreetly ahead of time. There were quite a few literary figures present, ranging from writers to painters, all invited by the eight major shareholders to lend prestige to the event.
There were several dozen guests at the cocktail party, creating a very casual atmosphere with no rigid agenda. Groups of people chatted with one another in twos and threes.
There were also quite a few business partners invited in the capacity of entrepreneurs who surprisingly possessed considerable cultural depth themselves. For instance, Wang Zhongjun, a film industry figure and the boss of Huayi Brothers invited by Jack Ma to liven up the party, turned out to be a modernist painter himself.

When Gu Cheng arrived, that fellow was in the courtyard, painting from life with rapt concentration, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers.
The sketch was drawn quite realistically, but the color halos around all the scenery had been treated in a way that shattered the effect of depth of field.
Clearly a Western oil painting style, it nevertheless pushed the rules of perspective and physical depth to the absolute extreme, as if all the scenery had broken through the laws of space and been forcibly dragged right before one's eyes. At the junctions between the foreground and background, there were even smudges of color blocks that clearly looked as though the paint had been intentionally diluted.

A group of people, whether truly understanding or merely pretending to understand, whispered among themselves in critique:
"It's Mark Rothko's middle period style, handled similarly to that 1933 piece, *Street Scene*."
"Right, it's a modernist expressive technique. If you hadn't mentioned it, I really wouldn't have thought of it. When ordinary people mention Rothko, they usually think of the pure abstractionism after the 1950s."

Gu Cheng watched from the periphery for a little while, preparing to leave. But Gao Dongsong was standing nearby, swinging his fan and watching with great gusto, unable to resist asking for Gu Cheng's opinion: "What do you think of it?"
"I don't understand any of this; I've never even heard of these schools or styles," Gu Cheng generously mocked himself, preparing to gloss over the topic.

Hearing this, the group of art admirers turned to look. Seeing that it was Gu Cheng, they were all very polite. They chimed in to support Gao Dongsong: "President Gu's insight is surely very high, naturally much deeper than people like us who are rigidly bound to schools and formulas."
After all, today's "literary elegant gathering" was essentially a game for the wealthy. As the largest shareholder, no one would dare mock Gu Cheng's artistic appreciation skills.

Under the flattery of the crowd, Wang Zhongjun also stopped his brush, gave a slight wave, and motioned for Gu Cheng to offer a few words of critique.
Gu Cheng smiled embarrassedly, stared intently for a full minute, and said after careful consideration: "I don't understand paintings, so let me just share my first impression upon seeing this. I've produced a few television dramas, and every time we encounter these panoramic scenes, if an actor's blocking results in improper depth of field, the shot becomes blurry and we have to retake it, which always puts us in a bad mood.
After seeing this painting, I feel a full venting of malicious satisfaction towards the technical flaws of camera art—no matter how precisely a camera shoots, how realistic it is, can a single lens possibly balance the foreground, middle ground, and background all at once? The areas where the focus isn't set inevitably turn blurry. But a painting can achieve this; screw your laws of distance and perspective, blur every sense of distance for me right now. Panoramas, foregrounds, and backgrounds are all right before my eyes, treated with equal detail—I'm speaking unprofessionally, but that's roughly what I mean."

As soon as Gu Cheng finished speaking, the fellows who had intended to butter him up were completely dumbfounded: Damn it, this is an artist gathering, and you're speaking in such plain, vernacular language—how are other people supposed to hype up your artistic refinement?
At least learn from others and drop the names of masters like Mark Rothko or Jackson Pollock!

Wang Zhongjun was also amused, putting down his paintbrush and pulling a business card from his pocket to shove into Gu Cheng's hand: "My paintings never had a school to begin with. It's just being forced by the camera sense, an occupational hazard. Xiaogang paints too; actually, his views are pretty much the same as mine—since filmmakers are dabbling in painting, they naturally have to lean hard into the very weakest points of cinematic art."

After exchanging business cards, Wang Zhongjun exchanged a few polite pleasantries, saying that if Gu Cheng ever wanted to invest in films or coordinate resources in the future, he should feel free to look him up.
Though photographic art had existed for a century, painting had not declined; only the school of painting that purely pursued "realism" had faded away.
Just as with every economic transition, there are always people saying "the real economy is dying," while Jack Ma always slaps them back with, "It's not that the real economy is dying, it's that *your* real economy is dying."
How many painters in the past century have either turned purely to abstraction in a bid to completely sever ties with photographic art, or remained within the hazy intersection of staying close yet distant from photography, searching for whether "the value of painting lies in impression, in selective detail, or in negative space."

And the perspectives of people like Gu Cheng and Wang Zhongjun obviously looked at it from another extreme angle that no pure painter could ever have imagined.

Before coming into contact with painting, they had first thrashed about in the film and television circles. Having fully experienced the malicious tyranny of cinematic expression, carrying a belly full of hidden grievances, and then returning to paint and view paintings, they naturally reaped a resonance of "looking back at painting with rustic simplicity after photography had been pushed to its absolute limit."
When all was said and done, Gu Cheng still held the advantage of crossing boundaries.

Gao Dongsong was still standing nearby, preparing to quote classics and show off his learning, but seeing Gu Cheng strike up a friendship with Wang Zhongjun in just a few sentences, he was left gaping in astonishment.
Plain-spoken and utterly genuine.
……
Gu Cheng wandered around for a long time. Seeing that it was almost time for the opening remarks and banquet, he returned to his table and sat down.
Pan Jieying and Kwon Boa had been resting rather constrainedly, occasionally chatting with Jay Chou and Fang Wenshan, without going out to make new friends.
All the female guests tonight wore Hanfu. Neither Pan Jieying nor Kwon Boa had worn it before, so they felt slightly uncomfortable. Especially since Kwon Boa had only recently learned to speak fluent Mandarin and had never experienced this kind of occasion before, she naturally spent the entire evening sticking close to her older cousin.

As soon as Gu Cheng sat down, Pan Jieying poured him a glass of perry: "You must have made quite a few new friends."
Gu Cheng downed half the glass in one gulp and smiled self-deprecatingly: "When a person has money, everything they say is right. I can't even tell whether I genuinely have this artistic refinement or if people are just flattering me. Anyway, when chatting, I can only try my best not to use a single professional jargon, so that way no one can secretly say I'm putting on airs."
When rich people collect art, the netizens swarm to mock them for putting on airs—Gu Cheng had experienced that kind of sting firsthand.

Just as Gu Cheng finished his perry, Jack Ma took out a handheld microphone, walked up to the stage, and flamboyantly announced: "Distinguished guests, please quiet down. Today is the auspicious day of the unveiling of our Jiangnan Club, and I am very grateful for everyone gracing us with your presence. Now, the auspicious hour is almost upon us, so let us invite Elder Jin to do the inscription."

The crowd quickly quieted down. In the middle of the courtyard, a large writing desk had been cleared, upon which was placed a strip of gold-flecked xuan paper ten feet long. An octogenarian tremblingly took up the writing brush, and with slow and steady strokes, wrote the three large characters: "Jiangnan Club."

As soon as the writing was finished, Jack Ma immediately had it put away, preparing to have it mounted in a few days and then have a master craftsman carve it to make the plaque. The observing guests naturally could not spare their praise for the calligraphy, mutually buttering each other up.
Although Gu Cheng was the largest shareholder, today's cocktail party was hosted entirely by Jack Ma's people, and Gu Cheng did not care to dwell on those tedious formalities.

Jack Ma was most adept at serving up motivational chicken soup, rattling off carloads of nutrient-free platitudes like "The internet winter will soon pass, and everyone must deepen cooperation and unite more closely," coaxing everyone into drinking three rounds of wine before the atmosphere of the cocktail party gradually grew harmonious and casual.
"It's meaningless for us to just drink tonight. How about this, every shareholder must send someone up to perform an act. If you can't do it yourself, have the friends you brought along take the stage. We're all civilized people, just don't get too out of hand—Old Ma, say something whether it works or not."

The proposal came from Guo Guangchang of the Fosun Group, and the others who loved a lively spectacle without fearing trouble immediately joined in the chorus.