Domination in America, Starting from being a Boxing Champion-Chapter 596 - 448 A Deal

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After the film premiere ended, Link made a round at the reception arranged by the organizers before he, accompanied by Wendi Deng and Alice Lee, went to a treasure seafood boat in Victoria Harbour to taste the local seafood.

Spicy stir-fried crab, Hong Kong-style hot and sour shrimp soup, South Australian abalone soup, curry soft-shell crab, and more—the flavors were all quite good.

However, no matter how well the seafood is prepared, it's not as good as using quality raw materials. Having tasted countless seafood dishes, he still felt that the seafood meal he had in his Woolworth Building apartment was the most authentic.

In the evening, he returned to the hotel to rest. Wendi Deng called him to say she was sending him a gift, a specialty of Hong Kong Island, and had Alice Lee specially bring it over, asking for his room number.

The gift-giving was a ruse, the real intention was to deliver a woman.

Link did not refuse. He generally understood Wendi Deng's thoughts of trying to win his favor through this means, wanting to establish a deeper relationship. He also understood Alice Lee's intentions, as mainland actresses vied to make a name for themselves in Hollywood.

First there were Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi, followed by Zhou Xun, Ice Van, Jing Tian, Alice Lee, Li Xiaolu, Zhang Jingchu, Huang Shengyi, and others—except for the first two, the rest were extras in Hollywood movies.

Alice Lee too harbored ambitions to venture into Hollywood.

And now he was the owner of the eighth largest film company in Hollywood, holding countless film and television resources, and becoming the target of many actresses' pursuit.

He sat on the sofa watching the blushing Alice Lee, took out a checkbook, and said he could accept this gift, but it had to be compensated for, hoping she could suggest a number.

Alice Lee's face reddened even more visibly, her expression growing more restrained.

Link didn't want to embarrass her, clearly stating her thoughts, but he couldn't guarantee that he would provide some resources for her in the future. To avoid trouble, it would be best to complete the transaction by check. If she didn't agree, she could choose to leave.

Alice Lee hesitated for a long time, her feet shuffled several times, and finally, she uttered a low figure.

Link added a zero to this number and tore off the check to give to her.

Seeing the pallor on her face and the tears in her eyes, he couldn't help but feel that his own romantic history was too rich, making him incapable of giving any more affection to other women, especially after being with Ivanka, where he was even more stingy in this respect.

If he were to talk about feelings with Alice Lee, it would seem too insincere.

He couldn't possibly harbor any real affection for a woman in her late thirties; his only desire was provoked by the seafood.

The other party voluntarily came to 'deliver a gift' not out of love, but more for the resources in his hands, and perhaps for his charm.

He stripped away the mask of tender affections, revealing both sides' true faces, cold and unsightly, yet this reduced much trouble and burden.

After handing her the check, he stroked her freshly washed black hair and bent down to kiss her lips and ears.

He waited for the woman's complexion to become rosy again and her body to shift from stiff to gradually pliable.

He took the woman to the dining table, lifted the hem of her skirt, and gently pressed down on her.

This time, he took safety precautions.

The next day when Alice Lee awoke, the sunlight outside was splendid, even the thick curtains couldn't block the golden light scattering on the carpet.

There was only her on the bed, but there were the scents of two people.

Remembering the wildness of the previous night, she lifted the blanket to check and gradually her face turned crimson and her eyes softened...

Before she could inspect carefully, the bedside mobile phone started to ring.

She reached for it, only to find a check and a note pressed under the phone.

Seeing the number on the check, she tightened her fingers, tempted to tear it to shreds.

But thinking about what she experienced last night, she had almost given everything to Link—it would be in vain if he was unwilling to help her develop a career in Hollywood in the future.

She couldn't just let him benefit for nothing.

Alice Lee collected the check and examined the note, which carried two lines of English.

The first line stated that Link's plane was at eight and he was unable to say goodbye in person, which was very discourteous, and asked for her forgiveness.

The second line mentioned that her English was too poor, and to carry an important role in an English-language film, she needed to practice her spoken dialogue more.

Alice Lee looked at the note repeatedly, carefully putting it away.

Ring-ring!

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The phone was still ringing. She picked it up to see six missed calls—Wendi Deng had made one, her sister and agent Li Shuang three, and her good friend Ren Quan two.

This call was from Wendi Deng.

She hesitated for two seconds before answering.

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After flying to the Nan Du Li Shui Shi Qiao film and television base, Link immediately joined the crew of "The Golden Lotus" to shoot some scenes that needed revising.

In the movie, he played a down-and-out foreigner who was greedy and lustful and served as the choir's pianist in a church.

When the war broke out in Nan Du, in order to save the students in the church, he stayed behind pretending to be a priest and also sheltered the 'Golden Lotus' from the banks of the Qinhuai River.

The film's plot mainly revolves around the golden lotuses, with Link's character merely observing these women dislocated by the chaos of war from the sidelines. Though he played the male lead, he didn't have many scenes.

"John, I need your help to get us out of Nan Du."

On set, Ni Ni, who played Yu Mo, wearing a beautiful cheongsam, pushed open the door and approached him.

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Link took a sip from the bottle of alcohol and slowly raised his head to look at her, "How to leave?"

"I don't know, but your face is a pass, the Japanese don't want to mess with Westerners."

Yu Mo said seductively.

"The outside is a battlefield, leaving here is impossible!"

Link shook his head, his eyes shifted to her pocket, where there were a few bills, then back to her pretty cheeks, "Do you have enough money? Or are you planning to pay in another way?"

Yu Mo took a sip from her glass and walked out, her supple waist twisting.

"Hey, wait! Are you joking? We can negotiate some more."

Link, holding the bottle, chased after her.

"Cut!"

Director Zhang Dacheng stroked his chin and, after a look, called Ni Ni over to give her a few instructions.

Actually, the main issues with the scenes that needed to be reshot were on Ni Ni's part.

Ni Ni had been completely new to the crew before joining, a college student, with mediocre acting skills.

However, her acting had improved rapidly during the filming period with the crew, which led to inconsistencies in her performance from start to finish.

To elevate the quality of the film, Director Zhang chose to reshoot several key scenes, which included shots of Link, so Link had no choice but to come back and fry up old rice, coordinating with Ni Ni's performance.

Fortunately, his scenes weren't many, and after five days of shooting with the crew and reshooting over thirty scenes, Link's part was successfully wrapped up.

On the day his scenes wrapped, Director Zhang invited him to a dinner and brought up the issue of the movie's distribution, asking him if he was interested in the North American distribution rights for the film.

Link was somewhat surprised. At the beginning of the year, during filming, he had heard that the North American distribution rights were bought by Row one Entertainment. How did it come to Lionsgate Films?

Director Zhang said that because of the subject matter, the distribution rights in North America hadn't been settled, and the production company was still looking for an appropriate international distributor for the movie.

Director Zhang praised him for the very successful distribution of "Mr. Tree."

The North American box office of "Mr. Tree" had already surpassed that of movies like "Sorghum" and "Raise the Red Lantern" among the Chinese-language films released in North America. It had entered the top twenty, which was quite remarkable.

Director Zhang expressed that he would prefer to work with him and Lionsgate Films over other distribution companies.

Link understood his intentions and didn't refuse.

Director Zhang's few movies had performed quite ordinarily at the international box office, or even flopped.

But he was a big director from Mainland with wide connections. Establishing a cooperative relationship with him could be beneficial to the long-term development of Lionsgate Films.

Moreover, Link had Chris Liu's studio and Dolphin Bay Agency under him, which could invest in and cooperate with any good projects Director Zhang might have in the future.

Link said that after the movie was completed, he would arrange for someone from Lionsgate to screen it and then discuss the specifics of the rights and pricing.

Director Zhang happily agreed and even wanted Ni Ni to accompany him for a few more drinks.

Link looked helplessly at the baijiu. Every time he came back to the country for business, the most difficult part was dealing with the drinking culture.

Since he couldn't hold his liquor, drinking two glasses would make him drunk, and not drinking would seem too cold, so eventually, he could only make an excuse about having matters to attend to and ended up drinking a bottle of beer with Director Zhang.

After leaving Nandu, he first went to Dahai City to visit the Dolphin Bay Agency and see how Yang Dami was managing the company.

During his time filming, Ms. Anna had gone ahead to Dolphin Bay Company to oversee the work.

Accompanying her were two management personnel hired on Hong Kong Island, both talented individuals in entertainment agency management and finance, chiefly meant to assist Yang Dami in managing the company properly and avoid tax evasion issues.

Ms. Anna reported that there were some irregularities in Dolphin Bay's personnel and finances, with no legal advisors and no public relations department, but other issues weren't significant. Financially, the company was doing quite well with a surplus of about six million.

Link met with Yang Dami and chatted, promising to add an investment of thirty million for film and television investment. If it went well, he would continue to invest more.

Yang Dami was exhilarated upon hearing of the additional thirty million investment and agreed, calling over Lilith Zhao to accompany him for hot pot.

After taking care of Dolphin Bay Company's matters, Link discreetly visited Capital City to see Jenny Shu, who was pregnant.

She was just two months pregnant, and it wasn't obvious, but to avoid any accidents, she had stopped working early and was resting at home.

Link stayed at the courtyard house for three days with Jenny and Chris, and took the opportunity to discuss Wanda Film Industry's business with Liu Li.

Backed by Wanda Real Estate, Wanda Film Industry was doing quite well. Through expansion and mergers, it had become the third-largest cinema chain in the country. The gross income for the first quarter was 340 million, and the total income for the year was expected to surpass 1 billion.

He invested another 22 million US Dollars for a 4.2% share in Wanda Film Industry, making Golden Shell Investment approximately an 11.6% shareholder, the second-largest individual shareholder of Wanda Film Industry.

The rest of the prize money, over ten million US Dollars, he didn't take with him but instead used Golden Shell Investment to buy shares of Alibaba, Maotai, JD, and BYD, which had just been listed in June, a few hundred thousand shares of each.

His main goal was to earn some pocket money for Chris Liu, Jenny Shu, and the children.

After finishing these tasks, Link took a flight back to the United States to start the promotional work for "Captain America" and "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan."

Captain America was completed at the end of last year and, after a half-year of post-production, even reshooting the ending, was finally done in May and scheduled for release on July 22.

The main movies releasing around the same time were "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2," "The Smurfs," "Horrible Bosses," "Cowboys & Aliens," and aside from Harry Potter, the other movies weren't significant competition.

"Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" was scheduled for a limited release in 24 theaters in North America on July 7. The actual wide release date would be determined based on the box office performance.