Chapter 47

That night, Li Mu stood in the living room of Zhang Kexuan's luxuriously decorated three-bedroom apartment, listening to Zhang Kexuan ramble on about his aspirations for half the evening.

Zhang Kexuan regarded Li Mu as a lighthouse in his life, while Li Mu saw him and Jian Dan Plan as a test field for his own ambitions.

The best scenario would be to use the great songs from the future and the upcoming Eting to make Jian Dan Plan famous, and then use Jian Dan Plan to promote Eting, turning it into a music portal capable of creating stars online. The potential for future development was enormous. This way, he would have two options: either join others in piracy and wait to be acquired by a large platform at a high price, or accumulate enough strength to transform and create his own platform.

Both of them were lost in their own ideals until the early hours of the morning before they finally retired to their rooms.

The next morning, around nine o'clock, Ye Tianming and the others arrived. Both of them, with panda eyes, got up and Ye Tianming handed a bank card to Li Mu.

"Brother Mu, there's 100,000 in it, the password is 123321. Kexuan, I've covered your share."

Li Mu nodded and took the bank card. "Who has time to drive me to take care of some business?"

"I will." Ye Tianming raised his hand. "I drove here."

"Alright." Li Mu smiled. "I'll trouble you for the whole morning. Do you have anything else to do?"

"No." Ye Tianming said cheerfully. "If you're in a hurry, we can go now."

"Okay." Li Mu didn't hesitate and said to the others, "I'll be back to Haizhou after I finish today. You guys should focus on rehearsing 'Sunflower.' Also, remember, no matter who approaches you, don't agree to record singles."

"Why?" Zhang Kexuan was very curious.

He was thinking about recording singles. Although "Li Bai" had already been performed publicly, from a technical standpoint, there was only a live version of "Li Bai" and no proper recording version, which naturally had a poorer effect. A recording version would add other instruments, multiple recordings, and post-production to achieve a perfect state.

Li Mu said, "If a record company records your single, they will definitely require you to sign a contract first. If a regular website, studio, or recording studio records your single, they will definitely promote your song online in advance. Both of these you need to avoid for now. In the future, when I set up the music website, I will personally produce for you, and we will work together to achieve the best results."

"Alright!" The others completely followed Li Mu's instructions on this matter.

Afterward, Li Mu, accompanied by Ye Tianming in his Crown, went to a company in Jinling that operated servers and purchased two very high-end servers. Then, he took the servers to a server hosting company, selected the bandwidth, and completed the hosting process.

For a forum, one server was enough, but for Eting, which would need to support a large number of users in the future, the requirements for the number of servers, processing power, space, and bandwidth were all very high. However, since Eting hadn't been developed yet, one server was sufficient for the initial launch, and more could be added as needed later.

While Li Mu was handling the server matters, Chen Wan called to ask when he would return to Haizhou. Li Mu made an appointment with her for a time and place, and after finishing his business, he took Ye Tianming's car to meet Chen Wan.

In the car, Li Mu asked Ye Tianming, "Tianming, I heard your family is in real estate. Do you have any office buildings for rent?"

"Yes." Ye Tianming replied, "My father operates a commercial building. The ground floor is retail, and the second to sixteenth floors are office buildings. The occupancy rate is less than 80%, so there are quite a few vacancies. What kind of space are you looking for?"

"Sixty to seventy square meters would be enough." Li Mu smiled. "Help me look for one, and if it's suitable, I'll rent it."

"You can use it directly." Ye Tianming said generously. "Do we need to calculate the cost?"

"No." Li Mu said, "It's not your own property, so it's better to be clear. I don't want your father to think you're only making friends who take advantage of you. Just help me look, and I'll sign the contract with the person in charge at your father's company."

Ye Tianming looked at Li Mu, seeing that he wasn't joking, and became serious. "I'll call and ask about the office space later. However, if you're renting it to set up a music website, the rent should be calculated. The logic is: the four of us pay the rent to your father's company. Don't forget, we agreed that you would give us songs and help us gain fame, and the four of us would provide the manpower, effort, and money for the music website."

Li Mu nodded slightly and smiled. "Since that's the case, I won't say more. Thanks for your help."

"Too formal!" For Ye Tianming and Zhang Kexuan, after the stunning performance the previous day, they already regarded Li Mu as a god. Music was their faith, and once Li Mu could help them in this area, money was the least of their concerns.

Although the four members of Jian Dan Plan had taken care of the funding for Eting, Li Mu still had a lot of work to do. He needed to develop Eting and a forum. The forum was easy to solve; he could buy a ready-made forum template and code, then customize and modify it. However, developing Eting required starting from scratch.

The current websites had no aesthetic appeal, and the page modules were very rigid, with no consideration for layout, aesthetics, or user experience. Li Mu wanted to make Eting the best music listening and downloading website, which required a forward-thinking approach.

This meant that the workload for him to complete alone was enormous. Based on the development framework he provided, he would need to hire at least two to three programmers, a designer, and an engineer responsible for servers and testing.

Finding such talent in Haizhou was difficult, but Jinling offered more hope. Therefore, Li Mu entrusted the four members of Jian Dan Plan to help him search for suitable resumes at job fairs over the next few days.

...

Seeing Chen Wan, Li Mu said goodbye to Ye Tianming and got into the driver's seat of Chen Wan's Audi, with Chen Wan sitting in the passenger seat.

Driving out of the city, Chen Wan said to Li Mu, "I might go to Shanghai in a few days."

"Oh?" Li Mu asked curiously, "Isn't it still early for the start of school? Why are you going to Shanghai?"

Chen Wan said somewhat dejectedly, "A friend of my father introduced me to an opportunity to intern at Shanghai TV for a month during the summer."

"That's great."

Shanghai TV, which would later become Oriental TV, was one of the top local TV stations. Li Mu smiled and said, "Shanghai TV is one of the best in the country. If you can work there in the future, your prospects are limitless."

Chen Wan pouted. "Impossible. Shanghai TV is very hard to get into, and it's difficult to stand out. My father's idea is to let me learn some experience at Shanghai TV first. When I intern in the second half of my senior year, he will send me to Jiangsu TV, where he has a good friend who is quite high up. He can help me with the internship and even get me a permanent position after graduation."

Li Mu thought for a moment. In her previous life, Chen Wan had joined Jiangsu TV and eventually died in an accident. Li Mu didn't know who her future husband was, but he felt that if her life path didn't change, she might still meet that unknown man.

"Jiangsu TV doesn't seem to have much potential," Li Mu's tone was not very optimistic.

Chen Wan asked, "Is that so? Local TV stations seem to be about the same now, except for Hunan TV, which is better."

Li Mu said, "Then try to go to Hunan TV."

After all, Hunan TV, which would later become the dominant TV station, offered more opportunities. If Chen Wan could develop there, it would be good for her.

Chen Wan was not very confident. "I don't know anyone in Hunan, and I have no connections. Can you just walk into a TV station?"

Li Mu said calmly, "There's still a year left. What's the rush?"

"You're right." Chen Wan shrugged. "But when I go to Shanghai, I won't see you for a while."

Before Li Mu could speak, Chen Wan continued dejectedly, "By the end of August, you'll probably be going to university too."

At that time, one would be in Beijing and the other in Shanghai, and Chen Wan suddenly felt even more dejected.

Li Mu smiled and comforted her, "We can always meet. Air tickets aren't that expensive, right?"

Chen Wan was a rich second-generation, and Li Mu was now a small tycoon with several hundred thousand. What was expensive to ordinary people was not much to them.

"Then it's settled!" Chen Wan said immediately. "When you get to Beijing, get familiar with the place. When I come, you'll be my guide and accompany me the whole time."

Li Mu nodded and smiled, "I'll make sure you feel at home."