Big Shot Ch.90.2

Chapter 90.2: Endorsement Contract Signing

While Shen Xiu was researching VG, Assistant Wen was urgently reporting back to Kaiser.

Assistant Wen: “Director, the first offer was too low. Shen Xiu said he needs to think about it. Should I send the second version now?”

Kaiser walked from the open kitchen to the dining table with a cup of coffee in hand. After thinking for a moment, he replied, “Send it.”

Even though Kaiser was the director and the son of the company’s owner, signing a newly debuted artist came with major risks.

Especially considering that VG’s previous endorsement deals had always involved at least second-tier or higher celebrities, Kaiser’s decision to choose Shen Xiu this time was widely criticized within the company. As a result, the budget allocated by the company wasn’t very generous.

Since Shen Xiu didn’t come from a financially struggling background, Kaiser was afraid he wouldn’t accept the first offer. So, Kaiser personally covered the difference out of his own pocket to create a second version of the endorsement contract.

But beyond that… he really couldn’t afford to give any more.

“Understood.”

Assistant Wen hung up the call and, while sending the second contract email to Shen Xiu’s inbox, also dialed his number.

Shen Xiu had just finished verifying everything and was still reeling from the shock of the sky-high endorsement fee. He noticed a second email from VG pop into the inbox on the computer.

Just as he opened the email in confusion, his phone on the table vibrated.

Seeing the familiar number he hadn’t saved yet, Shen Xiu picked up. “Assistant Wen, you—”

As the new contract opened on the screen, Shen Xiu’s gaze immediately locked onto the revised endorsement fee, and he was so stunned he couldn’t speak. He completely forgot what he had intended to say to Assistant Wen.

Hearing Shen Xiu suddenly go quiet, Assistant Wen assumed the first offer must have been too low, and Shen Xiu was hesitating over it.

He quickly spoke: “Apologies. The second email we just sent to your inbox contains the official contract. We hope you’ll take some time to consider it.”

Looking at the numbers in the updated contract, Shen Xiu felt his entire perception of money shatter.

Just seeing that kind of money made him feel guilty—let alone actually accepting it.

While Assistant Wen waited silently for Shen Xiu’s response, every second felt like an eternity.

Shen Xiu swallowed nervously, forcing himself out of his stunned state and replied, “Let’s go with the first version.”

The second offer… if he took that much, he felt like he’d be waking up in cold sweats every night.

No, forget the second version of the contract—for the first version alone, just looking at it made Shen Xiu feel like a certified, sheltered fool who had never seen the world.

If the person on the other end had been someone he was familiar with—like Xiang Yueting—instead of a stranger he’d only spoken to twice, he might have mustered up the courage to ask, “Are you sure the way you calculate money is the same as how I understand it?”

“Huh?” Assistant Wen, who had been nervously waiting, was momentarily stunned by Shen Xiu’s reply.

Snapping out of it, he quickly asked, “Are you sure?”

Shen Xiu: “I’m sure.”

Assistant Wen immediately made the connection to Shen Xiu’s relationship with the director. Given Shen Xiu’s family background, this amount of money probably meant very little to him. His initial hesitation must have been because it was too little and he didn’t really care whether he accepted it or not.

But after thinking it over carefully and remembering his connection with the director, he must have decided to accept the endorsement out of respect for their shared history as students of Professor Jiang—choosing to use the first version of the contract was clearly a gesture of honoring that connection!

This had to be a special “friends and family discount” that Shen Xiu was offering the director! If not, he’d eat his hat—or wash his hair while doing a handstand!

Just as the “Xiuologists” said: Shen Xiu may look cold on the outside, but when it comes to people or things he truly values, he’s soft-hearted and treats them with sincerity.

“Thank you! The director will be very happy to hear this,” Assistant Wen said.

Shen Xiu, believing he had just scored the deal of a lifetime, replied, “I’m happy too.”

Assistant Wen: “!”

Just as I thought—he’s happy to help his fellow disciple.

Assistant Wen, moved: “I’ll definitely tell the director how happy you are!”

“…?”

Shen Xiu hung up the phone with a confused look.

Why does my happiness need to be reported to someone else?

Unable to figure it out, Shen Xiu decided not to dwell on it. He followed the instructions in the contract and quickly completed the online signing process.

Just a few seconds after Shen Xiu sent over the signed contract, his WeChat popped up with a friend request notification.

He opened WeChat and, before even accepting the request, noticed that the group chat—muted last night so he wouldn’t be disturbed while sleeping—had exploded with 99+ unread messages.

‘Everyone else is really chatty…’ Shen Xiu thought, feeling a bit apologetic as he accepted the friend request from VG’s Assistant Wen.

After a slightly awkward exchange of greetings in the chat, Assistant Wen sent Shen Xiu the promotional plan, asking him to copy and post the prepared text and image to the Weibo account at 9 PM that evening.

Once their conversation ended, Shen Xiu finally opened the promotional copy and attached image Assistant Wen had sent.

When he saw the picture—a photo of himself wearing the outfit from his last visit to Professor Jiang’s house—he was stunned.

“When was this taken?”

He had absolutely no memory of being photographed.

“Wait a second…”

A thought suddenly struck Shen Xiu. He opened the image in full size, mentally comparing it to the angles of the dorm and Professor Jiang’s house’s livestream surveillance cameras—and the mystery was instantly solved.

The picture wasn’t taken.

It was a screenshot from surveillance footage.

They hadn’t even bothered with a photoshoot—just pulled a still from the cameras. Shen Xiu couldn’t help but feel that VG’s money spent on him was truly not worth it.

He muttered to himself, “I used to just not understand what people were thinking. Now I’ve leveled up to not understanding what the companies hiring me as a spokesperson are thinking.”

They’d paid so much, yet placed barely any demands on him. Shen Xiu grew nervous, worried he wouldn’t do a good enough job and would let them down.

So, Shen Xiu immediately followed Assistant Wen’s instructions, copying the promotional text word for word into his Weibo draft, adding the image, and setting it for a 9 PM scheduled post.

After completing all of that, Shen Xiu finally opened the 99+ unread messages in the group chat and began reading through them one by one.

After reading through the group chat history, Shen Xiu was amazed at Shang Yu’s ability to predict things before they happened. He typed a reply in the chat.

[Group Chat]

Shen Xiu: Just signed it.

Shen Xiu: Sorry, my phone died and shut off. I didn’t ignore the messages on purpose.

Xiang Yueting: ! Congrats!

Ning Sinian: ! Congrats!

Zhuang Yi: ! Congrats!

Mu Zhenchu: Congrats! Don’t forget us if you strike it rich!

Seeing the group members respond one after another, Shen Xiu quietly tried to fit in and sent his replies in the same enthusiastic style.

Shen Xiu: ! Thank you!

Shen Xiu: Okay!

Ning Sinian and the others, who were chatting in real time, saw Shen Xiu’s responses and felt that he was genuinely a good person—open and sincere with them.

After all, without complete trust, how could he have just signed the contract and immediately shared the news of the still-unannounced endorsement with them, holding nothing back?

It was obvious he trusted them not to leak the information.

And given Shen Xiu’s personality, the way he naturally and casually brought it up made it clear—there was no way he was bragging.

It was just a small endorsement deal. It probably wasn’t even enough to buy the white, intricately carved outermost gate of Shen Xiu’s family estate. Why would he need to brag?

Wanting to live up to Shen Xiu’s trust, the group secretly messaged each other, agreeing to mutually supervise one another and absolutely not leak the news online before Shen Xiu made it official.

In the gray-toned study, Shen Xiu swiped back and forth on his screen multiple times.

Even though it was just a simple chat record, he couldn’t help but read it again and again. Every time he looked, his heart felt full and soft—as if stuffed with cotton.

—

8:00 PM.

Not a minute early, not a minute late—Shen Xiu’s livestream started right on time.

Because of the earlier livestream announcement, the moment it went live, countless loyal Xiuologists and gossip-hungry netizens swarmed into the stream.

[He’s here, he’s here! Damn, that beauty filter is a critical hit!]

[Wait, where is Xiu-baby right now? I’ve never seen this place before. Is it a new home?]

[Ahhh, I want to see more!]

[+1 to wanting to see more]

[I came for the gossip, but this color scheme and interior… Is this the legendary “cold and aloof CEO aesthetic”? Also want to see more +1000]

Before going live, Shen Xiu had asked the system for permission and, once approved, chose to stream from the living room.

Seeing the flood of comments—so fast they were almost unreadable if he didn’t look carefully—Shen Xiu spotted someone complimenting him and felt so embarrassed he wanted to curl his toes into the floor.

“Thank you. You’re all beautiful too.”

“This isn’t my home, it’s a rental.”

“Today’s my first time moving in, so it’s also my first time here. The owner’s never lived here before, so there’s not much stuff—kinda empty.”

“Roughly…” Shen Xiu picked up his phone, stood up, flipped the camera around to give a quick tour of the room, then turned it back to face himself. “This is what it looks like.”

Shen Xiu answered all the visible questions in the comments honestly and thoroughly.

After he finished, and while the viewers continued to fill the chat, Shen Xiu fixed the phone back onto its stand and looked down at the comments he had copied from a screenshot earlier in the day.

[Hahaha, even though Xiu-baby didn’t say ‘a friend’ this time, we clever Xiuologists already get it—this must be another one of those ‘I have a friend’ stories.]

[Only newbie Xiuologists take his words at face value. We veterans already know, the moment Xiu-baby starts talking, the correct response is: Ah yes, yes, of course.]

[Damn, when will I get to experience that overwhelming feeling of having so many houses I can’t even live in them all? That empty, new-home feeling wherever I go!]

[That huge floor-to-ceiling window, the high-end gray wooden floor—thanks, I’ve already pictured so many scenes!]

[Heh (big boss smoking) As both a Xiuologist and a scissors hand (*editor), the moment I saw Xiu-baby start his livestream, I hit record—this material, we gotta record ourselves!]

[Xiuologists are just too amazing. Sisters, I’m hungry, feed me, love you all!]

Shen Xiu’s notebook was filled with so many notes. When he flipped to the page where he’d recorded the questions from comments, looking back at the barrage of messages, they were all flooding with phrases like “Xiuologists are amazing,” “feed feed,” and “hungry hungry” — words he could recognize but didn’t quite understand.

“Ahem…” Not understanding the comments, Shen Xiu awkwardly cleared his throat and turned to his notebook to answer the questions.

“Everyone’s commenting that they want to see the quality of the buttons on that white shirt I wore on stage. No problem—I brought it, I’ll show you the quality in a bit.”

“I really did go see my parents.”

“We’re very close, very good. They’re both very good people.”

As he answered, Shen Xiu noticed his voice sounded a bit off, so he paused briefly to compose himself.

Duan Mingfei was growing impatient. He didn’t really understand why Shen Xiu was bothering to answer these boring questions from fans who didn’t send gifts. He had his assistant hire a bunch of paid commenters to flood the chat and boost the questions Shen Xiu was answering.

Within just a few seconds, the chat was flooded with the same question over and over: “Are you close with Kaiser?”

With the paid commenters stirring things up, the gossip-hungry netizens remembered what they came for and joined in, spamming the question together.

Shen Xiu snapped back to attention and looked at the chat again. Seeing that question, he frowned in confusion.

He didn’t quite understand why everyone suddenly wanted to ask that.

“Kaiser?”

Shen Xiu recalled the notes Assistant Wen had sent him and confirmed the topic wasn’t off-limits. Only then did he answer, “So far, we’ve only met once.”

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