A Journey Through the Worlds of Film and Television.

Chapter 384 Business Expansion

(Malena)

The next morning, Lu Cheng went out after breakfast, switched to his trumpet "Ezio", and took Camilo to the car dealership in the city to buy a black classic car.

Although Syracuse is not a big city, it is still very developed and many people in the city have private cars.

The price of a classic car is generally between 20,000 and 100,000 liras. Ordinary people have to work for at least a few years and save money without eating or drinking to afford a car.

Lu Cheng bought a black four-seater sedan, and then asked a younger brother who could drive to take Lu Cheng and some lipstick samples northward towards the city of Lentini.

At present, although Lu Cheng already has more than 120 younger brothers, these people are all reckless men who like to fight and kill, and few of them know how to negotiate business. Moreover, he has not recruited suitable talents yet. As the boss, Lu Cheng sometimes has to do it himself.

Fortunately, Lu Cheng was quite experienced in doing business. In addition, lipstick was a scarce commodity nowadays, and lipstick in Sicily was often in short supply, so the business negotiations went smoothly.

After taking care of the shops in Lentini, Lu Cheng continued to head north to Catania, Taormina, Messina and other places.

It took five or six days to finally expand the business and reach cooperation agreements with all the towns, big and small, on the east coast of Sicily.

Lipstick itself has extremely high profit margins, and since it is a consumable product, the sustainable consumption capacity is stable. As long as the business is expanded, the popularity is built, and a certain customer stickiness is formed, the rest is just about making money.

After negotiating these cooperations and returning to Syracuse, Lu Cheng immediately asked his subordinates to continue posting recruitment notices in the city. On the one hand, they recruited some female workers to expand the production scale, and on the other hand, they also recruited some accounting, purchasing, sales, management and other talents.

At this time in Sicily, due to the impact of the war, many people lost their jobs. It was not difficult to recruit ordinary workers, but management and sales talents still needed careful selection.

In the next few days, Lu Cheng basically appeared as "Ezio", interviewing and assessing talents, and handling various aspects of the factory's business.

In order to further strengthen the construction of the management team, Lu Cheng also rented several houses in Syracuse, set up a special office, registered a cosmetics company, and established a complete organization.

The purchasing department, sales department, design department, logistics department, and publicity department all need to be set up.

After being busy for a while, when Lu Cheng returned home, Marlena came to him immediately and said, "Mr. Lu, you are finally back. I have made all the clothes you wanted. Try them on and if there is anything that doesn't fit, I will modify them."

"Okay, I'll go back and try it out. Please come to my house. I'll tell you the modifications as soon as I'm done."

"Ok, no problem."

Lu Cheng returned home, changed his clothes, tried them on, and made some suggestions for revisions. He then gave the labor fee directly to Malena, and also took out two lipsticks and handed them to Malena: "Ms. Malena, thank you for helping me make clothes. Please accept these small gifts."

"This...Mr. Lu, I just want the labor fee, I can't ask for your gift anymore."

"Just accept it. I will often ask you to make clothes for me in the future. I give you some small gifts in the hope that you can be more attentive when making clothes in the future."

"Well, thank you for the gift, I like it very much."

That afternoon, Malena modified the clothes according to Lu Cheng's suggestions and then sent the clothes to Lu Cheng's home.

When she arrived at Lu Cheng's house, she saw Lu Cheng walking out of the house with a violin in his hand.

"Mr. Lu, are you going to practice the piano?"

"Yes, if you like, you can stay and have a cup of coffee, and listen to my performance of this piece."

"Of course I do."

"Mrs. Moore, prepare a cup of coffee for Ms. Marlena."

"Okay, sir."

Soon, Mrs. Moore brought a cup of coffee, and Lu Cheng's performance just started.

As Lu Cheng plucked the strings of the guitar, a song "When It Rains" sounded. The thought of the falling autumn rain and the longing for autumn awakened the longing and sadness hidden in the heart.

Malena was immediately immersed in the song and soon forgot the purpose of her visit. Memories emerged in her eyes, both beautiful and sad.

When the song ended, Marlena applauded and praised: "Mr. Lu, your performance is really wonderful. Listening to this song, it seems like there is light rain falling in front of the window, which makes people unconsciously recall some of the past."

"That's right. The name of this song is "When It Rains." People are always more likely to reminisce about the past when it rains. In fact, music can cleanse people's souls and tell stories."

"Oh, really? Mr. Lu can also tell stories with music?"

"Of course, we Chinese have a sad and beautiful love story that is very suitable to be expressed with the violin. But the story is quite long, I wonder if Ms. Malena is interested in listening to it."

"of course."

Lu Cheng asked Mrs. Moore to get a flute from the house. He first played a light and lively prelude on the flute, and then switched to the violin, gradually entering the theme with a light tune.

As the melodious violin music resounded in the yard, everything around seemed to quiet down, as if telling the story of two people from meeting, knowing each other to falling in love, experiencing the beauty of love, facing the setbacks of love, going through the hardships of love, enduring the obstruction of family members and the obstruction of the world, and finally both committing suicide for love.

When the rhythm enters the second half, the song becomes full of resentment and endless sadness, as if the two people are trying their best to resist everything, but in the end they can only achieve love through death, and both turn into butterflies.

When the nearly half-hour performance was over, tears began to fall from the corners of Malena's eyes.

After the song ended, Malena was still immersed in it.

After a long while, Marlena finally spoke: "Lu, is this the love story of Romeo and Juliet?"

"Very similar, but our Chinese story is more classic."

“Can you tell me this story?”

"Of course, the name of this story is "Liang Zhu"..."

Next, Malena sat opposite Lu Cheng and listened quietly to Lu Cheng telling a classic love story that has been passed down through the ages.

As both widely circulated tragic love stories, the Western "Romeo and Juliet" and the Eastern "Butterfly Lovers" do have many similarities.

Romeo and Juliet focuses more on depicting the inner contradictions of individuals and the conflicts in society, while The Butterfly Lovers focuses more on describing the perseverance and faith of two lovers in love.

Judging from the ending, this Western story is more tragic and is a strong call for the liberation of human nature.

The oriental drama "Butterfly Lovers" is about two people who die together and turn into butterflies to achieve eternal reunion. It is a tragedy with a touch of romance.

We cannot say which one is better or worse, we can only say that it is the result of cultural differences.

However, after hearing this story, Malena shed a lot of tears, and Lu Cheng had to comfort her: "Stories are just stories. People in real life should be more cheerful. Malena, you should smile more. A smile can heal everything."