I'm Really a Superstar

Noon.

At home.

Zhang Ye scarfed down his meal.

Chenchen had finished lunch much earlier and was playing "The King Sent Me on Mountain Patrol" on her cell phone. She went over to Zhang Ye's mother and held the phone out in front of her. "Grandma, Zhang Ye wrote this song for me."

His mother patted her head and smiled. "It's such a nice song."

Chenchen turned around. "Grandpa, Zhang Ye wrote this song for me."

His father nodded enthusiastically. "It's great. Granny and I both listened to it on the radio just now."

Chenchen said, "You can hear me singing in it as well."

His mother smiled. "You sang much better than Little Ye!"

Chenchen nodded. "Yup."

Zhang Ye was rolling his eyes at everything they said. "Don't you guys feel bad making such lies?"

His mother shot him a look. "With that lousy voice of yours, how can you be better at singing than our Chenchen?!"

Zhang Ye threw up his hands. "Alright, but can I eat in peace?"

"What place is it at now?" his father asked.

"You mean on the Top Chinese Music Chart?" Zhang Ye laughed and answered, "I think it's almost reached second."

His mother said in astonishment, "How many hours has it been?"

Zhang Ye analyzed, "It's Children's Day today, so the momentum from that is pushing it up. I think it shouldn't be a problem for it to get first place by tonight, but I doubt that it can muster up a fight in the monthly chart's top rankings. The fifth episode of King of Masked Singers will be broadcast in another few days. At that point, there will be another flurry of songs released."

However, that was already good enough. The drop in his popularity after so many days without being in the public eye had been turned around a little bit.

A phone rang.

It was Chenchen's cell phone.

Chenchen answered her phone. "Aunt."

Rao Aimin: "Did Zhang Ye take you out to play?"

Chenchen said: "We went to Beijing Amusement Park and even sang a song together."

Rao Aimin: "Did you enjoy yourself then?"

Chenchen said: "I guess it was alright."

Zhang Ye interjected: "Only alright?"

Chenchen handed her cell phone to him. "Zhang Ye, my aunt is looking for you."

"OK." Zhang Ye took the phone from her and said: "Sorry to have inconvenienced you, Old Rao. Have you accepted the award yet?"

It sounded rather chaotic on Rao Aimin's end, so she was probably outside somewhere. "It's been withdrawn."

Zhang Ye said: "Ah?"

"I don't know what's with this bunch of bastards. They withdrew your award at the last minute and changed the recipient to someone else. It seems like they received some instructions from above or something."

A man's voice sounded over the phone: "Hey, why are you swearing at us?"

Zhang Ye heard Rao Aimin say: "What's wrong with me swearing at you people? You made me come all the way here to accept the award, then changed the recipient to someone else on the spot? You people might have nothing better to do, but I have many things to handle on my end!"

When the man heard this, he felt a little guilty. "Big Sis, why is your temper even more terrible than Zhang Ye's?"

Zhang Ye's and Rao Aimin's temperament were very similar. The two of them always did as they liked and would scold others the moment they disagreed with something.

Zhang Ye said: "Calm down, cool your jets. It's fine. If they've withdrawn the prize, so be it. Come back quick. The kid's waiting for you."

Rao Aimin said: "Alright, I'll head back soon. But let me give them another piece of my mind first!"

Just before the call ended, Zhang Ye heard Rao Aimin say: "Call your organizer's manager out! Are you people taking us for fools?"

The award was not actually an important one, but neither was it pointless. It was still considered an officially recognized award in the Beijing municipality called the "Lifetime Contribution Award to Variety Shows." With King of Masked Singers becoming so popular, Beijing Television had fought hard to get this award for Zhang Ye. As the value attached to this award was not really that great, Zhang Ye had sent his agent to collect the prize on his behalf. However, he did not expect it to be withdrawn at the last minute like this. Based on his time in the entertainment circle, Zhang Ye knew that there was something behind this decision. Perhaps this was done to send a signal of some sort.

Sure enough, it happened.

A few minutes later, there was a sudden change in the Top Chinese Music Chart!

"The King Sent Me on Mountain Patrol" was removed and its popularity score was locked. Even though the netizens could still access the song from various channels, the popularity score of the song would no longer increase. It had disappeared from the chart completely.

A lot of people on Weibo were stunned by the development.

"What happened?"

"Why is 'The King' no longer on the charts?"

"Did its popularity ranking drop all of a sudden?"

"That can't be! It was in second place! And almost in first place! It can't possibly just drop off from second place to outside the top hundred spots!"

"I've tried searching for it, but 'The King' is no longer in the top hundred!"

"What the hell? What's with this turn of events?"

"Was there a mistake with the statistics calculations?"

"What happened? Can anyone explain this?"

"Comrades, I've just received news that there was supposed to be an official award presented today in Beijing called the 'Lifetime Contribution Award to Variety Shows.' Teacher Zhang was slated to receive it, but just a moment ago, the recipient was switched to someone else. It seems like they received notice from the Ministry of Culture to prevent the award from being given to Teacher Zhang, and his agent even got into an argument with the organizers."

"This…"

"A ban?"

"The smog issue still hasn't blown over yet?"

"What was supposed to happen still couldn't be avoided, huh?"

"Dammit!"

"Would King of Masked Singers be affected by this then?"

"Who knows!"

"Teacher Zhang is in the news again!"

"The Brain Gold commercial has been taken down as well!"

"What?"

"I have a friend working at a television station and I just got notified about that!"

"But why?"

"No reason was given. There was just an order to change the commercial and redo it. The meaning couldn't be simpler! It just means that Zhang Ye's scene in the commercial has to be cut!"

"'A Letter to Home' has disappeared from the Top Chinese Music Chart as well!"

"Damn, those are both good songs!"

"It's not an issue with the song. It was clearly taken down because of the singer!"

The bad news kept coming.

At home, Zhang Ye's phone was blowing up!

His mother said in shock, "Why are they suddenly targeting you?"

Zhang Ye said calmly, "This should have happened much earlier, but it just got delayed."

His mother said angrily, "How can you be this calm?"

"I was long prepared for this," Zhang Ye replied.

Yes, he already knew about this long ago as Wu Zeqing had warned him about it.

All this time, all these days, Zhang Ye was being soft banned. Although there was no official statement about his status from any agencies, the truth was that Zhang Ye had already been banned for about a month or two. But due to the controversy at that time and the topic still being fervently discussed in the public sphere, this matter was not explicitly picked on during that sensitive period. If Zhang Ye had continued maintaining a low profile, this problem should have blown over in another month or two with Old Wu around. That would have been the end of the issue and Zhang Ye would have been able to stand up anew to do whatever he wanted to do. But today, Zhang Ye, who had been quiet for over a month, had come out with a new work. It even managed to shoot up to the top of the Top Chinese Music Chart at the double with momentum that was a force to be reckoned with. This was what attracted the current response from the authorities.

Ring, ring, ring.

The Clown's cell phone rang.

Han Qi spoke in a flustered tone: "Teacher, can you make a trip down to the television station now?"

Zhang Ye disguised his voice and said: "Did something happen?"

Han Qi said: "An executive from the Beijing Ministry of Culture and directors of some associations came for an inspection, so Director Hu got me to contact you. The other contestants are also on their way over now."

Zhang Ye acknowledged: "I'll be right there."

...

At Beijing Television.

In a meeting room.

Petal Shower, Sunset Glow, and Flowing Time, along with two other replacement masked singers, were present. They were all wearing their masks and seated in the meeting room when The Clown finally arrived.

Before long, Hu Fei also came into the meeting room with a group of people trailing behind him. They came in one by one until a dozen or so people in suits were inside the room. Finally, a deputy station head of Beijing Television who accompanied them throughout also arrived.

Hu Fei said, "Let me introduce all of you."

There was an honorary chairman from a television association.

There was a director from a certain cultural institution.

There were some enforcement officials from the Beijing Ministry of Culture.

Then, one of the leaders of the delegation smiled and said, "I'm very honored today to meet all of the show's contestants. This show you're doing is fantastic and I love watching it as well. However, there are some problems that I have to point out regarding some of the contestants' choice of song. I find them a little negative and not exactly helping to spread positive energy to the audience. Since this show has become so popular all over the country with over tens of millions of people watching the show, we have to pay more attention to what goes on it. The management of the SARFT is already preparing a censorship control system regarding song titles, as well as drama series and film titles. In the future, we'll all be following this system to carry out our enforcement of the rules. I think this is a good thing as there really is a necessity to make the censorship control system stricter. This is a kind of respect for our culture, as well as a guiding our citizens down the correct path."

He rattled on and talked about many things.

After that, the group of people moved off and continued with their inspection.

The deputy station head went with them while Hu Fei, Hou Ge, Xiao Lu, and the others stayed behind.

Flowing Time asked, "Director Hu, what's the meaning of this?"

A new replacement masked singer said, "We don't even have the freedom to choose what we want to sing anymore?"

Sunset Glow added, "If we're talking about songs with positive energy, how many love songs would be considered positive? Aren't they unnecessarily limiting a great deal of songs that we can sing? We won't even be able to sing love songs from now on?"

Hu Fei fluttered his hands. "It's not that bad. Everyone, just pay a bit more attention to your choice of songs for this episode and everything will be fine. Don't choose something like what Li Yu chose and everything should work out."

Petal Shower said, "We won't even be able to sing children's songs now, much less love songs."

Flowing Time agreed and said, "Zhang Ye's song has already been taken off the Top Chinese Music Chart."

Hou Ge said, "That was strictly targeted at Director Zhang, not you guys."

Petal Shower gave him a look. "Those people from the Beijing Ministry of Culture and the associations are probably here for Zhang Ye as well, aren't they?"

Hu Fei sighed.

Flowing Time asked, "Was this move initiated by the SARFT?"

Hu Fei answered, "It's not the SARFT this time."

Flowing Time heaved a sigh of relief. "That's not so bad then."

One of the replacement masked singers said curiously, "Why isn't the SARFT leading the crackdown this time? In the past, banning artists and program censorship have always been the SARFT's business, hasn't it?"

Hu Fei thought about it, then shook his head. "We're not sure about that either. Whatever it is, everyone should just take note of this matter. It's Children's Day anyway, so it might not be a bad idea to sing some children's songs for this episode."

Children's songs?

The contestants looked at each other.

Meanwhile, The Clown sat there, having not said a word since the beginning of the meeting.

He did not know what to say at all. He wanted to apologize but was unable to say that. This entire affair started because of him as he had offended too many people the previous time. This was why even though Wu Zeqing was holding down the fort over at the SARFT and they did not come to trouble him, there were still other departments and their leaders trying to prevent Zhang Ye from rising again!

This was all very logical.

This was all within his expectations.

No matter how he thought about it, everything pointed to this outcome. Zhang Ye himself knew this too. Although Zhang Ye looked very calm and was not exactly bursting with emotion, this thought he was holding inside him made him feel quite disappointed and exhausted!