I'm Really a Superstar

Morning, 7 AM.

The sun had risen.

The day shift hosts, cleaners, and others were trickling in for work. The various departments in Beijing Television Station were starting a new day. Each department’s offices lighted up.

……

In the recording studio.

Zhang Ye put away the props and equipment one by one and cleared the room. There were still other teams who needed to use the recording studio afterwards as they had only booked the studio until 8 AM. This was why he made space for them by clearing his team’s stuff away. After more or less cleaning the studio, Zhang Ye sat down in a chair feeling totally exhausted. He felt as though his hands and feet did not physically belong to him anymore. Yet as he sat there, his eyes did not show a hint of tiredness. In fact, they even gleamed brightly because he had completed what others thought was an impossible task!

Finished!

The ad production had been completed!

Zhang Ye turned to the side and said, “Aunty, I just want to thank you for all your help. I’ll let the team know to put in a good word for you and give you the credit you deserve for helping out in the production of this ad. Hopefully, the Equipment Department people will give you a promotion as well, ha.”

Xu Yuhong smiled and said, “There’s no need for that.”

“Of course I need to. You’ve been such a great help,” Zhang Ye insisted.

Xu Yuhong shook her head. “I can’t be promoted anymore.”

Zhang Ye said, “Yo, you’ve offended someone upstairs too? Who did you offend?”

Xu Yuhong said in amusement, “I should be asking you instead. Who did I offend?”

“Then why can’t an old employee like you who oversees the equipment get promoted? They should at least give you a pay raise. Don’t be bothered by me. I will definitely help you get a raise. Although I may not have a good relationship with the station and my personal relationships with people are also kind of poor, a small matter like that won’t be an issue.” Zhang Ye said, “Besides, you’re an old lady with such well-rounded technical skills while at the same time so versatile and talented. It’s such a waste staying in the Equipment Department.”

Xu Yuhong laughed lightly. “Thank you for your praise.”

Suddenly, the snoring nearby stopped.

Sun Han woke and quickly sat up in his chair. His first instinct was to look at his watch, but when he saw the time, he was stunned. He exclaimed loudly, “Aiyo! It’s almost 8 AM!”

With this loud voice shouting for all to hear, the others were also roused.

The old-young-sick-injured quartet who were just transitioning from waking up were also freaked out by this!

“Teacher Zhang!”

“It’s morning already?”

“You, why didn’t you wake us up!”

“Yeah, didn’t you say you’d rouse us after 30 minutes!?”

Even though Sun Han and his team knew that if the ad was not completed on time, they would receive some form rather heavy punishment while Beijing Television Station would also face a hefty fine or a warning from the authorities. But punishment was just punishment. However, attitude was something else. If Zhang Ye was willing to come volunteer and help out for free without even getting any rest, then how did they deserve to rest for a good six to seven hours? It did not seem right at all.

But Zhang Ye did not make much of it and just said, “It’s fine. I saw that you were all really tired. And since you guys wouldn’t be able to help much even if you were awake, I decided not to wake you all up.”

Sun Han looked apologetic. “With the deadline we were facing, yet we still…”

The intern girl was also flushed from embarrassment. “We are so sorry, Teacher Zhang. We made you do all the work by yourself. Have you been working all this time without rest since midnight?”

Zhang Ye smiled and said, “I can still take it. I’m used to working overtime anyway.”

Although the ad could not be completed, Sun Han was also thoroughly convinced by Zhang Ye about this matter. There were stories about Zhang Ye and his incidents that were talked about within the station. It was known that he had always been a very disputed character. There were also a lot of criticisms of him, but when face-to-face and having interacted with Zhang Ye directly, Sun Han realized that Zhang Ye was totally different from hearsay or his preconceived notions. From just this incident alone, it could be seen that Zhang Ye was a person who valued friendship a lot. When his ex-leader called him and requested his help, he immediately got down to working, and did so for 24 hours straight without rest or any grumbling. Even though the ad was not finished, he had still tried his best till the very end. Sun Han felt that if he had a friend like Zhang Ye, he would surely be considered a lucky person.

“Sorry, Teacher Zhang. We made you work so hard for nothing.” Before he could finish saying what he wanted, Sun Han suddenly caught sight of someone in the corner of his eye. It was an old lady!

Eh?

Why does this person look so familiar?

Suddenly, Sun Han wore an expression of shock. “…Station Head!?”

The old-young-sick-injured quartet also saw her and called out in unison, “Station Head!”

When Zhang Ye heard this greeting, he suddenly felt as though he did not understand what the situation was. Dammit! What the hell is this? Station Head? What station head? Her? This old lady??

Xu Yuhong laughed for a bit and said, “Good morning. All of you have worked hard.”

Sun Han quickly answered, “It’s nothing, it’s nothing. This is our job. What…what brought you here?”

Xu Yuhong said, “Me? I was just passing by; it’s nothing important. I’m going back now.” After that, she did not say anything else and just strolled out of the recording studio.

Only to leave Zhang Ye staring with his eyes and mouth wide open at the old lady’s retreating image!

The leader of Beijing Television Station, Station Head Xu Yuhong…that was her??

Zhang Ye was of course not unfamiliar with this name since he had heard it before. But as he had never seen her before, he could never have expected that the old lady from the “Equipment Department” he had been dealing with was in fact the Station Head of Beijing Television Station. But didn’t she mention something about working upstairs? Thinking about it now, it wasn’t just the equipment room upstairs. The upstairs of upstairs of upstairs of upstairs was exactly where the the station head’s office was at! F**k! No wonder! No wonder this old lady was so well-versed in using the computer and even knew all those technical skills among other things. If he had thought about it earlier, he should have known that she couldn’t possibly be someone who took care of the equipment! An old lady at that age, how could she have had so much knowledge on complex issues like these? How could she have such strong learning capability? She definitely must have been from one of the early batches of university students in China! Being a university student at that time was a very different concept to the current university student. Anyone who was good enough to qualify for university at that era was definitely a rarity, a (wo)man amongst dragons and phoenixes. They were surely not your typical everyday people. Even if they didn’t do too well, they couldn’t possibly be relegated to only taking care of the equipment, right?

Good god!

The person he ordered around for several hours to do menial jobs turned out to be the highest-ranking leader in all of Beijing Television Station? He had been making the station head do things for him? He had been instructing her to do this and that all this while? Oh, in the whole of the television station, no, in any industry, no one else would have dared to do that!

When Zhang Ye remembered that he even mentioned that he would put in a good word for her to get her a pay raise, even he couldn’t help but find it amusing. The salary of a station head was decided by the country, so how could he even have a say in something like that!

How mean!

That old lady was truly too mean!

When the station head left, Sun Han immediately felt more comfortable and quickly asked, “Teacher Zhang, why did the station head come over here? Was she here to supervise the quit smoking ad production?”

“Ah, yes.” Zhang Ye said ambiguously. He was definitely too ashamed to tell them that he had been ordering her about for the past three hours.

Sun Han and the awesome quartet all looked at each other, thinking that they were surely done for this time. Even the Station Head had attached such importance to this PSA and they had yet to finish it. They were definitely going to get into trouble this time!

Zhang Ye said, “Let’s pack up and go back to the office for now.”

As their things had already been sorted, everyone just took a box and carried them upstairs.