I'm Really a Superstar

The next day.

Zhang Ye came to work at 6 AM in the morning, carrying a bag of piping hot buns, two hamburgers, and three bottles of mineral water. He headed straight into the editing studio and did not come out for the rest of the day. When everyone from Department 14 knocked off, and even after those who stayed behind to work overtime left at around 8 PM, Zhang Ye still did not come out from the editing studio.

Everyone knew that Director Zhang was busy editing the documentary, so they did not dare to disturb him.

The next day, everyone came to work as usual, but they still did not see any sign of Director Zhang.

A day later, when everyone came to work, they heard from a staff member of Department 14 who had the night shift saying that Director Zhang was no longer in the editing studio and had gone to the recording studio at around 4 AM.

Then, they did not see him again for another day.

Little Wang panicked. "Will Director Zhang's health be affected like this?"

"It has already been three days." Ha Qiqi was extremely worried and asked, "Director Zhang has not gone home at all?"

Wu Yi wiped his sweat off and said, "Rather than going home, I've heard that he has been staying here all this time. I haven't even seen Director Zhang once in the past few days. Only Little Han who does the night shift has seen him twice, and that was because he went out to buy supper for Director Zhang. It's not good if it goes on like this. With this work intensity, he better not have something happen to him."

Tong Fu got frightened by that. "Let's go get Director Zhang!"

Zhang Zuo didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Back then, Director Zhang was also like this when he did The Voice. He did not go home for many days and even brought a child to stay at the program team office every day! He did not leave the station at all!"

Huang Dandan said in shock, "Ah? Really?"

Ha Qiqi gave a wry smile. "Of course it's true. You guys didn't know about the situation because Little Tong and you aren't from The Voice's program team. Our Director Zhang is a guy who would work to death. As long as there is work within the program team, then needless to say, Director Zhang will assuredly be the last one to leave work and the first person to come to work the next day. We have tried persuading and talking to him before, but it's not like you don't know Director Zhang's temper. When has he ever listened to us? So there's no need to go get Director Zhang since it's useless even if you talk to him. You may even end up distracting him from recording the voiceover."

The original staff of Department 14 were feeling rather alarmed by that!

While those people who worked on The Voice with Zhang Ye were not surprised, they did not feel too comfortable about it either.

Finally, on November 30th, the recording studio's door finally opened during the daytime. Zhang Ye walked out with his hair messy and looked exhausted, though his eyes were shimmering.

Ha Qiqi stood up immediately. "Director Zhang!"

Little Wang exclaimed, "Aiyo, you've finally come out!"

Zhang Zuo shouted, "Quickly, go and get Director Yan!"

Director Yan had told everyone to inform him once Zhang Ye stepped out of the studio. As such, when Tong Fu saw this, he ran to Director Yan's office immediately. After an entire week, they finally saw him again!

Before Tong Fu had reached the director's office, Yan Tianfei heard their shouting and burst through the door and strode towards the office space of A Bite of China.

"Director Yan." Zhang Ye smiled.

Yan Tianfei heaved a sigh of relief. "You're really risking your life for this documentary!"

However, Zhang Ye brushed it off very casually. "It's nothing, Director Yan. Back when I was recording the talk show and preparing for The Voice, the situation was not that different from this. It's just not going home for a few days. What's the big deal with that. The main issue is that we do not have much time left before the documentary starts its broadcast. If we take it too slowly, I'm afraid it will be too late. That's why I wanted to quickly rush out the documentary to submit it for approval. We still need to plan for the programming lineup and times, otherwise we won't make it in time."

Yan Tianfei asked, "So how did it go?"

"The documentary is complete. We just need to add in the background music and we can submit it for approval," Zhang Ye answered.

What?

It's already completed?

You finished everything by yourself in just a week??

Everyone was dumbfounded. Those people who were originally from Department 14 looked at Zhang Ye as though he were some kind of god. In the past, they'd frequently heard rumors of Zhang Ye risking his life for work, but did not actually witness it firsthand. However, now that they saw it for themselves, they were truly shocked. He was pushing himself too hard. As a leader, if you took on all the work by yourself, then what would there be left for us to do? However, on second thought, they did not say anything because everyone knew that if they could help out in the areas of editing and voice recording, Director Zhang would surely get them to help. But there was really no one in the program team who could help him; only Director Zhang himself could handle such work that called for certain artistic standards!

If their leader worked so hard, then how could they not do the same?

Everyone immediately busied themselves like they were on stimulants. Some of them went to get the background music, some of them went to finish up the post-production work, and some contacted the approval board staff in advance.

Zhang Ye was still supervising from the side as the remaining tasks were inseparable from him. However, as most of the important work was already done, he could finally afford to relax a little. He took out his cell phone and turned it on.

When it powered on, countless missed calls and messages came flooding in!

Hu Fei: "Call me back when you turn on your phone."

His mother: "When are you coming home?"

Tian Bin: "What's the matter? You even turned off your cell phone?"

Dong Shanshan: "Old classmate, have you gone missing?"

Zhang Ye called his mother back.

"Mom, I'm going back tonight."

"You've finished your work already?"

"Yes, I'll be able to finish it today."

"Alrighty then. If you didn't call back home, your dad and I would have forgotten that we had a son."

"Man, it can't be that serious, right?"

Then, he suddenly heard the chat app notification sound from his cell phone. It was an invitation to join a group chat but he didn't know when it was sent to him. Seeing that it was Hu Fei who invited him, he accepted and joined. When he entered the group chat, he saw that everyone in it were familiar faces. They were his ex-colleagues from the BTV-Arts Channel whom he worked with on Lecture Room and also the current program team of Do You Remember.

Xiao Lu: "Ah, Teacher Zhang?"

Dafei: "Teacher Zhang has joined the group chat?"

Dong Shanshan: "What have you been doing for the past week? Did you go missing?"

Hu Fei also appeared and typed out a long string of question marks.

Zhang Ye thought that this would save him the trouble of calling them up, so he sent a group message to them: "I was busy editing the documentary for the past few days and didn't even go home or turn on my cell phone, but everything's done now. Let me inform all of you here first, haha. On the Friday of the week after next at 8 PM, remember to tune into Central TV Department 14 to give me some viewership support! "

Hou Ge cried out in excitement: "We'll definitely do so!!!"

Dong Shanshan: "Hur hur, I will switch on a few more television sets in the station and tune it to your channel."

Hu Fei asked: "Little Zhang, I have something serious to ask you. Why isn't your documentary being promoted anymore? Weren't the promotions going well earlier? Why did the promotions only last for a day? What's the use of that? I don't have to tell you how important the promotions are, right? Surely you understand that with the broadcast date approaching, these two weeks of promotions are especially crucial. It's also the golden period for it, so even if you know that the documentary will not have much of a viewership, and don't have expectations of getting any results on the documentary, you cannot just drop everything and not bother about it. After all, you have already spent a few months shooting the documentary."

However, Zhang Ye did not explain it in detail. "Hai, don't mention it anymore."

Hu Fei sent: "Is there something behind this?"

Soon, they found out the shocking reason from the Internet!

...

On Weibo.

Actually, some people from the media and industry insiders had been wondering for the past few days as well. They could not understand what was actually going on with Zhang Ye and his new documentary.

"Why aren't there any more promotions?"

"There don't seem to be any more advertisements on the online video hosting site? It looks like we can only see the promotions of Zhang Ye's new documentary on Channel 14 now. Aren't they being too thrifty? Basically, no one watches Channel 14 at all. Every time in the overall viewership ratings, the Central TV Documentary Channel's viewership ratings are even lower than the Military and Agriculture channel. What kind of promotional effects can they achieve there?"

"I wonder what Department 14 is thinking!"

"They're too unsupportive of Teacher Zhang!"

"Even if there are very few people who would watch a documentary, you still have to promote it!"

"They only promote the documentary for a day and that's it? Fuck that!"

"Could this really be the talented being bolder? Teacher Zhang does not plan to do any promotions at all?"

"I wonder what is going on with this!?"

"It will start broadcasting in another week or so. Would it really be OK like this? The program that is going to be broadcast at the same time with Zhang Ye's documentary is none other than the hotly promoted Rise to the Dance! If there are no more promotions, then Rise to the Dance will definitely apportion even more of the viewership ratings. What if Teacher Zhang only gets 0.00-something percent of the viewership ratings in the end? Then it would be too embarrassing! There will definitely be plenty of people ready to step on him when that happens!"

There were also several news reports about it.

"Promotions for A Bite of China have stopped?"

"Could there be a change to the broadcast time for Zhang Ye's new documentary?"

Countless people were left guessing!

Then, an insider suddenly revealed a sensational piece of news. It wasn't because Department 14 did not want to do the promotions. They had in fact already prepared all their promotional plans. But due to Rise to the Dance lacking funds for their promotional budget, Central TV Department 1 unexpectedly went through the channel of Central TV's leaders and "borrowed" Department 14's remaining promotional budget that was set aside for A Bite of China. They stated it as borrowing, but in fact this was as good as stealing, which was extremely ugly behavior!

Zhang Ye's fans were infuriated!

"Fuck!"

"That bunch of grandsons! Bastards!"

"Motherfucking idiots! Fuck their grandmas!"

"If this can be tolerated, then what would be intolerable?! Central TV Department 1 has really gone too far!"

"What has Teacher Zhang ever done to you? That you guys have to stab him in the back time after time?"

"And I was wondering why Department 14 stopped doing their promotions! So that's how it is! They were out of money! All their money was stolen away by Rise to the Dance!"

"That's so treacherous!"

"Starting today, I have gone from a neutral to a hater of Chen Ye!"

"That Executive Director Xu Yipeng is probably not a good person either!"

"Isn't Central TV too biased?"

"Fuck, what the hell is this!? Just what the hell is this?"

"They are not even going to let Teacher Zhang and his documentary get a piece of the viewership ratings! Do they intend to get rid of him once and for all?! Everyone knows that Teacher Zhang will definitely not be able to compete against such a large-scale variety talent show that has gathered so many big names together with just a documentary. Even in that situation, you guys still want to stab him in the back?"

"There aren't any promotions going on, so how can they broadcast it?!"

"Teacher Zhang, don't broadcast the documentary anymore. These people are truly a bunch of jerks!"

"Right, let's quit! Don't work for them anymore!"

Several media workers could no longer stand to watch any further. They also came forward to post.

"A Bite of China has met its end even before its broadcast!"

"Even the cleverest housewife cannot cook a meal without rice. If A Bite of China does extremely poorly in its viewership ratings, please do not scold it or feel disappointed. Everyone knows that Zhang Ye has already tried his best!"

"Is there a need for fairness in television stations?"

Of course, there were also those opposed to Zhang Ye or had always been supportive towards Rise to the Dance who were gloating at this. Some of them were even insulting people.

The group of haters were all smiles.

"Serves him right!"

"Zhang Ye's legend should have ended long ago!"

"You've all glorified him, but what does Zhang Ye actually have? He's just a normal human being who has better luck than most other people!"

"Hahaha, in fact, without a budget for promotions, it might turn out to be a good thing for Zhang Ye and Department 14. With a reason and excuse now, no matter how low their viewership rating is in the end, even if it turns out to be a historical low, they would have still an excuse for it. This will leave them some face instead when the results are out!"

"Let Zhang Ye's legendary viewership ratings come to an end!"

"From now on, it will be Teacher Chen Ye's stage! Rise to the Dance, go, go, go! Surpassing The Voice will be just like playing a game!"

At around 5 PM in the afternoon, Central TV posted on its official Weibo to clarify the situation due to too many doubts being voiced by the public. The post was mostly written in an official tone explaining that they were not targeting certain channels or individuals as they did not have any reason to do so. They even used the phrase "a big family" to describe their internal solidarity and friendship.

But did they think that the netizens were dumb?

Friendship? Solidarity? Bull fucking shit!

Just saying those words themselves made everyone's hearts turn cold and angry!

The group of Zhang Ye's fans were all seeking justice for him, cursing and swearing at Central TV. In the end, even some of the industry insiders also came forward to speak up for Zhang Ye.

Beijing Television's Hu Fei: "Perhaps the present Central TV is no longer the same as the Central TV of before."

An entertainment media outlet's deputy chief editor: "Some people's behaviors are getting uglier and uglier!"

A deputy station head at Hunan Television Station: "Hai, is the destruction of a viewership rating legend really something worth being happy and proud about? Why do I find it difficult to watch such behavior from some people?"

This affair had stirred up too much of a controversy. Countless people were already arguing incessantly online!

There were many people who stood for it!

But the number of people who were against it were not to be outdone either!

If not for this discussion being on the forums and Weibo only, the two groups of people would have already started brawling with each other!

At this point, Zhang Ye, who had disappeared for a week, appeared again. He used his longstanding Weibo account and posted a poem. It was an illustrious poem by Wen Yiduo from his previous world. Compared to Dead Water, this poem was basically not famous and not a lot of people had heard about it either. But Zhang Ye really liked this poem back in his previous world. Even without using a Memory Search Capsules, he could easily recite it backwards!

All the netizens gathered around!

"Zhang Ye has appeared!"

"Come and look!"

"It's another poem?!"

"Zhang Ye wrote a poem? Let me see what he has written about this time!"

Without needing to mention the content at all, with just the line "Zhang Ye wrote a poem again," it was enough to pull the attention of everyone over, because each and every poem of Zhang Ye's had always been famous!

Hu Fei quickly opened his Weibo!

Dong Shanshan immediately came to see!

Zhang Yuanqi's manager, Fang Weihong, also appeared!

Ha Qiqi, Zhang Zuo, Tong Fu, and the other program team staff also realized this and quickly opened their Weibo after learning of it.

It was a modern poem, fairly short, but long enough to make people who saw it get terrified from head to toe!!

Rotten Fruit

Black bugs have long since chewed through my flesh.

I lie on a bed of moss so cold it stings

just letting the rot set in deeper.

Waiting for the rot to pierce my core,

and decompose my prison.

My imprisoned soul will then,

wearing a pea-green vest,

leap out grinning from ear to ear.