I'm Really a Superstar

Saturday.

When Zhang Ye got out of bed, it was already heavily snowing outside.

"Whoa, it's snowing so heavily?" Zhang Ye said, looking astonished.

His mother was just opening the window to take a look outside."The ground is already covered with a thick layer of snow. I guess it's been snowing since last night."

Chenchen tugged at Zhang Ye's clothes."Zhang Ye, I want to see it too."

So Zhang Ye carried her and walked to the front of the windowsill. He couldn't help but feel very good."It's been two years since it snowed so heavily in Beijing, right? The air quality is quite good as today as well. Chenchen, wanna have a snowball fight with Uncle?"

Chenchen looked at him."Zhang Ye, why are you so childish?"

Zhang Ye:"..."

His father smiled and said,"If we don't include last month's sleet, then this should be the first time it has snowed in Beijing this year. To be honest, I didn't expect the snow to be this heavy. Little Ye, don't drive to work today. The roads will be accident prone."

"I know," Zhang Ye said.

After breakfast, Zhang Ye headed to the office.

At a square in front of Central TV Tower, there were some parents playing with their children. Some of them were building snowmen and others were having snowball fights. A few colleagues from the other departments of Central TV passed by and saw Zhang Ye. They were stunned for a little while before coming over to greet him with smiles.

"Good morning, Teacher Zhang."

"Hi, good morning."

"I watched the latest episode of A Bite of China. It was especially good."

"Thank you. The next episode will be even better, hur hur."

"Are the viewership ratings out yet?"

"I'm not sure. It's difficult to pinpoint when their tabulation will be ready, sometimes it's announced late at night, but sometimes we have to wait until the next afternoon, so it depends."

As they casually chatted, the few of them had already gone upstairs together.

He knew that they were from the same station but Zhang Ye did not actually know them personally. However, it was not a problem to him. The traits of a Beijinger manifested vividly in Zhang Ye—no matter who they were, no matter where, no matter whether he knew them or not, he could strike up a conversation.

...

It was snowing in many places around the country. Everyone was in a good mood and people were happily chatting online. Some of them were already making guesses about the viewership ratings.

"This episode of Do You Remember is very good!"

"Yes, I like Dong Shanshan so much! She's so sexy!"

"This week's Idiom Society has invited new guests as well, so it looks quite good."

"But we still have to pay attention to Rise to the Dance and A Bite of China. They are still the main focus of this round of viewership ratings!"

"That's right! I'm really looking forward to finding out about the viewership ratings of these two shows!"

"Who will win in the end?"

"There should be a result before noon!"

"A Bite of China only broadcast one episode last night, so they have no advantage whatsoever in the viewership ratings!"

"An episode of A Bite of China only lasts for around 40 to 50 minutes, while an episode of Rise to the Dance goes on for around two hours. A Bite of China has already lost at the starting line."

"Yeah, Rise to the Dance invested a lot into the show and their program team are giving it their all. There's likely to be an increase in this episode's viewership ratings!"

"But don't you all forget, A Bite of China did not have the money to do any promotions last week after all the money was 'borrowed' away by Central TV Department 1. Without any promotions, they could still achieve such a viewership rating. This week, they started widely promoting A Bite of China and the advertisements were overwhelming, so it's worth anticipating to find out how much the viewership rating will increase by!"

The entire country's entertainment news in the media outlets had focused their attention onto these two shows, but the only difference from last week was that none of them dared to disregard Zhang Ye's documentary anymore. Many of the media outlets seemed to have reached an agreement to keep their discussions more impartial. Even if they all favored Rise to the Dance winning the viewership ratings ranking, they did not dare to be definitive with their words. It wasn't because they were being cautious, but due to the painful face smacking they received from last week's tie for first place in the viewership ratings, they learned their lesson and did not commit the same mistake again!

...

It was another day of working overtime again.

Zhang Zuo and Little Wang were the earliest to arrive at the office, but when they saw that Zhang Ye was already in the office before them, they were very surprised.

"Director Zhang, why are you so early today?" Zhang Zuo was really not used to it as Zhang Ye had always come to work late and left the office early for the whole of this week. He even applied for time off as and when he wanted.

Zhang Ye smiled."I just arrived a while ago."

The other program team staff gradually arrived for work. Everyone's expressions were somewhat tense, but whether it was because of anxiety or anticipation wasn't certain. Everyone seemed to be purposely avoiding the topic of the viewership ratings. Perhaps the more they did this, the more it showed that everyone placed an importance on the viewership ratings.

A while later, Yan Tianfei also arrived."Little Zhang."

"Director Yan." Zhang Ye looked over.

Yan Tianfei also did not mention anything about the viewership ratings. Instead he said,"Oh right, I went to look for you yesterday but couldn't find you. Do you know about the calligraphy competition that our station is organizing? It'll be held this morning."

"What calligraphy competition?" Zhang Ye did not understand what he was talking about.

Ha Qiqi explained,"Actually, there was a notice put up since last month, but we were out of Beijing shooting the documentary. It seems like it's a calligraphy competition for the internal staff and it's just for entertainment purposes."

Only then did Zhang Ye understand what was going on.

With the end of the year approaching, the number of internal corporate activities and competitions increased as well. Before they came upstairs just now, they seemed to have come across a notice for a table tennis and badminton match to be held at a later date. The staff of all the departments at Central TV were eligible to take part since it was an internal event. There were prizes like cell phones and computers up for grabs too. Such activities were often held at every television station each year, but because Zhang Ye had always offended too many people, he did not stay at a place long enough to have attended such activities.

"Are you going to participate in it?" Yan Tianfei asked.

Huang Dandan smiled and said,"Director Zhang, do it, do it."

Yan Tianfei said happily,"Only Little Huang and I have registered for it in our Department 14. If you want to participate, it's still not too late to register. I'll tell them to add your name to the list."

Tong Fu looked over to Zhang Ye."Director Zhang, how is your calligraphy?"

Zhang Ye just smiled at that and said,"It's OK."

When Huang Dandan saw her boyfriend asking such an ignorant question, she could not help but roll her eyes."You can even ask how Director Zhang's calligraphy is? Can you stop making a fool of yourself, please?"

"Ah?" Tong Fu really did not know."Director Zhang's calligraphy is very good?"

Yan Tianfei laughed heartily,"Little Huang is right. Little Tong is quite ignorant. How could your Director Zhang's calligraphy be just very good? Go ask around in the calligraphy world and you'll know. Who doesn't know him? I can't speak for the entire country, but among all the staff of the entire Central TV network, no one's calligraphy can be better than his. I have also tried imitating Little Zhang's calligraphy a few times, but the characteristics of his writing are too distinct, especially that Ode of Mulan. It isn't easy even though I was just trying to imitate it."

Tong Fu was stunned."Really? Director Zhang still has such a skill?"

Little Wang chuckled,"Director Zhang is a man of many talents. Did you realize that just now?"

Compared with Zhang Ye's titles as a famous host, famous TV show director, literary scholar, mathematician, and so on, Zhang Ye's title as a calligrapher was a little more inconspicuous. Although it was known by some people, it was not that many, so Tong Fu and many others in Department 14 could not be blamed if they did not know about this before.

Yan Tianfei said,"Then should I get my secretary to register for you?"

Zhang Ye said indifferently,"Sure, then I will join in the fun with you guys."

"I'm the one who's joining this for fun while you're the one who should be aiming for the prize." Yan Tianfei said smiling,"We don't have many people in Department 14. In the past, we would just participate in these year-end activities without winning anything. But now that you're here, even if we won't be competing for a spot in those events like table tennis, badminton, or basketball, for the first place of the calligraphy competition, it's ours to lose!"

Later that morning.

Just before 10 AM.

In a large event hall of Central TV, the year-end calligraphy competition for the staff began. Because Yan Tianfei was a director of Department 14, with his participation in the competition, a lot of people from Department 14 would naturally come to support him. Other than these three contestants—Zhang Ye, Yan Tianfei, and Huang Dandan—almost half of the remaining staff of Department 14 had come to watch.

When they arrived, they realized that it was rather lively in the event hall.

Jiang Yuan was here.

Xu Yipeng and Chen Ye were here.

And they even saw the station head of Central TV!

With thick eyebrows, big eyes, and dressed in Chinese tunic suit.

Many people who had just arrived were stunned and became nervous. This was not just any common station head. The middle-aged man standing there with a friendly smile was the station head of Central TV, the true leader of this organization. Even for Zhang Ye, this was his first time seeing him face-to-face and he could not help but take a few more looks at him.

No one dared to go up to talk to him. Yan Tianfei was one of the few exceptions since he was a director, after all.

"Station Head," Yan Tianfei greeted.

Only then did the station head look over at them. He smiled and said,"Old Yan, you're also participating in the competition?"

"I just joined for fun, but do not expect to place." Yan Tianfei shook his head.

The station head said,"Your calligraphy is quite good. We're more or less around the same level."

Yan Tianfei replied,"It'd be better to say that we're birds of a feather."

Then two of them burst out into laughter.

With that, the station head noticed Zhang Ye as his gaze seemingly stopped on him, but at the same time, didn't look like it stopped and just looked off to another direction. Over at the other side, Jiang Yuan had walked over to chat with the station head. After that, Central TV Department 1's Jiang Naixiong also came over. Next, the director of Central TV Department 2; the director, deputy director, and others from Central TV Department 7 also came here. With the station head participating, there had to definitely be a grander attendance.

The people of Department 14 and Central TV Department 1 also bumped into each other, but they pretended to not notice each other. The two groups of people were standing very far away from one another and appeared to have drawn a line clearly between the two groups.

Chen Ye glanced at Zhang Ye and the others, and then asked a staffer beside him,"Are the viewership ratings out yet?"

"Not yet," that person answered."But it should be out sometime soon."

Another person laughed and said,"Department 14's documentary has already made history. That should be enough from them. They can't possibly get any higher than that anymore. Do you expect that they can really use a documentary to steamroll all the variety shows? A tie for first place is still a tie for first place, but miracles like this can only happen once."

A person picked up the microphone and announced the start of the competition.

Xu Yipeng laughed and said,"Let's focus on the competition first. I haven't written in a long time. I don't know if my calligraphy has declined."

Chen Ye smiled and responded,"Even if you just use half of your calligraphy skill, you can still be the champion."

Xu Yipeng's calligraphy was very good. The year before last, as he had to direct the Spring Festival Gala as its assistant director, he could not participate due to his busy schedule. However, during last year's staff calligraphy competition, Xu Yipeng won third place with a rather good result.

However, Xu Yipeng glanced at Zhang Ye and shook his head without saying anything else.

When many of the other participating Central TV staff who were in the know saw that Zhang Ye was here, and that someone even helped him collect a competition number tag, they were rendered speechless. Earlier, there were still some excited amateur calligraphy hobbyists who wanted to place well in the competition, but now they could only give a wry smile.

What's there to even compete for?

We're just amateur hobbyist calligraphers!

But you're a professional calligrapher recognized by the industry, so how are we to compete with you??

TL Note:

[1. Spring in Qin Garden is a preexisting tune pattern used in Chinese classical poetry where the words have to match the tones patterns which are fixed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_pattern#In_poetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese_poetry_forms]