I'm Really a Superstar

A few days later.

Friday, morning.

During work hours, Yan Tianfei's secretary went to look for Zhang Ye.

"Director Zhang, Director Yan wanted me to remind you not to forget about tonight's National Television Awards ceremony." The secretary said smiling, "Director Yan says that you should dress formally for the event. You have two nominations, one for A Bite of China and another for The Voice, both of which have very high hopes of winning, so we can't neglect your dress."

Zhang Ye gave a smile to that and said, "Alright, I will."

Ha Qiqi said, "We have formal suits here at Central TV."

"Yeah, let's pick one out for Director Zhang later," Zhang Zuo chipped in cheerfully.

Zhang Ye waved it off. "Forget it, I'll just wear the suit that I have on now. Director Yan will be going as well. I'm just the sidekick."

The secretary suddenly whispered to him, "The station is currently holding a meeting to discuss this year's Golden Microphone Awards. They are already studying the nominees. Director Yan believes that Central TV Department 1 definitely won't push a nomination for you, so he has to be there to submit a nomination for you instead. It's still the same as previous years; each station will nominate their candidates to fight for the three spots in the television hosting category of the Golden Microphone Awards. Winner determined by their skill."

Zhang Ye asked, "I haven't been working long enough to qualify for the three years criteria, right?"

"But you have enough shows under your belt." The secretary replied, "You have Ghost Blows Out the Light, Lecture Room, Zhang Ye's Talk Show, The Voice, and A Bite of China on your résumé, so you're already considered a veteran in this industry. That criteria of three years in the industry to qualify is not a rigid one and exceptions can always be made."

When Zhang Ye had just debuted, he did so at Beijing Radio Station. That was also the place where he got the very first award of his life, an award that was very important and meaningful to him—the National Broadcasting Newcomer Awards, also known as the Silver Microphone Award. It was only since then that Zhang Ye could officially be considered to have entered the industry and gotten on track in his line of work. After a year, it was time for the National Broadcasting Awards again. Zhang Ye was also anticipating this event, as no matter how many fields he had crossed over to before, his main profession still laid in broadcasting.

The Golden Microphone Awards.

—A national level award!

—And also the most prestigious award in the broadcasting world!

As long as one was still a host, they would definitely look forward to achieving this honor. This would be the highest affirmation to a broadcaster!

Ring, ring, ring.

It was a call from Dean Pan of Peking University's School of Mathematical Sciences.

Zhang Ye stepped away to answer the call. "Hello, Dean Pan."

Pan Yang chuckled: "Professor Zhang, it's almost the end of the year. It's time for the academic awards to be given out. I've just received notice that the Chinese Academy of Sciences' selection committee has approached Peking University to get your details and photo. They wanted me to inform you that you have been nominated for this year's Nationwide Outstanding Contribution in Mathematics award. I will send you a form later, so just get it printed and fill in the details before sending it back to me. You have to place importance on this matter as it is one of the most prestigious mathematics award in the country. About the Abel Math Prize that you rejected the last time, since that's already in the past, there's no point in talking about it anymore. But for this Nationwide Outstanding Contribution in Mathematics award, you have to accept it and let Peking University have something to be proud of!"

Zhang Ye replied: "Another award?"

"What do you mean by 'another'?" Pan Yang asked.

Zhang Ye hurriedly said: "It's nothing. I got it, Dean Pan. I will definitely cooperate this time, don't you worry."

Dean Pan stated with satisfaction: "Alright then, once the awards ceremony date has been set, I will contact you again. Our math team had a meeting just now and all of us did an analysis. We estimated your chances of winning to be very high, since if there was any major breakthrough in the mathematics field this year, it would only be your proof of Dale's Conjecture. If they don't give you the award, then no one else should be getting it."

It was the end of the year and the awards ceremonies to be held were piling up.

Zhang Ye worked on filling in the form and preparing a passport-size photo. By the time he was done, it was already noon. After he ate lunch, there wasn't much work left to do, so he went online to check the latest Celebrity Rankings Index. He found his name and realized that his popularity score, which had not fluctuated much during the time he was out of the station for the documentary filming, had suddenly shot up in the past two weeks!

From his original place in the middle of the B-list rankings, he moved up by two spots all of a sudden. He was now considered to be a true frontrunner of the B-list rankings. In the B-list rankings, the popularity score separating each celebrity was very large. It was very difficult just to advance a spot, much less advance two spots within such a short period of time. Moreover, A Bite of China had only broadcast for four episodes. There still seemed to be room for improvement, so Zhang Ye was closing in on the A-list rankings now!

This was the result of Zhang Ye's preparations to ensure his success!

Before this, when Zhang Ye was frozen and restrained by Central TV Department 1, his popularity was at stake as he took preventative measures with the release of Plants vs. Zombies, which barely helped him maintain his popularity level. Together with his poem, forfeiture of the Abel Math Prize, and a series of other moves, they earned him these past two months and allowed him to reorganize his strategy by making A Bite of China. In retrospect now, all of the hard work that Zhang Ye put in had not been in vain. A Bite of China did not disappoint him and had really helped him to reverse his situation in the most astonishing of ways!

Zhang Ye's popularity which had stagnated for a few months was now explosively making a comeback. He was once again moving forward in his career. This was undoubtedly good news to him and it also made him extremely excited.

This updated list of the Celebrity Rankings Index also had some changes other than his. Not mentioning those on the D- and E-lists, two months ago when a male singer in the C-list rankings was exposed to be lip-syncing in his concert by fans, it led to a conflict between the concert staff and some fans. That male singer even started scolding some people during the incident, revealed by the media later on. In this latest ranking index, that male singer who was already hovering at the bottom of the C-list rankings had now dropped to the D-list and was unlikely to be making a comeback anytime soon.

There were also some changes in the B-list celebrity rankings, but it was not a great change overall. Chen Ye rose up one spot through Rise to the Dance, which scored viewership ratings of over 1% in two weeks, even if it did not perform to its potential. The couple of Fan Wenli and Chen Guang did not have much change to their popularity scores and maintained their places, with one in the middle of the B-list rankings while the other was in the lower half. However, Zhang Ye was already slowly pulling away from them.

As for the A-list and S-list rankings?

There were no changes there. The same people still filled up the same spots, since at that level, it was extremely difficult to even climb one spot.

Zhang Ye deliberately searched through the rankings to find out about some of his friends' popularity scores.

Yao Jiancai had a newly released movie which helped him grow in popularity.

Zhang Yuanqi kept her place in the S-list rankings with no one able to get close to her.

Dong Shanshan was one of the fastest rising celebrity friends of Zhang Ye. With Do You Remember's long-running broadcast and rather good viewership ratings, Dong Shanshan was already making her way to the forefront of the D-list rankings. She was still quite a few spots away from entering the C-list rankings, but it was not too far off anymore. This was the advantage of having looks and a figure, with Dong Shanshan having a better bearing as a celebrity. She had all the right qualities to be a celebrity. So as long as she had a good platform to perform on, she would definitely do it well. This was her natural-born advantage and other people couldn't even start to envy this trait of hers even if they wanted to.

That was about it.

Zhang Ye checked around online for a long time before finally closing his web browser.

Di di. The chat app alert on his cell phone suddenly sounded. He opened the app to take a look and found that it wasn't a new message notification but an invitation notification to join a chat group instead.

Group name: Goof Group

Invited by: Summer Radish

What?

Who's the one goofing around right now!

Zhang Ye hit "reject" right away.

But shortly after, the invitation notification came on again!

Zhang Ye was speechless at this and pressed "reject" again.

Then the invitation notification came for the third time. This time, it included a message: "Your sister! Teacher Zhang, hurry up and join the group already! I am Ning Lan!"

Ning Lan?

That Ning Lan?

Zhang Ye was stunned. Of course he knew this name. It was the name of a very popular A-list female celebrity. In fact, he had only just seen the name on the celebrity ranking index a moment ago. Ning Lan had starred in no less than eight movies that grossed over 100 million RMB each. She debuted 10 years ago and had won one of the most prestigious national awards as the best supporting actress. The number of movies she was featured in since her debut were even more than Zhang Yuanqi's, probably in the figure of around 50 to 60 films. She was well known in the industry as a workaholic who would take part in a lot of projects, while her popularity was built up gradually from all of these movies she did. That was also how she had managed to gain a unique status and popularity in the movie industry. Ning Lan was even Zhang Yuanqi's best friend and they enjoyed a very good relationship together.

This time, Zhang Ye did not dare to reject the invitation anymore and just skeptically tapped "accept."

All of a sudden, he was dragged into this chat called the "Goof Group."

The group was rather lively.

Huo Dongfang: "Who is this?"

Dongzi: "Who did Sister Ning pull into the group?"

Liao Henan: "I'm Your Daddy? Who are you?"

Fan Wenli: "Ahem, that's Zhang Ye."

Chen Guang: "Damn, it's Director Zhang! What a cheap thrill of a nickname!"

Then, a notification was displayed in the chat: Administrator Ning Lan has renamed "I'm Your Daddy" to "Zhang Ye."

Zhang Ye quickly greeted everybody with a "Hello, everyone." Then he went to check out the group members. It was somewhat disorderly as there were over 50 people in the group. It wasn't a lot of people, but without an exception, each and every one of these people was a big shot in the entertainment industry. Zhang Ye had only seen Huo Dongfang and the couple of Fan Wenli and Chen Guang before. The members were, at the minimum, B-list celebrities. Within this group, there was also Zhang Yuanqi's name displayed.

There were no managers.

There were no assistants.

There was no one from the management agencies.

This was a group purely consisting of celebrities!

No matter who you showed this group's participants to, it would definitely scare the shit out of them. It was too epic. Even if it were the most prestigious awards ceremony in the industry, they probably couldn't gather so many big names together at once. Like that Heavenly King who had already semi-retired. He might not want to make a public appearance anymore. Yet his name was still quietly sitting in that list of chat group participants.

Ning Lan sent a gloomy looking emoji and said: "It wasn't easy to get Zhang Ye into this group. Attention, everyone, let's welcome our newest member, the famous host, producer, director, mathematician, literary scholar, calligrapher, lyricist, and composer, Teacher Zhang Ye to our group!"

Fan Wenli posted a smiley face. "Applause!"

Liao Henan: "Hur hur, welcome."

Dongzi: "Oh, so it's Zhang Ye. Welcome to the group!"

"A Bite of China is awesome! My children and I are watching it every time it comes on!"

A lot of those who were online also popped up!

Zhang Ye was flattered. "Thanks for welcoming me, everyone. What group is this?"

Ning Lan explained happily: "This is our little social circle, a place where we usually chat about anything under the sun. The members are all rather well respected people in the industry. This group has been set up for many years already. We don't usually add new members here either."

They didn't usually add new members?

Then why did they add me today?

Zhang Ye knew that with his growth in popularity, he had also gained the qualifications to become part of this top circle in the entertainment industry. When he checked the member list again, he realized that a lot of the B-list celebrities were also not in here, like how there was no Chen Ye. Even this new host of the Spring Festival Gala was not qualified to join?

Ning Lan hesitated for a moment, and then said in the group: "But it was really very difficult to get my hands on Teacher Zhang's chat ID. By rights, with your reputation, it should be very easy to find out if I just asked around casually. But our chat admins and I went around asking all of our friends and still couldn't find out anything. There was no way to contact you whatsoever. I even called a friend of mine at Central TV who's a host there but still couldn't find out anything. Teacher Little He said that although you've been with Central TV for half a year now, he has never seen you there before. It was only when Wenli and Old Chen came online that I managed to get your contact info. My point is, Zhang Ye, just how bad are your relationships with others?"

"Pfft!"

"Hahaha!"

The people in the group burst out into laughter!

Another big name celebrity at this level with such terrible relationships couldn't be found besides Zhang Ye!