I'm Really a Superstar

On the same day, Zhang Ye's talk at Media College was uploaded!

The official website of Media College also posted a video clip of the talk. It was a way of promotion for the school, especially in this time when the entrance exam was being held. It was a big boost to them that Zhang Ye had chosen to join their institution, but of course, the last question that Zhang Ye had answered was edited out by the Office of Public Affairs as it should not be made public at all. But with so many students and teachers attending the talk earlier, there would surely be someone who recorded it with their phones. This incident was definitely not something that could be covered up.

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They all appeared like mushrooms sprouting after the rain!

"Then I will use the simplest of ways to answer you. Actually, what is an artist? Whoever lives the longest is an artist! In a group of 100 peers, if they all scold and curse at you, then all you have to do is to outlive the 99 of them and you would be the artist! When Tomb Sweeping Day comes around, you can stand at their graves and sing them a song of sayonara!"

The views on these videos were exponentially rising!

A lot of netizens were having such a good laugh at it!

"No wonder he's in crosstalk!"

"Yeah, Zhang Ye's mouth is hilariously sarcastic!"

"Sayonara? Aiyo, I died from laughter!"

"This sort of scolding has totally moved to a new level!"

"That line will become a classic. It's something that only Zhang Ye could come up with!"

"This interpretation of what makes an artist is super cool!"

"Hahahaha! This terrible nature of Zhang Ye is what I like most about him!"

Answering to the verbal criticism of him by a bunch of older veteran industry insiders and peers, Zhang Ye had come up with this response to them. You guys said that he would never, ever be qualified enough to be an artist? But being young, he would almost definitely outlive all of you. When you're all dead and unmoving, none of you will be able to criticize him anymore. At that time, wouldn't he then become an artist? Who could still doubt and criticize him then? At that time, he could just sing whatever he liked in front of any one of your graves!

You can bully the old but not the young!

Zhang Ye used the most wicked of ways to beautifully epitomize those words!

To a lot of Zhang Ye's own fans, this was a justifiable retort and a reasonable counterattack. But to those who had criticized him earlier, this was undoubtedly a provocation and disrespect for the veterans!

All of a sudden, another large wave of scolding battles started again!

All at once, the industry voices were calling out and denouncing Zhang Ye one after another!

"Insolence! How extremely insolent!"

"Strip him of his Golden Microphone Award!"

"He's totally disrespecting all of the industry veterans!"

...

In the blink of an eye.

It was already New Year's Day.

The new year had begun with a wave of scolding aimed at Zhang Ye, but on this same day, Zhang Ye had advanced yet another spot in the B-list Celebrity Rankings!

His position had risen again!

After winning a few of the highest awards, and with A Bite of China's continued popularity in the broadcasts, Zhang Ye's award acceptance speeches and his talk at Media College both helped to push his popularity higher. This was a period of time where Zhang Ye was experiencing a major rise in his popularity with the continuous coverage of him and his news through shows, TV, the news, Internet, and many other outlets, all of which contributed to a stacking effect toward his popularity score. At this moment in time, nobody and no criticisms could stop the continued rise of Zhang Ye's popularity. Even if he did not do anything else and just laid around at home, his popularity would still continue to increase by the day!

From morning, Zhang Ye was kept busy with answering calls.

From an old colleague: "Teacher Zhang, happy New Year."

"Thank you."

It's been a while. We should catch up over lunch someday."

"Sure, let's contact each other again about this. We can either eat at home or out, anything's fine."

Then, a call from Ha Qiqi. "Director Zhang, have a wonderful New Year."

"Happy New Year to you, Sister Ha."

"What are you busy with?"

"Hai, I'm just sitting at home. I haven't been up to anything for the past two days except for going online and scolding people."

"You're still arguing with them? Wasn't that incident from a few days ago?"

"They keep pestering me with their scolding, but since I'm bored with nothing to do at home, why should I just do nothing about it? So I scolded them back. It's good practice, anyway, for a better year at work."

"Damn, I really give it to you. You're such a 'warrior.'"

"Ah? Am I?"

"Of course. You always get spirited whenever it comes to scolding people."

Next was a call from his other assistant director, Zhang Zuo. "Director Zhang, happy New Year to you and your family."

"And the same to you. What are you doing? Are at home making your dinner meal?"

"Of course not, I'm at the office clocking overtime today."

"Oh? Didn't I give everyone a break? And it's January 1st today too, so there shouldn't be any overtime?"

"It's because there isn't enough manpower for the Spring Festival Gala, so a lot of departments sent their people over to help out. It was actually Old Ha who was supposed to go, but I saw that she was a little tired lately, so I volunteered in her stead. There's still over a month to go, but the rehearsals for the Spring Festival Gala has already started. There's so many things going on around, so it's kinda busy here."

"Who's the director this year?"

"The director is Xiao Hu, same as last year."

"What about Central TV Department 1's Xu Yipeng? Didn't they say that he had a high chance of becoming the director for this year's gala?"

"He's still the assistant director but his is a hopeless case now. Don't you know yet? Rise to the Dance's recent viewership ratings have dropped below 1%. The show's popularity keeps falling and it's proven that even if Central TV tries to push him up, he still doesn't have your ability. Oh yeah, Chen Ye is still the Spring Festival Gala host this year. The host positions have now maintained status quo for the past three gala events already and still have not been refreshed. But there's been a change to the director for the language performances segment. I guess they're looking to make some changes to the show's presentation since I've heard the new director was asking around to see if he could invite you and Teacher Yao Jiancai to perform a crosstalk. But his suggestion was immediately shot down by someone in the management when he suggested that. The rumors are that if it were only Yao Jiancai, it would be fine, but anything that was broadcast live must not have you in it. Hmph, no wonder the Spring Festival Gala is getting worse and worse by the year. If they continue on this way, there won't be any viewers left at all!"

Listening to Zhang Zuo ramble on for the longest time, Zhang Ye finally got a much better understanding about the situation concerning this year's Central TV Spring Festival Gala. Actually, he already knew that he had no chance of appearing on this year's Spring Festival Gala. Since he had taken Central TV to court and fell out with Central TV Department 1, what chances would he still have? He was long since prepared for this, so he did not concern himself much with the ongoings for the event. Now that he heard the update from Zhang Zuo, it seemed like this year's Spring Festival Gala would be rather vibrant too.

After hanging up, Zhang Ye also made a few calls himself.

He gave a call to Hu Fei.

He gave a call to Yan Tianfei.

He also made some calls to his old bosses to offer them his New Year greetings.

Later in the afternoon, his relatives started arriving.

Zhang Ye went out to welcome them. "Yo, First Uncle, First Aunt, Second Uncle, Third Uncle, Third Aunt."

His first uncle laughed and said, "Little Ye, whoa, you became even more handsome!"

Zhang Ye said with a laugh, "Not bad, right?"

"Brother!" His three sisters rushed into the house altogether. They had all rented a car together and were helping their grandma and grandpa over.

Zhang Ye waved at them. "Everyone has arrived?" Then he quickly went forward to greet his grandparents. "Grandma, Grandpa."

Their family's youngest generation only had one boy, and now that he had grown up to become such a superstar, Zhang Ye's maternal grandma was very happy to see him. "Ai, Little Ye, come quickly and let Grandma have a look at you!"

Zhang Ye smiled and said, "Look all you like, Grandma."

His grandma held onto Zhang Ye and did not let him go as she kept talking to him.

His mother said, "We already said that we would go over to your place instead since it's so inconvenient for you two to come so far. Isn't it troublesome?"

His grandpa chuckled and replied, "That wouldn't do. Who doesn't know that there's a celebrity in our family now? All of our neighbors and the children there know who Little Ye is and would definitely come over to our place to have a look if they knew he was there. If that happened, could we still eat in peace? It's better to come here instead."

His third sister was already asking for someone the moment she got here. "Where's Chenchen? Where's Chenchen?"

Zhang Ye pointed to the bedroom. "She's in there playing games."

His third sister called out excitedly, "Chenchen, Auntie is here. Come out quickly and greet everyone." She was even referring to herself as auntie now, but it wasn't actually wrong since she and Zhang Ye were in the same generation of the family.

"Hur hur." Before the door was even open, Chenchen's humorless laughter could already be heard.

His third sister pulled his second sister with her and ran into the bedroom to play with Chenchen. At times, a sudden loud chatter could be heard coming from inside there.

The eldest sister was considerably more mature among the young ones, so she came over to Zhang Ye and said with a laugh, "Brother, I saw that you've been scolding people again on the Internet for the past few days."

Zhang Ye snickered. "Did you back your bro up then?"

The eldest sister smiled and replied, "Of course. I joined in and scolded them too."

"You're a good one!" Zhang Ye declared, satisfied.

His first aunt laughed and said, "Other than scolding people, Dandan has not learned anything from you."

"Of course she has to learn that!" Zhang Ye said unashamedly. "As people, we always have to ensure that we have a skill or two. It's good that she's learned that, otherwise she might get bullied when she enters society."

His mother seethed, "Alright, you. Don't go around teaching them the wrong things."

His grandma glanced at her daughter and remarked, "What do you mean by teaching them the wrong things? If my grandson says that it's good, then it's good."

His mother: "..."

Everyone laughed.

During lunch, everyone started to chat about the upcoming Spring Festival Gala.

His second uncle asked, "Little Ye, are you taking part in this year's Spring Festival Gala?"

Zhang Ye chuckled, "Of course not. The host positions have long since been decided on and the program plans have also been finalized. I won't be involved, and neither would they possibly invite me to attend it."

His third aunt asked, "How about the other stations?"

"Other stations?" Zhang Ye was slightly taken aback. "I don't know about that."

His third aunt said, "You're too controversial and have sued Central TV before, and coupled with the strict criteria that they have in their organization, you definitely won't be able to appear on Central TV's Spring Festival Gala. But what about the other television stations' Spring Festival Galas? Based on your popularity, you're definitely qualified enough to appear on them. Some of the more popular television networks these days also have very good viewership ratings for their Spring Festival Galas. They're at least twice as watched as your A Bite of China, since no television shows should ever be able to outdo a Spring Festival Gala's viewership rating!"

Zhang Ye said, "A provincial station's Spring Festival Gala viewership rating might be high, but they do not necessarily want to invite me to appear on it. You say that my popularity is good and that I have the achievements to back me up, but my reputation is awful. These days, the provincial stations all broadcast their Spring Festival Gala live, so even though it may seem that they are very active in the scene, none of them would actually risk inviting me to appear on the show. Moreover, I'm still a staff member of Central TV."

Just as he was talking about this, a call suddenly came in.

It was from Dong Shanshan. "Have you eaten?"

Zhang Ye stood up and walked toward his bedroom. "Yes, I'm having lunch at the moment."

"I want to ask you something." Dong Shanshan said with a laugh, "Do you have any conflicts during the Spring Festival?"

Zhang Ye was a little stunned. "Spring Festival? I'm on leave during that time."

Dong Shanshan snapped her fingers at that. "It's good as long as you have nothing scheduled. Is your contract with Central TV a hosting and program-based contract? You can't work for other television stations in the capacity of a host and program director or planner, but that doesn't mean that you can't appear in your other capacities, like…as a crosstalk actor?"

Zhang Ye said surprised, "What are you planning?"

Dong Shanshan laughed and said, "Beijing Television has just decided that they wanted to invite you and Teacher Yao Jiancai to join us for this year's Beijing Television Spring Festival Gala. They got me to check with you and see what you think about it, but mainly wanted to know about your specific contract terms with Central TV to see if they could find a loophole. So then, are you interested?"

Zhang Ye blinked. "Who decided on this?"

"Someone from management."

"Are you sure? Are you serious about letting me appear on a live broadcast?"

"Of course we're sure. The station head has already given her approval!"

Beijing Television's station head?

That friendly-looking old lady?