HDIEUMDBTSB Chapter 23: Wuhan, Takeoff~

 Volume 1: Road to Stardom

Chapter 23: Wuhan, Takeoff~

"Bro, I've always had a question that I hope you can help me with," Chu Zhi said. "Let's not talk about the achievements section for now, but did you write the remarks? Little Immortal, Ruthless Butcher, Smoking Emperor."

"Yes," the system admitted to the origin of the remarks.

"I must say, the names are genius. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't watch the Spring Festival Gala," Chu Zhi praised.

Current balance: 5 personality coins.

Coincidentally, he could draw from the blind box, with the other four coins coming from eating spicy food twenty times. Progress on smoking one hundred cigarettes was also fast, just a matter of these two days.

First, he chose the blind box. The prize pool was as follows:

【Godly Bass Voice】

【Title: Smoking King】

【Poetry Collection: "This Is My Name"】

【"Set off Fireworks" Gift Pack】

【"You Are Not Alone" Gift Pack】

【Album: "Against the Light" Gift Pack】

Such rich prizes made Chu Zhi excited as he looked at the descriptions.

[Smoking King: Legendary title, born to wield the big cigarette, the smoke lingers through eternity! Give a big shoutout to Smoking King.

Attributes: Immune to all negative effects of smoking, charisma increases by 20% when smoking.]

"A legendary title is awesome. Just being immune to the negative effects of smoking alone is godlike," Chu Zhi guessed. Personality star achievements might harm the body, but the system had immunity to these damages.

Godly Bass Voice needed no explanation. No one could resist the magnetic allure of a deep bass voice. Earth's King of Bass, Xi, relied on his deep, affectionate bass voice and was hailed by fans as a blessing to audiophiles.

"This Is My Name" was a collection of poems by Syrian poet Adonis. Although relatively unknown by name, his verses were widely circulated on Chinese networks: "I sleep on my pillow at night, yet I remain sleepless alone," "My loneliness is a garden with only one tree," "I crown myself, king of the winds," and the more recognizable: "The world has scarred me, but from the wounds sprout wings."

"Set off Fireworks" was a Japanese song, while "You Are Not Alone" was an English song. If possible, Chu Zhi preferred not to choose them for now. He knew these gift packs were for song composition experience, but he couldn't speak English or Japanese, unlike writing poetry.

"Even if the original me didn't attend university and was criticized online for lacking cultural knowledge, the most important thing about writing poetry is cultural accumulation and talent. I choose to selectively imitate, avoiding deeper verses of poets, and that's perfectly fine," Chu Zhi spoke to himself, also consulting with his system brother.

"But writing Japanese and English songs is another matter."

Especially "You Are Not Alone," Michael Jackson's masterpiece, a rhythmic blues anthem and the first song in American history to debut at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

["Against the Light" is the tenth album released by Singaporean singer Stefanie Sun, featuring 12 songs, officially released on March 22, 2007.]

A relatively unknown album by Stefanie Sun, quite nice.

"Speaking of which, why aren't there any special prizes anymore? Now, even the right to envy is gone," Chu Zhi realized.

The system replied: [The prize pool is ever-changing, and the chance of refreshing special prizes is low. The album reward is already a good prize.]

It seemed more and more like a rigged game. Not only were special prizes hard to draw, but they were also hard to refresh.

The blind box began frantically shuffling, and Chu Zhi could only trust fate, praying not to draw the poetry collection. Even one copy of "Wings of Fire" would be enough. Internally, he prayed as he selected the blind box slightly to the left of the center. He didn't know why, but he always seemed to prefer selecting the middle.

The box opened—[Album: "Against the Light" Gift Pack]

"Wuhan, takeoff."

Completely unexpected to Chu Zhi, judging by the several blind boxes he had drawn, the order of prizes in the prize pool represented the difficulty of obtaining them. Despairing Voice, Perfect Song (Instrumental Version), "Wind Blows Through the Wheat Waves" were already obtained prizes serving as evidence.

Having acquired all the knowledge about the album, including the arrangement, Chu Zhi roughly browsed through all the songs and found the album to be perfect for him. If he wanted a golden song, there were "What I Miss" and "Against the Light"; for sophistication, there were "Tranquility" and "Drifting"; especially the latter, which had humming that perfectly matched his skills. The rain outside the window hadn't stopped yet, but Chu Zhi felt as if he had succeeded again.

"Thanks for this wave, bro," Chu Zhi felt the system was a bit shady, otherwise how could it be such a coincidence.

[It's because the host has good luck, nothing to do with me.] The system replied.

"Alright, alright, whether it's the arrival of the King of Luck or the help from my bro, as long as the result is good."

Chu Zhi contemplated. Using "What I Miss" in the semifinals, adding a touch of Despairing Voice, wouldn't that be a surefire strategy? With careful planning and operation, he was so focused that he didn't even have time to eat dinner.

Another group of people who didn't have time to eat dinner were in the conference room of the Golden Eagle Tower, including the program producer King Ke of "I'm a Singer", as well as director Meng Fan, and a series of behind-the-scenes staff, gathered for an emergency meeting.

The main content was to discuss how to maintain their own audience share and seize the audience from "The Masked Singer". Although everyone openly looked down on the rival program, and King Ke even publicly commented, "I'm not sure how low the audience's pursuit of music can be," causing quite a stir, it was fortunate that it was removed from the hot search by Mango TV, otherwise it would have caused an even bigger reaction.

Strategically despising the enemy but tactically valuing them was the current state of King Ke and others.

"Are Zheng Yingying and Lin Xia's CP still being promoted?" the program planner raised his hand to ask.

"Don't stir up too much trouble. Lin Xia's company is protesting," King Ke responded after some thought.

Lin and Zheng didn't have many CP fans, but their attention was unusually high, almost all of it being negative towards Zheng Yingying. However, Zheng Yingying's side couldn't change the program team's plans whether they accepted or refused this kind of self-exposing publicity.

"The matchup between Li Xingwei and Lin Xia is a great talking point," the advertising department proposed. If the fans of both sides start fighting, the program would directly soar to the sky, of course, it's a talking point.

"We can't use Lin and Li's big battle in the pre-announcement," the program producer shook his head. Li Xingwei challenging Lin Xia would definitely be the main publicity point after the program airs, prematurely detonating it in the trailer would be too wasteful. Moreover, the surprise of ambushing guests was also a highlight of the program.

"I have an immature idea," the director Meng Fan said.

"What idea?" King Ke signaled to speak directly.

"We can use Chu Zhi for promotion," Meng Fan said.

Chu Zhi? With a reputation darker than a crow's, there's still room for promotion? Not only did King Ke not understand, but the staff in the conference room also didn't understand.

"He indeed has no room to fall, but he ranked first in this round, surpassing Teacher Hou Yubin and Lin Xia," Meng Fan explained.

With this said, King Ke knew what Meng Fan wanted to do. The more he thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. The hot topics for the new round of pre-announcement were determined: the CP between Lin and Zheng, and the use of Chu Zhi's negative reputation.

"We need to change the format, can't make it too obvious," the program producer said.

The advertising department's faces showed a reassuring expression [You can rest assured]. They didn't have confidence in other things, but isn't malicious editing a basic skill in post-production?

Before the pre-announcement was implemented, Lin Xia's side must be consulted first. As for Zheng Yingying, just inform her, what about Chu Zhi? Chu Zhi didn't even need to be informed. One of the clauses in the contract he signed was that he was obligated to cooperate with the program for publicity, including but not limited to Weibo, Twitter, Instagram promotion, and even the first party had the right to use the artist's name and image in the name of a partner.

Very strict? Of course, it's strict. In the entertainment industry, the big fish bully the small fish, it's normal. Behind the scenes, without fans, there's nothing. Similar to orphans, without parents in school, it's easy to be bullied.

In the entertainment industry, fans are the traffic stars' parents, but there are always artists who like to exert power over their parents.


NEXT