Chapter Fifty-Nine: Zhang Yang’s Path to Transformation

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“Hurry up and announce it! Where did this host pick up such bad habits?”

“Faster, faster!”

“It has to be my brother who took first place!”

“Well, since everyone wants to hear who’s in first, I’ll announce it now. The first place goes to…”

“Li Xiangyu with ‘People of Sichuan’!”

“He received 105,110 votes!”

The first two teams’ scores were still in the thousands, and with just this announcement, Li Xiangyu shot straight up to over a hundred thousand votes.

And the vote count was astonishingly high.

Some of the audience members who had come specifically for the competition began to grumble and curse.

After all, everyone saw how the acts performed in the first half. Li Xiangyu’s show was good, but not as impressive as the Sichuan opera piece from the previous round.

Comparing stage presence, it was also no match for Lin Ze’s Village Guardian Band.

There had to be something wrong with these votes, right?

“The second place goes to the Village Guardian Band with ‘Fairy’!”

“They received 102,000 votes!”

These two acts left the rest far behind, with just over three thousand votes separating them.

“Were the votes rigged?”

“If it had been their last song, I might believe it, but today’s piece, while decent, didn’t have the wow factor—it’s not even close to Lin Ze’s.”

“I haven’t left my old fan group chat yet. I saw people in there urging each other to max out their five votes and post screenshots to boost their status in the group.”

Noticing the audience’s discontent, the host tried to soothe them with a few words.

“Everyone, this is just the first round. Perhaps the server lagged, but judging by these numbers, all four remaining groups have a shot at overtaking first place.”

“Let the contestants rest a bit—the four performances of the second half will begin soon.”

…

“What’s going on? How did you mess things up? The program was doing just fine—how could you let it be forced to make changes now?”

In the office, Zhang Huai was fuming.

The show’s numbers had been stellar these past days, and the buzz around Creation Factory was only growing, even attracting a horde of haters.

A smash hit variety show was about to be born under his hand.

Who would’ve thought something like this would happen right at this moment? Now…

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“Our Love just won the first week so easily, didn’t it?”

“Boss, originally Old Qin just wanted to give us a little nudge, but who knew our fans would go and flood Vision of China’s official account?” Director Zheng said cautiously over the phone.

“That’s strange. When Tongcheng Police Story got attacked, we made sure the fan leaders warned everyone not to mess with the official account…”

Could this be Lin Ze’s doing?

No, it must be.

Zhang Huai’s temples throbbed. After a moment’s silence, he rubbed his forehead and composed himself.

Most of his fans were underage, and precisely because of their immaturity, they were easy to guide.

This time, the attempt to outwit had backfired.

“No matter, there’s no rush.”

A plan was already forming in Zhang Huai’s mind. “It’s fine. Zhang Yang is about to change his image. I’ve spent a fortune to have Old Shi write a song for his transformation. Lin Ze is hogging too many spots on the new song chart—it’s an eyesore.”

“Old Shi!?”

Even Director Zheng, an outsider, knew Old Shi—retired for nearly eight years—was still the undisputed top lyricist and composer.

With a song from Old Shi to support Zhang Yang, his transformation would be smooth sailing.

After all, today’s technology could record songs note by note, easily masking Zhang Yang’s lackluster singing skills.

All he needed was a good tune, and Zhang Yang could instantly transform from an innocent wildcat to a melancholic prince.

With his fanbase, even if the later songs were mediocre, hype would earn him the title of King of Love Songs.

After the call ended, Zhang Huai let out a cold laugh. He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and gazed out.

The bustling city stretched beneath him, and he relished the feeling of having the world at his feet.

Perhaps some once stood at his level, but now…

Heh.

“Lin Ze, maybe you’re a genius, but…”

“To someone like me, already standing atop the mountain, you’re just a beetle—slightly bigger than the rest, but still just a bug.”

“In this world now, traffic is everything, money is all that matters. How many geniuses can really soar against the wind?”

…

After the children’s choir finished their performance, Li Xiangyu returned backstage.

This time, he was dressed in traditional Yi attire.

In the crowd, someone stood close to Li Xiangyu, still talking to him right before going on stage.

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Li Xiangyu nodded earnestly like a student.

“Please welcome Li Xiangyu of Tongyin!”

Li Xiangyu took the boys and girls behind him onto the stage.

The girls wore headpieces adorned with cascading rows of silver ornaments that, under the stage lights, made their faces glow beautifully.

One girl, holding a microphone, sang in her own Yi dialect.

Her voice was simple and rich—even if the audience couldn’t understand the words, they could feel the emotion in her song.

Some Yi people in the audience listened to this authentic mountain song with quiet emotion.

Li Xiangyu started singing as well, now translating the Yi lyrics into Mandarin. One part of the song was in Yi, another in Chinese.

Lin Ze sat in the lounge, listening intently to the adapted mountain song on the small television.

“Not bad,” Lin Ze nodded. “He’s really knowledgeable about Sichuan in all his works—if I’m not mistaken, these must be produced by that student from before.”

Truly a talent.

But he better not end up with Donghuang Entertainment, or he’ll just become another Sichuan wildcat.

After the mountain song ended, Lin Ze looked up to realize that Li Xiangyu’s recent works didn’t seem to be about winning or losing anymore.

“What’s on your mind?” Su Zitan asked curiously beside him.

Lin Ze paused. “I was just wondering if I have the talent to be a teacher. With just a few words, I managed to guide someone who was lost.”

“…” Su Zitan pursed her lips. “Then you should become a monk—help lost souls find their way.”

“Oh? Miss, you seem quite lost yourself. Let this humble monk enlighten you.”

“Shameless. Go away!”

As the final act was about to take the stage, Old Wang grew nervous.

“Our votes were so low in the first half. Can we catch up in the second?”

Tian Hui, beside him, fiddled with her ethereal harp. She’d also be performing to experience folk music firsthand.

“Of course we can. Xiao Lin’s song might just start a whole new era.”

Tian Hui and Old Wang sat together—she in a cheongsam, gracefully holding her drumsticks, he in a Zhongshan suit with a thermos bottle, looking every bit like an old man playing cards on the street corner.