I found it hilarious to hear that he could box.
And then I found out, sure enough;
In just half a minute, he'd have to kneel down and beg me—
Beg me not to die.
Chapter 23
[Wow, Mr. Zhang is so cool!]
[I'm laughing so hard! Family, I've been fed up with those female data engineers at his company for a long time. They're always killing this person and bombing that person. Why don't they give Little Zhang a taste of his own medicine?]
【Zhang Baiwan! What happened?! You didn't participate in the prize draw?! (doge)】
This is basically a case of trying to piggyback on a moon landing, isn't it? Everyone knows what kind of acting Xu Shen has, right? Hilarious.
[Mr. Zhang, please don't sacrifice yourself to blow up the latrine!! Run!]
Most netizens were just watching the drama unfold, but some office workers sensed a hint of danger:
Am I the only one who thinks something's off? What artist would dare to go against their boss like this? Could it be that Xu Shen is trying to use this opportunity to escalate the situation and break ties with Jiasheng Entertainment because he's been treated unfairly?
[+1, We don't know exactly why Xu Shen suddenly went crazy, but judging from the way things are going, he probably wants to run away...]
Zhang Chaohe sighed, thinking to himself, "What else could it be?"
Such well-organized and disciplined trending topics, which rise in popularity extremely quickly, must be backed by professional fan leaders who command online trolls. And the mobilization of fan leaders and online trolls requires real money; without Xu Shen's studio backing them up, how could any of them have achieved this?
Even assuming the worst, it's been so long, and instead of focusing on how to quickly handle this unexpected event and actively salvage the relationship with the company, Xu Shen's studio is turning a deaf ear and refusing to come forward to clarify the rumors and appease the fans...
Isn't this tantamount to using the pretext of "purging the court of corrupt officials" to seize power and usurp the throne?
Assistant Jiang clearly realized that this would not be an ordinary public relations effort, and immediately asked Zhang Chaohe whether to contact Cheng Xuelan to activate the contingency plan.
While scrolling through the comments section, Zhang Chaohe sneered: "It seems that Xu Shen has no intention of breaking off relations yet. This is just a warm-up at most. Let's contact Cheng Xuelan to make things bigger before we take action."
Assistant Jiang immediately made arrangements. As early as when General Manager Zhang suddenly pointed out that Du Ze had problems, she had already secretly investigated the economic contracts that Du Ze had handled. She didn't know until she investigated that Du Ze's life was becoming more and more unpredictable. The original senior management of Jiasheng was a mess, and Du Ze was shamelessly exploiting Jiasheng, and the cleanup work was done very carelessly.
After all, in the original story, at this time the original owner was still pursuing love passionately, and even dismissed Jiang because he was annoyed by her daily advice, thus breaking his own arm.
Du Ze was happy to see the original owner of the body slack off, and continued to be the de facto head of Jiasheng, frantically seeking profits for the artists under his management. It wasn't until Xu Shen's contract ended that he officially broke ties with the company—by then, all the mess that needed to be cleaned up had already been cleaned up, and the original owner could only watch helplessly as he took a large chunk of the company's profits and left.
This time, although Du Ze made a different choice than the original, it was a last resort forced by Zhang Chaohe's preemptive strike. He did not have time to clean everything up before Assistant Jiang could make a move.
Zhang Chaohe sighed, thinking to himself, "I'm sorry, although I can't outsmart you, I have the iron fist of a society governed by the rule of law as my cheat code."
Du Ze, just surrender!
He called Du Zelian three times, but the other party was indeed busy and pretended not to be available.
After briefly expressing his anger, Zhang Chaohe immediately went to the dressing room to change into a domineering CEO three-piece suit. He even specially chose a VIVID-grade pink diamond tie clip to match, hoping for good luck in taking down Du Ze in one fell swoop.
Before arriving at the company, he gathered his emotions. Everyone already knew that Xu Shen's studio had publicly implied that fans were attacking Xiao Zhang, so they all lowered their heads and acted like cowards. Xiao Zhang's face was ugly and as cold as an iceberg. He rushed into the office like a gust of wind, and soon after, angry shouts of things being smashed echoed from inside.
The male assistant who had previously sneaked into Zhang Chaohe's office to steal documents quietly picked up his phone and sent a message. Then, trying to cover his tracks, he turned his phone face down on the table and continued organizing the documents.
The two girls sitting next to him exchanged a furtive glance, and one of them quickly got up to go and inform Jiang, the special assistant.
Meanwhile, the much-watched Mr. Zhang was idly playing with a wastepaper basket in his room—he wasn't too willing to smash anything else. The basket made a muffled sound and bounced as it rolled a considerable distance.
This time, when Zhang Chaohe called Du Ze again, the call was answered quickly. He lowered his voice, trying to create an atmosphere of suppressed anger: "Du Ze, what do you mean?!"
Du Ze sighed: "President Zhang, this is not my intention. It was Xu Shen who misunderstood something."
“He was already unhappy about being fired from his previous brand ambassadorship with G, and I tried to persuade him that it was all the company’s arrangement,” Du Ze said earnestly, trying to take the initiative and point fingers at Zhang Chaohe first. “But this time you let Cheng Jixue take his role again, and he just couldn’t think straight. Don’t be angry with him, I’ll go and persuade him again.”
Zhang Chaohe recalled that he did indeed get Xu Shen to be his spokesperson—although it was a contractual endorsement and the company would receive a share, the significance of being a brand ambassador for G was not that much from the endorsement fee.
To stabilize the market and prevent excessive price gouging of pork, Zhang Chaohe ruthlessly stripped him bare.
"What do you mean by stealing his role? Du Ze, was his name even on the role? The director never intended to give it to him, so how can you say that Cheng Jixue stole it?" Zhang Chaohe first acted so angry that he spoke recklessly, then adopted an aggressive tone and continued to argue coldly and unreasonably: "As his manager, can't you even control this little thing? He organized his fans to curse me on Weibo, why didn't you use his account to come forward and clarify?"
In fact, Mr. Zhang was not really that upset by the criticism. Although the public relations department did not forcibly suppress the ordinary netizens who raised questions at his request, they did not hesitate to take action against any online trolls who were stirring up trouble and spreading rumors.
In addition, the nickname "Millionaire Zhang" is not an empty title – although netizens joked that he broke the formation and didn't give away another million this time, wild fans and passersby who had won the prize actively stepped forward to help control the comments.
Xu Shen's well-prepared female data engineers, who had fought countless battles, were utterly defeated by a mere CEO's Weibo post, a truly astonishing turn of events.
Du Ze knew immediately that this young manager Zhang was a complete idiot. He felt he had seen through Zhang's bluster and weakness, so he quickly shifted the blame: "After Xu Shen set up his own studio, he handed over the account to them to operate. I have no authority to interfere."
Translation: I'm helpless, whatever, you can't do anything to me anyway.
After a long argument, Zhang Chaohe decided to take the act seriously and launched into a tirade against Du Ze, who eventually couldn't take it anymore and hung up the phone.
He felt the emotional buildup was perfect, and immediately barked in the office, "All of you, come in here!"
Led by Special Assistant Jiang, all the secretariat assistants lined up obediently and entered the president's office. Zhang Chaohe held up his phone and berated them for their incompetence, saying they couldn't even handle such a small matter. He also demanded that they expose the matter of "Du Ze threatening Li Yimao to ghostwrite" as soon as possible.
The male assistant was startled, his shoulders twitching slightly for a moment—he thought he had controlled his emotions very well, but unfortunately, he didn't have eyes in the back of his head and couldn't see that the assistants standing behind him were actually watching his every move closely...
After the wartime emergency meeting adjourned, the male assistant, filled with anxiety, quickly slipped into the stairwell to relay the latest intelligence to Du Ze. Although he felt vaguely uneasy, the crisp sound of the money transfer confirming its completion gave him a sense of security, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he pushed open the door to return to his post.
To his utter surprise, when he pushed open the stairwell door, he found Assistant Jiang and several strange men standing outside. Assistant Jiang still wore a polite, formulaic smile, but he was startled by their stares and instinctively put his hand, which was holding his phone, behind his back.
The man behind Jiang's assistant stepped forward and showed his identification: "You are suspected of infringing on trade secrets. We are summoning you for investigation in accordance with regulations. Come with us."
⚹
While Assistant Jiang led the police officers to make the arrest, Zhang Chaohe calmly headed downstairs to the training room. He had just been following the real-time situation on Weibo and noticed that Xu Shen's fans were attacking him as well as Cheng Jixue...
But the other party's Weibo account was invalid, so they had nowhere to attack and could only entertain themselves by shouting insults at the other party from afar.
Cheng Jixue didn't even look at Weibo. While Xu Shen's fans were busy causing trouble everywhere and Xiao Zhang was busy sending people to the police station for questioning, he had already communicated with Lu Xun about the filming arrangements and then quietly practiced his skills.
Zhang Chaohe peeked at him through the door. Cheng Jixue was playing the opera on his phone and singing it out loud by himself. His face was expressionless, only occasionally moving his wrist in accordance with his movements, or starting over if he was not satisfied. Sometimes he would go through a single movement several times.
In short, it was an extremely tedious and boring process, and even Zhang Chaohe, watching from the outside, found the loneliness unbearable.
He knocked gently on the door. Cheng Jixue looked up at him. He stood there gracefully and charmingly, his eyes brimming with affection. The warm yellow light accentuated his allure.
If Zhang Chaohe hadn't been so self-aware, he would have almost suspected that Cheng Jixue was deliberately trying to hook him—he muttered to himself, "If you're delusional, you'll get hurt in a car accident; if you make money, you'll have a happy life," while greeting her without any apparent change in expression: "Congratulations on landing Director Lu's role."
Cheng Jixue touched the tip of her nose shyly, her long eyelashes fluttering softly: "Thank you, President Zhang, for giving me this opportunity, but I've dragged you into this..."
“How can you blame yourself?” Zhang Chaohe said angrily, “It’s not your fault that they went crazy.”
Sure enough, the moment Xiao Zhang saw him show weakness, his eyes softened like water. Zhang Chaohe wasn't good at hiding his emotions, and Cheng Jixue only needed to observe him briefly to discover that he would subconsciously show the utmost accommodation to the vulnerable.
Therefore, Cheng Jixue deliberately revealed his most vulnerable side, the side that could most arouse his protective instincts, in order to gain more of Zhang Chaohe's indulgence and attention. Of course, Cheng Jixue did not realize that his little tricks were almost equivalent to some kind of primitive courtship behavior.
Peacocks spread their dazzling tail feathers to attract the attention of their desired mates; frigatebirds puff up their throat pouches to make themselves look more majestic; and small animals like Cheng Jixue will cater to Zhang's desires, disguising themselves as vulnerable and harmless to lure Xiao Zhang into a gentle trap.
Zhang Chaohe glanced at his watch, signaling him to continue his work, while he sat quietly to the side watching him practice.
Just as Cheng Jixue finished singing a short passage, he suddenly heard him ask, "Are there any arias in Peking Opera that scold people for being ungrateful?"
“Yes,” Cheng Jixue thought for a moment, “For example, in the heavy-duty opera ‘Locking the Five Dragons,’ there is a section where Luo Cheng is scolded. It’s a line where Shan Xiongxin sees Luo Cheng toasting him before he is beheaded and scolds him for being ungrateful.”
"Can you do it?" Zhang Chaohe asked expectantly.
"He could... but he wouldn't sing well." Cheng Jixue gently shook his head: "After all, the requirements for vocal qualities are very different between painted-face roles and dignified roles."
“It’s alright, it looks more natural this way.” Zhang Chaohe immediately made the decision: “Why don’t you practice first?”
Cheng Jixue, a female impersonator who has previously played male impersonators and is about to take on the challenge of playing a painted-face male impersonator: ...
Cheng Jixue was both amused and exasperated by his unpredictable way of thinking: "Why do you want me to practice this?"
"It'll definitely work... Oh, it's out." Zhang Chaohe refreshed the trending topics list again, and sure enough, a new trending topic quickly rose to the top—#Li Yimao's "Alas" plagiarized Xu Shen's original work!
The song "Alas" has recently gone viral on major video platforms, reaching its peak in terms of traffic and popularity. After it was purchased to top the trending searches, its popularity soared, and every refresh brought an explosive number of new comments.
@RocketXuXiaoshen: After careful consideration, I still want to expose this matter. The public has the right to know the truth! Originality is already difficult; if we allow those who seek fame and fortune to plagiarize others' works, it will only make true original musicians more disheartened. Below is a melody I wrote in a corner of the manuscript when I was composing "Brewing Tea and Listening to the Rain" a year and a half ago. I've also attached a comparison image with a portion of the melody from "Alas," so the viewer can judge for themselves. [Clenched fists]
Zhang Chaohe soon received news that Xu Shen had offered to pay a staggering 130 million yuan in breach of contract fees to terminate his brokerage contract with Jiasheng in advance!
Meanwhile, Du Ze, the company's top agent, also submitted his resignation, citing complicated interpersonal relationships as the reason.
A note from the author:
Actually, leaving a job isn't that simple. There are non-compete agreements and all that stuff, but for the sake of the plot, and for Mr. Zhang's 130 million!
Occasionally, things can become a little illegal!
Tomorrow I'll be performing a segment of "Scolding Xu Shen" for everyone!
Update at midnight tonight!
Thank you to Yanming (109 bottles); Qisang Baxia and Huanxiang Tongxing (10 bottles); Wuyin Shiluotian (5 bottles); Shijian (3 bottles); Xinyue (2 bottles); Sanqi Yu, Wanruo Xiahua, and Shitou Tingshang (1 bottle each);
Thank you so much for your support! I will continue to work hard!
Chapter 24
Although Xu Shen's accusations were based solely on past manuscripts, netizens quickly unearthed the detailed score of "Jie A".
After comparing it with Xu Shen's four representative works in order to verify the claim, netizens were surprised to find that, in a sense, "Jie A" does indeed carry a very distinct personal style of Xu Shen.
This is so damningly true that even Li Yimao's fans are at a loss for words to defend him.
The "treasure singer-songwriter" who had just become popular again was instantly exposed as a fraud. Those netizens who had genuinely loved "Alas" also condemned Li Yimao's plagiarism.
So now the lawsuit between Xu Shen and Jiasheng is in a mess – first Xu Shen's fans denounced Jiasheng president Zhang Chaohe for rigging Xu Shen's resources, and then Xu Shen himself came forward to accuse his fellow artist Li Yimao of plagiarizing his casual work.
Just as netizens were marveling at how big this scandal was getting, a well-known industry paparazzi suddenly revealed that Xu Shen had actually taken the initiative to terminate his contract with Gain Capital, willingly paying a hefty 130 million yuan penalty just to leave Gain Capital!
The onlookers were in an uproar!
Kindness is often taken advantage of. He could have avoided paying such a high penalty for breach of contract. If Jiasheng has any conscience, he should let Shenshen go and not delay his brother's development!
—Uh, I suggest the person upstairs learn more about the law. Unless Gain Capital has breached the contract, terminating it without a legitimate reason will require them to pay compensation.
No, friends, 130 million! Every time I see celebrities casually pull out tens or hundreds of millions, I feel like they've secretly inflated their figures without including me. I can't even dream of such a number!
—He dared to spend 130 million to buy out his contract because he thought he could earn that money back quickly. I remember he only had six months left on his contract. Even if you include the year of automatic renewal, can he really make back that 130 million in a year and a half? The tax authorities should check the accounts. This is even more profitable than printing money!
—Ah, it's best not to spread rumors. Shenbao has never received any warnings from the tax authorities. If you keep spreading these rumors, you might get a lawyer's letter at your door. (Cute) (Cute)
[I never expected Xiao Zhang to be like this... Sigh, it's so rare for the entertainment industry to have a handsome, witty, and wealthy celebrity like him. Even though he's not wrong for wanting to make money, it still feels like my ideal image of him has been shattered...]