Noon.
Back at home.
Zhang Ye was wolfing down his food.
Chenchen had already eaten her fill and was playing "The King Sent Me on Mountain Patrol" on her cell phone. She walked over to Zhang Ye's mother and handed the cell phone to her. "Grandma, this is a song that Zhang Ye wrote for me."
His mother patted her on the head and said with a smile, "It's really nice."
Chenchen turned around. "Grandpa, this is a song that Zhang Ye wrote for me."
His father also nodded. "It's really nice. Your grandma and I listened to it on the radio just now."
Chenchen said, "I sang it on the radio as well."
His mother smiled. "You sang much better than Little Ye!"
Chenchen nodded. "Mhm."
But Zhang Ye kept rolling his eyes. "Don't you guys feel guilty?"
His mother glanced at him. "With that lousy voice of yours, how can it compare to our Chenchen's singing?!"
Zhang Ye threw up his hands. "Alright, I'll eat, alright?"
"What place are you at?" his father asked.
"The Top Chinese Music Chart?" Zhang Ye smiled and said, "I think I'm almost at second place."
His mother said in surprise, "How many hours has it been?"
Zhang Ye analyzed, "Today happens to be Children's Day, so I've caught up to the trend. I don't think it'll be a problem for you to get first place on the daily chart tonight. But I don't think you'll be able to get into the top few spots on the monthly chart. The fifth episode of King of Masked Singers will be in two days' time.
But that was enough. After so many days of not showing his face at work, the gap in his popularity had widened again.
A cell phone rang.
It was Chenchen's cell phone.
Chenchen picked it up. "Aunt."
Rao Aimin: "Did Zhang Ye take you out to have fun?"
Chenchen nodded and said: "We went to Beijing Amusement Park and even sang together."
Rao Aimin: "How was it?"
Chenchen said: "Not too bad."
Zhang Ye interjected from the side: "Not too bad?"
Chenchen handed the cell phone to him. "Zhang Ye, my aunt is looking for you."
"Got it." Zhang Ye answered and said: "You've worked hard, Old Rao. Have you received your award yet?"
Rao Aimin was quite busy over there, so she was probably outside. "It's been canceled."
Zhang Ye said: "Ah?"
Rao Aimin: "I don't know what's going on with those bastards. They withdrew your award at the last minute and replaced it with someone else. It seems like the higher-ups have notified them."
A man said, "Hey, why are you scolding people?"
Rao Aimin said, "So what if I scold you? You asked me to come all the way here to receive the award, and you want to change me at the last minute? You guys have nothing better to do, but I have things to do! "
When the man heard that, he felt a little guilty, "Big Sis, why is your temper even worse than Zhang Ye's?"
Zhang Ye's and Rao Aimin's temperament were too similar. The two of them were the kind of people who would do whatever they wanted. They were both people who would scold others the moment there was a disagreement.
Zhang Ye said, "Calm down, calm down. It's fine. Just come back quickly. The child is still waiting for you."
Rao Aimin: "Alright, let's go back now. I'll give them a few more pointers!"
Before hanging up, Zhang Ye heard Rao Aimin say on the other end: "Get the organizer to come over here. Are you messing with us?"
This award was actually not a big one, but it wasn't small either. It was an official award in the Beijing area called the Lifetime Contribution Award to a Variety Show. King of Masked Singers had once again become very popular. This was an award that Beijing Television had helped Zhang Ye to get. As it wasn't a particularly valuable award, Zhang Ye got his agent to go and receive it on his behalf. However, he didn't expect that it would be canceled at the last minute. Based on Zhang Ye's many years of experience in the entertainment industry, he knew that there was definitely something going on here. Or rather, this was a signal.
Sure enough.
A few minutes later, the situation on the Top Chinese Music Chart changed!
"The King Sent Me on Mountain Patrol" was canceled and its popularity score was locked. Although the netizens could still listen to the song through various channels, its popularity score would no longer increase. In fact, it even disappeared from the chart altogether.
A lot of people on Weibo were stunned.
"What's going on?"
"Why is' The King 'gone?"
"Did its popularity score suddenly drop?"
"That can't be! It's already in second place! It's going to be in first place soon! No matter how much it drops, it shouldn't have dropped from second place to the top 100 all of a sudden! "
"I searched it, but 'The King' is not in the top 100 anymore!"
"Goddammit, what's going on?"
"Did the data get wrong?"
"What's the matter? Can anyone give us an explanation? "
"Comrades, I've just received news that there's going to be an official award in Beijing today. It's the Lifetime Contribution Award to a Variety Show. It was supposed to be given to Teacher Zhang Ye, but just now, the recipient of the award was suddenly changed. It seems like they received a notification from the Ministry of Culture, and Zhang Ye's agent also got into an argument with them."
"This …"
"Banned?"
"The smog issue hasn't passed yet?"
"What's coming has finally come?"
"Holy shit!"
"Then will King of Masked Singers be affected?"
"Who knows!"
"Teacher Zhang is in the eye of the storm again!"
"The Brain Gold commercial has been canceled!"
"What?"
"I have a friend at the television station who just received the notification!"
"Why?"
"They didn't mention the reason. They just ordered the commercial to be corrected and redone. It's so simple. They just want them to remove Zhang Ye's scenes from the commercial!"
"'A Letter to Home' has also been removed from the Top Chinese Music Chart!"
"Damn, those were such good songs!"
"It has nothing to do with the songs. It's obviously targeted at Zhang Ye!"
The bad news kept coming in.
Zhang Ye's cell phone was also exploding with calls!
His mother said in a stunned manner, "Why are they targeting you all of a sudden?"
Zhang Ye said calmly, "They should have come a long time ago. It was just a little delayed."
His mother said angrily, "You're still so calm?"
"I was already mentally prepared for this," Zhang Ye said.
Yes, he already knew about this since Wu Zeqing had told him about it.
During this period of time, Zhang Ye had actually been on the brink of being banned. Although it was not stated explicitly, nor was there any organization that spread the word, the truth was that Zhang Ye had already been banned for a month or two. It was just that there was too much controversy at that time and the public was too heated about it, so it was not brought to light at that critical juncture. If Zhang Ye had kept a low profile after that, with Old Wu around, the matter would have blown over in a month or two. Zhang Ye would have been a good man again and could do whatever he needed to do. But today, Zhang Ye, who had been quiet for more than a month, had released a new work again. It even managed to get into the top few spots of the Top Chinese Music Chart. The momentum was so strong that it caused a backlash.
Ring, ring, ring.
The Clown's cell phone rang.
Han Qi said anxiously, "Teacher, can you come over to the television station for a while?"
Zhang Ye said in a hoarse voice, "What's the matter?"
Han Qi said, "A leader from the Beijing Ministry of Culture and a few representatives from the associations are here for an inspection. Director Hu asked me to contact you. The other singers are also on their way over."
Zhang Ye nodded and said, "I'll be right there."
…
At Beijing Television.
In a conference room.
Petal Shower, Sunset Glow, Flowing Time, and the others had all arrived. There were also two replacement masked singers who were also wearing masks and sitting in the conference room. The Clown was the last to arrive.
Soon after, Hu Fei arrived with a group of people following behind him. There were more than a dozen of them dressed in suits and leather shoes. Towards the end, a deputy station head of Beijing Television was accompanying them throughout.
Hu Fei said, "Let me introduce everyone."
Some honorary chairman of the Television Association.
Some director of some cultural institution.
Some inspector of the Beijing Ministry of Culture.
Then, the leader of the group took his seat at the head of the table and said with a smile, "I'm very honored to meet all of you singers. This show of yours has been done very well, and I like watching it very much. But there are some problems that I would like to point out. I feel that some of the singers' songs are a little negative and not particularly positive. Our show has become very popular all over the country with tens of millions of viewers, so this is something that we should pay more attention to. The leaders of the SARFT are currently drafting a censorship system for song titles, television series, or movie titles. From now on, this system will be implemented. I think it's very good and there's indeed a need to tighten up the censorship system. This is a form of respect for culture and also the correct guidance for the public."
He rambled on about a lot of things.
Then the group of people sauntered off to continue their inspection.
The Deputy Station Head accompanied him, while Hu Fei, Hou Ge, Xiao Lu, and company stayed behind.
Shi Guang asked, "Director Hu, what do you mean by that?"
A new replacement singer said, "You don't even have the freedom to sing?"
Sunset Glow also said, "If we're talking about songs with positive energy, how many love songs are actually positive? Wouldn't that be killing a large number of them for no reason? We can't even sing love songs in the future? "
Hu Fei waved it off. "It's not that bad. Everyone, just be careful when choosing songs for this episode. Just don't choose songs like Li Yu's from last time. Everything else should be fine."
Petal Shower said, "I can't even sing nursery rhymes anymore, let alone love songs."
Flowing Time acknowledged, "Zhang Ye's song was blocked from the Top Chinese Music Chart."
Hou Ge said, "This is directed at Director Zhang. It has nothing to do with you guys."
Petal Shower looked at him. "The people from the Beijing Ministry of Culture and a few other associations are also here for Zhang Ye, right?"
Hu Fei sighed.
Shi Guang asked, "Is this a move by the SARFT or …?"
Hu Fei answered, "This time, it was not the SARFT's doing."
Flowing Time heaved a sigh of relief. "That's good then."
The replacement singer asked curiously, "Why didn't the SARFT take the lead this time? In the past, when we banned artists and censored programs, weren't they all done by the SARFT? "
Hu Fei gave it some thought and shook his head. "We're not too sure about that either. In any case, everyone should be careful. It's Children's Day on June 1st, so it's actually quite good to sing nursery rhymes or something for this episode."
Nursery rhymes?
The contestants looked at one another.
The Clown just sat there and did not say a word all this while.
This was because he did not know what to say. He wanted to apologize, but he could not bring himself to do so. This matter had actually started because of him. As he had offended too many people the last time, even if Wu Zeqing was there to hold the fort, even if the SARFT decided to ignore him, there were still other departments and leaders who wanted to suppress Zhang Ye's momentum of making a comeback!
Everything was very reasonable.
Everything was within his expectations.
No matter how he thought about it, it seemed like this was how things should have developed. Zhang Ye himself knew this. However, even though Zhang Ye looked calm on the outside and there were no fluctuations in his heart, he still felt a little disappointed and a little bored!
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