CSGM - Chapter 142
Chapter 142: Head Mentor
If Chu Xi had listened to even a little advice, listened to her, listened to the agency, the lead actress who became a huge hit from the movie might have been someone else.
A blessing in disguise. Yu Yixue let out a long sigh of relief. Only now did she realize what a stroke of luck it was.
Now, even the variety show from Chu Xi's obscure period, Our Restaurant, was being dug up and rewatched, pushing the previous season into the top three on the video platform's variety show charts.
Yesterday, Chu Xi posted on Weibo. Twenty-four hours later, it had over 500,000 reposts and comments, and over a million likes.
Add to that the explosive growth in her Super Topic's followers and activity during this period, and it was the undeniable sign of a massive hit!
Scripts for female-led dramas were handed to Yu Yixue, and famous directors sent invitations to Chu Xi. The company was now quoting tens of millions per year for Chu Xi's commercial endorsements, and countless brands were still trying to negotiate with her.
A new star was rising in the entertainment industry.
Yu Yixue screened some promising collaborations for Chu Xi, preparing to arrange her upcoming work schedule.
But aside from two endorsements and an invitation to guest star in a public service short video, Chu Xi rejected all other acting offers.
Hadn't anyone realized she hadn't had more than a few weeks off all year?
Chu Xi's self-arranged schedule was as follows-
Shoot endorsement ads.
Guest star in the public service short video.
Rest.
Rest.
Rest.
Yu Yixue: 【...】
Chu Xi didn't seem overly thrilled about her sudden fame, nor did she feel any anxiety to strike while the iron was hot.
She simply communicated to Yu Yixue: 【If a suitable job comes up, I'll take it myself. I don't want to act recently. I'm tired.】
Such a concise and unpretentious way to be lazy.
Fortunately, Yu Yixue was almost used to it. She calmed herself down and accepted Chu Xi's hands-off, self-sufficient state.
After the fourteen-day roadshow for Three Kingdoms ended, Chu Xi went home and rolled around in bed with Ren Zhi, her wolf's blood boiling like a parched land receiving welcome rain.
Both had good stamina, and Ren Zhi gave her whatever she wanted.
But one day, things got a bit intense, and Ren Zhi had to arrange her work from bed the next day.
Chu Xi applied ointment to the hickeys on her neck and shoulders. The cool ointment went on, covering them with a layer of color and making them less noticeable.
Online, the public opinion of Jade-Carving Ballad had reversed.
Before, people complained about Chu Xi replacing the A-list actress, thinking she was unworthy. Now, they were amazed at the production team's sharp eye for picking such a dark horse.
【Jade-Carving Ballad, hurry up and air!! It has Xixi!! Love to see it!! /[Licking screen]】
【This show's luck is insane. It lost an A-lister but found a cheap, beautiful, high-potential replacement. /[Laughing crying]】
【If I remember correctly, this was filmed before Chu Xi's price went up, right? Holy cow, now both female leads are huge hits. Jade-Carving Ballad, your time has come.】
The way public opinion sounded now, it was as if the Jade-Carving Ballad production team was the lucky one to have cast Chu Xi.
Even Ren Zhi was surprised by how much of a boost the movie Three Kingdoms had given Chu Xi.
A movie with 2.2 billion at the box office in fourteen days had instantly propelled Chu Xi to the top tier of A-list stars. Usually, movies with similar box office numbers didn't have such a strong star-making effect.
It seemed Chu Xi's own foundation was solid, and her performance in the movie was stunning. So when the opportunity arose, she truly soared ninety thousand miles into the sky.
These past few days, Chu Xi and Ren Zhi were discussing things at home.
"Yu Yixue is always worried I'm not working at home. How about I be a flying guest on your variety show?"
Chu Xi was talking about Escape from the Uninhabited Island, the show for which Ren Zhi was the sole executive producer.
Audiences in domestic variety shows had rarely seen this kind of format, so after the show was announced, it was already generating a lot of buzz.
The executive director on site was already filming the first episode.
Chu Xi added with a smile, "I won't take any money. I'll be your volunteer."
But Ren Zhi tapped her on the head. "No. The members in there were all trained by you, and you helped design many of the games. How can I let you participate? To play games you planned yourself? Besides, you'd clear the levels too easily. You'd ruin my ecosystem."
Chu Xi said, "Oh," having been rejected.
Is it wrong to be too smart?
Chu Xi could only accompany Ren Zhi to the show's recording site from time to time to check on things and offer advice, then go home to communicate their feelings in bed.
The days of rest were peaceful and quiet, but unexpectedly, the entertainment industry underwent a sudden, massive change.
The state suddenly issued a document—"Notice on Greening the Entertainment Ecosystem and Improving the Quality of its Practitioners."
The document clearly stated that public figures with low moral character who were elevated to high positions were unworthy of their status; that artists who flaunted their cultural ignorance on variety shows were just sensationalizing; and that entertainment industry practitioners who sought to become idols and be pursued by fans without having received sufficient education themselves were shortsighted and opportunistic!
From now on, the on-screen appearances and performances of the aforementioned individuals would be restricted, and in more severe cases, even banned!
The entertainment industry needed upright role models and high-quality idol artists, and it had to prevent assembly-line-produced puppets from muddying the waters.
The self-important entertainment industry had half its sky change in an instant!
Daddy Central Government has spoken? Isn't the meaning obvious?
The darkest hour for the true "Nine-Year Education Leaky Fish" in the entertainment industry had arrived!
If you want to be an idol, a role model for others, you'd better go back and improve your own cultural literacy first!
However, fearing misunderstanding, a certain national newspaper also reposted the notice and offered an interpretation—
【Academic qualifications are not the only measure of cultural quality, but hands-on practice is the touchstone for testing one's cultivation.】
The next Weibo post was an original compilation video of Chu Xi's knowledge.
It was a collection of clips: from taking a workbook at the airport to help a fan solve a problem, to pointing at a screen in a police station office discussing a case with officers, to standing on the stage of the international Brain King competition and saying, "The only flag that will be planted on the champion's stage is our national flag," and finally, the host raising her hand to announce her victory.
When fans saw this official, authoritative Weibo post, they didn't dare say anything rash, but they were incredibly excited in their hearts and could only silently repost it!
Repost once every eight hours, three times a day, repost, repost, repost, repost until the entire internet had seen it!
See? From now on, if anyone asks, "Chu Xi's resources are so good, is someone backing her/does she have connections?" the Milkshakes would reply with righteous confidence.
If you insist Xixi has a backer, then she does! It's Daddy State!
Arms akimbo.jpg
Chu Xi scratched her head. After resting at home for a few days, Yu Yixue told her, "Your asking price has gone up again!"
What? Hadn't she been doing nothing these past few days?
Some won by lying down, while others were hit by arrows. Some celebrities were now frantically discussing with their teams and companies where to get a high school diploma, where to enroll in an adult undergraduate program, which prestigious university they could get into to gild their image and regain the favor and trust of the review board. The "Nine-Year Education Leaky Fish" artists were hit by the policy, and now the matter was urgent. They could no longer be the illiterates of the entertainment industry!
The only way forward was to be an idol who was strong in their own right and could provide positive guidance and inspiration. This was to prevent the entertainment industry from always giving off the cheap impression that anyone could get in and rake in money with a sack as long as they were good-looking, had capital, and had connections.
For a time, some TV series that had already passed review and were waiting to be released were shelved again.
The screen time allocation for some variety shows was ordered to be adjusted overnight.
The first to be hit was the variety show Idol Training Camp, set to launch this summer. One of its originally scheduled mentors was "martyred" overnight!
This person happened to be a direct target of the central document's description: an unworthy, sensationalizing, and opportunistic public figure.
The production company had no choice but to replace that mentor and hurriedly looked everywhere for a substitute.
Ren Zhi received the invitation.
She had just made a good sum from investing in the movie Three Kingdoms, and the promotion for her new variety show was receiving good feedback. She was also planning to expand her studio into a company. If she became a mentor on a talent show, she could scout some artists to sign.
Ren Zhi didn't hesitate much and agreed to the invitation, with the sole condition that she also invest in the show.
She knew the platform's usual tricks all too well. If she didn't have a say, any artist she favored would be overshadowed by artists brought in by other investors through backroom deals. Things would only be easier if she was an investor herself.
Her ambition was a bit much, which made the producers of Idol Training hesitate.
But after hesitating, they had no choice but to agree to Ren Zhi's additional condition. This was because the production team had been tipped off by a contact at the review board during a dinner. The academic qualifications of the idol artists on the show were generally subpar. If the show only produced a bunch of simple-minded sweethearts and airheads, its viewership would definitely be restricted.
The Idol Training team had to come up with another idea, a roundabout way to save the show.
That was to add a cultural mentor!
This would prove that their show was genuinely dedicated to cultivating high-quality idols, not just mass-producing the kind of artists the policy document disliked.
They needed a mentor who could generate buzz, had a knack for variety shows, was beautiful and attractive enough not to bore the audience—Chu Xi was simply the heaven-sent mentor for the show!
Chu Xi was also willing to accept the show's invitation, but she had only one condition—the same one as Ren Zhi.
After negotiations, the two of them signed contracts with the Idol Training team.
As soon as the show's official Weibo account announced the new mentor lineup, the entire internet exclaimed that it really knew how to ride a trend!
Mentor Ren Zhi, Mentor Chu Xi, what a power couple lineup! Idol Training, you're too good at casting!!
The topic #HottestVarietyShowOf20XXBooked# was now being discussed alongside the Idol Training Camp topic.
Idol Training became a hit before it even aired. Just thinking about it, the artists trained by mentors Chu Xi and Ren Zhi couldn't be too weak, right?
Most netizens had just finished binge-watching the last season of Our Restaurant and were eagerly waiting to see Chu Xi on a new variety show!
Her natural high-IQ flair for variety shows just felt different from the variety show regulars who acted according to a script.
Watching the show's popularity soar after the new mentor list was announced, the producers gradually came around to thinking that signing that additional contract was worth it.
At the end of May, Idol Training Camp officially began recording its first episode.
The location chosen was a domestic island with pleasant weather.
100 trainees and young artists gathered, greeted the mentors at a round conference table, and then returned to their respective dormitories.
The upcoming competition would consist of stage performances and an elimination system. After each round of public performances, a batch of the lowest-ranking contestants would be eliminated. It was a familiar talent show mechanism, and everyone felt the tension of competition from the first day they moved into the dorms.
After the necessary greetings were exchanged and Chu Xi had scanned the IQs of all the little fools, the recording segment ended. She excitedly took Ren Zhi to the beach to walk in the sand and take pictures.
Ren Zhi stood by the sea, the cool water lapping at her calves, and gave a radiant smile for the camera.
Chu Xi lowered the camera, stood up with a grin, and walked over. In a voice only Ren Zhi could hear, she whispered in her ear:
"Baby, you're so beautiful."
Ren Zhi asked with a smile.
"Why weren't you excited to see so many students today?"
Usually, she saw that Chu Xi loved teaching and mentoring the most, but today, when so many students called her "Teacher Chu," Chu Xi seemed much calmer than before.
"Work and hobbies are just parts of life," Chu Xi said with a smile. "Taking pictures of you makes me happier."
She had already found something she loved more than the thrill of new challenges.
Ren Zhi adjusted the brim of her sun hat and tucked a stray strand of hair, blown by the wind, behind her ear. "Want to go collect seashells?"
"Let's go, Baby!"
"Shh..."
Ren Zhi pressed a finger to her lips and glanced over. Many trainees had already come out of the dorms to relax by the sea.
Chu Xi stuck out her tongue and nodded quickly.
She couldn't call her "Baby" anymore, or she'd be coming out publicly.
The first episode of Idol Training Camp was a pilot-like introduction of the individuals.
It introduced not only the one hundred trainees but also the six mentors.
The trainees were all obscure young idols or unpopular artists forced to return to a talent show for exposure. Their initial buzz was negligible, nothing much to speak of.
The six mentors, however, became the main attraction at the beginning.
One stage mentor was the top-tier star Ren Zhi, outstanding in both popularity and skill; the other was Roll, the captain of the first-generation domestic girl group. The dance mentor was Zhang Jiayang, who returned to the country after his foreign boy band disbanded. The vocal mentor was Golden Melody Queen Li Xiling. The rap mentor was Zhou Gai, a champion who emerged with outstanding skill from a rap competition a few years ago. And the final, newly added cultural mentor was Chu Xi, whose popularity was also fast approaching the top tier.
Such a luxurious lineup meant that when the show first aired, the buzz around the mentors was far greater than that of the trainees.
And from among these six mentors, the show had to select one head mentor.
For the sake of fairness, in the first episode, each mentor recorded a solo stage performance.
Based on these performances, the on-site audience and trainees would vote, and the one with the most votes would be chosen as the head mentor.
Ren Zhi, Roll, and Zhang Jiayang all chose singing and dancing stages. Li Xiling and Zhou Gai stuck to their respective areas of expertise in singing. Chu Xi hesitated for a while; she actually wanted to perform mounted archery, but the stage was too small to support it. In the end, she chose a quiet, low-effort piano and singing performance.
She didn't have much ambition about becoming the head mentor herself.
Instead, she felt that this "King" position should go to Ren Zhi.
During the two days of recording the mentor's public performance stages, the six mentors, with their exquisite makeup and dazzling looks, delivered solid performances that electrified the entire venue. Their first solo shows also made it clear to the trainees that their titles as mentors were well-deserved.
The six solo performances were recorded over two days, and the audience and trainees would score them all at once after watching them.
To be honest, this rule was quite disadvantageous for the mentors who performed on the first day, so a replay function was provided for all six performances.
The machine on stage announced:
"Now, every audience member and trainee will have one hour to deliberate. After one hour, the voting channel will open. Each valid ID can scan the QR code at the venue entrance to vote for your favorite mentor. The voting channel will be open for 30 minutes. After voting ends, the mentor with the most votes will assume the position of head mentor."
During this one-hour deliberation period, the audience and trainees repeatedly reviewed the six mentor solo stages, agonizing over who to vote for as head mentor.
Sister Roll truly deserves her title as the progenitor of domestic girl groups; her skills are still so solid! But Sister Zhi is so beautiful, so stunning, and her singing voice is so bubbly, charming, and pleasant...
Of course, Teacher Zhang's singing and dancing were not inferior, and in terms of seniority, Ling is also a veteran. Brother Gai's rap was explosive, but what to do when Xixi is even more handsome than the male mentors?
Ahhhhh, it's so hard to choose, I want to pick them all!
The performance made Chu Xi hungry. During that hour, she sat downstairs in the mentor's dormitory building eating a meal.
The other five sat at the table with her, discussing the upcoming vote.
Each mentor also had the right to vote, and their vote was worth two. This meant that in addition to the audience and trainee votes, they could also vote for each other.
Zhang Jiayang, known in the industry for being polite and proper, was the first to bring it up.
"Teachers, should we discuss this?"
Zhou Gai didn't speak first. He looked around at everyone, feeling that the mainstream artists here carried more weight. After all, he was a rapper, not on his home turf, so it was better to be modest.
Li Xiling said nonchalantly, "This head mentor thing, I think it's just a title. I don't care who gets it."
Roll smiled amicably. "Let's not compete among ourselves. If we're just talking about the stages just now, I think any of us could be the head mentor."
Only then did Zhou Gai feel it was appropriate to voice his opinion. He nodded. "We're here to help those kids with the talent show."
The implication was that the mentors shouldn't get competitive; this was Idol Training Camp, not Mentor Training Camp, and the focus wasn't on them.
Ren Zhi smiled. "Let's just let the audience and the students choose. I'll abstain."
"That's a good idea, I'll abstain too!" Zhou Gai grinned, relieved that he wouldn't have to worry about offending anyone by not choosing sides.
The other mentors also nodded in agreement, expressing their approval of the suggestion.
"Yes, I also think letting them choose is the fairest."
"Let's not think about it. It's best if none of us vote!" Roll said happily. That solved a troublesome issue! Let others do the agonizing!
Chu Xi swallowed a bite of the curry chicken she had made, slowly looked up, and glanced at them.
"No, I'm not abstaining. I'm voting for Teacher Ren Zhi."
Everyone's expression froze, and Ren Zhi also fell into a slightly awkward silence.
The brief discussion ended. As the mentors dispersed and returned to the practice room to rest, Ren Zhi quietly lectured Chu Xi.
"In situations like this in the future, if your opinion is different from what everyone else is saying, don't say anything."
"Why, Baby? Why should I listen to them?" Chu Xi asked.
They didn't know who to vote for, but she did. Was there a problem with her not abstaining?
Wasn't it obvious from the mentor performances that Ren Zhi did the best?
Ren Zhi pinched her cheek. "When you do that, you put the people who spoke before you in an awkward position."
Chu Xi just thought to herself, Who cares about them.
If communication wasn't a way to express one's truest thoughts, then it was meaningless.
But since Ren Zhi had taken the initiative to tell her this, she obediently nodded.
"Okay, Baby. Then I'll speak first next time."
In any case, she was only voting for her baby.
Unexpectedly, an hour later, when the voting channel was supposed to open, the QR code image link just so happened to suddenly crash!
The audience and trainees were holding up their phones at the venue entrance, excitedly preparing to scan the codes. But just as the time was approaching, the QR codes under the six mentor avatars on the LED screen suddenly went blank.
On the blank image was a small exclamation mark, followed by a line of small text: Image has expired.
The QR codes that were just displayed in front of them had vanished on the spot. The promised voting time had arrived, but now everyone was just standing there, looking at each other with their phones in hand.
The sudden crash of the six mentors' voting QR codes was completely unexpected for the production team. Faced with this kind of technical problem, they could only quickly call the tech department to come and fix it.
The production team handled the emergency by, on one hand, repairing the QR code display failure, and on the other, leading the audience back into the venue, asking everyone to wait a moment and remain calm. They could use this time to review the mentors' stages again and confirm their choices.
The trainees were also called back to their dorms to wait. They grumbled, half-amused, half-annoyed, "What is this? If only they had opened the voting channel a little earlier, we could still see the QR codes just now!"
"Ugh, I wonder how long it'll take to fix. Anyway, I'm voting for Brother Gai today."
"What kind of tech is this? It's so bad, even a QR code image can crash."
"Look, the director sent a notice! Turns out there's a problem with the building's network. The voting links can't be sent to the public screen right now. Someone is repairing the network, it should be fixed soon."
Chu Xi had originally gone out intending to vote. Hearing this, she leisurely walked to the performance venue entrance to take a look. The production team had now turned off the entire screen that had been displaying the voting interface. The staff member standing guard there explained that they would turn it back on once the network was repaired. She nodded and went back.
Back in her dorm, Chu Xi took out a notebook and started sketching something with a pencil on a blank page on the back. After a moment, she had drawn a QR code she had memorized earlier. She took out her phone and scanned it.
Log in for ID verification. Verification successful. Vote for this mentor [Ren Zhi]?
She raised an eyebrow at the prompt. How interesting. A randomly sketched QR code actually scanned successfully.
It seemed it really was just a problem with the venue's network; the production team hadn't even closed the voting channel.
Since she had already scanned her way in, Chu Xi went ahead and tapped [Yes].
Vote successful.
Forty minutes later, the repair personnel announced that the building's network was restored.
Just as the entire voting interface reconnected to the public screen at the venue entrance, the waiting audience and trainees were stunned to see what was displayed—
【Voting has ended.
Head Mentor: Ren Zhi. [Votes: 2]
Other voting results: Roll. [Votes: 0]
Zhang Jiayang. [Votes: 0]
Vote counts for the bottom three will not be announced.】
Everyone looking at the public screen: "???!"
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