Chapter 5: Catching Up—The Only True Test of Skill!
Xianghua Entertainment moved fast. Less than an hour after Cheng Cheng’s original post went up, it had already been deleted. The studio immediately came forward with a clarification, responding to the online rumors and claiming that the account had been hacked, that the post had not been made by Cheng Cheng himself, and that they had already reported the matter to the relevant authorities while reserving the right to pursue the hacker.
Of course, no one believed it. This sort of rumor-dispelling by way of rumor-mongering was nothing new.
What kind of coincidence was it that every scandal was blamed on a hacked account?
Did they think the social media firewall was a joke?
Netizens demanded that Cheng Cheng himself come out and speak, show his face, do a live broadcast.
But how could Xianghua Entertainment dare?
They very much wanted to suppress this wave of negative publicity, but no matter how many figures they threw at it, they still could not extinguish the public’s insatiable appetite for gossip. To hear top-tier star Cheng Cheng casually say, “Like a post, quit once for every self-indulgent habit,” was such an outrageous spectacle.
Too explosive.
There had never been such a bombshell moment in the history of the entertainment industry.
It could not be suppressed.
Not at all.
Very quickly, the tags for Cheng Cheng’s response and Cheng Cheng’s remark about quitting self-indulgent habits shot up to the top two spots on the trending list.
Even after the original post was deleted, it did not matter; clever netizens had already taken screenshots.
Now the entire platform was flooded with that image.
Everyone who should have seen it had seen it, and so had everyone who should not have.
Even the reposted backup version had reached a million likes. As one netizen put it: a backup post is the only true standard for testing how hard-hitting a piece of content really is.
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In Imperial Capital, inside a conference room at Xianghua Entertainment, curses and arguments filled the air as executives took turns voicing their opinions.
“Terminate the contract. Cheng Cheng’s negative impact on us now outweighs his positive value, and our other artists are already being affected. We can’t let him drag more people down. We have to cut ties with him.”
“I agree. He has no value left. By ending the contract with him, we can establish the company’s positive image and use the opportunity to publicize our zero-tolerance stance toward this kind of behavior.”
Others objected.
“How can we let him off so easily? Drag him out if we have to. Even if the company doesn’t make money, we need to kill the chicken to frighten the monkeys. That is what happens when you defy the company.”
“Exactly! I don’t care whether he’s truly gone insane or just pretending. Wants out of the contract? Fine. Then let him spit out every cent he’s earned over the years!”
The meeting ultimately failed to reach a consensus.
Back when Cheng Cheng signed with Xianghua Entertainment, the contract was relatively fair. In 2017, he rose to prominence after competing in Rising New Star. Several entertainment companies had their eye on him. After weighing his options, Cheng Cheng chose Xianghua Entertainment and signed a three-year contract with them.
Last September, the contract expired. By then, Cheng Cheng had already sat atop the pinnacle of stardom for quite some time. In order to keep him, Xianghua Entertainment had made many promises and had shown great leniency on the contract issue. One of the clauses stated that as long as Cheng Cheng had not committed any serious breach of contract or violation of discipline, Xianghua Entertainment could not terminate the agreement without cause.
Now that Cheng Cheng himself was asking to leave, this was a chance for Xianghua Entertainment to get rid of him. Otherwise, they would still have to support him for another two years.
Even a scandal could not change that, because the executives all had a rough idea that Cheng Cheng most likely had not cheated.
Neither dating nor bad-mouthing an older veteran counted as illegal or criminal conduct. Trying to sue him over that and force a termination would simply not hold up in court. They might even end up fighting several legal battles, and there was no guarantee they would win in the end.
But to let him go that easily, the higher-ups were unwilling. They wanted Cheng Cheng to pay a price.
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When Cheng Cheng opened Weibo again, he found that he could no longer log in.
Not just Weibo. Even the short video app was inaccessible.
When the account was originally created, the former owner had registered it with a new phone number, which had always been kept by the management team. Under normal circumstances, the Weibo account was jointly managed by the former owner and the team.
If he was in the mood, he would log in to interact with fans and post a few updates. If not, he would leave it to the management team.
Now, the management team had probably changed the password under orders from the company.
No reply, and then the password changed again. Cheng Cheng narrowed his eyes.
“All right, all right. So that’s how you want to play? Looks like you don’t want to let me go. Fine, then I’ll have it out with you.”
“But for now, the task is—” He glanced at the starry sky. “Eat, sleep, and build up my strength. Only then will I have the energy to fight my enemies.”
Already, he had a rough plan in mind: one for leaving the company, and one for clearing his name.
After ordering takeout and taking a shower, Cheng Cheng went to bed early.
Once under the covers, he pulled out his phone again and frantically caught up on the current world’s information.
This was necessary. He had to memorize the laws, the historical facts, the national heroes, the works of culture, and the names of countries in this parallel world, so that he would not someday say the wrong thing or confuse one person for another and be truly silenced.
Before midnight arrived, Cheng Cheng closed his eyes and looked forward to the next day.
Before falling asleep, he sighed in contentment: sleep without pain truly is bliss.
---
Early the next morning, Cheng Cheng woke at six, ate breakfast, and began carrying out his plan.
He opened the video platform, found one of the creators who had long been devoted to blackening him, and tracked down the contact information on that creator’s homepage.
An hour later, Cheng Cheng successfully got in touch.
“Hello. I am Cheng Cheng.”
---
In the afternoon, at Imperial Capital International Airport, Lu Chen emerged with a suitcase in hand. After hailing a cab, he headed straight for the Chaoyang District.
Lu Chen was a creator on the video platform, with 1.5 million followers.
He had originally been a yo-yo athlete and had won multiple national championship titles.
At first, he uploaded yo-yo trick and tutorial videos, but because yo-yoing was relatively niche, his channel had remained lukewarm, with his follower count hovering around ten to twenty thousand.
Later, he posted a meme video that combined Cheng Cheng’s infamous black humor with yo-yo tricks. It exploded overnight. And because that period happened to be the height of the anti-Cheng Cheng craze, Lu Chen’s content was fresh and excellent, allowing him to break through the half-million follower mark in one leap.
After that meme video was posted, Cheng Cheng’s fans bombarded him with furious private messages, trying to make him stop, but instead they only gave Lu Chen more material.
He first posted the private messages from Cheng Cheng’s fans, pretending to be “properly educated,” “frightened,” and “repentant.” Then, in the very next moment, amid Cheng Cheng’s so-called black songs, he spun his yo-yo while riffing on Cheng Cheng’s infamous memes, declaring, “I was wrong, but I’d still dare to do it again next time.”
Cheng Cheng’s fans at the time were almost driven mad with rage. They hated Lu Chen to death, but there was nothing they could do to him.
Reporting him did nothing. Flooding him with bad reviews did nothing. Sending insulting private messages did nothing either; it only handed him more material.
Videos like that sent him straight onto the fast track of traffic and made him known as the number one professional blackening creator of Cheng Cheng, the leading vanguard of the anti-Cheng camp.
He was also praised with the line, “For ten years the frog-man went unnoticed; in one morning his croaks were heard across the world.”
After that, eight out of every ten videos he made were about Cheng Cheng.
Riding the wave of making Cheng Cheng’s true fans lose their minds while making the anti-fans delirious with joy, he kept harvesting traffic relentlessly. Even after Cheng Cheng’s downfall, he did not stop, continuing to post video after video without letup:
“Did the frog pond collapse?”
“The peak welcomes its hypocritical supporters; dusk witnesses the true believers,” and so on.
Whether Cheng Cheng was hot or not seemed to have nothing to do with him; he always managed to seize the traffic at exactly the right moment.