Chapter Ninety-Six: “If you seek war, then war it shall be!”

How about it? Are you ready?

“I don’t really know, but I just want to compare myself with him. At worst, if I lose, I’ll simply have to keep my place for ten thousand years.”

“And I don’t think I’ll necessarily lose to him either. I still trust the quality of this song. In a little while, I’ll take first place back!”

“I’m not trying to prove anything either. I’m just embarrassed, that’s all! I don’t want to lose!”

...

According to the original schedule, Zhou Ran and Zhang Xiaofeng should have been making the most of this time promoting the film Drummer. But the sudden occurrence of one matter completely disrupted their publicity plans.

By rights, Zhou Ran should have been heading to the promotional program crew at this hour, but a phone call from Li Mi last night threw all of his arrangements into chaos.

The reason was that Chen Wenhua, with whom Zhou Ran had shared the Best Male Singer award in the Chinese-language category, had started stirring up trouble.

During a recent variety-show interview, when asked by a reporter, “What advice do you have for young singers?”, Chen Wenhua said outright:

“I hope the new generation of young singers will curb their arrogance and impatience. Don’t think that because you’ve won an award, you can be so full of yourselves.”

“You should know there are far too many singers who rise to the top at debut and vanish in a flash. Don’t imagine that a little achievement gives you the right to become conceited. Be humble. Learn to respect your seniors.”

As soon as these words came out, they caused an enormous uproar online. On the surface, Chen Wenhua had not said anything wrong, but after a closer look, anyone could understand.

Every word of his was almost certainly aimed directly at Zhou Ran, because among the people who fit the conditions in his remarks, there was only Zhou Ran.

Was Zhou Ran not the very picture of reaching the peak at debut? In his first year, he won Best Male Singer, and among the new singers who had won awards this year, the list was not large. The only one who truly matched Chen Wenhua’s words was Zhou Ran.

If Chen Wenhua had merely said those few sentences, it would not have been such a big deal. From the perspective of an older veteran, there was nothing obviously wrong with them. After all, they could be understood as advice for young singers. Chinese culture is deep and subtle; a single sentence can be interpreted in many ways, one meaning on the surface and another hidden beneath.

But the key point was that a day after saying all this, Chen Wenhua directly announced his new-song plan on Weibo. More importantly, when he posted about the song, he added a caption with a single character. With that post, his meaning became obvious to everyone.

Chen Wenhua was aiming for the top spot and intended to push Zhou Ran down. If it were only Chen Wenhua’s own intention, that would still have been manageable. But after his remarks were made public, the singers of his own generation all began reposting and supporting his actions.

At that point, it had completely escalated from an individual act into a collective one. Zhou Ran and Li Mi had originally been trying to figure out why Chen Wenhua had suddenly acted this way.

By all logic, that was not Chen Wenhua’s usual temperament, and his behavior amounted to nothing less than a direct challenge to Zhou Ran. He was clearly trying to force Zhou Ran out of the way.

Releasing a new song and aiming for first place was, in itself, perfectly normal. There was nothing wrong with that. But when combined with Chen Wenhua’s remarks, it became something else entirely. Either one alone would have been ordinary, but together they carried an unmistakable significance.

Then, while Li Mi and Zhou Ran were on the phone thinking it through, a message from Ji Song arrived and immediately solved the mystery for both of them.

From that message, Zhou Ran and Li Mi finally understood: this was a counterattack plan launched by the group of middle-aged and older singers headed by Ji Song.

The entertainment world was becoming increasingly youth-centered, which meant that veteran singers were getting fewer and fewer opportunities to appear on stage. As a result, their songs were receiving less and less exposure, almost to the point of being pitifully scarce. Aside from a small number of top-tier singers who remained unaffected, everyone else had been hit to a greater or lesser degree.

So Chen Wenhua’s circle decided to mount a counteroffensive, to prove their continued existence and seize some traffic. Chen Wenhua was simply the one they pushed to the front.

Zhou Ran was just an innocent bystander who got caught in the crossfire. He could be said to be one of the hottest young singers around, so they chose him as the first target, the spearhead of the attack. Bad luck, really.

He had been in the middle of promoting his new film when this suddenly happened, and in such a situation, Zhou Ran could not simply remain silent. This was essentially someone coming to challenge him at his own door.

Even if the other side had ulterior motives, there was nothing to be done about it. He had to find a way to strike back and defend his position. Otherwise, if Zhou Ran did not respond this time, then the next time someone released a new song, they would specifically pick Zhou Ran to step on and use him to generate buzz.

So after Zhou Ran, Li Mi, and Huayu Entertainment discussed it late into the night, they reached their final decision: they would take Chen Wenhua on head-to-head. If there was going to be a stage battle, then so be it.

And truth be told, if Zhou Ran won this one, it would be of no small benefit to him. As long as he defended his position at number one this time, his standing in the music world would become firmly established. He would no longer be the sort of person anyone could casually use as a stepping stone.

Thus, Zhou Ran’s publicity schedule had to come to a temporary end, because he needed to return immediately to Xing City and record songs in the studio in response to Chen Wenhua’s challenge. Before, since his own studio’s recording booth had not yet been renovated, he had to go elsewhere to record. Now that it was finished, there was no need for him to run around; he could complete the recording in his own studio.

After Zhou Ran and Li Mi finalized the plan, Weibo quickly issued a post, simply saying that a new song was in preparation, along with the same image announcing the song’s release time as Chen Wenhua’s.

As soon as that post from Zhou Ran’s studio appeared, it immediately poured oil on the fire Chen Wenhua had lit, sending the heat soaring once again.

If Zhou Ran had not responded, the buzz would have been high, but not extraordinarily so. Yet the moment Zhou Ran replied, it became headline news. To be honest, many people had never imagined Zhou Ran would respond at all, because their impression of him was that he was the nice-guy type. Of course, Zhou Ran did have a temper; he was just not easy to provoke.

This is the fastest update for "Entertainment: Starting with a Song Called Sunny Days" by the great author Xiao Mu Bu Chi Xiang Cai. To ensure that you can check the fastest updates of this book next time, please be sure to save your bookmark!

Chapter 96: "If you want to fight, then fight!"
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