I became famous in the entertainment industry by burning incense

Chapter 484 The Ceiling of Perfect Scores in College Entrance Examination Essays
Jinli didn't expose his little scheme and silently let him do whatever he wanted.

So when the makeup artist was doing Gu Cheng's hair and makeup, she would occasionally glance at his phone and see the following scene—

Gu Cheng's phone was playing a video call. The video showed a large exam paper, and someone was writing on it with a pen.

Jinli's nails were clean and she didn't have a manicure. In the video, you could only see her hand writing the answer; the deduction process was done on a separate piece of paper.

This meant that most of the time, the test paper remained untouched, with answers only being written on it occasionally.

Gu Cheng pointed the video at himself, and on the other side of the video, he could see him getting his hair and makeup done. However, given the phone's orientation, Jin Li would have to look up to see him.

But just the thought of Jinli seeing his handsome appearance made Gu Cheng quite happy.

The makeup artist didn't understand Gu Cheng's thoughts, but after seeing the exam paper in the video, she couldn't help but feel a deep respect.

While waiting, he took out his phone and sent a message to a private group.

[I think the gossip the entertainment reporters broke is true; Gu Cheng might really be taking the college entrance exam next year!]

The other members in the group were very kind and asked questions one after another.

What's the juicy gossip? Tell me quickly!

What did you see?

Can I take a photo?

Makeup artist: I won't take any photos; I don't need to sell a celebrity's privacy. I'm doing Gu Cheng's hair and makeup right now, and he's been on a video call with someone, wearing a Bluetooth headset.

You would never guess, there was actually a test paper on the other side of the video! I suspect he was receiving tutoring from a teacher!!

Wow! Gu Cheng is so ambitious?

[Didn't he graduate from a prestigious foreign university? Is it necessary for him to retake the college entrance exam?]

I think he's trying to undermine other celebrities. If they retake the college entrance exam and get into a prestigious university, it will be easier to market their "academic genius" persona.

Furthermore, many policies regarding the ethics and conduct of celebrities have recently been introduced, including requirements on their educational background. Haven't you noticed that many established stars are starting to return to the classroom and pursue master's degrees?

Gu Cheng's fans are probably reluctant to see him go to school, saying that now is the perfect age for him to strive and work hard.

At first, everyone was arguing and no one wanted to accept it, but Gu Cheng had been studying quietly for at least a year. Even though the fans were initially reluctant to accept reality, they started to accept it. They even hoped he could get good grades so they could feel proud and know that the star they were following wasn't a mediocre one.

Chen Lin and the others sat next to Gu Cheng and noticed the exam paper on Gu Cheng's phone. They all shook their heads in unison.

Tsk, what a scheming man!
That's what he thought, but Chen Lin's eyes lit up, and he followed suit, privately messaging Qi Guan Mingzhu to ask if she wanted to play games together.

Qi Guan Mingzhu: [?]

Qi Guan Mingzhu: [I'm so busy. I'm going on stage with the team leader. We have to do three shows in a row this year. Don't you guys have to go on stage?]

Chen Lin: [Yes, but I can still sneak in a few moments when I'm busy. Sister, would you like a plate? (Eyes pleading)]

Qi Guan Mingzhu: [...]

Qi Guan Mingzhu: [I don't have time to play games anymore. Now I play Candy Crush whenever I have free time to de-stress.]

Chen Lin: [I can play online with you!]

Qi Guan Mingzhu: […This is a single-player game.]

Chen Lin: [The kitten looks so pitiful.jpg]

Qi Guanmingzhu smiled faintly: "Next month, I think. My schedule is basically all booked up by then, and I'll be going to Chenxi. I'll have more time then."

Chen Lin: [Puppy carrying a flower.jpg]

Yan Xingdong was also having a lively conversation with Xi Mengze.

He and Xi Mengze always talked about serious matters, speaking openly and honestly.

Xi Mengze was also rushing to the stage and was warming up her voice when Yan Xingdong suddenly messaged her saying he was a little nervous and asked if she had any ways to relieve the tension, such as adjusting her voice or something.

Without thinking much, Xi Mengze sent a voice message: "Why don't you practice with me?"

Yan Xingdong: "Okay, how do we practice? You sing a line and I'll sing along?"

Xi Mengze: "Sure, you can sing with me first, and start by practicing your voice with 'ah'."

Xi Mengze said "Ah" once, and Yan Xingdong followed suit with "Ah" once.

Soon, the entire dressing room was filled with Yan Xingdong practicing his voice.

Luo Yi looked at Gu Cheng staring at the exam paper, Chen Lin suddenly playing Candy Crush, and Yan Xingdong bursting into song, and fell silent for a moment.

He thought for a moment, then slowly opened his thermos and put in a few tea leaves and goji berries.

Never mind, let him come and have tea.
-
Jinli was doing practice problems in her room, occasionally glancing up at Gu Cheng on her phone.

It's like witnessing Gu Cheng's complete transformation from nothing to something, giving you a feeling of playing with dress-up and character development.

After finishing two math tests, she stood up to stretch. Her tablet had a live stream on it, and viewers were sending comments.

[My goodness, how much grinding do you have to complete two sets of exam papers before the event even starts!]

[I timed her; Jinli took three hours, but she left the last two big questions on each test paper blank.]

Those two big questions were a bit difficult; if I were to solve them, it would take me a long time, and I might not even get them right.

Jinli probably wants to save the big questions for later. I sometimes save the big questions to work on together too, like I'm doing a brainstorming session.

Haha, what you thought was a brainstorming session—￥%……*@
The actual brainstorming – Who am I, where am I, what am I doing?

Jinli rested for twenty minutes, then sat back down and started working on the last two big questions on the two test papers.

The netizens were right. After seeing the questions, she only thought about them for a while and realized that these two difficult questions would take a long time, so she decided to solve the other relatively simple questions first.

She muted her microphone in the live stream, so viewers couldn't hear her. While she was solving challenging problems, Gu Cheng was simultaneously providing her with tutoring.

The makeup artist only half understood, mistaking it for Gu Cheng saying a sentence and the person in the video writing it down, and Gu Cheng asking that person to write down their solution.

Although the reality seems to be like this, Gu Cheng is actually tutoring Jin Li.

As for advanced mathematics, Gu Cheng had at least gone to university, so working on high school level concepts was easy for him.

What he needs to consider is using the knowledge he learned in high school to solve this problem, rather than using knowledge beyond the syllabus.

Otherwise, it's very likely that they won't be able to score.

In math, you don't just get full marks by writing the correct answer. The solution process also counts. If you make a mistake in your steps but get the correct answer, you'll only get a few points.

As the makeup artist listened, her admiration for Gu Cheng grew even stronger.

What kind of people are these?!
He's already a star, earns more than others, and is more ambitious than others. Compared to him, he's really too decadent!

Indeed, successful people are not self-disciplined because they are successful, but successful because they are self-disciplined!
The makeup artist thought to himself, "Maybe I should sign up for a makeup enhancement course this Spring Festival. I feel I can improve my skills."

Gu Cheng spent twenty minutes explaining just one major problem before Jinli finally understood the solution.

He stood up and followed his teammates to another waiting area.

The New Year's Eve gala is about to begin, and the March Sky band will be performing three times—the opening, the middle, and the closing acts. This television station went to great lengths to secure their exclusive New Year's Eve stage rights.

Money is actually the least noteworthy aspect of this discussion.

Some people, like the band March Sky, can gain a lot of benefits no matter which TV station they go to.

I would never cheat anyone out of their money, not even March Sky's.

The TV station managed to snatch their New Year's Day stage, but it was actually through personal connections that they managed to do so.

In their early days, March Band had to travel around to find gigs and increase their exposure. This TV station gave them many opportunities, so this time March Band came to repay the favor.

Jinli heard the noise from Gu Cheng's side, looked up and saw Gu Cheng walking around, but his handsome profile was always facing the video, and he held the phone in his hand as steadily as a rock.

Jinli asked, "Are you going on stage? Shall I hang up now?"

"No need." Gu Cheng put her phone in front of her and said with a light smile, "It's just going backstage to wait. There's at least an hour and a half before the show starts, so I can teach you for a while longer."

Jinli blinked and asked softly, "Can other people see your phone, or is it just you who can see your own phone screen?"

Gu Cheng subconsciously looked back and said, "Only I can see that I'm at the back. My teammates are all in front of me, and there's no one behind me."

Jinli smiled, her eyes crinkling slightly. She placed her hand under the phone camera, her thumb and forefinger slightly bent, making a small heart shape.

Gu Cheng stared at the heart shape and suddenly jumped up and down on the spot.

Hearing the noise, Chen Lin, who was ahead, asked curiously, "What are you doing? Jumping rope over there!"

Gu Cheng curled up the corners of her lips and snorted softly, "I'm willing, it's none of your business."
-
As a top boy band, Marchday's every move attracts attention.

Even backstage waiting, surrounded by fellow celebrities, she still attracted a lot of attention.

Among them were other top boy bands from Tianding who had previously clashed in the gift room. These boy bands were very close to March Sky and could observe March Sky's movements.

The boy band members were all very nervous.

Because the program performed on television this time was sung live, any mistake would be known to the entire nation.

In terms of stage stability and fluidity, they have to admit that it's no wonder that March Band became their seniors and gained so many fans.

While each member of March Band isn't particularly outstanding individually, their performance as a group is very stable. They always perform live on stage, unafraid of being criticized.

In a tense state of mind, they would subconsciously think, what would they do if it were March?
In the past, when they participated in stages that required singing live, they would use the band March to motivate themselves.

Encouragement in front of the stage, and encouragement after the stage ends.

After their stage performance, they would all think that their performance was no less impressive than that of the band March, and that even if March had come in person, they wouldn't have performed as well.

This time, they finally got to share the stage with March Band.

They had expected to see a tense and prepared March, but instead they found a group of people who remained calm and composed.

Luo Yi was still leisurely drinking his tea. Wasn't he worried about having to go to the toilet?
Yan Xingdong looks composed, but it seems he's scrolling through comics on his phone?
What is Gu Cheng doing? Studying math problems?
Is this an attempt to permanently attach the "academic genius" persona to oneself?

As for Chen Lin, he went even further. He was about to go on stage, and he actually started playing a low-IQ game called Candy Crush!

"Captain, I'm really not happy about losing to a team like this," one of the team members said in a low voice.

The captain said in a deep voice, "Then let's find a way to bring them down. There will be a series of changes in the company's management this year. Turbulent times are our opportunity to rise to power."

Resources are limited. Even Tianding Entertainment, which specializes in idol artists, still has limited access to good resources. The best resources should naturally be reserved for the top teams first.

He has received clear information from the company's senior management that the group will disband this March, with each member pursuing individual careers.

These top-tier boy bands can share the team resources left behind by Marchday.

What they don't realize is that without absolute strength, even if resources are offered to you, you still can't climb up the ladder.

The reason why March Sky has been able to work its way up to this point is that it broke away from the company's support a long time ago and has instead given back resources to the company.

Gu Cheng finished tutoring Jin Li, with thirty minutes remaining.

Just then, team leader Yan Xingdong stood up and told the team members to move around and stretch their bodies.

On the other side, Jinli ended her video call with Gu Cheng and took out a brand new test paper, a Chinese language test paper.

She has a solid foundation in science, but she still struggles with science exams, especially the more challenging ones, where she often can't find a solution.

This is not a question of whether or not one tries hard.

It's a matter of talent.

However, this problem does not exist in Chinese language teaching.

One of the key aspects of scoring in Chinese is composition, and Jinli plans to analyze composition writing techniques this time.

She took out her Chinese exam paper and flipped directly to the essay prompt section to find out which topics were best suited for narrative writing and which were best suited for argumentative writing.

First, I thought about it for a while and wrote down a rough framework. Then I found some excellent essays to compare with.

For Jinli, analyzing essay writing techniques is a form of relaxation.

Viewers watching the live stream also noticed that Jinli has an amazing sense of language when doing Chinese. Although she can't speak fluently, she has a particularly rich knowledge base.

[I feel like Pear Baby's Chinese language score is a big draw!]

[Help... I can just casually write down a famous quote, and it's actually pretty insightful. Is this the kind of knowledge a high school student should have?]

How is Pear's knowledge of classical Chinese? Perhaps she could try writing in classical Chinese for the college entrance exam; it could significantly boost her score!

[You've really harmed Li Bao! Classical Chinese is so easy to write off-topic; this is a dangerous approach!]

Ever since that perfect-score essay, "The Death of Red Hare," came out, it seems like everyone thinks they can write "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," haha.

When Jinli opened the excellent essays, she glanced at the comments and saw that many netizens were talking about "The Death of Red Hare". Curious, she went online to look up the essay.

"Is this... okay?"

Jinli's eyes lit up.

This perfect score college entrance exam essay imitates the writing style of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," beginning with "the 26th year of Jian'an," interspersed with classical Chinese words such as "trough" and "together they died," and also quoting many allusions.

The marking team initially deducted 58 points due to a timeline error (incorrectly writing Guan Yu's death date as 221), but later gave him full marks for his "sophisticated language and profound ideas".

More legendary than the essay itself is the student who wrote it.

His college entrance exam score was below the first-tier university cutoff that year, but he was admitted to a first-tier university through a special admission process because of his perfect score essay. After graduation, he entered the media industry and exposed the "gutter oil incident".

As a journalist, he reported the facts objectively. Later, he transitioned from journalism to become the public relations director of Alibaba, the vice president of 360, and in 24, he also became the head of public relations at Baidu.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he turned his life around with a perfect essay!
Others need to do more research on classical Chinese, and don't have the energy to study it.

But she was different.

Classical Chinese is her forte; she's very familiar with it!
　Jiang Xinjie's "The Death of Red Hare" is a landmark essay in the history of China's college entrance examination, achieving a perfect score. It confirms the possibility of the college entrance examination as a "stepping stone to life" and reminds future generations that the power of words can transcend scores and reshape the trajectory of one's life.

(End of this chapter)