Debuted right after graduating from high school

Chapter 34 The words are unfounded
I just found a tea restaurant that seemed to have more customers.

Fan Wumian looked at the menu and immediately fell in love with the "Sad Rice" that appeared in Stephen Chow's movie "The God of Cookery".

At dinner time, the food is served very quickly.

The so-called "Sad Rice" is actually white rice covered with barbecued pork, then poured with some barbecued pork sauce or soy sauce, plus half a braised egg, boiled cauliflower and a little bit of shredded carrots. The taste is just so-so, which made him regret not ordering a full meal of beef noodle soup.

While sharing a table with a stranger, I happened to see a report about a middle school singing competition on TV.

The competition was just held this morning. I didn’t expect the TV station to be so efficient.

However, it does make sense.

The entire port city is only the size of this one acre and three mu of land, with a total population of less than 700 million. However, news programs have to collect enough material every day, and any trivial matter may be on TV.

It is no wonder that many journalists are forced to become joke tellers. The content is not novel enough and they rely entirely on exaggerated headlines to attract attention. Especially when it comes to celebrity gossip, their imaginations are extremely rich.

At this moment.

Fan Wumian stared at the TV screen intently. Not only was he shocked, but his heartbeat also quickened.

Getting promoted and getting a raise, reaching the peak of life, marrying a beautiful, rich woman and enjoying a luxurious life, all these things flashed before my eyes like a revolving lantern, and I thought this was the first step to fame.

however.

When the beautiful host started speaking, Fan Wumian was immediately dumbfounded.

I only heard the host on TV saying with a smile:
"Today's Yau Tsim Mong Secondary School singing competition is said to be particularly interesting, attracting thousands of students to watch. After fierce competition, I didn't expect that the eldest son of Wangcai Capital, Mak Shu-lai, was so outstanding that he won the second place in the competition. When he sang, the whole audience applauded loudly, and even Lam Tsai-cheung and Eason Chan were shocked and praised him!"

"At the same time, according to our understanding, Mai Shuli was also appreciated by King Records at the competition site and will soon be signed to King Records to release and produce his first album."

"Let's take a look at the situation at the competition. It is said that the wealthy boss Mak Ji-cheng was very happy afterwards and spared no expense to support his son's dream. He spent millions of Hong Kong dollars to buy new songs and strongly supported his eldest son Mak Shu-lai to debut."

In the subsequent live video, only the video of Mai Shuli singing was played, and there was also a close-up shot of the judges who praised and commented on him.

As for Fan Wumian, who won the championship, his footage was almost cut to nothing, leaving only his back as he went on stage to receive the award.

Fan Wumian didn’t like the “soy sauce soaked rice” in the first place, and after reading this news, he became even more angry and couldn’t eat. He cursed in his heart, saying that it contained a lot of soy sauce.

Anger is anger.

Fan Wumian also knew that in a situation like this, just like in the film and television industry where many actors brought in money to join the crew, there was no absolute fairness.

Mai Jia must have spent money on public relations, so it is normal for him to be featured in the TV station's coverage, but this news program actually completely ignored him, which is the root cause of Fan Wumian's unhappiness.

If he had been given one more shot and had been casually reminded of "The evening breeze blows in my heart", his mentality would not have been unbalanced.

Thinking that other newspapers and TV stations would probably also mention today's game, Fan Wumian put down his spoon, left the tea restaurant, and went to the roadside to take a taxi home.

no way.

It was only 2004, and his newly bought Nokia 7200 point-and-shoot phone couldn't access the Internet, so he wanted to go home and search for other news first.

When the taxi was stuck in the Hung Hom Cross-Harbour Tunnel, Fan Wumian felt a pang of pain as he looked at the meter that kept ticking. It was only then that he remembered that he should have chosen to take the subway.

It never rains but it pours.

Even the car radio was reporting on the eldest son of the Mak family winning a competition. It also broadcast a recording of him singing "Dare to Love", with commentary from Eason Chan and Lam Tsai Cheung.

It was also mentioned during the event that Lam Tsz-cheung was moved by the singing of the eldest son of the Mak family, and he hopes to become his apprentice in the near future.

No accidents.

The news on the car radio quickly jumped to a report of a car accident outside the airport.

In the past, Fan Wumian didn’t know how the actors who failed the interview or were squeezed out by capital felt, but now he finally experienced it personally.

Suddenly he felt a little regretful for rejecting the olive branch extended by Qiu Wenshan this morning, thinking that it would be better to use the channels of King Records to become famous first, and then consider switching to another company and setting up his own studio. However, he knew that this was unrealistic.

If she only signed a short contract of one or two years, Qiu Wenshan and King Records would definitely not promote her. The so-called signing fee of HK$100 million might be the money for selling her body for 5 to 8 years. There is nothing to regret about it.

In fact, Fan Wumian also knew it.

Considering the popularity of a secondary school singing competition, it is not worth the mainstream media in Hong Kong to go to such great lengths to report it. The reason why Mai Shuli stood out was probably that his family had paid out one or two million Hong Kong dollars to build bridges and smooth relations with the media.

Once he figured this out, he stopped being so stubborn and could remain calm as long as he avoided looking at the meter which had risen to three digits.

After all, singing is different from acting. Many actors’ acting skills are so poor that they can choose to become traffic stars and play vase roles with lower thresholds.

However, in the music industry, talent is talent. Capital alone is often not enough. If you have no real talent but still want to brag about it, you will easily become a laughing stock.
Reporter Feng Minglong, who lives downstairs from Fan Wumian's house, took the initiative to work overtime after lunch and wrote two press releases in a row and posted them online.

"Gangcheng News Network" is different from traditional media and mainly focuses on Internet news.

We have our own reporters, and we also accept submissions from netizens, and if their submissions are adopted, we will pay a small fee.

As the Internet penetration rate in Hong Kong continues to rise, the click rate of "Hong Kong News Network" is also not small, and it has gained hundreds of thousands of weekly active users, causing the company's boss to daydream and even dare to shout that he wants to go public on the Nasdaq in the United States in the future.

Reporter Feng has been in the industry for many years and knows the importance of article titles.

For example, he received a bribe of 1 yuan and customized the news exclusively for Mr. Mai. The title reads: "The King of Singing in a Wealthy Family! The eldest son of Wangcai Capital is not only rich but also talented, and his moving singing voice shakes the world!"

As for the other manuscript, he wrote it specifically for Fan Wumian.

The title is - "Eason Chan is convinced, Lam Tsai-cheung stares with dead eyes: A secondary school singing competition has produced a mysterious singing talent that only appears once every ten years, and the audience burst into tears on the spot!"

Clearly aware of Fan Wumian's potential, while other colleagues were still busy praising Mai Jia, reporter Feng Minglong couldn't wait to rush in.

On average, he would publish five online press releases on the company platform every day, but he didn’t pay much attention to it afterwards.

I went out in the afternoon to play eight rounds of mahjong with my friends, then went home, ordered some takeout, and watched the TV series "The Twin Dragons of the Tang Dynasty".

It was almost 7 o'clock in the evening.

When he heard the noise coming from the neighbor upstairs, Reporter Feng remembered the press release he had issued in the afternoon. He picked up the laptop on the bed, opened the backend management page, and checked the click data.

The news about Mai Shuli has been read 1322 times. News about the sons of wealthy families tend to attract more attention.

The article that focuses on Fan Wumian has been read over 1300 times to date, thanks to the influence of Eason Chan and Lam Tsz-cheung.

Probably because reporter Feng Minglong praised the company too much, the comments below are mostly negative.

The latest one reads: "A genius that only appears once every ten years, do you think Lam Tsz-cheung is just a freeloader? Is there anyone in Hong Kong who dares to say that they can definitely sing better than him?"

The next message also reads
——"The reporter must have received money. I think the best new song this year is "Love and Loyalty". If you don't understand music, what's the point of being an entertainment reporter? You might as well go home and sell salted fish."

Reporter Feng's blood pressure almost shot up after being attacked personally.

Then he suddenly remembered something and quickly typed a reply: "Words are not enough! I'll go to the forum now and send you the video link later!"

Turn around.

Originally thinking that his limelight had been completely overshadowed, Fan Wumian finally found some news articles about himself online after returning home.

This made him feel relieved.

One of the forum posts successfully caught his attention. He was surprised that someone had posted a video of himself participating in a competition, which was more than eight minutes long.

The other party’s online name is “A Dragon Crossing the River” and judging from his old posts, he seems to be a reporter.

The video was released less than 20 minutes ago, and the comment section is empty, which is a bit desolate...

(End of this chapter)