Being a gigolo was too much for him, so he had to become a music superstar.

"See for yourself."

Chen Jiahao was drinking protein powder on the sofa. He put down the cup, picked up his tablet, and glanced at it.

"Your national competition video has 12 million views." Liu Yang held up one finger. "His has 38 million."

Chen Jiahao remained silent.

"You spent 600,000 on stage design, hired a string orchestra, used holographic projection, and even added backup dancers and a light show. He only has a guitar." Liu Yang's voice was very low. "Three times. The viewership is more than three times yours."

Chen Jiahao put the tablet back on the coffee table and leaned back on the sofa.

"Where are the trending topics?"

"A meat dish and a vegetable dish trended on Weibo for 36 hours. Your stage performance topic? It disappeared after 18 hours."

Chen Jiahao remained silent for a long time.

Liu Yang sat down opposite him and rubbed his hands together: "Jiahao, let me tell you the truth. The money-driven stage design route can't compete with his route."

"I know."

"You know this is good. This person became popular entirely because of their content, not their image. Content-driven traffic is the hardest to generate—you can't buy it with money, and attacking it will backfire. After that plagiarism scandal, their fan base actually increased instead of decreasing."

Chen Jiahao tapped his fingers twice on the sofa armrest.

"Brother Liu, do you think my skills are inferior to his?"

Liu Yang was stunned for a moment.

"Technical skills? Of course your technical skills are better than his. Fang Yizhou himself said that his fundamentals are weak. But the problem isn't technical skills."

"What's the problem?"

Liu Yang thought for a moment, then carefully chose his words: "The problem is... the audience doesn't buy into the technology."

Chen Jiahao looked at him.

Liu Yang continued, "On your stage, the audience applauds. On his stage, the audience cries. Applause or tears—which do you think has a stronger impact?"

Chen Jiahao did not respond to that.

He stood up, walked to the window, and looked down at the street.

"When Fang Yizhou was commenting on me, he said something. He asked me what I was thinking when I sang."

Liu Yang didn't say anything.

"I couldn't answer at the time," Chen Jiahao said softly. "Because when I sing, I'm thinking about whether the pitch is right, whether the rhythm is right, and whether the typhoon is stable enough. I'm thinking about the performance."

Chen Jiahao stood by the window, silent for almost a minute. Then he walked back to the sofa, picked up the protein powder again, and took a sip.

"How should we prepare for the next round?"

Liu Yang breathed a sigh of relief. He thought Chen Jiahao would be unhappy, but he didn't expect him to adjust so quickly. In any case, this kid's resilience is indeed very strong.

"The format for the next round hasn't been released yet. But I've spoken with Mr. Wang, and he said he'll figure something out."

Chen Jiahao hummed in response and looked down at his phone.

The conversation ended there.

Liu Yang stood up, took his tablet, and walked out. As he reached the door, he glanced back at Chen Jiahao.

Chen Jiahao sat on the sofa with his phone screen facing him, but he wasn't looking at the screen; his eyes were fixed on the windowpane.

Liu Yang went out and closed the door behind him.

In the corridor, he took out his phone, opened the data backend, and looked at the number 38 million.

He did the math in his head—it was more than three times less.

I wonder what Mr. Wang plans to do.

Liu Yang put his phone away and walked towards the elevator.

In the president's office of Tianhai Entertainment, Wang Shaohui reviewed all the data for the day, from topic views and play counts to the distribution of keywords in comments, and even read through the repost from People's Daily.

He didn't get angry. He had his secretary call the heads of the legal and public relations departments over, closed the door, and held a meeting for an hour.

When the meeting ended, the legal representative came out with a very tense expression.

The public relations manager made a phone call in the hallway, speaking in a low voice; all that could be heard was the word "as soon as possible."

Nobody knows what was said in that meeting.

However, Zhao Leiming received Wang Shaohui's call at around 9 p.m. that evening, while he was sitting in his study replying to emails.

When the call connected, Wang Shaohui only said one sentence: "Come to my office after the national competition airs."

Then it hung up.

Zhao Leiming put down the phone and stared at the email screen in front of him, not reading a single word.

He flipped his phone over and placed it face down on the table.

……

The program will officially air three days later at 8 PM.

Su Nianwei wasn't in the VIP room; she was in the study with her computer and tablet on, both screens running simultaneously—one for broadcasting a program, and the other for checking real-time data.

Ten minutes before the broadcast started, the number of comments on the screen was already very high.

The audience is waiting for Lin Buyi to appear.

Zhang Mingyu was the first to appear, performing adequately, with consistent commentary.

The second one is Chen Jiahao.

The moment the lights dimmed, the comment section exploded—mainly with Chen Jiahao's fans. As soon as the holographic projection appeared, the comments were filled with exclamation marks.

Su Nianwei looked at it for two minutes, then turned her attention back to the data backend.

Then it was Lin Buyi's turn.

Within a second of him stepping out, the comment section was flooded with a dense barrage of messages. That was even faster than when Chen Jiahao appeared.

"A guitar."

"Just one guitar!"

"What's that 600,000 thing? It's burning money."

Su Nianwei stared at the data backend; the server had already started showing lag warnings.

When Lin Buyi sang the chorus, the comment section suddenly slowed down because everyone stopped typing.

Then the line "I forgot to look back and see if she was crying" came out, and the comment section was quiet for a few seconds. Then the screen was filled with comments saying "she cried", so many that you couldn't even see the names.

Su Nianwei stopped watching the live comments and started checking the real-time search index.

The search volume for "Lin Buyi" quadrupled within three minutes after that lyric was sung.

When Fang Yizhou's comments were broadcast, the comments section was full of "Fang's dad really understands", "He's right", "This is what music should be".

On the night the show aired, Lin Buyi's Weibo followers started to increase from 120,000, and by the end of the broadcast, Su Nianwei glanced at it and saw that he had 2.8 million followers.

She stared at that number for two seconds, then put the tablet on the table.

Then, a cultural commentary that had been prepared beforehand was published. The article was titled: "The Return of Contemporary Aesthetics—Starting with a Guitar."

The article has no commercial undertones and is written in an academic tone. It starts by discussing the trend of packaging in the Chinese music scene over the past decade, and then moves on to the Lin Buyi phenomenon, explaining why audiences are moved by a guitar rather than by a stage design costing 600,000 yuan.

The last paragraph of the article was screenshotted and shared many times: "Truly good things don't need packaging. Because packaging is for things that aren't good enough."

This phrase has become a new trending topic: talent doesn't need packaging.

When Su Nianwei saw this entry, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes for a while.

Things have progressed more smoothly than she had expected.

But she knew things wouldn't go smoothly forever.

Sure enough, an article by a music critic appeared the next day.

The title is straightforward: "Is it progress or regression that a singer with rudimentary technical skills has been elevated to a pedestal?"