Chapter 140: Spring Festival Gala

PS: I was busy with school yesterday and missed a day of updates. I am truly sorry. This book will not be abandoned; please rest assured, everyone!

"Mom!"

"Auntie!"

Wen Xia and Luo Quan met An Ran at the airport.

Although she was over forty, An Ran's skin was very well-maintained; she looked about thirty and had very few wrinkles on her face.

Seeing Luo Quan's smiling face, An Ran said in surprise, "Oh my, this must be Luo Quan. I haven't seen you in a few years, and you've grown up to be so beautiful!"

Wen Xia laughed, "Luo Quan is the most beautiful person in the world now."

Luo Quan quickly corrected her, "It hasn't been announced yet."

"What 'most beautiful in the world'?" An Ran didn't browse Weibo much and wasn't very familiar with these terms.

After Wen Xia explained it, An Ran finally understood.

"Let's go home first; I have a friend at home." Wen Xia took her mother to the car and returned to their rented apartment.

After entering the house, Yagyu Junko, hearing the commotion, got up from the sofa and walked over.

Wen Xia introduced her, "Mom, this is a friend I met in Japan, and also Luo Quan's best classmate in Japan. Her name is Yagyu Junko."

Yagyu Junko said in Chinese, "Hello, Auntie."

"Hello, hello." An Ran nodded repeatedly, "Your Chinese is quite good."

Junko's face turned slightly red, "I studied with Luo Quan for a while, so daily communication is basically no problem."

"Did you buy the groceries?" An Ran looked at Wen Xia.

Tonight was New Year's Eve, and the custom throughout China was to have a reunion dinner, which certainly had to be done in a grand manner.

Wen Xia had originally wanted to take everyone to a hotel for the reunion dinner, but she was stopped by An Ran, "What kind of reunion dinner is eaten outside on New Year's Eve? It must be cooked at home."

Luo Quan held the same attitude, so Wen Xia had no choice but to change her plans, go buy ingredients, and have the reunion dinner at home.

Facing her mother's question, Wen Xia nodded, "Everything is bought. The chicken, duck, and fish have already been marinated."

"You know how to do these things?" No one knows a daughter better than her mother; An Ran knew her daughter had never lifted a finger in the kitchen, couldn't even boil noodles or porridge properly—could she really handle these chores?

Wen Xia's face darkened, "People improve. Are you not allowed to let me learn and master things?"

An Ran smiled without smiling, "Last Spring Festival, you could only be a hands-off manager. You learned all this in one year?"

Seeing she couldn't fool her mom, Wen Xia had to admit, "Fine, actually, Luo Quan did it all."

"Actually, Wen Xia helped too," Luo Quan said, putting in a good word for her.

"What did she help with?"

"Turning on the faucet to get water."

"Pfft!" Hearing this, Wen Xia laughed embarrassedly herself, "Oh, I just can't learn these things."

An Ran said earnestly, "Cooking is something a woman cannot be without. If you get married in the future, are you going to make your husband cook for you?"

"So what if the husband cooks? Nowadays, we advocate gender equality. Before, men earned money and women did housework; now, it can be completely reversed for me—I earn the money, he does the housework!" Wen Xia said, raising a fist with a strong expression.

An Ran rolled her eyes at Wen Xia and walked straight to the kitchen.

The older generation of women seems to always have an inexplicable keenness for the structure of a house. Even in a strange home, they can always find the kitchen with ease, then skillfully start cooking to prepare a sumptuous dinner for the family.

"Auntie, do you want me to help you?" Luo Quan followed behind.

An Ran didn't look back, "No need, go do your own things. I'll handle tonight's meal by myself."

Since she didn't need help, Luo Quan returned to the sofa and started browsing Bilibili.

Approaching the New Year, Bilibili had changed its UI to a festive look covered in firecrackers, and the New Year Gala video was still displayed on the homepage recommendation.

A while ago, Bilibili invited a group of content creators to film a New Year Gala video, which was essentially everyone taking turns performing talents, mainly singing.

The stage, sound, and direction were all quite good. Bilibili also invited many well-known domestic and international musicians to perform, which was better than many TV stations' New Year's Eve galas, receiving considerable praise on Weibo and Zhihu.

The only flaw was that the most eye-catching person did not appear at the gala venue.

The New Year Gala directing team had actually sent Luo Quan an invitation, but she was busy filming at the time and couldn't get away, so she had to politely decline.

However, although she couldn't come to the venue, she could still perform off-site.

On the day of the New Year Gala recording, the production team connected with Luo Quan, who was far away in South Africa, allowing her to sing the station song, "Un," for everyone via the big screen.

This was also the only song that triggered a full-venue singalong; as soon as her voice rang out, the entire audience cheered.

The final recorded effect was excellent, and among all the segments of the New Year Gala, the video featuring Luo Quan had the highest view count.

Later, Luo Quan also promised her fans that she would definitely be at the venue to perform for everyone next year.

Speaking of which, Luo Quan really wanted to be on the Spring Festival Gala. As the program with the highest viewership in the world, the Spring Festival Gala had become an indispensable part of every Chinese family's New Year's Eve for decades.

Eating the reunion dinner, setting off firecrackers, and watching the Spring Festival Gala—this was the habit of so many people, and the memory of so many others.

In the entertainment industry, whether a star is truly popular or fake can be seen at a glance by whether they have been on the Spring Festival Gala.

Unfortunately, Luo Quan and Wen Xia's popularity this year probably didn't meet the standard for the Spring Festival Gala.

After all, neither of them had any works in the country yet. Even if they were incredibly popular in South Korea and Japan, it didn't carry much weight domestically.

However, Luo Quan and Wen Xia were both very confident that by this time next year, they would likely be backstage at the Spring Festival Gala, preparing to perform in front of the national audience.

However, with the development of the internet and more and more entertainment activities, many young people no longer watch the Spring Festival Gala.

On one hand, the quality of the gala itself has declined; on the other, everyone can no longer settle down to watch TV with their families.

Although there were still a few hours until the Spring Festival Gala started, the list of programs on Weibo had already been listed, and the rows of programs and performing stars were basically familiar faces.

Of course, there were some new faces that appeared this year, and often the fans of these people were the most active in the comment section.

Besides the hot searches related to the Spring Festival Gala, another piece of news was also quite eye-catching.

"TC Candler voting closed!"

As an American film website, TC Candler's most famous feature wasn't its main business, but its selection of the world's most beautiful and handsome faces.

The history of this selection had exceeded twenty-five years. From being ignored at the beginning to being the focus of the world now, TC Candler successfully completed the transformation from a backyard chicken to a phoenix.

In the list they selected, many people's rankings might not be absolutely objective—there were fan factors and the editor-in-chief's own subjective factors—but every year, the world's most beautiful and handsome were always undisputed.

This was also the foundation of their survival. The website's two hundred-plus editors came from all over the world; they had different nationalities, different beliefs, and even different sexual orientations.

But in terms of aesthetics, they absolutely upheld absolute fairness and justice, and would not hold biased views due to any factors.

Therefore, as long as they were selected as the most handsome and beautiful, they were definitely the most handsome and beautiful of the year.

And every time this moment arrived, it would be a grand event for beauty-obsessed people worldwide; just licking the screen for the two hundred faces of peerless beauty could keep them busy for a long time.

And TC Candler closing the voting meant that the two lists for 2016 had already produced results. At 12 o'clock tonight, the website would release the video.

The betting odds for the world's most beautiful and handsome on foreign websites were still open, and Luo Quan's odds were still quite high, at 1 to 8. As for Alia's odds, they had fallen all the way to 1 to 1.05, indicating that almost everyone had already concluded that Alia would definitely be the world's most beautiful this year.

Twitter was already in an uproar, with many people questioning why Alia Grant could surpass Luo Quan and take the title of world's most beautiful.

Although the final result hadn't come out yet, most felt that Luo Quan no longer had a chance.

"Tell me, is this not the world's most beautiful?" Luo Quan's fans dug out all the photos Wen Xia had posted on Weibo.

"With such beauty, if she can't take first place, I can only say all the editors at TC Candler should go get eye surgery!"

"Alia has a secret weapon more powerful than her appearance, and that is her lineage. White plus black is greater than white plus yellow!"

"This is the current situation in Europe and America. It's like this on the female side, and I hope it won't be like this on the male side."

"No need to worry about that. The vote gap between Leon and third place is a full five times, and not many black people made the list this year."

"What a pity, such a beautiful angel, but in the end, she can only settle for second place?"

"Perhaps God was too careless when creating her, making her too perfect, so He intended to add some hardships to her life. It must be like that."

"But this hardship could have been avoided."

"I actually think Alia is quite beautiful. Maybe our aesthetics are different."

"Why can't Alia take first place? You are being racially prejudiced!"

"Can only white people be the world's most beautiful? Do black people not deserve it?"

"Black people have never taken first place before; now is the time."

"Everyone is equal. You can't be more beautiful just because you are white. I think Alia is more beautiful than this Luo Quan!"

"Luo Quan isn't even a pure white person. She has always claimed to be Chinese. I don't know what you are licking."

………………

For these people who got the benefit and still complained, Luo Quan's fans naturally wouldn't indulge them, directly starting a confrontation. All kinds of nasty profanity filled Twitter until the time gradually approached midnight, and then everyone calmed down. ===== CHAPTER 141 =====