Chapter 290: The Koi Girl?

I wonder if Bai Liang's words really have that kind of power.

After recording a show called "Saturday Night Live" on Youku, Zhu Yilong received an invitation for that basketball variety show.

Since Youku co-produced the show, they came right to their own turf.

It was an in-person invitation.

To make matters worse, "Zhen Hun" is also exclusively streamed on Youku—Zhu Yilong actually has real ties with them, making it hard to refuse.

Fortunately, Bai Liang hadn't given his word yet.

They'd agreed to all be top-tier; not one less, right? Ah Kun and Fan Fan—one he'd long admired, the other he hadn't seen in ages and missed dearly.

Of course, Master Bai wasn't that heartless—getting even one of them would be fine.

The remaining one could be filled by a good buddy.

Jiang Jinfu, though officially retired from entertainment, would definitely show up if asked to play basketball.

The Youku representative, seeing Bai Liang's cheerful grin, got the feeling this kid was up to something.

So he quietly asked Zhu Yilong: "Is he really good at basketball? Have you ever played with him?"

"Played with him—yeah, he's really good, and he can actually dunk right over my head."

Talking about it, Zhu Yilong still had some psychological trauma.

During the filming of "Zhi Nü," because the shooting schedule was heavy, he'd played basketball with Bai Liang twice.

One time he nearly ended up in the hospital—because he tried to block Bai Liang's dunk.

The worst thing about playing basketball is guys with insane physical stats—they hit like trucks during contact.

So Zhu Yilong added: "If you're really going to film a celebrity basketball match, please, for heaven's sake, put me on his team."

He said it dead serious, not a hint of joking.

From those words, the representative finally grasped Bai Liang's "basketball skills" firsthand.

By the way, shouldn't Ah Kun be unfazed by him? I heard Ah Kun was on his American high school team, right?

Wu Fanfan is also tall and strong, and knows how to play basketball.

Clearly, Youku was seriously considering whether this could actually happen—they were getting real.

Originally, their show had never had such an outrageous concept; who in their right mind would dream up something like this?

It was purely because they'd encountered Bai Liang—the current traffic password.

Let me put it this way: in the platform's current artist classification, Bai Liang isn't even grouped with the so-called Big Four Top Flows—he's in a league of his own.

Top flow, traffic star—Bai Liang's entire label is just those four characters: "Traffic Password."

Even before he became the "Billion-Dollar Box Office Mr.," he already had that title, especially on variety shows.

The hit variety "Flowers for Youth 3" lifted the entire show almost single-handedly.

Even shows like "Running Man" and "Go Fighting!"—already high-rated—got even higher ratings after he joined.

Pure icing on the cake.

This year's "Go Fighting!" is still a hit variety, but so far, the episode with Bai Liang and his group holds the highest viewership and online clicks, far outpacing all later episodes.

Even excluding these famous ones, whenever Bai Liang appeared on other lesser variety shows to promote his movies or TV dramas, he routinely broke their viewership records.

So when they previously tried to make Bai Liang a regular guest on a basketball show, they offered him a fee higher than Zhou Jielun's.

They paid that much—and he still turned it down.

Zhu Yilong thought that made perfect sense—an actor should focus his main energy on acting.

Variety shows? Just appear occasionally as a guest star. If there's no promotional need, there's absolutely no reason to do them.

Too many variety appearances definitely affect an actor's main job.

In his view, Bai Liang's acting was so good—he must think the same way: to be a good actor, you should reduce unnecessary exposure and stay low-key.

As he thought about it, Zhu Yilong suddenly felt something was off.

Reduce exposure?

That phrase doesn't seem to fit Bai Liang at all!

Who gets the Weibo King title every year anyway?

When they reached the final stop of the variety promotion tour—Tencent Video's self-produced variety—Zhu Yilong's judgment shattered completely: this guy was born to stir up chaos, incapable of being low-key in the slightest!

This year's two hottest variety talent shows: one was "Idol Producer" in early spring, which launched Ah Kun as a top flow.

The other was the girl group survival show, "Create 101."

So here's the question!

Which is hotter: "Idol Producer" or "Create 101"?

This was a deliberately provocative question—but Bai Liang actually asked it right in front of the camera, directly to Zhu Yilong.

Zhu Yilong: You're a real bastard.

If anyone else asked that, he'd think they were deliberately trying to mess with him—but with Bai Liang, it seemed he genuinely just asked it offhand.

"I think they're about the same."

Zhu Yilong had no other answer—he was terrified that if he said anything else, the clip would air and he'd get flooded.

Of course, he overestimated—he'd get flooded even with this answer.

Bai Liang: Bro, why are you scared? You're a top flow too!

Clearly, Zhu Yilong still didn't fully grasp what a "top flow" really meant.

His fans could shield him, even retaliate directly.

Of course, sometimes fans turned into a storm—completely a double-edged sword.

"What do you think?" Zhu Yilong asked Bai Liang in return.

Seeing the two start "mutual destruction," Sister Xiao Zhao quietly stepped back a few paces.

He thought to himself that even Zhu Yilong had been led a little off by Bai Liang's strange style.

Bai Liang just spread his hands. "Produce 101 hasn't even wrapped up yet, so there's no way to judge right now."

Zhu Yilong:???

"Then why are you asking me?"

"I was just asking casually, who knew you'd be so sure about it."

"Cut this part out, thanks!" Zhu Yilong said to the production crew in all seriousness.

Produce 101 really hadn't wrapped up yet; what Bai Liang and the others had come to join in on was the final showdown, the Debut Night.

They were mainly there to make up the numbers and show their faces, and when the time came they might be asked to announce the final debut lineup and the like.

Actually, the production crew had been quite keen to have Bai Liang and Zhu Yilong perform the opening dance of the evening together with the Misses of the girl group.

Now this was pure stereotyping.

Everyone probably assumed that top-tier stars should know how to dance.

Top-tier stars, sure—acting might not be anything special, but their stage talents definitely wouldn't be lacking. And today they'd happened to run into two rare specimens.

Both of them were pretty fierce actors, but when it came to singing and dancing... lip-syncing was fine, but you couldn't fake a dance!

Even Bai Liang, the so-called hidden-gem male idol, couldn't quite live up to that reputation today—he really didn't have any skills in this area.

So the production crew turned their eyes to Zhao Liying.

Zhao Liying: Ha! As if I know how to?!

Actually she could, but she didn't want to dance.

After all, she was already thirty-one; hopping and bouncing around on stage with a bunch of young girls—the very image felt off.

"How about we make a bet—loser has to go practice the opening dance." Bai Liang looked at Zhu Yilong and egged him on.

It had been ages since he'd made a bet; his hands were itching unbearably.

Make a bet?

Zhu Yilong was a little tempted.

Honestly, he really wanted to see Bai Liang dancing stiffly on stage—that image was bound to be pretty entertaining.

!

Of course, if he went up he'd be just as stiff.

This sort of thing felt a lot like betting away a man's dignity—the stakes were a bit too high.

But just as he was hesitating, Bai Liang suddenly "changed his mind." "Forget it, not really appropriate."

"What is it? Scared?"

"This is these girls' stage for chasing their dreams—you'd better not go up there and hold them back, ruining their stage effect. These Misses would remember you for life."

Damn, what a sweet guy!

Zhu Yilong felt there was nothing wrong with what Bai Liang said. Although he always had the sense that the guy was a bit off-kilter when chatting with him, at this moment he was unexpectedly reliable.

"Wait, why would they remember me for life?"

"If we're betting, you're definitely the one who'd lose~" Bai Liang said as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Zhu Yilong: Really? I don't buy it!

The production crew had something they wanted to say: actually, it doesn't necessarily have to be holding them back—our show also has a Miss who secretly calls out the beat while dancing.

They had a feeling that Miss might not necessarily dance better than Bai Liang and Zhu Yilong.

After all, one of them had formal training and had definitely worked on body conditioning, while the other played so "flashily," all kinds of sports had him flying around—his body coordination and the like were definitely top-tier too.

For dances that demanded a very high level of professionalism, the two of them might not cut it, but for girl-group dance... they just might be able to pull it off.

Right, Yang Chaoyue?

Without a doubt, just like Ah Kun in the neighboring Idol Producer, who led by an overwhelming margin, Yang Chaoyue in Produce 101 also had a whiff of being the runaway favorite in popularity.

Even though the show also had girl-group members like Wu Xuanyi and Meng Meiqi, who had already debuted and had a certain popularity base.

In the end, a "koi fish" that had appeared out of nowhere had brazenly stolen a huge amount of the spotlight.

Even though her singing and dancing fundamentals were weak, her stage performance extremely unstable, and her professional level quite poor.

But she possessed an advantage that other contestants could only dream of: extraordinary audience affinity.

She had even become the traffic engine of Produce 101.

One could say that without Yang Chaoyue, Produce 101 really couldn't beat Idol Producer; with her, the data on all fronts might even surpass Idol Producer.

At the same time, her emergence and existence even challenged the traditional standards for judging idols, forcing the industry to rethink "what kind of idols do audiences actually want."

And what Bai Liang was most interested in about her was, of course, Yang Chaoyue's luck.

Everyone said she was a koi, a symbol of good fortune—he was quite curious about that too!

Bai Liang and the others soon met the Misses participating in tonight's finals, and naturally gave them a round of encouragement first, saying they were looking forward to their performance tonight and the like.

Those words were mainly spoken by the "big sister," Little Zhao jiejie; she really did speak from the heart.

Back in the day, Little Zhao jiejie had also entered the entertainment circle through a talent show called Yahoo Star Search.

Seeing these young girls, she quite felt as if she were seeing her younger self.

So one could clearly sense that she wasn't going through the motions, but was genuinely looking forward to it and offering encouragement.

This nearly made some of the more sensitive Misses tear up~

A pretty good speech!

As for Bai Liang and Zhu Yilong, the two of them looked just like Little Zhao jiejie's two pendants, with no self-awareness of being top-tier stars at all.

Still, the Misses didn't overlook the two "bodyguards" behind Little Zhao jiejie.

Two top-tier stars!

Who could overlook them? They'd stolen who knows how many glances at them.

By the time the two of them were sharing their "success" experience with the young ladies, Zhu Yilong, who had only just become a top-tier star after nine years in the business, naturally had plenty to say. He shared his own journey, telling the young ladies not to dwell too much on tonight's rankings, that the future was still long, blah blah blah blah.

When it was Bai Liang's turn, he spread his hands. "As everyone knows, I mainly just got lucky~"

The moment the word "luck" came out, a bunch of people instantly looked toward Yang Chaoyue, making the young girl's face flush a little, looking rather flustered.

"Eh, right, pretty much like her."

After being called out by Bai Liang, Yang Chaoyue grew even more flustered. "You're so amazing, I can't do anything right"

"You've got the logic wrong there. In showbiz, being amazing or not isn't actually that important. Zhu Yilong's acting is pretty good, he's quite capable too, but he didn't get famous for his first nine years either. If he hadn't landed 'Guardian', you probably wouldn't necessarily recognize him today either. Luck is definitely more important."

"Why do you have to use me as an example?" Zhu Yilong first nodded in agreement, then said helplessly.

Bai Liang thought for a moment: "You haven't paid today's friend fee yet~"

"Aren't you afraid of drinking yourself into diabetes?" Zhu Yilong helplessly picked up his phone, ready to start ordering milk tea.

"Just a little sugar, Misses, come over and register for milk tea."

Better to send a big tip than to ask if you've eaten.

In Bai Liang's view, this kind of "pre-game pep talk" was no match for letting these young ladies drink something sweet before going on stage~

After all, there's plenty of bitterness to come later~

For contestants on this kind of talent show, even if they eventually debut as a group, for many of them, the peak of their fame is likely still during the show's broadcast period.

Including that koi girl Yang Chaoyue.

Thinking about it this way, her share of luck clearly didn't carry as much weight as Bai Liang's luck.

Or rather, she didn't rely on luck at all.

When Bai Liang had just arrived, his eyes swept around and he noticed that Yang Chaoyue stood out the most among the group of young ladies, catching one's eye at a glance.

What she relied on wasn't luck at all, but her looks.

Because of those looks, the production team was willing to give her more camera time, and only then could the audience notice those unique qualities of authenticity and special traits about her.

After the milk tea arrived, Bai Liang and the others received another piece of news.

The show coming over to join the buzz and do promotion tonight wasn't just the 'The Story of Ming Lan' crew alone.

Jiang Wen's film 'Hidden Blade' was also coming to promote.

For these young ladies, the stage was perhaps immensely important, but now it felt more like various groups taking turns to come by and check in.

Though the star lineup for tonight's grand finale was getting more and more outrageous.

(End of chapter)