Chapter 436: You Are All My Wings

It seemed meant to let more people come to show their support.

This year's Golden Rooster Awards ceremony was divided into three stages.

First, the host gave a brief introduction, then two award announcers came up to briefly introduce the nominated films or individuals, followed by two more presenters stepping onto the stage.

The process was tedious, giving the feeling that a whole crowd was serving just one person.

Why did Bai Liang have this thought?

The award announcers were Na Zha and Re Ba.

When host Lan Yu announced the award announcers, a small commotion erupted in the audience.

Damn it! How could this not be "rigged"?!!

With these two going up as award announcers, whose name would end up on the award? Need I say more?

Of course, Bai Liang's name wouldn't appear on the award itself, but what about the documentary "Summit"? Its producer, director, and lead actor were all Bai Liang.

He'd essentially pulled off a triple-role stunt like Wu Jing.

But it's a documentary—kind of a playful experiment; even if every single name on it were his, it wouldn't matter much.

At this moment, Bai Liang felt a dozen eyes staring at the back of his head—even people in the front row couldn't help turning around to look back.

The expressions of the two people beside him were especially amusing now.

Guo Fan was laughing so hard he was clutching his mouth, shaking like he'd suddenly fallen ill.

And little Zhao Jinmai wore an expression of envy—not for the award, but for the two big sisters walking onstage.

At this moment, Re Ba and Na Zha each took a separate aisle to the stage, their movements strikingly synchronized, draped in elegant, appropriate gowns, yet walking briskly in their high heels.

Each seemed determined to reach the stage first.

Because host Lan Yu held only one card—that object symbolized initiative.

Yet these two girls, nearly identical in popularity, status, and age, seemed to move at nearly the same pace.

They arrived almost simultaneously before host Lan Yu.

Lan Yu:. Who do I give this to?

At this moment, Re Ba stood still, seemingly waiting for Lan Yu to decide herself.

But Na Zha, that shameless one, simply reached out—Lan Yu handed her the card without hesitation and quickly retreated to the edge of the stage.

Deng Chao and Huang Bo, the other two hosts, watched the spectacle from the side; still on stage, they were clearly holding back, but their micro-expressions betrayed them.

No wonder the Golden Rooster Awards! So impressive!

In fact, these two new Jiang sisters had already shown signs of avoiding being seen together elsewhere.

Earlier, at some event, a list of artist team requirements leaked, and Re Ba's team had explicitly written: "No same-frame appearances with competitor artists, e. g., Gu Li Na Zha."

Whether this was real or fake was hard to say—it was just a table, something anyone could fabricate, likely fake.

But even so, it sparked considerable discussion, and Re Ba's and Na Zha's fans clashed again.

One side claimed their sister wouldn't deign to share a frame with the other; the other side retorted, "What are you pretending? You're just afraid of being outshined!"

In fact, such things were fairly common in the industry; many artists' teams would make specific requests when attending commercial events or functions, mostly about reception conditions—like what kind of car to provide, hotel standards, number of security personnel, etc.

Requests regarding same-frame appearances were even more numerous: who couldn't appear with whom, who couldn't sit next to whom, who couldn't be mentioned before whom, exes couldn't share the stage.

There was no way around it—any same-frame appearance inevitably sparked commentary, mostly negative.

Of course, most event organizers still accommodated these requests.

But there were exceptions, like the "Sixth Princess," the Movie Channel.

She specialized in taming all defiance; the more stars resisted sharing the stage, the more she loved to force them together, ignoring their private grudges and emotional entanglements—on her stage, they had to sing "Flowers Bloom, Moon Is Full" together.

All kinds of exes, current partners, and rumored boyfriends sharing the stage—purely a reunion of ex-lovers.

Like Liu Ye and Zhang Jie, Huang Xiaoming and Chen Weiting, Xie Tingfeng and Chen Xiaochun, Hua Chen Yu and Deng Ziqi.

So people had reason to suspect: was this event another scheme by the Sixth Princess?

"She" was just too good at pulling stunts!

In 2012, amid the end-of-the-world prophecy, while other channels aired the Spring Festival Gala, the Sixth Princess aired "Queue for Heaven."

During Qingming Festival, she perfectly matched the mood by airing Lin Zhenying's zombie film.

On Valentine's Day and Qixi Festival, she aired "A Chinese Odyssey," where lovers couldn't be together, sometimes even bluntly telling viewers, "He Doesn't Really Like You That Much."

On Double Eleven, she treated the masses of singles to "Love Actually."

On Children's Day, instead of cartoons, she aired the uncut versions of "Ju-On" and "The Old Corpse of the Mountain Village."

During Gaokao season, she aired "The Last Student," and after results came out, she aired "Fan Jin Passes the Imperial Exam."

Right after Wang Baoqiang's divorce scandal broke, the Movie Channel aired "Detective Chinatown" for several days straight.

When the next phase unfolded and Lady Ma publicly accused Wang Baoqiang of domestic violence, leading to police involvement, the Sixth Princess immediately followed up by airing "Autumn Chrysanthemum's Lawsuit."

When Wu Youfan was recently arrested, the Sixth Princess directly aired "The Sewing Machine Band."

After all, the Golden Rooster Awards were usually quite serious—it seemed only the Sixth Princess could pull off such stunts.

So how could people not suspect "her"?

Sure enough, Deng Chao and Huang Bo couldn't resist sneaking a question to Lan Yu: "Did your channel arrange this?"

Lan Yu looked baffled: "I don't know."

"Aren't you the host for the Movie Channel?"

"Yes, but I'm just a host."

Internally, Lan Yu also suspected her own Movie Channel, wondering: Do they even "backstab" their own people? Couldn't they have warned her ahead of time and prepared two cards?

Just now, she truly hadn't known who to give the card to.

After all, whether Re Ba or Na Zha, both looked eager—both were stunning beauties, gazing at her like that, even as a girl, it was hard to refuse either one~

Fortunately, Na Zha acted faster; otherwise, Lan Yu might have been stuck there awkwardly.

However, the two beauties from Xinjiang usually went at each other tooth and nail, yet on stage at this moment they cooperated quite well.

On the Golden Rooster Awards stage, no matter how much they wanted to curse each other, they still had to beam and act like sisters.

Very quickly, they finished introducing the several nominated documentaries.

The big screen on site also showed a clip from each nominated documentary, one by one.

When it came to "Summit," the big screen also took everyone on a quick revisit of Bai Liang's earth-shattering leap off Zhufeng!

The theme was summiting, but what left the deepest impression on everyone was actually the "descent."

Most people had actually already seen this thing; even those who hadn't paid for membership to watch the documentary, as long as they were online during that period, had a high probability of coming across clips of it.

But watching it again still felt incredibly shocking!

Especially the next second, when Bai Liang's face appeared on the big screen on site—he himself just smiled and waved at everyone, offering a greeting.

As gentle as ever.

It gave everyone a strange sense of contradiction, making it very hard to associate the current him with that "lunatic" in the documentary.

But without a doubt, this was the same person.

And after the two Xinjiang misses finished their work, they walked down from the stage hand in hand.

This scene left quite a few netizens staring in astonishment.

Wow, actresses!

Naturally, however, there were experts who carefully analyzed the expressions on their faces and discovered that the muscles on Reba's face seemed to twitch at a certain moment, and immediately after, Nazha seemed to have a similar situation.

But why this happened left people a bit puzzled—surely it couldn't be some kind of physiological aversion to each other?

The answer lay in their clasped hands.

Holding hands comes in many forms; squeezing the other's hand hard is one of them.

Nazha took the offensive, Reba defended and counterattacked.

When the two separated, one could see their palms were both a bit off—the knuckles had gone white.

Ouch!!!

The moment they got back to their seats, they carefully rubbed their own hands.

From disliking the sight of each other at the very beginning, to trading verbal abuse whenever they met, and now, they seemed to have finally escalated to physical attacks.

The two of them had walked this road for nearly three years.

Although squeezing each other's palms was a bit like grade-schoolers having a falling out, this really was the first time the two of them had a proper "fistfight."

It also seemed to herald some kind of escalation of their conflict—no longer satisfied with just verbally attacking each other.

But compared to the further escalation of their conflict, the two guests who came on stage next, specifically in charge of presenting the award, were far more harmonious.

Yang Mi and Miss Jing Tian.

The two of them were intimate and deferential the entire time, keeping their arms linked the whole way.

And without squeezing hard on each other~

After all, they were both the older-sister contestants, not so childish—even though the two of them had actually argued before.

Sister Tian Tian: I'm very mature~ At least today, very mature.

And looking at Big Mi Mi smiling broadly with her arm around her, she subconsciously straightened up a bit.

Big Mi Mi's smile didn't fade, but in her heart she was a bit disdainful: Tch~ Although you're not bad, do you know what real numbers mean?

Her two burdens—if she didn't usually pay a lot of attention and had very strong self-control, she would easily slouch forward unconsciously when walking.

This was the true meaning of plowing forward under heavy load!

And although Sister Tian Tian's figure was also quite nice, full and rounded, in front of Big Mi Mi she was clearly still a notch behind.

No matter how much she straightened up, it was useless.

But compared to her advantage in figure numbers, when comparing other aspects, Big Mi Mi's heart turned very bitter.

How did she ever make it out here?

Although they were both award presenters together, Sister Tian Tian had done far better than her in film.

The two of them weren't even contestants in the same weight class.

No way around it—one "How Long Will I Love U" was enough to carry her for several years at least; to this day it remained the ceiling of domestic romance films, its position almost completely unshakable.

Her dominance in this field was comparable to "The Wandering Earth"'s dominance in the sci-fi genre.

With such a representative work, even if Sister Tian Tian hadn't made any other films stand out afterward, she was still a top-tier contestant among film actresses in the industry.

Big Mi Mi: What dog-shit luck is this, how could she pick that up?

Sister Tian Tian: What do you mean pick it up? That was earned through my own effort~

Back then, in order to collaborate with Bai Liang, she had been very proactive, acting like a little simp—and even voluntarily sacrificed her own interests.

The average female star really couldn't do it to that extent.

Later on she even threw herself in entirely, giving her an "aftereffect" that persists to this day—often at night she can't sleep from missing him.

"The winner of Best Documentary at the 32nd Golden Rooster Awards is—" Big Mi Mi read the first half in her Dou Xiao Nai voice, leaving the final announcement to Sister Tian Tian.

And Sister Tian Tian naturally didn't hold back, declaring in a loud, energetic voice: "Summit! Congratulations, Bai Liang!"

Big Mi Mi nearly couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes: You didn't have to say that last part, you Director Han Han!

They were supposed to announce the winning documentary—why read out the name?

But everyone seemed not to care about this little flaw~

The atmosphere on site paused for about a second, and then thunderous applause broke out.

At this point, the advantage of Bai Liang's seat being up front showed—no need to exchange pleasantries with too many people.

If he had been sitting a bit further back, just responding to people's congratulations and greetings would probably have taken several extra minutes.

This was probably the time the Best Documentary award received the best treatment and the most attention at the Golden Rooster Awards.

Those who don't know might think they're handing out the Golden Rooster Best Actor trophy~

Bai Liang: I got the Golden Rooster trophy!

At this moment, he finally understood why Xiao Zhi always shouted after capturing a Pokémon.

Doesn't matter what award it is—as long as it's the Golden Rooster trophy, he doesn't mind.

Before accepting the award, Bai Liang also showed "proper manners" by hugging both presenters.

But his act of hugging two at once seemed odd to onlookers.

A few contestants secretly wondered: Is this kid trying to play fair and equal?

No first or second—you're both my wings?

Luckily, he's tall with a long wingspan, so the gesture didn't look strange.

Big Tian Tian didn't think much of it—she grinned wildly, beaming with pride.

Her expression seemed to say: I'm the one giving you the award! Me~ Aren't you thrilled?

As for Big Mi Mi, her face showed no change, but her heart was roaring inside!

Different people have different needs for emotional value and affection.

Sometimes, just a little sweetness is enough to fill a person completely.

She and Bai Liang had no romantic pairing or gossip; as a divorced mother, she always felt no need to crave more.

After all, she wasn't Yang Tianbao.

So when the award was announced, Big Mi Mi deliberately let Big Tian Tian take the card, and let Big Tian Tian read the most important part.

She had a very clear sense of her own role.

But she hadn't expected Bai Liang wouldn't leave her out either.

Such a small gesture warmed the older sister's heart~

Though the older sister believed she was past the age of believing in love, that she had sealed her heart and feelings, and that her relationship with the younger brother was purely mutual benefit.

But in that moment, her heartbeat told her clearly what was really going on.

All of them are his wings?

Big Mi Mi: To avoid your little guy having too many wings and not enough space, I'll be your "invisible wings"~

Her gaze settled on the tall, upright back in front of her, and her eyes unconsciously grew softer.

——

As expected, the Best Actor award tonight clearly had nothing to do with Bai Liang.

Even Xu Zheng, who had won Best Actor at the College Film Festival, lost.

The film "Forever and Ever," which shone brightly at the Berlin Film Festival, unquestionably swept both Best Actor and Best Actress!

In past Golden Rooster Awards, there might have been ties—or even triple ties.

But not this year!

Even the most skilled PR experts in the industry couldn't pull off any strange maneuvers at this point.

The goal was simple: this year's awards wouldn't please everyone, but at least they had to make people feel the Golden Rooster had finally stood up—truly worthy.

Otherwise, how could it compete with the Golden Horse? And risk making a laughingstock of itself with too many ties?

Besides "Forever and Ever" winning Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay, "The Wandering Earth" took Best Story and Best Sound, "Operation Red Sea" won Best Director, "The Gutian Conference" claimed Best Supporting Actor and Best Music, and "Dying to Survive" received Best Debut Director.

No single studio dominated; the cake was sliced fairly, nearly all the hot films were acknowledged, and the results drew mostly positive reactions.

The person slicing this cake was a master!

Most cleverly, Director Chen Kaige's "The White Cat" won only Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.

Yet he himself was one of the cake-slicers—and even chaired the judging panel.

No one knew whether he recused himself during voting, or simply couldn't bring himself to vote for his own film.

After all, this year's films were just too fierce.

Even "Dying to Survive" only got Best Debut Director—and yet no one could say the judging was unfair.

"The Wandering Earth," as the film that opened the door to Chinese sci-fi cinema, carried historic significance—winning Best Story was perfectly reasonable.

Hmm. This might also be one reason Bai Liang didn't win Best Actor.

The performances of the leads in "Forever and Ever" were truly outstanding—both were veteran actors; Xu Zheng couldn't honestly claim his performance was better than Wang Wang Jingchun's.

It wasn't strange for a massive mainstream hit like "Operation Red Sea" to win Best Director.

Audiences wouldn't suspect any foul play in these results.

After searching everywhere, the only possible "scandal" in this Golden Rooster Awards seemed to be Bai Liang's documentary—with its timeline out of sync.

So, should we criticize him?

Sorry—the biggest "dark force" online right now is Bai Liang's fanbase.

Our Immortal didn't win Best Actor—why are you still complaining?

The organizers really knew how to slice the cake; maybe they deliberately slipped Bai Liang's documentary in just for this purpose.

Either way, in this year's battle of immortals, he still took home one trophy.

In a way, this was already the Golden Rooster Awards' affirmation of Bai Liang as the top figure of the younger generation.

All other winners were at least Generation X; most were veteran actors from the 60s.

Bai Liang was the only one from the 90s.

(End of Chapter)