Chapter 134: Happy Camp

"Let you eat melons, I'm dying laughing. Being cursed at by fans face-to-face—you're the first in the entertainment circle."

Seeing Zhou Yi still muttering curses, Chen Hao, who had witnessed everything, gave up pretending any longer and rushed right up to him to mock him.

Rarely had she seen him look so defeated—if she'd had a camera or DV handy, she'd have shoved it right in his face to record it all.

"Damn it, where's the report button? What the hell are these developers doing? They didn't even give us a report button!"

Furious, Zhou Yi instinctively reached for the report button to click it until it smoked—but the timing was wrong; in this nascent internet, nothing existed yet.

"You deserve it—asked for it yourself."

After bursting into laughter, Chen Hao's lips still curled upward, her tone tinged with awe: "But the hostility among internet fans is really intense—kind of scary."

For Chen Hao, her understanding of celebrity fans had always been through TV, newspapers, letters, press conferences, or meet-and-greets.

But the internet made it easy for fans of a certain star to find like-minded people and gather together.

She, who had once not known what the internet was, had learned its general nature from surfing online with Zhou Yi—and she'd seen more than once how Zhou Yi's fans in chat rooms and forums discussed buying albums, voting up charts, and even crashing his offline signing events.

This novel technology took her some time to adapt to, but now she'd become a skilled surfer, and her home now had a "big-ass computer" that Zhou Yi utterly despised.

"This is nothing—I came here mainly to see if anything crazy would happen."

Zhou Yi, frustrated, pulled out his phone and sent a message to Qian Jiang: "At this stage, netizens who can access the internet through normal channels are mostly simple-minded; finding kindred spirits feels like finding a tribe, and they easily get swept up in herd mentality and do stupid things."

Later, fan PKs in the traffic era were child's play compared to the millennium generation's netizens, let alone chart-topping, fan organizations, fan leaders, or airport stalkers—all of which were old hat to the millennium generation.

If you really think about it, online harassment was the only thing that truly took off after the traffic era arrived.

But in the early 2000s, though online harassment didn't exist yet, there was a more violent, physical substitute—real-life brawls.

Haven't you noticed his fans already think this radical, future-experienced guy is too conservative?

"It probably won't happen… right?"

As someone who had lived through the Four Heavenly Kings era and once been a Leon Lai fan, Chen Hao felt slightly uneasy saying this.

Who hasn't been a fan at some point?

"Who knows? Better to prepare extra—anyway, equipment and personnel don't cost me a cent."

Zhou Yi shrugged, his casual superiority making Chen Hao roll her eyes: "Fine, fine, Crown Prince of Warner—so impressive."

"Just hurry up and leave. If I stay with you, this Crown Prince, I'm afraid I'll soon be called the Crown Princess in the media."

Zhou Yi's guest role had officially ended yesterday; today he was leaving Shanghai for the next city. She'd come to see him off—and ended up witnessing his rare defeat.

"Alright, alright, stop nagging, Master Chen. I just want to rest a bit longer."

Zhou Yi, who considered guest roles equivalent to rest, sneered: "By the way, remember to occasionally trade the stocks I told you about."

"Fine, got it. Now go do your job properly."

Watching Zhou Yi drag his heavy steps to the bedroom door and start packing, Chen Hao's eyes curved into a smile: "I've got things covered here."

With Chen Hao's help, Zhou Yi finished packing, left the hotel, got into the driver's car, and waved to Chen Hao standing at the parking lot entrance.

Chen Hao watched until the car vanished from sight—only then did she shake her head with a smile, pulling a photo from her jeans pocket—

It was the group photo taken after singing "Li Bai" on set; she and Zhou Yi stood dead center, beaming at the camera.

Her slender fingers traced Zhou Yi's face on the photo; after a long while, in high spirits, she slipped the photo back into her pocket and hummed the tune of "Li Bai," strolling lazily back to her hotel.

Her wavy hair, curled for the drama, was tied into a ponytail with a hairband, bouncing behind her with each step—

"If only it mattered, I'd choose Li Bai—at least I could write poems to charm girls~"

……………………………………………………

"Little Heavenly King Zhou Yi Returns Home in Glory, Fan Purchasing Power Astounding!"

"Changsha Ignites! Zhou Yi's Signing Event Breaks City Record!"

"Sales Exceed One Million in One Month—Where Is the Limit of Zhou Yi's New Album?"

"Third China-Korea Music Festival Singer List Revealed—Zhou Yi Appears on It!"

"Another New Song? Will Zhou Yi Debut It at the China-Korea Music Festival?"

"Mainland Variety Debut: Happy Camp Officially Announces Zhou Yi!"

"…"

After finishing his guest role in "Pink Lady," as July arrived, news of Zhou Yi's pre-planned schedule began emerging one after another.

Especially the news about the new song and "Happy Camp."

The song title "Yellow Race," never before on Zhou Yi's creative list, was immediately noticed by fans the moment the China-Korea Music Festival team announced it.

Zhou Yi fans who had secured tickets to the live "Happy Camp" episode were ecstatic.

Zhou Yi's popularity on the mainland was simply too high; the chance to see him up close at a signing event was far less than appearing on a variety show, especially since "Happy Camp" was an indoor program.

Warner officially announced they would randomly draw fans to gift "Happy Camp" tickets.

Those business fans who had previously criticized Zhou Yi felt deeply relieved upon seeing his name on the third China-Korea Music Festival's singer list.

This was a sign of rising industry status—only those who could represent China in exchanges with foreign singers deserved such honor; what did Xie Tingfeng, some trash, have to do with it?

The Zhou Yi business fans who had only days ago been chanting "Twin Stars" with Xie Tingfeng's fans were already preparing to cut ties.

Don't ask—ask means my Zhou Yi is representing Chinese singers at the China-Korea Music Festival.

Sales? Check. Awards? Check. Status? Check. Triple threat—unbeatable in the Chinese-language music scene!

Zhou Yi himself found it both amusing and exasperating.

These fans' sense of identification was truly intense.

"It's insane—Happy Camp tickets have skyrocketed on the black market, now a hundred yuan each."

Qian Jiang, who handled market tracking for Zhou Yi, after compiling all the reports, couldn't help cursing: "Even if you wanted to control it, you can't—everyone's cursing black-market scalpers, yet everyone's acting as one."

A hundred yuan in 2001 wasn't a small amount.

Happy Camp tickets were originally free, distributed as complimentary gifts—this only fueled the scalper trend further.

Some were even running scams.

By printing Happy Camp tickets themselves and selling them to Zhou Yi fans who couldn't get tickets, there were already three confirmed cases known to Qian Jiang alone.

"You've become the singer scalpers love most; as long as you have an event, tickets can be bought from scalpers."

Speaking of this, Qian Jiang also felt a bit of a headache.

Putting aside whether Happy Camp itself secretly acted as scalpers, at least Warner was genuinely giving away tickets.

They prioritized giving them to die-hard fans willing to spend big money on Zhou Yi's photo books and albums.

But even so, compared to Zhou Yi's massive fanbase, the quantity was still too small.

Precisely because of this, the price of scalper tickets rose accordingly.

Mainland scalpers making a fortune from reselling were just one step away from carving Zhou Yi's name on a stele to worship him; they had finally experienced the joy of Hong Kong and Taiwan entertainment scalpers.

Even as Zhou Yi's agent, Qian Jiang still got scolded for not getting more tickets, which was completely unreasonable.

Zhou Yi, having found a kindred spirit, grinned widely, smiling very happily: "Seeing that my fans scolded you too makes me feel much more comfortable."

"???"

What did "too" mean?

With this confusion, the day after the signing event in Changsha ended, the Hunan TV "Happy Camp" program team contacted Qian Jiang, and the person making contact was somewhat unexpected to Zhou Yi—

He Jiong.

A top student admitted directly to Beijing Foreign Studies University, the evergreen tree of the future mainland entertainment industry, a pillar of the variety show world with both temperament and character considered quite good.

Of course, the biggest label on him right now was probably still the caterpillar who had only left CCTV's "Big Windmill" column a few years ago.

"Nice to meet you, Zhou Yi. I am He Jiong, the host of 'Happy Camp'."

"Hello, He Laoshi."

Under He Jiong's surprised gaze, Zhou Yi smiled and said: "When I was at school, I heard there was a teacher from Beijing Foreign Studies University who joined CCTV and hosted a TV program. To be honest, I used to watch 'Big Windmill'."

The school circles in the Imperial Capital were just that small; as long as there was any wind or movement, news spread early, and He Jiong's "Big Windmill," which he started hosting on CCTV in 1995, was at least one of the programs guaranteed to deliver ratings.

The Golden Turtle and the Mao Maochong afterwards were, to some extent, a nostalgic memory of a generation.

Moreover, He Jiong in 2001 wasn't that famous yet; besides recording "Happy Camp," he still had to return to Beijing Foreign Studies University for classes, so calling him "Teacher" wasn't really just politeness.

"With you saying that, I feel like I'm already very old." Noticing Zhou Yi's kind attitude, He Jiong breathed a sigh of relief and joked to himself with a smile: "Although I do look a bit mature."

"Then I'll change my wording, like saying I grew up watching He Laoshi's programs, how about that?"

Zhou Yi also smiled and added another stab.

His ID card showed he was born in December 1981; in 1995, setting aside the rebirth only he knew about, it was indeed possible he was still watching "Big Windmill."

ps:

Q Group number: 940109820

The answer to the entry question is my author name: He Li's Rice

Welcome to join the group chat, accompany me in cyber-overtime later~

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ps2: I can't add a one-click jump-to-join-group function because I used my Apple ID to register the account for convenience.

But registering a Qidian account with an Apple ID has a bug; not only are comment management restricted, but the one-click join group function cannot be added either...

I asked the editor, and the editor said the Qidian technical department currently cannot solve this either...

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ps3: I remember the matter of extra chapters, rest assured.

Just after the holiday started, I was quite busy; it wasn't work, just simply being busy for the three days before going home, being forced to go on blind dates and helping my dad adjust the computer in his construction site office.

I will resume extra chapters tomorrow~

This time you can join the group to supervise!

(End of this chapter)