Chapter 365: Twins Wiped Out

"You're still here? Are you a dog that can't get enough?"

"That's rich, considering I don't know who's more into it."

A messy bedroom, piles of clothes, and a person half-lying on the bed.

Cai Zhuoyan, feigning reluctance while actually welcoming, weakly patted the man's chest, yet her legs unconsciously straddled his waist, her smooth calves rubbing against him now and then: "Are you really not afraid of being photographed?"

"What do I have to fear? You're the one who should be more afraid."

Zhou Yi lowered his head, lifted the woman's chin with his left hand, made her look up at him, and smiled: "Putting aside everything else, even Huo Wenxi would probably crush you. Could Yang Shoucheng possibly cause me trouble?"

Idols, idols, they sell nothing but a persona.

Twins, no matter how you spin it, is just an idol group.

"Can't you coax me?"

Her bent legs squeezed slightly with a bit more force. Cai Zhuoyan, her hair tips messy and damp, pouted dissatisfied: "A-Jiao was right; none of you men are any good."

"Your father is a man too," Zhou Yi corrected, letting the woman's skin rub against him.

"He divorced my mother when I was twelve."

"You remember that quite clearly."

"Nyeh-nyeh-nyeh~~"

Cai Zhuoyan, sticking her tongue out at the man like a cat, had clearly committed a serious foul while trying to guard the goal in the penalty area of the pitch. Zhou Yi served her a red-card penalty package; in the end, she could only leave her gates wide open, watching the man easily complete the penalty kick with a look of slight helplessness, panting until she was out of breath.

"Did you receive the invitation letter the company sent you?"

"Qian Jiang gave it to me."

"How about it? Do you plan to come?"

"I'll go, of course I'll go. After all, he was my old rival back in the day."

Zhou Yi smiled.

He was still clear on Ying Huang's plan: they just wanted to use him to stage a scene where Xie Tingfeng had returned from his prodigal ways—the former "Twin Stars" meeting again, their smiles erasing their "grudges."

"Besides, Yang Shoucheng has already given me a lot of face by ranking against me this time; I have to acknowledge that favor."

As the top star of the Hong Kong circle, with Ying Huang's current powerful marketing capabilities, the fact that Huo Wenxi's department, Ying Huang EEG, had not descended to participate in this struggle already indicated Yang Shoucheng's personal stance.

A mere Gan Qingqing, the connections and network she mobilized were nothing more than the level of normal commercial competition; Yang Shoucheng had not used any extra resources to help him at all.

"Eason is probably going to be dissatisfied with the company again."

Cai Zhuoyan, harmless-looking like a little white rabbit on the outside but sharp as a tack underneath, let out a coquettish laugh: "You might not know, but he has always been dissatisfied with the resources the company assigned to him, feeling he could get even more."

"His manager, Gan Qingqing, has also never been able to win out. Recently, she has actually been secretly hooking up with Universal Music. It is said that Gan Qingqing herself is considering jumping ship because the resources her artists get are always inferior to ours."

"If he's dissatisfied, so be it. What does it have to do with me?"

Zhou Yi sneered and curled his lip: "Gan Qingqing is just not as skilled as Huo Wenxi. When your skills are inferior, you can only take the back door."

Huo Wenxi wasn't given such great preferential treatment from the very beginning.

Before Xie Tingfeng, Twins, and others rose up, Gan Qingqing had always been on equal footing with her. When Wang Jie first signed with Ying Huang, Yang Shoucheng assigned him to Gan Qingqing's name. It was she who couldn't control this old Guo Tianwang from ruining his own voice, allowing Xie Tingfeng to surpass him easily.

Chen Yixun was even funnier.

In terms of singing ability, there was truly nothing to say against him.

But in terms of award rigging, this guy could be called the biggest shameless braggart in the Hong Kong circle after the millennium. After signing with Universal in the future, Universal directly smashed a bunch of awards onto Chen Yixun with advertising sponsorship fees ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong dollars per award.

Especially at the Commercial Radio Hong Kong's Ultimate Music Awards, the most exaggerated instance was when Chen Yixun alone won more than twice the number of awards that all Ying Huang-affiliated artists won combined, forcing other record companies to be sarcastic and passive-aggressive one by one after the ceremony ended.

When it came to bribing radio DJs to rig the data, Universal was equally unremitting.

With all that, he still had the nerve to finish a variety show on the mainland and return to Hong Kong to talk endlessly about rigging, looking down on everyone else, with absolutely no self-awareness.

They are all beneficiaries of the status quo; what are they pretending to be, big bad wolves?

"What about you? Do you really plan to keep fighting like this? Aren't you afraid of getting beaten up? It's true you've gone international now, but don't forget, there are still many people in Hong Kong who hate your mainland identity."

"The more they hate me, the more comfortable it is to ride right in their faces, isn't it?"

Zhou Yi smiled proudly: "I just love the look on their faces when they are unhappy with me but can't do anything about it."

When it comes to ranking battles, in the end, it often boils down to competing for fan loyalty.

In the traditional media era, there was no way to turn the tables relying on a massive base of casual listeners, because that takes too much time; besides die-hard fans, who the hell is willing to keep doing it?

And his current fan loyalty, to not exaggerate, is currently number one in the Chinese-speaking world.

Youth often means being easily swayed, easily getting carried away, and easily being harvested like leeks. Not to mention he hasn't even released a greatest hits album to harvest leeks yet, so his fan loyalty in Hong Kong is naturally shooting up like crazy.

Do not underestimate this point.

As the Hong Kong music scene has developed to this point, most casual listeners and even some singer fans absolutely detest greatest hits albums, yet every single Hong Kong singer, without exception, is frantically releasing greatest hits albums to cut leeks.

"Tsk, arrogant."

Cai Zhuoyan verbally refuted the man's words, but as she raised her eyes, her gaze fell on the man's profile as he stood up preparing to take a shower, and a touch of envy rose in her heart.

She, who had been denied by various public opinions since her debut, truly envied Zhou Yi's mindset of treating life and death lightly and just doing it if he wasn't satisfied.

In his own words, the worst that could happen was retiring on the spot; there was no loss.

But she couldn't; she always tended to have various anxieties about gains and losses, walking on thin ice.

"I'm just—"

"Knock, knock, knock."

Zhou Yi, bending down to pick up clothes from the floor, turned around ready to speak, but the bedroom door was suddenly knocked on—

"A-Sa, it's me, A-Sa? Are you home? Open the door."

A-Jiao's voice came from outside the door. Zhou Yi looked surprised, raised his right hand pointing toward the door, and gave a look to Cai Zhuoyan, who was lying on the bed recovering her cooldown after being battered—

The latter's expression immediately tightened, then she hurriedly got up, threw off the quilt, and climbed down from the bed that could be mapped: "Wait a moment, A-Jiao, coming right up."

Saying this, unable to put on her underwear, she simply pulled on a T-shirt and shorts, while quickly shoving the clothes into the bed. Seeing Zhou Yi still laughing nearby, she couldn't help but glare at him in angry embarrassment: "Why don't you hurry up and get dressed? Do you want to be seen naked?"

"That wouldn't be impossible."

"Ah, pfft, scum man."

Cai Zhuoyan couldn't help but spit at the man; since this time it was her who initiated it, she could only curse him like that.

Outside the bedroom door, A Jiao, who had brought her boyfriend Chen Guanxi to find A Sa to discuss matters, after making calls for half a day and pressing the doorbell for half a day only to find no response, thinking something had happened, directly used her own key to open the door.

Upon discovering takeout containers and trash left on the living room dining table, she immediately knocked on the bedroom door.

"A Sa, A Sa, are you home? Why is your phone off when I call?"

With a "creak," the door opened.

Chen Guanxi, who had been following behind his girlfriend and idly observing the decoration of Cai Zhuoyan's living room, suddenly widened his eyes—

—?!

Huh?!

Zhou Yi!

"Good morning, A Jiao, Edison."

A Sa, wearing an oversized T-shirt with her hair simply tied up, smiled; behind her, Zhou Yi's figure was particularly conspicuous.

A Jiao was stunned too.

As if unable to believe her own eyes, she blinked hard, then confirmed once more—

"Zhou... Zhou Yi?"

"It's me, good morning, both of you."

"Good morning, Brother Yi. Um, sorry, we didn't mean to." Chen Guanxi, who could still distinguish the urgency of the situation, wore an awkward expression.

"Sorry, A Jiao, my phone died; I forgot to charge it."

A Sa, who hadn't even remembered to charge it after returning last night, proactively explained, and the slightly awkward expressions on A Jiao and Chen Guanxi's faces gradually faded.

"Then you two talk; I still have a promotional program to attend, so I'll go first."

After nodding to the pair and making a phone-contact gesture to Cai Zhuoyan, Zhou Yi left, citing he still had promotional work to do.

"What did you say?! You two slept together?!"

Ying Huang.

Huo Wenxi, who had been urgently trying to clear Cai Zhuoyan's image, upon receiving a call from the very person being cleared, raised her voice by an octave and nearly fainted from anger—

It's over, it's all f***ing over!

With Zhou Yi's current popularity and momentum, if Hong Kong paparazzi dug this up, the image of Twins would probably cease to exist too.

Just A Jiao alone was already enough of a worry; after finally muddying the waters to wash them clean and letting her retain her pure ingenue image, now this f***ing neighborly "affair" comes along...

(End of this chapter)