Chapter 497: The Fate of the Ziwei Star

"Sun Yanzi's First-Ever Bold Wet-Body Seduction Since Debut!"

"Bloodshed on the Streets, the Twins Flee Embracing Each Other!"

"Something Good Brewing? Zhou Yi Attends a Friend's Dinner with Sun Yanzi!"

"..."

The next day, whether it was the mainland entertainment media who got the first-hand scoop, or the Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau media who got the news through informants and partners—as long as it was an entertainment-related daily, every single one of them, without exception, put this story on the front page headline—

With the spread on the internet and the print media that successively published this story over the next few days, it added yet another log to the fire of the Zhou Yi CP debate that was already raging online.

During this period, because of the nationwide hit broadcast of "Pretty Lady," the relationship between Cheng Hao, who played Wan Ren Mi, and Zhou Yi had also been dug up pretty thoroughly.

Quite a few netizens from the capital swore up and down that Cheng Hao was the woman who had been with Zhou Yi all along as he went from obscure nobody to superstar of the heavens—they claimed they'd seen the two of them eating BBQ together before, and everyone else had only joined in halfway.

And Zhou Yi's cameo appearance near the finale of "Pretty Lady" pushed the discussion of the show to a climax—after all, the character Zhou Yi played in it was Wan Ren Mi's ultimate destination.

Combined with these relationships dug up in real life, it was hard not to let people's minds wander.

On the mainland internet, a considerable number of Cheng Hao fans actually stood up—

Thanks to the fact that Cheng Hao hadn't had much of a fan base before, most of the fans she'd attracted weren't particularly resistant to the rumors between her and Zhou Yi.

Moreover, because the fans she'd drawn in through this drama really loved the character of Wan Ren Mi, they studied the plot with extra seriousness.

The result was that once they got serious, they discovered that although Li Bai in the show was the designated official love interest for Wan Ren Mi, his insertion into the plot was obviously rather abrupt, giving people the feeling that he'd just dropped out of the sky.

Comparing this to Zhou Yi and Cheng Hao's real-life relationship, a conspiracy theory had sprung up online at some point claiming Zhou Yi had demanded to be added himself—the author being Zhou Yi's number one anti-fan who had already made a name on Tianya—Free Beaver 9.

"Based on Wan Ren Mi's character setup, she doesn't seem like the kind of woman who'd be willing to stop and stay with some so-called simple man, yet the screenwriter just arranged it this way.

"Considering the relationship between Cheng Hao and Zhou Yi, is there a possibility that Zhou Yi brought money into the production and forcibly changed the script, just to satisfy his own desire to be with Cheng Hao?

"In other words, they were actually already together back then, but because Zhou Yi was too famous and Cheng Hao had no name recognition, he couldn't go public and could only express it in this sneaky way? Or maybe at the time he felt she wasn't worthy of being made public?

"Now that Cheng Hao is famous, doesn't that fully prove that Zhou Yi is actually a scumbag?

"After all, it could also be that he just didn't want to go public, he just wanted to keep playing around a bit more..."

A whole speech, written at length, well-reasoned and well-supported, directly interpreted the abrupt sky-drop of Li Bai's character in the plot of the finale of "Pretty Lady" as the already-famous Zhou Yi's personal favor, and then stood on the moral high ground to denounce Zhou Yi for being unethical.

This account had already been somewhat famous on Tianya, Maopu, and other places for hating on Zhou Yi, and this time, starting from the plot of "Pretty Lady," it finally showed its true colors and began attacking Zhou Yi outright.

And when the BBQ restaurant news was dug up and the actual location was identified, quite a few trouble-loving spectators who enjoyed the drama proposed another theory—

"I seriously suspect that the BBQ place Zhou Yi took Sun Yanzi to this time is the same place he used to take Cheng Hao to!"

He used to take Cheng Hao there, now he takes Sun Yanzi there—does the implication even need to be spelled out?

The fans who had just started shipping Zhou Yi and Wan Ren Mi and the Twins fans immediately developed a thick smell of gunpowder.

Although the Twins fans had numbers on their side, they couldn't withstand the fact that "Pretty Lady" was currently hot on air—it had the highest ratings of any show in the same period—and there were piles and piles of passers-by who'd been captivated by Wan Ren Mi, with new forces constantly joining in to support Cheng Hao.

One side calling her a fox spirit, the other calling her a washboard—the fighting stance actually bore quite a resemblance to the old battles between the Zhou Xiao fans and the Twins fans.

"Damn shameless fox spirit!"

"Flat-chested, flat-assed washboard!"

"Achoo!"

Warner, Li Sisong's office.

Sun Yanzi, who had just sneezed, rubbed her nose. She pulled out a tissue to wipe her snot, then sat obediently in her chair. Facing her teacher's stern gaze, she lowered her head even further.

"You're telling me you caught a cold?"

"... Mm."

"Because you got caught in the rain?"

"... Mm."

"And you ate spicy food too?"

"... Mm."

Feeling his temples throbbing, Li Sisong couldn't help but tilt his head back, taking several deep breaths in a row before finally stabilizing his emotions. He fixed his gaze on the student now sitting properly in her seat, her index fingers nervously hooking and tangling with each other—

Clearly knowing exactly where she'd gone wrong, she didn't even dare lift her head, only daring to stealthily raise her brows, occasionally sweeping a glance at the teacher's expression from the corner of her eye, then immediately lowering her gaze and meekly maintaining her "I was wrong, I'm sorry" sitting posture.

You tell her off, right? Knowing full well she still needed to record, she went off to do some running-in-the-rain stunt—does she think that's romantic?

But if you say she's admitting her fault, that "I know I was wrong, but what's done is done, might as well go eat first" dead-pig-who-doesn't-fear-boiling-water attitude made Li Sisong, who had long treated Sun Yanzi like his own daughter, feel his blood pressure shooting up.

From being angry.

He and his brother Li Weisong could be said to have watched Sun Yanzi grow step by step from a rough girl into what she was today, and now she'd been whisked away in just a few moves by that damn yellow-haired Zhou Yi, and was even dragged along to do all sorts of rebellious nonsense.

If this were back when Yanzi was still at their brothers' music school, with singing scheduled for the next week, would she dare do any of this?

She wouldn't even dare eat until she was eighty percent full!

Damn Zhou Yi!

He couldn't bear to curse out his daughter, so Zhou Yi would just have to suffer.

"Achoo!"

At the same time, Zhou Yi, who was in Qian Jiang's office, also sneezed out of nowhere—

"Which bastard is badmouthing me behind my back?"

Zhou Yi rubbed his nose and muttered with a frown.

"Li Sisong, Li Weisong, Chen Ze Shan, and Sun Yanzi who's the only one being scolded—pick one." Qian Jiang, who had been reviewing the various invitations sent to Zhou Yi, immediately named the suspects without looking up.

As signs of SARS gradually weakened, the various award ceremonies that had been suspended because of SARS were about to resume, including the Taiwan Golden Melody Awards.

"The Golden Melody Awards officials have already sent invitations to you and Yanzi. They're tentatively scheduled to resume on August 2nd. Do you want to go? If so, I'll arrange your schedule."

When this session's Golden Melody Awards nomination list was announced, SARS was raging domestically, and Zhou Yi himself was abroad. Qian Jiang, Zhou Jianhui, and others were focused entirely on helping Zhou Yi break through, with no mind to bother with this provincial-level domestic award.

After all, everyone knew that Zhou Yi's "Lianshan" from last year was of such quality that it couldn't possibly fail to be nominated for the Golden Melody Awards.

"Go, why wouldn't I go? I just love the look on some of their faces when they can't stand me but still have to pinch their noses and welcome me to attend."

Zhou Yi ran his tongue over his teeth twice, a somewhat playful smile on his face.

Best Album, Best Album Producer, Best Composition, Best Arrangement, Best Composition, Best Music Video, Best Mandarin Male Singer.

All seven awards Zhou Yi could be nominated for secured nominations without any surprises, and some awards even had more than one nomination.

As for Sun Yanzi's name, she was not excluded from the Golden Melody Awards this time, contrary to his memory.

In his memory, due to an imbalance in the commercial tracks on the album "Leave" affecting the overall conceptual expression of the album, she, who had been wildly popular since her debut, was rejected by the Golden Melody Awards for the first time.

This situation once made the usually frugal Sun Yanzi unusually go shopping everywhere to vent her frustration.

But the situation is clearly different now.

After he replaced five songs in the original album with "Lydia," "Between the Rainbows," "Ningxia," "Qingming Rain," and "By the Butterfly Spring," Sun Yanzi's name did not miss the Golden Melody Awards this year.

As for Xiao Yaxuan...

Because her teacher Yao Qian was a judge, although her album last year contained four songs produced by Zhou Yi—"Pirate," "Give Me a Reason to Forget," "No Crime in Losing Love," and "Prague Square"—Viking still did not register her for the Golden Melody Awards.

To avoid conflicts of interest.

The two new generation divas once again missed the opportunity to face off on the Golden Melody Awards stage.

"Fine, then I'll fight for a performance slot for you at the Golden Melody Awards. Let's see if they dare refuse this time."

Now truly relying on foreign backing, Qian Jiang patted his beer belly, his tone equally schadenfreude.

In the past two Golden Melody Awards Zhou Yi participated in, although he didn't lack trophies, Zhou Yi was still restricted and required not to perform on the Golden Melody Awards stage.

This time, if they dare restrict him from performing again, Qian Jiang wouldn't even need to act; he just needed to spread the word, and Zhou Yi's fans in Taiwan along with indignant passersby would rush in and tear the Golden Melody Awards organizers to shreds.

"Oh right, there's one more thing."

Qian Jiang, grinning like a thief, seemed to remember something and reminded Zhou Yi: "Do you have any ideas for the two songs in Yanzi's new album this time?"

"Ah, almost. The song titles are written for now, the rest are in the works."

"Song titles? Tell me."

Putting down the invitation in his hand, Zhou Yi lazily yawned: "One Like Summer, One Like Autumn, Sha Po Lang."

For the Chinese style position, he originally intended to use "Hair Like Snow." But after carefully pondering the lyrics, he felt the perspective sung from the female's point of view was strange, so he planned to change it. Just recently, while staying home with nothing to do, he reviewed the game "Chinese Paladin 1" and thought of this song.

To be fair, although he didn't like the drastic changes to the game plots in "Chinese Paladin 1" and "Chinese Paladin 3," these two dramas were indeed huge, explosive successes at the mass level.

The original version of the song "Sha Po Lang" actually tells the story of a Japanese samurai; it was released as an album track in 2004, and only later did the producers of "Chinese Paladin 1" hear it, loving the melody so much that they specially went to find the JS group to modify the lyrics, thus forming the later version of the TV drama theme song.

As for here with Zhou Yi...

"'Sha Po Lang'? What kind of weird name is that? You're not planning to go for some stream-of-consciousness style, are you?" Qian Jiang, who felt at first hearing the title that it looked like a flop, was obviously quite surprised.

As for the other one, something about summer and autumn, he could still understand it literally.

This Sha Po Lang... what the heck is that?

Zhou Yi smiled slightly: "Guess?"

Qian Jiang rolled his eyes: "Am I a kid to guess?"

"What is my most famous nickname?"

"Most famous nickname?"

Qian Jiang paused, then asked in confusion: "Purple Star?"

Zhou Yi nodded: "Sha Po Lang is indeed one of the Purple Star fate patterns, and the most famous type of fate pattern."

"..."

—?!

Damn!

You can do that?!

(End of Chapter)