Chapter 535: Because of Him, I Will Never Repeat the Same Mistakes

If one word were needed to describe the standing Weekly Bunshun has carved out in the Japanese press, none could be more fitting than a single character — known to one and all.

Since its founding in 1959, gossip has been their bread and butter.

From political scandals of politicians and bureaucrats' children at the top, to the romantic dalliances of entertainment industry stars and company presidents at the bottom, with the occasional conspiracy-theory reporting on Japanese murder cases thrown in between. In short, one sentence sums it up: anything that catches eyes and makes money is within their scope of business.

The excitement that Zhou Yi's identity as an international superstar and Asian music emperor brought them goes without saying.

Although they knew perfectly well it was false, they couldn't resist the fact that as long as no names were named, it really could be pinned on Zhou Yi.

Strip away the unfavorable factors like time and place, and all you need to do is report on the many common points between the two people — both male, both singers, both attending this year's Taiwan Golden Melody Awards, both non-Taiwanese, and so on. The anticipation this could stir up goes without saying,

And all of that could be converted into sales.

If it really comes down to it, they'll just go down on hands and knees — that is the highest form of apology in Japan.

Reputation? How much is reputation worth?

At worst it's just paying damages — bro has money, can still make money, can afford to pay.

"Even if Michael Jackson came, they'd report that he lived with a little boy for three days and two nights. They're a bunch of completely unreasonable thugs." Yoshida Kei commented on this, saying there was nothing he could do about it either.

Thursday, August 7, 2003 — the day Weekly Bunshun's new episode hit the stands.

For Zhou Yi, who had just arrived in Japan, Japan's largest-circulation mainstream general-interest weekly greeted him with quite the gift, letting countless Japanese get a glimpse of Zhou Yi's fine physique —

"I don't think so — otherwise why wouldn't Bunshun just name Zhou Yi directly?"

"Bunshun doesn't dare, right? Probably afraid Zhou Yi Jun would make a PowerPoint and condemn them to eternal infamy?"

"Urusai! Why bring up the PowerPoint thing again?!"

"……"

Thanks to Zhou Yi's absurdly abstract past moves, Zhou Runfa and 50 Cent are still nailed to the pillar of shame with no way down — the former still has some fame in Japan, after all being one of the peak-era Hong Kong stars back then, and the God of Gamblers image sparked a trend across all of Asia.

As for the latter…

Let's put it this way — even in Japan, a country that currently still uses floppy disks to install Windows, Microsoft's PowerPoint demonstration manual has been distributed to everyone. 50 Cent's rap songs have no market in Japan, but the man himself has already been treated by plenty of Japanese as Microsoft's Black model.

From a certain angle, this counts as opening up the Asian market, and Zhou Yi considered his contribution monumental — 50 Cent at the very least owed him a kowtow.

"Don't be so shameless — the fact that 50 Cent didn't pull a gun and spray you is already you getting lucky and burning high incense."

Tokyo, Ginza.

Wearing sunglasses, Watching Xiao Yaxuan drove the red Ferrari she'd scrounged from the company, cranked the steering wheel into a dragon-swinging tail, and the car slid diagonally into a narrow parking spot —

She turned her head to look, and saw a shaken Zhou Yi gripping the door handle and the seat armrest with both hands, his eyeballs about to pop out.

Watching Xiao Yaxuan, who had already unbuckled her seatbelt, laughed loudly: "So you get scared too? I thought you were Superman."

The old Zhou Yi had always been one to plan everything within his tent, every step usually followed by follow-up measures, and over time this had given her a sense of unreality.

"Nonsense, I only have one life, you know."

Zhou Yi, cursing under his breath, raised his middle finger at the woman, unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car. After putting on sunglasses, a mask, and a baseball cap, he looked up at Japan's most bustling commercial district: "I shouldn't have agreed to come here with you — my good intentions taken for a donkey's liver and lungs."

Watching Xiao Yaxuan, who had fled to Japan for family reasons, contacted him the moment she saw the news of Zhou Yi's arrival, under the fine-sounding pretext of bringing him to Ginza to take his mind off things — because of Weekly Bunshun's slander.

Of course, as for who exactly was keeping whom company, that's hard to say.

"That's hard to say — what if you really snuck over to Japan in the past and left a record?"

Watching Xiao Yaxuan, who had no fame in Japan whatsoever, needed no disguise at all — a simple white T-shirt and jeans, a pair of canvas shoes on her feet, her long hair tied into a ponytail at the back of her head, bouncing and swaying as she walked.

"If you keep running your mouth, watch out — I'll call Yao Qian right now to drag you back to record a song."

Zhou Yi made a show of reaching for his phone, patted around for a while but couldn't find the latest model provided by Nokia after signing the contract in his pocket — he looked up, and Watching Xiao Yaxuan's right hand was holding the phone pinched between two fingers, waving it a few times, raising her eyebrows at him smugly: "Are you looking for this?"

Zhou Yi was stunned for a moment, then smiled: "Didn't expect you to have such talent for being a thief."

"That's what I should be saying to you, big star who's good at taking on two at once."

Watching Xiao Yaxuan, who had brazenly stuffed the phone into her back pocket, teased the man about his heroic performance as described in Weekly Bunshun.

She seriously suspected that Zhou Yi didn't take that thing seriously precisely because the report had lavishly praised his abilities: "In any case, today you're mine — put the phone aside, keep me company for a proper shopping trip, I'm going on a big spending spree."

"What, you're treating me like a post-marriage ATM now?" Zhou Yi chuckled, and walked up to her with a smile.

"Don't get the wrong idea — you might not get the chance to marry me."

Watching Xiao Yaxuan smiled and hooked her arm through the man's slightly outstretched arm, and the two, like a couple in the throes of passion, plunged headlong into the sea of shops in bustling Ginza: "Marriage is a woman's grave — this was embodied to the hilt in my mother.

"Because of her, and because of him, I will never repeat the same mistakes in my life."

As for the reason that had made her flee to Japan, Watching Xiao Yaxuan had clearly already adjusted her mood, and spoke with unusual calmness while holding Zhou Yi's arm: "This way, if one day you get tired of me, or I get tired of you, we can both leave each other without any burden — part on good terms."

"……"

Zhou Yi said nothing, just smiled and tightened his five fingers around hers: "So, knowing full well I've been targeted by Weekly Bunshun, you called me out to go shopping with you?"

"I'm helping you clear things up."

"I have no interest in clearing things up. In fact, Weekly Bunshun's report is actually beneficial to me — it lets plenty of people who weren't paying attention to me remember me in the fastest possible time."

"You can try saying that to Utada Hikaru — she looks down on you quite a bit, especially after this report came out."

"You've met her?"

"Obviously, she's with the same company as me — I'll take you to meet her when there's time. We're both under EMI. When I debuted in Taiwan, the company even gave me the nickname 'Taiwan's Utada Hikaru.' It's just that after my first album my path diverged from that track…"

(End of this chapter)