Chapter 601: The Greatest Crisis Since Debut

Facts proved that Zhou Yi, that bastard Wang Ba, was crystal clear in his mind; he simply had never pierced through that layer of rice-paper window.

Perhaps he felt that once pierced, the relationship between the two of them could never return to what it was before, and he deemed it not worth it; or perhaps...

While signing a document, Cheng Hao paused her hand, pressed her lips together, and found her mind swirling with countless thoughts, unable for a moment to force herself to calm down and work.

Two little figures—one wearing angel wings, the other donning devil horns—were fighting endlessly right before her eyes—

The angel was beaten black and blue, the devil was beaten missing limbs, yet both still held firmly to their own views and yielded to neither side.

As time passed, an increasingly irritable Cheng Hao put down her pen and paper, scratched her scalp hard with both hands as if trying to discard some idea in her mind to resolve the dispute between the angel and the demon, but it was somewhat to no avail—

Until a phone call came.

From Wang Xiaoyu.

"President Cheng, this is bad; has President Zhou offended someone outside the industry?"

"What?"

Hearing this out of the blue, Cheng Hao felt somewhat baffled.

Zhou Yi only had two circles—one was the entertainment circle, the other the investment circle.

As for matters in the entertainment circle, there was no need to say more; in Wang Xiaoyu's mouth, "outside the circle" could only refer to the investment circle.

Yet according to the reputation within the investment circle, Zhou Yi was a standard hot cake; everyone wanted to gain the favor of Gui Yi. Every week she reviewed so many self-recommended projects that her eyes were dazzled; would anyone still dare to offend them, this major benefactor?

Did they not want to live anymore?

"Several elites with social influence have publicly criticized President Zhou's new album in newspapers or on personal blogs; what is going on? Shouldn't they be completely unrelated?"

Wang Xiaoyu did not understand, but felt that this issue might not be something online water armies could control.

In traditional media channels, Zhou Yi and his Gui Yi simply could not get a hand in.

"What do you mean?"

Cheng Hao frowned.

Now she truly felt something was amiss.

Social elites?

At 7:00 PM on November 22, 2003, Yuan Tengfei, a teacher employed at the High School Affiliated to Capital Normal University, was the first to fire at Zhou Yi on his personal blog, calling his new album "Gui Cang" the most trashy album in the history of the Chinese music scene.

Due to his long-standing elite identity on blogs, this post immediately caused intense shock within the blogosphere, attracting many onlookers and bandwagoners.

One hour later, Gao Huimin, vice president of the Fudan University Jiang Xiren Alumni Association, likewise expressed agreement, stating that Zhou Yi's personal understanding of history was completely wrong and ought to be corrected.

Thus, matters began to head in an unknown direction—

On the 23rd, Xu Qingliang, a famous reporter for Nanfang Daily and a renowned editor for Nanfang Weekly, likewise expressed his disdain online for Zhou Yi's new album "Gui Cang," calling him a fame-seeker, even suggesting that Zhou Yi's past exam results should be thoroughly investigated, and disparaging all of Zhou Yi's songs down to the dust.

His radical wording, combined with his status, directly made him the very center of the whirlpool of public opinion!

"I do not know what Zhou Yi, acting crazy all day long, actually intends to do.

"I believe he is merely a clown monkey, showing off his backside with his half-baked understanding. I think he should not have learned English; he does not even deserve to learn English, because his English has all gone to the dogs.

"It was English that gave him the opportunity to become famous worldwide; it was English that allowed him to earn more money than everyone in our country's entertainment circle combined could earn in a lifetime, yet he chose to betray..."

This was a collective attack coming entirely from outside the entertainment circle; the main bodies attacking Zhou Yi were no longer those netizens, or even the water armies secretly hired by record companies, but rather public intellectuals who were completely unrelated.

They each had their own identities and followers online; even Xu Qingliang himself had previously praised Zhou Yi's English album, yet this time he cursed Zhou Yi vehemently and directly deleted all past posts praising Zhou Yi.

Of course, this group of people also had a self-proclaimed and widely circulated name online—"progressive intellectuals."

If Xu Qingliang from Nanfang Press merely caused this strange dispute to fully surface, then on the 25th, the entry of a famous reporter from Xinhua News Agency completely turned this matter into a focal point—

9:07 AM on November 25, 2003.

Yuan Li, an editor in the International News Department of Xinhua News Agency, who had served as a foreign correspondent in Thailand, Laos, and Afghanistan, and after studying in the United States attended Columbia University and George Washington University successively, obtaining master's degrees in journalism and international relations respectively, expressed his criticism and disappointment toward Zhou Yi on his personal blog—

"It is regrettable; I did not expect Zhou Yi to be such an ignorant person. His image in my mind, and in the minds of the public, has always been that of a talented scholar.

"Top scorer in the college entrance examination, a talented scholar of Peking University, a musical genius, the king of sales.

"These are all titles bestowed upon him by the media; I suppose he must have become immersed in these praises, thereby losing control over his own works, beginning to become perfunctory, becoming a Zhou Lang whose talents are exhausted.

"I find it hard to imagine that someone hailing from Jiang Xi could mistake Ru porcelain and Mo Qinghua porcelain as the same kind; one must know that Mo Qinghua porcelain fundamentally does not have a sky-blue color; this sky-blue color is used to describe Ru kilns, and the Song Dynasty Ru kilns nowadays belong to the Henan region, not Jiang Xi.

"And more importantly, the lyrics of 'Mo Qinghua' stating 'writing Hanli clerical script on the bottle base imitating the flowing style of previous dynasties,' and 'when copying the Song typeface for the signature, yet thinking of you,' are completely wrong.

"In reality, Hanli clerical script was never written on the bases of Mo Qinghua porcelain; only during the Chongzhen reign of the Ming Dynasty did certain Mo Qinghua vessel bodies occasionally feature clerical script.

"Moreover, although the Song typeface is widespread, neat, and good-looking, it appears rigid on Mo Qinghua porcelain and does not meet the discerning aesthetic of emperors; therefore, signatures in Song typeface rarely appear on Mo Qinghua porcelain.

"Zhou Yi is a Jiang Xiren; he ought to have been an ambassador promoting his hometown's porcelain culture, yet now he has caused such a massive cultural blunder; I cannot but express regret and disappointment. This should have been common knowledge, yet Zhou Yi has mixed things up or even fabricated them out of thin air..."

If Xu Qingliang of Nanfang Press was merely attacking Zhou Yi without providing any strong evidence, then this lengthy exposition and disparagement by Yuan Li, a renowned editor from Xinhua News Agency, dealt real and substantial damage to Zhou Yi's image—

It could be said to have cut straight to Zhou Yi's vital points.

You are a Jiang Xiren, most famous for your identity as a talented scholar, yet in the end you cannot even clarify what your own hometown's porcelain is, dragging Ru porcelain into it; did you not first ask the people of Henan for their opinion?

People of Henan, why are you not rushing to attack Zhou Yi yet?

Zhou Yi, are you truly a talented scholar or a fake one?

Could it be that everything before was ghostwritten?

Is Warner Music creating a god?

"Making this album a bestseller is absolutely a disgrace to Chinese pop music; Zhou Yi should take a good rest for several years and go recharge..."

Yuan Li precisely hit the vital points, and with his erudite persona, his graduation from prestigious universities, and the official background of Xinhua News Agency combined into one, he directly stirred up a storm of public opinion online.

The distinctions between Ru kilns, Ru porcelain, and Mo Qinghua porcelain, along with historical knowledge of cultural relics, all revealed that Yuan Li was the one who was truly learned and talented.

And Zhou Yi, because of this gradually spreading hit song "Mo Qinghua," encountered the greatest crisis since his debut!

Was the golden body of the talented scholar about to collapse?!