I'm Really a Superstar

After the stream ended.

Zhang Ye could finally take a breather. He hurriedly downed a bottle of water and got up to walk out of the livestreaming studio. When he came outside, he was slightly stunned as he found more than a dozen people waiting for him.

"Great job, Director Zhang!"

"Great work, Teacher Zhang!"

"You're amazing!"

"This stream was great!"

"The number of viewers exploded!"

"This is a record!"

"The records for the value of the donations received and the number of viewers have both been broken!"

A group of Meihe TV's staff were chattering.

Even the CEO of Meihe TV came over to join them. The moment he came up to them, he said excitedly, "Teacher Zhang, great job, great job. Thank you so much. In these two years, we have worked with many celebrities in show business. But there has really been no one as professional as you were today. Don't mention the celebrities, even our own site's full-time streamers could only stream for about two to three hours at a go. If they were asked to stream for close to seven hours? They wouldn't be able to take it for sure! There's nothing I can tell you!" He gave Zhang Ye a thumbs up. "Except for this!"

Zhang Ye smiled and waved it off. "Since I'm paid for it, it's only to be expected of me. It's nothing too serious. I don't have much to offer except for my energy. If we're making a living out of this, the least we can do is make sure the audience is not short-changed, right? I'm just earning a living, it's nothing that noble."

Meihe TV's CEO said, "But it's not like that. Which other celebrity would possibly stream six to seven hours for us? It just wouldn't happen. If we paid them for two hours, they would even charge you extra if it went two minutes over. It's just how things work in the entertainment industry these days. There aren't any people like you anymore. Teacher Zhang, we're really happy to be working with you on this occasion. I won't say anything more and will remember this. If there's anything you need in the future, just tell me."

Zhang Ye nodded. "Well, there's something that I need right now."

The CEO immediately answered, "Go ahead."

Zhang Ye touched his belly and said, "Isn't it about time for dinner?"

Dinner?

Pfft!

That's right, nobody has eaten yet!

The CEO facepalmed and exclaimed, "Aiyo, just look at how forgetful I am. Quick, quick, let's reserve a table and call a taxi. I'll personally hold a banquet to show our appreciation for Teacher Zhang and his team!"

"You don't have to go to all that trouble." Zhang Ye was really hungry. "Do you have any packaged food?"

A staff member nodded and said, "We do, but it's just some boxed lunches that we had earlier."

Zhang Ye pointed at him. "That'll do."

A female staff member said nervously, "But it's already cold."

"Just heat it up in the microwave," Zhang Ye said.

Two minutes later.

A group of people watched as Zhang Ye bent over on the table and gobbled up the boxed lunches with a pair of chopsticks. They exchanged glances when they saw such a sight.

The boss gave a wry smile. "You're fine with just eating boxed lunches?"

Zhang Ye raised his head and said with a smile, "Why not?"

He was never picky about food.

He could have delicacies.

Or he could have instant noodles.

The Meihe staff all looked at him and suddenly seemed like they understood a little more about why Zhang Ye could reach his level of fame. Just a simple action was enough to explain a lot of things.

…

The next day.

There were headlines of Zhang Ye on quite a few entertainment news sections!

"Zhang Ye teams up with Meihe TV for his first ever stream!"

"10 million viewers watching concurrently!"

"Zhang Ye's shocking level of appeal!"

"An A-list celebrity who raps!"

"Drunk and Alone' gets mimicked by Internet streamers!"

"Zhang Ye's new monologue amazes the industry!"

"Zhang Ye wreaked havoc in the Go world last evening!"

"The Japanese, Korean, and American Go servers have been swept aside by Zhang Ye!"

"The Chinese Go world to welcome a hundred years of prosperity?"

"'The Great Truth' moves many livestream viewers to tears!"

Online, there were similar voices!

"Did you guys watch it yesterday?"

"Of course I did, it was so enjoyable!"

"I died laughing. I've never seen such a funny celebrity before!"

"Hahahaha. I became a braindead fan of Zhang Ye's after yesterday!"

"Zhang Ye has definitely got to be part of that handful of truly talented celebrities in all of showbiz. He just has too many good ideas in him!"

"Yeah, I really have to take my hat off to him!"

"He totally slayed the Japanese and Korean servers. It really got my blood pumping just watching!"

"I'll give him a perfect score for this round! It was awesome!"

"Zhang Ye's popularity is gonna surge again."

"Yesterday's Zhang Ye was indeed domineering!"

"Could he not be domineering? Even during the stream fronted by the Heavenly King, there were at most 7 million viewers online, assuming the organizers did not boost the numbers. But watching Zhang Ye's stream, I could clearly feel that the 10 million viewers were all real people. Judging from the atmosphere in the channel and looking at Weibo's trending topics at that time, there's no point in arguing whether the stream was really that popular or not. Could this fellow's appeal put him on par with the Heavenly Kings and Queens?"

"Surely not, right? His popularity is still too far behind theirs."

"Oh right, I haven't checked Zhang Ye's popularity score in a long time."

"He's still at number one in the A-list, no changes yet. When he got promoted to the top of the A-list, his popularity score was still lacking by severalfold to get to the S-list, so how could he get there so soon—eh—wait!"

"Holy shit! Quick, take a look!"

"This…what is this?"

"My titanium dog eyes are blinded!"

"Someone, come quick! Something big has happened! Something big has happened!"

"Ahhhhh!"

"But this is impossible!"

"How could this have happened?"

All of a sudden, quite a few netizens were alarmed. Someone finally realized that something was wrong. Someone finally discovered that something was wrong with Zhang Ye's popularity!

Back when Zhang Ye reached the top of the A-list, it looked like he was just a step away from reaching the S-list. But this step was actually very far away and was almost considered an insurmountable gap. In recent years, so many celebrity and big shots had reached this top position that Zhang Ye was in but were still unable to take a seat among those on the S-list. In the end, it was still those seven familiar faces who stood atop the entertainment circle, unmovable by any storm. As such, no one thought a thing about it when Zhang Ye rose up to the top of the A-list!

But today!

At this moment!

They were suddenly stunned to find out that not only had Zhang Ye's popularity score caught up to those ahead of him, it had even gotten within touching distance to the popularity scores of those seven S-list Heavenly Kings and Queens!

The media was stunned!

The public was stunned!

The entertainment circle was stunned!

The teams of the Heavenly Kings and Queens were stunned!

God!

How was that possible!

When did he catch up to them?

Wasn't this too soon!

Fortress Besieged?

The highest literary award?

endorsements?

I Am a Singer?

Plaza dancing?

Or this livestream?

No, this was definitely not something that could be achieved with just a couple good outcomes. This was an accumulation of everything, and Zhang Ye had been undertaking this task for the past several months. All of it was done in order for him to have a shot at the S-list! So this was the objective of Zhang Ye's intense schedule and endorsements in all of these months! They were too foolish, too stupid. They should have thought of this long ago; they should have realized it long ago. How did they only just find out about it!

Would Zhang Ye succeed?

Was one of those seven spots going to change owners soon?

Was there going to be a shake-up in the entertainment industry?

This was the first time!

This was the first time that any celebrity had come so close to one of those highly regarded seven people at the top!