I'm Really a Superstar

That night, it was all over the news!

Great Wall Daily News: "Golden Microphone Awards Announced".

—Han Shaokai, Xiao Hang and Zhang Ye were awarded the Golden Microphone Awards!

Southern Entertainment News: "A Shocking Acceptance Speech".

—Zhang Ye wins the most coveted award in the television hosting field this year. An acceptance speech that shocked the entire venue. Applause continued for a full minute as the situation spiraled out of control, leaving many in tears!

News Online: "The Beloved and Hated Zhang Ye".

—At the Golden Microphone Awards, Zhang Ye made such a strong and uncompromising speech that it touched many of the people at the venue. It made many of the audience realize that even without using a poem, he could still give an earth-shattering speech. At the same time, Zhang Ye was still the same as before, as the first line was already enough to roast Fang Gang and Xu Siyu, two famous hosts of Central TV Department 1. A camera even happened to coincidentally capture both their expressions at that moment. As such, Zhang Ye could be said to have offended yet more people again this time. Upon seeing this, we also didn't know how to react and could not help but recall a saying: "It's not difficult to offend someone in a day. The difficulty lies in offending someone every day." Zhang Ye is undoubtedly the type of celebrity who can make us love, hate, cry, and laugh about him!

"A Straight-Shooting Host"!

"Zhang Ye's Acceptance Speech: Never Give Up"!

"To like Zhang Ye, there's no need for a reason"!

"The most tragic scene in history! Xu Siyu and Fang Gang get roasted out of nowhere"!

"Staffer of a television station: 'I still don't like Zhang Ye, but his speech left me with no choice but to give him my applause'"!

The news reports were in full swing!

It reached a state of adding fuel to the fire on the Internet and was stirred up very early!

"Teacher Zhang, you were really too fucking cool today!"

"This speech is so freaking cool!"

"I've listened to it for ten times! Ten times!"

"I cried from listening to it! It's just so touching!"

"Teacher Zhang, thank you! I've always liked you, your poems, and the things you say. It always gives me energy and courage every time! You're really awesome!"

Zhang Ye's fan club leader, Big Saber Bro, led a group of people to forward the speech like crazy and flood the Internet with it. Very soon, the video clip of Zhang Ye's speech was bumped up to the front page!

Top ten trending topics…

Top five trending topics…

Until it had reached the top spot for the day on Weibo!

Many of the netizens who were not interested in the Golden Microphone Awards also noticed this and clicked on the video to watch it. It was only after they saw the speech that they knew that such a thing had happened at the Golden Microphone Awards ceremony, and that they had actually missed the live broadcast!

"Ah, how regretful!"

"Dammit, I didn't manage to watch the live broadcast!"

"I'm going to chop off my hands! Why did I watch the basketball match earlier?!"

"If I knew the Golden Microphone Awards would be so exciting, I would not have fucking gone out to watch a movie! Even if I had to face getting cursed to death by my wife, I would still have gone home to catch the live broadcast!"

"I get the same vibes even from watching the video clip now! It seems like Zhang Ye has already surpassed the gods!"

"This is what it means to be a celebrity! This is what it means to be a host!"

"I'm a hater turned neutral. Today, I'm here to give a Like to Zhang Ye!"

"Currently turning from neutral to a fan now…"

"Currently turning from fan to hardcore fan now…"

The number of Zhang Ye's Weibo followers made another breakthrough as well. With the fan accumulation gained by the long-term popularity of A Bite of China, Zhang Ye's Weibo followers had now risen to an astonishing 10 million!

10 million!

In just a few months, it was already growing at an exponential rate!

Some A-list celebrities only had slightly more than 10 million Weibo followers! Although the overall popularity of a celebrity should not just be based off the ranking on a single platform, it was still one of the criteria to be considered for popularity and would be calculated and taken into account for the overall celebrity rankings!

Without a doubt, after today, there would likely be some changes to Zhang Ye's celebrity ranking again!

...

On the street.

Zhang Ye was driving Dong Shanshan home.

His cell phone rang. It was a call from his parents' home.

"Little Ye." His mother said excitedly: "When are you coming home?"

Zhang Ye laughed: "I'll be back soon."

His mother asked: "Are you coming back to eat?"

Zhang Ye said: "Yes, of course. I'm very hungry, but let me send Shanshan home first."

His mother said: "Shanshan? That classmate of yours? Why are you sending her home? Ask her to come to our place for dinner. Your dad and I have already made dinner. Invite her over as well."

"Sure, I'll ask her." After hanging up, Zhang Ye looked in the direction of the front passenger seat. He could not control himself from stealing a glance at Dong Shanshan's clothes tight against the seat belt. Then he asked, "My mom is asking you to come over to our place for dinner. You wanna join us? It's not far from here. Otherwise, you'll be eating alone at home."

Dong Shanshan smiled and said, "How do you know that I'm alone at home?"

"Ah? There's someone else at home?" Zhang Ye replied.

Dong Shanshan asked, "How do you know that there's someone else at my home?"

Zhang Ye knew that her mouth didn't speak much truth, so he just rolled his eyes and said, "Forget it, I should just drop you off on the roadside and let you walk back home by yourself."

"Don't you dare." Dong Shanshan laughed and suggested, "Let's go to your place for dinner. Since Auntie has already invited me, if I don't give her any face, that would be very ungracious of me."

Very quickly, they reached his parents' home.

When they went upstairs, they saw his mother already waiting at the door. The door was opened long ago, probably because she was searching for Zhang Ye's car from the window.

"Dad, Mom," Zhang Ye greeted.

When Dong Shanshan entered the house, she also smiled sweetly. "Auntie, Uncle."

His mother stared at her for a long time. "Shanshan, you still look the same as you were in school. You're still as pretty as ever."

When Zhang Ye was in university, using the Beijing dialect to describe it, he was rather "short-fused." As his parents were often called to the school, his mother went there a few times. It was there that she met Dong Shanshan twice. Likewise, Dong Shanshan also had some impression of Zhang Ye's mother whereas she had never met his father in person before. Probably because face mattered more for his father, he would never go to this sort of school meeting even if he was called to school by a teacher.

His father also smiled and said, "Wash your hands and we can eat dinner."

Dong Shanshan said, "Yes, Uncle."

"Where's that Chenchen?" Zhang Ye looked around.

His father pointed to the master bedroom. "She already went to bed after eating dinner."

Zhang Ye grunted, "Lazybones!"

His mother smiled and said, "Chenchen got really tired. While your dad and I were making dinner, Chenchen answered seven or eight calls made to our home. You didn't say, but Chenchen is really clever. She could repeat to us who the callers were and what they said. There was a call from your grandmother, two from your younger girl cousins, one from your elder girl cousin, and one from someone who was probably a reporter. I don't know how that person got our home number, but Chenchen said that the person tried to trick and sound her out for a long time, only for her to hang up on them directly."

His father also nodded in agreement. "The kid is smarter than most adults."

Zhang Ye quickly said, "Oh c'mon, both of you. Don't keep praising her. Who knows if that little kid will get big-headed again and go out on the streets to catch some criminals. If that happens, we'll be in trouble."

However, his mother liked Chenchen a lot and she did not like hearing that. "She doesn't cause as much trouble as you do!"

They started dining.

Zhang Ye was stuffing food into his mouth.

Dong Shanshan ate in a very reserved manner. She chatted as she ate, because Zhang Ye's mother did not give her a spare moment to eat her food. She would ask a question every now and then.

His mother asked, "Shanshan, how is your family doing?"

Dong Shanshan said, "They're doing pretty good."

His mother asked, "You live in Inner Mongolia, right?"

Dong Shanshan replied, "Yes."

His mother asked, "Do you have a boyfriend yet?"

Dong Shanshan said, "Hur hur, not yet."

His mother stated, "Mm, it's good that you don't have one. In your profession, you should be careful when looking for a partner since the industry is a little more complicated. It would be good if you could find someone working in the same industry as you, so that you'd have common topics to talk about."

Even his father couldn't stand watching. "Can you talk a little less? Let her eat in peace."

Dong Shanshan smiled brightly. "It's fine."

It seemed that his mother rather liked Dong Shanshan. After they finished eating dinner, his mother started to chat with her again.

Finally, Zhang Ye came up with an excuse and got Dong Shanshan to go to his room.

He disclosed, "That's how my mom is. She's a very talkative person."

"Auntie is quite interesting." Dong Shanshan smiled.

Zhang Ye gestured around his bedroom. "Make yourself at home."

Dong Shanshan pushed aside the blanket that was not folded at the bed's end and saw male underwear underneath it. It seemed like it was worn before, but she did not say anything. She casually picked it up with her index finger and thumb and threw it aside.

Zhang Ye felt his face flush and said in exasperation, "Don't just throw my things around." He quickly went to pick it up.

Dong Shanshan crossed her legs and looked around. "I'm quite surprised about your place. It doesn't look like the bedroom of a celebrity of your status at all."

Zhang Ye laughed, "That's right. This bro is even poorer than you now. I heard that you have accepted an endorsement deal? And quite a number of commercial performances too? Beijing Television is quite good. They don't enforce too many limitations on hosts unlike Central TV."

Dong Shanshan mentioned, "That's why I'm planning to buy a house soon."

"Alright, I'll go bum at your place sometime then," Zhang Ye offhandedly remarked.

Dong Shanshan laughed. "Sure. You can stay over if you aren't afraid of the paparazzi."

Amused, Zhang Ye chuckled. "Then I better forget it."

"Oh, right." Dong Shanshan told him, "Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I arranged a dinner party with a lot of my friends in the circle. I think there isn't anyone in the group who is your enemy. There are men and women in it, so do you want to join us?"

Zhang Ye puckered his lips. He sat down and said earnestly, "If you have that kind of time, why don't you do something serious instead? Why are you celebrating a foreign festival? Come, Shanshan, let me expand your knowledge on the history of Christmas Day. A long, long time ago in the foreign lands, there was—"

Dong Shanshan was almost rendered speechless by this. She interrupted, "That's enough, I don't want to talk about this with such a nationalistic person like you. Forget it, I knew that you would not want to join anyway, so take it as if I did not mention it to you." As she said that, she also giggled. "You're still the same old you as back then. You'll take it up with whomever mentions a foreign festival to you."

Zhang Ye said with a grin, "I just can't bear having grit in my eyes."

Dong Shanshan sighed. "Of all our classmates back then, who would have thought that you would be the one who's the most successful in the end. You even won the highest honor for a host this time. Do you still remember back then? When we did that survey as a joke, the greatest ambition of 90% of our class was earning the glory of winning the Golden Microphone Award after our graduation. No one would have guessed that you would be the first person to achieve that. And you even did it in less than two years after graduation!"

Zhang Ye softly said, "I was just lucky, I mean it."

Dong Shanshan brought up, "Now that I suddenly thought of our classmates, I wonder how they're all doing, and what they're doing. We should have a reunion someday."

"Sure." Zhang Ye nodded as he also began reminiscing.

The world had changed.

Were those old classmates of his still the same as before?