Chapter 419 - A Walking Koi? (1)
Zhong Yi remembered how she loved to draw when she was a child and her dream was to become an artist. Before her parents had passed away, her family did alright and they could afford to send her to art classes.
After her parents had passed and her grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, they had to sell their house to pay for the hospital bills.
Their standard of living slid instantly and she needed to be extremely careful with money. All she ever thought about everyday was how to make money for her grandmother's treatment and her dream was tossed into a corner and forever forgotten.
That was the moment that the idea of having her own company dawned on her. Perhaps her company would not measure up to any of the big players in the entertainment circle but it would still be a stepping stone for those who had a dream.
As such, in addition to putting her best effort into the competition, she also started learning related knowledge. She noticed that XinYun and herself had been very lucky in that there were a few very good potential contestants who only needed a little help to become a real star.
When they were down to 16 contestants, Zhong Yi reached out to them and asked about their opinions. She would like to sign with them if possible.
She had guaranteed them that regardless of whether they had decided to sign with her or not, it would not affect the outcome of the competition.
To make sure the competition remained fair, neither she nor XinYun took on the role as a judge. In fact, all of the judges were brought in from other factions.
She was disappointed when she found out that she wasn't the only one with good eyes.
Many entertainment companies had already reached out to these candidates when they were down to 32 contestants and signed them.
These included the big players in the industry such as Begonia and Wenxia. It was a no-brainer how one should choose when comparing Zhong Yi's studio with these companies.
Zhong Yi didn't blame them. Who wouldn't want to climb as high as they could? A large company could make that path much easier.
She was very disappointed at the beginning but course-corrected herself toward the end. Her mentality turned into being happy for each additional person she was able to sign.
She didn't have high hopes when she reached out to Ren DongZhi. In her eyes, Ren DongZhi was the best of them all.
Not only was he good looking and was a good singer, he was also a rare song writer/singer and very talented at that.
His songs were every bit as good as those by a professional. She knew that many large companies had already reached out to him.
To her surprise, Ren DongZhi did not sign with any other company. All he asked was, "If I sign with you, are you going to be my agent?"
Being hit by this big pie from the sky, Zhong Yi was dazed. She nodded at him after she had recollected herself, "Yes, it will be me."
She showed him the contract and Ren DongZhi skimmed it quickly. When he was done, he said, "I would like to add another condition. That being my agent can't be changed no matter what."
Zhong Yi was fully prepared that Ren DongZhi would want to negotiate and she was willing to compromise a lot in order to recruit him. Who knew that would be Ren DongZhi's only condition?
She stared at him solidly and he, too, was looking back at her with a slight smile in his eyes.
"You want to be near me that much?" asked Zhong Yi tentatively.
"Yes." His voice was determined and without hesitation. He did not even need to think about it.
A possibility occurred to Zhong Yi and her look became solemn.
She said thoughtfully, "You are still young and have a bright future ahead of you. You don't need to take the shortcut for the sake of getting way up there overnight. Once you've become famed, these could turn into a dark history of yours. You will regret it then. You don't need to do anything like this at all with your talent. Besides, our company is very much against things such as unspoken favors. We do our best to keep our company fair with transparency. We will not treat you differently just because of that."
She appreciated Ren DongZhi's talent a lot and hated to see him make a mistake like that.
Chapter 420 - A Walking Koi? (2)
Zhong Yi was half way through talking when she, baffled, looked at Ren DongZhi who was laughing so hard that he had his hands over his stomach. He didn't even care about his image and just kept on laughing.
Zhong Yi was dazed. What did she say that was so funny?
When he was finally done laughing, Ren DongZhi looked up at her, "Why do you think that this is about unspoken favor? Can't it be love at first sight? I know you are not the kind who would ask for unspoken favor from a contestant. Although I find that idea quite entertaining."
He looked at her tenderly. His solemn and cold features mellowed out and they almost looked loving.
Zhong Yi was startled by her own thoughts and she quickly shook her head to lose that idea. They had only seen each other a few times. Even for love at first sight, she would imagine that his feelings for her were very limited. She knew that she was pretty since she was a child but, in this circle, there were plenty others who were more attractive than her. She was skeptical about what Ren DongZhi had told her.
She was a little frazzled by what he had told her but she tried hard to maintain her professional look and signed the contract with him.
What relieved her was that he didn't have too many inappropriate actions after that. He did prefer to stay around her, especially when he composed. He liked seeing her when he looked up. In his words, that gave him more inspiration.
As such, the most common scene between the two of them was her directing others in setting up the location when he would sit peacefully among all the noises, composing his songs.
Occasionally, when she turned her head, their eyes would meet and there would always be a smile on him when he looked at her. During this entire time, he had never brought up any request or asked for any favors.
Zhong Yi did her best to avoid him as much as possible during the rest of the event. She would only talk to him when it was necessary.
Ren DongZhi also never hid the fact that there was a girl that he was interested in. He professed his love for her in many of the songs that he had composed.
His actions made him lose some of his girlfriend fans but there were also others who fell for him because they felt that he was manly, peaceful, handsome, and talented.
He was a popular one among the contestants and had always been one of the top three. His fans were made up of half males and half females.
Even though Zhong Yi never played favoritism toward Ren DongZhi and, instead, had been avoiding him as much as possible, rumors between the two of them leaked anyway.
Many claimed that Ren DongZhi had been bothering Zhong Yi in an effort to win the competition through unspoken favoritism. And that if someone like him could win first place, then the fairness of the competition was in question.
Zhong Yi was annoyed and also tried to look into where the rumor started to no avail. Whoever that started the rumor had been very careful and did not leave any trails behind. It was obvious that someone didn't want Ren DongZhi to win in this competition and wanted to smear him this way.
Even XinYun had come to talk to her about this and was displeased with Ren DongZhi in her tone.
Zhong Yi knew that XinYun was just displacing her anger. She was upset that Zhong Yi's name was dragged through mud because of Ren DongZhi.
Zhong Yi wasn't one to give in. The dirtier trick the other person pulled, the more she didn't want them to get their ways.
Zhong Yi was happy that Ren DongZhi had not let the rumors get to him at all. Instead, he had given everyone his best performance during the final round and took first place fair and square. That was how he fought back on the rumors! At the end of the day, one's ability spoke for itself in a competition.
Her happiness, however, was short-lived. A well-prepared storm came at them.
Chapter 421 - A Walking Koi? (3)
All sorts of unspoken favors and favoritism labels were slapped onto the two of them along with all sorts of maliciousness. That had allowed Zhong Yi to see that some could do just about anything for the sake of their own gains.
Zhong Yi suppressed her anger and pulled a few all-nighters and handled the situation the best she could and diverted the crisis. She had been even more cautious after that, not wanting to give someone else the opportunity to lash out at them again.
Ren DongZhi, being the only candidate that she had signed, it only made sense that she poured all of her effort on him.
With Ren DongZhi's talent, he could go to a much better company. She did want him to be bogged down by her little studio. As such, she was motivated and worked as hard as she could. She found the best company to partner up with and secured resources for him. He wanted to be a singer, so she worked on releasing an album for him.
Nevertheless, she hadn't even done anything before all the resources had been presented to her.
"Miss Zhong, Ding An, a world-renowned music producer, really appreciated Ren DongZhi's talent and wanted to make a custom album for him."
"Landi, a top-tier designer brand, felt that Ren DongZhi's temperament fit their company's style very well and would like to invite him to be their spokesperson."
"Li Yue has a date, a national variety show, would like to invite Ren DongZhi to be on their show."
"A director would like to invite Ren DongZhi to play a pleasing supporting role. What do you think?"
Looking at the invitations that came pouring in, Zhong Yi was baffled. These were resources that not even second-tier stars could secure. Ding An, especially, had turned down the invitation from a former music emperor who wanted to work with him in the past."
How was Ren DongZhi so lucky? He hadn't even done a thing and already had no shortages of resources. Zhong Yi was already prepared to work hard on it.
Was he like a walking koi?
Zhong Yi couldn't help but bring him to a shop and spent 10 yuan on a lottery ticket.
Luckily she only spent 10 yuan!
She knew she was overthinking it when she thought he could be a koi!
Everybody felt that Zhong Yi was a lucky one. She was but an ordinary girl but someone she ended up Fang JunRong's adopted daughter. She opened up a studio and was able to sign talents such as Ren DongZhi.
Then there were all the other talents who flocked toward her. Many were bitter when looking at her accomplishments.
Zhong Yi, too, felt that she was a lucky one. There were always those who wanted to send pretty boys to her adoptive mother and she was the one who ended up benefiting from that.
She did not forget her original purpose, however. She did her best to distribute the resources as fairly as possible depending on each individual's talent and would fight for them. Nevertheless, Ren DongZhi remained the one with the best resources. That was not because she was playing favoritism but that the resources asked for Ren DongZhi by name. Could she possibly turn them down? Surely she was not an idiot who would turn away quality offers.
Zhong Yi was no fool either. She knew that nobody could be that lucky. She did not believe that all of the investors appreciated Ren DongZhi at the same time. She even lost 10 yuan on the lottery so she didn't believe that he was a koi either.
Another director of a high-budgeted film reached out to them and expressed that they would like Ren DongZhi to compose the opening and ending songs for his movie.
Zhong Yi, too, took the opportunity to ask Ren DongZhi, "Do you know Director Gu?"
Ren DongZhi paused for a little and, seeing the confusion on her face, said, "My family, too, had some involvement in the entertainment industry. That was probably why they reached out to me." What he didn't tell her was that Director Gu was his uncle who had taken his grandmother's surname. As for the songs, he already had some inspirations. He had already seen the scripts ahead of time and would be able to express the emotions that the movie was aiming for.