At a budget hotel not far from Zhe Lan TV.
Three men with unfriendly demeanors were glaring at one another.
More precisely, two of them were giving the third a death stare.
"Old Zhou, where's Teacher Zhang?"
"I don't know~" Old Zhou said, putting on an innocent look.
"You brought her here, and you don't know where she went?" Long Ziqiang looked utterly disbelieving, as though he had already decided that Old Zhou had hidden Zhang Xiaorong away.
Using this as an excuse, he egged Brother Lou on to beat Old Zhou up together.
Bring out the torture! Bring out the worst torture!
He didn't believe Old Zhou wouldn't confess.
What a wonderful plan.
Without the slightest hesitation, Bai Youlou acted entirely on instinct.
Old Zhou: Oh no, they're going to do it!
"Actually, Teacher Zhang..."
Old Zhou, who had just opened his mouth to tell the truth, never got the chance.
Bai Youlou and Long Ziqiang worked together with astonishing efficiency. One raised his leg, the other covered Old Zhou's mouth, and then they threw a blanket over him and gave him a good "beating."
He had wanted to deal with this "gay" Old Zhou for a long time. Since he had the chance, who cared what the circumstances were? He would cover Old Zhou's ears and teach him a lesson first.
"Ow! Fuck! Stop!"
After begging for mercy at lightning speed, Old Zhou pitifully crawled out from under the blanket.
Anyone who didn't know what was happening might have thought he had been violated by some specialty from Sichuan and Chongqing.
No, wait. A specialty from Tianfu.
"Teacher Zhang went to find her friends and family. You two bastards, where could I possibly have hidden her?!"
"Friends and family? Her relatives came?" Bai Youlou didn't feel the slightest bit guilty. He was simply interested in the topic.
"I really don't know about that. 'The Voice' is big on having friends and family cheer from backstage. I was originally going to be her support group and let you two form your own group, but then I thought about it. There might be some people in the industry who recognize this old face of mine, and if I appeared on camera with her, I might expose her. So I just had her contact some relatives and friends herself."
That explanation was fairly reasonable, and Bai Youlou abandoned his plan to go look for Zhang Xiaorong for the time being.
What if she had brought her parents over? If he went running over there eagerly, wouldn't he just be delivering himself to them?
Instead, he dragged Old Zhou along to study the schedule that followed.
The most important matter was naturally the Cannes Film Festival, whose shortlist was about to be announced.
Speaking of that, Long Ziqiang was not as excited as he had been before.
That was because he had looked into how Cannes' main competition worked. Only around twenty films could be shortlisted, and the competition was worldwide!
He hadn't even seen the finished version of "Whiplash," let alone the rough cut.
Just thinking about how this rookie director, Bai Youlou, was about to face famous directors and industry heavyweights from around the world, along with Best Actors and Best Actresses from every corner of the industry, made him feel that simply getting shortlisted would be a blessing.
He had even prepared words of consolation in his mind. He only hoped Bai Youlou wouldn't take too hard a hit.
Of course, there wasn't much to discuss about the Cannes Film Festival. Bai Youlou knew whether he could be shortlisted or not. After all, he had edited the film himself. Winning an award was the truly unpredictable part.
Compared with Cannes, the upcoming "film promotion" tour was actually a bit troublesome.
First of all, the episode of "Talent Show" they had recorded earliest was about to air. Bai Youlou and Long Ziqiang had to prepare themselves for nationwide attention and large-scale online abuse.
During that period, they would also be recording "The Voice," so they absolutely had to stay as far away from Zhang Xiaorong as possible.
There might even be plenty of paparazzi wanting to complete some KPIs through Bai Youlou and coming to Hangcheng to ambush him.
After all, the entertainment industry had been unusually quiet lately. The cheating team, the drug-abuse team, and the prostitution team showed no signs of scoring any points.
Rehashing Bai Youlou's stale news would obviously be a pretty good choice.
This feeling of dark clouds pressing down on the city, with a storm about to break, made Long Ziqiang a little nervous.
He was about to experience online abuse for the first time in his life, and he had no experience~
He looked toward the "experienced" Bai Youlou and found that the man was intently picking his nose.
Apparently sensing Long Ziqiang's gaze, Bai Youlou patted him on the shoulder. "Relax, I've got this. Most of the firepower will definitely be directed at me."
"The recording schedules for the next few programs conflict with each other. We have to make a choice." Old Zhou held a notebook and carefully calculated the schedule.
He was extremely professional at this sort of thing. Several years as an agent had not been for nothing.
Bai Youlou thought for a moment. "'The Voice' is slowing things down a bit. Their previous answer was that I'd sing two songs, which means recording twice. That will take at least a week. Is there a program during that week that we can go over and handle right away?"
Old Zhou answered without hesitation. "There is. It's a program you discussed before. I hadn't even gotten around to calling about the online variety show, but they invited you themselves. They're even willing to pay you an appearance fee."
"There are programs inviting me too?" Bai Youlou questioned Old Zhou's wording.
Old Zhou did not keep him in suspense. He simply spread the notebook open. "Because the program is called 'New Rap.'"
This...
That was interesting!
The main reason was that Bai Youlou had "participated" in this program before.
It had been the previous season, back when he was still an idol. He had appeared on the program as a guest performer for two episodes.
He could barely be considered half a program mentor.
But times had changed, and the "mentor" had become a contestant. He could figure out with his butt what kind of effect the show wanted.
Of course, that wasn't a problem for Bai Youlou.
It was nothing more than a little hardship~
The main issue was that he didn't like rap.
He looked at Long Ziqiang first, only to find that the man wore an expression of utter agony. He pressed his palms together. "Brother Lou, please spare me. I really can't do this! Even if you can write it, I can't sing it."
"Bullshit. You were shouting rhymed verses at the bar a few days ago."
"Shouting rhymed verses isn't the same as rap."
"Oh, right, one more thing." Old Zhou reminded them, "If you participate in 'New Rap,' you'll have to go over there tomorrow right after recording 'The Voice.'"
"This thing needs a rehearsal too?" Bai Youlou thought. Aren't those rappers all about being real? Isn't rehearsing in advance going too far?
"No. A urine test."
Pffft!
This time, he really couldn't hold it in. What kind of monsters and demons were on this show?!
It made sense, though. Anyone familiar with the rap scene knew what was up. And if anyone failed the urine test, they would be sent straight to another "division."
One of the program's former mentors was currently sitting in prison. Straight-up prison rap, skr!
"Brother Lou! Go! Let those rappers broaden their horizons!"
Long Ziqiang laughed with wild abandon, but Bai Youlou could swear that "broaden their horizons" definitely didn't mean writing an invincible, explosive rap song.
After all, they had known each other for so long, and they had even bathed together.
"Why don't you just say you want me to go over there and sell urine?"
"Hey! That could actually work. I once met someone involved in rap at a bar. How should I put it? They had all kinds of weird stuff going on. Some of them might really not pass the urine test."
"Then come with me. We can both pee together. More volume."
"No, no, please don't make things difficult for me. I really can't rap, and besides..."
Long Ziqiang seemed to have lost his mind just to avoid becoming a rapper, but he was also brave enough to challenge Bai Youlou to his face.
"Brother Lou, you might not be able to write rap songs either. Their live battle seems to involve writing songs to insult each other."
"That kind of thing is easy enough for anyone to write. It's like elementary school kids arguing. As long as you can rhyme, you're fine."
"Really? I don't believe you!"
"The first step to becoming a rapper is having a bad temper. You can't laugh and joke around every day. You have to make your enemies afraid. If someone picks a fight, you have to fuck them. Express my emotions through music, turn my flow into firepower to bombard you, my brothers stand on heights you can never reach. By the time you finish listening to this song, I'll be at home throwing an obscene party, skr!"
Long Ziqiang: ???
Fuck? He already rhymed it?
Bai Youlou patted him on the shoulder and interrupted Long Ziqiang's shock. "The main thing is to have anger in your heart and dislike everyone you see. If you lose two thousand Happy Beans in Fight the Landlord, you have to write a song insulting your opponent. Insult them from the time they wet their pants at four and a half to the time they become a simp at eighteen. Who would still dare say you aren't a rapper?"
"Bro, tell me more about that obscene party."
"Then are you coming with me or not?"
"No."
"Fuck! I'm going to write seventeen songs insulting you right now!"
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Today's fourth update. That adds up to nearly ten thousand words. Please follow the story and vote for Monthly votes!
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