Marry a female star at a bargain price

Chapters 247 and 248: Han Xixi rumored to be getting a divorce?
Under Lin Xiao's leadership, the entire team brainstormed, generating more and more ideas, which gradually became more and more outrageous.

In just over ten minutes, Leng Tao, who was in charge of video shooting, production and editing, filled most of his notebook with notes.

Although many of the ideas are particularly outrageous.

But Lin Xiao's words reassured him: "Tao, just go for it and don't worry about promotion. If you're obsessed with promotion, the videos you make will only annoy people, because what you're thinking about is promotion, and what netizens see is also promotion. Only if you genuinely find it interesting and fun will netizens not be disgusted by it, and may even be attracted to your videos, understand?"

Leng Tao nodded: "Lin Zhen, I understand!"

Lin Xiao laughed and said, "Then go for it! Don't hold back just because we're the official propaganda account of a government department. Whether it's being quirky or sensational, go for it! I'll cover for you if anything goes wrong!"

Leng Tao smiled brightly and nodded easily.

The reason why these young people in the task force were willing to follow Lin Xiao was partly because he was of similar age, easy-going, and had no airs of a leader, but more importantly, it was because of his promise: "If anything goes wrong, I'll take care of it."

These days, there aren't many leaders who dare to say such things, after all, everyone wants to play it safe.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with seeking stability.

However, to a certain extent, it will affect the enthusiasm and creativity of cadres, making them afraid to raise ideas or act on them.

So right now, in the conference room.

The free-flowing, increasingly outrageous work atmosphere within the tourism task force led by Lin Xiao is quite rare.

Even within Chaobai Town, many veteran comrades felt that the special task force was too noisy and unstable, and they openly and secretly reported this situation to Lin Xiao many times.

Lin Xiao didn't want to offend the old comrade.

Therefore, they had no choice but to agree outwardly, promising to be mindful of the impact and the methods and approaches used in their work.

But in private, apart from asking these highly motivated young people to keep their voices down, everything else remained the same.

Over time, a tacit understanding developed within the task force.

Once the door is closed, everyone speaks freely without any formalities, and in a moment of agitation, some even call out the leader's name directly.

As soon as the door opened, Deputy Mayor Lin, with his airs of authority, instantly transformed the officials into Xiao Sun, Xiao Leng, Xiao Zhou, Xiao Liu, and so on...

The previous town mayor, Qin Zhenggang, knew about these things.

The current acting mayor, Tu Hui, also knows this.

But none of them got involved.

On the contrary, I felt that these young people were very energetic, and the air in the whole town compound became more vibrant and no longer so lifeless.

Thus, this work atmosphere was preserved in a rare way due to the unanimous understanding of the whole town, and it also caused some ripples in other departments, triggering a series of incredible butterfly effects.

Thanks to Leng Tao's overtime work.

Two days later, on September 24, the exclusive promotional video for Chaobai Town, "Love Like a Tide," was released.

Lin Xiao, taking advantage of his position as the supervisor in charge, became the first audience member.

Then he blushed.

Although the overall concept originated from him, there is still a significant difference between the ideas in his mind and the actual finished product.

When Lin Xiao listened to Lao Cao's magnetic and melancholic singing voice, paired with the calm, objective, and emotionless visuals, the stark contrast was almost unbearable for him.

He watched the entire film with a furrowed brow, wanting to laugh but not finding it funny.

"Lin Town...does anything need to be changed?" Leng Tao asked awkwardly.

"No need, absolutely no need to change it, it's perfect!"

"Really?" Leng Tao couldn't believe it.

"Of course!"

Lin Xiao's eyes lit up, and he laughed, "Just post it like this... it's bound to be a hit!"

……

That evening, in Haicheng.

Programmer Zhang Xincheng worked overtime until 11 p.m. once again.

With the National Day holiday approaching, there's an especially heavy workload, and my supervisor has asked us to finish all the work scheduled for the National Day holiday in these few days.

In other words.

Not only did we have to take time off during the National Day holiday, but our work was not delayed at all, because we finished all the work ahead of schedule during the holiday.

Then, instead of paying overtime, they gave you a seven-day holiday, making you spend all the money you earned from working overtime on crowded artificial tourist attractions...

Then the holiday ended, I was broke, exhausted, and the thing I did most during the entire holiday was queue up...

"Impossible! I'm not going anywhere this holiday, I'm just going to stay home and sleep for seven days!"

Zhang Xincheng is determined to remain sober while everyone else is drunk during the upcoming National Day holiday, and will resolutely refuse to go out no matter who invites him.

With this determination, he took a taxi back to his rented room.

The takeout arrived just in time, and by the time he finished eating, it was already past midnight.

At this moment, he was covered in sweat and his eyes were swollen. He had to get up at 6:30 a.m. tomorrow to go to work, so he could only get six hours of sleep at most.

This is even without him taking a shower.

Zhang Xincheng is conflicted.

I stayed up until after 3 a.m. last night. After putting down my phone, my first thought was to swear that I would never stay up late again and would go home and sleep.

And today, the time left for him is even more urgent.

He also knew that getting to sleep was the first rule for saving his life, otherwise sudden death was not far away!
Zhang Xincheng was anxious and struggled for a long time with whether to go to sleep directly or take a shower before sleeping.

I hesitated for half a minute.

Then he lay down on the bed, took out his phone, and smoothly opened TikTok.

Screw early to bed and early to rise!

After working like a beast of burden all day, the only time that belongs to oneself is the evening, and even that time is used to go to bed early and recuperate? Are you trying to get so healthy so you can work for capitalists?

Zhang Xincheng instantly grasped the true meaning of capitalist exploitation and made the most loyal resistance by performing a hot dance by a Douyin (TikTok) girl.

"My phone still has 27% battery left. I'll scroll through it until it shuts down and then go to sleep... After all, I need to stay alive!"

Xiao Zhang quickly made peace with his anxiety and lay there happily scrolling through his phone.

After a dozen or so hot dancing girls, a beautiful scene came into view.

The image is an aerial view from above, with a winding river in the middle and lush green trees on the left and right sides.

Keep this image still for the first three seconds.

Zhang Xincheng subconsciously thought that this was a very common travel video, one that he had seen quite a few of in his daily life.

But today, he just made a promise to himself not to fall into the capitalists' trap again, and he will resolutely not go out to spend money this National Day holiday.

So, almost with resentment in his heart, he swiped away.

The next video features a tall, busty woman dancing energetically.

Zhang Xincheng smiled again, but vaguely remembered that the image he had just swiped away had a long piano prelude, and the blogger's profile picture showed that he had followed it.

He had a doubt.

A few seconds later, it slid back down again.

The piano prelude continued playing, and the subtitles appeared in the center of the screen.

"Love is like a tide?"

Zhang Xincheng looked at the four large characters with a puzzled expression. The font was not beautiful, and even looked somewhat crude and pretentious.

But the piano prelude is particularly captivating.

Several times he tried to swipe away, but his finger remained on the screen.

Zhang Xincheng glanced at the profile picture and realized that he had indeed followed this account before; it seemed to be a propaganda account for some kind of township.

Although it's an official account, it really likes to create mischief.

The promotional videos posted by the account don't have the aloofness of an official account at all. They're always making jokes and riding the wave of trending topics, which is quite interesting.

At that time, Zhang Xincheng was not as "enlightened" as he is now.

During a break from his busy work, he thought about taking a trip to relax. He happened to come across a video of "Chaobai Window" and thought it was very interesting and the scenery was nice, so he followed it.

Looking back now, it's been a while since I've seen any videos of Chaobai.

He was in a strange mood.

He then noticed that the video had received over 4 likes, which surprised him greatly.

Because of this account, apart from the first few videos that got over 10,000 likes, the number of likes has remained around a few hundred ever since.

He always thought it was a niche account.

Unexpectedly, this small town is quite good at creating entertaining content, producing another video with over 4 likes.

Zhang Xincheng checked the release time again and found that it was noon today.

It's quite remarkable that such data and popularity have been achieved in just half a day.

After making these judgments, Zhang Xincheng finally left the screen with his thumb, which had been about to swipe away. With a sense of looking down on the video as if he had been "acquitted" and a feeling of "I'll see what you're capable of," he began to watch the video.

Just then, the intro to the video finished playing.

A deep, slightly melancholic, hoarse male voice, filled with sorrow, rang out.

I won't ask why you're crying.

I don't care who else is in your heart

Let me comfort you.

Whether the ending is happy or sad...

After just a few lines of singing, Zhang Xincheng was stunned.

"It sounds great!!" He was pleasantly surprised, and his swollen eyes, caused by working overtime all night, immediately lit up.

"But... what's the point of pairing such a sentimental and heartfelt song with these completely unrelated landscape scenes?"

Zhang Xincheng frowned.

If he hadn't followed this account and known that they always operated this way, resorting to any means necessary to promote their own scenery!
Zhang Xincheng immediately felt that this was the flavor... but it was even stronger than before!
He subconsciously thought that this video was imitating the account's first video, "A Small Town That Isn't Legendary," which also had the same style, using landscape scenes paired with the song "Legend."

At that time, Han Xixi's song "Legend" had just been released.

The video of the Chaobai window hit the trend perfectly, which is why it went viral so quickly, and the video eventually received an astonishing 50 likes.

This is also the video with the most likes on the entire account so far.

When Zhang Xincheng saw this, he subconsciously felt that Chaobai Town wanted to replicate the popularity of that video, so they made another one called "Love Like a Tide".

This is understandable.

What puzzled him was that the song sounded unfamiliar and he had no recollection of it at all.

"Is it a new song? I'll have to search for it later..."

Zhang Xincheng wasn't in a hurry; he watched with curiosity and appreciation.

A heartfelt voice echoed through the cramped and cluttered rented room.

Zhang Xincheng listened very attentively and watched very carefully.

To be fair, the song is really nice and the scenery is beautiful, but the combination of the song and the visuals is really strange, which made him feel out of the story several times.

This gives you the feeling of having steak with millet porridge.

The steak was delicious, and the millet porridge was also tasty, but they just didn't go well together.

But somehow, the lyrics and the visuals are inexplicably intertwined.

Zhang Xincheng didn't realize this at first, until he heard the line "I never want to see you drunk in the middle of the night again," and the video showed a picture of a mountain spring rice wine brand in Chaobai Town. Only then did he understand the logic behind the video editing.

"Hahaha, you're crazy!"

Zhang Xincheng burst out laughing.

It's clearly a sad love song, but he couldn't feel sad at all. In the second half, he even listened and watched with the intention of answering questions and clarifying doubts, carefully analyzing the connection between the visuals and the lyrics.

This inexplicable amusement kept him watching until the video ended.

And then, it started all over again...

Zhang Xincheng watched it three times in a row before his desire to solve the mystery faded considerably. He was completely freed from the anxiety of "staying up late is bad for your health" and the fear of "how many more hours of sleep I can get," and now he felt very relaxed.

The video is playing for the fourth time.

His phone battery was still at 20% and had turned red, but he still didn't swipe away. Instead, he started a routine action—listening to the audio while scrolling through the comments.

You wouldn't know unless you looked into it.

Upon closer inspection, Zhang Xincheng discovered many things he had never known before.

"What the heck is this video? Are marketing accounts this good at creating hype these days?"

Tell me where the video was uploaded to [IP: Nanzhou]

"Holy crap, it took me three tries to realize this was an official account!"

"No, this song is really good, why have I never heard it before?"

Is it possible that this is a new song? [Image]

The image shows the search results for the phrase "love is like a tide" on a music player, but the results are all irrelevant.

This result proves one thing—there is no song called "Love Like a Tide" at all!
This comment received more likes than the video itself, reaching over 5.

This comment directly sparked a case-solving frenzy in the comments section.

"Chaobai Town? The Chaobai Town that Han Xixi and Jiang Xueying both visited? The Chaobai Town where Ma Yao is said to be located?"

"Could this song have also been written by Ma Yao?"

"That shouldn't be the case. Ma Yao only writes songs for Han Xixi, but this song is sung by a man!"

"Could this singer be Ma Yao?"

"Han Xixi isn't getting a divorce, is she? I was saying she looked much fatter at the Kalia new product launch a few days ago, and I thought she was pregnant. Turns out she gained weight from overeating after a breakup???"

"I think so too!! And think about it, since the name Ma Yao first appeared, apart from the first song 'Later' which was dedicated to his first love Jiang Xueying, so many of the songs after that were dedicated to Han Xixi, and they were either sweet like 'Warm,' inspirational like 'Keep Walking in the Rain,' or ethereal like 'Human World.' But now we have a song as sad as 'Love Like a Tide,' and it's not even sung by Han Xixi... It's really hard not to think too much!"

"Oh no, this can't be that bad!!"

"To guess Han Xixi's divorce based on just one song? That's outrageous!"

"That's right, my Xixi got caught in the crossfire without any reason!"

"..."

The comments below are becoming increasingly unserious, and the content of the discussions is becoming more and more outrageous.

Zhang Xincheng was also completely confused.

"Han Xixi? Ma Yao? What does this have to do with anything?!"

Zhang Xincheng certainly knew these two people.

Although he is a programmer, he also likes to listen to music, but he usually listens to male singers. He feels that Han Xixi, who is known as the newcomer with the strongest traffic in the music scene, is just so-so.

Of all Han Xixi's representative works, the only one he truly liked was "Legend," partly because of the promotional video for the Chaobai window.

Right now, under a sad love song sung by a male voice.

Zhang Xincheng was quite surprised to see the name "Han Xixi".

"That mysterious musician Ma Yao is actually Han Xixi's husband?"

"Does Ma Yao live in Chaobai Town?"

"This song was written by Ma Yao? No way, doesn't Ma Yao only write songs for Han Xixi?"

"Who's singing? Could it really be Ma Yao?!"

"..."

Zhang Xincheng never pays attention to gossip in the entertainment industry.

Otherwise, he would know that all the doubts in his mind have already been thoroughly exposed by netizens online, leaving him with nothing but his underwear.

Various pieces of evidence, analyses, and inferences have directly confirmed the fact that "Ma Yao is Han Xixi's mysterious husband."

Of course, he didn't really care about these gossips.

As a music lover, and also a poor soul who just broke up with his girlfriend two months ago.

All he cares about now is who wrote and sang this beautiful, sad love song... and why they would use such a great song as background music for a tourism promotional video!
Zhang Xincheng was both excited and angry.

I wasn't sleepy at all, so I opened my Douyin account and searched for the phrase "love like a tide" in my browser and music player.

As the screenshot in the comments section showed, there was absolutely no relevant content.

Only then did he believe that the latest video from the Chaobai window was completely different from the one from a few months ago, titled "A Small Town That Isn't Legendary."

That video used the song "Legend".

But at that time, "Legend" had already been released, so at most they were just trying to ride the wave and make a clever move.

But now.

A high-quality work like "Love Like a Tide," full of emotion and of high standard, appeared out of nowhere in a promotional video for the tourist attractions of Chaobai Town, just like Sun Wukong sprang from a stone.

This isn't Chaobai Town trying to ride the wave of popularity!
Instead, this little-known town, which has been promoting itself as a tourist destination but whose scenery is actually quite ordinary, is creating an overwhelming amount of buzz out of thin air with an exaggerated energy!
If, as netizens have speculated, the mysterious musician Ma Yao wrote this song for Chaobai Town, then...

Now, for all netizens to hear such a wonderful song, we must first thank the Chaobai Window account and the people in charge of tourism development and promotion in Chaobai Town.

After analyzing all of this, Zhang Xincheng suddenly understood everything.

I was just complaining that such a good song was paired with a tourism promotional video for a rural town, which was a real waste.

But now I can't help but feel regret.

He has to thank Chaobai Town for allowing him to hear such wonderful songs.

At this point, a new comment in the comments section corroborated Zhang Xincheng's conjecture.

"I think it's a bit far-fetched to directly connect Han Xixi and Ma Yao's divorce to a song. In my opinion, the most reasonable explanation is that the Chaobai Town authorities found Ma Yao. After all, the fact that Ma Yao lives in Chaobai Town is already confirmed by Han Xixi and Jiang Xueying's visits to the town."

Such a talented person is right here in the area, and Chaobai Town and Anyang County certainly won't let such a valuable resource slip by. They'll definitely use all their resources to find him. It's a small place; everyone knows everyone else. Such a genius can't possibly stay hidden forever, so it's only natural that they'll find him!
"Once they found it, it wouldn't be difficult for the authorities to invite Ma Yao to write a promotional song for his hometown... However, I don't know why Ma Yao's new song has changed from his previous inspirational, sweet, and ethereal style to such a sad love song, and why he didn't give it to Han Xixi to sing..."

Zhang Xincheng doesn't pay attention to the gossip circulating online, nor does he care whether Han Xixi and her husband are having marital problems.

now.

He lay in his rented room, watching the clock strike midnight, his phone battery turning red.

Looking at the lush, expansive, and rather charming scenery in the video, I was filled with emotion.

He broke up with his girlfriend two months ago, and he no longer feels anything for her.

When I open my eyes tomorrow, it will be endless work again, and I have no idea when it will end.

He graduated less than two years ago.

Suddenly, I felt like all my energy had been drained, and I was like a walking corpse!
"call……"

Zhang Xincheng sighed, suddenly put down his phone, and rubbed his face.

Then a decision was made.

"Go out and explore during the National Day holiday, anywhere is fine, even if it's crowded outside, just go out and get away from home..."

Although he thought this way, he already had an ideal destination in mind.

He doesn't actually like traveling, and he doesn't have any particular preference for beautiful scenery or delicious food; he always feels they're all pretty much the same.

That being the case.

This Chaobai Town... seems pretty good!
(End of this chapter)