After offending capital, my songs became more and more popular.

Chapter 194 Two Small Goals? The program's exorbitant appearance fee!
"Okay, let's take a look at the ranking results for this round of competition!"

Under Director Niu's instructions, the host did not continue reading the advertising copy this round. Instead, after singers such as Yue Huochuan and Chen Chuan took the stage, the competition proceeded directly to the ranking segment.

"Oh!!!"

The audience, who had been thoroughly entertained until dawn, showed no signs of waning their enthusiasm. On the contrary, they remained thrilled by the continuous stream of excellent performances, and the online live stream chat was buzzing with excitement.

[I don't even need to look at these rankings; it's definitely Shen Ming'en's home turf again.]

[Sparrow Food, my brother's two pieces this round were absolutely amazing, especially the second one...]

[Shen Ming'en: I'll say it again, back then I had my hands in my pockets and didn't know what an opponent was!]

[Shen Ming'en: Who else?! ...

[Haha... Actually, everyone knows Shen Ming'en is awesome. The ranking seems more about just seeing how awesome he is.]

……

As the live comments scrolled by, the ranking results from the scene suddenly appeared on the big screen.

The audience both online and offline, along with the guests at the venue, all focused their attention on the large screen directly behind the main stage.

The moment everyone's eyes turned to that direction, a series of gasps of astonishment rippled through the crowd...

"hiss……"

Many people stared wide-eyed at the scene on the screen in disbelief.

On the screen, the votes for the other guests weren't particularly impressive. Although they had improved compared to the previous round, the progress wasn't significant. On the other hand, Shen Ming'en's votes were...

The screen displayed: "Shen Ming'en: 500 votes!"

Unanimous vote!

You read that right, Shen Ming'en successfully passed the fourth round with a 100% unanimous vote from the 500 audience members present!
That's an exaggeration...

That's outrageous!
In the previous three rounds, 498 and 499 out of 500 audience members voted for Shen Ming'en, which was already considered quite exaggerated. Now, he has passed with a unanimous vote. This is something that rarely happens not only in "Chinese Music Awards: Red Song Season" but also in the entire entertainment industry and in all music competition programs.

After all, it's impossible to please everyone; even the best works will always have nitpickers who find fault with them.

But Shen Ming'en is now crushing the average pass with a "unanimous vote"!

You tell me how exaggerated that is!
Every single one of the 500 audience members voted for him!

Actually, thinking about it, this isn't really surprising. After all, this round included an extra song compared to the previous three rounds, and Shen Ming'en's two performances perfectly met the audience's expectations.

It's not entirely surprising that his two works on the theme of "Defense Line," "Little White Poplar" and "The Moon on the Fifteenth," broke through the encirclement.

What everyone is looking forward to now is not the offline event. Many viewers are now speculating that if the offline event is like this, how exaggerated will Shen Ming'en's online support be?

"Wow, let's congratulate Teacher Ming'en on winning the championship of this round of the [Defense Line] topic with a 100% unanimous vote, and retaining the No.1 position in all four rounds of creative competition this period!"

On stage, the host, holding a microphone, said:

"Next, let's see if our teacher Ming'en can continue his legendary career through the online voting!"

To be honest, many viewers watching the show online almost burst out laughing when they heard this...

So, why is it that even the host is only interested in Shen Ming'en now?
Is this a show specifically prepared for Shen Ming'en?

Does anyone want to pay attention to the lives of other singers?

The director is a real talent; the camera then focused on the other singers, and the gloomy, almost blood-drenched gazes on their faces were immediately apparent to all the viewers.

It was under these circumstances that...

The final episode of "Chinese Music Music Center: Red Song Season" [August 1st Theme], the results of the fourth round of online voting, appeared on the screen behind the stage through manipulation by backstage staff.

In fact, the online voting results are not that different from the offline results. So you can see that many singers' online voting results have improved compared to the previous round. But no matter how far they go or how high they climb, as the saying goes, there is always a mountain standing in front of them...

No matter how well they performed in this round, when you see the voting results for Shen Ming'en, who ranked first...

It was all just talk.

The screen clearly displayed: "Shen Ming'en: 16557659 votes!"

Go one step further!
Shen Ming'en, who had previously received a maximum of over 14 million votes, broke through again, achieving an astonishing score of over 16.55 million votes online.

Even those mainstream singers are starting to feel hopeless...

What the hell is this human being?
Does he really have no limits?!

Hakim, you bastard...you!

When they saw the result, many people's expressions weren't pleasant, especially Xu Jiajia in the backstage area...

In the backstage dressing room, the staff saw Xu Jiajia behind his back doing something, clapping her hands and muttering something to herself. So they couldn't help but ask, "Teacher Jiajia, what are you doing?"

Xu Jiajia didn't speak, so the staff, out of curiosity, went over and took a closer look...

"puff……"

The staff almost burst out laughing.

At this moment, Xu Jiajia found a string of prayer beads from somewhere, held it in her hands, and jingled it as she did so:

"Don't call my name, don't call my name, may Buddha protect me, don't call my name..."

She was actually chanting scriptures!

This is hilarious!
Having been publicly called out and remotely connected with by the production team in the previous rounds, and then being "face-to-face" humiliated by Shen Mingen, Xu Jiajia is now somewhat traumatized. She doesn't dare to challenge Shen Mingen in the first place, and she certainly doesn't want to be called out at this time and humiliate herself!

She was quite lucky this time. Shen Ming'en didn't seem to care about her. Teasing her once was enough; teasing her too much wouldn't be fun.

Right now, Shen Ming'en's attention is actually mostly focused on Director Niu backstage...

Whether to continue on the show or quit, Shen Ming'en needs an answer from Director Niu.

At the same time...

As for Director Niu's side, it can also be described as a complete mess.

"Director," assistant Zhou Yang brought Director Niu a freshly brewed iced Americano to cool him down in the summer heat, and whispered to Director Niu, "It seems that Teacher Ming'en's response from above is... there is no room for negotiation."

After Shen Ming'en came over and made some harsh remarks to Director Niu, Zhou Yang was sent by Director Niu to communicate with the higher-ups. In fact, not only Zhou Yang, but also Xu Qian and many others who could help with the communication were instructed by Director Niu.

Unfortunately, the company doesn't give them any leeway on this matter.

Niu Zhi's direct supervisor even told him directly that they would not give Shen Ming'en a single penny more, and at the same time demanded that Director Niu do everything in his power to keep Shen Ming'en. Just listen to that…

Is this even human language?

If you don't offer any discounts, how dare you expect people to stay?
How the hell are you going to go to any lengths for this?!
Is it called "at all costs" without offering any discounts?
His mouth was wide open, and what he spewed out was either lung fumes or fucking farts!
"Ugh……"

Director Niu sighed deeply, seemingly knowing that Shen Ming'en would come to "question" him after this round of performances, so he was full of worries and had no idea what to do.

It's worth mentioning that Zhou Yang, at this moment, started whispering in Director Niu's ear again, saying:

"Director, he's probably just trying to scare us. Yes, our show became popular because of him, but our show's position in the variety show industry is irreplaceable now, and we're no longer just an ordinary top-rated variety show..."

"Given his relationship with those capitalists, it's highly unlikely he'll receive any offers from us anytime soon..."

"It's a bad thing for us that he left, and it's definitely not a good thing for him to leave either, so I think even if we refuse him, he might not necessarily leave the show."

Director Niu heard these words, but his expression remained unchanged. He shook his head and said:

"You make it sound nice, but what if he's not just bluffing and actually quits the show? What then?"

"He wouldn't dare to direct that, he absolutely wouldn't..."

Zhou Yang actually appeared quite certain about this, saying:

"I think he probably knew we wouldn't agree to his request, so what he really wanted wasn't a large share of the sponsorship, but rather..."

"Announcement fee".

"You mean..." Director Niu turned to look at Zhou Yang, "...give him some appearance fee?"

“That’s for sure,” Zhou Yang nodded. “As far as I know, although we didn’t owe him any appearance fees, we transferred those fees directly to his company. Given his relationship with his company, they’ll definitely find all sorts of excuses to delay. Even if he eventually gets the money, there won’t be much left after the split…”

"That's probably why he's dissatisfied."

At this point, Zhou Yang leaned closer to Director Niu and continued:

"Teacher Ming En did come over in person to express his dissatisfaction, so I think we should at least give him a way out, otherwise we'll just end up like this..."

Zhou Yang from Biyang whispered a terrible idea in Director Niu's ear.

Although it was uncertain whether it would work, Director Niu felt that Zhou Yang's method was worth a try.

……

The fourth round of performances has ended, and the fifth round is coming up immediately. This round is the last round of the final episode of "Chinese Music Music Center: Red Song Season" [August 1st Theme]. As long as Shen Ming'en continues to show the same strength as in the previous rounds, he will be able to pass the test again and get through this major hurdle.

Once this major hurdle is overcome, it's likely that there won't be any more major hurdles to overcome...

Why?

please...

Frankly speaking, this kind of "hurdle" is something that even the capital group would find difficult to recreate, let alone Shen Ming'en.

After all, they had poured countless efforts into these five rounds of performances alone, cheering on the main singers in the program and frantically "bringing in outside help" for them.

They have money, plenty of it. If it's a battle of capital, they can outlast Shen Ming'en until he's a hundred years old...

The problem is, on this stage now, the competition isn't about capital, but rather...

What talent!
In the previous performances plus this five-round performance, they really spent a lot of money to hire a lot of people as "external helpers". It can be said that they are now almost broke even with "external helpers".

To put it bluntly, Shen Ming'en has almost single-handedly taken on all the mainstream songwriting work in the Chinese music scene.

It's not that they don't want to continue, it's that they can't continue!

If this continues, are we really going to expect these mainstream singers to actually create five songs?
If that happens, they will protest and want to quit the show, just like Zheng Yun and other guests from the previous season of "Chinese Music Awards"!

Now, we're just one step away from clearing the level.

Go Shen Ming'en!

Hang in there!

The audience seems unaware of Shen Ming'en's thoughts and is still cheering him on.

After finishing the recording, Shen Ming'en walked leisurely to the backstage control room where director Niu Zhi was.

Actually, it wasn't just Director Niu; almost all the production crew members present when Shen Mingen came to talk to Director Niu after the third round anticipated that Shen Mingen would come after the fourth round of performances. So when he knocked on the door and came in, no one was surprised. Instead, everyone's eyes were on Shen Mingen, and they were all wondering what would happen next.

Perhaps because they had somewhat fallen out before, even when Shen Ming'en came in front of him, Director Niu didn't address him as "Teacher Ming'en" as usual, nor did he offer him a seat.

He just stared straight at Shen Ming'en.

Shen Ming'en didn't care. He didn't need the production team to give him a seat or anything like that; none of that mattered...

With his hands in his pockets, standing in the middle of the control room, his gaze meeting Director Niu's in mid-air, Shen Ming'en went straight to the point, without any beating around the bush, and began with:
"Have you considered it?"

His tone was flat and calm, as if he had already anticipated what decision Director Niu would make, and there was not a trace of "expectation" in his eyes.

His condition, ironically, made Director Niu feel uncertain...

Even so, Director Niu still managed to maintain his composure, then stood up, moved closer to Shen Ming'en, and spoke to him in a voice only he, Shen Ming'en, and his assistant Zhou Yang could hear:

“We can offer you a promotional fee, up to five million for the first phase, and we can do it without going through your company.”

As soon as this statement came out...

"hiss……"

Even Zhou Yang, who was mentally prepared, couldn't help but show a shocked expression upon hearing this.

It's worth noting that even top-tier celebrities can only earn a maximum of two to three million yuan per episode for participating in variety shows.

Five million is a sum that no production team in the world, let alone the Chinese entertainment industry, could possibly offer.

Zhou Yang knew that Director Niu was going to ask Shen Ming'en for a higher appearance fee; it was Zhou Yang who had brought it up. But he never expected that Director Niu would ask for such a high fee, such an extravagant one!
What surprised Zhou Yang was...

Shen Ming'en's expression remained completely unchanged after hearing Director Niu's words...

He seemed... dissatisfied?

……

(End of this chapter)