Chapter 177 A young man with a big butt and a brain
In the director’s office in the Southern Sichuan TV building.

Both the host and the guest sat down on the sofa in the reception room. Meng Yunda sat in the host seat, leaning back on the sofa in a relatively relaxed posture. He looked at Zhong Xiaoyun leisurely, indicating that he could start.

Zhong Xiaoyun took out his mobile phone, clicked on a recording and placed it on the coffee table.

A clear conversation came out from the phone speaker.

There were only two people talking, and the recording scene was relatively quiet, so it was probably done indoors, or even in a private environment like home. Meng Yunda felt that the two parties in the conversation sounded very familiar, and after listening for ten seconds he could tell that this was a conversation between Zhong Xiaoyun and Zhao Mingtao.

Zhong Xiaoyun: Mingtao, I heard that Magic Cube is going to hold another talent show this year, and they want to invite a star mentor from Wushuang?

Zhao Mingtao: Where did you hear this news?
Zhong Xiaoyun: Oh, don’t worry about it, just tell me whether it is true or not. I was just curious after hearing the gossip.

Zhao Mingtao: I guess so. The Magic Cube talent show has been going on for several years, with four rounds for male and female contestants. We have invited almost all the famous singers and mature idols that can be invited, so we plan to change the taste for the audience and invite a movie actor or actress to be a mentor.

Zhong Xiaoyun: But what can actors be mentored to? Are they teaching them how to act in a variety show that selects idols? This is too outrageous.

Zhao Mingtao: Don’t worry about whether it’s outrageous or not. Look, once the news spread, you were so curious that you came to ask me, do you think the audience wouldn’t be curious? Besides, even if they were looking for actors, they would definitely look for some big names who don’t go out to record variety shows very often, to attract traffic, not to be shabby.

Zhong Xiaoyun: So, is it true that some companies will reserve debut spots in advance as they say on the Internet? You know, I have only been in the acting circle, so I don’t know much about this aspect, and I am indeed a little curious.

Zhao Mingtao: Yes, but it’s not the kind you mentioned. Generally speaking, a company will select a group of trainees to enter the program together. Each company has its own quota. If the company has a good relationship with the organizer or is relatively large, it will get more quotas, and the probability of debuting will be much higher.

Zhong Xiaoyun: Do you mean they won’t buy debut spots?

Zhao Mingtao: The organizers are not doing charity. Do you really think they spend so much effort just to get profits from fan votes and subsequent announcements of the group? How is that possible? What I mean is that before the show started, the organizers and these companies only reached a cooperation intention. There will not be too much bias in the first episode. At most, some trainees have connections with the organizers and can be given two more shots.

Zhao Mingtao: But then again, after the first episode is aired, the difference between the artists who are more popular with the audience can already be seen. If the company of such an artist is willing to invest, they will spend some money to buy lenses and editing scripts. There is another type. For example, if the company’s original main trainee did not get the expected results, if the company refuses to admit defeat, it will still need to spend money, and in this case it will have to spend more.

Zhong Xiaoyun: The latter type you just mentioned, is it what those show fans on the Internet are shouting about…Oh, the royal family?
Zhao Mingtao: Wow, you don’t even know much about talent shows, how do you know about Royal Family?
Zhong Xiaoyun: That someone in my family, when I first met her, wasn’t she a fan of celebrities? In the first year of talent shows, Magic Cube launched the first idol talent show that imitated the overseas model, and it became a big hit, and she was a fan of Han Fei in it. Although she hasn’t been a fan of him for a long time now, but at that time, she would curse Lu Siyuan’s billboards on the street and say that he was a royal family or something, and that’s when I learned about this.

Zhao Mingtao: No wonder. Lu Siyuan was indeed one of the first to try it. When he debuted on that show, his family didn’t spend much money, and they weren’t a business family. They mainly used connections. His parents are professors at the top art schools in China, and their students are all over the world, and they are all in various fields in the entertainment industry. Once they found these connections, they directly skipped Huanxing and let the organizer take care of the shots.

Zhong Xiaoyun: If that’s the case, then they got the shots based on their own ability, so there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s indeed not very fair to other people, but the entertainment industry is the most unfair place, so why are you calling them royals?

Zhao Mingtao: I guess it was because of his votes? Although Magic Cube took good care of him, gave him a lot of highlights, and even arranged a lot of attractive characters for him in the editing effects, his face was too ordinary in the circle. There were many people in the show who were more capable than him, and even more good-looking than him. He couldn’t beat others just by relying on his character. It was okay in the early stage, but the popularity gap was not small in the later stage, so he could only manipulate the votes.

Zhong Xiaoyun: What the hell, there is such a thing? Didn’t you say that it is usually the company that gives money to the organizer? Why can’t they just give it directly? Why do they have to do something else? Isn’t it easy to be seen?
Zhao Mingtao: How do you think they did it? The talent shows are very smart. If it was just a matter of spending a few dollars to cast a few votes, it would be illegal if the votes were rigged. The trainees and the audience who paid for the tickets could sue the organizers for fraud. But they changed the method. To vote, you just need to buy the milk of the sponsor. There is a QR code inside the bottle cap. You can get the ticket by scanning the code. The biggest difference between this and buying tickets directly is that rigging the tickets is not illegal.

Zhao Mingtao: So, whether it is fans raising money to buy milk and vote, or companies spending money to buy votes, they are essentially the same, just spending money on the organizer. Since they are all spending money, the agency directly goes to the organizer and says I will buy 500,000 boxes of milk from you, you give me a discount, I don’t want your milk, just give me the bottle cap to scan the code, isn’t that different?

Zhao Mingtao: I helped to make the connection at the beginning, and we had a good relationship. That’s why Magic Cube found Wushuang this time, and specifically mentioned that I was responsible for this matter, and the KPI would also be counted on me. You see, that’s how favors are exchanged.

……

Later, the two talked about a lot of gossip in the industry, such as the artists who debuted in the talent shows in the past few years, who is the illegitimate daughter of the brokerage company’s shareholder, who is the college student lover kept by the organizer, who is the dog kept by a certain alphabet circle director…

Of course it was very explosive, but Meng Yunda couldn’t bear to listen to it anymore.

He opened his eyes wide and looked at Zhong Xiaoyun, saying:
“How did you think of recording?”

There is a lot of gossip in the recording, but Meng Yunda is the director of Southern Sichuan TV, and Southern Sichuan TV itself is the originator of domestic entertainment talent show variety shows. It was done twenty years ago. At that time, he was just a small fry in the station. This kind of thing has happened a long time ago.

What’s more, as the station director, Meng Yunda usually interacts with people of similar level as him. People always talk about the tricks of the talent shows on the neighboring station at the dinner table, and there are many things that are more excessive than those in the recordings, so it is not really rare.

But during the recording, Zhong Xiaoyun and Zhao Mingtao were obviously still in a relationship, their tone was close, and Zhao Mingtao answered every question about this matter, sounding quite doting. This must have been a recording before the revelations, otherwise there would be no barrier between the two of them talking to each other.

Then the question comes-

Why did Zhong Xiaoyun record this audio for no apparent reason when there was no major conflict between him and Zhao Mingtao?

“I record my daily conversations with my partner. You must think I’m despicable, right?”

Zhong Xiaoyun saw Meng Yunda’s expression, smiled and said:
“If you knew my situation, you would understand why I did this.”

“The things Zhao Mingtao did on a daily basis included, but were not limited to, pimping for industry bosses and investors, associating with people like Lu Siyuan who were willing to do dirty work, helping to contact and manipulate votes for various competitive variety shows, instructing Wushuang’s artists to evade taxes in various ways, and so on and so forth. There were too many things to list.”

“Given my relationship with him, if he falls and is investigated by the higher-ups, I will definitely not be able to escape, so I must leave evidence to prove that I was not involved and had no knowledge of it. Even if some things are inevitably mixed up, if I submit these audios to the officials as evidence, it can still be regarded as providing important clues and redeeming myself for my crimes – even if the officials know what he did, it is impossible for them to have complete evidence in a short period of time, right?”

“The authorities have no evidence, but I do, and I can testify secretly. Doesn’t this give me a chance to confess and be lenient?”

“To put it another way, I am sorry for him, but I can’t help it. He and I are lovers, but he cheats on me a lot. Oh, that can’t be called cheating. After all, if I feel something is wrong, because he gives me too much, I can’t lose my temper with him easily. Can this be called a normal relationship? No way.”

“The relationship is already twisted. If I know what he is doing every day and don’t leave myself a way out, then I am really crazy.”

Clearly what he said sounded strange, and his views seemed to be jumping back and forth between right and wrong, but Meng Yunda was unable to refute it for a while.

If you say he is in love, he knows to keep evidence; if you say he is sober, he knows there will be big problems if something goes wrong, but he still refuses to break up.

As for saying that he was sorry to Zhao Mingtao, although he was a scumbag in front of his wife and children, it seemed that he did not cheat when he was with Zhao Mingtao – of course, it is also possible that he did not dare to do so. After all, he has many means, and normal people dare not offend him for fear of retaliation, let alone Zhong Xiaoyun’s identity. As for saying that he was not sorry to Zhao Mingtao, he always looked for opportunities to record, and the recordings were the kind that Zhao Mingtao would be killed without a burial place if leaked.

So weird.

At this moment, Meng Yunda finally felt that he was getting old. He could not understand the world of young people. Even after Zhong Xiaoyun had broken down the logic behind it, he still could not understand it.

half an hour.

Meng Yunda drank a sip of tea to calm down, and then said:

“I have a question—”

“Since you just said that he often cheated on you in the past, why didn’t you get angry before? Why are you going to kill him now that you’re against me?”

Zhong Xiaoyun looked strange:
“First, he was photographed this time, and it became a hot topic on the Internet. The whole Internet knows that Zhao Mingtao and Shu Yi are together. No matter how they deny it, the video of the passionate kiss in the elevator can’t be photoshopped.”

“It’s already up to my face. Even if I’m just a mistress who wants his resources, I can’t be indifferent at this moment. What’s more, I’m his boyfriend. But after the incident last night, I called him so many times, but he didn’t answer any of them, and he didn’t call me back. This is enough to explain the problem.”

“The problem is, this guy can give me resources, but they are limited, because my position in his eyes is very limited. He doesn’t even treat me as a human being, so there is no point in clinging to him. He may even look down on me more in the future because I forgave him. A boyfriend who refuses to leave even after such abuse will only become more and more unscrupulous in the future.”

“Secondly, do you think he can still protect me in this situation? So many people have seen the whole process of my scandals, it’s hard to clear my name, the best he can do is ignore it. Even if he ignores it, he needs to secretly join the crew to watch more dramas and prepare for his comeback. Zhao Mingtao could do it before, but now he can’t even protect himself, how can he take care of me?”

“Putting all your eggs in one basket is the stupidest thing to do.”

“Meng Tai, I’m not a very smart person, but I have some special luck. Even if something bad happens, I can always make the right choice at the critical moment.”

“I believe it is right for me to sit here and tell you this right now.”

“what do you think?”

What can Meng Yunda say?
Meng Yunda had nothing to say.

He was skeptical about Zhong Xiaoyun’s statement that he was not a smart man.

Indeed, we cannot say that Zhong Xiaoyun is very smart, but he must be very shrewd, otherwise he would not put aside all emotional factors and only talk about interests and trade-offs.

Perhaps according to common sense, Zhong Xiaoyun should have said it more tactfully, or at least not so bluntly. However, he did not. He was quite frank, so frank that even someone like Meng Yunda, who was used to the filth of the entertainment industry, felt that he was too sincere in putting profit above all else, and there was nothing to make people feel uncomfortable.

Ding-dong-

The phone rang. It was not the one that Zhong Xiaoyun had placed on the coffee table, but the one in Meng Yunda’s pocket.

Meng Yunda took out his phone and looked at it. His brows gradually raised. After looking at it for a long time, he looked up and said to Zhong Xiaoyun:
“What a coincidence! You just told me what he said, and now someone asked me to check out the live broadcast recording of ‘Dear Roommate’ online.”

“I went to watch the AI ​​subtitled version. Zhao Mingtao and Lu Siyuan avoided the camera during the show, thinking that there was no equipment. They said a lot of things that could not be broadcast under normal circumstances, including Lu Siyuan’s vote-rigging in the talent show.”

“Do you have any ideas?”

Zhong Xiaoyun was stunned for a moment, then he immediately took back his phone and searched the Internet.

Well, there’s no need to search for this, the titles of various software pop-up messages have already given a general idea of ​​what’s going on.

Lu Siyuan personally admitted that he had rigged the votes. Zhao Mingtao had obviously known about it for a long time. He arrogantly stated that he would severely suppress Han Fei after the show, and warned Lu Siyuan not to act rashly during the live broadcast.

Just by looking at the title, Zhong Xiaoyun’s pupils began to tremble.

This is indeed something that cannot be broadcast, but Southern Sichuan TV broadcast it anyway, and it was a live broadcast.

Lu Siyuan’s fans shouted that someone must want to harm my brother, and that the audio was fabricated and fake. After all, without the picture, it is hard to be convincing. As a result, professionals quickly came out to analyze the attached software screen recording, proving that there was no trace of tampering in this conversation. The chirping of insects, birds and water in the wild could be clearly heard nearby. Even if it was not a live broadcast, it must have happened on the island.

The fans have stopped making any more excuses, but they are just being stubborn and want to wait until their brother leaves the show to hear what he has to say in person.

Seeing that the situation was not right, the official Weibo account of Magic Cube immediately jumped out to make a statement, saying that they were not aware of the matter and that it was completely false and a rumor. Please do not believe in the rumor or spread it. The department will immediately initiate a self-inspection and will give everyone an explanation if there is really a problem.

A legitimate platform is a legitimate platform. The largest shareholder behind Magic Cube Video is Shengshi Group. Such large companies never make final statements and always leave room for themselves.

If it was just a random audio clip, they certainly wouldn’t do this and would just insist it was fake. But the problem is that Lu Siyuan and Zhao Mingtao are on the island now, cut off from the outside world. If a similar situation happens again later, and even if it is described more vividly with more details, it would be too painful to be slapped in the face!

Zhong Xiaoyun pondered for a while, pinching his knuckles together until they made a crackling sound, and then he spoke after a long while.

“I think this is a good opportunity.”

“Why don’t you give this audio to your company Apple Entertainment and have them cut out all my voice and only play what Zhao Mingtao said? It would be best if you could find a professional to do a voiceprint analysis and compare the voice in the recording with his voice on the show. Make it more conclusive evidence that even the PR team can’t prove.”

“Once this matter is exposed, Wushuang Films will definitely be in trouble. The recording is not just about Zhao Mingtao himself, but also involves Wushuang and Mofang, two giants in the industry. Director Liu should not have the time to cause trouble for Chuannan TV. He will be in trouble himself.”

“Shengshi’s legal department is not there to do nothing. Wushuang’s marketing general manager said something like this, so Wushuang must be held responsible for it.”

“This can also verify the live broadcast event, and improve the professionalism and authenticity of Apple Entertainment’s revelations. It will only benefit you and not cause you any harm.”

Meng Yunda looked at him deeply and said:
“It is truly a hundred benefits for Southern Sichuan TV, for me, for the program team, and for Apple Entertainment.

“But you’re not worried about yourself?”

“There were only you and Zhao Mingtao in this conversation. Even if others don’t know, when he comes out of the show and hears the audio, he will definitely know that you sold him out.”

“When that time comes, aren’t you afraid that he will fight you to the death and even take you with him when he dies?”

Zhong Xiaoyun smiled.

He laughed so exaggeratedly that tears were almost coming out. He laughed until the apple muscles on his face became sore and stiff before he calmed down and rubbed his face.

“No way, Mr. Meng, I still have so many recordings and evidence here. He has done so many things, most of which I have recordings of. I will send all of these things to you later. If you still can’t make him unable to turn over after all this, and you still have a chance to leave Sichuan TV and Apple Entertainment alone and insist on messing with a small fry like me, then I will accept the defeat and accept the bad luck!”

At this point, Zhong Xiaoyun’s expression became more serious, and he changed the subject and said:
“I can send you all the audio without reservation, and I can testify if the authorities need it in the future, but I have a request.”

“I wonder if Meng Taifang is inconvenient to agree to my request?”

Only after hearing what he said last did Meng Yunda finally breathe a sigh of relief.

This is right!

I’m not afraid that Zhong Xiaoyun will turn against us and surrender, I’m just afraid that he won’t want anything.

The free ones are the most expensive.

If he really had nothing to ask for, Meng Yunda would always have doubts in his heart and would not dare to do it freely. He would worry that there was some trick in this matter that he didn’t know about.

If Zhong Xiaoyun had something to ask of Sichuan TV or himself, he would weigh the pros and cons before deciding to give it up. Only an equal exchange of interests could put people at ease.

Meng Yunda was quite happy:
“If after the matter is over, it is confirmed that you have not committed any crime that requires you to go to jail, and it is just that you have a moral flaw, then go ahead and tell me.”

“Although Sichuan TV doesn’t have the ability of Wushuang Film and Television to easily give you a good role and allow you to film at any time, I can guarantee that no matter what direction you want to develop in, I can introduce you to relevant resources. As long as your performance is up to standard, it will be fine.”

“There is a certain threshold for this, I hope you can understand, because I will only introduce you to high-quality resources, and I cannot introduce people who are too obviously inferior, otherwise the quality will seriously decline.”

How could Zhong Xiaoyun have any objection?
He nodded repeatedly, his tone sincere:

“Of course I understand that the reputation of Sichuan Southern TV is real, and you are the ones who really cherish your reputation. I am here to do a serious career, and only by being strict can you achieve results, which is a good thing.”

“It’s like this… I was thinking, after this is over, can I try to join Sichuan TV and work behind the scenes? I mean, behind the scenes in the film and television industry, such as writing, directing, editing, post-production, photography, anything is fine, I’m not picky.”

Meng Yunda was really confused now.

He was stunned for a long time, and replayed Zhong Xiaoyun’s words in his mind several times before he was sure that he had not heard wrongly.

“You want to go behind the scenes? Why?”

“It’s not like Southern Sichuan TV doesn’t have its own dramas, and one will start filming soon. I personally approved the script, it’s great, if it’s made, it won’t be a big hit, but it will definitely have a good reputation. You don’t have to worry about your reputation, there are too many actors with messy private lives, as long as you can act well, this matter will be over, anyway, you’re not an idol, you don’t rely on fans to make a living.”

Zhong Xiaoyun shook his head very firmly.

他 说:

“No, that’s not what I’m worried about.”

“I am exhausted physically and mentally from staying in this hellhole of the entertainment industry, but I can’t do what Han Fei did, and would rather give up the money and leave here. I don’t know anything else.”

“If I move behind the scenes, I won’t have to use my beauty to please others, and I won’t have to worry about retaliation and suppression from Wushuang Films at Sichuan TV.”

“Meng Tai, I have thought it through very carefully. This is not an impulse. Please believe me.”

Meng Yunda was speechless.

After a while, he nodded and said:
“No problem. I’ll arrange it myself once this is over.”

(End of this chapter)