Chapter 2: Why Aren’t You Acting Like A Diva?
“Chi Ge, clothes.”
The assistant handed over clothes from a certain brand endorsed by Chi Ye. Chi Ye was stunned for a moment, then took off his jacket and changed into them. The room also started bustling up, preparing to wrap up.
Amid the flurry of activity, the door to the makeup room was knocked on. Before the assistant could go open it, a young man walked in.
“Is Teacher Chi here?”
Chi Ye looked up: “That’s me. What’s up?”
The young man looked Chi Ye up and down: “I’m Teacher Huang’s assistant, here to say hello.”
Chi Ye was stunned.
Say hello?
《How to evaluate XXX》 This episode’s guests total four people including Chi Ye.
Chi Ye is the only traffic young male star among them.
Among the remaining three, the one with the highest star power is Teacher Huang.
He had already debuted and become famous before the millennium, and has been teaching at Beijing Film Academy for many years. His own seniority and connections in the industry are at the level of a senior.
Chi Ye didn’t inherit the original host’s memories, but from the fragmentary remarks of team members before, Teacher Huang was notoriously arrogant.
He would take the initiative to say hello to a junior like him?
“It’s like this.” Teacher Huang’s assistant briefly glanced at the furnishings in the makeup room and said concisely: “Teacher Huang will give everyone some gourmet food he made himself on the program later, and hopes Teacher Chi can… um…”
He thought for a moment and found the right description: “Act like you particularly like it, like it tastes particularly good.”
Chi Ye blinked.
Act like it tastes good? Meaning the food itself doesn’t taste good?
“Teacher Huang recently registered a new brand, so he hopes everyone can help applaud it.”
The young man looked down at his watch: “I still need to go notify the other teachers… You must act like it tastes really good. There will be other teachers cooperating with you then. No problem, right?”
Chi Ye put his hands in his pockets: “Problem.”
The assistant was stunned, clearly not expecting Chi Ye to answer like that.
Chi Ye asked with a smile: “No pay?”
The assistant came back to his senses, frowned at Chi Ye, then smiled again: “Teacher Chi really loves joking… This kind of thing doesn’t come with pay.”
Chi Ye drooped his eyelids, yawned, and didn’t bother talking more with an assistant.
“Alright, then that’s it. Hope we can cooperate sometime in the future.” The assistant thought Chi Ye had agreed.
Although he was very dissatisfied with Chi Ye’s “attitude” just now, he didn’t think anything else of it.
After all, with Teacher Huang’s star power, him coming over proactively was already giving Chi Ye plenty of face.
In fact, praising Teacher Huang’s cooking as tasty wasn’t that the default in the industry?
Chi Ye Team watched the young man leave. The assistant pursed her lips: “Truly, even a seventh-rank official is arrogant at the prime minister’s door. I saw him being much more polite to guests with higher star power. What’s an assistant got to be so cocky about…”
She was clearly annoyed by the assistant’s subtle attitude.
“Everyone on the whole web knows what level Teacher Huang’s cooking skills are at now. Still wants us to act along, no idea what the point is.”
Another team member pursed their lips.
Chi Ye recalled the information he had looked up online not long ago.
Not sure when it started, but Teacher Huang took a liking to the master chef persona.
He established this deeply ingrained image in multiple variety shows, especially in the two hit variety shows he is a resident guest on at Tomato TV and Mango TV.
Among them, in the Mango TV variety show 《Mushroom House》 where he is a resident guest, he pushed this persona to a peak.
Unfortunately, his own cooking skills are just average level. Recently, quite a few media and marketing accounts have dug into the truth of his cooking skills, and they’ve gone viral on various video platforms.
Now when audiences see him showing off his cooking skills on programs, they just feel a wave of disgust.
Even more disgusting are the hypocritical facial expressions of those program guests, paired with this program—it’s simply nauseating to watch.
But the buzz is outside the industry. Because of Master Chef Huang’s seniority and star power, no one inside the industry dares say much.
“Teacher Huang is participating in this program to promote his new drama, right?”
Chi Ye put on a watch from a brand he endorses and turned to ask the accompanying director who had just handed him the script.
“Yeah, it’s 《Little Happiness》 that he invested in and shot himself.”
The director replied.
Chi Ye casually asked: “Is the female lead in this drama his student? She came with him this time?”
The director was taken aback, not understanding why Chi Ye asked that, and nodded: “Yeah… Teacher Chi, is there a problem?”
Chi Ye looked at the director with a smile and asked in a joking tone: “I see a lot of content in the script is just one person asking questions. Does your program team want to promote her?”
The director was stunned and gave an awkward laugh: “Just regular questions. It doesn’t matter who asks them.”
Chi Ye glanced at him and said no more.
He had just carefully gone through this episode’s script and found that many “violent” topics about him were raised by a certain someone.
The other party is a little flower who’s been gaining momentum in the industry recently, but her star power is not as high as Chi Ye’s—barely third-tier.
Clearly, she herself doesn’t have the ability to take on this “gig.”
After all, everyone knows that in this episode, whoever criticizes Chi Ye the harshest will get the highest popularity and public favor.
From Chi Ye’s perspective of “mixing in the industry” in his previous life, the program team’s arrangement is probably to use this opportunity to pull down him and promote the newcomer.
Because the lead in 《Little Happiness》 is Teacher Huang’s student at Beijing Film Academy and is currently signed to his company.
Moreover, in the variety show Teacher Huang is a resident guest on at Tomato TV, there’s Chi Ye’s former teammate, and the two formed a “master-disciple” CP with a good private relationship.
Hmm… the original host had a very bad relationship with the former teammate…
Sure enough.
By the time Chi Ye finished packing and was about to reach the lounge doorway, the director who had been hesitating all along seemed to feel the program team shouldn’t take the blame. After thinking for a while, he gave an ambiguous hint:
“We have no choice either. This episode’s shots were specifically requested by Teacher Huang.”
No need to spell it out here.
Chi Ye smiled at him and pushed the door into the lounge.
At this moment, the other guests had basically all arrived at the lounge.
Teacher Huang sat in the center of the sofa. At his side was Lin Jingyi, the little flower in the industry who came with him this time and who the program team wants to promote.
On the other side sat a girl with loosely tied long hair, exquisitely beautiful, with a youthful baby face.
Chi Ye’s gaze turned over.
Chu Luan Yu, also a second-tier little flower in the industry, but she debuted much earlier than Chi Ye and has higher star power than him.
Moreover, her background is very special—she’s truly from the internal entertainment circle’s imperial clan with deep background. From debut, she’s been in various big productions, carrying the sedan for movie emperors and film empresses. Only in recent years’ film and TV winter has she occasionally come down to shoot TV series.
Unfortunately, despite being fed so many good resources, she’s still lukewarm these years and is an unlucky person on par with Chi Ye in the industry.
Chi Ye greeted the guests one by one, but Teacher Huang clearly “didn’t recognize” Chi Ye. He sat arrogantly in his chair without moving, just glanced at him and pulled out tissue paper to blow his snot.
Looked like he had a bit of a cold.
His student Lin Jingyi’s attitude was even more obvious.
Because she knew she had to trash Chi Ye hard today. In the industry, a lower star power one trashing a higher star power one is basically aiming to offend the other to death.
Chu Luan Yu, on the other hand, acted very enthusiastic, shook hands with Chi Ye, and looked at him strangely.
Chi Ye held back for a bit, then still asked: “Why do you keep staring at me?”
Chu Luan Yu stared at him unblinkingly, very seriously: “Why aren’t you acting like a diva?”
Chi Ye: “…”
Speechless for a few seconds, Chi Ye inwardly sighed how many evils the original host had done.
Ingrained impressions are deeply harmful!
……
《How to evaluate XXX》 Season Five has always used the most commercial market model now: broadcast first then record, meaning live broadcasts during recording, then a week later release edited recorded versions on the platform and satellite TV.
The guests’ makeup and styling were all done. Midway, the program host—Teacher Huang’s industry friend Teacher He—brought the resident guests over to say hello to everyone.
Ten minutes later, the program officially began.
Lin Jingyi, with the lowest star power, was the first to appear. Chi Ye was the second to appear.
Amid the host Teacher He and guests’ “wow” hype at the front, Chi Ye walked onto the stage, simply exchanged greetings with everyone, and sat on one side of the sofa.
There weren’t many audience members at the variety show recording site, but the venue was large, giving an overall feeling like a large friend-making salon.
Including the program team’s three resident guests, seven people in total didn’t seem crowded.
“Don’t be mad, I was just curious.”
After Chu Luan Yu appeared and greeted everyone, she sat in a position closer to the shot and whispered an apology to Chi Ye:
“I always hear them say you often act like a diva. Actually, I act like a diva a lot too. And we’re both resource persons who haven’t been promoted to fire. I feel like we’re kindred spirits.”
Chi Ye: …Thanks.
“Look at those people cursing us every day—they’re actually full of envy, jealousy, and hate.” Chu Luan Yu was very familiar, batting her eyelashes: “What do you think? Anyway, that’s how I usually comfort myself.”
“Oh.”
“How do you usually comfort yourself?”
“Don’t.”
“Let me tell you a secret.” Chu Luan Yu suddenly lowered her voice extremely: “She’s got a plastic surgery face, seems like it went wrong.”
Chi Ye’s gaze glanced toward Lin Jingyi not far away.
Indeed, this one must be a master well-versed in renovations, full face of cyber technology, already having the vicissitudes of fifty at over twenty—skipping thirty years of detours.
“Let’s welcome today’s final guest—Huang Jianfeng, Teacher Huang!”
Screams suddenly erupted from the audience below.
Nearby, Chu Luan Yu and the other two residents immediately put on surprised expressions.
Lin Jingyi even covered her mouth with both hands, eyes delighted: “Teacher Huang, no way, even Teacher Huang came?!”
“Wow, this is a heavyweight guest. The program team is getting richer and richer.”
A male resident sighed with high emotional intelligence: “I’m Teacher Huang’s fan.”
“I love eating the food he makes the most—tastes explosively good!” Lin Jingyi made a gesture of ascending to heaven: “Every time I eat it, I feel so happy.”
“Yeah yeah, I ate it once when I went to 《Mushroom House》 last time. That taste… unforgettable for five days.” Another female resident had starry eyes.
So bad it was unforgettable for five days?
Chi Ye couldn’t help but remind: “Only five days? Shouldn’t it be five years?”
“Oh, right right, look at me, five years… no, fifty years!”
The female resident didn’t get Chi Ye’s meaning and even thought he had good program effect.
Chi Ye already very supportively shouted: “Teacher Huang! Teacher Huang! I’m your fifty-year old fan! Huang Bees! Huang Bees! Ultimate love Jianfeng!”
Lin Jingyi and the others were dumbfounded hearing this.
Chu Luan Yu couldn’t hold back and laughed out loud.
Teacher Huang, who had been full of smiles, froze, frowned and glanced at Chi Ye, feeling a wave of bad luck.
Fifty-year fan? How old am I this year? You were fanning me when I was still fresh and juicy?
Over the top!
What was the assistant doing?
Told you to act, not to act this exaggeratedly!
With Chi Ye stirring it up like this, even the dullest audience could feel that everyone had just been acting!
