I'm Really a Superstar

A while later.

The person-in-charge had hurriedly gathered several trusted members of his team and mysteriously ushered them into a small office. After shutting the door, he relayed the 'intentions' of the Director to them — "Need not mind the ban, pretend there's no decree!"

His subordinates reacted in surprise when they heard that!

"Ah?"

"This..."

"But why?"

"Didn't they get banned from broadcasts?"

The person-in-charge waved his hands and said, "Who are we to question the Director's intentions? We only need to carry it out according to his wishes!"

Did a power struggle happen within the management? The policy to ban the artists was not agreed upon unanimously? There were internal rifts? The members of the program team were stunned and looked at each other at the same time. They remembered that the SARFT's Deputy Chief had recently been transferred out suddenly, so did it mean that the power struggle was getting more intense? As Central TV, which was directly under the SARFT, their Station Head was also a member of the SARFT's higher echelons, so did that mean their boss was also involved? Did he intend to take the rank of Deputy Chief of the SARFT? Otherwise, why would there be such a request from the top?

Yes! That must be it!

This was really calling for a change in the status quo!

Everyone of them were alarmed as their imaginations ran wild.

A youth blinked and said, "Then how should we do this? Do we record Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai's competition and upload it? Or should we use our channel's website to do a live internet broadcast?"

Another middle-aged man said nervously, "Live internet broadcast? There's a limited quota of people that we can do that for. It's usually reserved for the preliminaries of those hot favorites. As we can only broadcast one team at a time, we might not have the resources to do that. Besides, Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai are amateurs who don't seem like they can actually perform crosstalk. Their performance, no matter how I see it, won't be good, so if we were to do a live broadcast....."

The person-in-charge gave a wave of his hand and interrupted. He thought through it calmly before clenching his teeth and saying, "We will assign a live broadcast slot for them. The words that Secretary An passed to me directly from the Director was to let us do the recording and to do it clearly. What did he mean by recording clearly? He must have meant for us to reserve the resources for this!"

A person said, "Alright then."

The youth hurriedly got up and said, "Then I will quickly go and make the arrangements. It's almost time for those two to begin!"

The person-in-charge said, "Go quickly then. Remember to keep this matter to ourselves. Don't spread the word in case it complicates things. Even if something were to happen and the sky were to fall, we still have a higher up to take responsibility."

The few of them all acknowledged this, "Yes, leader."

......

On the other side.

Division C's contest recording studio, in a waiting room backstage.

Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai had already changed into their crosstalk attire. Both of them were dressed in black. As they all say, clothes make the man. Proving this right, the two of them really looked as though they were crosstalk actors. Zhang Ye's clothes were borrowed for him by Yao Jiancai and just barely fit.

In the waiting room were a few other contestants as well.

The makeup artist was touching up their makeup to look better on camera.

A staff from the production team began briefing them on things to look out for, "When you get on stage and after the signal light turns on, it means that the recording has begun. Pay attention to your own expressions and movements as your recorded footage will be uploaded to the website after that. Also, please take note of the field director's hand signals. If there are any issue during the recording, the field director will inform you." The staff said a lot of things in a long winded briefing before finally looking at the few contestants. When his eyes swept over to Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai, he said, "Did you get all of that?"

Zhang Ye asked, "You're asking me?"

Only then did that person recognize Zhang Ye. He coughed and said, "Man, so it's Teacher Zhang Ye. No, I was just asking them. You know more about recordings than I do." Although Zhang Ye had been banned, no one dared to be arrogant in front of Zhang Ye. A starving camel was still bigger than a horse, much less this man of God. His popularity was increasing by the day even after he had been banned. The only person in the entire entertainment industry who could do that was Zhang Ye. Tang Dazhang and the other celebrities and experts could dare to doubt Zhang Ye, but as underlings, they could not.

When the door opened, a person came in and said loudly, "Next team, get ready!"

Yao Jiancai got up and stretched a little, "It's our turn, right?"

The staff nodded, "Yes, it's time for #8."

Zhang Ye gurgled on some water to moisten his throat before doing his usual vocal warm up, "AH-WU-LU-AH!"

Yao Jiancai also did his vocal warmups professionally.

Subsequently, the two of them followed the staff out of the backstage seating area.

Yao Jiancai said, "Since we won't get broadcasted anyway, why don't the two of us bros just loosen up a little more. I've not done crosstalk in such a long while now, so I must really enjoy it today!"

Zhang Ye smiled, "Sure, but don't you get nervous."

Yao Jiancai said, "Can this old bro even get nervous? I'm just afraid that you’ll make a mistake. Even though the both of us have done some practice, I've not heard you do a complete one. Don't worry about your old bro's strength. Even if you were to spontaneously come up with something out of the script, I'd be able to hold it down. I've got many years of experience to back me up."

Zhang Ye was tickled, "Don't boast now and screw up when the time comes, I might really have some unscripted lines to say. You should know me well enough that I have always done things on the spot."

Yao Jiancai laughed loudly, "Come on then, who's afraid of who!"

The two of them only had less than a day’s worth of practice, so they obviously were not able to polish the details of their performance from beginning till the end. As they were in a rush for time, Zhang Ye could only practice a few joke segments together with Old Yao and coordinating their timings on when to use a certain expression or a line. Any other thing was left to their improvisation onstage. Lucky for them, Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai both had a very good understanding of each other, as though they were long lost friends from back in the day. With this understanding, some of Zhang Ye's far-fetched ideas could still be followed up by Yao Jiancai. This made Zhang Ye very delighted as it wasn't easy finding another actor who could match oneself.

There was laughter coming from the set.

Tang Dazhang's two disciples were currently performing their crosstalk segments.

Zhang Xiao: "So what this segment teaches us is that we must all get as far away from the World Cup as possible!"

Liu Yuan: "Yes, we need to get far away from it, but we need to get even farther away from you."

Zhang Xiao: "Why do you need to get far away from me?"

Liu Yuan: "Because you've been talking bad about my dad!"

"Hur Hur Hur Hur."

"Haha."

The audience was very flattering as they reacted positively.

Zhang Ye was getting goosebumps, "What's so funny about that?"

Yao Jiancai threw up his hands and shrugged, "How would I know? I didn't hear it from the beginning, but I've heard them perform before and they are not too bad."

Zhang Ye scoffed. Not bad? This can be considered not bad? When he decided to take part in the crosstalk competition yesterday, he did some research about the good performances in crosstalk of this world. He found out that it was similar to the mainstream crosstalk performance of his previous world, basically the gala type of crosstalk. It had a little bit of laughing points, had different levels to it and had structure, but did not go out of line. It did not seem to be that popular and was not as funny as Zhang Ye thought it would be. To him, it probably matched the crosstalks of the early 2000s in his world, but what was different was that those years were when the crosstalks of his previous world was at a low and on a downturn. In this world, however, it wasn't so. The art of crosstalk was still very popular and welcomed by the masses.

As a result, Zhang Ye had been wondering since yesterday about the current world. He considered bringing some non-mainstream crosstalk works over here, but wondered if the audience would accept it. Zhang Ye always felt that any kind of art form had its own developmental path. Starting from creation, dissemination, rapid development, bottleneck, commercialization, breaking past the bottleneck, and continued development. That was the general path it would move in, but not necessarily in that same order. It was the same for crosstalk, but the only problem now was that the current situation in the crosstalk of this world was not suffering from a bottleneck of development and downturn. If he brought about the change to commercialization of the industry too early, then would the audience approve of it?

It was worth a try!

Zhang Ye didn't use any of the more common and politically correct gala style crosstalks even when he had a lot of them in his head. It just wasn't his style. He was ready to make a name for himself in this world by going down a different path from the others. He did not wish to do things that others could do. Instead, he only did the things that others didn't or couldn't do. If he did not even have such courage to attempt something new, he would not have the fame he was enjoying right now. For him to have reached where he currently was, it was all because he did things that no one else could attempt to do!

I can do what all of you can do!

But what I can do is not doable by any of you!

That is why he already had a clear answer in his mind. Zhang Ye was going for the challenge of introducing a new style of crosstalk!

Bba Bba Bba Bba!

The audience's applause rang out. It wasn't too enthusiastic, nor too cold, so it would mean that the performance was quite alright.

The judges' comments could be heard.

The set was a place which could accommodate a few hundred people. It was larger than the recording studio which Zhang Ye used for his talk show. The place was filled with audience members and, in the front row, was a row of tables where the three judges sat at.

An old crosstalk actor, who was one of the judges for this round of competition, said, "It was quite well spoken and the content is considered to be new. The structure was also clear. Hur Hur. that's all I have to say since I can't pick out any issues with it. I'll be looking forward to your second round of performances then."

A woman who was a gala director said, "Hur Hur, I want to add on something. This performance's ending was a little soft, so I don't think it was wrapped up too well. I get a feeling that the overall performance was not well supported by the ending."

The contestant, Zhang Xiao said, "Your criticism is right, we will improve on that."

The last judge, a man said, "But your overall performance was still quite good. If I were to give points for it, I would award the two of you 80 points."

Zhang Xiao and Liu Yuan both bowed, "Thank you, judges."

The female judge nudged her glasses up, "Alright then, you can go backstage and have a rest. Let's have the next group." As she said that, she picked up her list and read it, "Let me see which group is next....Eh?"

Zhang Ye?

Yao Jiancai?

The three judges looked at one another.

At this moment, a staff member went over to the cameraman and said a few words to him. He also communicated a little with the other technical staffs.

The cameraman and technical staffs were all stunned!

That person was still whispering quickly about something, as though he was giving the technical team some task.

All of this went unnoticed by the other contestants and judges.