Saying Chu Zhi's half the Asian music scene sounds way too braggy, but saying Chu Zhi's swept up most of Asia's entertainment fans isn't something anyone can argue with. The Involution King's range had expanded across the continent.
"If someone invited me to an event and said food, lodging, and travel don't cost a cent, I'd call 191 right away, because I'd assume it's some dumb scammer."
"I already knew. This star even showed up at a fan's wedding to sing."
"I paid two hundred thousand yen to attend Boy Group 13's meet-and-greet. Hotel and meals were twenty thousand, the ticket was one hundred eighty thousand. This Orange meet-and-greet's unreal."
"Why can't our South Korean stars do this?"
"Please tell me how to make sure my favorite star sees this."
"I don't even stan anyone and I'm suddenly jealous of the fans at the Orange meet-and-greet. Isn't it basically a free trip with food, room, and transport covered? You don't even need to pay for souvenirs to bring home."
From those comments alone, you could tell people were chiming in from South Korea, Thailand, Japan, and more.
The envy was overflowing, especially among folks who hadn't known about the raffle until now. Downloads of the Orange Family app shot up across Asia.
Niu Niu's team moved fast. That same night they pushed Annie's Wonderland online. LoveFruit had the muscle to bounce a song across the whole region on command.
For Japan and South Korea's entertainment industries, it wasn't so much the stars panicking as it was their agencies.
From a company's point of view, fan meetings usually had one goal, "harvest the leeks." You invest a little kindness to fertilize the field, then reap. Orange's meet-and-greet wasn't "a little kindness." It cost real money.
Little thief, you're breaking the rules with a sneak attack.
Big agencies were feeling it. Their official sites even got comments begging them to copy the Orange-style meet-and-greet.
At Johnny & Associates, Japan's biggest male idol agency that Chinese fans called "J Family," President Fujishima Tsugawa was fuming. "Copy that model? Who's paying for it?"
He knew the concept of long lines and big fish, sure, but pouring a huge sum every year into a single idol's fan meet, what if the fish never bites and the idol stops trending? Who dares guarantee those "little" expenses will come back?
Bad news, someone just broke the unspoken rules.
Good news, it wasn't a Japanese agency.
So they watched. If the comments stayed small, they'd play dead.
If it hit a certain volume, Fujishima Tsugawa would step out with, "Japan's got its own national conditions."
"China's market's too big. With that market at his back, Chu Zhi's basically untouchable." Omori Gento, transferred from Tokyo to New York, could only sigh. After landing in the U.S., he got more news, Chu Zhi was working with Fox, investing in a Hollywood blockbuster. Reaching this level as a singer, it was almost unbeatable.
Chu Zhi stirred panic among artists above and stoked envy among fans below.
In South Korea's fandom world, a famous big-spender fan named Seong Jaeae had a legend of her own. She'd started stanning idols at sixteen, from first-gen K-pop to fifth-gen, and she'd spent over five billion won, about twenty-something million yuan. No one had ever exposed her identity, maybe because no one dared. If a K-pop group made it to the top, odds were she'd chased them at some point.
There was also the folding-fan-type fan Kim Mina, who became a Twitter big account by translating idols' updates. She'd tried to "recommend" acts to Seong Jaeae, to put it bluntly, she wanted the rich lady to spend.
Seong Jaeae had never been interested in foreign stars. She wouldn't even listen to their songs or watch their shows. If a fan doesn't want to look at you at all, you can't reel them in.
This time, her old friend and classmate Kim Seo ran off to attend Chu Zhi's event. Seong Jaeae took a peek. "That face, it looks like an anime character walked out of a panel." Then she saw how he interacted with fans, and that was it, she fell.
South Korea cares a lot about how idols treat fans. Otherwise, they wouldn't have a whole single category called "fan songs."
She'd attended countless "fan appreciation" events. Free food, free hotel, free travel, take gifts on top of that, she'd never seen anything like it.
Korea's idol merch was world-leading because the industry was super commercialized, but even Seong Jaeae hadn't seen merch like Chu Zhi's. She especially loved the Orange Ripeness Watch. Wear it and your mental math gets better, like triggering a superpower. The official store had no stock though.
Once you change your mind about someone, everything else starts feeling "reasonable." The out-of-stock status, to Seong Jaeae, meant they were keeping the merch precious. She felt like that scarcity was something all of South Korea lacked.
So she started aggressively recommending:
"I know there's a Chinese post making the rounds in Korea. For 20,000 won, you can see a "Dream Collage" festival in Korea, twenty-plus idol groups partying with you. For 200,000 won, you can watch a Japan tour. For a million won, you can do an offline cruise date with idols in Thailand. But in China, even if you shell out 20 million won, you not only get nothing, you might even become gossip fodder.
My friends and I laughed at that post for ages. I'm not laughing now, because China has Chu Zhi, the idol you don't even dare to dream about.
I might switch from a ladder-type fan to a folding-fan type, or even an antenna-type fan."
At today's rates, 20,000 won's about 100 yuan.
K-pop fans even had types, based on the time and effort you spent: pyramid, ladder, folding fan, antenna, ring, and liquid.
Ladder-type meant, "I like several idols, there's no single bias," or "they're all my bias." Folding-fan type meant, "I have one true love, the rest are just walls." As for antenna-type, let's not get into that here, since it hadn't really gone mainstream in the Chinese scene.
Because of Seong Jaeae's hype, people in South Korea who'd never stanned a foreign star started stanning a Chinese one for the first time.
Asia was getting swept up in the grind, and Lao Qian's old bones were even more tired than the grind itself.
"I've really got to hire two more secretaries. I'm beat," Lao Qian said. "Annie's Wonderland blew up, and a ton of films just sent scoring invites. The menu's getting too big."
"You can hire an assistant, but let's hold off on scoring work," Chu Zhi said. "I'm too busy right now. I don't have time to add anything."
Lao Qian stretched. Maybe he imagined it, but his lower back popped audibly. "Fair enough. Let's stick to the plan. Once we've planted our feet in the West, we'll open the film scoring front."
Composers rank high in the film world. Big-name directors and producers treat them with serious courtesy. For the team, scoring was a lever to amplify influence, not the main quest.
"Jiu-yé, are you really going to that CCTV variety recording without even bringing an assistant?" Lao Qian asked.
"It's Retracing the Long March. What would I need an assistant for?" he said. "We're in a car the whole way. It won't be tiring."
Lao Qian nodded. He loved that gig for personal reasons. His great-grandfather had been an old Red Army soldier.
"Brother Chu, the recording session's ready," Xiao Zhuzi said, popping in.
"Got it." He stood, then added, "Brother Qian, I'm fine with hiring an assistant. Send the requirements to HR. Don't overwork yourself. If your back's not great, rest."
He wrapped the talk with Lao Qian and hustled to the meeting room for recording.
The team was pushing hard, hoping to wrap other tasks before he joined the CCTV program group, so the transition would go smoothly.
Busy or not, you still had to eat. Wang Yuan was a mom-fan and couldn't stand him skipping meals for schedules, so whenever needed, she'd "force" the team to feed him first.
Meanwhile, other Little Fruits in China still had a burning question.
"A lot of people keep asking who Annie is and why it's Annie's Wonderland. I rewatched the Orange Festival livestream. Jiu-yé said it's adapted from a European and American folk tune. I dug around, and it's probably the English folk song 'Annie,' so he titled it Annie's Wonderland. Don't overthink it. There's no special meaning. I'm just amazed at Jiu-yé's musical literacy. He can grab a folk tune even locals barely know and make it sing."
The internet's full of hidden experts. A user named "Want To Become The Good Kind Of Awkward" cleared it up for Chinese Little Fruits.
For most people on Earth, the biggest names in pure instrumentals are Sojiro, Bandari, and Joe Hisaishi. In China, "Swedish Bandari Orchestra" was famous, but it didn't really exist. Strictly speaking, Bandari wasn't a band name. It was a project name under Sweden's AVC label that created "meditation music."
They'd bought piles of European classical copyrights and adapted folk tunes. Annie's Wonderland lined up with what internet sleuths found.
That explanation soothed the fandom's curiosity, but Gu Peng's small-account comment turned curiosity into heartache.
VillageNetFatScholar:
"My idol, Chu Zhi, used to be one of those fresh-faced idols in China's music scene. When he debuted, Li Xingwei and Zhou Guowu hadn't fallen from grace, and the industry hadn't even set the certified diamond album standard.
Chu Zhi debuted first place on a talent show, number one in total votes start to finish. When results came out, he led the runner-up by 147 million votes, and the runner-up plus third place together had only 58.23 million.
One day the internet suddenly flooded with negativity, "secretly married," "knowingly third-wheeling," "kept by a sponsor." He became a rat everyone wanted to beat.
Just past twenty, Chu Zhi attempted suicide. He didn't want to live.
On a certain program, he brought evidence and cleared his name. "I hope there's less misunderstanding in the world. I especially don't want what happened to me to happen to someone else, because that feeling's too hopeless." That's how he summed it up.
In the first year of his comeback, he released 25117 Possibilities and held a fan festival.
In the second year, he climbed Xufeng Peak at daybreak, gave fans a sea of stars, and wrote Proud Youth to cheer on Gaokao and Zhongkao exam takers.
In the third year, he released the fan-dedicated album Little Fruits Are Sweet to thank everyone. By the fourth year, he was appearing in official reports again and again, basically the role model of positive-energy idols today.
"Fans are the first priority in my career." If any other star said that, people would roast him. There's one exception.
In December 2022, when he'd just turned twenty-four, he did a Face to Face interview. Host Dong Qian asked, "What do you want your future girlfriend to be like?"
He answered, "I'm focused on my career. Fans come first in my career. As for a partner, I haven't thought about it. When all my fans hope I get married, I'll consider it."
He's always like that, putting fans first. Lots of Little Fruits in Orang Home said they couldn't sleep, so he went to Fairy Mountain to record rain and made Annie's Wonderland.
But has he ever thought about saving himself, when he's suffering insomnia every day?"
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You can read more about Gaokao and Zhongkao + Imperial Exam on my Handbook. I write it both on my Imperial and Webnovel Hanbook.