My Artist Is Reborn

Chapter 81.1 – Du Yuping

In the last few days of the Chinese New Year, the mobile phones of the three of them never stopped ringing as people kept calling for New Year’s greetings, and even more people sent WeChat messages and so on.

On the third day of the new year, Cheng Mengjiao with her group of friends also came to pay a New Year’s visit to Chu Mei Bo.

Chu Mei Bo’s New Year was very pleasant. Although, in order to maintain her figure, she couldn’t eat and drink delicious food too greedily, at least Shen Huai didn’t give her too much homework, which was just enough to appease Chu Mei Bo’s grumpy mood.

On the sixth day of the new year, school started. After all, they were in their third year of senior high school, so their holidays were shortened a lot.

In order to prepare for the college entrance examination and also for the audition for “Red Actor”, coupled with the recording of Chu Mei Bo’s “Travel with History”, Shen Huai didn’t schedule any other work for her. Except for the recording, Chu Mei Bo had to stay and study obediently at school.

In contrast, Ye Cang was busy.

As a newly famous star, Ye Cang had a rare ten-day vacation, but it came with a suffocating work schedule after New Year.

Although he was a singer, Ye Cang didn’t only need to write songs and sing them. In the gap between the songs, he still needed to have enough exposure rate to ensure that the audience wouldn’t forget him, as well as various business activities.

Originally, Shen Huai wanted to pick up a relatively relaxed variety show for him, but thinking of Ye Cang’s character, if he wasn’t there, the new assistant would be overwhelmed. Instead of letting him go out to offend people, it was better to let him keep up a slight mystery.

That said, there was still some scheduled work that needed to be attended to.

For example, returning Zhang Li the favour.

Zhang Li was the producer of “Star of Tomorrow”. After the success of “Star of Tomorrow”, she gained a firm foothold. Because she got along well with Shen Huai, she returned the favor and provided him with a lot of opportunities, such as recommending Chu Mei Bo for “Travel with History”.

Shen Huai was also willing to have a good relationship with Zhang Li. After all, for agents, contacts are established step by step. In addition, Ye Cang wanted to help promote newcomers. For today’s newcomers, there were very few who could directly take part in movies, so it was not a bad thing to send them to the talent show for a round of training.

And it so happened that Zhang Li specialized in this.

Now that Zhang Li was already preparing for the second season of “Star of Tomorrow”, Shen Huai had the intention to give Xue Chengge a try.

However, Zhang Li came to meet Shen Huai not because of the second season of “Star of Tomorrow”, but because of a new program – an idol group talent show.

The entertainment circle was always in rigid demand for idol groups. In Korea and Japan, the idol market had already formed a complete and mature industrial system, but in China, it was still a blank industry.

Zhang Li became acutely aware of this two years ago. For any industry, the first person to try out something new would always get the biggest piece of the cake. The so-called golden period was just at the beginning. When the limelight was over, most people could barely make ends meet.

Zhang Li was an ambitious person. She quit her job in the first place partly because she wanted to partake in this.

The success of “Star of Tomorrow” gave her a lot of confidence. She watched Ye Cang develop from an unknown artist to a popular star. She even strongly predicted that Ye Cang would continue to be popular for a long time.

Because of this, she went to find Shen Hui in order to invite Ye Cang to join in and expand the popularity and influence of the new program with his reputation.

Shen Huai frowned slightly. “Let Ye Cang be a mentor?”

Zhang Li nodded. “I’m currently preparing a new program for a women’s idol group talent show. I know that Ye Cang is not only accomplished in rock music, but also in other types of music, so I hope he can participate and become one of the mentors.”

“But Ye Cang has no previous experience as a mentor, especially in regards to women’s idol groups,” Shen Huai calmly reminded her.

Zhang Li hurriedly said, “With Ye Cang’s abilities, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a mentor. You don’t have to worry about the random editing. I will personally watch it.”

Since she guaranteed it, Shen Huai calculated Ye Cang’s schedule and Zhang Li’s reward in his mind, then he nodded in agreement.

Zhang Li breathed a sigh of relief and finally took a sip of her coffee. She smiled and said to Shen Huai, “If your company has a suitable trainee, they can also participate in our program. As long as it is a person sent by Mr. Shen, they don’t need to participate in the screening, but directly enter the participant list.”

There were only Ye Cang and Chu Mei Bo under Shen Huai, plus Xue Chengge. There was really no one suitable, but he still thanked Zhang Li for her kindness.

–

When they finished discussing things, Shen Huai went to pick up Ye Cang. He was browsing his Weibo casually while waiting, when his eyes fixed on something.

The latest hot search was the movie emperor Fu Cheng’s contract termination with Yihang Film Company and signing with the big company Guanrui Media.

Guanrui Media Group was one of the top comprehensive entertainment groups in China. It had outstanding achievements in the fields of investment and operation of films, TV dramas, artists management, entertainment marketing, etc. Especially in the movie field, Guanrui Media had invested in a number of films in recent years which not only made a very high box office, but also won many awards in domestic and foreign film festivals, and became a big figure in the domestic film industry.

Fu Cheng was young and promising. He received the crown of a movie emperor early. Now that he signed a contract with Guanrui Media, his road to the top was bound to be smooth.

Under his Weibo and Guanrui Media’s official Weibo, many fans were congratulating Fu Cheng.

However, Shen Huai’s eyes stayed on “Yihang Film Company” and did not move away for a long time.

At this moment, the door opened, and Ye Cang directly walked in. “I knew it was you, why didn’t you call me?”

Behind him was his new assistant, Zhao, who greeted Shen Huai with some restrain, “Brother Shen.”

Shen Huai regained his senses and answered faintly.

Ye Cang realized that something was wrong. He leaned forward and lying on the back of Shen Hai’s seat asked, “What’s the matter? What happened?”

Shen Huai didn’t answer but directly said, “I have something to do in a moment. Let Junior Zhao take you back.”

“What’s up? Can’t you tell me?”

Shen Huai paused. “I’m going to meet a friend.” He glanced at Ye Cang. “If you don’t mind, you can come along.”

“I’ll come.” Ye Cang immediately made a decision. “Zhao, drive back by yourself.”

Shen Huai was not surprised by his decision, so he drove Ye Cang out of the city.

Ye Cang asked curiously, “Is your friend not in Zhongjing?”

Shen Huai nodded. “He is not in good health so he is recuperating in Yunshui city.”

Yunshui city had a famous recuperation resort and was not far from Zhongjing city, about an hour and a half by car.

There were not many people who could be regarded as friends by Shen Huai. Shen Huai’s expression was not good so after thinking about it Ye Cang asked him, “Is this friend very important to you? Yes? Is that the friend you mentioned earlier that made you decide to become an agent?”

Shen Huai looked at Ye Cang with surprise and nodded.

“He is the boss of a film company and used to be an agent. He brought out many famous actors, such as ‘golden supporting role’ Du Yuping, who was discovered by him.”

“When I met him, he had come to the United States to meet his daughter, and somehow we started talking. He told me that the most fulfilling thing as an agent is not to make his artist popular, but the satisfaction of seeing the desire in the artist’s eyes and the satisfaction of helping them fulfill their dream.”

Shen Huai said with some emotion, “I was just curious. I wanted to try it for a month or two, and I didn’t expect to continue working until now.”

Ye Cang nodded, then asked cautiously, “Does he live in a nursing home? Is it because of his poor health?”

“He’s old and has some heart problems, so he hasn’t been in his company for several years and has been taking care of himself in the sanatorium.”

Shen Huai sighed. If he was in the company, Yihang Film Company would not have fallen into its present bleak state.

Ye Cang nodded and didn’t ask any more questions.

The two men rushed all the way to Yunshui city. Shen Huai bought a bouquet of flowers and a fruit basket on the way, and soon entered the sanatorium with Ye Cang.