China Entertainment 1997.

Chapter 401 The draft wave in full swing
capital city, residential area
Meng Xiaoguang, who shaved his crew-cut hair and was dressed in oil-stained clothes, went home with two lunch boxes.

Last summer, the brothers and sisters of the Meng family took the college entrance examination. Meng Xiaomang lived up to expectations and was admitted to Beijing Normal University.

For this, the Meng family had long been prepared. As soon as the summer vacation started, Lao Meng gave his son two choices.

Serving as a soldier & learning a craft

After several considerations, Meng Xiaoguang chose the latter, and Lao Meng took him to the restaurant opened by his brother and became an apprentice in the back kitchen.

Although he doesn't have much talent in studies, Meng Xiaoguang has a good personality, can speak sweetly, and has a thick skin and is resistant to beatings.

Even though he is still a little bit jumpy at a young age, he can be regarded as a diligent seedling if he can endure the hardships of the kitchen.

Coupled with Lao Meng’s relationship and care, now nearly a year has passed, although Meng Xiaoguang is still an apprentice in odd jobs, he has been able to do some professional work such as picking or cutting piles. He will perform well next year, and he may have the opportunity to work in the kitchen.

Meng Xiaoguang is quite satisfied with his life. Although the salary is not high, the food is good. Although the work is not easy, he is happy every day.

"Mom, is my dad back yet?"

"The back room is watching TV."

Meng Xiaoguang handed over the lunch box in his hand: "Today, we made a feast in the store, and there is some food left over which is not served on the table. The master shared it with us, fish-flavored shredded pork and assorted vegetables."

This is not the first time a similar situation has happened, and Meng's mother, Xiao Hua, didn't care too much: "I'll go to Renu, you take a shower, you smell of oily smoke."

"Where's my sister?"

"It's about roommates going to the Great Wall to play."

"I won't come back on weekends, don't you want to talk about someone?"

Xiao Hua was taken aback when she heard the words: "After two days off work, I'll go to the school to have a look. Don't let anyone deceive you about this girl."

"I'll go too. If the man is caught then, he will be beaten up."

"Just kidding, you know it's stupid. If you have the ability, you can trick me into a daughter-in-law and come back. It's almost 20, and you haven't even held a girl's hand."

"Hey, that's not what you and my sister said, didn't you mean to love yourself?"

"Fuck off, can girls and boys be the same?"

"Well, I can't say no to you, I'm going to take a shower."

As June approached, the weather was getting warmer. Meng Xiaoguang took a bath in lukewarm water, changed his clothes, and ran to the living room.

Lao Meng was drinking tea and watching TV, while Meng Xiaoguang sat down on the sofa next to him.

"Is it "Rising Star" again?"

"Well, today is the live broadcast of the finals of the Beijing Division, and the top five in the division will compete for the championship in the Beijing Division."

"Aren't the top five advanced? What's the use of the division champion?"

"What do you know, after the top 20 in the country are promoted, they will compete for the top 2. The [-] division champions can directly advance to the top [-] without having to compete in this round. The prize money will be doubled and they will get [-]. You say it's indisputable."

"This is something to fight for, and winning the championship is not a small advantage."

Meng Xiaoguang is also an old viewer of "Rising Star". Although he is not as hardcore as his father, he can still understand some of the competition system.

In the national top [-] finals, the first hurdle is to compete for the top [-].

If the 20 division champions advance directly, it means that the remaining [-] will have only [-] places left, and the competition will be extremely fierce.

This is actually what the program team of "Tomorrow's Star" deliberately did.

On the one hand, it increases the cruelty of the finals. After all, the probability of 80 to 30 is much smaller than 100 to 50.

On the other hand, it is also to add highlights to the sub-divisions. Just competing for the top five in the competition area is not enough. Adding a champion in the competition area will not only increase the attention, but also stimulate the enthusiasm of the local audience in the competition area.

For example, Meng Xiaoguang became interested: "Dad, I didn't watch it yesterday. Who are the people in the capital competition area?"

"The legend of Phoenix in "I Love to Remember the Lyrics", there is also a teacher named Hao Yun from the Beijing Dance High School, Sohu's host Dapeng, a girl named Yao Beina, and that fun-looking Huang Bo."

Meng Xiaoguang quickly ran through the names in his mind, only remembering Phoenix Legend, and didn't know the others.

Lao Meng was still sighing next to him: "In other competition areas, the top five are basically locals, only our capital competition area is all foreigners."

"What's the point? Do you know Beijing Piao? Those who are talented in literature and art all go to our capital. That's called a hidden dragon and crouching tiger."

Although Meng Xiaoguang doesn't watch TV like old Meng Duo, he goes out to surf the Internet and browse blogs from time to time, and he is more informed about some "Rising Star" gossip than his father.

"I read on the Internet that the Beijing competition area is the competition area with the most applicants for the audition and the most people who pass the re-examination. It is known as the death group, and the competition difficulty is the most difficult among the 20 competition areas.

That's why many people went to the neighboring Jinmen and the island city of Lu Province, otherwise the fight would have been even worse. "

"Good guy, let me tell you why Gu Miaomiao from "Tomorrow's Star" went to the Jinmen competition area. His feelings are to avoid the war."

"Miaomiao, I read the news that she won the Jinmen Division champion."

"It was just aired the day before yesterday, and the big advantage won."

Thanks to "I Love to Remember the Lyrics", the beautiful Gu Miaomiao was quite popular and was one of the most popular contestants during the audition.

At the beginning of the retest, Penguin Blog and the "Rising Star" program group officially launched the "Rising Star" contestant popularity rankings, encouraging viewers and netizens to vote online for their favorite contestants.

All Penguin Blog users, each account has one basic ticket per day.

If you want to vote more, you have to spend Q coins to buy extra tickets, 1 yuan of Q coins per ticket, and each account is limited to ten votes per day.

This was requested by Cao Xuan. He was afraid that the fans would be too crazy and cause deterioration, so he made a limit. Otherwise, with the character of Xiao Ma, there would be no limit at all.

This online voting was not very obvious during the retest.

After the retest, many players had accumulated some popularity when they began to compete for the top five in the competition area. At the same time, the competition system also had certain preferential treatment and benefits for popular players.

As a result, the "Rising Star" popularity list began to compete on a small scale.

Although most people cannot support ten tickets per person per day, two or three tickets are generally not a big problem.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the Q coin profits from the competition for the top five in each competition area and voting for the list are enough for the bonus expenditure of all contestants in the entire program.

That's it, the profits after the program group and the penguins are divided...

Also because of the power of online voting, TV SMS voting was officially introduced at the stage when the top five in each competition area competed for the championship.

Let's go back to the popularity list on the Internet, Gu Miaomiao basically ranks in the top five or even the top three because of his good looks and not being an amateur.

After winning the championship in the Jinmen Division and officially advancing to the top 50 in the country, Gu Miaomiao's own blog has more than [-] followers, comparable to ordinary second-tier stars.

Even Gu Miaomiao was the first among many players to have an official fan club.

At the end of last year, the homonym [fan] from English Fans became a buzzword on the Internet and replaced the outdated title [starchaser].

At first, it was mainly circulated on the Internet, and because of "Star of Tomorrow", it began to fully ferment.

Nowadays, some popular players of "Rising Star" have their own fan groups, and even have a special unified nickname.

For example, Gu Miaomiao's fans call themselves [Water Baby], Phoenix Legend's fans call themselves [Feng Fan], Yao Beina's fans call themselves [Shell], etc.

This shareholder wind has even spread to the entertainment circle, and even fans of many celebrities are preparing to name their own fan groups.

However, because it is difficult to form a unified opinion for a while, there are not many formal names for the time being.

Because he likes Gu Miaomiao's face...song, Meng Xiaoguang is a "water baby", as long as he goes online, he will vote for Gu Miaomiao, and even voted ten votes in one go on the day of salary payment.

For him, who only has an apprentice salary of 200 yuan a month, it is not worth mentioning, but he definitely supports him sincerely.

That was the ticket he squeezed out from Internet fees and cigarette money...

The two of them were talking, and the live broadcast of the finals of the capital competition area began to be broadcast on TV. Before the official live broadcast of the game, a few VCRs came.

"Hi everyone, I'm Gangzi, the outfield host of "Rising Star"."

A little black fat man appeared in front of the camera with a hippie smile on his face: "The finals in the capital division will start soon, and the five contestants are making intensive preparations. Let's check on their status."

"Why did you change people today? Where's Liu Yan?"

Because the competition for the top five in each competition area was officially recorded and broadcast, the hosts were also professional TV hosts, and several hosts from Fanxing were among them, taking over multiple competition areas.

Among them, Liu Yan was in charge of both the Beijing and Tianjin competition areas, which added a lot of chips to the ratings of the two competition areas.

As a loyal fan of Liu Yan, Lao Meng had been waiting for her to appear in the competition in the capital. Who knew that she had turned into a little black fat man now.

"Don't they say it's an outfield host? What's the hurry?"

Meng Xiaoguang is calm. At his age, most of them are more concerned about appearance, and they don't pay much attention to other aspects.

Compared with Liu Yan, he likes Gu Miaomiao even more.

The father and son were arguing, and the little black fat man who called himself Gangzi walked to a dormitory.

Huang Bo, who was wearing a T-shirt, was playing a guitar in the dormitory. The little black fat man greeted him cheerfully, and then asked.

"Huang Bo, how are you doing? Are you nervous about the regional finals?"

"It's okay, since we reached the finals, let's fight."

As mentioned earlier, the capital competition area is the most competitive, and the top five teams that have emerged cannot be said to be the strongest among the 20 competition areas, but the overall strength is definitely among the top three in each competition area.

Among them, Phoenix Legend has the greatest advantage. The two-year popularity accumulation of "I Love Lyrics", coupled with its impressive strength, has made Phoenix Legend the champion of the Beijing competition area, and even the entire "Tomorrow Star".

Regarding this, there have always been quite dissenting opinions on the Internet, and they feel that Fanxing's introduction of professional singers who have already contracted and trained is essentially unfair to other contestants.

They even questioned the fairness of "Tomorrow's Star" and suspected that the program group would favor Gu Miaomiao, Legend of Phoenix and others.

In this regard, Fanxing and the program team of "Tomorrow's Star" also issued a public statement, the general content of which is-

First, Fanxing will definitely not cheat, please supervise.

Second, "Tomorrow's Star" selects the future stars of the music industry, in essence, it selects the seedlings of professional singers to create a new generation of singers.

The scope of the audition does not restrict artists to participate. In principle, even if artists from other companies come to participate, the program group is also allowed.

Legend of Phoenix and Gu Miaomiao were not the only professional singers. They hadn't released their albums yet, and even professional singers who had released their albums participated in the competition.

Yang Chengang, the champion of Wu City, E Province, is a professional singer, and has even signed a record company. This competition is for the promotion of the single in the second half of the year.

Gao Jin, the champion of the Northeast Shen City competition area, is also a professional singer who has participated in many programs. Tang Chao, the top five player in the same competition area, even released a new album last year.

Murong Xiaoxiao, one of the top five in the Jinling Division of Jiangsu Province, also released an album in 2002.

Chen Chusheng, the champion of the Guangzhou competition area in Guangdong Province, participated in a nationwide singing competition last year and won the championship.

Let me put it this way, in the top 80 that have been born so far, more than 30% of the contestants have engaged in music work, and 50% to [-]% are simply professional singers.

This is also understandable. The number of applicants for the audition of "Tomorrow's Star" is tens of thousands. After three rounds of competition, audition, re-examination, and competition for the top [-], there are layers of selection.

Ordinary vegans will not be able to touch the top [-] in the country. Those who can advance to the top basically have the following three characteristics.

①The strength is outstanding, and it is a real fight.

②The popularity is overwhelming, and there are various off-site blessings.

③ The contestants are unique and interesting, and the program team intends to take care of them.

Therefore, among the top [-] contestants in Phoenix Legend's resume "Star of Tomorrow", it can't be said that they are so outstanding, after all, they are just a resident of a show.

The aforementioned Gao Jin, Yang Chengang and several other players had similar experiences.

If Fanxing deliberately concealed the identities of Fenghuang Legend and others, they might not be able to convince the public, but they made it public directly, and instead said it was non-toxic, causing little disturbance.

Of course, there are also reasons why the three singers themselves are strong and extremely popular.

Phoenix Legend is the biggest favorite in the capital division, but the other four players are not kidding.

Especially Yao Beina and Huang Bo.

The former was born in a professional class, participated in youth song competitions, and even participated in national-level exchange performances. He is extremely strong.

The re-examination contestants in the Beijing competition area entered the top [-] competition, and Zhang Huimei's "Listening to the Sea" shocked everyone.

Not only did it successfully enter the top 10 in the country, the singing of the song was also included in the "Star of Tomorrow" high-quality program, and was repeatedly rebroadcasted by Beijing TV and related channels, which gained Yao Beina a full [-] blog fans.

As for Huang Bo, it is mainly due to the light of the movie "When Men Are in Love".

As the runner-up at the mainland box office last year, "When a Man Is in Love" is a hit in Asia.

In addition to the hero and heroine of the film, the most impressive thing is the younger brother played by Huang Bo who speaks an authentic island dialect. After the film was released, he also followed Xiaohong.

This time "Star of Tomorrow", Huang Bo rekindled his music dream and came to compete.

"Tomorrow's Star" has quite a few professional singers in the top [-] in the country, and there are also other professions, but Huang Bo is really the only famous actor.

Now that there is something to watch, the program team intends to take care of it.

In addition, Huang Bo's own musical ability is not bad, and his appearance is distinctive, his personality is lovable and he can talk. He was stunned to reach the top five in the capital competition area where there are many strong players, and he became a dark horse.

The little black fat man interviewed for a while. Except for Hao Yun, who was more restrained, the other four groups of contestants were still very lively, and all of them released bold words, adding to the atmosphere of the final.

Lao Meng and his son were very exciting to watch. Not only did they see the players who spoke harshly one by one, but they also got a glimpse of the players' daily environment.

Huang Bo is in the dormitory of Nortel, Dapeng is in the Sohu headquarters, and even the boss of Sohu, Zhang Huhu, showed his face to cheer him on.

Hao Yun did not forget to continue attending classes while preparing for the battle, Yao Beina trained in musicals, Legend of Phoenix was in the dressing room backstage of "I Love the Lyrics", and Dao Lang even came out to make a cameo.

Compared with pure stage competition, this kind of VCR brings out the more life side of the contestants, giving the audience a sense of intimacy and identity.

Lao Meng likes this kind of off-court tidbits, and feels humane, while Meng Xiaoguang pays more attention to the official game.

Fortunately, he didn't make him wait long. After the VCR ended, the screen came directly to the live broadcast of "Rising Star".

The host Liu Yan appeared on the stage, greeted the audience and the camera, read a series of slogans, and then introduced the judges.

"Today, our three judges for the finals have invited the famous movie star Ms. Hu Jing, the famous singer Ms. Tan Jing, and the famous music producer Mr. Zhang Yadong. Applause is welcome."

The three of Hu Jing whose names were called stood up from the judges' seat one after another to pay their respects. There was continuous applause and cheers, especially for Hu Jing. The applause and cheers lasted for a few tens of seconds.

After introducing the judges, Liu Yan invited five more contestants, and then began to introduce today's final rules.

The rules are not complicated, and there are two rounds of competition in total.

In the first round, five contestants sang one by one. 300 spectators and three judges scored points. The top three with the most points advanced, and the bottom two were eliminated. If the scores were the same, there would be an extra match.

The three contestants who advanced to the second round sang another song in turn. This round of judges and the audience did not vote. From the first contestant singing, the audience outside the venue can vote by SMS and in the special area specially opened by Penguin Blog.

Until all three singers have finished singing, the judges commented on the solicitation of votes, and the data was released. Whoever has the most votes will be the champion.

Seeing this scene, Lao Meng was a little eager to fight.

The scale of "Rising Star" is too large to support daily live broadcasts. Only a few key competition areas with high attention in the 20 competition areas have off-site voting rules.

In other competition areas, the competition is recorded, and then the champions are selected by the audience and judges.

Compared with the two, there is no doubt that the former has higher audience participation and more gold content.

Lao Meng watched the live broadcasts of the Rongcheng and Shenshi competitions before, but did not vote, but today he watched the game in front of his house, and he couldn't help taking out his phone.

"Dad, who are you going to vote for?"

"Of course it's Legend of the Phoenix."

Lao Meng has watched "I Love to Remember the Lyrics" for two years. He is considered a fan of Phoenix Legend and must support his family.

"One text message costs 1 yuan, so take it easy."

"It's okay, do your best, don't tell your mother."

The father and son were whispering, Xiao Hua ignored them when he called them to eat, and continued to watch the live TV.

After introducing the competition system, the 5 contestants will draw lots directly, and then start to compete. Since each contestant will score directly after singing, the order does not matter, it depends on the specific performance.

Dapeng was the first to appear on the stage and sang "The Earth" by beyond.

His selling point is actually rock and roll. From the audition to now, almost all the songs he sings are rock and roll. He is known as the little prince of rock and roll and has attracted many rock fans to support him.

Except for a few who can enter the top [-] in the country, they are basically of good standard, not professional singers but also top amateurs.

The three judges also gave a good evaluation, the only flaw is that the Cantonese is not good enough.

After the judges finished their comments, they started voting. The 300 audience members had remote controls in their hands, and the five buttons on them corresponded to 1~5 points respectively.

The full score is 1650, and the big friends score is in the early 1000s. According to the experience of other competition areas, if you want to enter the top three, you need more than 1200.

His score, although not directly eliminated, is indeed very dangerous.

Dapeng himself knew that he didn't have an advantage in terms of strength or popularity, so he didn't think about competing for the championship in the competition area.

If you can make it to the top three in the competition area, it's better to show your face more.

Compared with Dapeng, Hao Yun is more ambitious and came up with an original song.

"Tomorrow's Star" encourages originality. According to the rules of the competition system, contestants can get extra points for their original songs.

For example, now, Hao Yun can directly add 100 points, and the judges and the audience will also give some encouragement points as appropriate.

However, original songs also have the risk of original songs. If they are good, it’s fine, but if they are not good, it is actually safer to sing old songs.

And the rule is that the contestant is personally original, and the contestant is required to be responsible for at least one of the lyrics or composition, or the composition of the entire song accounts for more than 70%.

Not all singers know how to write songs, and the censorship of "Rising Star" is very strict, and even the copyright will be checked.

Once cheating is found, the contestant will be disqualified immediately.

Under such harsh conditions, although original songs were given extra points, not many appeared.

Hao Yun's original song is called "Hello". It is a folk song with simple lyrics and melody, but the singing is quite flavorful.

Zhang Yadong liked it very much and directly gave the highest score of 50 points. Hu Jing gave it 40 points. Tan Jing gave it a mediocre opinion and only gave it 30 points.

The audience voted one after another. Because of the original song, everyone obviously gave higher points. The final result was 1344 points. Adding the 100 points of the original song, it was 1444 points.

I dare not say that it is stable in the top three, but as long as one of the remaining three players makes a mistake, then Hao Yun will definitely be stable.

Sure enough, Huang Bo later sang "Platform" with a score of 1300+.

It can be seen from this that Huang Bo's popularity is slightly stronger than Hao Yun's. If Hao Yun doesn't have an original bonus, he has a high chance of winning.

However, Hao Yun was superior in skills, and Huang Bo could only lose.

But he wasn't completely desperate yet, after all Yao Beina and Phoenix Legend hadn't played yet.

But unfortunately, these two groups of players didn't give him any chance at all, and played steadily. With their already high popularity and strength, they scored 1491 points and 1502 points respectively, and successfully advanced.

Huang Bo and Dapeng An An are steadily preparing for the top [-] to advance to the top [-], and the remaining three compete for a ticket to directly advance to the top [-].

Soon the second round of competition will start, and the voting channel will be opened, Liu Yan kept pushing.

"The viewers in front of the TV can go to the Penguin blog... or directly edit the text message and enter the name of the player you support and send it to 100xxxx404. Let's act now."

The number logo also appeared on the live broadcast screen of the TV station, and there was a subtitle scrolling prompt below.

Glancing at Xiao Hua who was on the phone in the kitchen, Lao Meng took out his mobile phone, edited Phoenix Legend's text messages, and sent 10 messages in one go.

Only then did he relax happily, and continued to watch the TV.

Hao Yun took another original song, but it was not as pleasing as the previous one. I don't know if it was intentional, or it was really a wrong choice.

On the other hand, Yao Beina sang Cao Xuan's "Light Chaser", which was full of emotion, and her performance was very touching. It received numerous applause, and was highly praised by Hu Jing and Tan Jing.

The pressure came to Phoenix Legend.

In the on-site scoring just now, the scores of the two sides were very tight, and there was almost no difference. As a result, Phoenix Legend did not dare to neglect this formidable opponent.

Fortunately, they were not without other preparations. Compared with advancing to the top [-] ahead of schedule, Phoenix Legend actually valued the title of champion in the capital division more, which was a qualification bonus for them.

So in this competition, they took out their trump card - the title song of the new album "On the Moon".

"I'm looking up, above the moon
How many dreams are flying freely

I forgot yesterday, the air has dried up the sadness

I want to meet you again on the vast road
......"

Ling Hua's firepower was fully fired, and her heroic, vigorous, and desolate singing voice directly penetrated the audience, especially the two Humai, which directly blew up the scene.

Although Zeng Yi doesn't have many words, he always harmonizes and uses rhythm in the interval.

"The sound of hoofs, the sound of hooves

Oye, ooye~"

After singing "On the Moon", the applause and cheers from the audience were obviously more than before.

Lao Meng, who had already put away his mobile phone, muttered that the song was strong enough, and sent another 10 text messages in one breath.

After the judges finished their comments, Liu Yan invited the three contestants to the middle of the stage, and the big screen behind them showed the combined votes of the three.

Hao Yun only has tens of thousands, basically no hope of winning the championship.

Yao Beina had around 47 votes, and Phoenix Legend had slightly more votes than her, already exceeding 50, and the votes of the two were still rising wildly.

According to the competition system, there will be a final 5-minute voting time at this time.

The contestants speak one by one to canvass votes, and the judges can also help to speak, and the number of votes behind them is displayed in real time, adding a bit of tension.

In the canvassing session, Hao Yun had almost no sense of presence. It all depended on Yao Beina and Phoenix Legend. The latter had a slight advantage, but the former was very tight.

The host and several judges kept pace, and the TV and the scene were very tense. Lao Meng, who was relieved, took out his mobile phone again and frantically voted for Phoenix Legend.

Swiping and swiping, he turned his head and asked his son to pick up his mobile phone. Meng Xiaoguang was puzzled: "Why, you can vote with your own mobile phone."

"There is no phone bill, don't talk nonsense, I will reimburse you later."

"Don't lie to me, it must be reimbursed."

Meng Xiaoguang handed over the mobile phone, and Lao Meng fiddled with it for a minute before throwing it down: "It's not even 1 yuan, what are you doing?"

"How much do I earn a month? How can I have money to recharge my phone bill? If you didn't insist on giving me your old phone, I wouldn't want to use it."

Lao Meng ignored him, ran to his wife, coaxed and tricked him into getting a mobile phone, and continued to send text messages.

At the end of 5 minutes, Phoenix Legend won the champion of the "Rising Star" capital division with a super high number of votes of 61+.

Amid the sound of salute ribbons, Legend of Phoenix hugged happily, and Lao Meng jumped up happily. It was a rare time for the old man to chat with him like a teenager.

"Hahaha, we are the champions."

The three mobile phones in the family are all in arrears, and the total cost is hundreds of yuan. If he doesn't win, he has to go to Fanxing Company to smash the glass...

(End of this chapter)