I'm Really a Superstar

The commercial break ended.

The live broadcast cut back to the theater.

After the elimination of Liao Yiqi, the compet.i.tion entered its climax. The countless domestic viewers watching their televisions could even smell gunpowder in the air. The atmosphere of the compet.i.tion was intense!

"What a long commercial break!"

"It"s starting!"

"Dong Shanshan is so d.a.m.n beautiful!"

"Her popularity has taken off due to this show."

"True. Dong Shanshan, Petal Shower, Sunset Glow, The Clown, all of them have become really popular!"

"How can you say that The Clown is popular? He was nearly knocked out of the compet.i.tion!"

"Isn"t there still the second round?"

"He won"t be able to catch up even in the second round."

"I now believe that The Clown might really be a newcomer."

"Yeah, he doesn"t even know the basic rules and behavior of show business."

"Not necessarily. The Clown might know that it"ll affect his votes if he doesn"t take off his mask, canva.s.s for votes, or let his celebrity guest partner reveal herself, and that it puts him at a disadvantage. Nonetheless, that"s what he"s chosen to do. Maybe it"s in his principles to win fair and square. Could this be a possibility?"

"Get over it."

"Do you think that everyone thinks like that Zhang Ye fellow?"

Onstage.

Dong Shanshan looked into the camera and announced, "Welcome back to the show. And now, let"s have our staff reopen the voting channels. The second round of the compet.i.tion has begun!"

In the second round, which was also the final round, only one song remained for each contestant to perform. Their final song would decide their outcome and spot in the compet.i.tion. Although there was still one more chance to perform alone after being crowned as Masked King, the prerequisite was winning.

The voting channels were opened!

The real-time tallies were shown on the big screen!

First: Flowing Time, 3.51 million votes

Second: King of Oddity, 2.68 million votes

Third: Petal Shower, 2.35 million votes

Fourth: Sunset Glow, 2 million votes

Fifth: The Clown, 1.3 million votes

The difference was too great!

The Clown had already fallen behind right at the beginning!

Han Qi kept quiet, a dark look on her face.

Hu Fei was not in a good mood either. He felt that he had done The Clown wrong this time, as well as Spinach. Hu Fei had even purposely gone to look for Spinach to offer his apologies to her a bit ago. The format of this compet.i.tion was a mistake on their program team"s part, and Hu Fei felt that he was responsible. However, Spinach did not seem like she was in the mood to talk. Hu Fei could see that Liao Yiqi had been dealt quite a blow, so he got even more worried about The Clown. He was afraid that he would not be able to withstand this pressure. The Clown was the contestant who had become the Masked King the most times so far. He was clearly the favorite to win and become the grand champion, yet he had now fallen all the way to the last place. This disparity was too much for anyone to accept!

But there was nothing they could do. The results were set in stone. The Clown had almost no chance of becoming the champion. They couldn"t stop the compet.i.tion now, nor could they change the rules at the last minute. All they could do was let the compet.i.tion keep progressing!

A nocked arrow must fly!1

Beijing Television"s Head and several station heads had all come to watch the compet.i.tion in person and were seated in a remote corner in the theater. After all, this was Beijing Television"s most popular variety show in their history of existence. The entire television station"s attention was on the team, and everyone had very high hopes for the show.

With Dong Shanshan"s announcement, the final round of the compet.i.tion began!

The audience fell silent!

Li Xiaoxian (Sunset Glow) came onto the stage!

"I"ve always been told I don"t understand lyrics, composing, or singing!

"I"ve always been told I don"t understand comfort, laughter, or living!

"I"ve always been told I don"t understand pa.s.sion, women, or romance!

"I"ve always been told I don"t understand restraint, flexibility, or smarts!"

It was a rock song!

Sunset Glow was actually singing a rock song!

This song had once been performed by a female contestant on The Voice. But when it was sung by Li Xiaoxian, the style of the song was entirely different. There was very deep emotion within the singing as Li Xiaoxian used a restrained voice with feminine quiet to sing that rebellious shouting of the rock spirit!

"Who told you I can"t sing!"

The entire audience perked up!

Scream after scream rang out!

Xiaodong and Amy gave each other a look and broke out into gratified smiles.

Their Spring Garden group was the most popular girl group in the country, but had always been mired in controversy. A lot of people called their singing into question and believed that they depended on their appearances to be successful. They"d heard so much criticism about themselves over the years but had never been able to give a proper response to those critics. But today, Li Xiaoxian had stepped forward. She had used the ident.i.ty of Sunset Glow to let everyone know that they could also sing well, and that they could sing songs that people thought they couldn"t! More importantly, they could sing well!

When her performance was over, Sunset Glow"s vote count immediately soared!

The audience could see the constant change in her tallied votes from the real-time update on the big screen.

It increased by several hundreds of thousands of votes, and she surpa.s.sed Petal Shower in the rankings!

Li Xiaoxian"s solo song required all of her singing skills that Sunset Glow was well-known for!

The next contestant was King of Oddity!

"Child.

"My child.

"How could I have a future without you?

"Child.

"My child.

"Dad will wait for your return!"

This was a charity single that had been released for an anti-human trafficking campaign. The original version had ten celebrities singing in it, and two of those ten were currently seated in the audience. One of them was Grandma Zhang Xia, the other was Jiang Hanwei. This was a song many people had heard before, and it immediately evoked a lot of memories.

Frankly, King of Oddity"s singing was just average. He specialized in singing portamento, but this technique did not at all suit some songs. However, he had added some complex portamento and pauses into the song that made it sound a little too over the top. Yet somehow, the audience was touched and bought into it!

Before the song ended, King of Oddity"s votes had increased by more than 500,000. It shot up by much more than Sunset Glow"s increase, and his tally was now nearly even with Flowing Time"s!

Some in the audience kept clapping.

"Great song!"

"How nostalgic it is to hear this again!"

"It looks like King of Oddity is really here to help charity today!"

"Yup, that"s how all celebrities should be. Everyone should follow King of Oddity"s example!"

"Just based on this charity theme song, I will vote for King of Oddity!"

"I"ve already voted for him, so I can"t vote anymore."

During the first round, most of those watching the show had cast their votes. As a result, there wasn"t as much of an increase in the tallies during the second round as compared to the first round where the tallies changed by 1 to 2 million votes per contestant. The uptick of votes for each of them in the second round was only in the region of several hundred thousand. This was expected due to the votes being cast earlier on. This was also the exact reason why all the contestants, other than The Clown, had chosen to take off their masks during the first round. Everyone knew that such a situation would occur, so they took off their masks early on to try to gain an advantage over the others. Otherwise, their chances of winning would have been minimized if they waited until the second round to do so. Unless someone sang an extraordinary song stunningly, there was almost no realistic chance of them bridging the difference in votes. This reason was why the program team and everyone else believed that The Clown had already lost his t.i.tle chances.

There weren"t enough votes!

And it would only lessen toward the end of the show!

The tally was constantly changing.

When Li Xiaoxian saw it, she gave a dry laugh.

Xiaodong was speechless. King of Oddity had performed this song about average, but how did he get so many votes? It seemed like Xiaoxian would not even stand a chance of getting placed in the top three.

Zhang Ye had changed into his other costume and had had his makeup done. He watched the TV in the waiting room and shook his head slightly.

This again?

He was playing the charity card again?

He was even starting to overuse this gimmick?

Was there no end to this?

Zhang Ye did not object to charity, so of course he wouldn"t oppose it. But to do this on such an occasion, wasn"t it too obvious what his objectives were? To put it bluntly, this was as good as moral abduction. He was using means other than singing to get the audience to want to vote for him! Li Xiaoxian had sung great even if she wasn"t in her best shape today. She still managed to showcase a large part of her strengths in her performance, yet she did not get as many votes as King of Oddity did?

Immediately, Spinach"s words echoed in her mind.

Is there really no recognition for those of us who just want to sing in peace?

Zhang Ye was silent.

Then he clenched his fists tightly!