In the afternoon.
Zhang Ye went to the cafeteria to eat lunch. However, the moment he stepped in, he immediately became the focus of everyone"s attention, with many of them stealing glances at him. Everyone shunned him, subconsciously keeping a given distance away from him. Some of his acquaintances who would usually nod at him had opened their mouths to speak when they saw him, but ended up stopping short of actually speaking.
Right now, Zhang Ye was like the G.o.d of plague at Central TV Department 1.
But Zhang Ye did not mind this. He casually walked up as usual to line up for his food. He could hear the people around gossiping about him in whispers. Zhang Ye simply laughed it off.
"I heard that Zhang Ye"s program team was playing games the entire afternoon yesterday."
"Yeah, how cool. I"m so envious of them."
"What are you envious for? Their program team is as good as banned!"
"They can play games every day and still continue to receive their salary. If I could spend my days this way, I"d rather get banned!"
"Haha, you? It"s not that I want to speak ill of you, but even if you wish to get banned by Central TV Department 1, you"re not qualified enough to do so. Besides, you"re neither ambitious nor have any greater goals. All you want to do is earn your salary by doing nothing. But Zhang Ye is not like you. He aims to be an A-list celebrity, so even though a ban sounds good to you, for him, it"s as good as a fatal blow. Moreover, he"s also bound by the contract he signed with Central TV Department 1 for at least another half a year or so."
"The freezing of Zhang Ye has already begun."
"I wonder what Zhang Ye will do this time."
"What else can he do? With the contract stipulations, he can"t leave for any other TV station either. I heard that Beijing Television Station contacted Central TV Department 1 with the intent to bring Zhang Ye into their fold. They were even willing to buy out the remainder of the contract, but as I understand it, the Central TV Department 1 leaders only had one word for them—No!"
"It seems like Mango TV also wants to bring Zhang Ye on, but that didn"t go through either."
"Seems like they"re trying to drag it out so that Zhang Ye meets his contractual liability!"
"For the next half a year or so, I"m afraid that Zhang Ye has to fritter away his time together with Central TV Department 1. Due to the lawsuit and the Judicial Exam, his popularity exploded in recent days, but after all this cools down, his popularity will surely slide if he cannot produce any new variety shows or get any screen time. In fact, I believe it will cause his popularity to drop drastically!"
"Yeah, I think so too."
"Hai, Zhang Ye"s coming over."
"Let"s go, let"s go. We should stay far away from him."
"There aren"t many people in the entirety of Central TV Department 1 who"d dare talk to him anymore. If any of the leaders sees it, who knows if they would suddenly get implicated together with Zhang Ye or not. Whoever gets too close to Zhang Ye now is only asking for trouble. The Department 1 leaders lost the lawsuit, so they"re definitely biding their time to see when they can settle the score!"
"Actually, I still quite like Zhang Ye as a person."
"Then you better get farther away. This is a fight between G.o.ds! We can"t get afford to get involved!"
After lunch.
Back at his own office.
Zhang Ye was playing some music on his computer, listening to Zhang Yuanqi"s new song. He thought it wasn"t too bad, so he repeated it. It didn"t at all feel like he was getting frozen by Central TV Department 1.
At this moment, his cell phone rang.
He looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Beijing Television"s Hu Fei.
Zhang Ye laughed as he answered the call: "h.e.l.lo, Brother Hu."
Hu Fei said: "Is it convenient to speak now?"
"Yes, it"s fine. Why"re you looking for me?" Zhang Ye asked.
Hu Fei said: "I spoke to the station head about you yesterday and indicated that I would like to bring you back over to our station, first to help you out of your situation, and second so that the two of us can have a chance to work together again. Beijing Television Station called for a meeting over this matter and came to a decision that they could buy out your contract, but after communicating with Central TV Department 1, they were rejected. What"s more, Central TV Department 1"s stand on the issue was very firm. It does not seem like they will let you go under any circ.u.mstances, so your old bro, me, is powerless to do anything about it."
Zhang Ye gladly replied: "Thanks, Brother Hu, for worrying about me."
Hu Fei questioned: "Tell me honestly, what do you plan to do now?"
Zhang Ye answered: "I don"t have really any plans. I"m just going to take it one step at a time."
Hu Fei sighed: "Then you"d better be ready to get frozen for seven months."
But Zhang Ye chuckled at that. "I don"t intend to prepare for something like that."
"Oh? What do you mean by that?" Hu Fei knew something was up.
Zhang Ye laughed and said: "Back then, even the SARFT could not keep me banned, so can Central TV Department 1? Besides, who decided that if I don"t do hosting, I won"t be able to get exposure? If I really want to gain greater exposure, I have many ways to do so."
After ending the call with Hu Fei, Zhang Ye received a long-awaited call.
It was from Old Wu"s elder sister!
Fat Sis sounded very excited on her end. "Little Zhang!"
Zhang Ye immediately asked: "How is it, Fat Sis?"
"It"s a success! Haha, we managed to rush it out on time!" Fat Sis said very excitedly: "It was too motherf**king close! But we finally managed to rush it out on the day of the deadline! Just a moment ago, the Plants vs. Zombies character models, data attributes, as well as the beta test, were all completed! The final version still needs a few days, as we need a QA period to fix any bugs and other issues. But the demo version is definitely not going to be an issue. We"ve already created it with a total of three levels. It"s perfect!"
Zhang Ye snapped his fingers. "It"s great that it got completed on time."
Fat Sis said: "All thanks to your attribute table. It saved us a great deal of design hours. For the movement speed of every type of zombie, their attack frequency, the planting speeds, etc, all of those actually require a vast amount of man-hours to test. As the balance of the game is very important, with the attribute table that you supplied to us, it has simplified our workflow by a lot. You"re truly one of our country"s top math professors. Even my company"s software programmers are convinced and in great admiration of you. They claimed if the task was left to them, they probably couldn"t have finished it even if they had two months!"
Zhang Ye laughed: "It was nothing. I just happen to know some math, that"s all. For anything else, I wouldn"t be of any help."
Fat Sis was in a good mood. "Tomorrow is the start of the annual National C-G Gaming Expo. Almost all of the well-known video game companies and publishers in the country are going to be there, as well as the national media and gamers from all across the country. You"ll be making a trip to the Gaming Expo, right? You could see just how spectacular this industry is. On top of that, this year will set a record for the number of new releases. The t.i.tles are increasing year by year. MMOs, RPGs, action games, browser games, mobile games, puzzle games, anything you can think of, there"s a genre for it. I can give you some tickets if you want to come look around tomorrow. It"s at the National Convention Center."
Zhang Ye did not even give it a second thought and spoke: "I"m free these days anyway. Of course I"ll go."
This world"s gaming expos were very similar to Zhang Ye"s previous world"s. However, there would likely be some difference. Zhang Ye had unfortunately never attended one back in his previous world before, so had never seen the legendary booth babes with his own eyes. Now that a game of his was going to be exhibited, he definitely had to go and take a look.
Fat Sis laughed heartily: "Great! The Expo will be using digital admission pa.s.ses this time, so I will send them to your cell phone. Our entire company, from top to bottom, is full of confidence about this game you"ve designed. It"s an unprecedented level of confidence that I"ve never witnessed before. After holding it in for so many days, it"s finally time to showcase our new game to all the gamers in the country!"
After putting down the phone, Zhang Ye smiled.
Put me into the freezer?
You"re all being too naive!
I am not limited to making programs and hosting. This bro knows more things than you can even imagine. Just look, the chance to increase my popularity has come my way again, isn"t that right?