Chapter 20: You Left Me No Choice

The barefoot have nothing to fear from those wearing shoes.

Only this time, Gu Cheng was the one wearing shoes.

After more than two years in this world, the time had finally come to pay off the debts incurred by his past conduct.

Once the siblings had grasped the situation, Pan Jieying asked bluntly, “How are you planning to deal with this? Hold another press conference to clarify things? But Zhou Hongyi himself was one of the parties involved back then. He must have evidence in his hands. If he isn’t afraid of both sides being dragged through the mud, your denials will lose much of their effect.”

Gu Cheng hesitated for no more than two or three seconds before making up his mind.

“Forget denying it. I’ll admit it outright. It wasn’t illegal, anyway. Once I admit it, I’ll feel much more at ease, and no one will be able to blackmail me anymore. Who managed to build up their initial fortune without blood on their hands? Without dirt?”

He was speaking the absolute truth. Although he had falsified figures in the past, he was different from the former executives of Dingdang.com and Qidian.com, both of which had since been shut down. He had deceived investors in the financial world from beginning to end, whereas those people had deceived ordinary consumers.

That was what it meant to look down upon those above while refusing to harm those below. It was not that he refused to deceive people, but if he did, he would only deceive professionals. Those Wall Street investors who had fallen for his schemes ought to admit that they had been outmatched and accept their losses after making the wager.

But Gu Cheng had no interest in cheating the weak.

To borrow a line from Stephen Chow’s King of Beggars, it was simply: “You want me to bully you? Are you even qualified?”

Pan Jieying understood her younger cousin’s thoughts better than anyone. She immediately grasped the key point of his strategy.

“That might actually be a good approach. Ordinary people probably hate those Wall Street financial vultures too. If you present yourself as someone who knows what he should and should not do, perhaps people will think you’re a true gentleman who remains true to himself, a genuine scholar who naturally embodies refinement. The only concern is that once your business grows larger, people in the financial world may become even less willing to deal with you.”

Gu Cheng dismissed the concern outright.

“You don’t need to worry about that. Only ordinary people care about reputation. Those Wall Street Jewish vultures don’t even know how to spell the word ‘honor.’ As long as there’s money to be made, who cares about saving face?”

Once the plan was settled, Gu Cheng made a call and had someone contact a few friends in the media to help drum up support.

He himself did not know many people in media circles, so he asked Gao Dasong, who was more familiar with that field. The moment Gao Dasong heard what he intended to do, he immediately talked him out of it.

“Little Gu, don’t take this the wrong way, but a press conference really isn’t suitable for what you want to say. Anything you say there will definitely be edited and sanitized. This kind of bombshell isn’t just about you. Once you admit to falsifying data, people will naturally ask who you falsified it for. Who are you going to expose?

“Besides, everyone in the entire Internet industry was falsifying data back then. If you speak vaguely, no one will thank you. Instead, you’ll offend the whole industry. Everyone will have to put on a show of distancing themselves from you in order to clear their own names.”

Gu Cheng was taken aback. He had not thought of that.

“I just want to tell the truth and show a little of my genuine personality. Can’t I even do that?”

Gao Dasong hurriedly explained, “I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m only saying that a press conference is the wrong format. You need a media channel that lets you face the public directly, without anyone filtering your words.”

At that suggestion, Gu Cheng found himself thinking that if Weibo existed in this era, things would be so much easier. He could simply post an article and let the innocent remain innocent while the guilty exposed themselves.

Unfortunately, there was no Weibo yet, nor Baidu Tieba, and not even QQ groups. As a result, he was always somewhat constrained in battles of public opinion. His fans, no matter how much they liked him, had no way to organize themselves. His opponents, meanwhile, were all professional trolls and did not need to organize at all.

Seeing that Gu Cheng had no good ideas for the moment, Gao Dasong offered a suggestion out of professional habit.

“Normally, when we musicians get smeared and want to say a few unsavory things to clear the air, the best option is to hold a concert. Then, while chatting with the fans during the speeches, you can say whatever you like.

“Seventy or eighty thousand people can hear you at a concert. That’s far better than the few dozen people at a press conference. Even if the broadcaster wants to edit the footage afterward, there’s no way to sanitize it all. Another advantage is that concerts don’t have a ‘questions from reporters’ segment. You won’t have to worry about offending Chairman Ding or General Lei.”

The problem was that Gu Cheng had never taken his role as a musician very seriously. Despite having such a strong fan base, he had released only six songs in this lifetime, three of which had been written by other people. He could not even put together a concert under his own name.

All he could do was smile wryly.

“Have you ever seen someone who’s released only six songs hold a concert? Besides, my identity isn’t appropriate. What boss would compete for popularity with his own artists? Even if I won, it wouldn’t be honorable.”

Gao Dasong thought for a moment before offering another idea.

“Aren’t you collaborating with the people from the Eastern Isles? The S-M company likes putting together groups, and they also enjoy holding those combination concerts. If you’re serious, follow their model. Call over several of the singers directly signed to Chengpin Music and have them perform together onstage.”

Gu Cheng’s eyes lit up. That really was a workable solution.

At present, the artist directly signed under him included Jolin Tsai, whom he could bring in at any time. She already had two albums and could easily carry a show. Jay Chou’s contract belonged to Alpha Records. Gu Cheng had only obtained the mainland agency rights, so he had no authority to order him around. At most, he could invite him to make a friendly guest appearance for one or two songs.

The rest would have to be borrowed from S-M to fill out the lineup.

In any case, there was no urgent need to clarify Zhou Hongyi’s accusations immediately. Pretending not to have noticed for a month or two would not be too late.

So, on a sudden impulse, Gu Cheng called Lee Soo-man and asked to borrow some performers.

Lee Soo-man was delighted. S-M was currently preparing to promote a new group, and he hoped that after Gu Cheng borrowed BoA, he would also give the newcomers a slot to perform two songs as a “buy one, get one free” arrangement and help them build some popularity. It could serve as their debut showcase in China.

Gu Cheng was not particularly surprised. After making a few inquiries, he learned that Lee Soo-man intended to debut the group that had been training for more than two years: TVXQ.

This was a matter left over from history, and Gu Cheng had no intention of changing it.

Although he preferred promoting solo artists, many of the trainees S-M had recruited in its early years possessed talents that were too specialized. Without being placed in a group, they could only become wasted assets.

Some members of TVXQ had only distinctive voices. Some could only dance. Others had nothing but good looks. That was why S-M had signed them for extremely modest terms, while the cost of training and maintaining them was also low. The company was simply betting on turning decay into wonder and making money from the result.

Because of Gu Cheng’s presence, history had shifted slightly. Lee Soo-man had also inserted Han Geng into TVXQ to make up the numbers. Han Geng was not especially gifted at either singing or dancing, and his role overlapped with that of Jung Yun-ho, but his nationality alone made him useful for opening up the Chinese market. At worst, after a year or two, Han Geng could shift into acting and take part in fewer group activities.

Gu Cheng effortlessly assembled the lineup he needed for his self-organized concert, and an inexplicable sense of accomplishment welled up inside him.

Some things were novel the first time one did them, and simply accomplishing them brought satisfaction. It had nothing to do with how much money they made. It was merely a way of enriching one’s experience of life.

...

A large-scale concert like this would require at least two months of preparation. Arranging the venue, coordinating the schedules of the singers and their teams, and putting the tickets on sale all took time.

Promotion and ticket sales took the longest. Venues, rehearsals, and stage construction could all be expedited, but public enthusiasm could not.

By industry convention, if there were less than two months of advance ticket sales, the organizers could only choose a mid-sized venue with a capacity below thirty thousand. Otherwise, if they booked the eighty-thousand-seat Workers’ Stadium in the capital or Shanghai Stadium in Shanghai, they might very well be unable to sell enough tickets.

After all, once advertisements went out, the fans still needed ample time to see them.

Gu Cheng had originally planned to spend two months preparing, which would have made things easier. But Lee Soo-man told him about a standard rule in the entertainment industry: all performance activities had to avoid the month of the World Cup.

2002 was a World Cup year. The tournament would begin around June 10, and, by an unfortunate coincidence, this was the first time in history that the World Cup was being held in Asian countries. Although the host nations were Japan and South Korea, plenty of Chinese fans would certainly travel there to watch the matches.

If the concert clashed with the World Cup, even the greatest platinum-selling singer would be doomed to fail.

And it was not only the music market. The same applied to television dramas and films. One important reason Gu Cheng had dared to say, just after May began, that The Story of a Noble Family was certain to be the hottest drama of 2002 was that the summer entertainment season would be torn apart by the World Cup.

So Gu Cheng had no choice but to compress the schedule drastically, leaving only a month for preparations and holding the concert around Children’s Day.

After hanging up, he left the remaining matters to others. After all, it was always the leader who gave a single order while the subordinates ran themselves ragged.

He had never expected that merely planning to say a few honest words and show his true personality would require such a massive investment.

Though it would bring in even more money.

...

The operation was already in full swing. The dismissed corrupt employees were providing manpower, Zhou Hongyi was providing the money and the dirt, and their joint campaign to smear Gu Cheng was unfolding at a feverish pace.

Within a week or two, Gu Cheng’s reputation had transformed from the unanimous, uncritical praise that had followed the finale of The Story of a Noble Family into something fuller, livelier, and more complicated.

He had gone from being a flawless idol atop an altar to becoming a living person of flesh and blood.

Those who hated him continued to attack him. His fans, however, remained unmoved. If anything, these flaws seemed to make Gu Cheng feel more real to them.

It was like the fans of Diego Maradona, who would never reject him for his drug use. Somehow, even drug use became an endearing, everyday quirk once it was attached to Maradona.

After the May Day holiday ended, advertisements for tickets to the “Chengpin Music Annual Concert” began appearing gradually on various music radio stations.

Anyone with experience in the industry knew that there was no point in advertising concert tickets on television. Television commercials were nothing but an expensive waste of money. One either advertised on radio stations and entertainment magazines, relied on websites, or used variety shows and entertainment news to place soft advertisements.

Gu Cheng, however, was unwilling to personally appear on variety programs for promotional purposes. He was busy as well and genuinely had no time, which amounted to cutting off one of his own arms in the publicity campaign.

The number of fans who discovered the ticket information at the earliest opportunity was pitifully small.

The people who quickly noticed Chengpin Music’s move were instead the critics who resented Gu Cheng or felt that his rise had been far too frivolous and insufficiently “serious.”

The sneers of those jealous observers soon began to spread.

“Heh... He won’t do variety shows or soft advertising, and he still dares to begin promoting only twenty days in advance? Given the atmosphere of the domestic market, even Jacky Cheung would need to start selling tickets at least two months ahead of time to sell out.

“He’s relying on a so-called ‘new sensation’ with only six songs, adding a few female singers, and inviting someone like Jay Chou, who’s only been famous for a year or so, as a guest. And he expects to sell out that quickly? Just wait and watch him crash and burn!”