World Hopping: Avenge Our Love
Translator: translationraven
First Published on Chaleuria
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In the words of the industry people, the skin on Song Yucheng’s face was thicker than concrete. He had no care for pride nor reputation, and just posted anything that Tang Chi recorded.
Song Yucheng had said that he was going to have all the netizens listen to Tang Chi’s voice anew by the end of this night.
The public relations department were about to piss themselves because of Song Yucheng’s recklessness. “Aren’t you going too far? Plus, President Ding…”
“Nope. He has no time.” Song Yucheng narrowed his eyes, and his gentle husky voice took on an edge of danger.
The public relations guy shivered, then hurried to follow his instructions and nothing else.
And so, half an hour later, all the singers under Leap Records were thrown into an unspeakable pit of despair.
The major celebrities who had raised doubts about Shen Yi were in a panic because they had been outclassed in terms of acting. Right now, their reputations were being further crushed by Tang Chi’s singing.
Tang Chi really was too scary! Every song he sang was better than the original, and had more depth too. His vocal talent, and his acquired skills gave them no grounds for a rebuttal, and no space to breathe.
The ones hit hardest were the members of Tang Chi’s original band.
They’d thrown all the dirt they could on Tang Chi after stomping all over him. It was obvious that Tang Chi had been the soul of the band, and they were nothing without his lyrics and his superior vocal skills. They had been naive, and thought that they would be able to advance after destroying Tang Chi and making him leave.
Now, reality was telling them that it was impossible! He was above them, and would always be.
Song Yucheng gave them no quarter. He uploaded a recording of their un-doctored voices from a recent performance, and compared it with Tang Chi’s pure voice.
Their voices hurt the ears, going out of tune and screeching along to a melody.
“OMG, tell me this ain’t true! WTF is this?”
“No. No way. This can’t be my idol.”
“So does this mean what we’ve been hearing was autotuned? Are sound engineers so advanced in their craft already? They can actually fix trainwrecks like this?!”
Xie Qianchen: Yes, that’s the case. Unfortunately, this bunch of idiots ousted their only vocal king. No sound engineer, no matter how skilled, can save them from their live performances. I won’t ramble on — go listen to our Tang Chi’s heavenly voice and purify your ears!
The slap had come in like a tornado, stinging the faces of the Leap Records singers in a whirlwind. All of them hated Tang Chi in that instant. The managers of these singers were also caught off guard by Song Yucheng’s sudden move.
“Can someone tell me if this Xie Qianchen is a mad dog? Why’s he going around biting everyone?” A tired manager was frustrated, and at his limit.
His colleagues were having headaches too.
“So what if he’s a mad dog? The important thing is to get the situation under control as soon as possible. Tang Chi, Tang Chi…! Damn it, didn’t he already get cut long ago? Why is he suddenly standing out?”
“Who cares why?! We should hurry up and fix the public’s opinion, or all of Leap Records’ singers will have their musical skills questioned. Argh, we’re so unlucky. Why did we have to run into Xie Qianchen?!”
The managers were rushing about trying to fix the situation. They were going to paint this as a case of malicious retaliation.
Leap Records quickly held a press conference, and Tang Chi’s ex-bandmates and lawyer came forward again to talk about Tang Chi’s past betrayal.
“We really treated him like a brother, and we wanted to go down the same path together. But Tang Chi, he…”
“We were so depressed when Tang Chi wanted to leave, and the popularity of our band was also affected. We’ve been nursing the hurt done to us this past year, and have barely taken on any commercials or gone on programmes. Who would have thought that Tang Chi would not be willing to let us off like this.”
“It’s been half a year! Tang Chi did not even give us a phone call after he left. We mean nothing to him!”
All these seemed true, though they were lies, and many people recalled the dirt which had been thrown on Tang Chi when he had betrayed his band. They started to sympathise with the band mates.
However, in response to the condemnation from Leap Records, Song Yucheng bared his murderous fangs under his mask of harmlessness for the first time.
Picture Domain’s public relations department moved fast. Song Yucheng stepped forward to hold a press conference that every evening, and streamed it live on the internet too.
“We’ve seen the discussion and doubts voiced on the Internet. Today, I stand here representing Tang Chi, to respond to the so-called case of betrayal half a year ago. I ask that reporters remain silent for the duration of my speech. Netizens watching the livestream, please also refrain from immediate comment. I believe that you will all have your truth by the end of my speech.”
Song Yucheng redirected the livestream to the big screen after he was done talking, and started on his speech.
“To you all, Tang Chi is an ingrate who betrayed his bandmates. In truth, Tang Chi was the one who was lied to!”
The truth of what happened half a year ago was revealed in Song Yucheng’s speech.
What? Tang Chi lied to his band mates to fight the lawsuit against Leap Records, then betrayed them for bigger rewards? He disregarded the support he’d received from Leap Records over the years, sued them, and fabricated evidence of Leap Records exploiting singers to slander the company?
LIES. All lies.
The real truth was that Tang Chi had been oppressed by Leap Record’s unfair contract clauses, and was betrayed right away by the bandmates he thought his brothers.
Song Yucheng’s evidence was astonishingly detailed. He exposed the contract Tang Chi signed in the beginning of his career, and also all of the bank transactions of the money he had received from his work.
No one had imagined that Tang Chi, a B-lister celebrity, was only getting a set amount of 5,000 yuan a month. The dividends for each song he recorded were also pitifully small, and he received nothing of his performance fees for commercial performances and appearances on variety shows. In contrast, he had paid a lot of rmoney back to Leap Records in the first year of his debut.
The reason for this was that it was expenses for his time in training.
This was nonsense! How could the monthly income of a B-list celebrity be less than that of a normal office worker in a Tier 1 city in China? Was this a joke?
The evidence Song Yucheng supplied of the bandmates’ betrayal was even more extreme, and beyond what people had imagined.
The bandmates who had called themselves his brothers had schemed to oust Tang Chi long ago. They had cooperated with him under false pretences and sold him out to the company.
They had actually already started negotiations with the company before the lawsuit proceedings, and had planned how they would divide the resources allocated to Tang Chi amongst themselves after they’d gotten rid of him.
The chat logs from WeChat and QQ were revealed to the public in their entirety.
Everyone was stunned. Tang Chi’s ex-bandmates hurriedly refuted the chat logs when they learnt of them.
“No! We’ve never said that. Those chat logs are fake!”
“Yeah! That’s not what we said. Even if it were, using our information like this is illegal.”
The reporters present also raised the same question.
Song Yucheng smiled. “No need to worry about that. All the information we have came from legal means.” He then showed them the official seal of the courts, stating that all the evidence he’d published came from legal means, and were approved by the court.
Song Yucheng had actually sued Leap Records and Tang Chi’s old bandmates, acting as his manager, right after Tang Chi signed the contract with Picture Domain.
The materials he had in his hands now were all obtained through official evidence sampling after approval by the court.
These were all solid pieces of evidence, and the people who had insulted Tang Chi were all stunned. They could hardly believe what they had seen.
“N, No way! All of that dirt on Tang Chi was faked? How’s that possible?”
“I don’t believe it. The evidence given by Leap Records back then was real solid too. How else could Tang Chi have had all of the Internet turn against him?”
“But Xie Qianchen’s evidence is backed by the courts! The court of law won’t lie to people, right?”
“If it’s all real… then Tang Chi really was wronged…”
The people murmured. However, the pictures Song Yucheng shared right after were so shocking that they were at a loss for words.