I’m Really a Superstar

It had grown dark out.

The live broadcast came to an end.

The crowd had also dispersed from the charity banquet’s venue.

The coordinator of the Asian Red Cross Society that organized the banquet grabbed hold of Zhang Ye’s hand the moment he came up to him. He was visibly excited and kept shaking Zhang Ye’s hand.

The coordinator said, “Teacher Zhang!”

Zhang Ye said, “Hey.”

“Thank you! Thank you!”

“Uh, you’re welcome.”

“We’re really very grateful to you! Thank you so much!”

“This is how it should be; this is all for charity.”

No one knew how hard it took for Zhang Ye to lie about this.

The coordinator was so excited that he was speaking incoherently. “$100 million USD! We will never forget this contribution that you have made to the cause of charity in Asia. The Asian people will remember this good deed of yours and Mr. Qian’s! Today’s donations greatly exceeded our expectations. It’s a figure that we didn’t even dare to imagine! Our staff at the Red Cross were all holding back their tears just now. Even adding up the donations from the last five Asian Charity Banquets wouldn’t exceed the selling price of your auction item. Your generous action has moved me, and I believe many of the others as well. With your lead, there will definitely be more and more people joining in to support such charitable causes in the future!”

Oh, so you think it’s a lot too?

If you think so, why don’t you issue me a refund for some tens of millions of dollars then!

Can I not donate that much?

Zhang Ye was still feeling the pinch.

The coordinator said, “There’s actually a reward of some kind to be given away at every Asian Charity Banquet to the person who makes the greatest contribution, and we had decided on the reward earlier on.” With a pause, he said, “But now, it must be changed. This reward would not be enough to express our Red Cross’s gratitude to you. I will need to go back and hold a meeting with the higher-ups to decide on it. Please wait for my news! I’ll get it done for you immediately! For someone who has made such an outstanding contribution to charity, we must return the favor with the greatest possible encouragement!”

Close by, quite a few Red Cross Society employees who had just finished their work came over. They looked at Zhang Ye and broke out into applause!

This was grateful applause!

This was respectful applause!

This was admiring applause!

Seeing this crowd of excited people, Zhang Ye thought that it would be rather embarrassing if he were to ask whether there was a commission rebate for him. Perhaps this was the price to pay for showing off. Thinking of this, he started looking around the venue. He spotted Miyamoto Shinshou heading for the exit with everyone else and called out to him.

“Master Miyamoto!” Zhang Ye said.

Miyamoto Shinshou turned around, stunned.

Zhang Ye said, “What was it that you said earlier about China’s calligraphy?”

The Japanese interpreter started translating and explaining to him what had just been said.

Miyamoto Shinshou stumbled and nearly fell. He pretended not to have heard it and turned back around to leave.

Zhang Ye called after him, “Eh? Why are you leaving? Why don’t we chat for a while? Didn’t you say that you wanted to give some pointers regarding calligraphy to our Chinese celebrity team?”

Miyamoto Shinshou stumbled again before he hurried away!

Zhang Ye sneered. What was that you were bragging to me about earlier? The calligraphy skills that you have were all learned from us, so what makes you think there is a need for us to listen to your pointers?

The Japanese celebrity team: “…”

The Korean celebrity team: “…”

The staff of the Red Cross Society: “…”

Most people just beat up others instead of smacking faces!

But for Zhang Ye, he only specialized in smacking faces!

He wouldn’t even settle for a hit on the head and would fucking readjust just to ensure his slap landed on the face!

Only the Chinese celebrity team’s members were still talking and chatting as though nothing much had happened. They were used to this. Which of them did not know Zhang Ye’s temper? Besides, it was Miyamoto Shinshou himself who wanted to show off. However, instead of showing off, he walked straight into Zhang Ye’s line of fire! The Chinese celebrity team was also thinking about how Miyamoto Shinshou was very unlucky!

…

Outside the venue.

It was very crowded.

As soon as Zhang Ye came out, he was swarmed by reporters from all over Asia. They gave him no chance of slipping away and stopped him the moment he stepped out!

“Teacher Zhang Ye!”

“Teacher Zhang!”

“I am from KBS ¹ !”

“I am from China’s Xinhua News Agency!”

“We are from Japan’s Daito Nippo!”

“Please accept our interview!”

“Do you know that your ‘Preface to the Orchid Pavilion’ has broken the world record for the selling price of a calligraphy piece?”

“Who did you learn your semi-cursive from?”

“There are experts who evaluated you to be the most skilled person in calligraphy in the world today. What do you think of that?”

“Do you feel that your semi-cursive can be hailed as the world’s best?”

“You’re so good at writing in semi-cursive, do you think you will switch fields to specialize in the art of calligraphy in the future?”

He couldn’t understand Japanese.

He couldn’t understand Korean.

It was a good thing that those foreign reporters were all speaking in English.

Which, of course, he couldn’t understand either!

So Zhang Ye could only answer the questions that those Chinese reporters had posed to him. “It broke the world record for the selling price? I’m not sure about that, but it might be possible. My teacher is Wang Xizhi, but I doubt that any of you would know him. The world’s best? The most skilled person in calligraphy? I dare not accept such an assessment of me. There are so many calligraphy masters in China, and I also don’t specialize in the art of calligraphy. As everyone knows, I am just a normal, small-time artist.”

Question after question.

Zhang Ye answered them one by one.

During this time, he managed to figure out one thing. “Preface to the Orchid Pavilion” was not from this world and had never appeared before. So when the people of this world saw it for the first time, they were stunned by it and hailed it as a godly piece. In actual fact, if Zhang Ye were to bring out this calligraphy piece in its exact original form back in his previous world, it would still only be a copy of the original even if every character he wrote carried the same mannerisms within them.

$100 million USD?

Thinking of this, Zhang Ye didn’t feel that bad anymore.

…

On the same night.

News reports started appearing all across Asia.

“A Chinese celebrity takes top honors!”

“$100 million USD sends a shockwave throughout Asia!”

“A shocking piece appears in the calligraphy world: ‘Preface to the Orchid Pavilion!'”

“A Chinese celebrity becomes a calligraphy master of the new generation!”

“China’s semi-cursive shocks the world!”

“The Asian Charity Banquet a great success!”

“Japanese calligraphy master Miyamoto Shinshou gets face smacked onsite!”

The reports were over overwhelming.

Many of the Asian people who did not watch the charity banquet’s live broadcast only found out about this from the news and were all extremely shocked!

…

Late into the night.

At the resort.

The Chinese celebrity team ordered some food and brought back some alcohol to the hotel room and threw a celebratory party.

“What a fun day that was!”

“We finally took the top honors!”

“Haha, did you all see the look on Miyamoto Shinshou’s face?”

“I saw it, I saw it. He looked so dejected when he made his escape.”

“Come, let’s have a toast.”

“Might I suggest that we toast to Teacher Zhang?”

“Right, it was all thanks to Zhang Ye that Xiaoxian and Sister Zhang were spared the embarrassment!”

“Cheers!”

“Let’s drink!”

The party concluded.

Everyone opened up the Asian Celebrity Rankings Index and suddenly discovered that on the Asian A-list rankings, Zhang Ye’s name had jumped up two places. He had surpassed Lee Anson, who was very popular of late!

This was the Asian Celebrity Rankings!

This was the most authoritative list in Asia where celebrities battled each other!

To rise two ranks overnight?

How ridiculous was that?!