Chapter 198 Study Hard

"Can I not join you in your studies?" Zhu Xiangming stood behind the practice room door, a bitter look on his face. He felt like he was going to collapse any second. "8 to 10 in the morning, Chinese. 10 to 12, math. 1 to 3 in the afternoon, English. 3 to 6, liberal arts. 7 to 10, arts exams... How am I supposed to survive after all this?"

Cang Zizhen pulled them to the center of the room. The current practice room was specially arranged with tables and chairs for their tutoring, and it looked a bit like a classroom.

After pushing him to sit on a chair, Cang Zizhen patted his shoulder and comforted him: "After finishing this course, you will be able to get into a good university."

Zhu Xiangming: "..."

"Actually, I don't mind if I don't do well on the test... Can't I just get into an ordinary university?"

Zhu Xiangming turned around to look at Cang Zizhen, his eyes blinking and sparkling, very cute.

Cang Zizhen expressionlessly pressed down the man's head, forcing Zhu Xiangming to face the textbook on the table. "It's not up to you now."

"No!" Zhu Xiangming scratched his head and wailed, "Aren't we idols? Don't we have jobs? Variety shows, TV dramas, concerts, what about those jobs? Why do we have time to sit here and study 24 hours a day? Huh? Are we so obscure that we don't even have any work?"

“That’s not right.”

In their first year after debut, shouldn't they focus on their work?

Zhu Xiangming sighed to the sky, his eyes swept across the dark sky outside the window, and he couldn't help but shed two lines of tears.

At six o'clock in the morning in November, he was already sitting in the classroom ready to study.

How about it?

Maybe I'm trying too hard.

"That's right, brother. I guarantee it's right." Yin Hongxue closed the door, walked over to Zhu Xiangming, took out her phone and placed it in front of him. "We really don't have a job right now."

Zhu Xiangming took a closer look and saw that it was a familiar forum page.

"You're spying on the fan circle!"

Yin Hongxue: "Stop messing around and read the words."

"Oh." Zhu Xiangming said angrily, took the phone and looked at it carefully.

"Why did Lu Yao's family's rights protection and fundraising suddenly stop?" Zhu Xiangming read as he watched: "What happened to Lu Yao's family? Why did they suddenly protect their rights?" After reading, he couldn't help but ask questions.

No one replied, so he continued reading.

"Not only Lu Yao's, but all the fundraising links that other families had opened long ago have also been closed, and all the things I bought before have been refunded."

"What's going on? Isn't it gathering anymore?"

"It seems like the company is finished."

"It is said that the company contacted every data group and asked them to stop all fundraising."

"Ah? How is that possible? Weren't we collecting them all fine before?"

"Yeah, if the company doesn't allow us to raise funds, then the data group won't collect them? They didn't allow us to do that before, but we still opened links one after another."

"They said they had put a severe stop to it this time, and they even threatened the Fifth Regiment."

"What? Threatening the Fifth Regiment? The company is crazy, right? How dare they?"

"I wanted to say that, but it's true that every fundraising has stopped."

Zhu Xiangming read vividly, with exclamations, pauses, doubts, and rhetorical questions, and all kinds of emotions were sincere and heartfelt, as if there were really people having a conversation with him.

After reading for a while, Zhu Xiangming stopped when he saw that the content was similar.

He was silent for a moment, looking thoughtful.

Just when Yin Hongxue thought he was about to say something, Zhu Xiangming suddenly asked, "What's the difference between the data group and the fan club?"

“…Is this what you feel after reading this post?”

Cang Zizhen answered Zhu Xiangming's question: "The fan club can connect with the company and is an official fan organization, while the data group is purely composed of fans and does not obey the company's arrangements."

"Oh." Zhu Xiangming nodded in understanding, "So that's how it is."

"Then why did they suddenly stop raising funds this time?"

The company can't control them, so of course they won't listen to what the company says. Why did they suddenly listen this time?

Yin Hongxue took her phone and began to flip through it again. After turning it over, she showed it to Zhu Xiangming: "You are using our subsequent resources as a threat."

"???" Zhu Xiangming's eyes widened. "Can this be possible? Oh my God."

"It's really petty for an entertainment company to use its own artists to threaten fans."

Cang Zizhen curled his lips and said nothing.

Zhu Xiangming suddenly thought of a question: "But do we have follow-up resources?"

Zhu Xiangming raised his eyes and met two helpless faces.

Work? Of course there isn't one.

"There will be a concert in the near future." Lu Yao's voice suddenly sounded.

Everyone turned around and looked over.

"when?"

"Where?"

"How come we don't know?"

Lu Yao: "I'm not sure when or where yet. It was just decided not long ago."

Everyone: “…”

Very good, a concert that has just been confirmed, but we don’t know when or where it will be held.

Is this reasonable?

The time and place are unknown, so how can they prepare?

Still need to prepare in this busy study schedule?

Are you crazy?

Bai You raised his hand: "Why do you want to hold a concert suddenly?"

This point was not mentioned at all in the previous meeting.

Lu Yao paused.

Xin Yi's voice immediately rang out: "No need to ask this."

"Oh." Bai You put his hand away and didn't ask any more questions. He lowered his eyes and started reading the book attentively, as if the question he had just asked was just an unintentional one and he didn't care at all if he didn't get an answer.

The brief chat in the practice room came to an end, and everyone sat in their seats. It was time for them to recite the lessons, but everyone was distracted by the news just now. Qiu Yuge took out his mobile phone and read the comments of fans. His face showed no emotion. After a long time, he put away his phone and continued to recite the lessons as if nothing had happened.

On the Internet, the shock in the fan circle has just begun.

Lu Yao fans’ rights protection and fundraising efforts were only posted for a few hours when they were deleted without any notice that evening. Before the fans could react, they discovered that not only theirs, but also the fundraising links previously posted by other groups had been taken down.

Now everyone couldn't sit still.

Many fans kept sending private messages to the data group's account, hoping to get a response. Some of them who had a good relationship with people in the data group even had direct private chats. However, the data group accounts that usually responded quickly, contrary to their usual behavior, did not respond for a long time this time.

When the fans were anxious, they found that the crowdfunding products they had purchased before had been refunded quietly.

If one company removes the fundraising link, fans will worry that the data group has run away with the money. If two companies remove the fundraising link, fans may worry that the two companies are the same. But what if three, four, five... all the data groups of the entire fifth group remove the link?

Moreover, not long after the links were removed, refund channels were opened for all of them?

Now all the fans couldn't sit still.

Amid the fans' shock and doubts, the Lu Yao data group, which started first, finally gave the first response.

Without saying too much, in summary there is only one thing - the company's requirements.

This has left fans even more confused.

Company requirements?

The company asks for too much.

But do those things matter?

unimportant!

Fans raise funds to give better support to Zidan and to let investors see the value of Zidan.

The faster they raise funds and the higher the amount they raise, the higher the business value they will bear.

The higher the commercial value, the better resources it can bring to the company.

The bigger the support card is and the more support there is, the more people will see their idol.

Every large screen and every billboard in the business district means that one more passerby may notice Zidan and search for it, which makes it more likely that Zidan will be recognized.

These are all things that are directly beneficial to Zidan, and are the most direct contributions their fans make to Zidan.

The company does not allow this or that, but has it done these things itself?

No!

The company will only use the money earned from the self-guaranteed assets to promote the royal family they want to promote, and then suppress the self-guaranteed assets as much as possible, for fear that the self-guaranteed assets will be beyond their control.

Now the company actually tells them not to raise funds?

This is probably because they are reluctant to spend the money because it has not been transferred to the company's account.

Fans were angry and questioning, but underneath that, there was also a hint of panic.

There have been too many calls to ban fundraising, and in order to cope with this ban, fans have changed their fundraising from directly setting up payment accounts to raising funds through empty links, and then to raising funds through selling goods... But no matter how these forms change, their purpose remains the same and has never stopped.

But this time, why did it stop so decisively?

Or has it stopped on a large scale?

Amid the fans' concerns, some clues were finally revealed.

An anonymous account claimed that the company was determined to rectify this chaos and used the artist's subsequent resources as a threat.

Such remarks are too outrageous. Artists are indeed the biggest bargaining chips in the hands of the company, but they are also the channel for the company to make money.

How could a company not make money and throw its artists aside just to make fans obey?

The fans didn't believe it, but one day, two days, three days... the fifth group, which never showed up, seemed to have really confirmed such remarks.

Even if a newly debuted group is in seclusion, there will still be news about them.

When the group was in seclusion in the first half of the year, the group account released group variety shows as usual, and there were continuous rumors about the group's subsequent work, such as the subsequent travel variety show recording, the preparation of the TV series... These can be seen on the Internet. But this time, except for the Weibo posts released by the members from time to time, everything else seems to have disappeared.

There was no movement on the group account, and there was no news about the follow-up work. There was no fresh news and no hope for the future. Coupled with the company's righteous attitude, the entire fan circle of the fifth group was like a dead sea, making everyone suffer.

Things started to change after all the data groups were named as fan clubs.

The new concert has been officially announced.