Chapter 46: Zhang Yingjing Smiled Quietly

When she saw the email notification, Zhang Yingjing, who had just stood up, sat back down again.

“Wait, Sis, Xu Ze just sent an email.”

Her agent sighed helplessly. Why waste any more time on Xu Ze? As the saying goes, the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment. She didn’t want to see that look of disappointment on Zhang Yingjing’s face again.

Zhang Yingjing opened the email and was surprised to find a five-minute audio file.

“Wasn’t he only supposed to send a demo?” Zhang Yingjing frowned, put on her headphones, and pressed play.

Gradually, her furrowed brow relaxed, and soon her beautiful eyes were filled with deep confusion.

After listening once, she started it again, her mouth opening wider with each listen.

Behind her, the agent noticed Zhang Yingjing had been sitting motionless at the computer for nearly ten minutes.

“Was Xu Ze’s song that bad? Is she so disappointed she’s just sitting there like that?” The agent suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for Zhang Yingjing.

All these years, ever since Zhang Yingjing’s debut, she had been her agent, watching her grow step by step. She knew that Zhang Yingjing’s greatest wish now was to become a superstar, a dream she had worked tirelessly to achieve—far more than most could imagine.

“Yingjing, let’s go home. It’s getting late.” The agent walked over and gently patted her on the shoulder.

At that moment, Zhang Yingjing took off her headphones and turned around, her face alight with excitement. “Sis, Xu Ze is a genius!”

“A genius?” The agent was stunned. So she wasn’t sitting there because she was disappointed?

She looked at her suspiciously. “It’s just a demo, how much can you tell from that?”

“It’s not a demo. Xu Ze sent a complete song. That’s why it took him a bit longer.” As Zhang Yingjing spoke, she unplugged the headphones from the computer and connected to the Bluetooth speaker.

The moment the song filled the room, the agent was stunned.

“This song...?”

She stood rooted to the spot, shell-shocked until the song finished playing.

When she snapped out of it, she looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

After years at Zhang Yingjing’s side, she prided herself on her musical instincts. The feeling this song gave her was the same as the first time she’d heard any of Zhang Yingjing’s major hits.

The agent grabbed Zhang Yingjing’s shoulders excitedly. “This song is incredible! Xu Ze really is a genius!”

Then she teased, “Looks like your taste is better than mine after all. I must be getting old.”

Zhang Yingjing laughed. “Of course, I have great taste.”

At that moment, the agent gazed at her glowing face and was suddenly moved. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you smile like this.”

“Oh? Really?”

For the first time in a while, the agent felt genuinely happy. Many called Zhang Yingjing the ‘Ice Queen’, but only she knew that, years back, Zhang Yingjing was once a girl who would laugh and cry freely. As her fame grew, the pressure did too. With everything going on at the company these past two years, she’d smiled less and less.

...

At midnight, lights were still burning in the operations department of Mango TV, where plenty of staff were working overtime.

Everyone was busy compiling and collating the streaming data for “I Am a Songwriter.”

As the platform’s hottest show at the moment, its streaming data needed to be gathered and delivered to the executives as soon as possible.

“The numbers are in!” someone suddenly shouted.

“How is it?” Everyone gathered around, eager to know.

“These figures are... strange.” That was everyone’s first reaction to the data.

According to the report, the show had reached 20 million valid member clicks so far. That was an excellent performance, entirely befitting the platform’s top show.

But the next set of data was perplexing. The retention rate for the first fifteen minutes was 90%, which was outstanding—90% of the viewers watched up to the fifteenth minute.

But from the sixteenth minute, retention dropped off a cliff, plummeting to 50%.

And just one minute later, it nosedived again to 25%.

In other words, 75% of viewers chose to stop watching at the seventeenth minute.

In the end, less than two million members finished the show.

“Is there something wrong with the video feed?” That was everyone’s first thought, because nothing else could explain it.

The completion rate was abysmally low. Even the platform’s worst-performing shows usually had a 30% completion rate.

“Hurry, check the video source! Focus on what happens after the fifteenth minute!” a team leader barked.

If there was an issue with the video, it would be a disaster—there’d be no year-end bonuses, and the department head’s job might even be at risk.

Soon, everyone finished checking, but could find nothing wrong.

The video source was normal. If there was any issue at all, it was that an ad was inserted during Xu Ze’s performance. But inserting ads shouldn’t have caused such a massive drop in retention, should it? Besides, it was only a fifteen-second ad.

They looked at each other, unable to find an explanation.

At that moment, a newly hired employee raised his hand and quietly suggested, “A lot of people in the comments said they were watching for Xu Ze, but we interrupted his performance with ads, and even plastered ad images over the video, nearly blocking his face. That’s why they left. They all said they switched to Penguin TV to watch.”

No one seemed to believe it. They’d done the same thing on plenty of other shows, and the retention figures had never been affected like this.

Why was Xu Ze different?

The team leader suddenly turned to a balding young man. “Xiao Wang, have you pulled the data from Penguin yet?”

“Almost!”

Five minutes later, he announced loudly, “Penguin’s data is in!”

“How is it?”

He stared at the screen and read, “Valid member clicks: 10 million.”

No one was surprised. Penguin’s traffic was always much lower, usually half that of Mango TV when shows aired on both platforms.

But then, something on the screen caught his eye. He swallowed nervously, and his voice shook. “Their full-play member count is... nine million!”

“What? Nine million?” Everyone gasped. How could that be? Out of ten million clicks, a 90% completion rate?

This was a ninety-minute program—no one had ever seen such high retention.

Even last year’s breakout hit had only managed a 70% completion rate, and that was considered exceptional.

Suddenly, someone cried out, “If these numbers are accurate, does it mean this is the first time Mango TV has lost to Penguin TV in viewership? And by several times the margin?”

Everyone took a deep breath, feeling the chill—as if their collective sighs alone were contributing to global warming.