In his heart, Gu Xingyi silently praised the original artist as a true genius. Meanwhile, Lin Guodong's voice continued through the receiver.

“Xiao Gu, don’t worry! Once this song is selected, you’ll definitely be well compensated! Chasing Dreams with a Childlike Heart! What a pure heart—ah, I absolutely love it!”

“Then let me thank you in advance, Lao Lin!”

Gu Xingyi chuckled—another payment coming in, and from Huayang no less. Very nice indeed.

“Xiao Gu, we should be the ones thanking you. You’ve got everything going for you—your only flaw is that you’re too humble! Talented people shouldn’t be too modest! You’ve got to let yourself shine!”

Lin Guodong’s words came through the phone again. This time, Gu Xingyi truly took them to heart.

In his original world, he’d just been a small-time lyricist-composer. Even now, he hadn’t fully adjusted to the shift in identity, which was why he’d been holding himself back. But Lao Lin’s words snapped him out of it.

In this world, others saw him as a genius—the kind of genius who could suppress the entire entertainment industry on his own!

Did a genius like that need to act so modestly? Of course not! Being arrogant because of talent wasn’t right—but being overly humble wasn’t right either.

Lin Guodong’s words were a wake-up call. Realizing this, Gu Xingyi gripped his phone and sincerely said,

“Thank you, Lao Lin.”

That one “thank you” caught Lin Guodong off guard. After a beat, he understood—this kid finally realized how talented he truly was.

“Good, good! As long as you understand.”

“This is a special promotional program for Huayang. Once there’s official word tomorrow, I’ll let you know. When it’s time for the contract and paperwork, I’ll send it to you via email.”

“Got it.”

Gu Xingyi agreed. Since Lin Guodong needed rest, they ended the call there.

From the way Lao Lin put it, Chasing Dreams with a Childlike Heart was basically locked in. Sitting on the sofa, Gu Xingyi didn’t go to bed right away. He tapped his fingers lightly on the manuscript sheet, quietly lost in thought.

The night passed peacefully.

The very next day, Lin Guodong got back to him—Huayang had officially confirmed the song. The contract came through as well: 400,000 yuan for the usage rights. After the show aired, the song would be uploaded to Huayin and all major music platforms!

However, the song would be freely accessible—no charge to listen, just traffic-based earnings, and all traffic revenue would go directly to Gu Xingyi.

Of course, none of this payment would be issued until after the Huayang program aired, which was scheduled for the end of the month.

That was actually quite fast—just over a week away. Huayang had already prepped much of the program’s materials, and now that they had a song, all they needed was to pick a singer and sync everything.

Gu Xingyi happily signed the contract. The price Huayang offered was already more than fair, and honestly, just having his name appear on a Huayang program was a huge honor in itself.

Meanwhile, over on Chen Feng’s side, the Xingyao Animation script had successfully passed the TV station’s review. Lately, he was so busy it looked like he was flying instead of walking. With the company finally on track, everything was thriving. Exhausting—but satisfying.

While Gu Xingyi’s life continued on in calm stability, the entertainment world, on the other hand, was starting to churn.

The pressure from Xia Xiyao was only growing. These days, 8 out of the top 10 trending searches online were about her upcoming new song. The remaining 2? One of them was still about the bot-voting incident during the second round of the StarSong Gathering finals.

No buzz. No traffic. Unknowingly, a shadow had crept over everyone’s heads—and gossip within the industry was growing louder and louder.

The first to be affected was Tianmei Entertainment. They had previously extended an olive branch to Gu Xingyi, but to this day, they still hadn’t received a response.

In the headquarters of Tianmei Entertainment, a high-level meeting was once again underway. Liu Gao's face was grim as he looked at the board members seated around him. By now, he fully understood the entire chain of events that had unfolded during this period.

“Hah! A single person managed to completely revive this stagnant pool that is the entertainment industry. I really don’t know whether to call you all useless or to just admit that he’s too damn brilliant!”

“When Xia Xiyao first started showing signs of becoming popular, what were you all doing? Back then, if you had just casually manipulated the vote count a bit, would she have gotten to where she is now?”

Watching the chairman vent his fury, the company executives seated below all held their breath in silence. A board member sitting at the table to Liu Gao's left let out an awkward laugh and was the first to speak.

“Chairman, it’s not really fair to blame everyone for this. After all, no one expected her rise to be that fast. It caught everyone off guard. What’s important now is figuring out how we deal with it moving forward.”

Who would’ve thought that hearing this would only make Liu Gao even angrier? He slammed his hand on the table.

“Caught off guard?! Gu Xingyi’s very first song for Xia Xiyao took over every single trending topic! And now you’re telling me you were caught off guard?”

“That first song back then, ‘The Wind Rises’! Did any of you even listen to it? Is this the kind of song anyone else in the industry could produce right now? And even before that, ‘Only Ordinary’ — were you all deaf?”

“A song that even Huayin personally chose — someone capable of writing that — and none of you tried to reach out early or shut it down early. And now you’re telling me you didn’t see it coming?!”

The more Liu Gao spoke, the angrier he became. He genuinely felt like he was raising a pack of freeloaders!

“Don’t get too worked up, don’t get too worked up. Wasn’t Yin Hai Entertainment backing her before? We couldn’t just act on our own. But now that things have happened, let’s focus on coming up with a response. The artists under us are already full of resentment — we can’t afford to stall anymore.”

It was that same board member again. He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and continued trying to mediate.

He didn’t want to speak at this time either, but besides Liu Gao, he had the largest shareholding and the best relationship with him, so he had no choice.

Liu Gao was really just trying to shake them up a bit. Now that the scolding was over, it was time to move on to the main point of the meeting.

“Blacklist her! Issue a notice to all our subsidiaries — forbid any business dealings with Yin Hai Entertainment. Since they made the first move for a piece of the pie, don’t blame us for cutting deep!”

“Also, inform all the media partners we work with, including advertisers and business collaborators — if any of them continue working with Xia Xiyao, once the current contract ends, we will terminate all future deals with them!”

“Make sure my decision is enforced immediately. And also, contact Shengshi Entertainment — let them know what’s going on. That bumpkin Tian Xingchi will definitely understand what I mean!”

As soon as Liu Gao finished speaking, a worried-looking board member raised a concern.

“Chairman Liu, isn’t this a bit of an overreaction? This is basically declaring war on Yin Hai Entertainment! The losses on our end could be massive!”

But Liu Gao just waved him off, looking completely confident.

“Yang Xian isn’t an idiot. If we lose big, he loses even bigger. He’ll understand what we’re getting at. He’s not going to go all out to protect Xia Xiyao!”

At that, the board member fell into thought and finally nodded.

Not long after, a piece of news shook the entire entertainment industry to its core —
Tianmei Entertainment had decided to blacklist Xia Xiyao!