Rebirth of Chinese Entertainment, the Diary of a 95 Flower

Chapter 1 Discovering a Potential Cultivation Target, Yang Chaoyue
"Hey, hey, hey, you can't park here."

"I clearly drove into the parking space."

As soon as Jiang Yang drove the Corolla to the parking area of ​​the textile factory, he saw the parking attendant wearing a work badge banging on the car window.

Jiang Yang pulled the handbrake and pushed open the car door: "I'll be leaving in a moment."

"Then we have to move the car!"

"Why? You're responsible for the parking fee."

"The rear tire crushed my foot!"

Jiang Yang quickly moved the car back in place, apologized to the old man, and took out his mobile phone to scan a red envelope for the old man. Only then did he realize that it was 2015 and WeChat payment was in a stage of rapid development and had not yet become popular.

Even parking fees are paid in cash.

Only after I stuffed him with a 100-yuan red note and a pack of soft Zhonghua cigarettes did the old man smile.

I was reborn 10 years ago when the social atmosphere was not so corrupt. If it were my previous life, I would have never let this matter go unless I extorted 3 or 5 yuan from Jiang Yang.

The old man grinned and said, "Come to the textile factory to find a partner, young man?"

"Not dating, but forming a girl group."

White steam was coming out of Jiang Yang's mouth.

It's November 1st now, and even in Shanghai, the temperature is almost freezing during this period, so everyone's wearing long underwear and long johns. "Just go across the street and post a job ad, looking for a good-looking factory girl to form a girl group."

Girl group?

What the hell?
Fighting.

The old man couldn't understand it. Times are changing so fast that many young people are confused by the new words uploaded from the Internet.

Seeing Jiang Yang took out a lighter to light the old man's cigarette, the old man said a few more words:

"At the beginning of last year, a group of seamstresses came. There was a girl who was quite pretty, sweet-mouthed and always smiling. She brought me pig's trotter rice a few times. Her name was Yue..."

"Yang Chaoyue?"

"Oh, yes, that's the name. The girl from Jiangsu brought me pork trotter rice that was so spicy that it made my lips blister."

Sure enough, the beautiful girl I saw on the street corner in Shaxian at noon was Yang Chaoyue.

Fortunately, the system reminded him in time, otherwise when Yang Chaoyue became a big star, he would not be able to take away the attributes from the other party.

After all, his system is called the Xiaohua Cultivation System.

After the cultivation system binds to an object and improves the other party's abilities, Jiang Yang can get exponential feedback from the other party, including but not limited to music, acting, and dancing abilities.

Jiang Yang himself was not sure about the specific effect, and Yang Chaoyue was his first target.

Carrying the printed A4 paper and glue, I came to the recruitment column, which was covered with various yellowed job recruitment and rental advertisements.

A flyer with the words "KTV Princess Recruitment with High Salary" was pasted in the corner. The edges were curled and covered with oil and dust.

The roar of the textile factory machines was heard in waves.

The air smelled of cotton wool and motor oil.

"Isn't a 5000 yuan monthly salary too high? Given the 10 yuan my parents saved for me to start my own business, plus my expenses, I might not be able to pay my salary and they'll have to go back to work in a factory in a year."

"Forget it, let's sign Yang Chaoyue first."

After posting the recruitment advertisement, I passed by an Internet cafe that had posters of the League of Legends (LPL) League. At the door of the Internet cafe, a few yellow-haired teenagers were squatting and eating lunch boxes, playing "My Skateboard Shoes" on their cell phones.

The sticker with "WiFi password: 88886666" on the Shaxian glass door next to it was curled up, and the drum beats of "Little Apple" were shaking the ceiling fan.

Jiang Yang pushed the door open and just sat down when he found that the plastic stool was cracked and was glued together with transparent tape.

It was lunchtime, and there were two tables of customers in the restaurant eating in ripped jeans and platform shoes.

Jiang Yang ordered a bowl of pork trotter rice, took a tissue to wipe the glue off his fingers, and waited silently.

Diagonally opposite is the recruitment column.

It's almost time to get off work, and female workers who are looking for better jobs can be seen going out.

The steaming hot pork trotter rice was served on the table. Jiang Yang had just taken two bites when he saw a large group of female workers in uniform coming out of the textile factory gate.

The cuffs of the female workers' uniforms were stained with lint, and the roar of the assembly line machines drowned out the shouts from the street corner stalls.

Most of the female workers ignored the advertisement on the recruitment board and left immediately. A few of them stopped for a few seconds and took out their mobile phones to call Jiang Yang.

Jiang Yang hung up all the calls.

Because she wasn't the girl he was looking for.

This kind of waiting, like waiting for something to happen, lasted for 10 days.

By November 11th, mobile phone news was flooded with Taobao’s Double Eleven promotions.

As the female workers in the textile factory were leaving get off work as the sun set, Jiang Yang came to this Shaxian restaurant again, ordered a meal, and when he turned his head, he saw that the flyers posted on the recruitment board 10 days ago had all been distributed.

After a while, I noticed a girl hanging around in front of the recruitment board.

The girl stepped out of the shadow of the factory into the sunset under the recruitment board.

She had a small face the size of a palm, a slightly upturned nose, and faded overalls with frayed edges at the knees, which opened and closed with her steps. In her hand, she held a half-eaten steamed bun that looked like it was left over from the previous meal.

Her hair was tied up casually, her face was covered with cotton wool, and her skin was fair.

Jiang Yang recognized her at a glance; this was the girl he was looking for.

Because on the control panel in front of him, a system prompt appeared: [Potential training target found, Yang Chaoyue, do you want to bind?]

Jiang Yang chose no without hesitation.

There is currently only one binding position. According to the system, Yang Chaoyue must be cultivated to a certain level and at least have 2 attributes before the next binding position can be unlocked.

What if I don’t get along with Yang Chaoyue and can’t gain any attributes from him? Wouldn’t that be a waste of my position?

The metal sheet of the recruitment board shone coldly in the twilight. Yang Chaoyue stared at the words "5000 yuan monthly salary" on the recruitment advertisement, his fingertips unconsciously picking at the holes in his overalls, muttering, "Free food and lodging, early wages..." The voice of a female supervisor on the assembly line in her thirties came from beside him: "We work so hard in the factory and only make 3500 yuan a month. This place is 5,000 yuan a month, and it also provides food and lodging. How can it be so good? It must be another shell company that scams young girls. Who knows, they might just use them to work as drinking companions in nightclubs!"

Hearing this, Yang Chaoyue tilted his head and left, but turned back after taking a few steps.

Why don’t you give them a call and ask?

It is difficult to find a good job with my academic qualifications.

I earn 3500 yuan a month at a textile factory. After deducting food expenses and the rent, utilities, and electricity bills shared with my roommates, the remaining money is sometimes not enough for me to spend on myself, and I occasionally have to ask for help from my father who works hard in my hometown.

When I was a child, my parents divorced, and my mother started a new family and gave birth to new children.

Children who grow up in migrant worker families grow up in a suffocating environment of economic oppression and receive little care.

Dad worked hard to raise her.

When I dropped out of school, I realized that big cities are not as beautiful as they are portrayed in idol dramas.

Only the rich can live a comfortable life here.

Money is not easy to make.

I really want to transfer some money to my dad every month so that he doesn’t have to work so hard at the construction site, and so that he can feel more at ease and not have to worry about me.

The thing I least want to see when I go home for the Chinese New Year is my father’s hunched back and the graying temples under his safety helmet at the construction site.

Yang Chaoyue repeatedly confirmed the words "food and accommodation provided" and "training available without experience" written on Jiang Yang's recruitment advertisement, and hesitantly took out an old flip-top Nokia phone.

The Hello Kitty patent leather on the phone case was mottled and peeling, and Yang Chaoyue's fingers repeatedly rubbed the dial button.

Keep your knees together, shoulders inward, and back slightly arched.

Inferiority and desire are intertwined.

Of course she knows what a girl group is.

After all, in this era of Korean wave, boy groups like EXO and Big Bang became popular a few years ago.

Colleagues at the textile factory often imitate the hairstyle and makeup of Girls' Generation members.

If I could become a member of a girl group, I wouldn't need to be very famous. As long as I could show up on TV, I would be the pride of the whole village.

Dad doesn't have to be scolded by the foreman anymore.

I don't want to bow and scrape for 50 yuan overtime pay anymore.

I don't want to have to linger over and over again in front of a job ad.

I don’t want to tell my family about the tears I shed while working hard in the big city.

I especially want to be able to tell my dad honestly from the bottom of my heart that I am doing well when he calls me and asks how I am doing.

In the afterglow of the setting sun, the sunset over the cotton mill stretched Yang Chaoyue's shadow very long, like an assembly line with no end in sight.

"Hello."

The rose gold iPhone 6 on the dark brown wooden dining table rang. Jiang Yang answered the call. Yang Chaoyue's sweet voice, polite yet a little nervous, mingled with the sounds of street whistles and vendors shouting, came from the receiver:
"I saw a job advertisement at the entrance of our textile factory. They said they were looking for a women's group. Could you please contact them?"

When Jiang Yang heard this, his first thought was that if he could sign Yang Chaoyue, he needed to train her Mandarin pronunciation.

After all, she is a girl from a village in Yancheng, Jiangsu, and her accent is very strong in Jianghuai Mandarin.

The flat and retroflex consonants are confused, "招" is pronounced as "乱" and "是" is pronounced as "四".

There should also be a misunderstanding between the front and back nasal sounds, but Jiang Yang couldn't hear it specifically because he himself couldn't change this bad habit.

"Hello."

Jiang Yang turned his head and saw Yang Chaoyue hunching his head and pacing nervously in front of the recruitment board. He smiled and said:
"I'm the Human Resources Manager of Sunshine Entertainment. It's a bit noisy over there, so I can't hear you clearly."

"Oh, wait a moment."

Sunshine Entertainment? It sounds like the name of an entertainment company.

Human Resources Manager?
It seems to be a very high position.

It feels very formal.

Yang Chaoyue ran to the corner of the street, found a secluded place, and then carefully chatted with Jiang Yang: "I really don't need to be able to sing. Can I take training? I'm tone-deaf and my body coordination is very poor, but I can work. I can move boxes..."

It's really the truth.

Jiang Yang was happy.

The girl group does not need to move boxes, but Yang Chaoyue can carry traffic in the future.

"There's only one spot left for the girl group. It's hard to explain over the phone. As you know, appearance is very important for girl groups, meaning there are certain requirements in terms of appearance. I need an interview to understand your situation. If you pass, I can pay you one month's salary in advance."

Pay wages in advance?
In other words, as long as you are selected, you can get 5000 yuan for free.

What a great job.

Unable to wait until tomorrow, with only one spot left, which could easily be snatched up, Yang Chaoyue responded, "Are you available for an interview now?"

"At this time, the company is off work."

"Can you give me a chance? I have a strong learning ability and I can endure hardships. I can also do cleaning work."

"Okay, you pick a location. I'll bring the contract with me. I hope you can approve it, and I'll complete this task assigned to me by the company as soon as possible."

After a few more words, I hung up the phone.

Jiang Yang noticed that Yang Chaoyue didn't even have time to eat and was running hurriedly to the textile factory. He was probably going to change into formal clothes for the upcoming interview.

The interview location was set at Starbucks two blocks away from the factory.

Fortunately, it was Yang Chaoyue who decided the interview location, which saved him the trouble of temporarily renting a job in a decent company. Otherwise, if the other party was more vigilant, they might find out before signing the contract that his company was indeed a shell company that cheated young girls.

(End of this chapter)