Chapter 214: Luck Can Be Late and Can Also Be Early

Chapter 214: Fortune May Be Late, But It Can Also Arrive Early

Upon seeing this brief email, Meng Fan’s mind immediately conjured the image of a middle-aged man with thinning, disheveled hair and visible scratch marks on his face.

"No way!?"

Could the man he encountered this morning be this Director Charlie mentioned in the notes?

Meng Fan quickly searched for "Director Charlie." It sounded like a foreign name, but in reality, his surname was Zha and his given name was Li. He hailed from Yuanhua, Haining, in Zhejiang Province, making him a fellow townsman and clansman of notable figures like Zha Liangyong and Zha Liangzheng.

There was a photo. Although the Director Charlie in the picture had a remarkably thick head of hair, the facial features were unmistakable.

What a coincidence!

Being struck by a diamond ring wasn't the kind of luck Meng Fan had wanted, but the subsequent events certainly were.

This "Luck +1" ability apparently had a delayed-action feature.

"Yes."

Meng Fan’s reply was equally concise.

Shortly after sending it, he received a WeChat friend request.

He accepted.

"Hello, Director Charlie."

Director Charlie replied with a voice message, brimming with enthusiasm: "Hello, hello! Hahaha, what a coincidence! I just saw the report about your basketball arcade machine competition. I recognized you at a glance. Then I remembered seeing your name somewhere, so I dug through the submissions my assistant had organized, and sure enough, there it was."

"My assistant showed me your submission, and I even made a note on it—it was quite good overall. By the way, now that you’re a world record holder and rumored to be performing at a concert, are you still interested in voice acting?"

Meng Fan replied immediately: "I am. Comics and voice acting are my dreams."

"Shall we meet tomorrow to discuss it?"

"Sounds good."

Meng Fan never expected his voice acting submission to yield results through a diamond ring. In high spirits, he entered the concert backstage via the staff entrance.

"Congratulations!"

"Congrats!"

"You’re a beast!"

Many people backstage seemed to know the results of the afternoon competition. Seeing Meng Fan arrive, some offered congratulations while others teased him. Although Meng Fan hadn't interacted with them much, his pleasant temperament and habit of bringing or ordering food made him quite popular with the staff.

"You really are something!"

Su Qingcen was already in the makeup chair. Her personal stylist had finished her first hairstyle and was now directed by Su Qingcen to attend to Meng Fan.

"Just do something simple; no need to go overboard."

Meng Fan’s hair wasn't long, and his style was standard. The stylist showed him a few pictures of looks he deemed suitable, but Meng Fan rejected them immediately. Those styles required trimming; they would be fine for a stage performance, but in real life, they were a bit too flashy.

Should he trim it after the show? His hair was already short; it couldn't handle much more fussing.

Once his hair was set, he had a simple makeup application. His outfit had been decided earlier, so he tried it on to see if any immediate adjustments were needed.

Hangzhou was the second stop of Su Qingcen’s tour. The first stop in Shanghai had already been a success, and they had spent considerable time preparing for this second leg. However, the scale was much smaller—not a stadium, but an arena with a maximum capacity of twelve thousand.

Why not just hold it at the Huanglong Sports Center?

It was possible, but the agency and the team feared they couldn't fill it. They preferred to play it safe; selling out fifty thousand seats every time was clearly impossible. Even for long-established superstars, not every stop on a tour could be stadium-sized. If a tour managed two or three stadium shows of fifty thousand people, that was considered a massive success.

As a traffic-driven idol singer, Su Qingcen rarely held full-scale concerts. She mostly did fan meetings, music showcases, or small-scale birthday concerts.

Box office revenue was the primary pressure. Even though traffic-driven idols had countless followers, few actually bought tickets to concerts. Eight or ten thousand was usually fine, but thirty or fifty thousand was a gamble. If attendance was low, it would hurt her popularity.

Another major reason was the lack of a deep catalog.

A large-scale concert required three to four hours of material, meaning you needed at least thirty solid songs. For a traffic-driven idol, that was a tall order.

Su Qingcen was an outlier among current traffic-driven idols. First, she had genuine talent and strong live performance skills. Second, she had a vast discography. Since her debut, while other idols released EPs, she had released five full albums and five EPs, many tracks of which were widely known.

Su Qingcen was a traffic-driven idol who could remain popular even outside of her fan bubble. The reason was simple: if you asked a passerby to name a hit song by most traffic-driven idols, they would be stumped. They might have a vague impression, but nothing deep. But if you asked about Su Qingcen, most people could hum at least one or two of her songs.

This was a key reason why Su Qingcen dared to embark on a tour.

The concert was scheduled for 7:30 PM. By 7:00, the entire Huanglong arena was packed.

Those who bought tickets were naturally Su Qingcen’s fans, but unlike other idols, few of the attendees were "hardcore" fans—likely only a quarter. The rest were casual listeners.

Casual fans were simple: they liked her singing and dancing, expected a good show, and showed up. If they didn't enjoy the experience, they simply wouldn't listen again; there was no concept of "un-stanning." For them, following a star was just a seasoning for life—a small part that didn't affect their daily routine.

To hold a large-scale concert of over ten thousand people, it was nearly impossible to rely solely on hardcore fans without the support of casual listeners.

The concert began promptly at 7:30 PM with "Sprite."

Following the Double Eleven gala, "Sprite" had become a massive hit and was one of the songs fans most wanted to hear live.

This time, it was accompanied by a sand art performance, though it differed significantly from the last. Because the previous one was a live broadcast, they had utilized aerial and overhead shots. This time, the visual effects were tailored for the live audience; the floor projection was removed, and multiple movable rear-projection screens were added.

The final effect was spectacular, especially in person.

The opening show was perfect!

Meng Fan gained 32 points of "concert lethality" as he stepped off stage to rest, accompanied by the thunderous applause and screams of the audience. Most of the crowd had seen the "Sprite" performance at the Double Eleven gala and knew who Meng Fan was. To them, his other identities didn't matter; what mattered most was that Meng Fan was Su Qingcen’s fan.

Back at the Shanghai concert, many had already learned that Meng Fan was a fan of hers, back when he wasn't even a moderately famous streamer.

If some other celebrity or star were a fan of Su Qingcen, people might just remark that "Brother Shan Jin is awesome," but with Meng Fan, they felt a strange sense of resonance.

Thus, Meng Fan held a very special status within Su Qingcen’s fan base.

"Hmm?"

As Meng Fan stepped off stage to check his newly acquired lethality, he noticed that the progress for [News Figure] Stage Two had actually increased by one experience point.

"The sports news isn't airing until tomorrow morning. Could it be that another national media outlet reported on me?"