101: Chapter 101 Concert Tickets Sold Out in Thirty Seconds

Zhang Yixing's studio released the latest performance notice.

The background of the long poster was pitch black.

There was no fancy typesetting whatsoever.

Right in the center was only a single sentence: "KING, return."

The name of the finale guest was strikingly written as Su Chen.

The moment the notice was issued, alarms blared continuously across the data monitoring centers of major platforms.

Among the top ten on Weibo's trending search list, eight search terms hung with a deep red "Exploding" character.

Refreshing the front pages of Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Baidu Tieba, the entire screen was filled with that black poster.

Every time the comments section data was refreshed, tens of thousands of entries would jump out.

[Good lord, I've finally waited for this! He's really going on stage!]

[Arranging a finale in three weeks! Is this going to create a myth for the Chinese Entertainment Industry?]

[Buy tickets! I must go live! I've waited for five years, even if I have to sell everything, I'll go!]

[So what if SM Entertainment banned the old copyrights? What we're watching is the person Su Chen!]

[That's right, even if he just stands blankly on stage for twenty minutes, I'm willing to spend money to see him!]

[Didn't those Korean capitals say he couldn't get on stage? What a loud slap in the face!]

[You must leave an inner-field ticket for me, absolutely don't fight me for it!]

[I want to take leave! I want to go to Beijing to pick him up at the airport! I want to go to the venue to watch the ascension of the new king!]

[Brothers, crash the ticket-grabbing server, let the Koreans see our prestige!]

[Where is this a concert? This is an oath-taking rally against Korea by Chinese netizens!]

[A stadium for fifty thousand people is too small, why not change to one for one hundred thousand? It's simply not enough to grab!]

[KING! Welcome home! We're waiting for you off stage!]

The top comments were frantically liked and pinned to the top, and the number of comments was still increasing exponentially.

Zhang Yixing's solo concert tickets became the sole focus of the entire internet.

Shanghai, e-sports room.

Wang Wenjian stared at the backend data on the screen, grabbed a Red Bull can, and tilted his head back to gulp it down.

The online viewer count of the live broadcast room had already broken four million.

"Did you see that?"

Wang Wenjian pointed at the camera, his voice trembling, "This is prestige! This is the god that our Chinese netizens dragged out of the quagmire step by step!"

"Beijing Workers Stadium, fifty thousand people. I fucking dare bet, these fifty thousand tickets will definitely not survive past one minute!"

The bullet comments immediately flooded the screen with full-screen question marks and exclamation points.

[!!!!!]

[So fucking awesome!]

[Fck, with so many people, I won't be able to grab a ticket.]

[Won't be able to? You simply can't grab one at all!]

[Old Wang, your connections are wild, get two inner-field tickets!]

[Name your price, I'll take both the person and the tickets.]

[Old Wang, do you have internal channels? Release them and share!]

[Even the scalpers haven't opened pre-sales over there, did you hide them?]

[Brother Wang, I beg you, my girlfriend is a die-hard fan, if there are no tickets I'm going to break up.]

[Even nosebleed tickets are fine, as long as I can enter the venue, any amount of money is fine.]

[Old Wang, show the strength of your Shanghai second-generation rich kid, rent out the whole place!]

[Exactly, stop just bragging, can you actually get tickets or not?]

[...]

Looking at these endless streams of questioning bullet comments, Wang Wenjian spread his hands and rolled his eyes.

"Brothers, wake up."

Wang Wenjian patted the table, "If I had any channel to get consecutively seated inner-field tickets, would I still be sitting here bullshitting and chatting with you guys?"

"I would've already taken the tickets and gone to show off with two gorgeous chicks!"

"Zhang Yixing's side completely locked down the internal ticket channel; even the sponsors didn't get a few. Everyone relies entirely on internet speed and depends on their own abilities."

Wang Wenjian crushed the empty Red Bull can, "Tonight at eight, Damai. I have to grab tickets with you guys too."

...

Beijing, a certain high-end residential complex.

Seven-fifty-five in the evening.

Lin Xiaoyu sat in front of the computer desk, her fingers resting on the mouse, her palms covered in cold sweat.

Damai's page was lit up.

Countdown: 00:04:30.

The bedroom door was pushed open.

Lin Jianguo walked in holding a plate of freshly cut apples.

"Xiaoyu, you're not even eating dinner, what are you staring at the screen for?"

Lin Jianguo put down the fruit plate and glanced at the countdown on the screen, "Which little fresh meat's concert tickets are you grabbing again? Making it so tense."

Lin Xiaoyu took a deep breath without turning her head: "Dad, it's not some little fresh meat. It's Su Chen."

"Su Chen?"

Lin Jianguo pulled out a chair and sat down, "This name has often been seen in the news recently. That young man who was screwed over by the Korean company?"

"Not just screwed over."

Lin Xiaoyu turned her head, her eye sockets red, "He went to South Korea as a Trainee at seventeen, eating leftovers and sleeping in the basement. In order for several Trainees from our China to successfully debut, he signed a joint indenture."

"Fifty billion won in breach of contract damages, unable to show his face for ten years. He carried it for others for five years."

Lin Jianguo's expression turned serious.

Lin Xiaoyu turned back to stare at the screen: "Korean capital, in order to blacklist him, even forbade him from dancing the dances he choreographed previously and singing the songs he wrote at this concert. They want to make him make a fool of himself in front of fifty thousand people."

"I've waited for him for five years. Today is the first battle of his return to the stage. I want to go to the venue, and I want to tell those capitalists that the bones of us Chinese people are not that soft."

Lin Jianguo looked at his daughter's determined profile.

This veteran high school teacher of half a lifetime stood up, pulled open a drawer, took out a spare mouse, and plugged it into another laptop.

"Dad?"

"Open the webpage, send the link."

Lin Jianguo pushed his reading glasses up, his tone solemn.

The kitchen door opened, and Lin Xiaoyu's mother walked out wearing an apron, wiping her hands.

"Old Lin, what are you doing?"

"Grabbing tickets."

Lin Jianguo stared at the screen, "A backbone young man like this must be allowed to soar straight into the sky. Go get your phone, scan the code, and grab them together."

Seven-fifty-nine in the evening.

Lin Xiaoyu's family of three, two computers and one phone, stared fixedly at the red ticket-grabbing button.

Countdown: Ten seconds.

Nine, eight, seven... three, two, one!

The red button lit up.

Lin Xiaoyu's fingers frantically clicked the left mouse button.

The webpage instantly lagged.

A gray loading circle appeared in the center of the screen, spinning non-stop.

"It lagged!"

Lin Xiaoyu stamped her feet in anxiety.

"Don't stop, keep clicking."

Lin Jianguo's hand speed did not decrease.

Thirty seconds later.

The loading circle disappeared.

The webpage refreshed.

In the center of the Damai webpage popped up large gray characters: "Sold Out".

Lin Xiaoyu collapsed into the chair, tears instantly gushing out.

"Didn't grab any..."

"Got it!"

Lin Jianguo spoke in a steady voice.

Lin Xiaoyu abruptly turned her head.

On Lin Jianguo's laptop screen, a green checkmark indicating successful order payment popped up.

Two consecutively seated tickets in the grandstand area.

Lin Xiaoyu jumped up, hugged Lin Jianguo tightly, crying and laughing at the same time.

This was merely a microcosm of the nationwide ticket-grabbing frenzy.

...

Eight o'clock and thirty seconds in the evening.

Damai's official Weibo released an announcement.

Beijing Workers Stadium, fifty-one thousand two hundred tickets, within thirty seconds, all sold out.

This created the fastest sold-out record for concert tickets in the Chinese Entertainment Industry.

The system backend intercepted over three million scalper script attacks, with over eight million people grabbing tickets online simultaneously.

Fans who didn't grab tickets wailed on major platforms.

On second-hand trading platforms, scalpers directly listed the 1,280 yuan inner-field tickets for 15,000.

A tenfold premium.

But even so, as long as tickets were released, they were still snapped up and paid for within three seconds.

Tickets were hard to come by.

The popularity completely exploded.

Countless entertainment media and reporters rushed over at the news.

Outside Morning Star Dance Studio in Chengdu, dozens of media outlets guarded with long lenses and short cannons every day.

They wanted to know, during this three-week preparation period, what exactly did Su Chen rehearse?

Unable to use old copyrights, what would he use to fill this twenty-minute finale show?

Online guesses flew everywhere.

Some said he would cover a work by a certain domestic well-known choreographer, and some said he hired a top foreign team to make a temporary assault.

Even the rumor that "Su Chen will a cappella for twenty minutes" made it to the trending searches.

The entire internet was discussing what KING's return debut would actually bring.

All interview invitations were completely blocked outside that glass door.

Holding a thick stack of media invitation letters, Lin Hao stood by the inner cabin door with a worried look on his face.

"Brother Su, really not seeing them? The top interviews from Sina, Sohu, and Tencent are all right here."

Lin Hao knocked on the door.

The soundproof door was pushed open.

Su Chen was wearing a black training outfit, drenched in sweat all over.

Holding a towel in his hand, he wiped away the sweat on his jaw.

He didn't even look at that stack of invitation letters.

"Reject all of them."

Lin Hao swallowed a mouthful of saliva: "With this popularity, it's a pity not to ride on it. Everyone online is currently guessing what you actually rehearsed, do you want to leak some wind to steady the fans' hearts?"

Su Chen walked over to the water dispenser, poured a cup of warm water, and tilted his head back to drink it down.

He threw the paper cup into the trash can and turned his head.

His gaze was calm, exuding an irrefutable sense of oppression.

"Not needed."

Su Chen pushed open the inner cabin door and walked back into that closed space that belonged only to him.

Before the door closed, he left behind a single sentence.

"Words are spoken on stage."