Chapter 141 |
The 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards had come to an end. Most viewers didn’t care much about the ceremony itself. At most, they’d wake up the next morning, skim through the list of winners, and that would be enough.Andy Rogers was no different. He had little interest in television shows, usually focusing his attention on the film industry. However, last night, Renly brought such a huge surprise that even he couldn’t ignore it. No one in The Pacific production team, including Andy, had expected Renly to take home the award for Best Actor. So, Andy had to follow the usual routine and pay attention to the Emmys.There was no rush for him to get the newspapers. Once he got to the office, his assistant would have already collected and organised all the day’s papers and placed them on his desk. Since he was still at home, he opened his laptop and started browsing online.As usual, Andy first visited the official websites of Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. These two magazines were the most authoritative in the industry. To the general public, they might seem too serious or too specialised, but for insiders, they were the best platforms for keeping up with industry trends.Then Andy noticed something odd. The most popular news article in The Hollywood Reporter’s 24-hour section wasn’t about the Emmys or Jim Parsons—but about Renly?Although this was a good thing, Andy was full of question marks. He didn’t like the feeling of losing control. As a manager, he needed to have everything in the palm of his hand. Clicking on the link, Andy quickly scanned the article. The gist of it was that Renly had celebrated his first Emmy win in an unusual way, and a street performance video had now become the hottest clip on YouTube.Following the breadcrumbs, Andy traced the original source of the exclusive report to US Weekly.At that moment, the exclusive news on US Weekly had already surpassed a million views, and it had only been seven hours since it was posted. Such explosive numbers made Andy’s heart race with anxiety.Last night, after the two of them met, Renly had casually mentioned that he and some friends had done a short street performance. Andy hadn’t paid it much attention at the time and had even joked, “Even I, your agent, haven’t seen you perform live yet.” But who would’ve thought that one offhand comment would cause such an explosion?If Andy were an outsider, he would have thought the whole thing was pre-planned. But he knew it wasn’t—because if it had been, he would have done a lot more: contacted a PR company, stirred up buzz, and fully capitalised on the moment.Now, Andy’s heart was bleeding. Such a golden opportunity—missed, just like that! He felt completely helpless. Why hadn’t Renly mentioned the paparazzi? Why hadn’t he brought up the fans filming? Andy was devastated—more upset than when he’d lost weight.Snapping into work mode, he rushed out of the house and drove straight to the Sunset Tower Hotel, where Renly had stayed the night before. He stormed up to Renly’s door and started banging on it loudly.“Renly!”Andy’s face still wore his usual smile, but the words were squeezed out from between clenched teeth. His expression was on the verge of tearing apart that smiling mask.“Renly Hall!”The sound of his knocking echoed down the hallway, but there was still no response. Only then did Andy recall—Last night, Renly had practically been the centrepiece of the celebration party. That acting award was the highest honour The Pacific production team could’ve received. Throughout the broadcasting period, the entire team had been holding their breath, and now they could finally let it out.Although HBO hadn’t said much publicly, and there was no chance of them falling out openly with the two top producers, their dissatisfaction was obvious—a heavy weight pressing down on everyone’s chest like a mountain.Now, with an Emmy Award for Best Actor in hand, all the hard work had finally paid off. Naturally, the cast and crew went wild with celebration—even Steven Spielberg came over and toasted Renly with three glasses of wine. And then it was like a pack of wolves had found their prey: whiskey, brandy, red wine, beer, vodka, tequila—every kind of alcohol imaginable was brought out. They practically forced Renly to drink until he passed out.Renly ended up sprawled out, half-conscious, on the couch in the hotel suite’s living room and fell asleep instantly, completely unshakable. Eventually, with the help of Rami and James, Andy managed to haul Renly back to his hotel room.It was just past nine in the morning now, and Renly was undoubtedly still in a hungover daze—there was no way he was waking up any time soon.Andy realised that he had got a little too worked up. He took a deep breath to cool his thoughts, then headed to the front desk, showed his ID, and requested an extra room key. That’s how he managed to get into Renly’s room.Sure enough, Renly was still lying groggily on the bed, fully dressed in his Burberry suit from the night before. It was now a wrinkled mess, almost painful to look at. Even though the situation was urgent, Andy couldn’t help but find it a little amusing. Ever since they started working together, Renly had always acted with a maturity far beyond his years—seeing him so dishevelled and out of it was a rare and oddly endearing sight.“Renly? Renly?” Andy shook Renly’s arm, trying to wake him. Unexpectedly, Renly just turned over, pulled the blanket over his head, and mumbled something incoherent, falling right back into deep sleep. Andy didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so he pushed Renly’s shoulder a bit harder and shouted loudly, “Fire! There’s a fire!”Still no reaction.Andy was completely speechless now. As he was racking his brain for another way to wake Renly up, he heard a muffled voice from under the blanket: “There’s a fire, and you’re not running for your life?” The tone was so calm and lazy, it was almost ridiculous. His husky voice had the ticklish effect of a feather brushing lightly across your skin.Andy actually didn’t know how to respond to that.Then Renly finally lifted the blanket and sat up, his curly hair an absolute mess, completely unstyled. His eyes remained tightly shut, like he was reluctant to give up even a second more of sleep. “What’s up?”Now it was Andy’s turn to pause for a moment. But as a seasoned veteran, he quickly regained composure and sat down in the chair beside the bed. “Someone recorded your street performance from last night and uploaded it to YouTube.” Renly didn’t react. “It already has over 800,000 views, and it’s only been seven hours since it went up.”Still no reaction.“Renly?” Andy raised his voice.“And?” came Renly’s sleepy reply.Andy’s smile stiffened a little. “Do you know what that means?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “After the Emmys last night, you’ve become the hottest topic on the trending charts—even beating out Glee and Jim Parsons. You’ve completely stolen the spotlight.”After the Emmy winners were announced, all the major media outlets couldn’t help but highlight Renly’s unexpected win in their recaps. His exposure was skyrocketing. Both The New York Times and Vanity Fair published feature stories with Renly as the lead. All of this helped amplify the exclusive coverage from US Weekly. The YouTube video, named “Ophelia,” had arrived at the perfect time and exploded across the internet.It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that Renly was the biggest winner of this year’s Emmys.Did Renly just nod? Or was that Andy’s imagination? He kept talking anyway: “Cleopatra has already cracked the Top 5 on the iTunes real-time download chart.” That was a bombshell.Renly lifted his chin slightly, as if feeling a bit of pressure, but his eyes remained closed. “Wasn’t last night the Emmys?”Andy wiped imaginary sweat off his brow. “Exactly! That’s what makes this so unbelievable!” After the Emmys, Renly immediately went viral again as a singer—it was a twist no one saw coming. The way things had played out was so unexpected and dramatic that even someone as experienced as Andy was stunned.“Right now, Cleopatra is sitting at number four,” Andy continued. “If this momentum keeps up, the song might even break into the Top 50 on the Billboard Hot 100 next week.”Since the first week of July, when Cleopatra surprisingly made it onto the Billboard Hot 100, everyone expected it to drop off the chart quickly. Given all the unfavourable conditions, it seemed inevitable that the song would have a flash-in-the-pan moment, chart for a week, and then disappear. After all, there was no radio airplay, no promotions, and even the streaming numbers lacked any kind of explosive boost. The song’s digital downloads were sustained solely by a short burst of attention—it didn’t look like it could go any further.But to everyone’s surprise, whether it was iTunes download stats, YouTube, or Spotify streaming data, Cleopatra showed impressive staying power. Over the past eight weeks, the single maintained stable performance. While it never truly “blew up”—its peak position being 83rd in the third week of July—it also never fell off the chart, constantly hovering near the lower ranks.Even that alone could be called a miracle.Now, Cleopatra was unexpectedly back in the spotlight. Its real-time iTunes download numbers were surging. The number four spot was the ranking Andy had last confirmed before leaving home—and if the current momentum continued, it could climb all the way to number one. The only question was how long it could stay there—a few hours, twenty-four hours, or even longer. That would depend on what happened next.This was also why Andy was so frantic right now. He had already missed the first golden opportunity to promote the song—he didn’t want to miss out again.“Renly, I need you to get to the recording studio now and finish recording Ophelia. Ideally, we should also re-record Cleopatra—either a remixed version, a rearranged version, or even just a cover version. The point is, we need to get a fresh track done as soon as possible.” Andy was practically bursting with urgency. He had only just started managing Renly, and things were happening one after another. But that was a good thing.Renly paused for a moment, eyes still closed, and said, “Aren’t you an agent for actors? You’re into the music side too?”Andy replied with a look that said: “…” — That’s not the point, okay?
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