Chapter 379 Her Eyes Were Looking At Him
aespa’s comeback stage for “AS IF IT’S YOUR LAST” was released by Inkigayo the next morning, and viewers who had been watching fan cams all night swarmed to the official perspective, which offered a more comprehensive view.
Only the official perspective, with its most comprehensive view, could truly capture the ingenuity of this uniquely designed debut stage.
The only drawback was the lack of a comparison with BLACKPINK's original stage, which meant that Jiang Shu's subtle touches on this stage went unnoticed, creating a sense of helplessness, like an elaborately designed Easter egg that no one could find.
Nevertheless, this exquisitely brilliant stage still garnered praise from countless viewers.
Jiang Shu's name once again topped the trending searches; while audiences were already accustomed to the high quality of songs produced by Jiang Shu, his latest endeavor, personally designing the stage, directly showed viewers another potential development for aespa's virtual concept.
“AS IF IT’S YOUR LAST,” a song that sounds noisy at first but is actually quite addictive, is an excellent work that can rank among the top in aespa’s discography, even amidst many famous songs.
After a long time, Jiang Shu once again took action to produce a song for aespa, and even though it was just a single, it still amazed all listeners.
It was the familiar style, the familiar formula; as soon as he made a move, it was a work that most people could accept.
However, amidst the overwhelming praise, another long-standing voice resurfaced.
In the music industry, pursuing artistry often means being niche. If you're mainstream, it usually implies a lack of artistic merit.
That's how this circle is: niche means awesome, regardless of why it's niche.
The works Jiang Shu is currently producing all have artistic qualities, but none are exceptionally high; if the artistic quality is too high, it's often difficult to balance popularity and market acceptance.
As a businessman, Jiang Shu prioritizes more catchy songs, with very few that are truly artistic.
This also gave some music critics an opportunity to grab attention; they didn't dare to directly criticize, so they subtly claimed that the 'Godfather of K-pop Girl Groups' was wasting his talent, only catering to the market, and abandoning the pursuit of artistic merit.
If it were anyone else, their words would become, “He only caters to the market, with no technical substance.”
Although such nonsense would also invite criticism, being infamous is still a form of fame, and they gained traffic.
And since Jiang Shu is so famous, he naturally has anti-fans, which gave them a place to smear him.
Music critics, of course, know that Jiang Shu is not incapable of writing songs with artistic merit; he just doesn't bother. But haters don't care about that—if you don't write it, then you can't!
And so, a new war of words began.
Regarding such trends, Jiang Shu and DM Entertainment's attitude has always been to not respond, letting things be.
But to say they don't care at all…
That's not entirely true.
I, Jiang Shu, may not be good enough, but that doesn't mean my discography isn't good enough!
DM Entertainment, Chairman's Office.
The keyboard clacked away; most people use silent office keyboards, but Jiang Shu occasionally plays games, so he bought a gaming keyboard. Although he uses silent red switches, high-frequency typing still produces sound.
But it didn't matter; he was alone in the office, so it didn't affect anything.
After an unknown amount of time, there was a knock on the office door.
“Please come in.”
Choi Ji-yeon pushed the door open and walked in.
“Is Red Velvet confirmed?” Jiang Shu asked Choi Ji-yeon.
After having dinner with Bae Joo-hyun yesterday, he and Li Duohui discussed it again this morning, thinking that it had been almost a year, so it was time for Red Velvet to make a comeback.
He had been working on this all morning.
“Not yet, it's something else.” Choi Ji-yeon said, stepping forward and handing the iPad in her hand to Jiang Shu.
Although the paused video wasn't clicked open, Jiang Shu still recognized it as his vlog at a glance.
He had recorded it last night and sent it to the production team; it was edited overnight and just released this morning.
His video recording volume has been very low recently, and he has no backlog, so he now shoots and uploads as he goes.
As he clicked on the video, bullet comments also appeared.
Before long, it reached the end of the video, where the three of them clinked glasses, wishing each other to find the person they loved.
At first, he didn't pay much attention, but the bullet comments were all frantically scrolling, “Look at Irene’s gaze.”
And then…
In the frame, as the three of them clinked glasses and drank, Bae Joo-hyun, while sipping her juice, had her eyes fixed on Jiang Shu’s face.
“May we all find the one we love in the future.”
And then, Bae Joo-hyun was looking at him?
Jiang Shu: “…”
After the video finished playing, Choi Ji-yeon also spoke.
“As you can see, there are all sorts of speculations online regarding Irene’s final gaze towards you.”
“The good news is that the current focus of public discussion is Irene’s crush on you, rather than you and Irene secretly dating.”
“The bad news is that the buzz is too high; even though our public opinion risk control discovered it immediately, the video's views had already exceeded a million at that time, so deleting the video now would be futile. The public relations office is currently trying to find other ways to mitigate the impact.”
Jiang Shu put down the iPad and rubbed his temples, feeling a bit of a headache.
“What did Bae Joo-hyun say?”
Upon hearing this, Choi Ji-yeon's expression became strange.
“Irene’s manager said that Irene expressed she would follow the company’s arrangements. As for the truthfulness of the matter… she didn’t deny it.”
Not denying it means she really likes the Chairman, huh.
Tsk tsk.
Choi Ji-yeon had a big scoop as soon as she started work today, and it felt great.
“What about Director Qin?”
“Director Qin said that this type of video is easy to clarify, but it’s hard to make the public believe the clarification.”
Jiang Shu understood Qin Zhen’s meaning: a clarification could simply state that Bae Joo-hyun wasn't looking at him but somewhere else, but the difficulty lay in whether the public and fans would believe it.
It's useless if only some fans believe it.
“What’s the solution?”
“No response.”
“No response?” Jiang Shu raised an eyebrow and said.
“Director Qin said that since it’s only a crush and not an actual relationship, the company doesn't need to respond. This would actually help flesh out Irene’s public persona, making her seem more vibrant and down-to-earth.”
“As for clarification, there’s no good way. After discussion, the public relations office concluded that the best solution is to not respond.”
“So, Chairman, you still need to make the decision.”
If I make the decision, I certainly don't care.
It's not like my crush on Bae Joo-hyun was exposed; Bae Joo-hyun has a crush on me, what opinion could I have?
Jiang Shu leaned back in his chair and fell silent.
About half a minute later…
“Inform Bae Joo-hyun of the public relations office’s suggestion and let her choose.” Jiang Shu kicked the ball to Bae Joo-hyun; he didn't want to make decisions for Bae Joo-hyun right now.
“Yes.”