After leaving the hospital, Chu Zhi was still unsettled. Even though he tried his best to stay focused during the show, he still drifted off at times. Pan Ying, who might look rough on the outside but was actually quite perceptive, noticed it and helped guide the conversation several times.
"Brother Pan, I'm sorry. I wasn't in great shape today and didn't perform well on the show," Chu Zhi apologized before leaving.
"I could tell," Pan Ying replied. He was familiar with entertainment gossip and assumed Chu Zhi might be having a depressive episode, so he comforted him. "Take a shower when you get back to the hotel and get some rest. If you really can't sleep, the hotel should have a 24-hour gym. A good workout for an hour or two might help."
There wasn't much small talk. It was already 2 a.m. by the time filming wrapped.
Chu Zhi left the Golden Eagle Center feeling utterly drained. In one day, he had flown to Hebei Province, then to Xingcheng. Still, instead of resting, he called Brother Liang and asked for help finding a recording studio.
At that hour—between two and three in the morning—no studio should have been open. For most people, that would be a huge ask. But for Liang Pingbai, the music director of I'm Really a Singer, it wasn't a problem. Within half an hour, a closed studio was arranged for recording.
Chu Zhi recorded his earlier performance of "The Most Beautiful Sun" and transferred the audio to his phone.
By the time everything was done, it was 6:30 a.m.
The winter sky was like a dark bag holding all of yesterday's events. As morning arrived, it slowly opened, letting in a sliver of light.
Rain fell again. The streets were slick and the sky blanketed by thick clouds.
Chu Zhi hadn't slept at all. At 7 a.m., he boarded a flight to Rongcheng. He was currently serving as a cultural tourism ambassador for Fengdu and Shancheng.
This time, he was headed to Rongcheng for a collaborative cultural tourism event between Rong and Yu—two neighboring cities in the Bashu region. For many travelers from other provinces, it was common to visit both Rongcheng and Shancheng on the same trip. The fastest high-speed train between them took just over an hour.
Unlike Shancheng, which favored big-name celebrity endorsements, Rongcheng rarely hired tourism spokespeople.
But this event was different. The local tourism bureau splurged on two or three writers—one of them an online novelist—to produce books on Bashu culture. They also partnered with Tianyi Company to film a TV drama centered on Shu embroidery.
Shu embroidery was a regional specialty and a nationally protected product. The drama was meant to spotlight that.
While chatting with the system, Chu Zhi recalled that Li Yuchun had a pretty famous song called "Shu Embroidery."
If Tianyi were willing to throw around a million or so, he'd gladly write the theme song. But that was just wishful thinking—the drama's total budget was only about twenty million yuan.
Shancheng's love for celebrity endorsements wasn't unique. KFC, mockingly dubbed "Kaifeng Cuisine" online, followed the same strategy—whoever was hot at the moment got the gig.
KFC had approached Chu Zhi's management team for a new product campaign. There were some disagreements. Sister Niu wanted 20 million yuan for the endorsement. Brother Fei suggested taking a share of the new product's sales instead.
Ad agent Qi Qiu had recently joined the team and was in charge of endorsements. He managed to reach an agreement with KFC: Chu Zhi would endorse two new burgers—the Bacon Chicken Thigh Supreme Burger and the Crunchy Chicken Thigh Burger. In return, he'd get a 10% cut from sales in the Asian market, plus a signing bonus of 2 million yuan.
At roughly 23 to 24 yuan per burger, Chu Zhi would earn about 2 yuan per sale. That sounded high, but to earn the same as a 20-30 million flat fee, the burgers would have to sell at least 10 million units.
But time alone wouldn't guarantee those sales. KFC might remove the items from the menu early if they didn't perform well.
Qi Qiu made the revenue-sharing decision after extensive research. His goal was to show the industry how much pull Chu Zhi really had across China, Japan, and South Korea. He also wanted to demonstrate that working with artists could involve more than just one-off fees.
Despite differing opinions within the team, as long as Chu Zhi agreed, Qi Qiu's decision stood.
KFC arranged the shoot in Rongcheng as a favor, coordinating with Chu Zhi's schedule. Since it was all indoors, location didn't really matter.
"Hamburgers don't need buns," Chu Zhi said, repeating a cringe-worthy line from the commercial.
What kind of burger didn't have buns? Then he remembered the rice burgers he had eaten before. The Meat Supreme Burger was similar—two fried chicken patties replaced the buns, with pickles, pineapple, lettuce, and cheese inside.
There were tons of new KFC items on set, but the props were just for show. They probably added who-knows-what to make them look photogenic.
Chu Zhi ate a quick dinner there. The first burger actually tasted decent. He also had fries, wings, and egg tarts.
"Sister Wang, Sister Niu, why aren't you eating?" he asked.
Lao Qian and Xiaozhu were both eating happily—especially Lao Qian, who seemed to have a personal vendetta against roast wings and original chicken from Orleans.
"Too high-calorie. Can't handle it," Wang Yuan said, swallowing her saliva. Watching Xiao Jiu eat so well made her hungry too.
"Is it that high? It didn't list the calories. We usually assume if there's no number, it means zero," Chu Zhi joked.
Niu Jiangxue and Wang Yuan turned their heads away, resisting temptation.
One burger wasn't enough. Two… was a bit too much.
"I heard Lao Qian got dumped?" Xiaozhu asked out of the blue.
Caught off guard mid-bite, Lao Qian choked, coughed twice, then answered, "Got cheated on. What can I say? Her new boyfriend doesn't even wait for Thursday to eat KFC."
Chu Zhi perked up, quietly eavesdropping on the gossip. He didn't get the reference and searched it online. Apparently, KFC had a "Crazy Thursday" promo where food was cheaper. Saying someone didn't need to wait for Thursday to eat KFC was an internet meme mocking the rich. There were even memes about it. Chu Zhi saved a few for later.
Xiao Zhu consoled him. "So what if she cheated? Don't you cheat too? It evens out."
"What do you mean 'I cheat'? I just switch girlfriends a little more often. I always break up properly first. Don't talk nonsense," Lao Qian replied. "I'm not some multi-dating 'Sea King.'"
"You're not a Sea King?" Xiao Zhu looked skeptical.
Dinner ended. Two more ads had to be filmed, and shooting continued until 10 p.m.
Chu Zhi had an event in Shanghai the next morning. Rather than return at dawn, he chose to fly out that night.
He got home around 1:30 a.m. Thanks to sleeping for over an hour on the plane, he was still alert enough to finish his daily routine.
Right now, his "homework" was reading history books and translating Gu Cheng's poetry collection into Japanese.
At 3:30 a.m., Chu "Workaholic Beast" Zhi finally lay down.
He closed his eyes but didn't fall asleep right away. He suddenly remembered something—there was still no miracle item for cancer treatment in the system's strange-item shop. Under his suggestion, the system had added a keyword search function.
"Why aren't there any miracle items to cure terminal illnesses? You've got black tech like '1+1 Spicy Strips,'" Chu Zhi asked, still coming up empty.
[Because under system protection, the host will never suffer from any terminal illness. Hence, such items do not exist.]
[Also, even if they did, they would have no effect on anyone other than the host.]
"I wouldn't risk exposing myself to give someone else a miracle item," Chu Zhi said. "I just wanted to know if, say, I paid extra—was there a way to help Xiao Ai recover without exposing myself?"
He wanted to help her without blowing his cover. But unfortunately, reality didn't work that way.
Sleep.
After three and a half hours of deep sleep, Chu Zhi got up energized and ready to work.
But before diving in, he hesitated—
Among the gifts from fans were many paper cranes. They said the cranes could carry away illness. Since he had depression, fans often urged him to fold them. He was touched, but also felt it was a bit of a waste of time.
Now, though...
"Well, maybe it's not that useless. Xiao Ai and I made a promise. She'll pull through," Chu Zhi said. Still, that evening he went home and folded a red paper crane.
Amid his packed schedule, the sixth episode of Journey Among the Stars aired. It didn't include the much-anticipated Saint Petersburg International Cultural Forum arc. Instead, it simply showed how Chu Zhi got the invite and performed "Lullaby." The song was solid, but audiences expecting something grand were left a bit disappointed.
So it didn't go viral like the previous episode. Still, Chu Zhi managed to spark a new conversation online.
A Zhihu user posted a question:"Does Chu Zhi have some secret learning method?"
"Personally, my idol is Lu Xun, so I don't follow other celebs. I started watching Journey Among the Stars just to pass time. But as I caught up, I became more and more curious. Chu Zhi's Japanese and Russian are truly fluent—not just memorized for songs.
I asked my friends who majored in Japanese and Russian. They both agreed—his pronunciation and fluency are professional level, like someone who studied in Japan and Russia for over a decade.
But here's the thing—Chu Zhi didn't go to college at all, let alone major in languages. That means he's self-taught. Does anyone know how he does it? I'm dying to find out."
The post, made by a user named "Lonely White Hair," gained a lot of traction. Even ad bots promoting language courses joined the thread.
"He didn't go to college? Wow. Most entertainers can't string a sentence together. But Chu Zhi always seemed cultured. You can tell just by reading his lyrics."
"Back when he was being slammed online, I remember some people saying he dropped out of high school and never went to college. But the way he speaks and writes feels so thoughtful."
"Chu Zhi proves that while education and knowledge are related, they're not the same thing. I usually assume celebs get ghostwriters for lyrics, but not with him. In Journey Among the Stars, it's clear—he reads books for hours every night. Not just for show. Netizens even asked Zhang Ning, Cai Jia, and Luo Jianhui about it. They all confirmed that Chu Zhi reads and takes notes every day."