A/N: This story is complete, if you like knowing that in advance and do not like cliffhangers. It’s only a matter of posting up the various sections (there are about 70 or so in all). The Chinese quotations and translations at the beginning of each section are from various Jay Chou songs. There’s some swearing in here, some sexual content, nothing too explicit.

I hope you stay around and enjoy. Thanks for reading.

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i) 只有籠裡的畫眉羨慕著天空 卻從來沒有人懂
"Only the caged bird admires the sky / But nobody ever understands."

If the rest of the world knew that Tony Xu hated Tony Xu, then they would say he deserved it. When he was twenty-two years old, he released his third album, and gave his fourth major concert. A world tour was in planning stages, and perhaps a tv show or a lead role in a movie. He has appeared on countless popular news shows, gave mini promotional appearances, and many autographed signings. In comparison to the rest of the people in the industry, he was the most uncouth, the most extreme in a relatively mild mannered circle where everyone struggled to keep their image clean for the consumers.

But Tony really did hate himself. Not in the manner of angst, of depression, or of self abasement. He hated the image he had become. They had crowned him King of Anti-Pop, the fist of revolution against a sugar-coated, teenage driven industry, all without writing a screaming guitar chord or singing raucous lyrics. He hated the cameras, the lights, the lack of privacy. He hated the billboards, the pictures, the interviews. He hated that everybody thought they all were entitled to a piece of himself. He hated the stares on the streets, the way he had to duck into stores or restaurants like a fugitive.

You chose the life, their eyes said, you carry the responsibility. We own you.

We. Own. You.

The clock on the wall moved towards five after three as he strolled into the lobby of the building. Every surface around him was reflective, polished, sending pieces of him back to himself. The skylight was two stories above, a glass ceiling sending the afternoon sun in pieces on the meticulous floor.

Tony slouched into his t-shirt, and moved quickly across the floor. The black track jacket he wore went loosely over the white t-shirt. He wore large shorts, navy blue in color, and black dress shoes completed the picture. Tony was a mismatch of athletic, dress, and casual. He would have been a horror to any fashion designer. The sunglasses covered his eyes, and the hat flattened his hair, but the sneer on the face was undeniably Tony.

He moved as quickly as possible through the lobby so that he wouldn’t have to look at the gigantic poster on the far wall that announced himself as the music company’s newest weapon. The markets in Taiwan first, they told him, then Singapore, then China, then…

“The world,” He had chuckled, enjoying the look on the face of Boss.

“Mr. Xu, Mr. Wong is waiting for you in his office,” The secretary informed him, even went ahead to press the elevator button for him as she followed him into the glass box.

The ride took a few seconds, shooting him straight up towards the fifteenth story, and giving him a beautiful view of downtown Taipei. Of course, beauty ceases to be beauty and becomes common if you see it every day. Since Tony has been coming to this building ever since he could walk, downtown Taipei in at any time of day, month, year, ceased to be exciting to him.

Mr. Wong, or Boss, as Tony calls him as a joke, owns the music company he is currently a member of. His father holds thirty percent of the stock, so it was a family investment, and why Boss had to put up with this cocky twenty-three year old instead of kicking him to the curb. Boss treats him reverently, sleazily, because Tony was a big money maker, and every time he left his office, he felt an urge to cleanse himself.

The past three years have been life changing for Tony. Life changing in that he went from an awkward, unsociable teenage boy fresh out of the military, to arrogant superstar. Arrogant because he tried to do everything to piss Them off so that the company would kick him out, but the contract that his mother signed for him when she was still his legal guardian was binding.

Now the rest of the world thought he was a jerk, a loud-mouthed, obnoxious loser who happened to make good music. So they bought, they criticized him, they sang along to his songs, and read his tabloid headlines with relish. It was fucking hysterical, that’s what it was. Fucking. Hysterical.

Ever since Jay Chou got married and disappeared off the face of the earth, the music industry has suffered under a massive vacuum for the Number One Spot. Before, male singers competed for Number Two, because, who else are you going to find with talent, performance, looks, and a horde of screaming female fans backing you up?

Then there was Poster Boy Tony, with the same shy demeanor, the same weirdness, and the ability to create. The Next Jay Chou, the headlines screamed, We Have Found Him. Even though he came from a different background from Jay, they still discovered him writing music for It, and thrust him towards the spotlight.

Tony loved music, breathed music, dreamed music, but this wasn’t what he wanted. He had no desire to perform in public, to face fans, to go promote himself, sell himself out to the nameless crowds. It was enough for him to be heard through the voices of other singers, he had no other goal, but his mother was ecstatic. Her beautiful only child Tony, following her footsteps, her glory days as Taiwan’s Classy Lady. So she convinced his father to invest heavily, and Them came to sweep him away.

To the people he was a spoiled child who had everything in his life. So he acted like the pampered prince everybody expected him to be. He made ridiculous demands of his staff, insulted his fans, and flashed vulgar gestures in public. He had attempted to clear away the tangled legalities of his contract, but only came up with a handful of black ink and no clear way out.

In the beginning he tried. He tried to love the public life like his parents did. He wanted to please them, so he immersed himself in his work. He tolerated the critiques that came after his first album was released, said that he was riding on the tail of his parents’ fame. He was polite, humble, but ecstatic over his first sales. His music was reaching people, even though it wasn’t in his desired form. He endured abuse from his dance teachers, saying that he had no coordination, no ability to move to the music. There were grouchy producers who hated working with him, and mumbled to the technicians while he was listening that ‘all this boy has for him is a pretty face.’

Bad Boy Tony, the newspaper gossiped in the entertainment section, Young-Girl Killer, Heartthrob of the Year. Whether you loved him, hated him, admired him, wanted to be like him, you heard about him everywhere.

Tony Xu. Tony Xu. Tony Xu. The crowds chanted.

“Finally,” Boss sounded annoyed when he stepped into the room, “Where were you?”

“Seducing innocent girls, what else?” Tony said lazily, flopping into a chair.

“It would look good if you were linked with some popular singer…” Boss suggested, “Good for your image, good for your rankings, good to keep you in the public eye…”

At the last concert, he had danced about drunkenly on the stage with no sense of rhythm or relation to the song he was singing at all. The magazines called it ‘stunning’, a ‘choreographed marvel.’ It reaffirmed his belief that the people of the world are stupid.

But they owned him.