CH 73

Xie Luyu hadn’t held back at all. All the people that were planning to side with Wang Chen ended up backing down.

There had been a few mismatched pairings in the past. These matchups had never done very well on the show, but that was just how it was. Mentioning it now was obviously a bit nitpicky. 

However, Wang Chen spoke with a lot of conviction, prattling on and on. A lot of people were swayed after hearing him speak. In the end, however, he was beaten back into place by Xie Luyu’s sharp ridicule.

The host rushed to smooth things over.

“Haha. The main focus of our show is the trainees. Let’s not get things mixed up.”

Wang Chen’s expression twisted. He clenched his microphone tightly, but, in the end, he didn’t say anything. 

Gu Qingchi had his head slightly lowered. He didn’t really react during the exchange, and he didn’t glance at Wang Chen or Xie Luyu. It was as if this entire ordeal had nothing to do with him.

Xie Luyu’s eyes flitted over to him several times. Whenever his eyes swept over to him, all he’d be able to see was his chin and tangled strands of hair.

Xie Luyu deliberately looked away in order to ensure that he wouldn’t make eye contact with Gu Qingchi.

Otherwise, he may not be able to maintain his expression in front of the camera.

He was still the same as before, free and easy.

Wherever he went, he was surrounded by flowers. However, he ignored them all and just went his own way.

Xie Luyu had always felt that this appearance of his was fascinating.

Even now, Xie Luyu still found Gu Qingchi irresistibly charming. 

[Am I going blind? Xie Luyu didn’t interact with Chi Chi at all. I always thought that they had a good relationship. After all, they cooperated with each other in a movie, and they even provided fanservice. Speaking of which, Ke Mu didn’t deserve that kind of ending. QAQ.]

[Don’t you guys think that they have a really good tacit understanding? Even though they haven’t interacted at all, I can’t help but feel that the atmosphere between them is very subtle and hard to describe.]

[Between you and me, no words are needed.]

[I totally get it. I kind of want to ship them now.] 

[Xie Luyu is super masculine here. By the way, when’s his next movie going to start filming? We’ve been super lonely without him lately.]

[This part is definitely going to be edited out.]

Although this part was cut from the final version of the episode, it still ended up getting leaked.

It didn’t gain that much attention from the live stream. Only a small number of people noticed it. Wang Chen quickly gave in and muddled his way past this small interlude. 

Overall, Xie Luyu came off as the more aggressive party. It was just another addition to Xie Luyu’s long list of victories.

The clip that went viral had been secretly filmed by a cell phone from within the audience. It was a little shaky and a little blurry. However, the person behind the camera was pretty close to the front, so the video was filmed from a pretty good angle.

Within that blurry image, Xie Luyu seemed to shine.

The camera captured Xie Luyu’s side profile. Xie Luyu had been leaning back in his seat, fiddling with the strings of his hoodie. He looked a little bored. Then, he suddenly raised his head. A mocking smile tugged at the corner of his lips. The look in his eyes became sharp. 

He moved forward and leaned into his microphone. When he opened his mouth, his voice carried a bit of a Beijing dialect.

“Are you qualified to say that? Mr. Do Do Mi.”

Vlcmf atf qfgrbc lc defralbc kjr Wlf Oese, atfgf kjr j iba bo vlrmerrlbc gluta ogbw atf nfgs yfulcclcu.

Ktf yibuufg reyais qbxfv oec ja Qjcu Jtfc. Ktf qbra tjv j mjqalbc. 

[You’ve managed to provoke the capital’s troublesome young lord out of his den.]

Rfalhfcr kfgf atgliifv ab rff la.

[Although the video quality is ass, he still looks super handsome.]

[OP’s caption is so apt. The troublesome young lord is angry on behalf of the capital city’s number one beauty. Gosh, I could go on about this ship forever.] 

[I’m going to personally buy you a new cell phone. Please stop filming videos on your microwave.]

[What’s going on? I feel like there’s more to the story. Where’s the original video? I want to see it.]

[Don’t bother. This is from one of Starlight’s variety shows, and Xie Luyu’s their number one star. This part is definitely going to be cut from the final episode.]

Ktlr rtbk kjr jigfjvs j nfgs qbqeijg njglfas rtbk. C iba bo qfbqif ibnfv ab kjamt la. 

Once this video got out, it became even more popular.

After the show was aired, Gu Qingchi’s popularity skyrocketed even though he only appeared in one episode.

The stage would always be a little more intuitive than other forms of performance. As the center, Gu Qingchi was naturally the most eye-catching person on stage.

What was surprising was the fact that a lot of beauty bloggers began imitating his makeup look despite the fact that he was a guy. 

Unlike his previous burst of virality, this wave of popularity seemed to stick around a lot longer.

Ye Li didn’t buy any hashtags or promotions for Gu Qingchi. The only exception was for his new movie that was coming out.

Ever since they decided on a path for Gu Qingchi, Ye Li had been trying to clean up his fanbase. He hadn’t even finished doing so when another wave of fans started pouring in all of a sudden.

A high level of popularity wasn’t always a good thing. 

Originally, Ye Li wanted Gu Qingchi to accumulate fans gradually, step by step. By the time he made it into full view of the audience, he would already be the best, most impeccable version of himself.

This way of doing things was firm, stable. After all, Ye Li wanted an actor, not an idol.

Love that comes too easily goes easily as well. Furthermore, this easy kind of love comes with its own set of demands.

Fans were actually quite ruthless. If they found that you didn’t meet their expectations, they would quickly withdraw their favor. 

What was even worse was that there may be as many people who hate you as there are those who love you.

Attention comes with criticism.

These were very likely to destroy an artist.

That was what happened with Wang Chen. He’d been very sincere and obedient at the beginning. Even if he wasn’t talented, he was earnest. However, once he became popular, he started flying free. 

Therefore, Ye Li wanted to take it slow this time. Once Gu Qingchi accumulated a certain level of popularity, Ye Li tried to control the number of times that he appeared in public.

Gu Qingchi, however, always seemed to attract others’ attention. This wasn’t the first or second time that this had happened. If this were to happen again a couple more times, the locals would probably start to become familiar with his name.

Thus, Ye Li stopped worrying about it. There really wasn’t any need for him to worry with a someone like Gu Qingchi’s.

After all, the only social media he used was WeChat. He didn’t even have that many friends on WeChat, he didn’t really use his WeChat Moments, and he hardly ever even opened Weibo. When compared with Pan Xiaocheng, who needed to change the account password every couple of days, Ye Li was a lot more worry-free. 

Gu Qingchi hadn’t really noticed anything yet. The only thing that bothered him was the fact that going outside was a lot more troublesome than before. Not only was he being recognized more often, but there were always fans and paparazzi trying to get information about where he was at.

However, this wasn’t that big of a deal. Gu Qingchi didn’t really go out that much unless it was for work.

⁂

Wang Chen threw his phone onto the table, an ugly expression on his face. 

He had two assistants by his side, both of them standing far, far away.

Wang Chen then picked up a magazine from the table and threw it down as well.

“What are you standing around for? Do I pay you to sit around and do nothing? Get to work! Contact a marketing account! Buy a water army to control the comments!”

His assistants ran out in a hurry. 

A woman sitting next to him gave him a playful push.

“What’s the matter? Why are you so angry this time?”

“It’s Ye Li. The artist he signed on doesn’t have any talent at all. He didn’t even do anything in the last episode, yet he’s the one who ended up going viral. You haven’t seen what they’ve been saying online. I’m the one who got shit on.”

Although Xie Luyu had been the one to open his mouth first, Xie Luyu was a big shot. His temper had pretty much always been like that. Wang Chen was someone who bullied the weak and feared the strong. Thus, he ended up aiming all of his anger at Gu Qingchi. He’d spent the past couple of days cursing him out in his studio. 

The woman was rather intelligent. She quickly grabbed a hold of the main point. She instantly knew what was up.

“What? Do you want to go back to Ye Li?”

Wang Chen didn’t say anything. That could be considered silent agreement.

“Isn’t this rather simple? If you want to hire him, all you gotta do is throw enough money at him. Isn’t that the reason why you guys stopped working with each other? It doesn’t matter if you guys fell out with each other back then. As long as you have the money, you can work things out.” 

“If I could work things out by throwing money at him, I would’ve done it already. He said he would only manage one artist at a time and hung up the phone. Who knows what the hell is wrong with him.”

The woman looked down at her nails.

“Find a way to drag his artist down. Afterwards, you can just take his place.”

Wang Chen fell deep into thought. 

⁂

At first, it was just a few posts to a forum.

[Let Me Tell You A Secret! The Background Of An Actor With Last Name Starting With G!]

[This Is What Surnamed G Is Like Behind The Scenes?] 

[G Suspected Of Meeting With His Lover At A Nightclub.]

[Singing Like This Is Bringing Shame To All Chinese Singers.]

Later, due to the overwhelming number of posts, it started spreading to Weibo. They were practically calling him out by name.

Even the video from earlier was brought up. 

Gu Qingchi’s singing was clipped from the episode and posted onto Weibo. It was accompanied with a caption.

[This is the skill level of trainees nowadays? Jesus Christ.]

There had been so many negative posts about him lately that even passersby were starting to get tired.

[He’s bad at this, and he’s bad at that. Honestly, this is just proving to me that all pretty people are fucking stupid. They’ve exchanged their intelligence for beauty.] 

[I have to admit. He’s really good-looking. I still feel moved by his appearance despite all the negative stuff about him.]

[Who is this person? Literally every post is about him. Did he fuck your mom or something?]

Whenever there was a comment like this, a “kind-hearted” person was sure to answer. The topic soon made its way outside of fandom spaces.

Gu Qingchi was essentially at the heart of the struggle. 

Ye Li spent each day pushing down trending topics, removing comments, and handling public relations.

It was quite obvious from these comments that someone was deliberately trying to smear Gu Qingchi,

Ye Li wasn’t in a hurry. He simply needed to do as he always did. As long as the fanbase stayed strong, everything would be fine.

Most of the onlookers were just looking for juicy gossip. Anyone with a brain wouldn’t have believed this stuff, so there weren’t a lot of people who were swept up by it. If anyone tried to kick up a fuss under Gu Qingchi’s Weibo page, they would be scolded back into place by Gu Qingchi’s fans. 

Gu Qingchi had attracted wave after wave of fans. There were now all sorts of fans in his fanbase. There were the easy-going face-cons. There were earnest, borderline obsessive fans. There were powerful and experienced fans.

This ordeal actually ended up bringing a bit of popularity to Gu Qingchi.

That was until a huge scoop was revealed.

[Gu Qingchi Is Actually Married.] 

The overall content was fairly short and concise, but the wording was incredibly arrogant.

[I’m not going to say too much, and I’m not going to release any proof. It’s up to you if you want to believe me or not. I just want to say that you guys can tag his agent. If he wants, he can try suing me for spreading rumors.]

It was originally just a shallow bit of gossip released by a small account. It somehow caught the attention of Gu Qingchi’s fans.

They then reposted it as a joke. 

After being reposted thousands of times, the original poster ended up deleting the post.

Just as everyone was laughing at the original poster, a netizen suddenly managed to dig up an old photo.

This was a photo that had been posted about half a year ago. At that time, Gu Qingchi had just entered the industry, and he’d even gained a bit of virality.

[This photo was taken about three years ago. At the time, I was taking the photo for my sister and brother-in-law. I just realized that the person next to them is Gu Qingchi. Why didn’t I realize it before?] 

Within the photo, there was a man and a woman intimately huddled together on one side of a bench. Meanwhile, Gu Qingchi sat alone on the other end of the bench. His side profile was stunning.

All of the comments underneath this photo were lamenting about Gu Qingchi’s beauty.

That was until a netizen discovered a blind spot.

[If I’m not mistaken, isn’t this the inside of the Civil Affairs Bureau?]