Captured by the camera, Su Chi’s black hair was a bit wet, still dripping with transparent beads of water. He was wiping his hair with the hotel’s white towel in one hand while holding the hairdryer in the other with a slightly stunned expression that also had a trace of embarrassment, seemingly from the predicament. He smiled as he asked, “…The recording is starting this early?”
“…The water heater in my room was out of order, so I came to borrow Xia Rong’s for a bit.”
Although he explained it like this, with how the scenes were cut and edited, along with how they deliberately placed this section at the end of the program to serve as this entire episode’s easter egg… It was sufficient to reveal the program group’s sinister intentions!
Xia Rong saw how Su Chi had been wearing his graffiti t-shirt. Because there was a difference between their figures, it seemed a bit narrow on the other person, which also just so happened to outline the other’s beautiful waist.
With his chin on the pillow, Xia Rong just stared, unable to take his eyes off the image for a while. Soon, the camera turned back to Xia Rong, where he and the director were discussing the matter of his suitcase. The director laughed and teased him, “You’ve been a bit ‘rough’ with this1.”
The Xia Rong on the screen scratched at his hair and gave an embarrassed smile. Meanwhile, Su Chi, who was standing on the side, had also looked at them with a gentle smile.
The camera lost no time in getting a close-up of this smile, and they even photoshopped in two chibis during post-production: one in a white sleeveless shirt while the other was in a graffiti t-shirt – which was obviously a copy of the two of them. The two chibis hugging each other affectionately with the words “Such great relationship~” right beside them made the scene even more delightful to the eyes, bringing warmth to the heart.
Though the people on the screen were still talking, the list of staff and advertisements of the sponsors had already started to scroll through. The theme song also cut in at this time, which showed that this episode of 《Liang Shanbo and Romeo》 had truly come to its finish. Xia Rong waited until all the advertisements had come to an end and for the preview of the next episode to have started before finally moving to get the remote to turn off the TV.
He picked up the cell phone he had put aside. Originally, he wanted to scroll through Weibo first, but then Shu Yi’s message arrived through WeChat before he could start:
{Keyun Network’s real-time ratings are still okay, basically all above 1.4%. If the coefficient doesn’t change too much, the final ratings of the 52 cities should be able to break 2.”}
In fact, the statistics that went into ratings were separated into several kinds. Generally speaking, ratings would refer to that of the 52 cities, but there were also the national ratings and local ratings. However, the actual numbers of these ratings would only be released on workdays, which was to say, a variety show like 《Liang Ou》- which aired during the Saturday 10 PM bracket – would only be able to see their exact figures on Monday of the upcoming week.
However, the TV industry was always in constant, rapid development, especially in this age of the internet. From the TV stations and investors to the fans, they all simply could not wait to know what results had been attained at the earliest moment. And so, real-time rating websites like Keyun Network emerged using this opportunity. Keyun could calculate the real-time viewing rate of 35 cities and 52 cities, as well as the relevant market share. Then, they would be able to roughly estimate the final ratings of a piece of work by multiplying this basic value with the TV station’s relevant coefficient.
Seeing that the ratings were so gratifying, Xia Rong was also quite happy. {Not bad, better than the last episode.}
Shu Yi: {En, it was worth it choosing to accept this variety show. You should take care to perform well in the coming up, it’d be best for it not to end up like the first episode again, allowing the editing team to grab another opportunity to use against you.}
Xia Rong: {There wasn’t anything that I could’ve done with the first episode… Besides, hadn’t it turned over by now? You can already see that the program group made a good play at setting things up.}
{Ha ha, the character setting has been turned over.} Shu Yi was obviously not very satisfied. {But the audience’s attention has also grown crooked.}
{What?}
{You look at it yourself.} Shu Yi said, {In the meantime, do you really not want to explain to me why Su Chi appeared in your room so early in the morning? It wasn’t even six and he already found out his water heater was broken?”
Xia Rong: {…}
He was almost completely numb towards getting this kind of a question. {If I say I can’t explain it, but there’s nothing between me and him, would you believe it? [kitten_with_nothing_left_to_live_for_fell_into_a_spawl.jpg]}
Shu Yi: {Nowadays, even your sincerity when trying to deceive me is becoming less and less.}
Xia Rong: {…}
Shu Yi: {It’s up to you. Either way, your mother will be waiting for you at home the day after tomorrow. If you manage to get past her, you will be guaranteed free to fall in love however you want. [slight smile]}
Xia Rong already didn’t want to refute it anymore. {…Okay, thank you. [small_cat_with_dead_eyes.jpg]}
=====
With this heavy resentment, Xia Rong tapped open his own Weibo.
As a popular young actor, his Weibo would grow by tens of thousands of fans every day. Finding all the *ding-ding-ding* of notifications too annoying, he had long turned off both the sound and new fan notifications. So at the moment, he couldn’t tell exactly just how much the number of fans he had has grown. But judging from his rough impression from before he sent out the last microblog, between the start and the end of this episode which didn’t even reach two hours… He gained nearly 100,000 fans.
And this was just as the episode was being broadcasted. By the time the broadcast finishes on TV and the web version goes online, as more and more people fall in under all the promotion and watch this episode, the numbers will continue to flip exponentially.
The number of notifications had long reached +9999. When Xia Rong finally tapped into them at this time, he was almost completely shocked by the close to tangible enthusiasm and excitement of the comments—
【Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, isn’t this episode too exciting?!】
【Originally, I was already about to become a fan after seeing the beginning. But then, the me who had just reached and saw the easter egg, I just simply spun in place and exploded into ascension.】
【How could there be such a cute and beautiful boy like this? I’m declaring now, from today onwards, I will be a Xia Rong braindead fan!】
【Braindead fan +1!】
【You can all go and be braindead fans, but I want Xia Rong to be my boyfriend. [screen licking] [screen licking] [screen licking]】
【Rongrong’s girlfriend fans, raise your hands! This episode was truly a prosperous age of beauty, righhttttt?!?!?!】
【All of you are girlfriend fans, am I the only one who wants to be a boyfriend fan? [doge]】
【Upstairs, hurry up and stop speaking. When I saw the beginning of the episode how Rongrong-baby was being pressed against the tree, my heart was already struck by him. [face with tears streaming down] Really want to “tree”-don2 him, really want to possess3 Su Chi!】
【Possess Su Chi +10086, I’m not demanding, it’s also okay if you let me possess that tree.】
…
But this was still considered small-scale. In regarding these love-struck fools of Xia Rong’s, a larger group, which was precisely the portion of the audience that Shu Yi had said whose “focus has become crooked,” hadn’t been stingy at all as they all came one after another to express how they were pleasantly surprised:
【Really didn’t expect that you have such a good relationship with Su Chi!!!】
【Aaahhhhhhh, the two of them are too good-looking and too well-matched, right? I’m already giddy from the cuteness right in front of the TV.】
【Even in a dream, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine the easter egg to be this! I had came to complain after watching last week’s episode, the wrong is completely mine aahhhhh.】
【The moment I saw the easter egg, my heart stopped. Isn’t it too exciting? [shocked.jpg]】
【I TM knocked myself out. The moment I saw the easter egg, I decided I will enter this pit. I’ll stay bowed until the end of this world!】
【Begging the group, begging all the great creators to make more food [content] aahhhh. I haven’t been able to calm down since watching the easter egg. I’m afraid I won’t be sleeping tonight. [slight smile]】
【Begging the question, what’s the name of Xia Rong and Su Chi’s CP? I’m going to search for the supertopic and lofter1~】
【Fellow enthusiasts, wait for me! I’ll go edit the video and upload it to Bi-site2 right away!】
【A CP fan of many years bravely peeks out, I’ve long felt that the two of them matched each other, hahaha haha】
【Lurking CP fan +1, actually, my focus is still fixated on that tree-don. At first, when I saw the photos taken on the street, I thought it was some earth-shattering sugar. But then, after watching the first episode of the show, I found that it was sh★t. Yet, after finishing this second episode, it turns out that it really was TM sugar!!! This Voldemort CP3 of mine is simply as exciting as a roller coaster, ahaha!!】
【Voldemort CP?】
【[Shh!] Because, in the past, the strength of the pure fans of the two was just too strong before, moreover the two groups opposed each other, so our cute CP could only lurk at the bottom of the lake, being cute in secret. Even when we floated up to get a mouthful of sugar, we still hadn’t dared to fully expose ourselves, so we called ourselves Voldemort一 “That person whose name can’t be mention”~ haha ha [er ha] [er ha]】
【A sincere thank you to Liang Shanbo and Romeo, from today on, this CP will probably be able to switch to a new name~】
…
With another look at the ranking of hot searches, ‘Su Chi Xia Rong’ occupied the first place on the list, the second (impressively) was ‘Su Chi Xia Rong In Love’, the third was ‘Liang Shanbo and Romeo’, where finally the fourth was a societal incident irrelevant to the above. So it could be seen that the effects from this wave of events orchestrated by the program group were truly astonishing.
He apprehensively tapped to enter ‘Su Chi Xia Rong In Love’ and found that most of them were saying “after seeing Su Chi and Xia Rong, I feel as if I’m in love” or “Aren’t Su Chi and Xia Rong too beautiful, face-cons can’t bear it, I’m going to fall in love again,” but there was even a microblog with several short clips that went “aahhhh, this easter egg of Su Chi and Xia Rong’s, the sweetness from being unintentional is the sweetest. After seeing this, I want to fall in love,” which had already been forwarded tens of thousands of times. In fact, no one really said anything about the two of them really being in love, but as luck would have it, the hot search keyword crawl managed to pick precisely this and pushed it up.
Later, passersby also began to post their microblogs. One microblog, in particular, showed that they and Xia Rong, who had just seen this topic from the hot search, had the same notion: “#Su Chi Xia Rong In Love# f★ck, scared me to death when I saw this hot search. I even thought they had announced their relationship or something!”
In order to console his own heart, having been reminded by an earlier comment just now, Xia Rong decided to search for a round of videos on Bi-site.
Bi-site used to be a 2D-based website that mainly centered around animation culture. Because it had adopted the novel barrage mode relatively early and had a unique site design, it gradually attracted more contributions from 3D cultures. In recent years, Bi-site has continually been expanding its capital, striving to grow bigger. Bi-site users were experts at making interesting edits and playing tricks. Although the flow of people wasn’t the highest, oftentimes it had been able to incite new waves and trends.
Orange TV also hadn’t left this piece of cake alone and had its own official account on Bi-site, where they would upload videos of their variety shows after the live broadcast. Xia Rong searched for 《Liang Shanbo and Romeo》 and found that the official account had only contributed the first episode of the program, which should be because the second episode had just finished its broadcast, so they had not had the time to upload it yet.
Since he can’t watch the second episode, he’ll just have to make do with the first episode.
As soon as the video started, almost immediately bullets of different lengths and colors filled the screen, seemingly wanting to burst out—
“Crazily calling for Su Chi” “Came for Ye Mang” “Gao Junming Gao Junming Gao Junming” “I came here to see Zhang Xin” “Calling from overseas for Kang Yifan-xiaogege” “I’m contracting Xia Rong aahhhh”
The barrage army was dazzling, a feast for the eyes. But Xia Rong rather even boredly counted, within the same screen, just whose bullets took the lead in number.
Although he had watched it once already, it was interestingly fun and full of novelty now that the video was paired with the barrage一 When the six people, five dogs, and one cat all struggled to fit into the same scene, such that even their faces were being squeezed out of shape: “I didn’t expect that none of the six people would act self-important at all, instead, playing it all so seriously, natural but funny.” “Hahahaha, to actually not feel any baggage from being an idol, my impression of a few people has changed.”
When they all split up to complete missions: “Zhang Xin who’s square dancing with facial paralysis is truly pitiful yet cute. Hahaha.” “Gao Junming’s rolling around is like a big bear, so stupid-cute stupid-cute.” “I hadn’t expected that Xia Rong would be able to answer so many questions. I thought these stars were all without learning or skills.” “The one up in front, although our Xia Rong debuted early, he hadn’t dropped out of school. He’s a proper graduate of Shangyin, alright?”…
When he got to this point, Xia Rong no longer had much of a desire to continue watching, because he knew that coming up he would be vilified by the editing. He didn’t want to see all the negative comments and affect his mood for no reason, so he chose to drag the progress bar to skip this section.
But then it turned out that he had to skip more than just this one section. Aside from when it was one of the others’ scenes, he had to drag all the way until the end if he were to avoid all those scolding and curses that were aimed at him. Moreover, the end was where the quarrel was at its fiercest, and even until the preview of the next episode was being broadcasted, the quarrel in the barrage was still awfully heated.
Xia Rong tutted and simply decided to back out of the video. Casually refreshing the page, he found that the official account of Orange TV was actually quite efficient. They had actually already uploaded the second episode; moreover, Bi-site had already audited and passed it.
As the episode had just dropped, the number of bullets in this second episode hadn’t reached the point where it was exploding as it did in the first episode, and they had only run smitten amuck towards the two of them during the beginning with the “tree-don”: “This picture is just too beautiful, I can’t stop my hand from screenshotting” “There’s too much of a CP feel, it’s just as if they were shooting a(n) ** idol drama [hides face]” “And it’s even the kind with sufficient funding, one with big-name actors” “To watch a ** drama of this level, I guess I can only make up the rest with my brain while staring at this segment, right? QAQ” “No, no, no! From someone who had just finished watching the live broadcast, the most explosive ** scene is still up ahead!! Still sharply screaming from inside my duvet aahhh”…
The farther into the video it was, the sparser the barrage became. Xia Rong originally came specifically to take a look at the barrage, so now without it, he simply dragged the progress bar again, planning to jump directly to the end to rewatch the culprit of today’s hot search一 the so-called ‘surprise raid easter egg’.
Unexpectedly, he didn’t manage to drag it all the way to the end, skipping directly to the easter egg part. Instead, he only got to the part where Tang Feifei had just got on stage and everyone was promoting the protection of animals. On the screen, it was right at the part where Su Chi was sharing some information about folded-ear cats when Xia Rong noticed that there were some bullets here. His fingertips paused, and he didn’t continue dragging for the time being.
“Oh, this program has a good conscience. From the beginning, I was worried that using a folded-ear to do the show would lead to a bad influence. But surprisingly, they actually helped popularize the science of it instead. QVQ”
“[The moment you choose to raise it, you must properly prepare yourself mentally to protect it for its entire life.] This sentence is just too su, I’ve fallen in love with Su Chi now.”
“Su Chi like this is really just so su, so su. QAQ Really wants to marry him.”
…
It was only after seeing the barrage that Xia Rong realized what that feeling was that made his heart flutter when he looked at Su Chi一 the most exact description would be, he simply got hit by the ‘su’-ness.
He held his cell phone and dragged the progress bar back and forth around Su Chi’s few sentences.
“The moment you choose to raise it, you must properly prepare yourself mentally to protect it for its entire life…”
Just as he felt that he was about to be brainwashed by this sentence, a WeChat message from Shu Yi popped out at the top of the fullscreen playback—
{Xia Rong, Han Lianghao found me to talk just now.}
Xia Rong froze for a moment, but then immediately remembered that Han Lianghao was Su Chi’s agent and replied, “What did he say?”
“He said-” Shu Yi’s voice when she replied was calm, without a ripple, but Xia Rong seemed to be able to feel her pent-up frustrations through her choice of words—
“All of us should have seen the effect of 1 + 1 > 2, and he asked our team if we might consider cooperation to attain a win-win.”
Captured by the camera, Su Chi’s black hair was a bit wet, still dripping with transparent beads of water. He was wiping his hair with the hotel’s white towel in one hand while holding the hairdryer in the other with a slightly stunned expression that also had a trace of embarrassment, seemingly from the predicament. He smiled as he asked, “…The recording is starting this early?”
“…The water heater in my room was out of order, so I came to borrow Xia Rong’s for a bit.”
Although he explained it like this, with how the scenes were cut and edited, along with how they deliberately placed this section at the end of the program to serve as this entire episode’s easter egg… It was sufficient to reveal the program group’s sinister intentions!
Xia Rong saw how Su Chi had been wearing his graffiti t-shirt. Because there was a difference between their figures, it seemed a bit narrow on the other person, which also just so happened to outline the other’s beautiful waist.
With his chin on the pillow, Xia Rong just stared, unable to take his eyes off the image for a while. Soon, the camera turned back to Xia Rong, where he and the director were discussing the matter of his suitcase. The director laughed and teased him, “You’ve been a bit ‘rough’ with this1.”
The Xia Rong on the screen scratched at his hair and gave an embarrassed smile. Meanwhile, Su Chi, who was standing on the side, had also looked at them with a gentle smile.
The camera lost no time in getting a close-up of this smile, and they even photoshopped in two chibis during post-production: one in a white sleeveless shirt while the other was in a graffiti t-shirt – which was obviously a copy of the two of them. The two chibis hugging each other affectionately with the words “Such great relationship~” right beside them made the scene even more delightful to the eyes, bringing warmth to the heart.
Though the people on the screen were still talking, the list of staff and advertisements of the sponsors had already started to scroll through. The theme song also cut in at this time, which showed that this episode of 《Liang Shanbo and Romeo》 had truly come to its finish. Xia Rong waited until all the advertisements had come to an end and for the preview of the next episode to have started before finally moving to get the remote to turn off the TV.
He picked up the cell phone he had put aside. Originally, he wanted to scroll through Weibo first, but then Shu Yi’s message arrived through WeChat before he could start:
{Keyun Network’s real-time ratings are still okay, basically all above 1.4%. If the coefficient doesn’t change too much, the final ratings of the 52 cities should be able to break 2.”}
In fact, the statistics that went into ratings were separated into several kinds. Generally speaking, ratings would refer to that of the 52 cities, but there were also the national ratings and local ratings. However, the actual numbers of these ratings would only be released on workdays, which was to say, a variety show like 《Liang Ou》- which aired during the Saturday 10 PM bracket – would only be able to see their exact figures on Monday of the upcoming week.
However, the TV industry was always in constant, rapid development, especially in this age of the internet. From the TV stations and investors to the fans, they all simply could not wait to know what results had been attained at the earliest moment. And so, real-time rating websites like Keyun Network emerged using this opportunity. Keyun could calculate the real-time viewing rate of 35 cities and 52 cities, as well as the relevant market share. Then, they would be able to roughly estimate the final ratings of a piece of work by multiplying this basic value with the TV station’s relevant coefficient.
Seeing that the ratings were so gratifying, Xia Rong was also quite happy. {Not bad, better than the last episode.}
Shu Yi: {En, it was worth it choosing to accept this variety show. You should take care to perform well in the coming up, it’d be best for it not to end up like the first episode again, allowing the editing team to grab another opportunity to use against you.}
Xia Rong: {There wasn’t anything that I could’ve done with the first episode… Besides, hadn’t it turned over by now? You can already see that the program group made a good play at setting things up.}
{Ha ha, the character setting has been turned over.} Shu Yi was obviously not very satisfied. {But the audience’s attention has also grown crooked.}
{What?}
{You look at it yourself.} Shu Yi said, {In the meantime, do you really not want to explain to me why Su Chi appeared in your room so early in the morning? It wasn’t even six and he already found out his water heater was broken?”
Xia Rong: {…}
He was almost completely numb towards getting this kind of a question. {If I say I can’t explain it, but there’s nothing between me and him, would you believe it? [kitten_with_nothing_left_to_live_for_fell_into_a_spawl.jpg]}
Shu Yi: {Nowadays, even your sincerity when trying to deceive me is becoming less and less.}
Xia Rong: {…}
Shu Yi: {It’s up to you. Either way, your mother will be waiting for you at home the day after tomorrow. If you manage to get past her, you will be guaranteed free to fall in love however you want. [slight smile]}
Xia Rong already didn’t want to refute it anymore. {…Okay, thank you. [small_cat_with_dead_eyes.jpg]}
=====
With this heavy resentment, Xia Rong tapped open his own Weibo.
As a popular young actor, his Weibo would grow by tens of thousands of fans every day. Finding all the *ding-ding-ding* of notifications too annoying, he had long turned off both the sound and new fan notifications. So at the moment, he couldn’t tell exactly just how much the number of fans he had has grown. But judging from his rough impression from before he sent out the last microblog, between the start and the end of this episode which didn’t even reach two hours… He gained nearly 100,000 fans.
And this was just as the episode was being broadcasted. By the time the broadcast finishes on TV and the web version goes online, as more and more people fall in under all the promotion and watch this episode, the numbers will continue to flip exponentially.
The number of notifications had long reached +9999. When Xia Rong finally tapped into them at this time, he was almost completely shocked by the close to tangible enthusiasm and excitement of the comments—
【Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, isn’t this episode too exciting?!】
【Originally, I was already about to become a fan after seeing the beginning. But then, the me who had just reached and saw the easter egg, I just simply spun in place and exploded into ascension.】
【How could there be such a cute and beautiful boy like this? I’m declaring now, from today onwards, I will be a Xia Rong braindead fan!】
【Braindead fan +1!】
【You can all go and be braindead fans, but I want Xia Rong to be my boyfriend. [screen licking] [screen licking] [screen licking]】
【Rongrong’s girlfriend fans, raise your hands! This episode was truly a prosperous age of beauty, righhttttt?!?!?!】
【All of you are girlfriend fans, am I the only one who wants to be a boyfriend fan? [doge]】
【Upstairs, hurry up and stop speaking. When I saw the beginning of the episode how Rongrong-baby was being pressed against the tree, my heart was already struck by him. [face with tears streaming down] Really want to “tree”-don2 him, really want to possess3 Su Chi!】
【Possess Su Chi +10086, I’m not demanding, it’s also okay if you let me possess that tree.】
…
But this was still considered small-scale. In regarding these love-struck fools of Xia Rong’s, a larger group, which was precisely the portion of the audience that Shu Yi had said whose “focus has become crooked,” hadn’t been stingy at all as they all came one after another to express how they were pleasantly surprised:
【Really didn’t expect that you have such a good relationship with Su Chi!!!】
【Aaahhhhhhh, the two of them are too good-looking and too well-matched, right? I’m already giddy from the cuteness right in front of the TV.】
【Even in a dream, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine the easter egg to be this! I had came to complain after watching last week’s episode, the wrong is completely mine aahhhhh.】
【The moment I saw the easter egg, my heart stopped. Isn’t it too exciting? [shocked.jpg]】
【I TM knocked myself out. The moment I saw the easter egg, I decided I will enter this pit. I’ll stay bowed until the end of this world!】
【Begging the group, begging all the great creators to make more food [content] aahhhh. I haven’t been able to calm down since watching the easter egg. I’m afraid I won’t be sleeping tonight. [slight smile]】
【Begging the question, what’s the name of Xia Rong and Su Chi’s CP? I’m going to search for the supertopic and lofter1~】
【Fellow enthusiasts, wait for me! I’ll go edit the video and upload it to Bi-site2 right away!】
【A CP fan of many years bravely peeks out, I’ve long felt that the two of them matched each other, hahaha haha】
【Lurking CP fan +1, actually, my focus is still fixated on that tree-don. At first, when I saw the photos taken on the street, I thought it was some earth-shattering sugar. But then, after watching the first episode of the show, I found that it was sh★t. Yet, after finishing this second episode, it turns out that it really was TM sugar!!! This Voldemort CP3 of mine is simply as exciting as a roller coaster, ahaha!!】
【Voldemort CP?】
【[Shh!] Because, in the past, the strength of the pure fans of the two was just too strong before, moreover the two groups opposed each other, so our cute CP could only lurk at the bottom of the lake, being cute in secret. Even when we floated up to get a mouthful of sugar, we still hadn’t dared to fully expose ourselves, so we called ourselves Voldemort一 “That person whose name can’t be mention”~ haha ha [er ha] [er ha]】
【A sincere thank you to Liang Shanbo and Romeo, from today on, this CP will probably be able to switch to a new name~】
…
With another look at the ranking of hot searches, ‘Su Chi Xia Rong’ occupied the first place on the list, the second (impressively) was ‘Su Chi Xia Rong In Love’, the third was ‘Liang Shanbo and Romeo’, where finally the fourth was a societal incident irrelevant to the above. So it could be seen that the effects from this wave of events orchestrated by the program group were truly astonishing.
He apprehensively tapped to enter ‘Su Chi Xia Rong In Love’ and found that most of them were saying “after seeing Su Chi and Xia Rong, I feel as if I’m in love” or “Aren’t Su Chi and Xia Rong too beautiful, face-cons can’t bear it, I’m going to fall in love again,” but there was even a microblog with several short clips that went “aahhhh, this easter egg of Su Chi and Xia Rong’s, the sweetness from being unintentional is the sweetest. After seeing this, I want to fall in love,” which had already been forwarded tens of thousands of times. In fact, no one really said anything about the two of them really being in love, but as luck would have it, the hot search keyword crawl managed to pick precisely this and pushed it up.
Later, passersby also began to post their microblogs. One microblog, in particular, showed that they and Xia Rong, who had just seen this topic from the hot search, had the same notion: “#Su Chi Xia Rong In Love# f★ck, scared me to death when I saw this hot search. I even thought they had announced their relationship or something!”
In order to console his own heart, having been reminded by an earlier comment just now, Xia Rong decided to search for a round of videos on Bi-site.
Bi-site used to be a 2D-based website that mainly centered around animation culture. Because it had adopted the novel barrage mode relatively early and had a unique site design, it gradually attracted more contributions from 3D cultures. In recent years, Bi-site has continually been expanding its capital, striving to grow bigger. Bi-site users were experts at making interesting edits and playing tricks. Although the flow of people wasn’t the highest, oftentimes it had been able to incite new waves and trends.
Orange TV also hadn’t left this piece of cake alone and had its own official account on Bi-site, where they would upload videos of their variety shows after the live broadcast. Xia Rong searched for 《Liang Shanbo and Romeo》 and found that the official account had only contributed the first episode of the program, which should be because the second episode had just finished its broadcast, so they had not had the time to upload it yet.
Since he can’t watch the second episode, he’ll just have to make do with the first episode.
As soon as the video started, almost immediately bullets of different lengths and colors filled the screen, seemingly wanting to burst out—
“Crazily calling for Su Chi” “Came for Ye Mang” “Gao Junming Gao Junming Gao Junming” “I came here to see Zhang Xin” “Calling from overseas for Kang Yifan-xiaogege” “I’m contracting Xia Rong aahhhh”
The barrage army was dazzling, a feast for the eyes. But Xia Rong rather even boredly counted, within the same screen, just whose bullets took the lead in number.
Although he had watched it once already, it was interestingly fun and full of novelty now that the video was paired with the barrage一 When the six people, five dogs, and one cat all struggled to fit into the same scene, such that even their faces were being squeezed out of shape: “I didn’t expect that none of the six people would act self-important at all, instead, playing it all so seriously, natural but funny.” “Hahahaha, to actually not feel any baggage from being an idol, my impression of a few people has changed.”
When they all split up to complete missions: “Zhang Xin who’s square dancing with facial paralysis is truly pitiful yet cute. Hahaha.” “Gao Junming’s rolling around is like a big bear, so stupid-cute stupid-cute.” “I hadn’t expected that Xia Rong would be able to answer so many questions. I thought these stars were all without learning or skills.” “The one up in front, although our Xia Rong debuted early, he hadn’t dropped out of school. He’s a proper graduate of Shangyin, alright?”…
When he got to this point, Xia Rong no longer had much of a desire to continue watching, because he knew that coming up he would be vilified by the editing. He didn’t want to see all the negative comments and affect his mood for no reason, so he chose to drag the progress bar to skip this section.
But then it turned out that he had to skip more than just this one section. Aside from when it was one of the others’ scenes, he had to drag all the way until the end if he were to avoid all those scolding and curses that were aimed at him. Moreover, the end was where the quarrel was at its fiercest, and even until the preview of the next episode was being broadcasted, the quarrel in the barrage was still awfully heated.
Xia Rong tutted and simply decided to back out of the video. Casually refreshing the page, he found that the official account of Orange TV was actually quite efficient. They had actually already uploaded the second episode; moreover, Bi-site had already audited and passed it.
As the episode had just dropped, the number of bullets in this second episode hadn’t reached the point where it was exploding as it did in the first episode, and they had only run smitten amuck towards the two of them during the beginning with the “tree-don”: “This picture is just too beautiful, I can’t stop my hand from screenshotting” “There’s too much of a CP feel, it’s just as if they were shooting a(n) ** idol drama [hides face]” “And it’s even the kind with sufficient funding, one with big-name actors” “To watch a ** drama of this level, I guess I can only make up the rest with my brain while staring at this segment, right? QAQ” “No, no, no! From someone who had just finished watching the live broadcast, the most explosive ** scene is still up ahead!! Still sharply screaming from inside my duvet aahhh”…
The farther into the video it was, the sparser the barrage became. Xia Rong originally came specifically to take a look at the barrage, so now without it, he simply dragged the progress bar again, planning to jump directly to the end to rewatch the culprit of today’s hot search一 the so-called ‘surprise raid easter egg’.
Unexpectedly, he didn’t manage to drag it all the way to the end, skipping directly to the easter egg part. Instead, he only got to the part where Tang Feifei had just got on stage and everyone was promoting the protection of animals. On the screen, it was right at the part where Su Chi was sharing some information about folded-ear cats when Xia Rong noticed that there were some bullets here. His fingertips paused, and he didn’t continue dragging for the time being.
“Oh, this program has a good conscience. From the beginning, I was worried that using a folded-ear to do the show would lead to a bad influence. But surprisingly, they actually helped popularize the science of it instead. QVQ”
“[The moment you choose to raise it, you must properly prepare yourself mentally to protect it for its entire life.] This sentence is just too su, I’ve fallen in love with Su Chi now.”
“Su Chi like this is really just so su, so su. QAQ Really wants to marry him.”
…
It was only after seeing the barrage that Xia Rong realized what that feeling was that made his heart flutter when he looked at Su Chi一 the most exact description would be, he simply got hit by the ‘su’-ness.
He held his cell phone and dragged the progress bar back and forth around Su Chi’s few sentences.
“The moment you choose to raise it, you must properly prepare yourself mentally to protect it for its entire life…”
Just as he felt that he was about to be brainwashed by this sentence, a WeChat message from Shu Yi popped out at the top of the fullscreen playback—
{Xia Rong, Han Lianghao found me to talk just now.}
Xia Rong froze for a moment, but then immediately remembered that Han Lianghao was Su Chi’s agent and replied, “What did he say?”
“He said-” Shu Yi’s voice when she replied was calm, without a ripple, but Xia Rong seemed to be able to feel her pent-up frustrations through her choice of words—
“All of us should have seen the effect of 1 + 1 > 2, and he asked our team if we might consider cooperation to attain a win-win.”
