Chapter 17: 300,000 fans (2)
In the Class A dormitory, Qiao Dai got up from the ground. She was so excited just now; after hugging Luan Zhen, she had squatted back down next to the pool and had carefully checked for any leaks. When she finally stood up, she realized the broadcast was over.
“How come it’s over?”
Qiao Dai asked with confusion and Jiang Fengchi collected his emotion before saying softly: “It’s nothing, just tired.”
Was he tired because she had asked him to help with the pool? Qiao Dai suddenly felt a bit ashamed. She raised her eyes to Jiang Fengchi and said very seriously: “Teacher, you have worked hard. If there is anything I can do in the future, I will definitely help!”
It was just a polite sentence in the eyes of others, but from Qiao Dai’s mouth, it sounded like a promise. Her eyes were bright and exceptionally honest and she gave a very sincere feeling.
“Daidai, are you okay?”
Shi Qing opened the door and ran in. Fortunately, most people were gathered here and it had not taken her a long time to find Qiao Dai’s room.
She had run all the way from dormitory B; her face was flushed, she was panting and her long soft hair was a little messy. She supported herself against the wall, then took a few steps forwards until she saw Qiao Dai’s smile.
“Shi Qing, you’re here! Take a look at my pool, everyone helped!”
Qiao Dai’s eyes were round in surprise the moment she saw Shi Qing and she rushed to help her as she looked a little exhausted. She took her to look at the pool in the middle of the room, as happy as a child.
Seeing Qiao Dai’s appearance, Shi Qing felt a little surprised then relaxed. It was better if she had not seen the comments in the live broadcast.
The broadcast had ended and it was already late. Qiao Dai’s room had not been cleaned up and the rest of the crowd was embarrassed to stay and delay her to rest; there would be training tomorrow and the players soon said goodbye and went back to their own sides.
“Will I be able to go to your room to play?”
Qiao Dai asked Luan Zhen and Shi Qing as they helped her make her bed. Lian Zhen smiled and said: “Yes, but my place won’t be as fun and you might find it boring.”
As for Shi Qing, she really wanted to be able to visit each other just like that. But thinking about the room she shared with Jiang Ruowei, she quickly dispelled the idea before saying: “My roommate may find it inconvenient but I will come to you every time you want to play.”
Qiao Dai sighed with some pity and threw a pillow on the bed. When it rebounded on the mattress, she threw it a few more times and started to laugh.
“Are you a child?”
Luan Zhen watched Qiao Dai play before grabbing it and put it back in its correct position. With a fake adult expression, she seriously said: “Okay, okay, go to bed now. Tomorrow, the teachers will have new tasks for us.”
“Okay… Then see you tomorrow!”
Qiao Dai reluctantly sent Luan Zhen and Shi Qing to the door and began to miss the days she would sleep hand in hand with her friends in the ocean.
After everyone was gone, she walked back slowly to the inflated swimming pool, her eyes sparkling under the light. She reached out her hand to touch it and blinked a few times. If she secretly swam… no one would find out, right?
Qiao Dai looked around and confirmed the camera in the room had stopped working. She still felt a little uneasy and found a cloth to cover it before slightly closing the glass door leading to the terrace and drawing the curtains to ensure absolute discretion. She then rushed to the bathroom and started filling the pool.
After a while, sparkling waves burst into the children’s pool and a little sea otter was swimming happily in the middle.
Qiao Dai: Pretty good!
She was very excited to play in the water. Although the pool was rather small, she was already very satisfied to be able to soak. She lay down, stretched her small paws to reach out to the place of dried fish she had placed to the pool, and started eating contentedly.
But alas, life was not easy. As a poor sea otter, she could not eat lobsters yet, only a little bit of dried fish.
The evening breeze leaked through the gap of the slightly opened glass door, blowing the curtains and revealing the hazy light of the moon and its reflection on the calm late. In the middle of this quiet and delicate atmosphere, Qiao Dai felt a little sleepy.
“Ha—”
She yawned, still lying in the water, and habitually stretched her paws to rub her cheeks and eyes. Well, today’s playtime was over and it was time to go to bed.
Although she could really sleep in the little pool, it was the players’ dormitory. Who knew if there would be any emergencies tomorrow. What if she accidentally overslept and Luan Zhen or Shi Qing barged in and found a little sea otter in the room instead of her? Thinking about this, Qiao Dai rolled out of the water and ran to the bathroom to take a bath and go to sleep.
***
After the live broadcast, Jiang Fengchi had not left directly but had gone to the director’s room.
“I’m sorry, we will pay attention to this kind of thing in the future.”
The staff apologized to Jiang Fengchi for today’s accident but the young man sitting opposite raised his hand to signal it was no longer necessary.
“You do not need to apologize to me, these kinds of things have no effect whatsoever on me. The ones it affects are the ordinary players.” It was getting late and he looked a little tired.
For the women’s team draft, such rumors could have devastating consequences. Especially now when they had just started, if another player reported Qiao Dai had a sugar daddy, the results would be very bad.
It was very easy to bring bad associations to the whole program of <Pick Eleven> after the inappropriate and provocative messages had appeared earlier, and Jiang Fengchi had specifically come to remind the production to be careful in the future.
Jiang Fengchi kept talking with the staff until late at night. When he finally left, the on-site staff breathed a sigh of relief before chatting between coworkers: “Teacher Jiang is very nice. Well, it can be said he understands the trainees.”
This live episode was indeed their mistake but they had not expected that, as a mentor, Jiang Fengchi would ask them to be more careful in the future. No wonder Jiang Fengchi was so popular in the circle, if they were players, they would also greatly appreciate him.
“By the way, did you watch Teacher Jiang and Class A’s broadcast? It was really funny, especially when Jiang Fengchi saw the pool, he was stunned.”
“Live is even funnier.”
“What was the girl’s name? I’m going to follow her account.”
The staff kept chatting about the broadcast of each dormitory and talked about Jiang Fengchi inflating Qiao Dai’s pool. When several staff members on the scene said that Qiao Dai was super cute, they all rushed to follow Qiao Dai’s account to observe in secret.
On the other hand, Jiang Ruowei was lying on her bed and playing with her phone after washing up. She was flipping through <Pick Eleven>’s topics to see if any were about her.
Now that the show had not officially started airing, there were not many discussions about it and most topics were created by the bigger companies. People mostly talked about Galaxy’s trainees and dark horse players; Jiang Ruowei was mentioned in their COCO performance and netizens were looking forward to the next one.
The fluorescent light of the screen made her face somewhat gloomy. She seemed a little bit unhappy; she quickly flicked her finger across the screen, among the five of them, the most mentioned was Qiao Dai, especially after tonight’s broadcast. Many people started talking about this unexpected interesting player.
Jiang Ruowei felt a little uncomfortable in her heart. Qiao Dai was only a country bumpkin but was liked so much by the audience. She turned over and over in her bed, the more she read comments about her, the more sour she felt, the more she watched, the more upset she became.
She should have stopped but she couldn’t sleep. She searched the accounts of the other players on Weibo and looked at their data, trying to calculate from memory what her rise of popularity was among the 101 contestants.
She searched the accounts randomly until she found Qiao Dai’s.
“…?!”
Jiang Ruowei’s eyes widened when she saw the string of numbers. Before joining the draft, the agency had registered unified accounts for them. At that time, among the five of them, only Qiao Dai was opening one for the first time. Jiang Ruowei had not taunted her because she had been afraid the company would buy fans for her and after the show, having so few fans would look bad.
But now… she had not read it wrong, how could Qiao Dai’s data rise so much? She counted several times until she was sure it was correct. She took a breath and she was so surprised, she almost dropped the phone on her face.
Three… Three hundred thousands? Qiao Dai’s fans had risen from nothing to 300,000 in just one day, which was comparable to Luan Zhen and Lin Lang.
No, but it was only the first day of recording! Jiang Ruowei felt cold sweat drenching her back. It turned out that the gap between her and Qiao Dai was already so big? A huge pressure suddenly overwhelmed her and she felt she couldn’t breathe for a while. She had a hunch that she would be soon left far behind by Qiao Dai. But… wasn’t she better than her in the beginning?
Anxiety gradually rooted in her and Jiang Ruowei kept tossing and turning in her bed until the sun rose outside and poured into their room from the window.
***
New day meant new assessment. Whether it was class A or F, all trainees had the same time to clean up and get ready for the camera.
Qiao Dai reluctantly got up and rubbed her eyes. She was still half asleep and sat in a daze on the bed. Her sleepy face looked very pure in the bright light of the sun. A strand of loose black hair waved mischievously in front of her forehead, brushing her eyes from time to time, which made her feel a little itchy. But it seemed she was too sleepy to gather the strength to stretch her hand; she squinted her eyes and blew air to push the hair aside.
“Daidai, are you up?”
Luan Zhen’s voice came from outside the door, surprising Qiao Dai. She finally stroked her hair behind her ears, lifted the quilt, and ran off the bed while shouting: “I’m up!”
After a while, a clean and dressed Qiao Dai walked out and went down for breakfast with Luan Zhen.
A lot of people were already gathered in the dining room. The program team provided a large variety of breakfast food for the players of Class A, whether it was Chinese, Japanese, or Westen, everything was available. However, most contestants only ate some vegetables and put down their tableware in order to keep in shape.
Qiao Dai and Luan Zhen did not care so much and ate breakfast happily. After all, if they were dizzy with hunger every day, where would they find the energy to train?
“What are we doing today?”
“No idea, I didn’t hear anything about it.”
After breakfast, the contestants were chatting and the staff member in charge of Class A pushed the door open and walked in. She and the people who followed her were holding eleven flat square gift boxes in their hands, which were handed out to each player in turn.
“What is it?”
A girl asked with some confusion. Lin Lang heard her and gently untied the ribbon of her box before opening it; inside were three cards of different colors. There was no text on the cards, but one was white, one was green and one was blue; the only hint was a question on the gift box: What do you think of when you see these colors?
Chapter 17: 300,000 fans (2)
In the Class A dormitory, Qiao Dai got up from the ground. She was so excited just now; after hugging Luan Zhen, she had squatted back down next to the pool and had carefully checked for any leaks. When she finally stood up, she realized the broadcast was over.
“How come it’s over?”
Qiao Dai asked with confusion and Jiang Fengchi collected his emotion before saying softly: “It’s nothing, just tired.”
Was he tired because she had asked him to help with the pool? Qiao Dai suddenly felt a bit ashamed. She raised her eyes to Jiang Fengchi and said very seriously: “Teacher, you have worked hard. If there is anything I can do in the future, I will definitely help!”
It was just a polite sentence in the eyes of others, but from Qiao Dai’s mouth, it sounded like a promise. Her eyes were bright and exceptionally honest and she gave a very sincere feeling.
“Daidai, are you okay?”
Shi Qing opened the door and ran in. Fortunately, most people were gathered here and it had not taken her a long time to find Qiao Dai’s room.
She had run all the way from dormitory B; her face was flushed, she was panting and her long soft hair was a little messy. She supported herself against the wall, then took a few steps forwards until she saw Qiao Dai’s smile.
“Shi Qing, you’re here! Take a look at my pool, everyone helped!”
Qiao Dai’s eyes were round in surprise the moment she saw Shi Qing and she rushed to help her as she looked a little exhausted. She took her to look at the pool in the middle of the room, as happy as a child.
Seeing Qiao Dai’s appearance, Shi Qing felt a little surprised then relaxed. It was better if she had not seen the comments in the live broadcast.
The broadcast had ended and it was already late. Qiao Dai’s room had not been cleaned up and the rest of the crowd was embarrassed to stay and delay her to rest; there would be training tomorrow and the players soon said goodbye and went back to their own sides.
“Will I be able to go to your room to play?”
Qiao Dai asked Luan Zhen and Shi Qing as they helped her make her bed. Lian Zhen smiled and said: “Yes, but my place won’t be as fun and you might find it boring.”
As for Shi Qing, she really wanted to be able to visit each other just like that. But thinking about the room she shared with Jiang Ruowei, she quickly dispelled the idea before saying: “My roommate may find it inconvenient but I will come to you every time you want to play.”
Qiao Dai sighed with some pity and threw a pillow on the bed. When it rebounded on the mattress, she threw it a few more times and started to laugh.
“Are you a child?”
Luan Zhen watched Qiao Dai play before grabbing it and put it back in its correct position. With a fake adult expression, she seriously said: “Okay, okay, go to bed now. Tomorrow, the teachers will have new tasks for us.”
“Okay… Then see you tomorrow!”
Qiao Dai reluctantly sent Luan Zhen and Shi Qing to the door and began to miss the days she would sleep hand in hand with her friends in the ocean.
After everyone was gone, she walked back slowly to the inflated swimming pool, her eyes sparkling under the light. She reached out her hand to touch it and blinked a few times. If she secretly swam… no one would find out, right?
Qiao Dai looked around and confirmed the camera in the room had stopped working. She still felt a little uneasy and found a cloth to cover it before slightly closing the glass door leading to the terrace and drawing the curtains to ensure absolute discretion. She then rushed to the bathroom and started filling the pool.
After a while, sparkling waves burst into the children’s pool and a little sea otter was swimming happily in the middle.
Qiao Dai: Pretty good!
She was very excited to play in the water. Although the pool was rather small, she was already very satisfied to be able to soak. She lay down, stretched her small paws to reach out to the place of dried fish she had placed to the pool, and started eating contentedly.
But alas, life was not easy. As a poor sea otter, she could not eat lobsters yet, only a little bit of dried fish.
The evening breeze leaked through the gap of the slightly opened glass door, blowing the curtains and revealing the hazy light of the moon and its reflection on the calm late. In the middle of this quiet and delicate atmosphere, Qiao Dai felt a little sleepy.
“Ha—”
She yawned, still lying in the water, and habitually stretched her paws to rub her cheeks and eyes. Well, today’s playtime was over and it was time to go to bed.
Although she could really sleep in the little pool, it was the players’ dormitory. Who knew if there would be any emergencies tomorrow. What if she accidentally overslept and Luan Zhen or Shi Qing barged in and found a little sea otter in the room instead of her? Thinking about this, Qiao Dai rolled out of the water and ran to the bathroom to take a bath and go to sleep.
***
After the live broadcast, Jiang Fengchi had not left directly but had gone to the director’s room.
“I’m sorry, we will pay attention to this kind of thing in the future.”
The staff apologized to Jiang Fengchi for today’s accident but the young man sitting opposite raised his hand to signal it was no longer necessary.
“You do not need to apologize to me, these kinds of things have no effect whatsoever on me. The ones it affects are the ordinary players.” It was getting late and he looked a little tired.
For the women’s team draft, such rumors could have devastating consequences. Especially now when they had just started, if another player reported Qiao Dai had a sugar daddy, the results would be very bad.
It was very easy to bring bad associations to the whole program of <Pick Eleven> after the inappropriate and provocative messages had appeared earlier, and Jiang Fengchi had specifically come to remind the production to be careful in the future.
Jiang Fengchi kept talking with the staff until late at night. When he finally left, the on-site staff breathed a sigh of relief before chatting between coworkers: “Teacher Jiang is very nice. Well, it can be said he understands the trainees.”
This live episode was indeed their mistake but they had not expected that, as a mentor, Jiang Fengchi would ask them to be more careful in the future. No wonder Jiang Fengchi was so popular in the circle, if they were players, they would also greatly appreciate him.
“By the way, did you watch Teacher Jiang and Class A’s broadcast? It was really funny, especially when Jiang Fengchi saw the pool, he was stunned.”
“Live is even funnier.”
“What was the girl’s name? I’m going to follow her account.”
The staff kept chatting about the broadcast of each dormitory and talked about Jiang Fengchi inflating Qiao Dai’s pool. When several staff members on the scene said that Qiao Dai was super cute, they all rushed to follow Qiao Dai’s account to observe in secret.
On the other hand, Jiang Ruowei was lying on her bed and playing with her phone after washing up. She was flipping through <Pick Eleven>’s topics to see if any were about her.
Now that the show had not officially started airing, there were not many discussions about it and most topics were created by the bigger companies. People mostly talked about Galaxy’s trainees and dark horse players; Jiang Ruowei was mentioned in their COCO performance and netizens were looking forward to the next one.
The fluorescent light of the screen made her face somewhat gloomy. She seemed a little bit unhappy; she quickly flicked her finger across the screen, among the five of them, the most mentioned was Qiao Dai, especially after tonight’s broadcast. Many people started talking about this unexpected interesting player.
Jiang Ruowei felt a little uncomfortable in her heart. Qiao Dai was only a country bumpkin but was liked so much by the audience. She turned over and over in her bed, the more she read comments about her, the more sour she felt, the more she watched, the more upset she became.
She should have stopped but she couldn’t sleep. She searched the accounts of the other players on Weibo and looked at their data, trying to calculate from memory what her rise of popularity was among the 101 contestants.
She searched the accounts randomly until she found Qiao Dai’s.
“…?!”
Jiang Ruowei’s eyes widened when she saw the string of numbers. Before joining the draft, the agency had registered unified accounts for them. At that time, among the five of them, only Qiao Dai was opening one for the first time. Jiang Ruowei had not taunted her because she had been afraid the company would buy fans for her and after the show, having so few fans would look bad.
But now… she had not read it wrong, how could Qiao Dai’s data rise so much? She counted several times until she was sure it was correct. She took a breath and she was so surprised, she almost dropped the phone on her face.
Three… Three hundred thousands? Qiao Dai’s fans had risen from nothing to 300,000 in just one day, which was comparable to Luan Zhen and Lin Lang.
No, but it was only the first day of recording! Jiang Ruowei felt cold sweat drenching her back. It turned out that the gap between her and Qiao Dai was already so big? A huge pressure suddenly overwhelmed her and she felt she couldn’t breathe for a while. She had a hunch that she would be soon left far behind by Qiao Dai. But… wasn’t she better than her in the beginning?
Anxiety gradually rooted in her and Jiang Ruowei kept tossing and turning in her bed until the sun rose outside and poured into their room from the window.
***
New day meant new assessment. Whether it was class A or F, all trainees had the same time to clean up and get ready for the camera.
Qiao Dai reluctantly got up and rubbed her eyes. She was still half asleep and sat in a daze on the bed. Her sleepy face looked very pure in the bright light of the sun. A strand of loose black hair waved mischievously in front of her forehead, brushing her eyes from time to time, which made her feel a little itchy. But it seemed she was too sleepy to gather the strength to stretch her hand; she squinted her eyes and blew air to push the hair aside.
“Daidai, are you up?”
Luan Zhen’s voice came from outside the door, surprising Qiao Dai. She finally stroked her hair behind her ears, lifted the quilt, and ran off the bed while shouting: “I’m up!”
After a while, a clean and dressed Qiao Dai walked out and went down for breakfast with Luan Zhen.
A lot of people were already gathered in the dining room. The program team provided a large variety of breakfast food for the players of Class A, whether it was Chinese, Japanese, or Westen, everything was available. However, most contestants only ate some vegetables and put down their tableware in order to keep in shape.
Qiao Dai and Luan Zhen did not care so much and ate breakfast happily. After all, if they were dizzy with hunger every day, where would they find the energy to train?
“What are we doing today?”
“No idea, I didn’t hear anything about it.”
After breakfast, the contestants were chatting and the staff member in charge of Class A pushed the door open and walked in. She and the people who followed her were holding eleven flat square gift boxes in their hands, which were handed out to each player in turn.
“What is it?”
A girl asked with some confusion. Lin Lang heard her and gently untied the ribbon of her box before opening it; inside were three cards of different colors. There was no text on the cards, but one was white, one was green and one was blue; the only hint was a question on the gift box: What do you think of when you see these colors?
