The timeline returns to the day the third public performance ended. Quentin and the other trainees took the bus back to the filming base together.
By the time they exited the venue, removed makeup, and bid farewell to fans, the sky over Yanhai was completely dark. As soon as the trainees got on the bus, they collapsed into their seats, either closing their eyes to sleep or slowly chatting with the companions next to them.
With the experience of the first two public performances, the third one no longer held the same novelty for them.
Of course, the excitement of standing on stage was as strong as ever, it’s just that after exiting the venue, the exhaustion that surged in like a rising tide was hard to suppress with the remaining excitement.
Objectively speaking, the recording of a survival show is more rigorous compared to other variety shows.
Take “NS” for example: a nearly three-month recording cycle, daily management of internet disconnection and dieting, a compact scheduling of classes, plus the occasional back to back public performance rehearsals and recordings, along with the elimination system that felts like a guillotine…
For the trainees, it was clearly a dual test of both physical and mental endurance, which was quite exhausting.
But they were young and could handle the torment. The troublemakers who slacked off had already been screened out during the first elimination. Those who remained were without exception the *household scrolls.
**Means very hardworking people.
But no matter how young they were, after being so tense and working hard for so long, when they suddenly relaxed, the breath they had been holding in their hearts leaked out, and a belated sense of fatigue and numbness gradually spread within them.
Ten minutes later, there were no more fragments of conversation on the bus. Only the sound of snoring, sometimes light and sometimes heavy, rose and fell one after another.
Youthful, handsome faces leaned crookedly against the windows, the seat backs, and in the crooks of their arms, swaying gently with the motion of the bus.
The cameras faithfully recorded this scene. At this moment, Quentin finally had time to carefully analyze the “original plot” that had been unexpectedly unlocked today.
In the morning, he had only quickly browsed through it, grasped the key points to roughly judge the ins and outs of the 20% B.E plotline for Cheng Shaozhi, and then had the system follow the clues to find the identity of the girl he had met at the convenience store and pay more attention to her.
Beyond that, he hadn’t done much else.
On the bus, Quentin was leaning against the window sleeping, just like the other trainees around him. But in reality, his consciousness in the data space was very awake. The drowsiness that had made him want to sleep as soon as he got on the bus had long since dissipated.
Quentin often felt that if “rebith” was the greatest golden finger given to him by the system, then the ability to utilize sleep time in the data space was second only to rebirth.
Otherwise, with his current physical fitness and energy levels, he really couldn’t compete with the other energetic people in the program.
These people really could stay up late. They would impulsively spend all night in the practice room, and Quentin even wondered who had started the trend of sleeping on the floor in the practice room. Wouldn’t it be better if everyone, like him, went to bed early and woke up early for a healthy routine?
Because his teammates were getting more and more hardworking, Quentin had had to cooperate with the team’s schedule recently, staying up all night rehearsing and training with his teammates. He hadn’t had enough sleep for three days in a row!
Quentin thought about how, after forming the group, there would be many more opportunities to spend time with his teammates. It was said they would even live together. This was how all the boy group variety shows he had seen online were portrayed.
He thought to himself that after the program ended, he definitely had to come up with a reasonable daily schedule. If you don’t take care of your body when you’re young, you’ll have no place to regret it when you’re older. Not everyone has the chance to be reborn like he was, okay?
Quentin sat on the sofa in the system’s recording studio, carefully recalling the plot fragments he had reviewed that morning. He held a notebook and pen, writing and drawing, trying to extract and record the key points as much as possible.
Although the original work was a novel, the plot transmitted to Quentin by the system was in the form of real scenes, and these scenes often contained many details. Whether he could clearly remember them and judge which were important and which were not were problems he needed to solve himself.
During the recording process, Quentin didn’t forget to ask the system: “Is that little girl doing okay?”
System: “Everything is normal. A minute ago, she was still commenting under her latest post. The IP address is still in Yanhai City.”
Quentin thought for a moment, then put down his pen: “Let me take a look at her forum account first.”
In the morning, they had barely parted at the convenience store entrance when the girl had posted their photo together online. Because of this, the system had been able to effortlessly lock onto the girl’s forum account, an active user with the nickname “Xiao Cheng Is The Chosen Main Dancer”.
The system simulated a phone. Without needing Quentin to operate it, the screen flashed a couple of times, and soon the homepage of a personal account appeared.
Quentin had just taken it and looked down when he saw;
[Nickname]: I’m the Ace, what’s it to you (with a photo of QT)
[Gender]: Female
[Personal signature]: Just switched biases. Don’t ask how I switched, and don’t ask who my bias is. In short, my bias is the absolute best!
Quentin fell silent, but the system was still chattering.
“After estimating the time, I have determined that the target has maintained a high level of activity online since publishing the photo an hour ago.”
“Initially, she mainly watched your official public performance stage videos, fan-made stage mashups, CP edits, and other videos. After that, she started participating in discussions of popular threads posted by your fans on the forums. After some time, she was expertly arguing with black fans under various argument threads.”
The system said seriously: “Her mastery of your fandom’s terminology is very proficient. She looks like a ten-year veteran fan of yours. Judging from the analysis of her emotional state, I believe she is currently in a positive and high-spirited emotional state. This is completely opposite to the original plot. You have successfully changed her fate at the critical node of this fatal turn. It’s as dramatic as writing a novel.”
‘Changing fate?’
This chance encounter happened to occur at the critical juncture of the other person’s turning point in life. It was indeed as dramatic as writing a novel.
Unfortunately, the timeline of the plot he had obtained was one year after the boy group debuted. Although one of the main causes of this conflict could be traced back to the girl, Quentin still only had a partial understanding of the original situation.
From the perspective of the girl’s parents, their daughter had been obsessed with a celebrity and had been scammed out of her money. Under this huge blow, she chose to take her own life.
So they believed that if their daughter hadn’t liked Cheng Shaozhi, hadn’t been fixated on a distant and unattainable star, she wouldn’t have been so distraught because of a failed meeting.
Or perhaps if the celebrity her daughter liked hadn’t been Cheng Shaozhi, she wouldn’t have been scammed out of her money for public performance tickets by a fraudster who was also a fan of Cheng Shaozhi, and she wouldn’t have given up her life because of it.
This matter seemed inextricably linked to Cheng Shaozhi, but rational people knew that the root of the tragedy lay with the child herself. It didn’t have any real connection to Cheng Shaozhi.
Quentin guessed that in the subsequent development of the original plot, this “dirt” probably didn’t have a major impact on Cheng Shaozhi’s career. At most, they affected his work during the period when public opinion erupted. Perhaps he lost a couple of important job opportunities, or perhaps something else happened.
In short, it couldn’t compare to the impact of Yan Qiao being sidelined for half a year. After all, Yan Qiao’s BE progress bar had already reached 50%, while Cheng Shaozhi’s was only at 20%.
Quentin casually scrolled down the phone screen and his gaze stopped again.
>Topic: [Rational discussion, why is Quentin the only ace on “NS”?]
>Topic: [Question, have there been any precedents where the visual and the ace were the same person?]
>Topic: [What do you think of the view that “CP popularity is icing on the cake for Quentin, but for some people it’s sending charcoal in the snow”?]
>Topic: [Requesting all the trivial knowledge about this young man ww. I heard he was very cute when he was little. His student ID photo is also a cold-faced kind of cute. Is there anyone with online connections who knew the old QT? If there are photos or something, that would be even better (It’s really unscientific for someone this handsome to have no old photos!)]
…
The more Quentin looked, the more silent he became. It was hard to imagine that so many threads were posted by one person in less than twelve hours.
Just looking at the thread topics, they seemed fairly serious, but the content inside the threads really didn’t seem like something the quiet, taciturn girl from the daytime would say. However, compared to real life, people are indeed more able to speak freely online.
Quentin tried to modify his impression of the girl in his mind, transforming her from a depressed, low-spirited, pitiful person into his new fan…well, that made all these threads suddenly seem reasonable.
After a cursory browse, he determined that the girl’s current psychological state was indeed as the system had said, so he stop paying attention to how much rainbow farts she was blowing in the threads.
He continued scrolling down, trying to find threads related to the poster’s real life among the many star-chasing threads.
The last time he had analyzed someone else’s account so thoroughly was when he discovered Zhong Qu’s alternate account. He wondered how Zhong Qu was doing now. He probably hadn’t caused any more trouble, right?
“After Zhong Qu withdrew from the competition, he posted a letter of apology to his fans on the forums, but the content was all clichés, without revealing a single bit of personal privacy.”
The system snorted: “After apologizing, he seized the traffic from his initial stage airing on ‘NS’ and started doing live streams. He’s been riding on the popularity of ‘NS’ all along. He also said that he and the host have a good relationship, often going to the cafeteria to eat together and practicing together in the practice room.”
“I have investigated and found that he secretly bought off marketing accounts to spread CP threads about him and the host, but it didn’t have much effect. So he started doing live streams binge watching “NS”, becoming a reaction blogger for “NS”, eager to leak some plausible sounding material to attract attention.”
“He keeps exaggerating his interactions with popular trainees like you, Yan Qiao, Cui Yan, Cheng Shaozhi, and others during his live streams. If he keeps being so rampant, host, your reputations are going to be ruined by him!”
Quentin had guessed that Zhong Qu wouldn’t behave himself after withdrawing, so he wasn’t surprised to hear the system say this. He calmly comforted it: “It’s okay. If he says it too much, no one will believe him.”
The system mumbled: “This person is so annoying. But he’s already gotten his karma, hmph! Host, you never expected this, right? Last time, after Sheng Yuanxu was eliminated, he went back home and continued being a streamer. As a result, when he was doing live PKs, he matched up with Zhong Qu!”
“Zhong Qu wanted to act like best brothers with him, but Sheng Yuanxu didn’t take the bait. Instead, he sarcastically confronted him.”
This matter was actually quite interesting to talk about. At the time, it had gained considerable buzz on the forum as well. Although it didn’t go viral mainstream, it had practically spread throughout the show fandom.
Sheng Yuanxu had always been a straightforward person who never backed down when he was in the right. When facing people he had a good connection with or a good relationship with, he was a sunny, cheerful young man.
But when dealing with people who clashed with his vibe or who he disliked, he wasn’t afraid of creating conflicts at all. He would instantly transform into a highly volatile and explosive dynamite.
He didn’t know the reason for Zhong Qu’s withdrawal, nor was he curious about it. But after being eliminated, he stayed up late every day surfing the internet, wishing he could make up for all the internet addiction he had missed out while recording the show.
As this kind of 8G surfer, it was hard for him to miss trending topics related to “NS”, and naturally, he wouldn’t be unaware of the antics Zhong Qu had been pulling off during the broadcast of the program.
So many trainees had been eliminated, why was this one who withdrew the only one jumping around like this?
No matter which name was mentioned in the live stream chat, Zhong Qu could always say a couple of sentences about them anyway. He just piggybacked from whoever was popular.
His overly familiar tone made it sound like he had the greatest of relationships with everyone, practically describing himself as the social butterfly everyone loved on the program.
Sheng Yuanxu was very blunt when confronting him. He directly revealed the fact that Zhong Qu had isolated Cui Yan and others in Class B, and scoffed at the statement that Zhong Qu and Quentin had a good relationship.
“Tch, is there anyone on our show who doesn’t have a good relationship with Quentin? Zhong Qu and Quentin have barely spoken more than two sentences. He just relied on being in the same company as Yan Qiao to run to the Class A classroom whenever he got a chance.”
At the time, Sheng Yuanxu had just finished his PK with Zhong Qu. He was creeped out by the inexplicably affectionate attitude Zhong Qu had shown afterwards.
He rubbed his arm as he complained: “Back then, everyone knew that those people in Class B liked to visit other classes. They didn’t go to Class C, which had more people, nor did they go to Class F, which had a couple of familiar people from the same company. They specifically ran to Class A, saying they wanted to learn from the big shots in Class A.”
“But the drinker’s heart was not in the cup. He was clearly targeting something, who couldn’t see that he was going after Quentin?”
Sheng Yuanxu shrugged: “But it’s not a big deal. To be fair, he wasn’t the only one on our show who liked to get close to Quentin. I’m the same. The first person I followed when I got my phone was Quentin. Who doesn’t want to be friends with Quentin?”
“But being friends is one thing. Spreading rumors behind people’s backs every day is just too inhuman, right? Anyway, as far as I know, the entire extent of Quentin and Zhong Qu’s interaction is within those two sentences spoken during the broadcast of the program.”
He ignored the provocative comments from all sorts of characters in the chat and continued on his own: “Why don’t you think about it? During the time before Zhong Qu withdrew, Xiao Xue was keeping such a close watch on people, even Yan Qiao had a hard time finding an opportunity to join them. How could Zhong Qu, who wasn’t even in their class, possibly do it?”
Even he had only found an opportunity when he lucked out and got teamed up with Quentin during the second public performance. What kind of daydream was this Zhong Qu having all day?
If it were only the things Sheng Yuanxu had said, it might not have been enough to be convincing. Some people would inevitably suspect that Sheng Yuanxu was deliberately targeting Zhong Qu.
But then, while Sheng Yuanxu was criticizing someone on his live stream, Zhuang Nuo entered the live room, gave a like and sent gifts!
Then, the next day, someone happened to see Sheng Yuanxu, Zhuang Nuo, Qiao Xue, and others having a dinner gathering at a hotpot restaurant. That night, these people all posted group photos of the gathering on the forums.
Anyone who had watched the show knew that these several people had all worked together with Quentin on public performance stages. Their relationship with Quentin was definitely better than Zhong Qu’s.
Wasn’t posting dinner gathering photos at this critical juncture clearly to support Sheng Yuanxu and hint that Zhong Qu was spreading rumors outside?
Before the program had even finished airing, there were already trainees taking sides and tearing at each other. The melon was quite exciting to eat.
Quentin’s fans only had one thought about this…as expected of my idol, he’s a beauty that brings disaster to men!
The system tried hard to use its electronic voice to describe these events vividly.
At the beginning, Quentin listened distractedly, his attention entirely on the phone. But the more he listened, the more helpless he felt. How come, as this farce went on, it ended up tied to his face?
He suddenly realized that, so far, the reason the two main characters’ progress bars have moved so smoothly, their original plots got unlocked, and their fates were rewritten… was all because he had acted as a stand-in for them.
Zhong Qu, who initially targeted Yan Qiao as the subject of his CP, inexplicably fixed his attention on Quentin. The little girl, originally a fan of Cheng Shaozhi, climbed the wall to become a fan of Quentin…
So, was the correct way to change the bad ending of the main characters for him to personally to take the hit?
Quentin felt no flactuations inside. He hadn’t intentionally taken any hits; the knives had come to him themselves. Maybe he had thick skin, or maybe he didn’t even have a health bar to begin with, but neither of the two knives had managed to stab him.
He looked down at the phone, and while looking, he took screenshots and marked up the posts related to the girl’s real life, then arranged them in chronological order.
— Three years ago —
>Topic: [What to do when parents fight every day?]
>Topic: [My parents have a bad relationship. As a daughter, should I support them getting a divorce?]
— Two years ago —
>Topic: [I am girl with an older brother. My parents might get a divorce. Who should I go with?]
>Topic: [My parents are living together. The whole family wants them to get a divorce, but they keep dragging it out without divorcing (sigh). I’ll be in ninth grade next year. Get a divorce early if you’re going to, don’t disturb my high school entrance exam!]
— One year ago —
>Topic: [Found a new dress in my older brother’s backpack. Hmph, he must be in an early relationship. He knows how to buy gifts for his girlfriend, but he’s never bought a gift for his little sister. (angry)]
>Topic: [They got a divorce. Neither of them wants custody of the children. What to do?]
>Topic: [I don’t want to study anymore. What’s the use of studying?]
From the time the girl registered her forum account three years ago up to the present, she had posted a total of one hundred threads. Only these seven threads were about her real life.
She only posted the topic titles, no content, and not a single like. The few comments she had were all attracted by the photo thread she posted today.
A family of four. Parents divorced. Two children seemingly taking care of their own lives. Perhaps they were boarding at high school.
But considering that today was Monday, a non-holiday, yet the girl had the time to travel a long distance to come watch the performance, she could be counted among the possibilities of asking for leave, skipping class, or dropped out of school.
Quentin frowned and circled the word “older brother” emphatically, marking it.
In the original plot he had obtained, this older brother did not exist. From beginning to end, the people who exposed the girl’s diary online and accused Cheng Shaozhi were only the girl’s parents. Also, there was no mention of their divorce.
It was mysterious and secretive. There was definitely a problem.
