Chapter 20 Public Opinion Spreads: She Wasn't Just "Experiencing Life" in Front of the Camera...

In a modern film studio, under the scorching sun, countless cameras are filming a field.

Over there, award-winning actor Fu Chen and actress Meng Xiaqing were filming a live-streamed reality show, "The Ordinary Life of Ancient Times," under the scorching sun.

The reality show's theme is extremely similar to Wen Yu's live stream, both set against the backdrop of ancient life, with guests dressed in ancient costumes farming and cooking.

At this moment, the two of them are dressed in ethereal studio costumes, and in a "field" that is almost devoid of weeds, they are gracefully...posing.

Fu Chen acted as if he were walking the red carpet, exuding an aura of "nobility" and "high-class elegance," just like some kind of immortal elder.

In stark contrast, he held a hoe in his hand, and with a few deft digs in the field, he unearthed the soil that had already been loosened by the workers, and stopped as if he had completed his task.

Beside her, Meng Xiaqing, dressed elegantly, was carrying a small wooden watering can, sprinkling water on several millet seedlings that had obviously just been transplanted and were still drooping.

Her movements didn't resemble farming at all; rather, they looked like tending to flowers and plants in a greenhouse.

They had mastered this process to perfection in their previous work, "Children of the Fields".

At that time, their ethereal "diligence" created an extreme contrast with the "clumsy and lazy" Wen Yu, as deliberately edited by the program team, successfully winning the sympathy of netizens and becoming the center of attention, gaining both fame and fortune.

No one was willing to set aside their prejudices and consider that the two of them were clearly working in the fields, yet their work was captured frame by frame, perfectly flawless.

Later, when the situation escalated and Wen Yu was condemned by the entire internet and subsequently withdrew from the entertainment industry in disgrace, they opportunely posted a few flattering words on Weibo.

"I've worked with her and knew her long before the rumors started. She's definitely not a morally flawed person. Please be kind with your words."

Fans immediately empathized with the situation in the comments section.

[Your older siblings are too kind. She's clearly taking advantage of you being lazy; she has no shame!]

[I feel so sorry for her. You guys work so hard on the show, and she's just lying there and holding everyone back. Everyone here comes from the entertainment industry, why is she so precious?]

[Congratulations! You're finally free from her draining your life force! Good riddance, Wen Yu!]

With this incident as a precedent, they thought they could easily win the sympathy of their fans this time as well.

But when they looked up at the bullet screen, they found that the style of the bullet screen in the live stream was completely different from what they had expected.

【Dude, that's not how you hold a hoe! Your leverage is completely wrong; are you just scratching the ground?】

Fu Chen's hand holding the hoe froze in mid-air, his smile faltering. He casually slammed the hoe on the ground, pretending to rest.

Stop, sis! Corn seedlings are very susceptible to waterlogging. With this flooding method, the roots will rot in just two days!

Meng Xiaqing paused in her watering motion, a hint of embarrassment creeping onto her sweet smile.

The comments section was still relentless, with sharp and witty remarks emerging one after another.

[I've been watching for a while now. These two have been working here for just a few minutes and they look like they're about to collapse from exhaustion. They keep running to the shade of the trees. I can even hear the fan over there. Making 2.08 million is so easy.]

[This is so fake, so fake! If I hadn't been watching a real farming livestream recently, I would have almost been fooled by them...]

[The person upstairs is talking about Wen Yu's livestream, right? I watched a bit of it before; it's rough around the edges, but they really put in the work.]

I suddenly wondered if I had misjudged Wen Yu; she didn't act with the same enthusiasm as these two.

[Yes, yes, I remember they were like this in "The Fields" too. In the episode where Fu Chen was catching loaches, there wasn't a single close-up; it was all long shots and editing. Meng Xiaqing digging for lotus roots was also strange; she caught them every time. Were they props planted by the production team beforehand?]

[Wen Yu is really pitiful. In the original "Field," she was the only one who actually worked hard without any connections, but she was maliciously edited to be a lazybones and used as a target, while these two hid in the background and built their own personas!]

[I'm going to watch Wen Yu's live stream now, anyone want to come with me?]

The staff member in charge of monitoring the bulletin board looked embarrassed and quickly tried to smooth things over: "Teacher Fu, Teacher Meng, you've worked hard! How about... we go to the rest area over there and get some water?"

Feeling as if they had been granted a pardon, the two immediately put down their props and hurried toward the makeshift rest shed next to them.

As soon as Meng Xiaqing entered, her smile vanished, and she said irritably, "What's going on? What are the comments saying? Why is Wen Yu being dragged into this again? Isn't she long gone?"

Fu Chen also frowned, completely baffled.

"Yes, she disappeared after 'The Field,' and it's been almost three months. Why is she suddenly reappearing? And people are comparing her to us?"

----

They never expected that participating in the show would not only fail to bring them popularity but also attract a lot of controversy and revive Wen Yu, whose career had long since faded.

Fu Chen and Meng Xiaqing are not only a popular on-screen couple, but also a couple with intertwined interests in real life.

During the recording of "Children of the Fields", in order to divert negative public opinion that might result from the CP hype and to highlight their hardworking personas, the two teams hit it off and jointly planned a large number of smear articles targeting Wen Yu.

The production team was happy to fuel the hype for the sake of generating buzz.

Through malicious editing, Wen Yu became the target of online criticism, successfully absorbing all the negative attention and even attracting many people to ship the two as a couple.

Not long after, the two made their relationship public, and the entire internet was sending their blessings. Surprisingly, there weren't many fans who hurl insults at them.

They shed a few crocodile tears and expressed their "regret" when Wen Yu retired from the entertainment industry, which earned them a reputation for kindness.

Not only were they inundated with endorsement deals, but they also landed roles in a new drama series.

Two months later, the company behind "Ancient Life in the Mood," which advertised itself as an "immersive ancient farming experience," approached them and asked if they were interested in participating.

When they saw that it was another rural-themed film, and thinking about the huge profits that "The Fields" would bring them, they accepted the project without hesitation.

In the early stages of its broadcast, the show did indeed become a hit online thanks to its novel real-time live streaming and bullet comments format, as well as the star power of its members.

However, their good fortune didn't last long, and soon the barrage of comments was overrun by a group of people they never expected.

[They're not even as good as the guy next door, Wen Yu's livestream, who's just a hair on the head and has two pretentious pretty faces.]

[Wearing these oversized, robed, ancient-style costumes from a photo studio to farm? Has the director lost his mind? Did you even bother to do any research?!]

They made so many mistakes while working that even someone with a little farm experience couldn't stand watching them!

[I laughed. Back then, netizens were so busy criticizing Wen Yu, forgetting that these two were the real troublemakers. They even got them a second show! You guys deserve a lot of credit! I'm impressed!]

Their fans immediately retaliated.

[Oh, who do we have here? Wen Yu's zombie fans are popping up again? Wasn't she already washed up?]

【What do you mean by "not as good as Wen Yu"? Your sister got out of the entertainment industry long ago, and now it's just you few jumping around here. Isn't that disgusting?】

[It's all for the show, don't you understand? If someone was dressed in rags, without makeup, and farming, who would want to watch that?]

However, these critics did not waste their breath arguing with them, but simply silently sent out the link to Wen Yu's live stream.

You should eat something better.

[You guys have absolutely no idea what "show effect" means!]

Many fans who clicked on the link with the intention of exposing the fraud were stunned the moment they saw the live stream footage.

The Wen Yu on the screen was completely different from the female star in the entertainment industry they remembered.

Days of wind and sun have left their mark on her body; her once carefully maintained fair skin has now turned into a healthy wheat color.

Her originally slender and thin figure has become strong and powerful, and under her rolled-up sleeves are smooth, thin muscles, which are the result of real hard work.

She wasn't "experiencing life" in front of the camera; she was truly rooted in the soil.

The live stream camera followed her daily life, filming her every step of the way.

As dawn broke, Wen Yu got out of bed, quickly went to the well to fetch water, and irrigated her family's millet field, bending down to carefully check the growth of the seedlings.

Returning from the fields, she carried the feeding bowl to the backyard, where the chickens and ducks immediately fluttered and gathered around.

She crouched down, pulled a few eggs from under the henhouse, and smiled broadly: "Great! They finally laid eggs!"

Around noon, she carried a small bamboo basket and arrived at a quiet courtyard in the village.

Inside the room, four children of different ages were hunched over a table, writing furiously.

The eldest girl, Wen Qingshi, focused intently, picked up her pen, and wrote an article in a flash with her elegant and graceful small regular script.

The youngest, Tao Ning, looked no more than five or six years old. Her small hands held a calligraphy brush that was still a bit thick for her, but her posture was surprisingly upright and steady.

The words in front of her, though not very mature, were still far beyond those of children her age.

Lin Lan had a basic understanding of characters, so after carefully finishing her tracing exercises, she took out her arithmetic notebook and began doing extra homework.

Even Wen Yue, who was lagging behind in her studies, was putting in a lot of effort, repeatedly writing the strokes, as if she didn't want to embarrass her older sister.

The screen immediately filled with exclamations of amazement.

Wow! This little kid holds a pen better than my son in middle school!

I've just started learning calligraphy, and I can't even hold the brush properly. Could you please teach me how to write? Waaaaah!

[That girl writing in the delicate small regular script, is her skill level good enough to compete? I'm a calligraphy teacher, and even the city's junior gold medalist doesn't have that level of skill!]

Where did Wen Yu find these child actors? They're absolutely brilliant!

[Panoramic shot, no hand doubles used; these words were truly written by them!]

Wen Yu, standing nearby, didn't find it strange at all. She quietly chatted with a refined young man about the child's studies for a few minutes, looking quite pleased.

Then, as if by magic, she produced several eggs from behind her back and said to the children with a smile, "Come on, one egg for each of you today, let's have an extra treat!"

The children's eyes lit up instantly.

The comments section erupted with lively discussion.

[An extra meal? Chicken and duck eggs aren't anything special, and they're so cheap...]

[Wake up, upstairs! The setting is ancient times during a famine; for them, having eggs to eat was definitely a significant improvement to their diet!]

[Got it, this livestreaming channel is a master of cost control! All they need is a famine scenario to perfectly explain the scarcity of resources, so they can film many episodes without spending much money at all.]

[The scene where they enter the city was probably filmed there too; they found a cheap film studio and shot the transitional scenes for a couple of days—it was cheap and efficient.]

However, I'd really like to see her go into town again; the plot is quite interesting.

Seeing this, some of the fans who clicked in have changed their mindset.

This live stream is indeed much better than the variety shows that TV stations make just to follow trends.

At least life here is very real, without so much of a show.

Wen Yu and the children were dressed in the simplest coarse linen clothes, which looked like they had been washed many times and were patched.

Such clothes would certainly be very rough to modern people and would definitely be uncomfortable to wear, but Wen Yu didn't even blink, and seemed to have completely gotten used to them.

Just like she's long been used to being attacked by gossip in the entertainment industry.

Some fans did not leave the live stream, but quietly turned off the chat, not wanting to participate in the possible flame war that might follow.

At this moment, all they wanted was to spend some time peacefully with Wen Yu.

However, another group of die-hard fans, seeing this peaceful scene and the positive comments in the bullet screen, and then comparing it with the bullet screen comments where their own idols were ridiculed in variety shows, felt their anger surge even more.

They immediately pulled out their keyboards and started rantting.

[Ha, so being poor is called being authentic? If I went out and photographed a few beggars, would I win an Oscar?]

[This is just another whitewashing tactic by Wen Yu's team. They went to great lengths to produce such a poorly made livestream, only good for fooling the uninformed.]

When will Wen Yu's sob story end? It's one thing to put on a show, but to drag these kids into it too? Don't they have school?

[Exactly! I suggest a thorough investigation of celebrities with such bad records!]

Their remarks were illogical and clearly just for the sake of criticizing, which quickly drew ridicule from the viewers in the live stream.

[If you don't like it, don't watch it. Stop causing trouble here, okay? If you have nothing better to do, go and clean up the manure at the village entrance.]

[666, I've really eaten too much red stone and can't eat anymore. Good luck to you guys!]

Don't shut down my live stream, or I won't let you get away with it. I'll curse you all with the most vicious language every day.

[This is completely unacceptable! It was clearly your variety show that plagiarized our live stream, and yet you're criticizing us?]

Many of Wen Yu's fans in her live stream used to be her haters and were extremely aggressive.

At this moment, when they started arguing, they were surprisingly evenly matched.

Wen Yu glanced at the chaotic and heated online comments and breathed a sigh of relief.

That's great, there are still people supporting her...

The system notification reads: [Current number of viewers in the live stream: 130,000. Positive review rate: 26%, trending upwards.]

Wen Yu understood instantly.

As negative reviewers gradually leave, the denominator decreases, and the positive review rate naturally rises.

Then it's still possible for her to achieve her goal.

Once this wave of customers leaves, the positive review rate might reach 30%?

Before long, the fans were thoroughly defeated by the insults and fled the live stream, taking to public platforms to post their rants and rants.

How long will this charade by a certain 'retired' female celebrity continue?

[Rational Discussion: What's so great about Wen Yu's livestream? My blood pressure went up after watching it!]

A note from the author:

----------------------

Last night before bed, I thought about a later dungeon and suddenly it seemed really fun, haha! [Sprinkling flowers]