Chapter 57 Investigating the Beginning of the Crippled Man
Shi Yao ultimately did not sign the contract because, based on the plot information provided by the system, she felt she needed to go back and investigate further to understand Zhou Qixue's current situation and the true circumstances during filming before deciding which package to choose for Ye Jingyu.
However, because Ye Jingyu felt insecure, she ultimately forced Shi Yao to transfer the deposit.
Ye Jingyu: [Transferring 200,000 yuan to you]
Back at the hotel, Shi Yao looked at the balance in her WeChat wallet and couldn't help but sigh that she had been encountering more and more straightforward bosses lately.
That's how you get the motivation to work!
Ye Jingyu has a lot of work to do after this. She only came to Yuyang for three days to record a program. After meeting with Shi Yao, she has to fly to Haishi immediately to record another variety show.
Shi Yao told her that she would let her know once she had checked the situation and decided on the package, and accepted the deposit in front of her, which put Ye Jingyu at ease.
She was always worried that Shi Yao refused to accept money because she didn't want to take her orders. Shi Yao explained to her many times that she paid after the service was provided, but Ye Jingyu still insisted on her own idea.
In the end, Shi Yao felt helpless and really wanted to tell Ye Jingyu to keep a tighter grip on her wallet, otherwise it would be hard for others not to covet it.
The conversation lasted for a total of three hours. For the first two hours, Ye Jingyu was criticizing Zhou Qixue's studio for its shady practices and how hard she and her company had tried to shake off this person, but they couldn't.
An hour later, Shi Yao comforted her, saying that these were not problems, and asked her whose idea it was for her to participate in the program.
“It’s mine,” Ye Jingyu said calmly. “Actually, my company’s people weren’t very supportive at first, but I told them that this was a do-or-die situation. If it turned out well, the worst that could happen was that we would be criticized for a while, but that would be better than being criticized even more harshly after the show ended, and not being able to cut ties with it.”
Shi Yao was surprised that it was Ye Jingyu's idea; she had assumed it was the idea of one of Ye Jingyu's inexperienced and overly anxious agents. She swallowed back the reprimands she had prepared and instead spoke earnestly to Ye Jingyu:
"I know you're eager to break free from the pairing, but these things can't be rushed, especially since your drama hasn't finished airing yet. If you show obvious signs of breaking free now, you'll definitely be criticized by the CP fans, or even convicted. Not gaining those fans is a minor issue; the key is that if you collaborate with other people later, this incident will definitely be brought up by vengeful fans to prevent others from shipping your new CP. At that time, it will be difficult to advance your career, and your future resources will be severely affected."
Ye Jingyu was a little confused by what was said and said blankly, "But if I don't untie him now, after the show ends, Zhou Qixue's side will definitely try to pin the blame on me. They are already doing that now. His agent is very capable."
“I know, so what we need to do now is to take precautions and find the other side’s weaknesses, instead of you coming up and revealing your hand directly. That will only give the other side an advantage.” Shi Yao spread her hands at her. “I guess Zhou Qixue’s side is overjoyed to know that you’re on this variety show. They’ve been promoting their CP so deeply and they’re so tightly bound together. If they take the initiative to break free, they’ll definitely get criticized. So you have to be the one to break free first, so that he can be unharmed.”
"But if you don't take the bait or show any weakness, they can't do anything about it. So I guess their plan to break free from the pairing was to smear you and buy some negative articles. But now that you've taken on a variety show, it gives them more room to maneuver. You actively showed your intention to break free during the CP promotion period, which is exactly what they wanted. I guess they've already written negative articles about you."
Ye Jingyu was stunned: "Ah... it shouldn't be that bad, it's just a one-episode variety show appearance. Even if there's a couple, it's not like they wouldn't interact with the opposite sex at all."
"But this is not just a simple interaction. Moreover, you yourself said that Zhou Qixue is very experienced. Even if it is just a simple interaction, he can still label you as not simple."
Ye Jingyu was reminded of something that happened a couple of days ago. Zhou Qixue had actually done that. Her face paled. "A week ago, I went on a live stream and interacted with the male host a few more times. The next day, a lot of articles came out saying that I wanted to be the only one to shine. It was only with great difficulty that I managed to suppress them. A couple of days ago, I was announced to be coming here to participate in a variety show, and those articles started popping up again."
Shi Yao: "Yeah, such an obvious action, you can tell that the other side is watching you very closely, and you still dare to participate in this talent show."
Ye Jingyu touched the tip of her nose: "I was forced into this situation."
Shi Yao couldn't help but sigh, and then chose an even worse method.
Fortunately, she was able to handle it.
Since there's no solution to the problem with the sponsor for the time being, let's deal with the person who caused the problem.
Especially since they already know that Zhou Qixue has many problems, practically a mobile dilapidated house, as long as Zhou Qixue's problems can be exposed, then Ye Jingyu's current problems will not be a problem at all.
Finally, due to time constraints and Ye Jingyu's rush to catch her flight, the chat had to be stopped. Shi Yao accepted the deposit and offered a few words of comfort to Ye Jingyu, reassuring her before leaving.
The most important thing right now is to find out Zhou Qixue's true relationship status. If possible, it would be best to also find out about his past relationships while filming.
The system indicated that it couldn't help with this matter; everything depended on Shi Yao herself. For Shi Yao, the easiest gossip to investigate was the love gossip. Love is something that can't be hidden; as long as it exists, it will inevitably leave clues.
For example, Jian Mingzhou seemed to be hiding it well, but his sister-in-law couldn't help but want to show off their affection. With a little patience and a little follow-up, it's easy to find his sister-in-law's account. By doing so, you can figure out all the details of their relationship.
However, Zhou Qixue's situation was different from Jian Mingzhou's. According to Ye Jingyu, no one in their crew knew that Zhou Qixue was in a relationship. It's just unclear how many people pretended not to know.
But at least one thing is certain: people who weren't that close to Zhou Qixue, like Ye Jingyu, or other supporting actors in the crew, definitely didn't know that Zhou Qixue had a girlfriend.
Although Ye Jingyu repeatedly stated during the conversation that she had no sense that Zhou Qixue had a girlfriend, he was just aloof on set and didn't like to communicate with others. He usually only talked to the director or his own staff. The people on set were also used to his personality and knew that he didn't like to chat with strangers, so they basically wouldn't take the initiative to talk to him.
Based on the plot provided by the system and the clues provided by Ye Jingyu, Shi Yao felt that Zhou Qixue was probably dating her on set, and even brought his girlfriend to the set, but he was good at hiding it, so no one found out.
But anything done leaves a trace, especially for celebrities, who are never short of people watching them.
Shi Yao opened several familiar old platforms and skillfully began searching for keywords. However, this time it wasn't as easy as searching for Jian Mingzhou before. She tried many different keywords but still couldn't find any useful information.
Shi Yao searched for a long time but found nothing, feeling that the keywords were wrong.
Although Zhou Qixue has not been in the industry for long, he has been the male lead since his debut. He has many fans who support him, so it's impossible that he has no followers.
But Shi Yao searched on the anonymous platform for a long time and couldn't find any information about Zhou Qixue.
Could it be that Zhou Qixue's company is really experienced and has even found a way to deal with stalker fans?
Shi Yao still found it hard to believe. Even people who have been famous in the industry for decades couldn't do this. She had also looked into Zhou Qixue's company. It was indeed an established film and television company with its own complete film and television production chain. It had made many artists famous over the past ten years. Zhou Qixue was the company's key newcomer. They had been investing heavily in resources in recent years. Although it didn't seem to have recouped its investment yet, with this momentum, it was only a matter of time before he became a top star.
Zhou Qixue's company may be impressive, but it's not powerful enough to control everything in the industry. How could there be no information about it? Shi Yao refused to believe it and started using the most common and troublesome old method: delving into the fan circle.
Sometimes, if you can't find the information you want, it might be because you're using the wrong keywords. But just now, Shi Yao tried different combinations of the three characters "Zhou Qixue" and still couldn't find the key. She even searched for Zhou Qixue's nickname in the entertainment public group, but still couldn't find anything.
She felt that this person probably had a rather niche nickname, the kind that only long-time fans or a few special fans knew. This nickname was not made public, and not many fans knew it, let alone used it on public platforms. It could only be seen in some private accounts.
Shi Yao opened Zhou Qixue's super topic, which already had more than 400,000 fans. She tried to sign in and had already reached more than 60,000. It was only 10 p.m. now, and she estimated that it would reach more than 80,000 by midnight. This number was already among the top in the current entertainment industry.
She opened the Super Topic data section and found that the Super Topic had gained 150,000 fans in the past week. Compared with the total number of Super Topic members, this number can be described as a surge. It seems that Zhou Qixue was completely unrelated to fame before this drama aired, but he has taken a small leap forward because of this drama. There is still more than a week left in the drama. If nothing unexpected happens, Zhou Qixue's data will probably rise a lot more, and he can officially join the ranks of popular young actors.
She then checked Ye Jingyu's super topic. Although they were both main characters, Ye Jingyu's data was much worse than Zhou Qixue's. Ye Jingyu debuted much earlier than Zhou Qixue, but so far her super topic only had 200,000 fans, and it was hard to say how many of them were real people. Her check-ins had just broken 10,000, which was several times worse than Zhou Qixue's.
Shi Yao had specifically searched for the plot synopsis of this drama before. Ye Jingyu's drama was originally a female-centric drama, but after the actors were confirmed, the screenwriter was changed, and the female-centric story was changed. It was not directly changed to a male-centric story, but many of the highlights of the female lead were transferred to the male lead, making the male lead's character more complete.
And that wasn't all. The investors weren't satisfied with just one person, so they added a third female lead. This third female lead didn't exist in the original work; she was an original character created for the script. The investors wanted to quickly integrate her into the main storyline, but since this character was fabricated out of thin air and had no original plot, they had to take her from other characters.
It's fair to say that the third female lead was cobbled together from scratch. She basically gets a share of the main characters' storylines, but the one who gets the most cut is the female lead. At least half of the third female lead's storyline comes from the female lead, and she even steals a character setting from the female lead.
The male and female leads are a prince and princess who marry first and fall in love later. However, they both have another identity. The female lead, the princess, is actually the second-in-command of a civilian intelligence organization. She will use this identity to deal with the prince, who is the male lead. In the end, they both have their identities exposed.
However, the investors transferred this role to the third female lead, which can be said to have significantly weakened the female lead's character.
The female lead originally had a lot of highlight scenes, but with parts of her scenes being taken away here and there, even the most well-developed character couldn't withstand such constant manipulation. In the end, the final script only had the domestic power struggle storyline left for the female lead, while all the other storylines in the martial arts world were taken away.
However, Ye Jingyu had no way to resist. Before this drama aired, she was just an unknown actress. This was her first time playing the female lead, and it was already a stroke of luck for her to get the female lead role. It was not easy. The female lead role in this drama was originally very popular and sought after, with many people in the industry competing for it.
After news broke that the script would be drastically revised and the female lead's character would be significantly weakened, all the competitors withdrew.
It can be said that this script was specially bought and tailor-made by the investors to promote the male lead, Zhou Qixue, and incidentally promote another new female lead with resources. As for the female lead, she is just a decoration. She is called the female lead because she is the male lead's official partner.
When news broke that the script would be drastically altered, there was a lot of controversy online. People said that if the intention was to promote the male lead, why not just buy a novel with a strong male lead or write an original script with a strong male lead, instead of ruining the female lead's career? The female lead is really unlucky.
The original novel is one of those novels that has a decent level of popularity and a small group of die-hard fans, but it doesn't quite reach the level of a classic online novel.
In recent years, more and more novels have been adapted, and netizens have gone from not understanding to having to accept it. In addition, the two main characters chosen were both unknown, so the issue of rewriting the script and cutting the characters did not cause much of a stir and was suppressed after a few days.
However, what the investors didn't expect was that after the show aired, the one who became popular was neither the male lead nor the female lead, nor even the newcomer third female lead, but the male and female lead's couple.
The reason why the investors chose this novel for adaptation to promote the male lead, Zhou Qixue, is because the male lead's character is very well-developed. Although the male lead doesn't have many scenes in the original work, far less than the female lead, every appearance he makes is an effective one, serving as the female lead's best support. Many people also ship the male and female leads as a couple. The male lead's character is perfect, which is why the investors chose this novel for adaptation.
However, their mistake was that readers only liked the male lead because he loved the female lead, and that's why they found him charming. When it was just the male lead alone, no one was really interested. Even if the investors added more solo scenes for the male lead, everyone still only wanted to see the male and female leads being together.
In recent years, idol dramas, whether historical or modern, need to have a compelling on-screen couple to become popular, otherwise casual viewers won't be interested in watching them.
Life is hard enough. I don't want to see the male and female leads in dramas suffer like I do. If all I want to see is the mundane life of laborers, then watching myself is enough.
When the show first aired, the response was actually lukewarm. Although Zhou Qixue was the company's main promoter, the platform didn't buy it and only allocated a portion of the publicity to the show. However, Zhou Qixue's company was very helpful and increased the budget for him, investing a lot in publicity in advance.
However, this part of the publicity campaign only promoted the male lead, Zhou Qixue, without including the female lead, resulting in a lackluster response and little interest from casual viewers.
Finally, she became popular because of a Bilibili content creator who loved making CP (couple) videos. She made a CP video of Zhou Qixue and Ye Jingyu. This content creator's biggest hobby is watching various web dramas and shipping the CPs in them. If she is in a good mood and has a strong desire to cook, she will generously produce a lot of videos for her favorite CPs.
This content creator has been on Bilibili for four years and has edited no fewer than a hundred videos, not including those she deleted herself or those that were taken down by the platform due to copyright issues. You could call her a hard worker.
This content creator is very popular in the film and television editing section. Many fans of specific couples hope that this content creator can become a fan of their favorite couple, so that there will be countless fan content and the couple can be promoted to a wider audience, attracting more people to ship them and creating more content.
Previously, some film and television companies had tried to collaborate with this content creator, asking her to edit videos featuring couples that the platform wanted to promote for a fee, but she refused them all. The content creator stated that shipping couples and editing videos are just hobbies for her, and she doesn't want to make money from them. She just wants to share the couples she likes. She feels that accepting money would go against her original intention, and the videos she edits wouldn't be as good.
Moreover, this content creator never accepts advertisements; an account with millions of followers is only used to post videos she edits herself, which shows she's rich and carefree.
Because of these characteristics, this content creator has a very strong appeal and a considerable number of loyal supporters. Everyone knows that she doesn't accept advertisements, and the CP videos she edits are all based on her own preferences, not on being manipulated by anyone or driven by money.
The videos she edits are of the couples she ships; if she didn't ship them, she would never edit them.
If she can't get into the pairings that investors want to push, she won't budge no matter how much money they throw at her. But if a content creator happens to discover a low-budget web series, watch it, and become a fan of the pairings, she'll produce content for the series for free, and in many ways at that.
This content creator has made many low-budget web dramas popular through her own efforts. Although all of these dramas have serious flaws in their plots, they all have one thing in common: the couples are very likable, and the chemistry between the male and female leads is excellent.
For those who love shipping couples, this content creator is their paradise. Many of her followers blindly support her edited videos. When they see her recommending a new drama or couple, they'll click to watch it regardless of whether they're interested or not.
A content creator with such influence saw the drama starring Ye Jingyu and Zhou Qixue and actually became a fan of their pairing. The night after watching the drama, they edited their first CP video, and then posted three more in five days, dominating the top of the trending list on Bilibili and attracting countless casual viewers to become fans of the CP. As a result, the drama also became popular.
The reason Zhou Qixue kept pairing Ye Jingyu with him for the CP was because they realized that following the original male lead route wouldn't be successful. The audience simply wouldn't buy it. They didn't care whether the male lead was handsome, powerful, or charming; they only cared whether the male and female leads had met, whether they were affectionate, and how far their relationship had progressed.
Every time the show's viewership surged, it was because the romantic relationship between the male and female leads made a major breakthrough; when other storylines were airing, the show's popularity remained mediocre.
The platform originally planned to cooperate with Zhou Qixue's company to promote the male lead and the new female lead, but neither of them became popular. Instead, the male and female leads' CP became a hit, and the number of viewers increased several times over.
The platform cares most about the data of the drama itself. The more popular the drama is, the more advertisers will come to place ads. So they also started to cooperate in promoting the CP (couple pairing). Every day they searched through the master tapes in the archives, trying to find some videos of Ye Jingyu and Zhou Qixue interacting during filming.
Unfortunately, these few instances were rare. Zhou Qixue and Ye Jingyu were like strangers on set, with virtually no interaction between them in private.
Zhou Qixue was indeed a dedicated actor. As soon as the director yelled "action," he would look at Ye Jingyu with deep affection, and his physical contact with her during their scenes was very natural. He would also add a lot of his own little gestures, as if he himself liked Ye Jingyu.
Although Ye Jingyu's acting skills are not considered superb, she is well aware of the importance of this opportunity and will not let go of any performance opportunity. She has done her best to achieve the best results.
With this kind of collaboration, the two had a great chemistry, even if it was only on screen.
As soon as the director yells "cut," Zhou Qixue can immediately pull himself out of his emotions, his eyes will return to normal, and he won't even glance at Ye Jingyu.
So even if the platform really wanted to promote the couple, they could only release some behind-the-scenes footage from the filming. There was none of the kind of casual behind-the-scenes footage they did during filming, and the male lead would never interact with the couple.
Despite this tragic ending, the two still became a popular couple. It could be said to be fate. Zhou Qixue acted quickly, realizing which method would lead to rapid popularity, and immediately changed course, starting to create a real-life couple between him and Ye Jingyu.
Ye Jingyu's interactions were just normal, and due to the natural difference between a natural and a less attractive person, she gained fans much slower than Zhou Qixue.
Of course, she is very content with what she has. Becoming this famous is already an unexpected joy, and she doesn't ask for more. She just wants to make steady progress.
Shi Yao checked the data difference between the two, then switched back to Zhou Qixue's super topic and started slowly scrolling through the rankings. She refused to believe that she couldn't find the key information in one night, let alone after a few days.
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