Four-in-One

As the only person who had witnessed what happened, Qiao Huan found himself surrounded and hounded by trainees and agents from every direction as soon as he returned to Star Radiance headquarters.

Forced to get an early taste of the misery of fame, he lost quite a bit of time before he managed to escape and make his way alone to the rooftop.

"Buffing!" Captain Qiao had clearly been waiting a long time. "What took you so long?"

Qiao Huan worked his aching joints. "Too many people..."

Then he noticed the anxious look on the captain's face and drawled, "You weren't worried about me, were you? Why the hurry?"

"Ah, well..." Captain Qiao forced a smile and patted Qiao Huan on the shoulder. "Of course I was worried about you too."

Before Qiao Huan could be moved, Captain Qiao immediately added, "But I really want to know how things turned out! Was Shi Xingzhou eliminated? Was he? Was he?"

Qiao Huan: ...

Police force, psychological evaluation, start. Got it?

Qiao Huan deliberately kept his captain in suspense a little longer, taking the opportunity to gather his thoughts before describing what he had seen and heard from the tree.

Qiao Tang's mouth gradually fell open in an O and stayed that way until Qiao Huan finished.

"That worked?!" Qiao Tang blurted out, then looked as though a light had dawned. "No wonder you asked me to look into that trainee."

"Did you find anything?" Qiao Huan asked.

"Of course." Qiao Tang pulled a stack of papers from his pocket. "Actually, I started looking before you even asked. The trainee who battled Shi Xingzhou at the end is from Jawa Jawa Entertainment. That company sent quite a few people to 'Between Life and Death' before."

Qiao Huan nodded.

His captain might be off in his own world most of the time, but he was reliable when it came to investigations. He had been ready to check the facts before even hearing what had happened.

Qiao Tang continued reading the documents. "His name is Bo Yu. That's a pretty unusual surname. It's pronounced 'ban.'"

"His surname is Bo?"

Qiao Huan repeated it several times. It sounded somewhat familiar.

"We were short on time, so we'll have to look further into his exact relationship with Shi Xingzhou." Captain Qiao looked up. "Oh, right, we've also made contact with Jin Xiaopeng and Yue Lin, the person in charge of 'Deserted Island.' Xiaopeng really is a victim of 'Between Life and Death' too, but neither of them has explicitly named Shi Xingzhou. Clearly, they still have reservations."

"What about the others?"

Captain Qiao sighed.

"Actually, Jin Xiaopeng and Yue Lin are just a microcosm of some of the entertainment industry's money-and-sex dealings represented by 'Between Life and Death.' We found that in the past two months alone, at least thirty mid-level or higher employees from more than a dozen small and medium-sized investment companies and nearly a hundred entertainers were involved."

"But so far, not one of them has dared to admit the role Shi Xingzhou played. We think our best chance is still Jin Xiaopeng and Yue Lin."

"Oh." Qiao Huan leaned against the railing, letting the sea breeze blow over him. After a long while, he asked, "Have they received psychological counseling?"

Captain Qiao froze. Psychological counseling?

When the members of their detachment heard Jin Xiaopeng had tried to drug Qiao Huan, they had been furious enough to go mad. That was why they had worked overtime to uncover these connections!

"Do you even remember he tried to drug you too?" Qiao Tang's urge to protect his own overflowed. "And you're still thinking about getting him counseling?"

Qiao Huan readily nodded. "True."

Captain Qiao: ...

"Still playing the grandson in front of your old man! We're angry, sure, but we've been contacting him about counseling these past two days too!" Qiao Tang curled his lip. "They were lucky to run into you, just like Little Potato's bunch before them. If they'd harmed anyone else, it wouldn't have been this simple!"

"Mm." Qiao Huan nodded again, as though he were listening to someone else's story. "As long as it doesn't affect my graduation. You can make the arrangements."

"Tch!"

Qiao Huan ignored his captain's childish expression. "I'm counting on you for the victims and the physical evidence. I'll figure something out on the perpetrator's side."

"Mm." Qiao Tang's expression returned to normal. "Those the gods would destroy, they first make mad. Shi Xingzhou has to fall. The louder the crash, the more likely those people are to talk."

"Yes."

With that understanding between them, Qiao Tang didn't need to break everything down and explain it. In the end, it all came down to four words:

"Good luck on the livestream."

With that, he changed back into his cleaner's disguise and left.

After Captain Qiao was gone, Qiao Huan was in no hurry to leave the rooftop.

He had suddenly remembered that this was his first time coming up during the day.

In the distance, the vast sea reflected the blue sky and white clouds, a beauty amid the calm.

With no one around, he pulled his hands out of his coat and formed a picture frame with them.

"Click."

Qiao Huan smiled, thoroughly satisfied with his photograph.

Shi Xingzhou was smiling too, but there was something sinister in his smile.

In a room on the top floor of the Star Radiance building, all the curtains were drawn, leaving it pitch-black.

Shi Xingzhou was reading the nasty comments about himself online, growing happier the more he read.

Finally, he simply stood up and read them aloud—

"Trash like Shi Xingzhou should get out of the entertainment industry!"

"He can't carry a load on his shoulders or lift one in his hands. He's nowhere near as good as Qiao Huan and the others!"

"And he still wants to set up a persona as the fit one and the brains of the team? I'm dying."

Shi Xingzhou laughed as he read. When he came across a particularly good one, he even stopped to give its author a round of applause.

Only when he saw a message from his father did his morbid smile fade.

Shi Bing:

[You bastard, how much money has the company poured into you? Have you gone mad?]

Mad?

Shi Xingzhou thought with a laugh that perhaps he had always been mad, but he certainly hadn't gone mad just recently.

Shi Bing:

[Stop making trouble and dragging the company down with you. I've contacted your brother. He'll help you sort this out.]

Your brother.

The words made Shi Xingzhou's breath catch.

No, he had to settle this himself before his brother showed up.

An hour later, several leading marketing accounts finally sent him drafts of the promotional articles.

["Shocking! Shi Xingzhou was actually a certain trainee's middle school classmate, and there's such a hidden story between them!"]

["A certain trainee still has violent tendencies to this day. Three people testify to it!"]

["Shi Xingzhou was actually a victim of school bullying. The reason he behaved that way on the deserted island was because of this trauma..."]

Shi Xingzhou read through them one by one, replying to each, "Make it more sensational!"

He couldn't release dirt on Qiao Huan, but surely he could release something about himself?

Shi Xingzhou automatically cast himself as the protagonist of a wish-fulfillment novel being vilified by the whole internet. He had already mapped out a broad road to clearing his name.

Even if his popularity and standing with the general public had now plummeted to rock bottom, that didn't mean he couldn't make a comeback from the brink.

Bo Yu was naturally on his side, and the marketing accounts were all ready. The fan leaders took even less effort; a few words were enough to have the young fans completely bamboozled.

Once the show aired, he could have them build momentum and turn public opinion around first. Then... he could trample Qiao Huan into the abyss!

At the thought, Shi Xingzhou whistled as he took his backup phone out of the stored backpack the Deserted Island production team had returned and sent Yue Lin a video he had carefully edited.

He added: I don't need to worry about the show's editing, do I?

He was so absorbed in his wish-fulfillment comeback script that he failed to notice the phone in his hand seemed a little off in weight.

On the day of the premiere, it was almost as if the whole city had emptied out to watch.

The entertainment market had been starved for too long, and excited viewers immediately pushed #Deserted Island Finally Premieres# to the top of the trending searches.

"Ahhhhhh! After all this waiting, 'Deserted Island' is finally airing!"

"Exactly! There were thousands of cameras during the livestream before. There was no way to watch them all. I hope the edited version is good!"

"Please, if those iconic scenes aren't in it, I really will mail the director razor blades!"

"Hhh, don't worry. The first episode is four hours long. It'll definitely have all the highlights."

The production team clearly knew the art of stirring up trouble. They weren't just livestreaming the episode itself; they would also intersperse it with live interviews with the contestants at different times.

In other words, while watching themselves fight one another in "Deserted Island," the contestants would have to sit calmly together and answer the host's questions.

"They really know what they're doing!!!"

"I order the production team to make Little A and Little B answer 'Who cheated?' together. Got it?!"

"I'm dying. I want to see Shi Xingzhou and Qiao Huan's group sitting together."

"I keep feeling like Zhuo Yang will just grab Shi Xingzhou by the collar and throw him out of the interview room."

To cement its positioning as a "reverse talent show," the livestream had also set up a voting interface for the occasion.

The interface was black and red, with two lists of names. The rules were simple: as the episode of "Deserted Island" played, entertainers confirmed to have been eliminated would be written onto the black list, while those who successfully advanced would be written onto the red list.

All viewers could vote for one contestant on either list. At the end of the broadcast, the person with the most votes on the black list would move to the red list, and the person in last place on the red list would move to the black list.

Ultimately, this was still a game where popularity could turn everything around.

That was also an important reason why all the entertainers taking part in today's livestream had to pull out all the stops to show what they could do.

As soon as the livestream opened, its viewer count surged by a hundred thousand every minute.

Every fandom was primed and ready, waiting to control the comments and vote for its own idol.

The most fervent and anxious among them were Shi Xingzhou's fans.

As an internet celebrity, Shi Xingzhou had never been particularly conspicuous among the debuted entertainers, idols, singers, and movie stars competing. On top of that, his performance in the earlier livestream really had been poor, leaving his die-hard fans frantic.

The production team had also deliberately left them on a huge cliffhanger. They didn't even know whether their beloved brother had been eliminated!

But they had made up their minds: even if he landed on the black list, they would vote him out of it!

In recent days, some gossip accounts had gradually begun revealing that Shi Xingzhou and Qiao Huan had been middle school classmates, claiming Qiao Huan had been a little delinquent back then who frequently bullied Shi Xingzhou!

But those posts were always deleted shortly after they appeared. Most casual viewers assumed they were rumors; after all, Qiao Huan's salted-fish nature was plain for everyone to see. In the Zhou Fans' eyes, however, this was ironclad proof that Qiao Huan was still bullying Shi Xingzhou!

The fans had even made an extraordinarily meticulous plan.

Fans took after their idol, as always, and they were confident that their greatest skill was spouting green-tea talk online.

So, after the livestream began, the fan groups of entertainers who had made the red list noticed an exceedingly bizarre phenomenon: a bunch of people were flooding the livestream with bullet comments encouraging casual viewers to vote for their idols.

At first, the other fan groups were happy. After all, their idols were on the red list, and the more votes they got, the safer they were.

Gradually, though, they began to sense something was wrong. Why did the same few IDs keep appearing in those comments? No matter how they looked at it, there seemed to be a plot hidden behind them.

As time passed, a gossip item from an entertainment reporter suddenly crept onto the bottom of the trending searches, claiming Shi Xingzhou had once been beaten by Qiao Huan in a Star Radiance practice room!

The exposé also included an extremely dim photograph. Shi Xingzhou had tears in his eyes and was being pinned to the floor by a man in a sports jacket.

Although the man's face couldn't be seen clearly, the fans were certain it was Qiao Huan!

Those IDs stopped pretending. Casting their beloved brother as the beautiful, strong, tragic protagonist of a wish-fulfillment novel, they openly jumped out as Zhou Fans.

"Look! Our Zhouzhou only performed badly because Qiao Huan bullied him!"

"Qiao Huan the bully, get out of the entertainment industry!"

"You'll see soon enough. Qiao Huan really hurt our Zhou when he hit him!"

"Please, whatever you do, don't vote for Qiao Huan on the red list!"

As Zhou Fans and paid posters flooded the screen, the livestream instantly became a foul mess, and #Shi Xingzhou Bullied by Qiao Huan# was pushed into the top fifty trending searches.

Only then did the members of the other fan groups understand. The Zhou Fans wanted to scatter the public's votes and keep them from voting for Qiao Huan!

The flood of comments was simple and effective. Casual viewers hadn't been familiar with either Qiao Huan or Shi Xingzhou to begin with, and now their curiosity was piqued. Even the experienced fans in other entertainers' fan groups wanted to see these people clash!

Although the second half of the "Deserted Island" episode wasn't as exciting as the first, more and more people were looking forward to the Star Radiance group's appearance, and the livestream's popularity only continued to rise.

At last, the livestream cut to its final commercial break. A scrolling banner stated in glaringly clear letters:

"Coming up next: Starlight Entertainment + Jawa Jawa Entertainment + Hetu Entertainment + Gu Xiao Yue make their blockbuster entrance! Stay tuned!"

Compared with the heated discussion online, the entertainers' waiting area was frighteningly quiet.

They weren't all being interviewed live at once. Each entertainer would be called in when the episode reached the relevant segment, so, to capture their most genuine reactions, the director's team had deliberately given them only an approximate time frame for hair and makeup.

Zhuo Yang, Ye Yiwei, and Bai Jike could only sit obediently and watch group after group of entertainers get called away, until they were the only ones left.

This was their first time standing under the spotlight, in every sense of the word... and they were actually the finale.

The three of them instantly grew nervous.

Yesterday, each of them had asked their respective contact whether they really had to appear on the livestream.

What undercover agents feared most was having their identities exposed.

But their contacts had replied that they only needed to act normally.

If the three of them had exchanged information, they would have found that their contacts' replies were remarkably consistent.

But now, the three merely looked at one another in silence in the darkness, doing their best to keep their emotions in check.

On the other side of the passage, Shi Xingzhou and Bo Yu were much more at ease. They were whispering together about something, looking more like friends than the people from the same company.

"Guys! You didn't even check yourselves!"

The three turned to see Xiao Yue approaching, holding up the skirt of her fluffy princess dress.

"You've got plenty of wilderness survival experience, but you're not as experienced as I am on camera." As she spoke, Xiao Yue began tidying up their appearances. "Brother Yiwei, an eyelash fell onto your nose. It's long and pretty, but it'll look like dirt on camera. And Brother Zhuo, stop rolling up your sleeves. Tone down that great figure of yours. The Production Team has to display your clothing brand. Xiao Bai... Xiao Bai, why are you dodging..."

The three obediently let Xiao Yue fuss over them, and they felt much more reassured.

As expected, the right job called for the right person. If Xiao Yue hadn't been there, they would probably have embarrassed themselves on their first appearance on camera.

"Where's my idol Qiao?" Xiao Yue asked, puzzled. "Don't you always go around together?"

"Oh, right," Zhuo Yang said, only just realizing it. "We haven't seen him in a while either..."

"Maybe he's in the restroom?" Ye Yiwei guessed.

"I'm dying of worry! The livestream's about to start. I don't know if he knows to do a final check himself, or else he'll have the spotlight..." Xiao Yue looked at Shi Xingzhou. "Stolen by that guy!"

With thirty seconds left on the countdown, the livestream's audience finally broke ten million.

"Ahhhhhh, it's finally their turn!"

"I waited four hours just to see these people from Star Radiance. My dad's here beside me too. He wants to see wilderness survival!"

"Zhouzhou is the best!"

"Zhouzhou is beautiful and kind. Bullies, get out of the domestic entertainment industry!"

"Ban Qiao Huan the bully!"

In fact, although "Deserted Island" had plenty of hype, only a minority of people had followed the original livestream. Constantly switching between thousands of cameras was something ordinary viewers simply wouldn't do unless it was for their idol.

Not to mention, Shi Xingzhou and Qiao Huan had never been popular to begin with. So almost everything those ten million viewers now knew about them came from the Zhou Fans' earlier barrage of comments and the trending scandal about Qiao Huan's bullying.

No one wanted to miss the chance to watch the drama unfold online, with both parties coming face-to-face.

"All right, viewers! Let's welcome our final group of guests!" The host was a famous presenter who knew just how to work up a crowd. "Who are they?"

As he spoke, the camera switched to the entrance. More than a dozen handsome men and beautiful women walked into the interview room, and the bullet comments erupted.

"Aaah, my daughter Xiao Yue, mommy loves you!"

"Bo Yu, you cool guy, that leather jacket looks so hot!"

"Java Java, gods once in a while!"

"Zhuo Yang, I'm telling you I love you on my dad's behalf!"

Xiao Yue and the four people from Java Java sat on the far left. Zhuo Yang, Ye Yiwei, and Bai Jike sat on the far right, while Shi Xingzhou and Bo Yu occupied the middle of the frame.

The host was about to continue his introductions when he suddenly noticed that a chair seemed to be empty.

He counted the guests one by one...

"I'm dying, where's Qiao Huan?"

"That bully Qiao Huan doesn't dare show his face, huh?"

"Don't give that trash so much as a glance! Everyone, please pay more attention to our Zhou!"

"Later, please vote for Zhouzhou on the blacklist and everyone else on the red list. Don't vote for Qiao Huan!"

"Can't we just quietly admire Zhou's good looks? Could you bear to eliminate a fairy on earth like him?"

Shi Xingzhou had planned out every detail of his "power-fantasy protagonist's comeback" for today, but he hadn't expected it to be this easy. Had his opponent actually fled on the eve of battle?

He looked backstage, where a man in a suit and tie stood, his facial features as sharply sculpted as if by knife and axe.

Shi Xingzhou smiled faintly.

How about it, brother?

But Yue Lin, standing off to one side, thought Shi Xingzhou was asking him how preparations for the plan were going. Wiping away his sweat, he hurriedly made an OK sign.

Shi Xingzhou knew Yue Lin was already over forty and had four children at home. He depended entirely on his father-in-law's support, so he absolutely couldn't risk anyone finding out about him and Jin Xiaopeng. Shi Xingzhou had him firmly in his grasp.

To that end, Shi Xingzhou had even ordered him to run Shi Lianyi over and put her in the hospital, securing control over the production of Deserted Island.

Over the past three days, Shi Xingzhou hadn't asked him to do anything else. He'd had him focus solely on keeping an eye on post-production as they edited the footage of the Star Radiance contestants for today's broadcast.

Fortunately, the livestream from the thousands of cameras had been on their own platform, where no one could record their screens or take screenshots. Only then had they gotten the chance to turn black into white in the main program.

Having received Mr. Yue's confirmation, Shi Xingzhou was naturally even more reassured.

Onstage, the host finally got around to introducing Zhuo Yang, Ye Yiwei, and Bai Jike.

The three no longer cared whether they were supposed to hide their identities. They all did their utmost to draw attention to themselves. Zhuo Yang even snatched the host's microphone and started talking about his fitness experience, trying hard to buy time until Qiao Huan appeared.

The bullet comments were already starting to get a little annoyed.

Shi Xingzhou's smugness reached its peak, but he didn't show too much delight. He merely sat there looking fresh and lovely, in keeping with his styling...

He wasn't just going to be a power-fantasy protagonist. He was going to be the best-looking one.

However.

Just as the host was about to start the main program.

Qiao Huan walked onto the stage, escorted by two cleaning workers.

In an instant, the spotlights all fell on Qiao Huan's face, making him instinctively shield it.

Zhuo Yang, Ye Yiwei, and Bai Jike's hearts all rose into their throats. They feared Qiao Huan might also have gotten something dirty on his face because he'd rushed onstage without experience.

The host was the first to react. "Qiao Huan's here! Please, take a seat!"

Qiao Huan sat down beside Shi Xingzhou and said slowly, "Sorry, I woke up late."

The Zhou Fans immediately flooded the screen:

"What the hell? That bully has no respect for the show at all."

"Exactly! Trash Qiao Huan!"

"The bully is the ugliest! Go die tonight!"

Seeing Qiao Huan cover his face made Shi Xingzhou even smugger. He lifted his head like a proud peacock displaying his tail feathers.

He had specifically hired a super-expensive makeup artist today to create his current fresh, "pitiful beauty" no-makeup look.

It was completely different from the glamorous style he'd worn before. His fans immediately spared no effort praising him while putting Qiao Huan down. For a time, rainbow farts like "an angel fallen to earth," "gorgeous bare face," and "he looks so pitiful I want to hug him" flooded the screen.

The next second.

Qiao Huan finally adjusted to the light and moved his hand away. His eyes were half-lidded, and he looked somewhat sleepy.

Who could have expected that this tiny movement would leave the bullet comments blank for a brief moment?

Then—

"Holy crap! What heavenly looks!"

"This facecon is feasting!"

"He really has that alpha-wolf aura! That effortlessly lazy, domineering vibe!"

"+1"

"And he's the one who's actually barefaced, right? I zoomed in, and there really isn't any eyeliner or eyeshadow! It feels like he just put on a little powder!"

The cameraman was the same one who had filmed the weigh-in on the ferry. He immediately zoomed in.

The two appeared in the same frame, and the difference was clear at once.

"Hahahaha, Shi Xingzhou calls this a bare face? He's got both eyeliner and eyeshadow!"

"Before I clicked in, I wanted to see how good-looking Shi Xingzhou was, good-looking enough that I'd vote to keep his face in the entertainment industry. Now that I've seen him, hehe."

"Person above, shut up. Our Zhou is the most ethereal in the world!"

"Qiao Huan: Then yours truly must have come from heaven."

Looking past Qiao Huan, everyone also realized that Zhuo Yang, Ye Yiwei, and Bai Jike were all wearing almost no makeup. They were naturally good-looking to begin with, and compared with the Java Java artists, who were all dolled up and trying far too hard, they won by a landslide.

Unfortunately, the three onstage knew nothing of this. They only felt that it was wonderful Qiao Huan had been able to show up.

Seeing this, Yue Lin hurriedly gave the host an instruction.

The host said, "Let's not waste any time. Let's get straight to the main program!"

The paid commenters who had received instructions in advance finally got the signal and immediately began flooding the screen: "Looks don't matter. Deserted Island will show who's really got what it takes!"

The main program and interviews alternated, so the interview stage instantly grew much dimmer.

Qiao Huan finally breathed a sigh of relief and turned to watch the screen with the three brothers beside him.

Come to think of it, this was truly the first time the four of them had seen the main program. They were quite curious to find out what their performance had actually looked like.

Not far away, however, Shi Xingzhou put on a smile and high-fived Bo Yu beneath the table.

But as the main program played on, second by second, Shi Xingzhou's smile gradually froze.

What was going on???

It opened with the scene of Qiao Huan and Zhuo Yang fighting the moment their blindfolds came off.

He and that Yue fellow had originally agreed to spare no effort in using footage from numerous cameras to depict the fight, highlighting the brothers' conflict and violence! They would make Qiao Huan and Zhuo Yang look like two crude wrestlers rather than two idols!

But now...

It had become a scene of two mature men conversing with their fists and feet, without a single wasted movement.

During the first three hours of Deserted Island, viewers had seen who knew how many artists fighting like hyenas pouncing on prey. Watching these two fight now was simply a pleasure to behold.

The various camera angles perfectly showed details everyone had missed during the livestream. Not only were both men's abilities displayed to perfection, neither had resorted to dirty tricks. They showed true martial virtue!

"Aaaaah, now those are real brothers!"

"Even though they started fighting right away, they both held back. Look, when Zhuo Yang picked Qiao Huan up and slammed him down, he even cushioned Qiao Huan's neck with his hand!"

"Holy crap, my dad's in the combat sports department at a sports university. He originally looked down on little idols, but after watching those two, he really wants to send this clip to his students. Does anyone know how to record the screen?"

"Boo-hoo, you're watching for the technique, you're so high-minded. I'm the only one shipping them like crazy!"

"+1, the tension was off the charts in that earlier bit when they had masks and earmuffs on. What do I do? My tears are sliding out of the corners of my mouth!"

It was too dark for Shi Xingzhou to see Yue Lin's expression, so for the time being, he could only assume that Yue Lin had edited this part favorably to emphasize how Qiao Huan and Zhuo Yang excluded him later.

After all, if he was the protagonist of a power fantasy, it was only reasonable for cannon fodder like Qiao Huan to have his moment first.

After that, the program moved on to his segment with Bai Jike.

Shi Xingzhou thought it should finally be time for him to hold his head high!

Wait... what?

The scene of Bai Jike kicking him flying had actually been shown in three close-ups from three different camera angles, and the bullet comments were all "hahahaha"?!

Then he poked the beehive and was saved by Xiao Bai, who doubled back at top speed, and the bullet comments were all praising Xiao Bai?!

Afterward, the edit flowed seamlessly from Ye Yiwei racing through the jungle to him plunging into the water and saving Xiao Bai. The viewers were stunned, thinking they were watching an action blockbuster. Only when they saw Ye Yiwei's interview, in which he wished that none of them would drown, did they finally start flooding the screen with "hahaha" again.

Shi Xingzhou nearly crushed his stool in his grip.

This was nothing like what Yue Lin had said before!

They were supposed to emphasize Bai Jike's violence and edit the footage of Shi Xingzhou chasing Bai Jike to make it look as though Bai Jike was chasing him!

And the later footage of Ye Yiwei and Bai Jike should have been edited with a boys' love angle. His paid commenters were supposed to spam shipper comments to disgust casual viewers and divert their attention!

But now, whenever a comment shipping the "White Night" CP appeared, casual viewers would even report it outright, because they all felt it was interfering with their chance to learn lifesaving skills!

Yet those weren't even the most "exciting" parts.

After they began acting together, the camera laid Shi Xingzhou's stupidity bare in everything they did—

Footage of Shi Xingzhou falling over, failing to gather firewood, and even being unable to start a fire at night was shown one scene after another.

The segment where leeches latched onto him and he wailed up a storm while the three brothers helped him had even been edited into a remix MV!

The background music was I Am a Little Frog!

And whenever he said things like "I've learned wilderness survival skills" or "I'll be the brains of the team," the subtitles specifically highlighted his words and listed them in a table on the right side of the screen.

Now, all brought together and set to a hypnotic font and music, it was practically a public execution, slapping him in the face again and again!

Shi Xingzhou felt as though his blood had turned so cold it had frozen solid.

Most ironically, the paid commenters he'd hired were still following the plan, joining the fan leaders in spamming comments about how he was the brains of the team and had been excluded by the four brothers.

One could imagine how mercilessly Shi Xingzhou and the Zhou Fans were mocked in the bullet comments.

"What role does Shi Xingzhou fill in the team? Answer: the burden."

"Hahahahaha, you call that exclusion? Are Zhou Fans made of glass?"

"I'm dying. I could listen to Little Frog another 50 times!"

"I get it now. I thought Qiao Huan really was a bully, but so this is what the bullying looked like."

"If the four brothers in the shura field hadn't 'bullied' Shi Xingzhou, he probably wouldn't have survived an hour!"

"Is this reverse marketing? Qiao Huan really made a fan out of me!"

If Shi Xingzhou had merely been stupid, that would have been one thing. The problem was that the more viewers watched, the more they realized he wasn't just stupid; he was bad, too—

His petty scheme to push the four brothers into saving people, his panic as he put on an act about saving Xiao Yue in front of the action star, his later deliberate attempts to stir up conflict between men and women, and other green-tea behavior... These details, which had been easy to overlook during the livestream, were now highlighted with perfect clarity in post-production.

The edit also took great care to contrast his character arc with Xiao Yue's. They were as far apart as heaven and earth, making it impossible to look straight at.

The paid commenters were still spamming the topic #QiaoHuanIsABully as planned. Alongside #ShiXingzhouGreenTeaMan and #ShiXingzhouLittleFrog, which casual viewers had pushed up the rankings, it looked unbelievably ironic.

At this point, the more perceptive viewers already knew what was going on.

Finally, the main program reached the footage of Bo Yu capturing Shi Xingzhou.

Just as Shi Xingzhou felt as though he were sitting on pins and needles, with thorns in his back and a fishbone lodged in his throat, the livestream room suddenly brightened.

Before he could gather his wits, a camera was already thrust right up to his face.

He looked to the side and saw Qiao Huan discussing the details of the fight with Zhuo Yang, without giving him so much as a glance.

He looked below the stage. Yue Lin was nowhere to be seen.

He looked toward the passageway and saw his older brother watching him with an amused expression.

"Starship? Your 'fate' is about to be revealed," the host prompted. "Is there anything you'd like to say to everyone before that?"

Shi Xingzhou's embarrassment was captured on camera, but he quickly composed himself.

"Thank you to my fans for supporting me all the way." Shi Xingzhou looked solemn.

He knew that only his fans would stand by him now.

"No matter what happens, please continue to support me afterward!"

The casual viewers were almost sick from his green-tea act, but several major fan leaders were wailing in front of their screens.

Brother Zhouzhou must have been eliminated if he was saying that!

So, at the fan leaders' command, everyone hurried to get ready to vote for their brother on the blacklist. At the same time, they continued urging everyone to vote for the other people on the red list, splitting the votes for Qiao Huan.

Even if their brother had to leave the industry, they would drag Qiao Huan down with him!

For a time, the voices of the Zhou Fans surged like a mighty tide, drowning out everything else.

A minute later, the main program resumed.

Casual viewers flooded the screen: "WTF???"

Shi Xingzhou and Bo Yu had a brief conversation, and then Bo Yu seemed to lose his balance in an instant and fall to the ground. He had actually been eliminated by Shi Xingzhou!

An uproar swept through the livestream room as well.

Xiao Yue no longer cared about maintaining her cute-beauty image and asked Qiao Huan directly, "Idol, is that what you saw at the time? This wasn't filmed afterward, was it???"

Apart from Shi Xingzhou and Bo Yu, everyone's eyes instantly turned to Qiao Huan.

Without a doubt, after watching the previous hour of the program, they completely trusted this little-known salted-fish big shot.

"Idol!" Xiao Yue was getting anxious. "Were you threatened? Is this real? No matter how I think about it, the person who advanced shouldn't have been... him, right???"

"Yeah!"

Qiao Huan was in no hurry to speak. Only after everyone quieted down did he leisurely point at the bullet comments:

"Did he really advance?"

"I'm dying. If our Zhou didn't advance, who would?"

"That Qiao guy's just upset because our Zhou made the red list, right?"

"Zhou is the best!"

When the diehard fans, their hearts blinded by lard, found that Shi Xingzhou hadn't been eliminated and had made it onto the red list in the last spot, they had still been jumping for joy.

But now, when they looked at the voting rankings along with the thousands upon thousands of viewers in the livestream room, they were instantly dumbfounded.

Shi Xingzhou was actually in last place on the red list!

Oh no!

It was all because they had spammed the chat earlier, splitting all the casual viewers' votes!

Zhou was never popular with casual viewers to begin with. Even if his fans had all voted for Shi Xingzhou, he still couldn't beat Qiao Huan. What were they going to do?!

Only then did Xiao Yue relax. Looking at Qiao Huan, she thought, That's my idol for you. He looks like he doesn't care about anything, but he's actually planning everything from his command tent and has it all under control!

After a whole evening of that toxic mess, the fans of the other contestants gleefully began spamming reaction images of a world-weary figure lighting a cigarette.

"Hahahahaha."

"I've never seen anything this funny. They split the votes and ended up splitting their own gege's votes away!"

"Zhouzhou gege is going to be eliminated as the last-place contestant on the red list. That's even more embarrassing than being eliminated from the blacklist~"

"I'm dying. Like idol, like fan, sure enough. The Zhou Fans are just as low-level at playing green tea as Zhou himself."

"This is a textbook case of fans screwing their own idol to death!"

"Hahahaha, I've already written up an account and posted it on every platform. A classic lives forever!"

"Build your brain before you chase stars. No brain, no star chasing."

Shi Xingzhou, who had been counting entirely on his fans to salvage his reputation, was dumbfounded.

What on earth had the fans he had so carefully cultivated done?

The public execution of this fandom didn't end there.

The host handed the microphone to Shi Xingzhou again.

"Starship, as we said earlier, the last person to eliminate an opponent gets an extra reward. You have one minute of... uh, confession time."

For the first time in a long while, the host even found himself suffering from secondhand embarrassment. He hoped Shi Xingzhou would turn down the reward and dedicate "Decent" to himself.

But how could Shi Xingzhou do that?

He was the protagonist of a face-slapping story! He wasn't some villain whose IQ had been nerfed!

He was certain he could come back through Impure World Reincarnation.

The "zhou" in Shi Xingzhou was the "zhou" in breaking the cauldrons and sinking the boats!

There was still half an hour until voting closed. He trailed by an overwhelming four hundred thousand votes, and the gap between him and Qiao Huan grew wider by the minute.

He could almost see his older brother smiling in the shadows.

So Shi Xingzhou looked at Qiao Huan, his eyes filled with countless emotions: anger, fear, panic... just as he had practiced hundreds of times the night before.

"Qiao Huan, congratulations. You won." Shi Xingzhou's thin lips trembled, his lipstick bitten into a smear. "Everything happened just as you planned. You used your methods to defeat me."

Sure enough, Qiao Huan's rising vote count stopped at that very moment.

"But I want everyone to know that I'm not the only victim of your violent methods!" Shi Xingzhou took out his phone and displayed a photo. "Do you remember Jin Xiaopeng? Even if I have to leave the entertainment industry, I'm going to speak up for him!"

"??? What's this gossip???"

"This photo... someone's beating Jin Xiaopeng. Who is it?"

"That track jacket looks so familiar!"

"Fuck, it's the one Qiao Huan always wears! The person who hit Shi Xingzhou in the practice room in that trending topic was wearing it too!"

"So Qiao Huan hit Jin Xiaopeng?"

"Sure enough, our Zhou was acting like that because he was afraid of Qiao Huan!"

"He actually bullied someone else too! Hard proof that Qiao Huan's a bully!"

"That's what you get from someone who used to run with gangs. Tsk, disgusting!"

"To think you bullied someone besides our Zhou!"

An uproar broke out in the interview room as well.

Everyone looked at Qiao Huan.

Qiao Huan, however, didn't speak. He just looked at Shi Xingzhou, his gaze giving off a distinct sense of I was so afraid you wouldn't bring this up.

Shi Xingzhou panicked.

But his reaction made it look as though he was afraid of Qiao Huan.

The bullet comments grew even more frenzied.

Of course, Shi Xingzhou couldn't let such a good opportunity slip by.

"Actually! Qiao Huan was constantly bullying me back in middle school! Bo Yu was my classmate in middle school too. He can testify for me!"

Shi Xingzhou looked at Bo Yu, his eyes full of encouragement.

At a time like this, no one's testimony could carry more weight than Bo Yu's.

After all, he had just eliminated Bo Yu. If even Bo Yu strongly supported him now and confirmed that Qiao Huan was a bully, his reputation would surely turn around!

No one present had expected Bo Yu, Shi Xingzhou, and Qiao Huan to share such a connection!

Everyone turned their attention to Bo Yu.

"Ah..." Bo Yu fell silent for a moment and avoided Shi Xingzhou's gaze. Then he said, enunciating every word, "I don't know how Mr. Qiao behaved in middle school, but judging from what I heard of his reputation from our classmates, he doesn't seem like someone who would bully others."

Then he finally mustered his courage and looked at Shi Xingzhou. "You, on the other hand... forget it. You'd better watch yourself."

Bullet comments and audience: !!!

Bo Yu's meaning couldn't have been clearer. The one who bullied others wasn't Qiao Huan, but Shi Xingzhou.

Shi Xingzhou was dumbfounded.

How could this happen?!

Hadn't Bo Yu always feared his background and bowed in submission to him?

Whose background could be more powerful than his?!

"Enough!" Shi Xingzhou had no time to think. "Even if we don't mention middle school, what about Jin Xiaopeng..."

Before he could finish, Shi Xingzhou caught sight of the bullet comments and immediately swallowed the rest of his words—

"Go check out the gossip! Jin Xiaopeng posted!"

"Jin Xiaopeng didn't just post a statement, he posted videos too!"

"Holy crap, I thought those contestants cursing each other out before tonight's 'Deserted Island' livestream were savage enough, but none of that was as satisfying as this!"

"The face-slapping came too fast! Go look!!!!"

That was right.

Jin Xiaopeng, who had disappeared for two days, had posted a thousand-character statement half a minute ago.

Jin Xiaopeng:

Hello, everyone. This is the first time I've appeared before the public, and it will also be the last.

What I want to say is simple: Shi Xingzhou isn't just a terrible entertainer and idol, he's an even more terrible person.

He acted as a middleman in a sex-for-money deal, putting me in contact with Yue Lin, the former head of @Deserted Island's business team. As for what happened, please watch the videos below. Don't worry, I've censored them.

Also, he previously tried to get me to drug Qiao Huan the same way. He even had me borrow Qiao Huan's jacket and take the photo that trended today, as well as the one he just showed. You can see the evidence in the second video below, which is surveillance footage from a hallway at Starlight Entertainment.

In the rest of the post, Jin Xiaopeng examined his emotional journey throughout his time as a trainee. He gave special thanks to the City A police for their efficiency and for providing extensive psychological support and counseling, which had enabled him to move on completely.

The bullet comments went wild at once. It was low enough that Shi Xingzhou had tried to turn black into white during the livestream, but he was actually a middleman in sex-for-money deals too? And he had tried to target Qiao Huan?!

Even the paid posters Shi Xingzhou had hired earlier were so disgusted by the news that they switched sides and joined the wave exposing his true face.

"Breaking! Pictures of Starship attending an xx party in the Beautiful Country. I finally dare to post them!"

"I was Qiao Huan and Shi Xingzhou's classmate in middle school. I admit Qiao Huan's personality really wasn't very likable, but Shi Xingzhou was the one who bullied people!"

"I'm a former trainee at Aiya Entertainment. Shi Xingzhou introduced me to a drinking party too, but luckily I didn't drink too much!"

"Shi Xingzhou is a beast in human skin! I once refused to attend a drinking party, and he actually tried to drug me!"

"I'm a makeup artist. Is there anyone who still doesn't know Shi Xingzhou had plastic surgery? I'll post the comparison pictures again!"

A single stone stirred up a thousand waves.

Everyone discovered that Shi Xingzhou had not only bought marketing, fans, and paid posters, but had also been a bully in middle school. Even more outrageous, he had been acting as a middleman in sex-for-money deals all along, thinking he could profit from both sides and remain standing!

And the image Shi Xingzhou had cultivated before was that of a prince lost in the mortal world, a warm and generous angel, pure and gentle!

Fans: "I'm gonna puke!"

It had all collapsed, with nothing left standing!

From a minor internet celebrity to a notorious traffic magnet, then to a legal-case celebrity, Shi Xingzhou had traveled the whole road in less than an hour, setting a new record for the domestic entertainment industry!

The incident was so outrageous that it shot straight to the top of the trending list, eclipsing Deserted Island!

More and more people flooded into the livestream, only to see a man with no image left to speak of roaring.

Shi Xingzhou raged impotently. "What happened? What's going on???"

But no one paid him any more attention.

No one would bother with a madman anymore.

The livestream ended hurriedly amid the chaos.

Backstage, the minor idols who had been fawning over Shi Xingzhou were now avoiding him like the plague. Even the staff took detours around him as if he were a plague god.

He didn't even know how he had gotten offstage, nor was he sure what had just happened.

He was supposed to be the protagonist of a face-slapping story...

And if he had merely been eliminated, that would have been one thing. But now, police sirens were already sounding outside the window...

He looked at his phone. Hadn't he always kept those videos on his phone...? How could they have been exposed?

The night wind blew through the empty corridor, mingling with the long, wailing echoes of the sirens, making Shi Xingzhou's hair stand on end.

He looked up and froze.

Qiao Huan was standing at the end of the corridor.

He looked as calm and unruffled as he had during the livestream, leaning lazily against the wall.

Qiao Huan had just hung up the phone.

Captain Qiao had called to tell him some good news.

While "Deserted Island" was livestreaming tonight, Captain Qiao had also split the people from the Criminal Investigation Unit into two teams.

One team had gone to check on Jin Xiaopeng's whereabouts—

A day earlier, Jin Xiaopeng had missed a counseling appointment and secretly copied his videos. No one knew what he intended to do.

Normally, there was nothing unusual about a victim missing a counseling appointment. But both Qiao Tang and Qiao Huan were the sort to take such matters to heart, so a dedicated team had been formed to look for Jin Xiaopeng.

They had only located Jin Xiaopeng's approximate position shortly before the livestream began, and found that he was being followed and threatened by people Shi Xingzhou had sent!

Fortunately, thanks to that team, Jin Xiaopeng had managed to escape.

But even Qiao Huan hadn't expected Jin Xiaopeng to schedule the posts for automatic release and reveal the truth to the public, bringing the farce to an even more dramatic end.

Actually, if Shi Xingzhou hadn't tried to use Jin Xiaopeng to frame Qiao Huan at the very end, perhaps Jin Xiaopeng wouldn't have found the courage to expose everything?

Captain Qiao had personally led the other team in sweeping through Between Life and Death.

The patrons inside had just seen the "Deserted Island" livestream and learned that Shi Xingzhou was finished, but before they could run, the police had charged in and pinned them to the ground.

To protect themselves, they naturally provided plenty of evidence confirming Shi Xingzhou's role as a middleman, while the staff there also revealed that Shi Xingzhou himself had supplied the pills.

It was a resounding victory on both fronts.

Qiao Huan had hung up and turned around, only to find Shi Xingzhou looking at him.

In the night wind, he was trembling all over, his eyes bloodshot. The smile that had once signified pride and confidence was utterly gone, leaving him like a walking corpse stripped of its soul.

"Was it you, Qiao Huan?"

Shi Xingzhou spoke through gritted teeth.

He had to find a reason for his failure.

Qiao Huan considered for a moment, but didn't answer.

"When did you swap out my phone? Ha, it was when I went to record 'Deserted Island,' wasn't it? But you were there too. Could someone else at Star Radiance have helped you?" Shi Xingzhou said viciously. "And when did you arrange with the production team to change the edit? Could it be... could it be... Shi Lianyi's car accident was fake?"

Shi Xingzhou suddenly burst out laughing. "I know, it must have been my aunt! Shi Lianyi took a fancy to you, and that's how you got control over the editing and made such a fool of me, right? Then you bought Jin Xiaopeng off—no, you must have drugged him and made him expose me, didn't you?!!"

Outside, the rain sounded mournful. Lightning flashed, briefly illuminating Shi Xingzhou's deranged face.

In his world, only such a filthy explanation seemed reasonable.

Qiao Huan, however, remained leaning against the corridor wall, looking quietly at him:

"How can I make you believe that I didn't do anything?"

You brought this on yourself.

Shi Xingzhou said, "Impossible!"

Then he staggered over to Qiao Huan, clamped his hands on his shoulders, and snarled, "Tell me! Why did I... why did I lose to you?! What kind of background do you have?"

Qiao Huan pried Shi Xingzhou's fingers off with barely any effort.

Then he said mildly:

"You're overthinking it. I'm just a salted-fish trainee, nothing more."

With that, Qiao Huan turned his back on Shi Xingzhou and left.

His figure nearly blended into the night, yet stood tall and straight as a pine.

Shi Xingzhou wailed in anguish and fell to the floor, watching the police officers in the distance approach and stop before him.

A pair of cold silver bracelets became the most resplendent adornment to his understated makeup that night.

In the years that followed, the answer to that question, together with the sight of Qiao Huan's retreating back, became Shi Xingzhou's true inner demon. Every time he thought of it, he suffered agonies, right up until his death.

Since Qiao Huan, Zhuo Yang, Ye Yiwei, and Bai Jike were trainees at Star Radiance, had been to Between Life and Death, and had also taken part in the recording and livestream of "Deserted Island," they were naturally invited to the City A police station to give statements.

"Buff... Mr. Qiao, please put your phone and other communication devices in the basket for safekeeping first, just like your teammates~" The officer in charge of registration stopped Qiao Huan. Faced with a familiar face and thinking that he had to keep up the act all the way, he nearly injured himself holding it in.

"Oh..."

Qiao Huan was as comfortable returning to the police station as he was coming home and had nearly walked straight in. After the reminder, he hurriedly took out the items he was carrying under the gazes of Zhuo Yang, Ye Yiwei, and Bai Jike.

Zhuo Yang, Ye Yiwei, and Bai Jike: Sure enough.

I knew he was a good person. Retired big shot? He clearly hasn't even been to a police station before!

Qiao Tang stood before the four of them with a deeply affectionate expression. "Zhuo Yang, room A; Ye Yiwei, room B; Xiao Bai, room C. Um, if you have trouble speaking, you can write your answers instead. We've provided a computer for you. Bu... Qiao Huan, come with me."

After hearing Qiao Huan report on them so many times, he felt that the three young men before him were even closer to him than his own son!

Xiao Bai silently raised a hand. "How did you know I... prefer writing?"

Captain Qiao: ...

Damn it, I was so happy we'd just cracked the case that I instinctively wanted to look after socially anxious Xiao Bai. I almost forgot I shouldn't know so much about him!

Qiao Tang instantly switched back to a righteous expression. "I'm in your fan group, thank you."

Xiao Bai: ...That really wasn't necessary.

After the four of them split up and entered their respective interview rooms, the night-shift officer in charge of guarding their belongings was about to take a break when a slip of paper caught his eye—

The slip lay on the floor of the storage compartment, covered in densely packed characters and symbols.

He picked it up and read it briefly, then stared in shock.

He had served in the military for a few years and knew this was a very old method of encrypted internal communication!

Besides, he had just cleaned the floor. Since then, apart from Qiao Huan, only those three people had stored anything there tonight.

He looked toward rooms A, B, and C and sank into thought.

Who had left this slip of paper behind?