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Tang Shi chuckled but said nothing. He followed Brother Chen in seeing everyone into taxis. Worried about the two single female makeup artists on the crew, Tang Shi and Lu Hengzhi even went out of their way to escort the girl home. Only after watching her go upstairs and turn on the lights did they head back to the dorm.

After all that, it was nearly three in the morning. Yet when they returned to the dorm, Lin Zhaoran and Song Lijia were somehow still awake. Not only that, the three girls, Su Minghe, Ming Xiang, and several other contestants close to the Sugar Juice Duo were all in their dorm playing cards. The moment they saw Tang Shi and Lu Hengzhi return, they swarmed over and bombarded them with questions about how the show had felt.

Tang Shi and Lu Hengzhi answered one question after another. They had been a little sleepy at first, but after all that commotion, it was completely gone. They did not stop until after six, when everyone went to the cafeteria for breakfast together. Tang Shi noticed that the other contestants were looking at the two of them differently, but he did not pay it much mind.

More than ten days later, the episode of Qilu Gossip featuring the Sugar Juice Duo aired on time at ten o'clock on the last Saturday of August. That night, Dance Miracle's national top-twenty-to-top-thirteen competition had just ended. With a street dance routine incorporating paso doble elements, the Sugar Juice Duo once again dazzled everyone and advanced smoothly. At the same time, Dance Miracle's ratings broke 5 that day, setting a record with a 5.85% viewership rating and a 17.83% market share.

Qilu Gossip, which aired immediately afterward, had spent half a month promoting itself with the slogan, "Step into your idol's world and learn the stories behind the dancers." As a result, many diehard fans of the Sugar Juice Duo and Dance Miracle knew that the duo had been invited as guests. So after Dance Miracle ended that night, many viewers did not change the channel. Instead, they patiently stayed to watch Qilu Gossip's ten o'clock time slot.

Since the Sugar Juice Duo had always been a guarantee of Dance Miracle's highest ratings, the Qilu Gossip staff had been prepared for the possibility that this episode might boost their ratings. But when the production team received the next day's figures—a national average rating of 3.27%, with the peak reaching 3.75% during the Sugar Juice Duo's clarification of the "scandal"—they were still stunned.

As a late-night talk show, Qilu Gossip led programs in its time slot, but its average ratings generally hovered between 0.8% and 15%. Ratings above 3% were extremely rare.

Perhaps only episodes featuring a superstar of the highest caliber could achieve results like that.

Yet this episode had invited only a newly rising idol star and two contestants from a talent show who had not even officially debuted. Still, it had created such a ratings miracle. The delighted staff once again saw the social influence wielded by the Sugar Juice Duo and talent shows like Dance Miracle.

Although the Sugar Juice Duo only appeared—or rather, were active—for a little over ten minutes in the entire episode, those short ten-plus minutes became the highest-rated segment. That day, the duo's designer clothes, handsome and sunny image, and measured way of speaking also won praise from viewers everywhere.

Even the things the Sugar Juice Duo casually said during the interview—"Were you sent by monkeys to make a fool of yourself?" "Wolves eat meat wherever they go; calves get beaten wherever they go." "You can't assume others can't do something just because you aren't good enough to earn better treatment from them"...

Through word of mouth, those lines rapidly became the year's hottest catchphrases.

Still, some viewers had plenty of criticism for the episode. Most of them were Lin Xia's fans. Throughout the broadcast, their beloved idol—Lin Xia—seemed rather mediocre next to the Sugar Juice Duo's stream of witty remarks. And perhaps because of the lighting or some other reason, Lin Xia, dressed in flowing white, looked unhealthily pale on camera. She also appeared somewhat fat and bloated. In any case, beside the two big boys of the Sugar Juice Duo, she looked overly made-up and completely lost the lively, quirky charm of the girl-next-door image everyone usually loved.

Some fans accused Apple TV Station of focusing only on promoting its own people while neglecting their idol Lin Xia. Even the most exciting parts of the show were when the Sugar Juice Duo discussed the scandal and behind-the-scenes manipulation, while Lin Xia had no standout moments throughout the entire episode.

The lighting and makeup departments were criticized even more harshly. Everyone agreed that Apple TV Station's makeup artists and cameramen were incompetent, which was why they had failed to make their idol look beautiful on screen.

But those remarks had not spread for long before the Sugar Juice Duo's fans shot them down. Lin Xia's fans knew how to defend their idol, but the Sugar Juice Duo's fans were no pushovers either. They directly pointed out that Lin Xia was already in her twenties yet dressed like a schoolgirl every day to seem younger. Naturally, she looked old in front of the sixteen-year-old Sugar Juice Duo, who were bursting with youthful innocence. The Sugar Juice Duo could speak so brilliantly because they had genuine talent and substance. Lin Xia had nothing but a pretty face and no depth. She was merely a decorative vase. If she had no highlights when she spoke, that only showed her own lack of knowledge.

Some fans even directly quoted Lu Hengzhi's words from the program: "If you don't look good, you blame the TV station's makeup and camerawork. If you can't speak well, you blame the station for favoring its own people. There's a kind of person in this world who thinks that if they can't do something, no one else can either. Arrogant and narrow-minded."

The sharp comments made Tang Shi break out in a cold sweat. Good thing this wasn't more than ten years later, when the internet was nowhere near this developed and platforms like Weibo hadn't even appeared yet. Otherwise, this would definitely have turned into another bloody online war of insults!

In the end, Lin Xia herself stepped forward to settle the matter. Her management company released a statement saying that Lin Xia was very satisfied to have had the honor of appearing as a guest on Qilu Gossip. She had brought her own makeup team at the time, believed the cameramen had filmed her beautifully, and, more importantly, had made good friends such as host Qilu and the Sugar Juice Duo. She hoped her fans would stop attacking Apple TV Station and the Sugar Juice Duo.

In the end, the uproar faded away without a trace. As for the many complaints voiced by Lin Xia's agent in public and private, they were merely scattered sparks that no one paid attention to.

The following days were nothing but dance practice, dance practice, and more dance practice. During that time, Tang Shi even found the leisure to discuss their part-time business venture with Lu Hengzhi. Lu Hengzhi, who had always indulged Tang Shi in everything, unsurprisingly voted in favor of Tang Shi's plan this time as well.

However, Lu Hengzhi, who had always been steady and meticulous, still called his father to discuss the feasibility of this part-time venture. Although he had never been involved in the entertainment industry before, Father Lu's sharp eye immediately spotted the business opportunity. He promptly sent over two market researchers to help the two boys understand the market.

He also told the two boys about the progress at the family food factory. In just one month, the Good Taste Food Factory, jointly invested in by Father Lu, Tang Shi's mother, and the private business owner, had settled smoothly in X City. All equipment and labor were in place, and production had begun two weeks earlier. The frozen buns and frozen dumplings they produced had already been distributed throughout X Province, swiftly taking over supermarkets of all sizes across the province.

He said business was booming now, with orders pouring in like snowflakes. The factory had repeatedly expanded its hiring for dough workers and now employed nearly two hundred people.

Tang Shi had already learned about these everyday developments during his nightly phone calls with his mother, but hearing Father Lu enthusiastically tell Lu Hengzhi about them again did not make him impatient.

Because he knew that, given Father Lu's current wealth, he would not care much about the profits from the food factory. The money the factory earned through a month of hard work might not even compare to what Father Lu made selling a single commercial building. The reason he said so much was simply that he wanted to talk to Lu Hengzhi a little longer.

When Father Lu was young, he had left Lu Hengzhi with his grandmother in order to do business. Lu Hengzhi had been little then and cried for his parents every day. Over the years, Lu Hengzhi had grown up and learned to take care of himself, but he had also become less close to his parents.

Other than making up for it financially, Father Lu did not know what else he could do for Lu Hengzhi. The key was that Lu Hengzhi hardly spent money, leaving Father Lu's guilt with nowhere to go.

But those were matters of the past and need not be mentioned for now.

After talking things over with Father Lu, Tang Shi and Lu Hengzhi found time to invite Cui Yujin out as well and told him about their plans for a part-time business venture—

The two of them had set their sights on the celebrity merchandise market that would become hugely popular in later years. As Dance Miracle's ratings continued to rise, its influence across the country grew greater and greater, and the contestants gained more and more fans. People were paying increasing attention to the contestants and becoming more eager to chase stars, but that enthusiasm had not been properly converted into purchasing power. At present, fans could only buy tickets to watch the performances in person, purchase light boards bearing the names of their favorite contestants, cheap glow sticks, and blurry photographs. There were no other products for them to spend money on.

As for the later-famous photo books, signed posters, fan-support T-shirts, phone charms with celebrity headshots, matching items, and the like, there was nowhere to find them.

So while no one had yet begun paying attention to the profits from talent-show celebrity merchandise, Tang Shi, with his experience from his previous life, was the first to think of it. But because of his identity, Tang Shi could not personally step forward to run such a business. Father Lu's company had never handled this kind of work before either and was completely unfamiliar with it. So Tang Shi set his sights on Cui Yujin. Beyond wanting to bring this future renowned photography master into his circle, what mattered more was Cui Yujin's mother's relationship with Li Mei. The two women had been classmates and close friends, were locals, and both worked in media circles. They had resources and connections. Combined with Father Lu's abundant capital and Tang Shi's forward-looking vision, this business would definitely make money.

Cui Yujin had been hanging around Apple TV Station with Tang Shi and Lu Hengzhi for so long mainly to pass the time and learn photography skills. But after all these days of watching the storms between the contestants and the television station, the bizarre scenes on and offstage, and all manner of stories, he had grown curious about this unpredictable industry. Now that Tang Shi had laid out his plan, he felt even more tempted.

So he eagerly contacted his mother and sought out Li Mei to discuss the venture's feasibility.

As a responsible best friend and elder, Li Mei knew her classmate and her classmate's son Cui Yujin very well. She knew that with only the two of them, they would not come up with such a business idea even in a hundred years. Moreover, she had seen the Sugar Juice Duo's presence throughout this entire plan. So after parting ways with her best friend, Li Mei immediately called Tang Shi and Lu Hengzhi.

Tang Shi and Lu Hengzhi were not surprised by Li Mei's quick reaction. Of course, they had not intended to hide anything from her, but since they were still contestants, they did not want to draw too much attention.

When they had first made the plan, Tang Shi had considered bypassing the television station entirely and producing celebrity merchandise himself in order to keep things confidential. But after considering issues such as image rights and even the convenience of obtaining the "raw materials," Tang Shi and Lu Hengzhi ultimately decided to bring Li Mei in as well.

In Li Mei's eyes, the Sugar Juice Duo never stopped causing trouble. They had finally learned a lesson and behaved themselves for a while inside the competition, yet sure enough, they had started stirring things up outside it. But after reading Tang Shi's proposal for a celebrity merchandise industry chain and the market research report written by the employees Father Lu had sent over, Li Mei had to admit that she was tempted too.

Just as Tang Shi had said, Apple TV Station had tasted the rewards of talent shows and naturally would not stop after one bite. Setting aside everything else, Dance Miracle's second season next year and third season the year after were already inevitable. As long as the ratings remained decent, the television station and Emperor Entertainment would never let this fat piece of meat slip away.