The chief director watched the title sponsor stubbornly block him from going to clean up the mess and could not help shaking his head inwardly. But on second thought, Meng Tianye's withdrawal had indeed caught the production team off guard. Still, Meng Tianye had no evidence that the production team had deliberately targeted him. Even if Meng Tianye later accused the show during media interviews, the production team could claim that he was overly sensitive and suffering from paranoia. There would be plenty to argue about then. The back-and-forth could even bring in quite a bit more attention and discussion. It was not necessarily a bad thing.
The most urgent matter was calming the audience in the studio.
With that in mind, the chief director could not be bothered to speak with Meng Tianye alone anymore. He simply had someone let Meng Tianye and his group leave.
As Meng Tianye left, gossip about "Meng Tianye voluntarily withdrawing during recording" quickly spread across the internet. Many fans and reporters waiting outside the television station had captured photos and videos of Meng Tianye leaving midway through. Meng Tianye's fans also posted online accounts of the entire competition, including how the equipment kept malfunctioning during filming, how Meng Tianye had recorded the performance five times over, how he had improvised a new arrangement on the spot and set the whole venue ablaze, and how he had then angrily withdrawn from the competition.
The reporters at the scene also found time to send out relevant reports. Unwilling to offend the television station, they were relatively cautious in their wording. They did not describe the recording process and merely emphasized the objective fact that Meng Tianye had withdrawn.
But some online clickbait accounts that thrived on chaos were not so considerate toward the television station.