Chapter 43

[Xie Ran is sick. If he couldn't handle hardship, he shouldn't have gone on the show. Did he really think he was there on vacation??]

[Still, Xie Ran is seriously handsome. Setting his character aside, he really makes my heart race!]

[How did this become about character? Xiao Ran didn't break any show rules, and he bore the wins and losses himself. Certain fans should stop trying to stir things up.]

[Those saying he bore the wins and losses himself, did you consider his teammates?]

Such opinions dominated the internet. Fang Huiwang's fans, especially, took the opportunity to play the victim, using Xie Ran to highlight Fang Huiwang's resilience and diligence.

How could Xie Ran's fans let them run wild? The two sides immediately fought fiercely again.

Yet Xie Ran's fans were consistently at a disadvantage. Xie Ran's actions this time had simply drawn too much hate.

The onlookers imagined Xie Ran as one of their own work teammates and felt like they were suffocating.

And he was actually enjoying himself without the slightest psychological burden!

Why the hell should he get to do that? Bad review, absolutely a bad review!

There were also those who loved stirring up trouble, joking: [2333 Everyone doesn't need to curse him so harshly. What if Xie Ran really made money?]

One of Fang Huiwang's well-known major fans immediately reposted it passionately: [I'm dying of laughter. How much could he make with a thousand in capital? If he beats everyone else, I'll livestream myself eating shit! //2333 Everyone doesn't need to curse him so harshly. What if Xie Ran really made money?]

Amid the audience's heated discussion, the show reached that evening's settlement time.

Following Snowball Satellite TV's usual shitty habits, the episode would normally deliberately cut off right before the guests' earnings were announced, leaving the suspense for the next episode.

But this time, Snowball TV unexpectedly showed the earnings tally directly.

Viewers familiar with Snowball TV's style vaguely sensed that something was off. As a longtime fan of the show, Yu Man also noticed something unusual and asked Cao Paoli, "Isn't this strange? Normally, the episode should have cut off here. Why is it still airing?"

Cao Paoli was equally puzzled. "Did Snowball TV suddenly grow a conscience and decide not to keep everyone hanging?"

They soon found out that Snowball TV had not grown a conscience at all. It was taking revenge on society!

After being mocked by everyone for an entire night, Xie Ran, who had spent the day vacationing with ease, had his final earnings revealed—and they were higher than those of all the other guests combined.

They were also higher than the work earnings of every guest from any previous season.

In the end, Xie Ran ordered the hotel's most expensive set meal, and the episode ended by freezing on his exquisite spread.

Cao Paoli: "..."

Yu Man: "..."

The chicken legs in their hands no longer smelled good at all!

Online, a huge number of netizens flooded the Weibo of Fang Huiwang's major fan and replied enthusiastically:

[Scammer getting free food and drinks!]

[Scammer getting free food and drinks!]

On the night Somewhere Else with You premiered, its ratings shot straight to first place nationwide. It also sparked a wave of discussion across the internet. A glance at Weibo's trending list showed topics related to the program everywhere. Besides the ones the production team had bought in advance, many had been searched up spontaneously by netizens, and nearly all of them were related to Xie Ran.

There were simply too many topics surrounding Xie Ran.

By this point, the show's basic formula was already well known to viewers. Under normal circumstances, it should have been entering a slump, which was why many people believed Snowball TV had brought in Xie Ran and Fang Huiwang to reheat the Wangran CP leftovers and use CP fans to generate buzz.

Unexpectedly, Xie Ran really did become the source of discussion, but not because of the Wangran CP. Instead, he single-handedly shattered the formula the production team had maintained for several seasons.

This was the first time a guest had truly enjoyed a vacation on this travel show that sold one thing while delivering another. While the other guests worked themselves to the bone, he lived in a completely different style.

The wildest part was that his final earnings were still the highest.

Because the production team was so determined to take revenge on society, it released every guest's earnings settlement at the end of the very first episode for the first time. The netizens who had been angrily cursing Xie Ran online, especially Fang Huiwang's fans, were instantly dumbfounded.

Fang Huiwang's major fan, who had declared that she would livestream herself eating shit if Xie Ran beat everyone else, hurriedly deleted her post. But screenshots had already spread widely, and the account became a joke in fan circles.

Xie Ran's reputation immediately reversed. The facts proved that not only had he not held Fang Huiwang back, he had exceeded the objective. It would not have been wrong to say Fang Huiwang had benefited from him instead.

The netizens who had imagined themselves as Xie Ran's teammates and felt suffocated all said that if their own teammate could be as capable as Xie Ran, single-handedly defeating all the other competitors, then never mind taking a break and vacationing—if he wanted them to personally serve him, that could even be considered.

On the other hand, Xie Ran had also displayed extremely strong personal ability in this episode. The segment where he communicated with the hotel manager in English was clipped out separately by fans and posted online, drawing a huge number of viewers.

In that conversation, Xie Ran demonstrated exceptionally fluent, standard English, mixed with a great many financial terms. When the hotel manager was unfamiliar with certain stock market trading methods, he even briefly explained them.

Afterward, the video was reposted by a famous verified account in the finance circle, which highly praised Xie Ran's professional competence. That was extremely rare for a celebrity.

Overnight, Xie Ran's Weibo followers surged, and his media index soared.

Just as Xie Ran's popularity and reputation were rising across the board, discussion threads about his relationship with Fang Huiwang began appearing on major forums as well.

If most netizens had still leaned toward supporting Wangran during the CP war before Somewhere Else with You aired, after the show, everyone slowly typed out a question mark.

After all, netizens did not have filters as thick as CP fans'. Even a blind person could see that Xie Ran and Fang Huiwang's relationship was nothing like what Wangran Girls had promoted—or rather, Xie Ran's attitude toward Fang Huiwang was completely unlike what CP fans claimed.

At that moment, a hot post appeared out of nowhere, directly bringing the conflict between Xie Ran and Fang Huiwang into the open.