Gao Yuan had never really fit into the Raising House environment. He had only stayed to spite Xie Weishui.
But now there was Chi Li.
Even if he just stood there doing nothing, he posed a bigger threat to Xie Weishui than Gao Yuan did.
"Sounds good." Shen Xunye offered little comment.
"After I leave, I'm planning to..."
Gao Yuan could tell that Shen Xunye wasn't particularly interested in his plans for the future.
Fortunately, after listening, he still offered a polite response-perhaps for Chi Li's sake?
But that didn't matter. These words were mainly for the audience anyway.
[Gao Yuan's just too straightforward. He doesn't know how to fake it.]
[Leaving to release music and slowly build a fanbase is actually pretty good too. Wishing him the best.]
[Aw, I kind of shipped him with Chi Li. I didn't expect a bad ending this soon. [crying]]
[...Do you want my wife to top?]
[No-I won't let my wife wear himself out! All he needs to do is lie back and enjoy it! Leave everything else to me!]
Perhaps because their conversation was too ordinary, after a while, the main livestream's camera switched to Fang Jin and Zhou Yang, who had "buried the hatchet" yesterday.
The two were at the drinks bar.
Fang Jin had already finished breakfast and was making himself some juice.
When the camera zoomed in, viewers could still see the extremely faint little turtle lingering beside his mouth.
Meanwhile, Zhou Yang sat on a barstool with two huge dark circles under his eyes, drinking freshly brewed coffee. He looked utterly listless.
"Fang Jin." Zhou Yang wasn't calling him Senior Fang anymore, either. "What do you think of Chi Li?"
Fang Jin put the chopped apples into the juicer and gave Zhou Yang a somewhat odd look.
"I don't know him very well, so I can't answer that question."
"Then yesterday..." Zhou Yang paused. "Why did you do that?"
He wasn't talking about last night's mahjong game, but the meeting afterward, when Fang Jin had argued with Xie Weishui.
He didn't know exactly what had happened, but he did know why those two had argued-Fang Jin had listened to Chi Li and changed Xie Weishui's original script without permission.
"What did I do?" Fang Jin asked in return.
His words no longer held his former hostility toward Zhou Yang, only an indifferent coolness.
Despite their disagreement, he and Xie Weishui hadn't fallen out completely. They simply hadn't reached an agreement on "who would be the main lead."
So-
He could now be himself however he pleased, free of that so-called script.
"You... you seemed pretty happy playing with him?" Seeing him play dumb, Zhou Yang could only steer the subject toward last night's mahjong game. "I've never seen anyone so happy to get punished."
"It wasn't punishment. It was a prank," Fang Jin corrected him. "With pranks like that, the players have fun, and the audience enjoys watching too. What? Were you unhappy yesterday?"
Zhou Yang: "..."
Happy, his ass!
After Xie Weishui helped him take off his down jacket, Chi Li had made him put it right back on in the next round.
Xie Weishui hadn't won another hand after that, so he never got another chance to take it off.
And of course, most of the penalties he got afterward involved exercises like push-ups...
Boring and torturous! He had nearly died from the heat.
"Of course I was happy to give the audience a laugh," Zhou Yang said with a fake smile.
"Mm..." Fang Jin gave him a look that wasn't quite a smile. "You don't have... anything scheduled today?"
To put it more bluntly, the question would have been-no assignments?
"No." Zhou Yang narrowed his eyes as he looked out through the floor-to-ceiling windows. "Senior had something to do outside today."
"Oh," Fang Jin said indifferently.
Starlight Entertainment.
Wearing oversized sunglasses, Xie Weishui hurried into his manager's office.
Wang Yue locked the door and exhaled heavily through his nose. "Didn't I tell you not to come? I'll message you if anything comes up."
Taking off his sunglasses and tossing them aside, Xie Weishui sat down on the couch. "Chi Li's got me so rattled I don't know what to do anymore. Has the narrative I asked you to push yesterday had any effect?"
"I deployed some paid trolls, but they didn't make much of a splash." Wang Yue looked miserable too.
The narratives they had paid trolls to push mostly painted Chi Li as "ill-mannered" and "disrespectful toward his seniors."
But to the audience, little flaws like these only made him seem more vivid and real.
There were even plenty of "champions of justice" who expanded the discussion and harshly criticized this "senior-junior culture" among people barely a few years apart in age.
"Keep deploying them," Xie Weishui said through gritted teeth.
"You know the company won't allow smear campaigns against its own artists." Wang Yue reminded him grimly, "If you want to pay trolls to smear Chi Li, you'll have to pay for it yourself. This time, I paid out of my own pocket. I'm not asking you to reimburse me."
"Don't I create more value for the company than Chi Li?" Xie Weishui was furious. "Isn't it thanks to me that Fang Jin can go out and hold fan meetings now?"
"That's also because he had a lot going for him to begin with. Would you have picked him otherwise?" Of course, Wang Yue saw things a little more clearly than he did.
What he didn't say was that anyone with eyes could see Chi Li definitely had more potential than Xie Weishui.
Rather than relying on Xie Weishui to surpass Li Ming... he would be better off poaching Chi Li for himself.
He had simply gotten carried away yesterday and wasted money on paid trolls.
"..." Xie Weishui's face was ashen. He thought it over again and again. "Then use my money to hire the trolls."
Wang Yue said, "It's no use. That little bit of mudslinging won't stir anything up. I suggest you don't waste the money."
"Then pay them to take a different angle." Xie Weishui's eyes shifted as another idea came to him. "Buy him positive publicity. Tie him to the hottest top stars in the industry right now."
Wang Yue: "."
Xie Weishui continued, "Once the top stars' fans show up, have people post comments along the lines of 'They should count themselves lucky to be associated with Chi Li'... things like that."
What top stars' fans hated most was someone latching onto their idols to leech off them.
When they encountered someone trying to piggyback on their idols like that, they would often tear the other party to shreds.
Chi Li had only been somewhat popular for two days. His fandom hadn't even taken shape yet, so he definitely wouldn't be able to withstand an onslaught like that.
"...Are you sure you want to do this?" Wang Yue was a little persuaded.
After all, poaching Chi Li wouldn't be easy either.
"I'm sure." There wasn't a trace of hesitation in Xie Weishui's eyes, only hatred for Chi Li. "There's no room for both of us in Raising House. Either he goes or I do."
Wang Yue said, "If this still doesn't work, stop doing this from now on."
"Don't worry. It'll definitely work." A faint smile rose at the corners of Xie Weishui's mouth, and he remembered something he had learned while lurking in the livestream earlier. "Gao Yuan's leaving in a few days. You have to find a way to get one of our own in."
"That came up in yesterday's meeting. The higher-ups want someone from another company," Wang Yue replied.