Chapter 21

His bearing made the edge he kept hidden unmistakable at a glance.

It was a pride he had cultivated since childhood. No matter how filthy the mud he fell into or how deep the valley, it still shone brightly, never bowing, never bending.

Sheng Chi suddenly chuckled.

He really was.

Kind of cute.

Xu Linyuan came back from buying water to find Jiang Yu with red-rimmed eyes, saying over and over that they had to make it big, that they had to make everyone who had looked down on them weep and regret how they had treated them, and things like that.

After finally figuring out what had happened, Xu Linyuan could only laugh and cry as he joined Gu Zhijing in trying every way he could think of to comfort him.

They went over the same things again and again: they would blow up tomorrow, don't bully the young and poor, and so on.

But they still couldn't console Jiang Yu.

He kept cursing all the way into the car, until he was finally so tired that he fell straight asleep.

Gu Zhijing breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back in the rear seat, thinking over what had just happened.

Actually, it wasn't wrong.

Given their status, it was normal for people not to treat them kindly, or even have the time to spare them a couple of words.

They had received plenty of such cold treatment since their debut.

They always comforted themselves with the thought that one day they would climb up, that one day they would realize their dreams and reach the top.

But would that day really come?

It wasn't as though they didn't know what the domestic entertainment industry's idol scene was like.

If they kept going like this, day after day, would they ultimately get what they wished for, or would they grow accustomed to the cold looks and ridicule and reluctantly compromise with reality?

The thought left Gu Zhijing listless, and he began browsing Weibo on his alt account.

He had only just opened Weibo and scrolled through a few posts when he suddenly jolted, dropping his phone.

Sheng Chi noticed the movement and turned to him. "What's wrong?"

Gu Zhijing picked up his phone, his hands still shaking.

After a long while, he switched back to the page he had just seen and showed Sheng Chi the screen.

His voice trembled, carrying the dazed disbelief of someone whose dream had just fallen into his lap. "Are we... about to blow up?"

Chapter 25

The car was dark, with only Gu Zhijing's phone screen glowing.

#Color4 debut song was sitting high at number five on the trending searches.

It had over a hundred million views and more than ten thousand discussions.

The top trending video on the topic page had already passed twenty thousand reposts, and the number was still climbing.

Sheng Chi's fingertips tingled.

He paused for a long time, and only when Gu Zhijing waved a hand in front of him did he manage to come back to himself and look down at his own phone.

Meanwhile, Gu Zhijing quickly browsed around on his alt account and finally figured out what had happened.

An audience member had recorded their live performance at the music festival and posted it on Weibo. It had caught the wave of the festival's trending search and gone straight to the top.

Their live performance with every mic on was so stunning that curious netizens followed the trail, searching the entire internet for the obscure little group.

They finally found the answer an hour later.

As luck would have it, today was also the day their debut stage on Music Show aired.

Just like that, the group name Color4 quickly came to netizens' attention.

Netizens were surprised to discover something.

They had performed the same debut song at the music festival and on the music show stage, but had shown two different sides of themselves.

Their Music Show stage had been carefully designed. The gorgeous, exquisite set, the clever little magic trick at the opening, and the professional camera cuts had combined to create an almost perfect performance.

The music festival performance, meanwhile, had been a live show with every mic on, displaying Color4's abilities to the public in every respect, without reservation. The duo rap in particular had been full of tension and utterly electrifying.

Idol group performances were a relatively niche interest to begin with.

But even someone who knew nothing about stage performances would have to say, after watching those two videos, that they were incredible.

And on top of that, every member of the group was so good-looking.

People were visual creatures.

If the colorful, shaky, blurry video from the music festival didn't quite show what they looked like, the twenty minutes of interview and performance on Music Show afterward made everything perfectly clear.

After the live performance video whetted their appetites, the netizens searching the internet for this obscure little group saw the four young men looking ridiculously handsome even in close-up shots, and were instantly satisfied and fell straight into the fandom.

Their popularity soared from there.

Even though some passersby on the topic page were still cursing, asking what obscure, bottom-tier group had bought a trending search, they were no match for the overwhelming tide of comments from the new fans pouring into the fandom.

[Does a boy group this good-looking and talented really exist? 5555 I've never been a fan of any celebrity, but now I want to try.]

[The pretty younger guy with the earring is SO my type!]

[The leader's presence is off the charts onstage, and offstage he looks so cold and restrained. He's exactly my type, I want to call him husband!!!]

[Watching their interview on Music Show, I feel like this group really wants to be a boy group!! As a K-pop fan, I suddenly feel like there's hope for domestic entertainment too!]

[The four well-behaved babies sitting in a row during the pre-interview were so cute, I'm going to be a mom fan!!! Question: is it too late to start stanning Color4 today? Urgent, waiting online.]

As the saying went, the timing, circumstances, and people were all in harmony.

This time, everything had come together for them.

One small moment had ignited their popularity, which then soared all the way up and became unstoppable.

Gu Zhijing watched the wildly rising follower count, the explosion of reposts, comments, and private messages pouring in, and all the worries he had still harbored when he got into the car vanished.

He turned, his eyes suddenly lighting up. "Brother Chi."

Sheng Chi paused, and Gu Zhijing took his wrist.

His hand was warm and trembling, carrying the immense joy of youthful enthusiasm that had never come to nothing.

Jiang Yu was sleeping soundly in the front row, and Xu Linyuan was quietly listening to music with his headphones on. For an instant, it was as if the two of them were all that remained in the world.

"We did it! People really saw us! It won't ever be like before again!"

Gu Zhijing looked up at Sheng Chi. His voice was soft and the corners of his eyes were red, but he was still smiling. "Leap won't go bankrupt, and our four-member group has taken off! Your dream can come true too!"

Something suddenly stirred in Sheng Chi's heart, and he chuckled softly. "Whose dream?"

Gu Zhijing froze for a moment, then curved his eyes in a smile and nodded. "Ours, all of ours together!"

"Yeah."

Sheng Chi ruffled Gu Zhijing's hair, unable to keep the corners of his mouth from lifting. "All of us in Color4 together."

The reason Fei Yue had returned to the hotel early was that he had seen Color4's music festival video, which was already being shared around.

He quickly made a prediction.

This was an excellent marketing opportunity.

Color4's modest breakout this time was both within and beyond his expectations.

He had guessed that Color4's debut stage would give them a little visibility within fan circles.

But he hadn't expected the music festival to amplify that stage into the most perfect, outstanding result, creating a stir not only within the existing idol fandom but also drawing in a batch of new first-love fans who had never followed a celebrity before.

Since Color4's debut, because they had skipped the debut evaluation, the only recognition they had received was as a rigged royal group.

This was the first time positive attention could break out beyond their usual circle.

He had to make the most of it.

The company's publicity department would first use this wave of trending searches to keep expanding their reach, buying trending spots and marketing even if it cost a fortune, all to sustain the buzz.

Meanwhile, he notified the editor to urgently finish editing the first episode of their group variety show ahead of schedule and prepare to release it while the buzz lasted. With the new fans drawn in by the stage, they needed to establish idol personas offstage and turn these passersby-turned-fans into true fans.

At present, the domestic idol scene was in a lull between generations.

Everyone was hoping an idol group would emerge as a heaven-sent savior and rescue an environment that had been stagnant and lifeless for so long.

And at just this moment, Color4 had opened a small gap.

From a broader perspective, everything for them was only just beginning.

But if this project really did succeed in the end-

Fei Yue tapped the keyboard, his smile reflected in the computer screen.

Then a new era belonging to Color4 would soon arrive.

Jiang Yu hadn't expected the world to have changed by the time he woke up.

Clutching his phone, he refreshed his follower count every second, moved beyond words. He hurried off to practice an artistic signature, hoping he wouldn't embarrass himself at a future fansign.

Xu Linyuan had heard the news the night before. Though he usually seemed as calm as still water, even he couldn't contain himself now, spending the entire morning switching wildly between grinning like an idiot and composing himself.

And as soon as Gu Zhijing woke up, he started browsing Weibo on his alt account.

The supertopic, which had originally contained nothing but idle chatter and filler posts, was now packed with posts from the flood of new fans.

He had only ever posted two promotional Weibo updates, and each had surpassed ten thousand reposts and comments.

Even now, Gu Zhijing still felt a little dazed.

Was this what it felt like to reach the top overnight?

And in the midst of the buzz from last night, the first episode of Color4's group variety show, "What Is Color4 Doing Today," had already been released early at nine that morning.

The new fans who had joined the fandom just yesterday had only just finished catching up on the debut documentary and were still crying from how moved they were when, unexpectedly, there was new content to watch. As a result, the view count and bullet comments rose extremely quickly.

Everyone was susceptible to the herd mentality to some extent.

The trending search had stayed up all day, the freshly released group variety show brought another wave of attention, and the Music Show promotional stage still needed fans to keep voting. It formed a healthy cycle of attracting fans, keeping them, and then attracting more new ones.

Gu Zhijing hadn't had time to watch the group variety show yet.

His alt account was busy farming experience points.

Just a few days ago, his alt had applied to become a junior moderator of Sheng Chi's supertopic.

But over the past two days, a huge influx of new fans had arrived, and he was afraid that if he didn't do well enough, he could be replaced in no time by a more experienced fangirl.

He finished farming experience and sending points, then went out to take a look.

Several mutuals he had gotten to know had already finished the group variety show and started shipping a CP while voting on the charts.

Gu Zhijing: "?"

Color4 was only just getting started, and the atmosphere throughout the fandom was peaceful and gentle. After all, nobody could start cursing and fighting on their very first day of stanning an idol.

And since Color4 as a group was far better known than its individual members right now, solo fans, CP fans, and group fans all mingled together. No matter whom they liked, their main goal was to work hard to bring Color4 to a wider audience.

What was the easiest way to break out right now?

The stage? The group variety show?

Both had to come second.

Fei Yue's plan might have been professional, but he was a straight man at heart and didn't know that in the current domestic entertainment scene, aside from explosive gossip, there was only one way for an obscure, bottom-tier nobody to rapidly climb the ladder of fame.

That was to promote a CP.

A boy group that didn't act gay would become a flop sooner or later. That was an eternal truth everywhere, and as long as a CP was appealing enough to ship, it could draw shippers in droves wherever it went.

Sheng Chi and Gu Jing's duo rap yesterday had already had tremendous onstage chemistry and tension, and then the fandom exploded again as soon as today's group variety show aired.

It was supposed to be a cat-petting special.

But Sheng Chi didn't dare pet an actual cat, while petting Gu Zhijing, that cat, came especially naturally to him.

Their looks matched, their personas matched, and they interacted a lot. At a glance, they had every prospect of becoming the group's dominant CP.

The highly discerning shippers flocked into the fandom.

And so, in the few short hours from yesterday to now, they had come up with at least a dozen CP names, ranging from two, three, and four characters all the way up to seven.

In the end, a veteran had the final say.

[Everyone knows two-character CP names are more likely to become dominant! Let's go with Shengjing!]

The CP fans had no objections.

[5555 The name Shengjing is so romantic. Year after year, morning and night, accompanying you to see all the magnificent scenery of the mountains and rivers?]

[I'm in, I'm in! This scenery-watching girl is lying flat right here. Shengjing will be the dominant CP tomorrow!]

The CP fans who had joined after yesterday's music festival stage had originally...