Love Variety Show: The despised me exploded in popularity

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Once a leader emerges, isolation and taking sides will follow.

Luckily, both of Li Yang's roommates had good temperaments and were easy-going. Neither suffered from depression nor mania, and they both slept deeply at night.

Though normal, having all roommates being normal was an extremely fortunate thing. Li Yang was getting ready to wash up when she heard one of her roommates call out.

"See!! I told you Lin Wanzhou and Xu Qingyan knew each other!"

Another roommate climbed out of bed, "Holy shit, for real?"

She stuck her head out, her face conflicted, and said with pain.

"I've already scrolled through all the Zhouzhou gossip, Cloud Wing Entertainment is really a shitty company. What status does Zhouzhou have to be forced onto a love reality show?"

"I have no interest in love reality shows, forced myself to watch a bit, and it was so cringeworthy. They're forcefully pairing up couples, and it's threesomes no less!"

"Yeah, yeah, now all the barrage comments are cursing them. The first roommate who spoke said, "Having two little divas on a love reality show must have cost the production a lot of money."

Li Yang stood in place with her personal belongings, her mind a mix of emotions, as if in a dream.
Your journey continues with empire

Ever since her father passed away, life had been somewhat muddled. She could only bury herself in preparing for college entrance exams, hibernating in the dorm during holidays, not even going home for the national holiday.

Sometimes, waking up from a nap on a rainy day to find the dorm empty, with the world outside the window a rainy, grey blur, that feeling of emptiness and loneliness was suffocating.

She thought such days would last for a long time, dark with no light breaking through. The turning point, however, came suddenly, when Zhang Hongmei pulled her out.

More accurately, it also included Xu Qingyan.

He really had no airs about him; aside from being handsome, he was as down-to-earth as any common brother you might see on the streets. The kind that, being two years older, would definitely tell you to study hard.

"Study hard" might be the simplest piece of advice in Pingsha. Although times have evolved rapidly, and even fringe live streamers could buy homes and cars, getting into a good university was still a matter of pride in a small place like Pingsha.

The evening had been too dreamlike, with a series of shocks leaving Li Yang somewhat numb. She was slow to realize certain things and only later did it dawn on her how much the person she called "Brother" actually was...

Her roommates were still chattering, either lamenting or cursing Xu, the water-carrying master. Regardless, they were now discussing Xu Qingyan as a celeb.

Li Yang found it impossible to associate the big brother who had backed her up in the fruit shop with the amateur love reality show contestant on the screen, and also Xu Qingyan casually chatting with two major stars at the dinner table.

After their rant, the roommates turned around to see Li Yang standing in the middle of the dorm, lost in thought, and couldn't help but be puzzled.

"Li Li, what's wrong with you?"

At their question, Li Yang snapped back to reality, her eyes showing a moment of panic before she hurriedly covered it up.

"It's nothing, I'm going to take a shower."

.....

Xu Qingyan didn't go home. With a calm face, he drove to the studio.

There had been too many things today, all piling up. There was no time to wait until tomorrow; he had to transcribe the score for "If You've Heard" by Lin Wanzhou tonight.

It was getting late, and the streets were slowly quieting down. He had been somewhat reserved during dinner, not because he liked it, but sometimes he had to be.

The Oiran would not solicit customers standing by the building; all who are out there to sell, being up in the high rise or down in the hook bars, are in entirely different realms.

The shady alleys will not harvest love, but modest and naive technicians can always become a client's eternal sweetheart. Love starts with the bell, but when the bell stops, the sentiments linger.

A song that one can easily book over a meal will only seem cheap.

Collaboration was just a pretense; behind Xu Qingyan stood the two little divas, Lin Wanzhou and Pei Muchan, who were his real capital. The one who writes hits for divas, and every song he writes takes off – that's his true value.

Xu Qingyan actually had plenty of time to write more songs; after all, it was just transcription, and if he pushed through the night, time could always be squeezed out. But in the end, it was just a transaction of money and goods, not all that interesting.

Lin Chuan wanted a song that would break through the circle, Jiang Ling simply wanted to revive her popularity.

As he drove, Xu Qingyan mulled things over and suddenly realized he was increasingly embodying the traits of a douchebag in the music and lyrics department. Juggling two pots on the stove while leaving two more dangling outside.

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Teacher Xu... haha, that title is too much black humor.

Agreeing wasn't that simple, at least not now. "I Am the King of Songs" hasn't aired yet, and the next episode hasn't been recorded.

Neither Pei Muchan's "Riding on a White Horse" nor Lin Wanzhou's "If You Also Heard" had been sung. Honestly, none of these were really big moves.

Headlights dispersed the darkness ahead, revealing a corner of the road, with the tech park not far ahead. He turned the steering wheel and entered through the main gate.

The bent fence at the entrance of the tech park still hadn't been replaced, but the lights had been changed at some point. A beam shone brightly on the black Audi's body.

The old man gave him a glance and pressed the remote to lift the fence.

The tires rolled over the dry road surface, all the way to the studio building downstairs. The first floor housed the staff offices, pitch dark, but he had the keys to the second floor.

Only he and Pei Muchan could enter the second floor; he clambered up the stairs, and with the lights turned on, the second floor instantly brightened up.

He hadn't walked far when Pei Muchan suddenly sent a message.

"Why are you going to the studio so late?"

The lights and equipment on the second floor were connected to the network; as soon as the lights here were switched on, Pei Muchan's phone would receive a notification.

Under the heavy night sky, Xu Qingyan was surprised she was still awake at such a late hour. From what he knew of Pei Muchan, she typically prepared for bed around ten o'clock.

"Got tied up with something in the afternoon, came back to pull an all-nighter."

The other side showed "typing..." for a while before finally sending a message.

"Did you pick up your sister?"

Xu Qingyan was walking to the composing room, feeling that Pei Muchan's phrasing was fine, yet something seemed off. Each word looked normal on its own, and together they still seemed normal.

But damn it, put together they started to taste like a reading comprehension test.

He instantly felt shrouded by the dread of high school reading comprehension tests, pondering whether he should start analyzing from the character's personality, or perhaps check his head.

Perhaps it was just an overactive imagination, Pei Muchan wasn't that boring.

"Picked her up, encountered some trouble, but it's been taken care of."

Just as he was about to send it, he felt that the word "taken care of" sounded too streetwise. So, he changed it to "solved" and quickly sent it off before pushing open the door to the composing room.

Pei Muchan replied with an "Okay" and then added a message, "There's also a blanket in my office."

As the night grew deeper, Xu Qingyan started transcribing music with his computer turned on.

On the desk sat a cup of instant coffee that had gone cold, only half-drinkable as too much would upset his stomach. Outside the window, the white noise of the waves accrued, making the night even more serene.

Around four in the morning, taking a break, Xu Qingyan leaned back in his chair and scrolled through his phone. At two a.m., Zhou Mian had sent him a message.

"Bro, you're trending again!"

"The popularity of the two young divas is insane! Totally different from when you're live streaming. The moment you're on the TV show, 'Love Hunter' blew up in popularity!"

He glanced over but didn't reply to Zhou Mian's message.

This damn dog only reports the good news; the show's popularity has exploded, and so has your dowry, down payment for a house, and renovation expenses.

But not a word about getting lambasted; he was practically on a hit list!

Xu Qingyan opened up the trending topics and casually browsed, seeing that, fortunately, not many were criticizing him. Most were just calling him a scumbag, telling the "Water Carrying Master" to drop dead and so on.

Maybe as the lyricist and composer of "Qing Tian", "I Miss" and "Always Very Quiet", he had gathered a small group of fans, including some old "love variety show" enthusiasts who had been following him since his live stream days.

Including true fans who came from following the variety shows, who could actually suppress those bashing him. They kept explaining for him, speaking up, and even retorting.

He raised an eyebrow, when did he get die-hard fans?

He clicked on the profile of the biggest fan account and saw, "Loves Watching Granny Take a Shower".