Chapter 9: Broadcast

All in all, amidst a sea of praise, Lu Xu could hardly find a single objective review of Gu Sinian’s acting.

Marketing accounts were hyping Gu Sinian to the skies, speaking as if he had already secured next year’s Best Newcomer Award. Lu Xu couldn’t understand why Lin Ge Entertainment was promoting Gu Sinian so early. In his view, Gu Sinian hadn’t fully grasped the character he was portraying.

To make matters worse, Gu Sinian’s screen time increased significantly starting from the second episode, with his appearances even surpassing Ren Ningyi’s.

Lu Xu silently shook his head.

After two episodes of The Watchers aired, it was already close to 10 p.m. In another two hours, My Baby Prince would also go live.

However, compared to the trending buzz around The Watchers, My Baby Prince didn’t even make it onto the trending topics once.

A few marketing accounts went out of their way to draw comparisons between the two shows:

[Both are former members of Verse, but the contrast between Lu Xu and Gu Sinian’s careers is just too stark!]

[Grape Films’ annual blockbuster vs. Chenxi Films’ low-budget web drama—what a brutal comparison.]

[This is what happens when Lu Xu bullies his teammates. Ever heard of karma?]

[…From the title to the trailer, everything about this is cringeworthy. Who even watches shows like that anymore?]

[Honestly, Lu Xu should just quit the entertainment industry and stop embarrassing himself.]

[+1. I don’t even want to see his name associated with the other members of Verse.]

Ever since rumors about him starring in My Baby Prince began circulating, the comment sections of various marketing accounts had taken on a uniform tone. Lu Xu had long grown accustomed to it.

In fact, because The Watchers premiered tonight, the fans of his former teammates in Verse were busy supporting that show. As a result, there were far fewer people criticizing him than usual.

Lu Xu had originally thought that tonight’s round of insults would eventually die down. After all, My Baby Prince wouldn’t premiere until midnight. Surely Gu Sinian’s fans wouldn’t stay up late just to keep attacking him, right?

Reality proved him far too naïve.

Just as Lu Xu finished purchasing a yearly membership for Chenxi Films, Yang Shu suddenly pinged him on WeChat:

[…I just came across this.]

Yang Shu sent over a screenshot. In it, Gu Sinian had just liked a tweet that read: “Lu Xu, a Z-list nobody, clinging to Gu Sinian for attention—how disgusting.”

Lu Xu looked it up. Gu Sinian’s like was still there, but the moment he refreshed the page, it was gone.

When Yang Shu first saw the like, he hesitated about whether to share it with Lu Xu. But on second thought, even if he didn’t send it, Lu Xu would’ve found out about it online sooner or later.

Before and after the premiere of The Watchers, My Baby Prince had repeatedly been dragged into comparisons. Although Gu Sinian’s fans were clearly targeting Lu Xu, he was the male lead of My Baby Prince!

Despite The Watchers stomping all over My Baby Prince multiple times, their small-budget crew had never responded to the provocations. And yet, that still wasn’t enough. Gu Sinian himself had to personally step in and humiliate Lu Xu.

Yang Shu vented to Ji Zhan:

[…I bet Gu Sinian’s going to claim it was an accidental like.]

[Of course he will.]

[Seriously, isn’t this pathetic? One minute he’s ‘forever loving Verse,’ the next he’s ‘accidentally liking’ shady posts. Who has more drama than this guy?]

Yang Shu couldn’t recall Lu Xu ever doing anything to provoke Gu Sinian. All he’d done was unfollow the other members of Verse.

If it were him in Lu Xu’s place, he would’ve unfollowed them ages ago if he had teammates like that.

Honestly, Lu Xu was already being far too gracious.

Not long after The Watchers began airing, Gu Sinian’s every move was being closely monitored. The moment he liked that post, marketing accounts quickly took screenshots and pushed it to the top of their feeds.

[It was just a slip of the hand. Please don’t drag in the Starlight Award nominee, the all-rounder in vocals and dance, Verse’s former visual and main dancer, and The Watchers’ only real rookie actor with actual skills, Gu Sinian. Thank you.]

[Slipping up is pretty common.]

[Besides, even if it wasn’t a slip, was Gu Sinian wrong to like the post?]

[LOL, is Lu Xu really losing his temper over this?]

As the phrase “Gu Sinian liked a post” began trending, one of Gu Sinian’s staff members stepped in to explain. They claimed they had accidentally liked the tweet while holding Gu Sinian’s phone and that there was no malicious intent on Gu Sinian’s part.

[Quick, go thank Gu Sinian. My Baby Prince is finally getting some attention now, isn’t it?]

Lu Xu scrolled through Weibo for a long time before he finally couldn’t resist replying to the comment about the “Starlight Award nominee, all-rounder in vocals and dance, former visual and main dancer of Verse…”

  • [Would all of those titles even fit in one room? You’d need four ID cards just to book a hotel.]

[…]

[HAHAHAHAHA!]

[Crazy, you made me laugh all of a sudden!]

[OMG, I’ve wanted to roast this for ages, but I was too scared of getting flamed.]

[As a non-Verse fan, is this Lu Xu’s sense of humor?]

But it didn’t stop there. Soon, people noticed Lu Xu’s account starting to like tweets as well.

[Doesn’t anyone else think Gu Sinian’s acting is pretty bad?]

Liked, then unliked.

[The Watchers is a decent show, but someone’s acting is really dragging it down. Is it okay to say that?]

Liked, then unliked.

[Gu Sinian? Tsk, such a try-hard.]

Liked, then unliked.

Like, unlike. Over and over again.

Netizens were baffled at Lu Xu’s lightning-fast online activity, marveling at how he managed to pick out all the posts mocking Gu Sinian amidst the flood of tweets.

In just a few minutes, Lu Xu had liked dozens of posts criticizing Gu Sinian. When asked, his explanation was simple: it was all just a slip of the hand.

Lu Xu’s relentless spree of liking and unliking posts seemed to embolden the pure drama fans of The Watchers to critique Gu Sinian’s acting. Even if Lu Xu’s actions were purely retaliatory, the posts he liked happened to voice what many viewers wanted to say but didn’t dare to.

And so, time dragged on until midnight.

By then, netizens had formed a clear impression of Lu Xu’s “madness.” Over the span of two hours, he had liked and unliked more than a hundred tweets criticizing Gu Sinian.

[A ruthless ‘slip-of-the-hand’ machine.]

[Isn’t Gu Sinian’s success enough for him? Why be so passive-aggressive toward a former teammate? Lu Xu hasn’t done anything to provoke you lately.]

[Not a fan, but I’ve always thought: Verse kicked Lu Xu out, so why keep harping on about ‘team camaraderie’? The three of you can perform just fine without dragging Lu Xu into it.]

[I suddenly feel bad for Lu Xu. I kind of want to support My Baby Prince now.]

Unexpectedly, Lu Xu’s antics piqued curiosity about My Baby Prince.

Previously, The Watchers and My Baby Prince weren’t even in the same league. Yet, thanks to the The Watchers team’s repeated comparisons, the two dramas were suddenly being discussed on equal footing.

Without Chenxi Films spending a single cent on marketing, the drama quietly climbed onto the trending charts after its premiere.

Of course, once it aired, the flood of criticism was relentless.

From Lu Xu’s perspective, if My Baby Prince weren’t his own drama, he wouldn’t even have had the courage to click on it.

When the title “Horse-racing Prince” was shouted dramatically by Pan Lingfeng’s sidekick, Lu Xu couldn’t help but cover his face in embarrassment. The secondhand embarrassment was unbearable.

But as the saying goes: if the actor doesn’t feel embarrassed, the scene won’t fall apart.

Although My Baby Prince had no semblance of logic, its sheer absurdity rendered logic irrelevant.

*

Tan Qi had purely been drawn to My Baby Prince by the fan wars among Verse’s supporters.

She had followed Verse for a while in the past. When she first got into them, Lu Xu was her bias. As a die-hard “face con,” she couldn’t resist his looks. Back when Verse had just debuted, she had attended a few offline events, and in her eyes, Lu Xu’s visuals easily outshone the other three members.

Although Lu Xu’s popularity quickly waned, marred by scandals, and the group’s messy disbandment left a sour taste, Lu Xu had been her first love in the world of idols—the first one she truly liked.

Tan Qi hadn’t followed idols in years. If not for seeing both Gu Sinian and Lu Xu trending together, she wouldn’t have even known that Lu Xu had starred in a web drama called My Baby Prince—a title that sounded outright idiotic.

Unable to sleep late at night and curious about Lu Xu’s rare appearance in a production, she opened Chenxi Films to see just how bad this drama was.

Whenever Tan Qi even hinted that she used to follow Verse, let alone admit she had once been a Lu Xu fan, she was inevitably met with ridicule. Over time, she stopped bringing it up.

This drama, then, was meant to be her final farewell to Lu Xu.

After all, she had once genuinely liked him. Tan Qi didn’t want to say anything too harsh about him because it felt like denying her younger self.

No matter what Lu Xu had become now, during Verse’s meteoric rise, he had brought her genuine joy.

Deep down, Tan Qi always felt that Lu Xu wasn’t as irredeemable as people made him out to be.

Anyone who had followed Verse in its early days knew how popular Lu Xu had been. He had consistently stood in the center for group promotions and endorsements. It was only later that he was gradually sidelined. Compared to his teammates, Lu Xu’s opportunities were noticeably fewer. Lin Ge Entertainment had even leveraged his popularity to secure resources for other members. Fans had protested this, but their efforts had been in vain.

So how was it that, just as Verse was on the brink of disbanding, a flood of scandals about Lu Xu suddenly emerged?

After the group disbanded, the trajectories of the four Verse members couldn’t have been more different. If Lu Xu really was as despicable as the scandals made him out to be, how could he have ended up so pitiful—reduced to starring in a lousy web drama?

But thinking about it now was pointless.

Tan Qi understood all too well: Lu Xu had no chance of making a comeback.

If his current options were limited to projects like My Baby Prince, then it was only a matter of time before he wouldn’t even have access to roles in such low-quality productions.

The entertainment industry was flooded with stars who shone brightly for only a moment. The lucky ones might manage to hang on for a bit longer; the unlucky ones vanished without a trace.

The moment Tan Qi clicked on the first episode of My Baby Prince, she was floored by its garish visual style.

She had watched enough dramas to know that modern productions often strived for a refined cinematic quality. The bigger the budget, the darker and moodier the color palette tended to be, as seen in The Watchers.

But My Baby Prince? Its signature aesthetic was a kaleidoscope of bright, saturated hues. From the aristocratic Ariel Academy to the flamboyant “Horse-racing Prince” Pan Lingfeng, everything was so over-the-top that Tan Qi had countless complaints ready to spill.

Why were there no horses? No cars? What exactly was Pan Lingfeng galloping on?

At least the production team had some basic aesthetic sense. They had spared the audience from the cringe-worthy neon hairstyles of the kawaii-metal era.

Taking a deep breath, Tan Qi decided to stick it out for a second episode.

Perhaps adding to the view count could improve Lu Xu’s situation—maybe even help him secure another project in the future.

As the story unfolded in the first episode, Tan Qi noticed something surprising: the two lead actors were well-cast.

Pan Lingfeng and Zhong Baobei’s actors were obviously young, radiating a youthful energy. Their good looks fit the bill for the title My Baby Prince. Zhong Baobei wasn’t the stereotypical weak and overly dramatic “damsel in distress.” Her bright, radiant smile, coupled with the sparkle in her eyes, made her incredibly likable.

For now, Tan Qi decided to hold off on judgment. At least the leads were easy on the eyes.

From their appearances, the two characters were definitely up to standard.

Tan Qi couldn’t quite figure out why, but female leads in recent years all seemed to carry an air of deep sorrow. Even when acting in youth dramas, they often wore expressions of distress.

After getting used to the over-the-top style, Tan Qi realized that she could actually stick with the storyline of My Baby Prince…

When Zhong Baobei first entered the campus, she encountered the cocky Pan Lingfeng. Unlike the typical male leads in shoujo manga who went out of their way to bully the heroine, Pan Lingfeng only looked a bit roguish but wasn’t a bad person at heart.

After Zhong Baobei became his desk mate, his class of scum students faced the challenge of the class of top students. As a new student, Zhong Baobei became his only hope. So this group of overly arrogant underachievers humbled themselves and sought her advice on study techniques.

When the bullies aggressively approached Zhong Baobei, it turned out they only wanted her help with homework tutoring!

They didn’t want to cheat but also didn’t want to lose too miserably.

After dedicating themselves to intense studying, they shamelessly bragged about staying up until 10 p.m. to study—though in reality, every single one of them had studied past 11 p.m., hadn’t they?

As Tan Qi watched, she found herself thinking that this group was actually… kind of cute?

Zhong Baobei, on the other hand, wasn’t some pitiful girl who accidentally ended up in a noble academy. When she needed to be assertive, she was. Especially during tutoring sessions, a single glance from her carried such a commanding air that the group of underachievers and bullies didn’t dare make a sound.

Still… for some reason, Tan Qi couldn’t shake the feeling that Pan Lingfeng’s outfit looked strangely familiar, as if she had seen it somewhere before, though she couldn’t recall where.

Even though the so-called noble academy didn’t seem to have much money, and the gallant noble prince couldn’t afford a luxury car, Tan Qi somehow found herself unknowingly finishing the first episode.

She had set her expectations for My Baby Prince incredibly low, mentally preparing herself for it to be terrible. However, after watching the first episode, she realized it wasn’t at all what she had imagined.

She felt that the production team of My Baby Prince was fully aware of its own limitations—they knew they were working on a low-budget show with flawed logic and clichéd plot points. So, when it was time to lean into the chaos, they did so unapologetically.

Yet, because of this sharp self-awareness, Tan Qi didn’t feel any sense of incongruity while watching the show.

In the second episode, Lu Xu’s portrayal of Yu Wei finally made its debut.

Ever since taking on the role, Lu Xu had been relentlessly criticized, so Tan Qi didn’t have high hopes for him to perform exceptionally.

Gu Sinian had taken on The Watcher, a high-budget production, and Lin Ge Entertainment had even arranged an acting coach for him. However, Gu’s performance in The Watcher had still felt jarring. Compared to that production’s resources and cast, My Baby Prince couldn’t hold a candle to it.

And yet—

From Yu Wei’s very first scene, Tan Qi couldn’t help but let out a scream!

Even though the lighting remained overly bright and the production quality still looked painfully cheap, the face that appeared on her screen was astonishingly handsome.

She had been following many new dramas lately, but in recent years, she had definitely not come across a character more handsome than Yu Wei.

Unlike the dazzling stage makeup of Lu Xu’s Verse era, Yu Wei’s styling was much simpler—just a light layer of powder, perhaps—yet it perfectly showcased Lu Xu’s striking facial features.

In fact, when the character turned around, Tan Qi immediately grasped his personality—he seemed to be a gentle yet melancholic soul.

There were plenty of aloof characters in dramas, but younger actors often portrayed them by being stiff or expressionless, making it hard for the audience to understand what was going on in their minds.

Yu Wei, however, was nothing like that.

His face wasn’t overly expressive or exaggerated. Though his personality was quiet, he didn’t wear the same expression in every scene.

The way he looked at Zhong Baobei—Tan Qi replayed that moment over and over with her mouse.

Yu Wei never said he liked Zhong Baobei, and even his body language remained restrained. Yet, in that fleeting moment, anyone who saw the look in his eyes would have no doubt that he had fallen for Zhong Baobei at first sight.

Tan Qi felt that perhaps it was because he was so calm and quiet, like the night itself, while Zhong Baobei was the warm sunlight that could disperse the darkness.

In this episode, Yu Wei’s screen time wasn’t long. He merely showed his face and exchanged a few lines with Zhong Baobei. Yet, Lu Xu managed to fully bring this character’s presence to life.

With his handsome features, slender fingers, and eyes brimming with affection restrained by his composed demeanor, Yu Wei’s feelings were unmistakable.

Tan Qi wouldn’t openly praise Lu Xu’s acting as extraordinary, but to her, the way he looked at Zhong Baobei felt like he was pressing piano keys on her heart. Each note struck her deeply.

It was as though she had been transported back to the first time she watched an idol drama.

Back then, the handsome leads she admired didn’t seem like much now, but they could make her teenage heart explode with excitement.

Tan Qi had initially expected to see an exaggerated performance or, at best, a lifeless Yu Wei portrayed by a stiff, expressionless Lu Xu.

However, in the drama, Yu Wei’s presence felt natural and unforced. His gaze carried both fervor and subtlety, making the character seem vividly real.

Lu Xu’s performance surpassed her expectations.

Even though My Baby Prince was a low-budget, poorly received drama that she had clicked on purely to boost its view count, she now found herself genuinely intrigued.

After two episodes—and repeatedly replaying Yu Wei’s scenes—Tan Qi finally logged out of Chenxi Films and Television’s platform, only to realize it was nearly 2 a.m.

Before exiting, she deliberately checked the popularity metrics for My Baby Prince. Both the first and second episodes had over 5,000 views.

This number… was better than she had expected.

The Watcher had surpassed 10,000 views on its first day of release, thanks to its star-studded cast, including veteran actors like Yue Hui and Ren Ningyi, as well as popular celebrity Gu Sinian. It was clear to everyone that Grape Films and Television had poured its heart—and budget—into this production.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that if The Watcher hadn’t broken 10,000 views on its premiere, it would have been an insult to Grape Films’s no-expense-spared marketing campaign.

But what did My Baby Prince have?

Lu Xu was no longer relevant, and both Yang Shu and Xia Xuewen were just rookies.

Tan Qi added both shows to her watchlist.

The Watcher was good, but My Baby Prince’s storyline… wasn’t bad either.

She could appreciate the heavy, serious plot of a drama like The Watcher, but she also enjoyed the silly and satisfying moments in a youth drama like My Baby Prince.

Although it was already very late, Tan Qi still couldn’t fall asleep. Lying in bed, she opened Weibo and searched for the keyword “My Baby Prince.” The live discussion about the show wasn’t particularly active, but when she searched “Lu Xu,” she found plenty of kindred spirits:

[Suddenly realized Lu Xu is super handsome!]

[Where did My Baby Prince’s stylist come from? Lu Xu’s look is actually great!]

[Did Lu Xu look like this during his Verse days?]

[I always thought Lu Xu was just a filler in Verse, and the cold, melancholic handsome guy wasn’t his vibe at all—but he actually pulled it off!]

[Who would’ve thought I’d get hooked on a trashy drama in the middle of the night?]

Discussions were limited late at night, but the next morning, Tan Qi was surprised to find that amidst the trending topics dominated by The Watcher, My Baby Prince had managed to snag a spot in the top ten.

What was more notable was the difference in their trending posts. The Watcher’s tags were driven by marketing accounts, with most of the comments coming from fans. Meanwhile, although My Baby Prince wasn’t as popular, the discussions were clearly spontaneous and fan-driven, with no standardized formats—just genuine chatter among viewers.

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