Superstar Ch.57

Chapter 57: Reasonable and Well-Founded

Xie Xizhao and Ji Yan sat together, with a phone placed on the table in front of them.

The sound coming from the speaker was noisy and intense. Every second of it was filled with content so repulsive that it made one’s stomach churn.

After three minutes and forty-two seconds, the recording finally ended amidst their manager’s surprised exclamation: “What are you two doing?” Ji Yan unconsciously pressed his lips together and watched as Xie Xizhao turned off the screen.

It took him quite a while before he finally spoke. “Jiang Wenhai managed to keep this thing hidden for so long… That’s really…”

Really what?

Ji Yan didn’t know how to describe it.

Coming from a big company, he had always had a smooth journey in the industry. Thanks to his good looks and pleasant personality, everything had gone well for him from the moment he joined. The people around him were kind, and as the youngest in the company, he had always been doted on by his older colleagues.

This was the first time he had come face-to-face with the dark side of the industry.

That’s just how people are. They grow, little by little, through seemingly insignificant experiences.

Sometimes, that process was painful.

Of course, Ji Yan himself hadn’t realized the shift in his mindset. He only felt shocked and disgusted. Steadying his emotions, he finally asked, “Brother, what do you plan to do?”

He paused for a moment before adding, “Yun Pan’s popularity must be really high right now.”

Xie Xizhao had already learned about this from Fang Qingqing the night before. Along with that, he had also learned something about himself.

The latter wasn’t important for now. The former, however, was an absolute opportunity for them.

Xie Xizhao said, “Jiang Wenhai doesn’t want to step forward.”

Ji Yan froze for two seconds.

Then, he let out a derisive laugh.

“How obedient of him.”

“He has a contract, so it’s indeed inconvenient for him. After all, even though Xia Ruiyan withdrew from the competition, he might return,” Xie Xizhao said without elaborating further. “Forget about him. I’ll go talk to the production team.”

Ji Yan stood up. “Should I go with you?”

Xie Xizhao shook his head. “You stay out of it.”

He added, “Go hang out with Yun Pan for a while. I’ve already talked to him about this.”

Ji Yan pressed his lips together.

He knew that Xie Xizhao didn’t want him to get involved.

He couldn’t help but say, “Actually…”

He wanted to say that, in truth, this matter had nothing to do with Xie Xizhao either. But as the words reached his lips, they felt inappropriate. After all, Yun Pan was also on good terms with him, so saying that might come across as indifferent.

Still, taking a stand was one thing—he knew he wasn’t the type to go as far as Xie Xizhao.

At most, he could offer some words of comfort.

And spend more time with his friend.

In the end, without saying much else, he simply remarked, “Panpan is lucky to have met you.”

Xie Xizhao paused for two seconds before smiling.

“Bring me back some food.”

Ji Yan flashed an “OK” sign at him and watched as he walked out the door.

—

Xie Xizhao actually knew what Ji Yan wanted to say.

But he never felt like he was making some kind of sacrifice. Both of his parents were intellectuals, and they had always taught him to help others whenever possible. Throughout middle and high school, he had been the class president, and before the car accident, he had just been elected student council president.

Some things had simply become second nature to him.

That was also one of the reasons he was so good at communication.

The only thing that gave him a bit of a headache was that, back in school, things had been simple—there weren’t so many hidden agendas. After entering the system, his system privileges had once been akin to the will of the world in smaller realms. Now, all he had left was a dice for entertainment, and he was still getting used to it.

However…

Xie Xizhao thought for a moment.

It wasn’t a big problem.

Taking an extra detour and using one force against another—it was just a matter of borrowing strength to counter strength.

With that in mind, he knocked on the door of the director’s office.

A tired voice came from inside. “Who is it? The door’s unlocked.”

Xie Xizhao responded politely, “Director Ma, it’s me.”

The noise inside the room instantly ceased.

A moment later, the door opened, revealing Ma Hongping’s somewhat unnatural expression.

—

It wasn’t just unnatural—Ma Hongping had been thoroughly startled.

He and Lu Yan had been keeping a close watch on Xie Xizhao these past few days, but to be honest… the results had been rather underwhelming.

Audiences these days weren’t fools. The fact that the show had been suppressing Xie Xizhao to this extent was already glaringly obvious. Even if something were true, fans would still have doubts, let alone when it was just baseless slander.

The second public performance had been simply stunning. Even though there had only been 500 people in the audience, Ma Hongping suspected that every single one of them had become a die-hard supporter.

It was only later that he learned why the final tally had been 497 votes instead of 500—two votes had been lost due to malfunctioning voting devices, and the last one? Apparently, it was from a middle-aged man in his forties who had been so caught up in dancing that by the time he remembered to cast his vote, the window had already closed.

Ma Hongping had been utterly speechless.

In short, Super Rookie had never seen so many audience reports from a recording session before.

Of course, Yaoxin wasn’t about to let such an opportunity slip away. The power of money worked its magic once again, pushing several interesting audience reports to trending topics. One meme after another spread across the internet, even drawing in casual viewers who just wanted to see what this so-called “god-tier performance” was all about.

These past few days, Ma Hongping had felt like he was struggling on the verge of collapse.

The only good news was that She nghong was taking this matter seriously. They had orchestrated several waves of more sophisticated narrative manipulation, and while public opinion was still overwhelmingly one-sided, a few dissenting voices had begun to emerge.

These voices primarily fell into two categories.

The first could be summed up as rebellion against hype:

[Why is there so much marketing? Are they using paid bots now? The performance hasn’t even aired yet, and they’re hyping it up this much. I hate media-manipulated celebrities.]

[I swear I’m about to start hating this just out of spite… They keep repeating ‘legendary performance’ over and over. Even fans shouldn’t overdo it—what if it turns out to be just average? That would be so embarrassing.]

[Can you guys chill? Is this ever going to end? Do you really have to step on other contestants just to praise your bias?]

The second category was laying the groundwork for an evil edit:

[Xie Xizhao’s fans are so arrogant. Has his black history been cleared yet? Stop hyping him up before cleaning up his mess. Low-tier clout chasers like him should get out of the show.]

[I don’t get why people are praising a ‘legendary performance’ that was built on exclusion and clique politics. So, popular contestants’ dreams are dreams, but lesser-known ones don’t matter? Sacrificing the underdogs just to pave your own way is disgusting.]

This kind of manipulation was nothing new—it was all about magnifying ‘black history’ while sweeping unfavorable facts under the rug.

One approach relied on stalling tactics, suppressing the hype before the performance aired. The other worked in sync with the show’s production team, since Xie Xizhao couldn’t exactly come forward and clear things up himself.

As for the 497 votes and Xia Xize’s interaction with Xie Xizhao on the night of the performance, the paid trolls conveniently pretended those never happened.

Ma Hongping had to admit—he was impressed.

Impressed, and also a little guilty.

So when he heard Xie Xizhao’s voice outside the door, his first instinct was that the guy had come to settle scores with him—he nearly fell out of his chair.

Feeling embarrassed by his own reaction, he couldn’t help but feel uneasy as he looked at Xie Xizhao now.

“Xizhao, what brings you here?” Ma Hongping asked.

Xie Xizhao looked at him, his bare face making him appear pure and innocent.

He raised the USB drive in his hand and said, ever so obediently, “Director, I’m here to report something.”

—

Fifteen minutes later, a heavy silence filled the room.

Once Ma Hongping confirmed that Xie Xizhao wasn’t here to report the show itself—uh, he meant, that Xie Xizhao was indeed only here to report something else—he let out a brief sigh of relief.

Then, he immediately realized that this was no small matter either.

He frowned. “If this is true, then it’s a serious character issue.”

That was an honest statement.

However, as he listened to Xie Xizhao explain the situation in detail, other thoughts began surfacing in his mind.

Wenyao had recently been in contact with the show’s production team. Meanwhile, the platform’s attitude toward this whole matter had remained somewhat ambiguous. One reason for that was their dissatisfaction with Xia Ruiyan.

It was mostly an issue of positioning.

The five-member group they were forming already had Qiao Ye, the rap specialist, and Ai Qingyuan, the ace—both of whom had strong, dominant styles. Adding Xia Ruiyan on top of that? The overlap was just too much.

By comparison, Yun Pan’s style was actually quite unique among the top-ranked contestants.

Even Lu Xing, who also had a baby face, had positioned himself with a clean and youthful image—and in truth, he wasn’t that young.

What this group really needed was a maknae.

And now, with Yun Pan’s skyrocketing popularity from the latest performance…

“Director Ma?” Xie Xizhao’s voice pulled him back to reality.

Ma Hongping cleared his throat. “The production team is aware of this matter. We will handle it seriously.”

“How seriously?” Xie Xizhao asked.

Ma Hongping: “…”

He looked at Xie Xizhao, who still had that perfectly innocent expression.

Ma Hongping had to force himself to suppress the thought: ‘Is he interrogating me?’

His smile faded as he composed himself. “We will contact Wenyao, and then…”

“Release a withdrawal statement?” Xie Xizhao interjected.

Ma Hongping choked on his words.

But after thinking about it carefully—if Xia Ruiyan was confirmed to have violent tendencies, then there was no way the platform would allow him to stay in the debut group as a ticking time bomb. Even if Wenyao wanted to protect him, at best, they would find a more graceful excuse for him to withdraw.

With that in mind, there was no point in being vague anymore.

He answered directly, “Yes.”

Xie Xizhao nodded. “In that case, I’ll leave the recording with the production team. It would look more official if it were released through you.”

Ma Hongping: “…”

“What?”

Xie Xizhao looked at him and patiently explained, “The live recording of Xia Ruiyan b*llying Yun Pan.”

Then, as if suddenly realizing something, he added with an apologetic tone, “Oh, I think I forgot to mention it earlier—it’s on this USB drive.”

Ma Hongping: “…………”

That was definitely on purpose!

His mouth twitched as he watched Xie Xizhao casually place the USB drive on the table.

“I actually already gave it to my manager,” Xie Xizhao continued. “She was helping me contact some marketing accounts. You know how these things are—verbal accusations alone don’t hold much weight. It’s always better to have solid evidence. It was supposed to go out tonight, but I figured I should check in with you first.”

He paused, then added even more sincerely, “After all, Xia Ruiyan is one of the contestants on the show. I thought you guys deserved to know.”

At that point, Ma Hongping could no longer hear anything else.

One word echoed in his mind:

Marketing accounts.

And everyone knew what those people were capable of.

The most chaos-loving people in the world.

And marketing accounts? Most of them were connected. If one knew, chances were their entire internal group chat already knew. And these accounts had close ties with major entertainment companies…

Ma Hongping almost lost control of his expression.

This wasn’t just about “solid evidence.”

This was basically handing Wenyao’s competitors a massive scandal on a silver platter, practically begging them to kick Wenyao while they were down.

With this, Wenyao had no way out. Their only option was to swap contestants. Not only that, but Xia Ruiyan’s career was over. Wenyao couldn’t protect him, and even his family would be powerless.

With concrete evidence in hand, their rivals would make sure he learned a lesson.

After all, the entertainment industry had never lacked power struggles.

Ma Hongping took a deep breath. “…Alright, I understand.”

“Thank you, Director,” Xie Xizhao said.

Then, after a brief pause, he added, “You’re a good person.”

Ma Hongping’s eyelid twitched. The USB drive in his hand nearly slipped onto the table at that unexpected compliment.

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