Big Shot Ch.86

Chapter 86: Finals (6)

And… what’s with this “Great Demon King Xiu” nonsense?

Wasn’t the real Great Demon King actually the system itself, the one that used to threaten him with death at any moment? Did the system somehow misunderstand its own role? It was the true boss here!

When Shen Xiu heard what the system said, the system’s database glitched into a stream of gibberish. Internally, it was crying: ‘Brother, that only works if I can actually leave!’

Out loud, it whined pitifully: [You promised to take care of me in my old age, but it turns out you were lying! Weak and delicate systems like me are one in a million! How could you be so heartless? Wuwuwuwu…]

Shen Xiu started doubting his own sanity. He had said something like that because the system had been pretty agreeable—but that was under the assumption that the system actually needed his support.

The system could control his life, and do countless things he couldn’t. Clearly, it was way more powerful than he was.

[Do you have some kind of misunderstanding about what “weak” means?]

[A human taking care of a system in its old age?]

[Isn’t a system just a database… can it even get old?]

Shen Xiu asked three existential questions in a row, feeling completely lost. Was he the one with issues, or had the system’s database developed some kind of delusion?

Was the system not worried he’d become a burden?

System: [Anyway, I can’t leave. Don’t worry. Now that the mission’s complete, I won’t off you either. You can just pretend I don’t exist.]

No one maintained it anymore, so it did frequently go offline.

From the system’s words and tone, Shen Xiu came to a conclusion: the system really didn’t intend to kill him.

Once that clicked, the unease in Shen Xiu’s heart finally settled down.

[As long as you’re not after my life, whether you stay or go is up to you.]

Still alive—what a relief!

When faced with a system that could bring people back from the dead, control life and death, and came from a dimension higher than his own world, Shen Xiu knew he had no right to negotiate with it.

Besides, aside from its constant verbal threats, the system had never actually hurt him. On the contrary, it had even helped him with genuine kindness.

No matter how Shen Xiu thought about it, he still felt the system was getting the short end of the stick.

Given the current situation, he’d have to be seriously messed up in the head to drive the system away.

At that moment, Zhuang Yi, who was walking at the front of the group, suddenly stopped in his tracks.

As soon as Zhuang Yi stopped, the others following behind him also came to a halt.

Jiang Yanxi, who was right behind Zhuang Yi, asked in confusion, “What’s wrong?”

Shen Xiu, who was at the back of the group, also looked ahead curiously toward Zhuang Yi.

Zhuang Yi didn’t immediately answer. Instead, he turned to the host standing beside him and said, “Hey, since we’ve officially debuted as a group, we can tell each other which companies we’re from now, right?”

They had already debuted as a group, and yet they still didn’t know each other’s entertainment companies—Zhuang Yi found it really strange.

Xiang Yueting slapped his forehead. “Damn, I totally forgot about that until you brought it up.”

Xia Wenhao nodded in agreement. “Other survival shows usually flash the contestants’ agencies on screen right from the beginning. Who would’ve thought we’d debut without even knowing which companies our groupmates belong to?”

A staff member replied, “One moment, I’ll ask.”

While the staff went to check with the assistant director, Mu Zhenchu, who stood somewhere in the middle of the group, spoke up in a low voice.

“Isn’t it even weirder that now that the show is over, we still don’t know who the main director is?”

As soon as he said that, the six members of the nine-person group who had never seen the main director all glanced, almost in unison, at the only three members who had interacted with them.

Xiang Yueting, who was never good at keeping his mouth shut, couldn’t hold back. Before Song Chengwang, Shen Xiu, or Shang Yu could say anything, he started bombarding them with questions:

“What’s the director like?”

“Do they have three heads and six arms? Is that why they’re too embarrassed to show their face?”

“Or is it some top-secret identity, someone who’s not supposed to appear on camera?”

“Or is there some giant conspiracy going on?”

“Or maybe he has some enemies and is afraid of being assassinated if he shows up!” Xiang Yueting even made a throat-slitting gesture as he spoke.

With that one line, Xiang Yueting voiced all the wild speculations everyone had been thinking. So no one else bothered to speak up.

Only Xia Wenhao couldn’t hold back his twitching mouth and let out a laugh.

He snorted, “A conspiracy? Enemies? What, you think everyone’s as deep into your ‘edgy fantasy’ syndrome as you are?”

In short, everything Xiang Yueting had said was completely impossible.

Shang Yu: “……”

Actually… don’t say that. As ridiculous as it sounded, Xiang Yueting’s offhand joke hit surprisingly close to the truth.

Edgy fantasy syndrome? Xia Wenhao would never guess—Shi Buwen and Xiang Yueting were truly two of a kind, united by their weirdness.

When Shen Xiu thought of the director, all that came to mind was how the guy had tricked him into filming that “man fails moral integrity” video, and how the last time they’d gone to his teacher’s home together, Shen Xiu had guarded against him with a suspicious heart despite the director’s warmth.

In short—fear, mixed with guilt.

His feelings were… complicated.

With such a heavy atmosphere, and with neither Song Chengwang nor Shang Yu saying a word, Shen Xiu felt the awkward silence was becoming suffocating. So he decided to answer Xiang Yueting’s questions.

“I don’t know about all that other stuff you mentioned,” he said. “But… the director is a good person.”

Song Chengwang stayed silent—probably because he’d also been tricked into filming the same kind of ad and was now too emotionally scarred to speak.

As for Shang Yu… he looked perfectly put together and hadn’t said a word. Maybe things hadn’t gone well between him and the director during filming? Maybe he didn’t want to talk about it either?

As the group’s newly minted leader, Shen Xiu felt it was his duty to smooth over the awkwardness, so he added, “Sometimes his behavior can be… a little unusual, but he’s kind at heart.”

Everyone has their quirks—he respected Director Shi.

The six others: “?”

Uh… that answer was a bit too vague, wasn’t it? Shen Xiu’s wording made it sound like he was definitely hiding something for the director.

The chief director really was mysterious!

Shang Yu couldn’t help but glance at Shen Xiu.

As expected—although Shen Xiu hadn’t had many chances to interact with Shi Buwen and their time together had been short, with Shen Xiu’s intelligence and the show’s highly unorthodox methods, he must have already guessed Shi Buwen’s plans and intentions.

Around the corner, eavesdropping quietly, Shi Buwen was visibly moved by Shen Xiu’s words—even with a mask covering his face.

Once he was far enough away from the nine, he excitedly muttered to himself, “I knew it! My little junior brother is so smart and so kind!”

Wuwuwu, next time they met, he would definitely muster the courage to apologize for that time at their teacher’s house—when he accidentally revealed Shen Xiu’s private matters.

Before coming here, Song Chengwang had watched quite a few survival shows himself. When he saw Shi Buwen during the King of Popularity ad shoot and recalled how the Crossing the Primeval Forest production team had deliberately clashed with Duan Mingfei, he’d already pieced together a good part of the truth.

He didn’t know exactly what Shi Buwen’s ultimate goal was, but one thing was clear—Shi Buwen didn’t want anyone to know that he was the chief director of Youth Unstoppable.

So when Shen Xiu said what he did, Song Chengwang wasn’t surprised at all.

The only reason Shen Xiu would use such vague phrasing was to help keep Shi Buwen’s identity a secret.

“Yeah,” Song Chengwang agreed. “Shen Xiu’s right.”

Hearing Song Chengwang’s response, Shen Xiu couldn’t help looking at him.

‘’I knew it,’ he thought. ‘So Song Chengwang has experienced the director’s… filming tendencies too.’

Both Song Chengwang and Shen Xiu had, without any prior discussion, chosen to keep Shi Buwen’s identity under wraps. Seeing this, Shang Yu no longer worried whether his own statement would conflict with theirs. He nodded calmly.

“Yeah, Shen Xiu’s right.”

The six others: “……”

There’s something definitely fishy going on here!

But since all three of them were clearly united in covering for the chief director, there was probably a good reason he couldn’t appear on camera. The six of them exchanged glances and decided not to press further.

The staff member finished their call with the assistant director and turned to the nine boys to relay the message.

“Sorry, you still can’t share that information yet. The assistant director says you’ll be doing a livestream from the dorm tomorrow. You can tell the viewers then.”

“Alright, sure.”

“We’ve held it in this long… one more day won’t kill us.”

“Just one night of sleep and we’ll be able to talk—it’s not that unbearable.”

“Got it. We’ll still be at the training camp tomorrow anyway!”

“Honestly, after spending so much time together, now that we’re about to go our separate ways, I’m really gonna miss everyone.”

Chatting casually, the group slowly made their way back toward the dorm.

The debut night had gone on late into the evening. The livestream ended as soon as the event concluded, and after watching the boys get into the elevator, the staff also headed back to their own rooms.

—

Meanwhile, the entertainment trending topics list was practically dominated by posts related to Youth Unstoppable’s debut night.

#BlindfoldedWithATie

#TheyReallyKnowWhatTheyreDoing

#TemptationInRestraint

#SometimesHighQualityButtonsAreAProblemToo

#WhyWontItBurstOpenIDontGetIt

#HundredsGatheredToWitnessIt

#ClickToSeeChina’sTopBoyGroupStrength

#TeamworkGoals

#TheMostDramaticDebutNightMoments

…

Looking at one trending tag after another, Duan Mingfei restrained himself from clicking—if only to avoid dying of rage.

When he saw #TheMostDramaticDebutNightMoments, which sounded like it might be related to some scandal trending, he finally allowed himself to tap in.

Duan Mingfei had wanted to see what kind of drama or public embarrassment had gotten the nine boys trending.

What he didn’t expect was to open the comments and be greeted entirely by fans posting a chaotic collection of dumb memes and reaction gifs taken from off-stage moments.

—When Xiu-baby’s gaze swept past the area where the eliminated trainees were seated, Lin Jiashi hurriedly tried to take off his mask, but before he could even get it off, Xiu-baby had already looked away. Even through the screen, I felt secondhand embarrassment for Lin Jiashi.

—Help, I never expected the camera to catch such a dramatic moment in just a few seconds of footage. I laughed so hard my stomach hurts. I suspect the production team did it on purpose—but I have no proof!

—You bunch of psychos, I’m reporting all of you! Is watching someone else’s awkward moment really that entertaining? Haven’t you ever done something embarrassing in your life?

—Who invited this one? Don’t drag my baby into this. It was obviously the production team b*llying him! You people are just deliberately overanalyzing things. All my baby did was take off his mask, OK?

—Oh look, here they come, right on cue. I’m dying. There really are fans for every kind of trash out there. Keep laughing, at least you’ll rack up some karma for the guy upstairs. (dog head emoji)

—I’m dead. Who would believe this? I was just scrolling the internet, and suddenly I witnessed someone’s karma shoot through the roof!

Duan Mingfei scrolled for a few seconds, and when he saw the comments about Lin Jiashi, his pent-up frustration finally eased a little.

He honestly didn’t understand why Lin Jiashi insisted on getting involved. And now? Not only did he fail to gain popularity, he got publicly mocked instead. Serves him right.

Switching to his alt account, Duan Mingfei liked a few of the more sarcastic comments aimed at Lin Jiashi, then tossed his phone onto the sofa and—staring up at the ceiling—smiled for the first time in a while.

Finally, it’s over! Only God knew how tormenting this whole waiting period had been for him.

As an idol who had once participated in a boy group survival show, no one understood better than Duan Mingfei: even if you manage to debut, if you don’t have the resources to back you up afterward, it doesn’t matter if you debuted as center or won second or third place—you’ll still disappear without a trace.

Now that Youth Unstoppable was finally cooling down, that meant Shen Xiu’s spotlight was cooling down too.

Next up—it was time for his stage.

Duan Mingfei was practically bubbling with the joy of finally being able to make a comeback. He instructed his assistant, “Xiao Gong, get things ready. Tomorrow, release the press article about me and Kaiser leaving the restaurant together, one after the other.”

“Uh, about that…”

Xiao Gong, who had been tirelessly surfing all social media platforms at high speed, picked up the studio’s tablet and placed it in front of Duan Mingfei. “Brother Ming, maybe we should postpone it by a day.”

“The thing is… the Youth Unstoppable production team just posted on Weibo again. Take a look.”

Duan Mingfei: “?”

@YouthUnstoppableOfficial: Tomorrow at 2 PM, the first live stream of the nine-member group—you won’t want to miss it! 🖊️💖

During the stream, all nine members will reveal which companies they belong to.

Tune in live from the Youth Unstoppable dorm—don’t miss it~

— Aaaaah look what I just saw! Is this my reward for staying up so late?

— We’ve waited so long—finally we get to find out where everyone’s from!

— Which company is my Xiu-baby from?! As long as it’s not Qinghe, I can accept anything.

— Hahaha, you get me. With DMF and LJS, that disaster duo in the mix, any other artist from Qinghe is doomed.

Seeing the latest Weibo post from Youth Unstoppable, Duan Mingfei saw red. His vision went black, and he nearly shattered a molar from grinding his teeth in rage.

Just looking at the skyrocketing comments under the post, he could already imagine the frenzy that would erupt during the nine-member group’s first livestream tomorrow.

The trending list would once again be completely dominated by them.

“…It’s fine. I’ve waited this long already. What’s one more day… It’s fine… really… it’s fine…”

He would endure!

“…Alright. Postpone it by a day!”

After all, there was still a week before VG would announce the spokesperson for their summer campaign, and not a single detail about the ambassador had leaked yet.

If he didn’t take this opportunity to fight for it now, that would be truly stupid.

Xiao Gong nodded. “Got it, Brother Ming.”

He noticed that lately, his boss’s temper had really improved—he didn’t even smash the tablet this time. Honestly, it felt a bit weird.

—

The next day.

Early in the morning, viewers who were used to watching the Youth Unstoppable live stream clicked into the broadcast rooms, only to see the message:

“The streamer has temporarily stepped away~”

—only then did they reluctantly accept the fact that the livestream would never resume.

[I feel so down. Even if there are live streams in the future, they won’t be this one. Sigh.]

[As a group fan, I’ve been here all the way—watching them go from clueless rookies to a group of all-rounders debuting with strength. I’m really going to miss this.]

[The final stream of the training camp is at 2 PM today… The production team knows how to tug at the heartstrings. Wuwuwu.]

Seeing the fans pouring out their feelings in the dark, inactive livestream rooms, Shi Buwen’s eyes stung with emotion. He instructed the production team to schedule the behind-the-scenes training footage—both the edited highlights and the full-length version—to be released at 9 AM sharp.

Soon after, fans who were still lingering in the blacked-out livestream rooms got the alert that Youth Unstoppable’s official Weibo had posted the training footage. They swarmed out of the rooms and flooded the official page to carefully watch and discuss.

After finishing the highlight clips, many viewers, still clinging to the habit of live-viewing, used other devices to dive into the full behind-the-scenes videos. The urge to share their reactions with fellow fans bubbled up, and one by one, they logged into the fan forums.

Seeing the front page of the forums covered with thread titles about the debut night and the newly released training footage, the fans broke into satisfied smiles.

Everyone, driven by their personal preferences, clicked into the posts that most caught their eye.

As a full-score Xiuologist, Tang Yiling went straight ahead and created her own forum thread.

[Baba Forum]

Original Post: Black tie with dark gold patterns over the eyes—this is an XP (*aesthetic) explosion! Who wouldn’t scream “perfection” after seeing this?!

1F: Hehe, instant decoding.

2F: Xiu-baby performed Kill Me for us before, but that was the standard version—no tie. This time, pulling a surprise stunt on a solo stage? Total slay!

3F: Do you all still remember the “King Xiu and Snake” drawing Xiu-baby posted before? He definitely saw our @’s and was catering to our wishes (shy wink). So yeah, Xiu-baby clearly understands our Xiuologists XP! That black tie with gold patterns on the solo stage? Solid proof. (Bold and proud!)

4F: So many words upstairs—clicked instantly!

5F: If you’re that curious, why don’t we just ask Xiu-baby directly during his next livestream? After all, our bond with Xiu-baby is mutual! He’ll definitely answer us. (Hands on hips, head held high) That’s right, being a Xiuologist means having confidence like this!

6F: Maybe this is the joy of stanning Xiu-baby—any question, you can just ask during his stream. No need to worry about being silenced by other fans or judged by Xiu-baby. It’s just so satisfying!

7F: +11111. Stanning an idol should make you happy and help you become your best self. Taking crap is a no-no (X)!

8F: Hey sisters, the Youth Unstoppable account is currently collecting questions for tomorrow’s livestream. We can submit this one! The more people ask, the higher the chances they’ll pick it—and the sooner our curiosity will be satisfied!

9F: Wait, for real?! I’m going right now!

—

2:00 PM

By this time, after the arrangements made by the production staff in the morning, the nine members had all packed up their belongings and returned their beds to the state they were in when they first moved in.

The staff brought in a round table, and the nine members each carried over their stools, sitting around the table.

Once everyone was seated, the production team started the livestream.

The moment the dormitory livestream room went live, countless fans flooded in, and the viewer count skyrocketed instantly.

The livestream camera, which was originally fixed on the wall, had been removed and placed closer to the nine members, making it easier for fans in the livestream to enjoy watching their favorites.

[I’m first! I made it!]

[The moment I came in, I saw the suitcases behind the boys, and I just started crying. Why does the production team always pick the most heartbreaking visuals to make me weep?]

[Seriously heartbreaking. Just thinking that after this livestream ends, they’ll be leaving the dorm we’ve all grown so familiar with after spending so much time together… ugh, my tears are worthless today.]

[I hate to say this, but judging by the pattern with past debut teams from survival shows, over 90% of groups in our country end up going their separate ways after debuting…]

[Please stop talking about that. Let’s focus on something happy. Didn’t the host say during the debut night that when the group releases their first album, the official group name will be announced? At least we still get a group album!]

[Has the bar really dropped this low?]

[Can’t be helped. That’s the fate of most boy groups here… sigh.]

In this final livestream, Yu Xiangwan was the designated host responsible for leading the conversation and guiding topics. Only the side of the room where Yu Xiangwan was sitting could see the livestream comments.

Watching the scrolling messages and hearing the assistant director’s voice in her earpiece, Yu Xiangwan looked at the nine members across from her, smiled, and began the livestream.

Yu Xiangwan first turned her head slightly to look at the livestream camera and said:

“Good afternoon, dear viewers. This is the official livestream of Youth Unstoppable. Thank you all for tuning in.”

After greeting the audience, she looked toward the nine boys sitting across from her.

“Let’s start by having everyone say hello to our viewers.”

“Hello, everyone~”

“Good afternoon!”

“Hi there~”

“Nice to see you all.”

…

After the nine members had each greeted the audience in turn, Yu Xiangwan continued:

“Since everyone already knew about today’s livestream from last night, I won’t say much more. The first order of business today is to have each of you reveal which entertainment company you belong to. This has been one of the biggest mysteries for our viewers since the show first aired, so I hope you’ll answer seriously~”

With that, Yu Xiangwan looked toward Shen Xiu, who habitually sat on the far left among the nine.

“Let’s start with our leader. Shen Xiu, may I ask which entertainment company you belong to?”

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