Chapter 107.2: Confirmed to Star in Immortal Path
After reading the gossip post and the comment section, Xuan Ji had the expression of an old man on the subway looking at his phone—completely baffled and speechless.
He firmly believed Zhao Heng was right—Shen Xiu must have seen those rumors and decided there was no point in replying anymore.
Thinking back to Lin Jiashi’s performance in Youth Unstoppable, Xuan Ji logged into the official Immortal Path Weibo account and, full of disdain, began typing.
Thankfully, Xuan Ji still had some sense. Since Shen Xiu hadn’t agreed yet, he didn’t dare publicly declare that Shen Xiu had always been the only candidate he had in mind for the role of Li Yang.
@ImmortalPathOfficial: Please, I’m already going through enough. Can you not associate with us, okay? //@EntertainmentGossip: Insider scoop—role of Li Yang in “Immortal Path” confirmed, say no more, look at the pictures (dog head emoji) [image x6]
—WTF, what is this? Did I read that right? I heard your investors already bailed, and you’re still this tough? @LinJiashi care to comment?
—What kind of nonsense is this? That marketing account is making things up again. When did our Jia-baby ever say he was going to play Li Yang?
—So this basically means you’d rather have no investors than have anything to do with @LinJiashi?
—So ungrateful. Take Jia-baby away, we’re not interested! Our Jia-baby wouldn’t even look at this trash production, okay~
—LMAO, huge meltdown from the fans. Just a second ago y’all were hugging Immortal Path under the marketing post, now that they’ve clarified, suddenly it’s the marketing account’s fault?
Lin Jiashi stared at Immortal Path’s official denial, his face turning red, then pale, then red again.
What should have been a done deal fell through just like that. Who wouldn’t be furious? Lin Jiashi, completely livid and about to explode, began bombarding Du Heng with voice messages.
“An entire day’s passed and you still haven’t found out who stole my role?”
“What do I even pay you people for?”
“Useless trash!”
…
One message after another came in. Du Heng didn’t even need to listen—he already knew Lin Jiashi was throwing another tantrum. He simply played dead and ignored it.
He was curious, though—just who was this other industry darling who managed to snatch such a small web drama role from under Lin Jiashi’s nose?
Both Lin Jiashi and Du Heng were absolutely certain it couldn’t be Shen Xiu, since Immortal Path’s social media team had accidentally revealed in an earlier reply to fans that Shen Xiu had refused to play the role of Li Yang.
—
At 9 p.m., after taking calls from every driver and designated driver to confirm that all his friends had made it home safely, and after tiring out his kitten until it fell asleep, Shen Xiu—having spent nearly the entire day mentally preparing himself—finally worked up the courage to open Weibo.
There were too many DMs, so Shen Xiu went straight to the search bar and looked up the official Immortal Path account. From their homepage, he tapped into the private messages tab. He had no interest in gossip and had no idea that the Immortal Path team had already publicly refuted the rumors.
The moment he opened the private messages, not expecting anything at all, Shen Xiu saw the reply from Immortal Path and blinked in disbelief.
“!”
“System, I think my eyes are malfunc—”
System: [This system has verified that your eyes are functioning properly. What you’re seeing is 100% real.]
The system couldn’t lie to him.
Which meant—it was all true!
After the initial shock, Shen Xiu paused for a few seconds, still confused as he muttered, “But why?”
System: [Li Yang’s official height is 189 cm. He’s strong, fierce, can take on gods or devils, and has an arrogant, over-the-top aura. Lin Jiashi? You really think he fits that role? If you were the director, would you choose Lin Jiashi?]
The system believed that Xuan Ji’s choice was entirely reasonable—and showed excellent judgment.
After listening to the system, Shen Xiu seriously compared Lin Jiashi to Immortal Path’s character Li Yang. Without hesitation, he said, “No way.”
Having stayed up all night to finish reading the entire novel, Shen Xiu had also browsed through the comments section. For a director to cast Lin Jiashi as Li Yang—that kind of decision would seriously weigh on your conscience!
System: [……]
That was such a brutally honest comment, the system tried imagining itself as Lin Jiashi—yeah, that would definitely cause instant cardiac arrest out of sheer rage.
Thanks to the system’s playful banter, Shen Xiu finally calmed down from the shock of the unexpected good news. Containing his excitement, he followed the instructions in the message and added Immortal Path’s contact on WeChat.
Xuan Ji, seeing the new friend request, was so excited that his hands were shaking as he accepted it.
Immortal Path Contact: Is this really Shen Xiu?!
Seeing the question, Shen Xiu thought the other person suspected he was an impostor and quickly typed a reply:
Shen Xiu: It’s really me.
Immortal Path Contact: Mr. Shen, please rest assured—our filming location is in the same city. Li Yang doesn’t have too many scenes, and we plan to shoot them all together, mainly over weekends. If you have any questions or special requests, feel free to bring them up. We promise to accommodate you however we can!
Immortal Path Contact: If possible, could you connect me with your agent so we can discuss the contract details? What do you think?
Xuan Ji, who wasn’t even supposed to be handling communications, was so afraid Shen Xiu might disappear again that he impulsively dumped everything he wanted to say into that one burst of messages.
Looking at the two back-to-back messages in the chat box, Shen Xiu had only one thought:
Everyone working on Immortal Path is so nice. Even after he’d turned them down once, they were still this warm and enthusiastic—if that’s not kindness, what is?
But then—
Agent?
Seeing those words on the screen, Shen Xiu suddenly remembered—he didn’t have an agent.
The system, eager and ready, chimed in: [What about me? Think I’m qualified?]
Shen Xiu thought about it briefly—and immediately understood.
The system liked making money. Being an agent meant an extra stream of income. Shen Xiu understood that kind of don’t-want-to-miss-a-single-dollar mindset. Besides, he was debt-free and unburdened at the moment, and the system had helped him so much already. Letting it earn some money? Absolutely fine.
Plus… the other person typed too fast. Their messages came in rapid-fire, while he was still slowly thinking about how to reply.
Considering he had first refused and now shamelessly turned around and asked for the role, the fact that the Immortal Path team didn’t reject him and even responded so enthusiastically made Shen Xiu feel even more guilty.
He didn’t want to keep them waiting any longer—if the system handled it, things would move a lot quicker.
Without hesitation, Shen Xiu said, “You are. Thank you—appreciate it!”
System: [Not a problem!]
Meanwhile, on the other end, Xuan Ji had sent his message and waited a grueling 30 seconds with no reply. He began pacing anxiously around the room.
“Crap, crap, crap. Shen Xiu’s ignoring me—did I talk too much?”
“Well, yeah, Shen Xiu’s the quiet, reserved type, and I just dumped a wall of text on him. Of course he doesn’t like that…”
Maybe… he should retract the message?
Just then, the system finished setting up a WeChat account and popped into Shen Xiu’s contact list: [Push me over.]
“Okay.”
Shen Xiu responded aloud and forwarded the system’s contact.
He resisted the urge to look at the system’s WeChat name, which proudly read “Xiu Xiu Studio,” and typed:
Shen Xiu: I think everything’s great. No need to be so formal—just call me Shen Xiu. This is my agent.
Immortal Path Contact: Great!
Seeing Shen Xiu’s reply and the forwarded contact card, Xuan Ji finally let out a huge sigh of relief.
Thank goodness—his enthusiasm hadn’t scared Shen Xiu off!
…
After ending the conversation, Shen Xiu leaned back on the sofa, his whole body finally relaxing. Even though he had just been typing through a screen and speaking with a stranger, he still felt more mentally exhausted than if he had spent the entire day writing a film critique.
When it came to socializing, Shen Xiu had to admit—he was exactly the kind of “clumsy but eager” person that Shang Yu had described earlier in the day…
Thinking of his class schedule and upcoming driving lessons this semester, Shen Xiu stood up and quietly walked into the study to start organizing everything.
—
Twenty minutes later, having completed his full-semester planning chart, Shen Xiu said to the system:
“I’ve sorted out the busy and free days during classes. You can use this to coordinate with the Immortal Path crew.”
The system, in the middle of boasting to Xuan Ji, was caught off guard by this. It looked at Shen Xiu’s computer screen in stunned silence.
‘Heh… truly a man more like a system than the system itself.’
The system quietly scanned the entire schedule into its storage: […Got it.]
—
With the group album’s first recording session scheduled for the next two days, Shen Xiu didn’t want to make any mistakes as the team leader. Determined not to set a bad example, he went to the practice room—now equipped with mirrors—to review and strengthen his skills.
Meanwhile, Shen Xiu had no idea that the system, now fully embracing its extroverted “social butterfly” side, had already hopped into a voice chat with Xuan Ji to negotiate.
Xuan Ji stared at the schedule the system sent him, stunned: “You really are Shen Xiu’s agent! That’s amazing!”
The plan laid out Shen Xiu’s entire semester in detail—every class, appointment, and available day clearly marked. With just one glance, the crew could instantly tell when Shen Xiu was free, making it much easier to schedule his filming sessions.
The system replied in a faintly weary tone: [Shen Xiu made it himself. I just hit send.]
Xuan Ji: “…I underestimated him!”
The system sent a weary smile emoji: [You’ll get used to it.]
“I just want to confirm one more time—Shen Xiu is really going to play Li Yang in Immortal Path, right?” Everything was going so smoothly, it felt like a dream. Xuan Ji couldn’t help but worry it was all too good to be true.
System: [Confirmed!]
Since it was an open secret in the industry that Shen Xiu and Lin Jiashi had bad blood, Xuan Ji wasn’t sure if Shen Xiu would want to go public with the role now just to spite Lin Jiashi. So he cautiously asked, “We’re thinking of waiting until the full cast is finalized before making a group announcement—would that be okay?”
The system knew that Shen Xiu didn’t even spare Lin Jiashi a second thought, so it replied:
[That’s fine.]
—
The next day.
Per Shi Buwen’s instructions, Shen Xiu sat on the couch with his notebook, staring at the prewritten conversation scripts. One by one, he made calls, waking up his teammates while also sending them the address Shi Buwen had provided.
Just to be safe, Shen Xiu also posted the address in the group chat for all nine members.
After Shen Xiu finished his calls and left, the system looked at the notebook’s dialogue prompts and recalled Shen Xiu’s phone conversations—then shuddered in shock.
[A literal devil!] No wonder the Xiuologists referred to him as “Demon King Shen”—clearly, no one knew him better than they did!
Even the system’s database was trembling from the eeriness of it all.
After two consecutive days of filming, the shoot wrapped up on the third day at 3:00 PM.
Shi Buwen personally saw the nine members off before returning alone to supervise and participate in the editing of TG’s first group variety show.
At 8:00 PM, Shi Buwen messaged Shen Xiu, asking him to remind TG members to repost Youth Unstoppable’s newest official post at 9:00 PM.
At exactly 9:00 PM, Youth Unstoppable’s scheduled post went live.
@YouthUnstoppableOfficial: On the evening of September 15th at 8:00 PM, The Galaxy invites you to join us for a feast of sound and vision. [Image]
