Director Lu’s wording was official, but the content carried a sharp edge.
It was practically pointing right at Su Qing’s nose, telling everyone that this person had long since failed the audition, stop trying to ride on the coattails.
Almost simultaneously, the official account of the Jungle Assault production team reposted the message.
Lin Yi also reposted Director Lu’s announcement. But simply reposting wasn’t enough, he went a step further, reposting his own wildly popular mutant beast hunting video and leaving a comment:
【Director Lu is right. Please judge for yourselves which performance was better.】
Side by side, Su Qing’s audition video and Lin Yi’s video formed a glaring contrast.
Coupled with Lin Yi’s earlier like of the disparaging comparison video, the mockery was dialed up to the max.
Thanks to the haters’ hard work over the past few days, the issue had already stirred up a storm across the entire Star Network. The moment this explosive announcement was released, the whole internet erupted—
“Holy crap, holy crap, there’s a twist, he already auditioned!”
“Did they really just get forced into releasing the audition footage?”
“Looking at that comparison video earlier, the gap between the two was pretty obvious, emm… But since the official account said this, let’s check out the audition video first.”
With the shock of feasting on such a huge piece of drama, people eagerly clicked on the audition footage released by Director Lu.
Although, in the interest of surface-level fairness, Director Lu had released the audition videos of all the actors who had been considered, no one paid attention to anyone else at that moment. Everyone clicked unanimously on Su Qing’s audition video.
Bland.
That was the first impression everyone had after watching Su Qing’s audition.
As a recently popular traffic star, Su Qing did have some acting ability, but only some.
In the audition clip, his performance was passable but stiff, his movements and expressions never fully relaxed. Instead, because he was deliberately trying to maintain his cool-guy persona, it came across as overdone.
This level of acting might have passed muster in some second- or third-tier web dramas, but for the notoriously demanding Director Lu, it simply didn’t cut it.
【I don’t know much about acting, but I can tell… it’s just okay. His fans overhyped him way too much, ‘future Best Actor,’ ‘gifted genius’, such an exaggeration.】
【Take a look at the actors who passed auditions for other roles, every single one of them blows him out of the water. Did he really think this was some third-rate production that just lets anyone in?】
【I just watched all the audition videos Director Lu released. You can see that he has very high standards for the actors’ performances, emotions, and movements. With Su Qing all stiff and restrained like that, he’d just drag down the whole production’s level.】
But there were also many die-hard Su Qing fans defending him:
【Oh, so just because you say it’s bad, it’s bad? Where do you work exactly?】
【Since when did “average” become a derogatory term?】
【Acting is clearly subjective. Brother Su Qing’s performance style has always been more introverted and subtle. Isn’t it perfectly normal to find it a bit flat at first glance?】
The comment section was locked in fierce debate over whether Su Qing was even qualified to join the production.
After all, acting is a subjective matter. Fans, wearing their idol-filtered glasses, felt that as long as there were no major problems, it was good acting.
Some bystanders who didn’t know much about the entertainment industry also thought his level didn’t seem that bad.
Just as the two sides were at an impasse, arguing fiercely, one Su Qing fan argued defiantly:
【Even if Brother Su Qing isn’t as skilled as other senior actors, he’s still better than some amateur, right?】
【Exactly! What about that amateur named Lin Yi? Let’s see what he’s got to be chosen!】
As soon as the fans brought it up, everyone remembered the other protagonist of this incident. Having heard that Lin Yi had been selected by Director Lu based on a livestream clip, many people flooded into Lin Yi’s account and clicked on his video to compare him with Su Qing.
After watching it, the people who had been arguing fell silent.
After a long while, a new comment finally appeared under Lin Yi’s video:
【Now I understand Director Lu… If it were me, I would never choose Su Qing either.】
Without comparison, there is no harm. Beneath Lin Yi’s powerful, striking video, Su Qing’s already unremarkable performance looked even more inferior.
If Su Qing was using mediocre acting to try to shape a high-gloss “beautiful, strong, and suffering” character, then in Lin Yi’s video, Lin Yi himself was that character.
Because it was filmed entirely under real conditions, the video felt more natural, more authentic, and more impactful.
In contrast, Su Qing’s audition felt like a counterfeit, a clumsy imitation and performance that had lost the charm to move the audience.
Unless a person were blind, after seeing the comparison between the two, there would be no hesitation whatsoever.
Many viewers who had been misled by the disparaging comparison video and had criticized Lin Yi angrily switched sides, furiously condemning the Su Qing fan who had deliberately created the smear campaign:
【After watching the original video, I just want to ask, how could Su Qing’s fans have the nerve? Deliberately picking blurry, unflattering shots to compare with Su Qing? I almost got led astray.】
【I was already led astray… Sorry, Lin Yi.】
【Even with his grainy, low-quality video, he still wipes the floor with your idol. You can only resort to these underhanded tactics.】
The public opinion, which had been evenly matched, gradually tilted to one side as more and more people voiced their support for Lin Yi.
Although Su Qing’s fans were furious, they couldn’t out-argue all the bystanders who had watched the video and spontaneously supported Lin Yi. They had no choice but to swallow this loss.
After all, although the acting comparison was embarrassing, it wasn’t substantial dirt. As long as the heat died down, it would soon be forgotten by netizens.
But clearly, things wouldn’t go as they hoped.
While the entire internet was busy arguing over whose acting was better, some people noticed a blind spot:
【If I remember correctly, the whole reason this started was because Su Qing’s fans thought their idol had been treated unfairly and pressured the production team into responding, right?】
【Pure bystander here. Weren’t Su Qing’s fans clamoring just a few days ago that the production team hadn’t even given their idol an audition opportunity? What’s going on here?】
Most of these discussions were drowned out by the overwhelming debate about acting skills. Occasionally, one or two people joined in, but they only commented that Su Qing’s fans were indeed unreasonable as always, picking a random excuse to defend their idol and ending up with egg on their face.
Until, a screenshot was suddenly exposed to everyone’s view.
It was the very source of it all: Su Qing’s two original, ambiguous posts.
Su Qing had never expected the production team to actually release the audition footage. By the time the spotlight suddenly turned on him, he had panicked and hidden the blog posts he had made a few days earlier.
But a paper cannot wrap fire. The screenshot of his posts was ultimately exposed to the public.
Bystanders, lacking the idol-filtered glasses of fans, could easily spot the flaws in these statements:
【So this is why Su Qing’s fans suddenly went berserk. The culprit is right here…】
【Is it just me, or is this post kind of… manipulative?】
【That little scratch, if he waited any longer to take a photo, it would have healed already. Only his fans would fall for this.】
【Su Qing’s words imply that the production team didn’t even give him an audition opportunity. No wonder Director Lu reacted so strongly. If someone tried to smear me like that, I would have fought back immediately.】
【LOL. The auditions ended a month and a half ago, and he’s still ‘training’ here. Who is he putting on this act for?】
In a room, a young man with a dark expression slammed his wrist terminal onto the ground. With a loud crack, the already fragile screen shattered into pieces.
His agent, hearing the commotion, looked over impatiently. “Alright, alright. I told you not to stir up trouble for no reason, but you wouldn’t listen. What’s the use of losing your temper now?”
Knowing he was in the wrong, Su Qing swallowed his pride. “What’s the use of saying that now? Where are the company’s bots? Why haven’t they shown up yet?”
“They’re already suppressing the heat. Just behave yourself and follow the company’s arrangements for the next couple of days. Don’t cause any more trouble.”
The agent brushed him off perfunctorily and turned away, sneering inwardly, Brainless idiot. Does he really think suppressing the heat is that easy?
If Su Qing hadn’t recklessly stirred up his fans and secretly hired professional trolls two days ago, would things have escalated to the point where everyone on the Star Network knew about it?
By now, public opinion had long since spiraled beyond the company’s control. If it weren’t for Su Qing’s complicated connections behind the scenes, they would have abandoned him already.
Su Qing’s expression was grim. Although stupid, he could still sense how precarious his situation was. He waved the agent away, picked up the badly damaged wrist terminal from the floor, and made a phone call.
Unlike his impatient and gloomy demeanor, Su Qing’s tone on the phone was extremely humble, laced with deliberate flattery: “Mr. Zhao, things have turned out like this. You must help me…”
That evening, an apology statement was posted on Su Qing’s account.
【Hello, everyone. Recently, some of my statements were not clear enough, leading some fans to misunderstand the truth. As a result, many debates about me have appeared on the Star Network. I apologize for occupying public resources…】
It looked like an apology, but it was actually downplaying the issue and shifting the blame, explaining the whole incident as “the audition was for a different film, but the fans misunderstood it as Jungle Assault”, a complete misunderstanding from start to finish.
He washed his own hands clean while pushing his fans out to take the bullets.
Beneath this apology statement, the comments were uniformly supportive, so uniform that it looked like bots:
“Yeah, it was just a misunderstanding all along. Now that it’s cleared up, isn’t that fine?”
“Brother Su Qing never said which movie it was. It’s all the fans’ fault for overthinking.”
…
After this apology statement appeared, combined with the constant cleaning efforts of bots, the public opinion seemed to calm down somewhat.
After all, no matter how much people criticized Su Qing over this incident, they had to admit that he had never actually mentioned the name Jungle Assault.
He insisted that the fans had misunderstood. Even if people felt he was being manipulative, no one could produce any solid evidence.
However, life wasn’t so easy for Su Qing’s fans.
Pushed out as shields by Su Qing, they ended up bearing all the malice that had originally been directed at him.
What was even more frustrating was that they could only silently take the insults and apologize, unable to argue back.
Because if they argued, it would mean that the attacks would fall back onto Su Qing.
To protect their idol, they had no choice but to shut up. All the malice they had once directed at Lin Yi and others, when they were acting so arrogantly, now came back to them in full measure.
For a time, panic spread among Su Qing’s fans. Some couldn’t handle the pressure and directly deleted their accounts. Others quit the fandom. Some even turned around and accused those who left of not being sincere enough toward Su Qing…
But even the most loyal fans became hesitant after experiencing all of this.
Back when they were fanatically chasing their idol, they had deliberately or inadvertently hurt many people. Only now, when the consequences came back to bite them, did they realize how terrible their past behavior had been.
For an idol who so readily threw his fans under the bus… was it really worth it?
…
Regardless, at least on the surface, the public criticism of Su Qing gradually subsided. Even if there were still voices of condemnation, most of them focused on blaming the fans for their blind support.
Of course, after such an upheaval, neither Su Qing nor his fans dared to provoke Lin Yi or the Jungle Assault production team again.
Just as everyone thought this matter was over, before the waves had fully settled, new ones arose.