The moment Qi Xiao woke up, he was greeted by a stack of unread messages.
Zhou Chongyu: “The trending searches, did you see them?”
Su Mei: “Xiao-Xiao, the production team has something to discuss with us. I’ll have Xiao Jin pick you up shortly.”
Yu Ye: “You’re really getting bolder and bolder.”
Qi Xiao felt his head spinning in confusion. Didn’t I just take a quick afternoon nap? How did so many things happen all at once?
Before long, the doorbell rang—assistant Xiao Jin had arrived to pick him up. Once in the car, Qi Xiao asked, “What does the production team want to talk to me about?”
Xiao Jin hesitated briefly before telling the truth: “It seems to be about the trending searches from this morning.”
Why is it a trending search again? Qi Xiao was beginning to suspect his agency had bought him a monthly VIP subscription for Weibo’s trending list.
He pulled out his phone and opened Weibo.
Twenty minutes later.
The head director of Sweet Trap smiled at the two people sitting before him: “Well, dating shows survive and thrive on hype from couple-shipping. Right now, public demand for you two online is running sky-high, so the production team might arrange some interactions between you in upcoming episodes. We hope you can cooperate.”
“We’re here today to talk through the specific plan.”
Instinctively, Qi Xiao turned his head to look at Zhou Chongyu beside him.
In truth, after seeing the trending topics, he had already guessed the production team’s intentions.
Though Qi Xiao was merely a novice in the entertainment industry, he was still familiar with basic maneuvers like couple-shipping. It was a standard audience-building tactic in the industry; some scandal-ridden artists even relied on it to clean their slate.
“You two can share your thoughts first.”
“Would you mind?” Zhou Chongyu turned to ask Qi Xiao first instead.
Qi Xiao thought it over carefully. Truthfully, he didn’t mind at all. If the hype went well, his commercial value might even surge, allowing him to make way more money!
However, if his older brother saw it, he might get extremely angry. And the consequence of his brother getting angry.
At that thought, Qi Xiao spoke up: “Being tied to me might negatively affect you, so you should give it more thought.”
Strictly speaking, between him and Zhou Chongyu, the person getting the better end of the deal in a couple-shipping stunt was definitely himself. After all, Zhou Chongyu had been free of black marks ever since his debut, and his fan base was significantly larger.
Zhou Chongyu merely smiled softly: “I’ve considered it, and I think it’s great. It can be mutually beneficial.”
With that, he took the lead in expressing his stance: “I can cooperate with the production team’s arrangements on my end.”
Beside them, Su Mei offered a quiet piece of advice: “Xiao-Xiao, a rare opportunity like this doesn’t come along easily.”
After hesitating for a moment, Qi Xiao finally nodded as well: “I can do it too.”
Making money comes first! As for Brother’s side, I’ll deal with that when the time comes!
That evening, at the Lu family residence.
Lu Xingliang sat at the dinner table listening to his elders chat about recent industry news, somewhat absent-minded.
Just then, his uncle Shao Rong suddenly recalled something and smiled at him: “Looks like the ratings for this season’s show are guaranteed. What a coincidence too—Yan Liangpeng didn’t end up coming, but we picked up a goldmine like Qi Xiao instead!”
Lu Xingliang’s hand holding his teacup paused slightly: “What do you mean?”
Shao Rong chuckled: “You don’t know yet? The preview was just released today, and it’s already generated several trending topics. A whole crowd of people are shipping Qi Xiao and Zhou Chongyu.”
Gazing at the still tea inside his cup, Lu Xingliang asked, “Pushed by you?”
“The netizens picked up on it first, so I just gave it a little push along the way,” Shao Rong laughed heartily.
“I thought we’d have to buy a few more trending topics after the show aired, but who knew we’d get couple fans this quickly? Truly mysterious. I’ve already talked to them—the main push for the next few episodes will be on their couple line. We won’t have to worry about buzz topics.”
Lu Xingliang barely listened, instead suddenly recalling what Song Shishuang had told him earlier today.
“You’re asking how Qi Xiao entered the industry? Him? He started as a streamer on a platform, but within a few days he blew up purely due to his face. Several agencies wanted to sign him back then, but probably because he was short on cash, he ended up choosing Ruiyi Entertainment—the one offering the highest price.”
“That’s an outsider’s move right there. Anyone with a bit of industry knowledge would never choose Ruiyi—isn’t that jumping straight into a fire pit?”
“What’s wrong? Feeling sorry for him?”
In all fairness, pairing up with Zhou Chongyu for couple-shipping was indeed a great opportunity. It was completely blameless for Qi Xiao to agree.
Yet for a tactic he had always despised the most, for some reason, he didn’t feel the usual disgust rising within him.
“By the way, I see you get along pretty well with Jiang Fei. How about—” Shao Rong tried probing.
His train of thought abruptly interrupted, Lu Xingliang lowered his eyelashes, his tone turning somewhat cold: “Uncle, what did I tell you before?”
“I know, no fake romance stunts for you. I was just bringing it up offhandedly.”
Shao Rong knew he had always held such publicity tricks in utter disdain, and Lu Xingliang had been very resistant to joining the show in the first place, so he dropped the topic and switched to another.
“You’re not getting any younger either, it’s about time you considered settling down, right?” Shao Rong said. “I know you don’t like people from inside the industry, so I specifically asked friends to introduce a few well-bred, good-looking girls from outside the circle. How about I set up a meeting for you after the show?”
Lu Xingliang set his teacup down and said impassively, “No need to trouble yourself.”
In the blink of an eye, Thursday arrived. In the WeChat group chat, the director was prompting the guests to hurry up and finalize their course selections.
Qi Xiao was the first to sign up, followed immediately by Lin Zhiyao right behind him. This made Qi Xiao feel rather embarrassed, wondering if Lin Zhiyao genuinely liked him.
A little while later, Zhou Chongyu signed up as well.
This was naturally to cooperate with the production team’s arrangements, as he and Qi Xiao had agreed beforehand.
Liang Yi followed closely behind, and then Song Mei.
A moment later, even Jiang Fei expressed her desire to attend.
Shen Ye posted a “Thank You, Bosses” emoji in the group, saying: “Thank you all so much for coming through! Thank you, thank you!”
Lin Zhiyao replied: “Then you’d better prepare well for Saturday’s class. Don’t let us down!”
Shen Ye: “You got it!”
After about another hour passed and no one else replied in the group, the director asked once more: “Anyone else?”
The question was effectively directed at Lu Xingliang—everyone else had confirmed their attendance, leaving only him.
Lu Xingliang stared at his phone screen for quite some time.
After a long pause, he typed on his keyboard.
“Count me in.”
Late at night, Sweet Trap‘s official Weibo suddenly posted an update.
“Grateful to @QiseMobile for capturing every sweet moment of our guests. The journey of love is even more brilliant with you along.”
Despite it being the middle of the night, quite a few netizens caught the post as they browsed.
Someone screenshotted it directly onto an anonymous forum: “Stop believing that nonsense about Qi Xiao being Zhou Chongyu’s fan! Qise is a sponsor of the show, isn’t it completely normal for them to provide phones for the guests?
When will Qi Xiao learn to walk on his own feet? Don’t cue handsome bro Zhou Chongyu, OK?”
Since it was the largest entertainment gossip forum, replies quickly flooded in:
“Oho, is the Qi-Yu CP going BE (Bad Ending) this quickly?”
“LMAO, the official account busting rumors online in the middle of the night, gotta give it to them.”
“If Qise was a sponsor from the start, why did they blur the phone in the preview? It’s obvious they sponsored it AFTER the fact.”
“Sister above has clear logic, I feel this looks even more like trying to cover something up.”
“Couldn’t it just be that Qise saw the show’s potential, noticed their own brand spokesperson was on it, and decided to do some promo along the way? Is the conspiracy theory really necessary?”
“TBH, Qise hasn’t sponsored any variety shows for years, why the sudden change of heart? I still think it’s super suspicious.”
“I think the whole thing is just a coincidence. Qise is one of the top phone brands in the country anyway, even if Qi Xiao bought it himself it wouldn’t be surprising.”
“Stop guessing, stop guessing! Let’s just wait for episode one to air!”