Before, the gossip-loving netizens might not have been sure whether the gossip manhua was telling the truth. But after Chen Yizun’s affair with Sun Yu was exposed, they were now completely convinced.
Chen Yizun’s actions were dancing all over the line of basic human decency. People had tried sending messages to Xu Jiayi and her family on Weibo before, but all of them had been blocked.
However, when they tipped off the paparazzi team about Chen Yizun cheating with Sun Yu, that had worked.
So the netizens figured out that things learned from this livestream could not be transmitted in written form.
The best way, then, was to have someone who knew Xu Jiayi pass the message along verbally.
Fortunately, this time, the number of people in the livestream was fairly large, and there really was someone who had a connection to Xu Jiayi.
【My dad is a branch manager at the Xu Group. He probably has Xu Jiayi’s number. I’ll ask him to pass the message along.】
【Wow! Go, go, go!】
A few minutes later, that netizen returned with an update.
【It took a while to explain things to my dad, but he finally agreed to help relay the message. Xu Jiayi knows now—just not sure if she believes it.】
【Good people have good fortune.】
…
While the netizens were busy exposing the scumbag, the system wasn’t idle either.
“Host, I’ll share another piece of gossip with you~ This one is about the woman who tried to fight you for the dressing room just now~”
Yu Jiaojiao still wasn’t very interested, but the revelation had the gossip-loving netizens firing off a flurry of comments.
【What? Someone tried to fight Yu Jiaojiao for a dressing room?】
【Yu Jiaojiao should be filming the second episode of “Extreme Challenge” today. I saw the show’s official blog announce a new guest named Gu Xiaozhi. Could it be her?】
The system’s next words immediately revealed the answer.
“This Gu Xiaozhi is best friends with a young actress from a wealthy family in the entertainment industry. On the surface, she appears to be the daughter brought back by the second son of the third-rate wealthy Gu family, but in reality, she is the illegitimate daughter of the head of the Gu family. The second son of the Gu family is completely incapable of having children.”
【What, what, what?】
【Is it really that explosive?】
【One piece of gossip hasn’t even settled, and another one pops up!】
【Wait a minute… Is that the Gu family I’m thinking of?】
“With the Gu family and that young actress backing her, that’s why Gu Xiaozhi is so arrogant.”
“Host, your next mission is still to keep humiliating Gu Xiaozhi. As long as you beat her in the second episode, you’ll unlock the next chapter of the manhua~”
“Wait, I’m detecting that she’s currently complaining to her young female star best friend. That young star promised to teach you a lesson—how despicable! Host, go and slap that girl’s face swollen!!”
Hearing this inside scoop, the gossip-loving netizens couldn’t help but feel a bit sympathetic toward Yu Jiaojiao.
【First Sun Yu, now Gu Xiaozhi—is Yu Jiaojiao having a bad luck streak?】
【Tsk, I really hate bullies like this who throw their weight around.】
【Got it. I’m leaking this info right now.】
【I just searched on Weibo. I think I know which young female star is best friends with Gu Xiaozhi. Tsk, everyone in the entertainment industry has a public image—no surprise there. I used to actually think she was an ethereal, gentle, pure little flower.】
【Don’t keep the gossip to yourself!! Who is this young star? Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!】
Unfortunately, there were too many elements to this scandal, and most people were focused on the relationship between Gu Xiaozhi and the Gu family. The comments about the young female star were quickly buried.
…
What the commenters said about leaking the news wasn’t a joke. While Yu Jiaojiao was getting dressed and having her makeup touched up, some paparazzi teams had already started planning to look into Gu Xiaozhi’s background.
Just as Yu Jiaojiao finished her makeup, a member of the production crew came over again, accompanied by a cameraman, to announce the rules.
“The director says the content of this episode is set in a busy downtown area and includes two challenges. The first challenge is to avoid being recognized by passersby. So you have half an hour to disguise yourselves. Gather in the restaurant lobby in half an hour.”
With that, the crew member left, while the cameraman stayed in the dressing room to film.
Yu Jiaojiao didn’t need to worry about the disguise—her team started brainstorming ideas.
Without exposing Yu Jiaojiao’s identity, they gave her a major makeover.
The stylist lightly bound Yu Jiaojiao’s chest, changed her into a loose, neutral white T-shirt and cargo pants, and swapped her shoes for high-tops with built-in lifts.
With the makeup artist’s skillful hands, Yu Jiaojiao was transformed with a neutral, handsome look. Her eyebrows were thickened and arched upward, her nose bridge was accentuated to appear straighter, and her facial contours were sharpened. Her lipstick was wiped off, her pink lips replaced with a slightly cool-toned lip gloss, and a dusting of translucent powder gave her lips a natural, understated shade. She was fitted with a men’s-style tousled wig and topped with a baseball cap.
All other jewelry was removed, leaving only a sports watch and a slightly rebellious-looking blue diamond earring.
Under the camera’s gaze, a handsome young man was freshly minted.
She stood up, and even the cameraman, who had zoomed out, was taken aback by how striking she looked.
Yu Jiaojiao’s natural demeanor carried a touch of aloofness. This makeup and outfit accentuated that coolness and youthful energy even more. Her typical indifferent gaze made her look like the kind of aloof, handsome school heartthrob who would be idolized by girls back in middle school.
Even the system, which had watched her transform up close, couldn’t help but marvel. “Host, if you were a boy, you’d have girls lining up to chase you!”
This was the first time Yu Jiaojiao had dressed up as a boy. To her surprise, she found it quite novel. She studied herself in the makeup mirror, turning left and right, and was rather pleased with the result.
She truly didn’t look like her original self anymore.
Just as the half hour was up, she headed to the restaurant to meet the others.
Aside from Gu Xiaozhi—the one who had tried to snatch her dressing room the moment she arrived—all the other guests were already there.
Sharing a similar idea to Yu Jiaojiao’s team, the female lead Wen Qiang had also disguised herself as a man. She was wearing an off-white top and casual wide-leg pants, a wig on her head, with a gentle look in her eyes.
In the novel, thanks to Wen Qiang’s striking height, she had played quite a few cross-dressing roles.
But her disguise was quite different from Yu Jiaojiao’s.
If Yu Jiaojiao’s transformation made her look like a middle-school heartthrob, Wen Qiang resembled a gentle university-era campus idol.
Not only had Yu Jiaojiao added seven or eight centimeters of height with lifts, but Wen Qiang had also “grown” from 175 to 180 centimeters.
The moment Yu Jiaojiao walked up to her, her lips turned downward.
She had thought that boosting her height this time would finally put her on an even footing with Wen Qiang. She hadn’t expected Wen Qiang to have added lifts too!
Wen Qiang, however, didn’t notice anything off, because Yu Jiaojiao was rarely seen in a genuinely cheerful mood.
As soon as Wen Qiang spotted Yu Jiaojiao, she recognized her. Her face lit up with admiration and delight. “Jiaojiao, you’re here!”
The others immediately turned to look at her, equally stunned by her appearance.
“Wow! What a cute little fresh meat! How did you both think of dressing up as men? Why didn’t I think of that!” Wang Jiajia alternated between pretending to swoon over Yu Jiaojiao’s looks and kicking herself for missing the idea.
Wei Luting seemed to have found a new role for herself. She laughed and teased, “Jiajia, don’t be jealous. If you dressed as a man, you’d be recognized way too easily.”
“Huh? Why?!”
“Because there wouldn’t be much difference,” Wei Luting cruelly revealed the truth.
Wang Jiajia looked utterly crushed and turned to stone on the spot.
“Hahahaha…” The others burst into laughter.
To be honest, Wang Jiajia wasn’t exactly a great beauty to begin with—her features were more androgynous. Her attempt at a “glamorous” look this time came off a bit mismatched and odd.
Her bickering with Wei Luting while looking like that was the stuff of comedy gold.
Wei Luting, who naturally leaned toward the glamorous type, was instead wearing a white long dress and going for an innocent, pure young flower look—though her mannerisms and way of speaking didn’t quite match. It was no wonder that so far, she had only been cast in sexy supporting roles.
Fei Xiang, being a singer without too much vanity about her appearance, simply opted to make herself look plain. A huge pair of black-rimmed glasses sat on her nose, and her long hair hung loose, covering most of her distinctive features.
Peng Xiyuan had a cuter look. She wore a puffy outfit that made her look round and added Arale-style hat and glasses, almost like she was playing cosplay. Unless you looked closely, you wouldn’t recognize her as a celebrity.
Gu Mi seemed to be putting her ambition on full display this time. She wore a cool, cropped camisole and hot pants cut up to her thighs. Her long hair was tied into a bun, and she had a full face of makeup, with thick, rotten-tomato-colored lipstick that grabbed all the attention.
On the night before the first episode finished filming, the guests had all had dinner together and gotten to know each other better. Whatever they thought behind the scenes, on the surface, they were still very harmonious.
The group laughed and joked together, with the cameras capturing it all.
Even Yu Jiaojiao couldn’t help being amused. The corners of her eyes and mouth curved slightly, and her dimples appeared faintly.
The stagehand asked from off-camera, “Have all the guests arrived?”
Everyone looked around at each other.
“Seems like someone’s missing.”
“Sun Yu, the guest from the last episode, is unable to participate in the filming of this episode due to some circumstances. So we’ve invited a new guest. She should be on her way from the dressing room.”
Hearing this, the guests exchanged uneasy glances.
They were all in the same circle. Everyone knew about the scandal that had been trending all day yesterday and still hadn’t come down.
No one expected that right after filming the first episode the day before yesterday, Sun Yu would get caught up in a scandal with Best Actor Chen Yizun. Everyone wondered whether this would affect the editing of the first episode.
Wang Jiajia, who had been paired with Sun Yu in the last episode, had cursed her out in her mind more times than she could count. Fortunately, she was from the same company as the production team and had learned from the director that the editing of the first episode wouldn’t hurt her.
Wei Luting, on the other hand, felt far more complicated about it. She had just finished a movie with Chen Yizun, in which Sun Yu played a minor role with very few scenes. The two of them had barely interacted at all—she never expected Sun Yu to be secretly involved with Chen Yizun like that.
And to make things worse, she had mentioned Chen Yizun during the last episode. That was prime trending material, and the production team would definitely cut it into the final episode. She had no idea whether she’d end up getting caught in the backlash as collateral damage.
Among the seven people present, only Yu Jiaojiao and Wen Qiang looked completely at ease.
Yu Jiaojiao had gotten her “revenge” and no longer gave Sun Yu a second thought. Wen Qiang, meanwhile, minded her own business and was largely unaffected by others.
“Alright, we’ll wait a bit longer,” Wang Jiajia was the first to respond.
The others remained silent.
The seven of them began waiting for Gu Xiaozhi’s arrival.
But after ten minutes, she still hadn’t appeared.
Even the production team was getting impatient. They instructed a crew member to go and hurry her along.
Not long after, the crew member called back.
Under the director’s direction, the camera turned toward the stagehand’s phone.
“The new guest is still picking out clothes. Her makeup isn’t done yet…”
At this, not only Yu Jiaojiao and the other guests, but everyone on the production team frowned in unison.
The production team had given each guest their own dressing room this time. On top of the initial makeup time, they had also allowed an extra half-hour for touch-ups and changes.
But this new guest thought her own schedule was more important than everyone else’s, keeping everyone waiting just for her.
Yu Jiaojiao already disliked her. She rolled her eyes on the spot.
The system reported from the side: “Gu Xiaozhi has been on the phone with her young starlet best friend this whole time. At the rate they’re going, you’ll probably have to wait at least another half-hour.”
Yu Jiaojiao: “?”
Yu Jiaojiao: “Half an hour?”
She furrowed her brows and directly addressed the director, “Are we all supposed to wait here for her to change clothes and do her makeup?”
The director and his crew were already annoyed that the new guest was throwing such a diva tantrum. Taking Yu Jiaojiao’s cue, they went along with it. “Alright, we’ll film her separately later. The rest of you go ahead and start first.”
“Following the group assignments from the last episode, Wang Jiajia will join Gu Mi’s group, and the new guest will be a group on her own.”
Everyone’s eyes lit up: Long live the director!!
The system: “Oh ho~ Gu Xiaozhi’s last place is basically guaranteed… hahahaha…”
Livestream barrage:
【What happened? What’s going on??】
【Can I pay for VIP? Let me see!!】