Entertainment Gossip Hound:
“Today’s Big Gossip Roundup”
“1. A top celebrity with the surname Z and a popular actress with the surname L were photographed traveling together in Sanya. Their PR teams are currently trying to suppress the trending topic. Judging by the situation, it’ll probably cost them at least a high seven-figure sum.”
“2. A new variety show filed by the production team behind one of Mango TV’s massively popular music programs has officially entered development. It’s currently looking for sponsors, and quite a few people in the industry are interested in getting a piece of it.”
“3. One of the former members of the Yue Na Seven, a currently popular male celebrity with the surname C, has been relying entirely on tying himself to top female celebrity S to maintain his popularity. Industry insiders joke that he has practically rubbed an entire layer of skin off her from clinging to her so hard. It’s said that the senior executives at the female celebrity’s company were furious and have already given C a severe warning. If he keeps using her for hype, they’ll make sure he regrets it.”
A long, fair finger slowly slid across the marketing account’s Weibo post.
Chi Ye raised his head, revealing a pair of clear, beautiful eyes.
He muttered softly,
“It’s not quite that exaggerated.”
Then he added,
“They only warned me that they’d sue me.”
The stylist standing behind him lowered her head slightly as she worked on his hair.
She chuckled.
“You even read gossip about yourself?”
Chi Ye muttered,
“It’s all bitter melon.”
The stylist covered her smile.
Her curiosity was immediately awakened.
“You and Sheng Ning… is that really true?”
“It is.”
The stylist froze.
Her mouth opened into a perfect O.
Chi Ye pursed his lips.
“It’s true that I rubbed an entire layer of skin off her.”
The stylist burst into a smile but wisely stopped pursuing the topic.
Inside the warm dressing room, the faint aroma of coffee lingered in the air.
The stylist unconsciously softened her movements.
Outside the window, everything was covered in white snow, creating such a peaceful scene that it almost made people sleepy.
Chi Ye stared outside in a daze.
No one knew that the Chi Ye who had woken up here two hours ago was no longer the Chi Ye everyone knew.
Not long ago, he had still been an entertainment content creator on Bilibili back on Earth.
He had recently been selected as one of the platform’s new Top 100 Uploaders and had gone out drinking with his friends to celebrate.
Then he drank himself unconscious.
While drifting in and out of awareness, he had seen a line of words.
【If you were in the entertainment industry and suddenly got a chance to say whatever you wanted without holding back, what would you do?】
What kind of crazy question is that?
I’m not even a celebrity. I don’t need to watch every word I say. What’s the point of asking me this?
And then—
after “waking up,” he arrived in a parallel world.
He had become Chi Ye.
His mind had been completely blank.
Zero memories.
A fresh start with absolutely nothing.
Fortunately, after spending two hours searching the internet, he had gained a basic understanding of this strange world and the celebrity who happened to share his exact name.
Chi Ye.
Former member of the boy group Rise.
While the group was active, he had been its visual center and official C-position.
He had also been the most popular member when the group was first formed.
However, after debuting, he participated in a reality show where he was exposed for avoiding work, being lazy, and constantly trying to slack off.
That incident destroyed a large amount of his popularity with ordinary viewers.
Afterward, even more scandals surfaced.
He was accused of sucking up to powerful people, being snobbish, bullying his teammates, and receiving unfair favoritism from his company.
Even Rise’s eventual disbandment had been directly connected to him.
As a result, Chi Ye became known among group fans as a useless parasite and a cancer to the team.
For a while, the entire internet mocked him.
If that had been the end of it, things still wouldn’t have been too terrible.
The real problem was—
Chi Ye was genuinely handsome.
After Rise disbanded, Yue Na Entertainment continued heavily promoting him.
Then, through an accidental opportunity, he became associated with Sheng Ning, one of the hottest first-tier actresses.
“Became associated” was simply the polite way of putting it.
To put it more bluntly—
he had latched onto a top female celebrity to steal her popularity.
And it wasn’t just once.
He had been doing it continuously.
His company even hired paid internet users to create a CP Super Topic for the two of them.
Large amounts of edited fan videos under the tag #LateNightCP were pushed across streaming platforms such as Bilibili and Douyin.
The campaign was massive.
Sheng Ning’s team and her fans had denied the rumors several times.
Unfortunately, Chi Ye’s side had absolutely no shame.
They kept milking the topic.
By now, Chi Ye had already gained more than enough exposure and popularity from it.
The price, naturally, was his public reputation.
He had completely entered the state known as “black-red.”
Famous because people hated him.
Sheng Ning was one of the top post-95 actresses and one of the Four Young Flowers.
Seeing someone shamelessly suck her blood like this had even caused many ordinary viewers to become angry and disgusted.
Before being reborn, Chi Ye had been a famous sharp-tongued entertainment commentator.
Whenever similar incidents happened, he had criticized them harshly.
His mouth had never shown mercy.
But now…
He had somehow become the person people were criticizing?
Had the dragon slayer finally become the evil dragon?
…
Honestly, I don’t really care whether I’ve become an evil dragon or not.
With a face like this, he deserves to make money from it…
But…
What the hell is with this system’s name?!
On the surface, Chi Ye had closed his eyes in thought.
In reality, a progress bar had appeared inside his mind.
【System Binding Progress: 80%… 90%… 100%】
【Affection Value System successfully bound.】
【You may collect Affection Value from viewers and fans and exchange it for rewards in the System Shop.】
【Current Affection Value: 10,032 — inherited from the original host】
Affection Value?
The moment Chi Ye saw the name of the system, he felt as though the sky had collapsed.
Once he confirmed that “Affection Value” meant exactly what it sounded like—
even the ozone layer collapsed.
The system that had followed him into this world…
was actually an Affection Value System!
What possible use could something like this have for him?
He—
a famous roast-video uploader known across the internet for his venomous tongue.
A naturally gifted master of sarcasm.
Someone whose mouth practically dripped poison!
Even before quitting his old job, he had merely been an exhausted entertainment marketing worker.
Not only was his mouth poisonous, but with his company backing him, he had been even more unrestrained.
He wrote promotional articles without any concern for consequences.
High emotional intelligence:
Humorous and witty.
Low emotional intelligence:
His tongue had been soaked in five pounds of deadly poison.
His personality had been shaped by the environment he grew up in.
His parents had lectured him countless times.
The workplace had beaten him down countless times.
Yet after all these years—
he still hadn’t changed.
And now they expected him to earn Affection Value?
Wasn’t that the definition of being beautiful in appearance and even more beautiful in imagination?
What kind of Affection Value System was this?!
Forget earning affection.
With a mouth like his, surviving one single day in the entertainment industry would already count as an achievement!
Chi Ye wasn’t exaggerating.
He genuinely had confidence in this area!
The original owner’s reputation both inside and outside the industry was already terrible.
Acting arrogant without the status to justify it.
Obsessed with billing order.
Bullying teammates.
Company favoritism.
Stingy.
Snobbish.
He practically had every poison imaginable.
His black-red reputation had already become black enough to turn purple.
And now Chi Ye had taken over.
There was no need to add frost to an already poor household anymore.
They could skip straight to an avalanche!
System:
Great!
The host is Chi Ye.
We’re doomed!
“Sigh… Why couldn’t you have been a Hatred Value System?”
The more Chi Ye thought about it, the more depressed he became.
Finally, he sighed.
Looking as though he had lost every option and every ounce of strength he possessed, he closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.
Time slowly passed.
He had no idea how long it had been when—
Creak.
The door suddenly opened.
A slightly chilly breath of fresh air entered the room.
His young assistant hurried over with small steps.
First, she thoughtfully handed Chi Ye a hand warmer.
Only then did she carefully observe his expression, trying to determine his current mood.
“Brother Chi… the ratings and popularity numbers for Splendid Hua’an came out today. Do you want to take a look?”
Chi Ye opened his eyes.
He compared her words with all the information he had found online.
After a brief pause, he decisively shook his head.
“No.”
What a joke.
Who enjoyed reading people insulting them?
Splendid Hua’an was a costume romance drama he had recently filmed with a rookie young actress.
Chi Ye had top billing.
As for the drama’s performance…
It was hard to describe.
The original Chi Ye had almost no acting ability.
His facial expressions were constantly flying all over the place.
Ever since the drama began airing, both its ratings and popularity had repeatedly broken the platform’s lowest records.
It had flopped so hard it practically drilled through the center of the Earth.
The investors who had originally hoped that Chi Ye could help promote the rookie actress nearly coughed up blood.
If this had happened back on Earth, then with such a rich supply of material, Chi Ye would definitely have made full use of his professional abilities.
He would have analyzed every frame of the original owner’s performance—
especially how sharp his jawline looked.
Don’t watch it.
You might cut yourself.
“Then… Brother Chi, this is the script the director gave us. Do you want to familiarize yourself with it first?”
The assistant also knew that Chi Ye had been mocked nonstop by rival fandoms and haters because of the drama recently.
She trembled slightly and hurriedly changed the topic.
Chi Ye asked with a miserable expression,
“How many more lines insulting me did they add?”
The assistant stammered,
“J-Just… a little.”
“Fine. Let me see…”
Chi Ye had already turned to the first line of the script.
Then he exploded.
“What do they mean by, ‘This is the first time I’ve ever hoped so badly for a celebrity’s career to collapse. If you still have a conscience, stop entering drama crews and spare the audience’s eyes’…?”
He suddenly covered the page.
“Don’t look!”
Then he raged,
“I’ve already been trying my best to avoid negative comments, but these people are way too vicious!”
“Is this something a human being can even write?!”
A moment later, Chi Ye clutched his chest.
“See?! I knew I shouldn’t have looked!”
“I’ve already been cut!”
The assistant:
“…”
…
—How to Evaluate XXX, Season Five, Episode Three.
This was the program Chi Ye was about to appear on.
It was a highly popular entertainment-industry commentary show with strong national recognition.
Its predecessor had been a very famous show called Talk Show Roast.
However, only its first two seasons had truly dared to say anything.
By the third season, because of various reasons, Talk Show Roast—the show that had once been praised by countless viewers as the only program in the industry brave enough to speak honestly—had gradually turned into a celebrity reputation-cleaning conference.
By Season Five, even the name and production team had been completely changed.
It became How to Evaluate XXX.
The show’s basic format now consisted of celebrities praising one another from beginning to end.
Because of that, its reputation had fallen sharply after airing.
However, thanks to the popularity and industry connections accumulated during its earlier seasons, the program still received enormous attention.
It remained one of the most popular programs for drama crews that wanted to hold blame-shifting conferences.
There was no competition.
Yes.
Because of the “excellent” results achieved by Splendid Hua’an, the production team and investors had naturally skipped straight ahead to the blame-shifting stage.
As everyone knew—
when a drama flopped, there had to be a reason!
The male lead was cursed.
The female lead was box-office poison.
The platform suppressed them.
There was no promotion.
The investors abandoned the project.
The director was useless.
The screenwriter was an idiot.
Their competitors were performing black magic.
And so on.
In short—
the drama itself could never simply be garbage.
And it definitely couldn’t be because of “me.”
Everyone displayed their own special abilities.
Whoever did the best job of attacking and manipulating public opinion outside the show could become the perfect non-stick pan.
Nothing would stick to them.
Then they could pretend nothing had happened, happily join another production, film another drama…
and repeat the entire blame-shifting process.
Unfortunately, the scapegoat ultimately “selected” by the Splendid Hua’an production team was Chi Ye.
Actually, they barely even needed to choose him.
Splendid Hua’an was a drama in which Chi Ye had top billing.
Combined with his already disastrous reputation—
there was no way he could throw this blame away even if he wanted to.
Now, the rookie female lead had disappeared from public attention.
No one dared offend the investors.
Both the director and screenwriter were respected big names in the industry.
So Chi Ye had naturally and beautifully appeared backstage in this dressing room.
Next, he would have to endure savage criticism from every guest appearing on this episode.
Everyone else would praise one another.
Chi Ye would also have to follow the script and compliment them.
But once they reached his segment—
that would become the climax of the entire episode.
Everyone would open fire on him!
The production team loved guests like this.
Especially someone like Chi Ye, who was disliked by almost every ordinary viewer.
For the program, this was a perfect opportunity to repair its reputation and win back the audience.
Half an hour later.
Chi Ye finished his makeup.
He stood up and stretched his body.
His beautiful eyes had already returned to their usual calmness.
—Don’t talk to me.
I’m thinking.
Now then…
How much of my true ability should I use…
to be worthy of this show’s first-season standards?