Help! My Fanservice Partner is Looking at Me Differently Lately - Chapter 37

Gao Yuan was never really accustomed to the ecosystem of the training house, and he had stayed mostly to spite Xie Weishui. But now that Chi Li was here, even if Chi Li stood there doing nothing, he was a greater threat to Xie Weishui than Gao Yuan ever was.

“Pretty good,” Shen Xunye said without offering much evaluation.

“After I leave, I plan to.”

Gao Yuan could tell that Shen Xunye was not particularly interested in his future plans. Fortunately, Shen Xunye still politely gave some form of response, likely out of respect for Chi Li. But it did not matter; he was saying these things primarily for the audience.

【Gao Yuan is just too honest; he does not know how to pretend.】 【Leaving to release songs and slowly accumulating fans is actually quite good. Wishing you the best.】 【Oh my, I was actually shipping him with Chi Li. Did not expect it to end so soon. [Crying]】 【Are you trying to make my wifey the top?】 【No, I do not allow my wifey to be tired! He only needs to lie there and enjoy it! Let me handle the rest!】

Perhaps the conversation here was too mundane; after a while, the camera in the main broadcast shifted to Fang Jin and Zhou Yang, who had buried the hatchet yesterday. The two of them were at the water bar. Fang Jin had finished breakfast and was juicing fruit for himself. If the camera zoomed in, one could see the extremely faint, lingering outline of the little turtle still on the corner of his mouth.

Zhou Yang, on the other hand, was sitting on a high stool with two large dark circles under his eyes, drinking freshly brewed coffee and looking completely lifeless.

“Fang Jin,” Zhou Yang said, dropping the honorific. “What do you think of Chi Li as a person?”

Fang Jin put the sliced apples into the juicer and looked at Zhou Yang with a strange expression. “I do not know him well, so I cannot answer that question.”

“Then you yesterday,” Zhou Yang paused. “Why did you act like that?”

He was not talking about last night’s mahjong game, but the meeting afterward, where Fang Jin and Xie Weishui had argued. He did not know the specifics, but he knew the cause: Fang Jin had followed Chi Li’s advice and changed the script Xie Weishui had originally set.

“How did I act?” Fang Jin countered.

The hostility he used to harbor toward Zhou Yang was gone, replaced only by a sense of indifferent detachment. Despite the dispute, he had not fully fallen out with Xie Weishui; they just had not reached a consensus on who should be the main lead. Therefore, he was now free from the constraints of the so-called script and could do as he pleased.

“You seemed really happy when you were playing with him.” Seeing that Fang Jin was playing dumb, Zhou Yang steered the conversation toward last night’s mahjong game. “I have never seen anyone enjoy being punished that much.”

“That was not a punishment; it was a prank,” Fang Jin corrected him. “Pranks like that are meant to be fun for the participants and entertaining for the audience. What about you? Weren’t you happy yesterday?”

Zhou Yang: “…”

Happy? Like hell he was! After Xie Weishui helped him take off the down jacket, Chi Li made him put it back on in the very next round. Since Xie Weishui did not win another hand, he never got the chance to take it off again. To make matters worse, the subsequent punishments assigned to him were mostly exercises like push-ups. It was boring, torturous, and he had nearly died of heat exhaustion.

“Being able to make the audience laugh is naturally a happy thing,” Zhou Yang said with a fake smile.

“Mhm,” Fang Jin gave him a look that was half-smile and half-taunt. “Do you have no plans today?”

If he were to be more blunt, he should have asked, “Do you not have a mission?”

“No,” Zhou Yang narrowed his eyes, looking out the floor-to-ceiling window. “Senior Brother had something to attend to and went out today.”

Fang Jin could not care less. “Oh.”

Starlight Entertainment.

Xie Weishui, wearing oversized sunglasses, walked hurriedly into his agent’s office. Wang Yue locked the door behind him and let out a heavy sigh through his nose. “Did I not tell you not to come here? I will send you a message if there is anything you need to know.”

Xie Weishui took off his sunglasses, tossed them aside, and sat on the sofa. “Chi Li has me so stirred up I do not know what to do. Did the narrative we pushed yesterday have any effect?”

“We released some paid comments, but it did not stir up much of a wave,” Wang Yue replied with a grimace.

The narrative they tried to push was that Chi Li was unrefined and disrespectful to seniors. However, in the eyes of the audience, these minor flaws only made the person seem more vivid and real. Some righteous souls even branched off the topic, harshly criticizing this kind of seniority culture between people of similar ages.

“Keep pushing it,” Xie Weishui said through gritted teeth.

“You know the company does not allow artists to smear each other,” Wang Yue reminded him with a dark face. “If you want to buy bots to smear Chi Li, you have to pay for it yourself. I paid for this out of my own pocket, and I will not be seeking reimbursement from you.”

“Do I not create more value for the company than Chi Li?” Xie Weishui was furious. “Fang Jin is only able to hold fan meetings now because of me.”

“That is because he has the right potential himself. If he did not, would you have picked him?” Wang Yue saw things much more clearly than he did. What he did not say was that any discerning person could see Chi Li’s potential far exceeded Xie Weishui’s. He would rather have Chi Li under his management than try to rely on Xie Weishui to surpass Li Ming. He had only spent that money on bots yesterday because he was feeling emotionally impulsive.

Xie Weishui’s face turned sallow. He thought and thought before saying, “Then use my money to buy more.”

Wang Yue: “It is useless. Those few black comments will not stir up any trouble. I advise you not to waste your money.”

“Then buy them in a different direction,” Xie Weishui said, a new idea sparking in his eyes. “Buy them to hype him up, but tie him to the most popular top-tier celebrities in the industry right now.”

Wang Yue: “.”

Xie Weishui continued: “After attracting the fans of those top stars, have people leave comments expressing things like, ‘It is their good fortune to be tied to Chi Li.'”

Fans of top-tier celebrities hated nothing more than being used for blood-sucking hype. If they encountered someone clout-chasing like this, they would tear the opponent to shreds. Chi Li had only been popular for two days; his fanbase had not even solidified yet. He would certainly be unable to withstand such a siege.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Wang Yue was somewhat persuaded. After all, poaching Chi Li would not be easy.

“I am sure,” Xie Weishui said, his eyes devoid of hesitation, filled only with hatred for Chi Li. “In this training house, it is either him or me.”

Wang Yue: “If this does not work, do not try anything else in the future.”

“Do not worry, it definitely will.” A smile crept onto Xie Weishui’s lips as he remembered something he had learned from stalking the live stream. “Gao Yuan is leaving in a few days. You must find a way to get one of our own people in.”

“We discussed that at the meeting yesterday. The decision from above is to find someone from another company,” Wang Yue replied.