Chapter 42.2

Proofreader: Lore

But this was still considered small-scale. In regarding these love-struck fools of Xia Rong’s, a larger group, which was precisely the portion of the audience that Shu Yi had said whose “focus has become crooked,” hadn’t been stingy at all as they all came one after another to express how they were pleasantly surprised:

【Really didn’t expect that you have such a good relationship with Su Chi!!!】

【Aaahhhhhhh, the two of them are too good-looking and too well-matched, right? I’m already giddy from the cuteness right in front of the TV.】

【Even in a dream, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine the easter egg to be this! I had came to complain after watching last week’s episode, the wrong is completely mine aahhhhh.】

【The moment I saw the easter egg, my heart stopped. Isn’t it too exciting? [shocked.jpg]】

【I TM knocked myself out. The moment I saw the easter egg, I decided I will enter this pit. I’ll stay bowed until the end of this world!】

【Begging the group, begging all the great creators to make more food [content] aahhhh. I haven’t been able to calm down since watching the easter egg. I’m afraid I won’t be sleeping tonight. [slight smile]】

【Begging the question, what’s the name of Xia Rong and Su Chi’s CP? I’m going to search for the supertopic and lofter¹Supertopic, from my understanding, is similar to a subreddit. Lofter (Raw: 撸否), from what I was told, is a platform for fanfic and fanart.~】

【Fellow enthusiasts, wait for me! I’ll go edit the video and upload it to Bi-site²I think this refers to Bilibili. China’s a bit tight on using specific branding if it’s not actually sponsored, etc. Regulations fluctuate pretty drastically though. right away!】

【A CP fan of many years bravely peeks out, I’ve long felt that the two of them matched each other, hahaha haha】

【Lurking CP fan +1, actually, my focus is still fixated on that tree-don. At first, when I saw the photos taken on the street, I thought it was some earth-shattering sugar. But then, after watching the first episode of the show, I found that it was sh★t. Yet, after finishing this second episode, it turns out that it really was TM sugar!!! This Voldemort CP³Also references a meme. Apparently, an author had lost a bet resulting in them writing a fanfic with Voldemort as MC and FL being a Chinese character, and somehow this CP became very popular over the net. Basically describes an impossible couple. of mine is simply as exciting as a roller coaster, ahaha!!】

【Voldemort CP?】

【[Shh!] Because, in the past, the strength of the pure fans of the two was just too strong before, moreover the two groups opposed each other, so our cute CP could only lurk at the bottom of the lake, being cute in secret. Even when we floated up to get a mouthful of sugar, we still hadn’t dared to fully expose ourselves, so we called ourselves Voldemort一 “That person whose name can’t be mention”~ haha ha [er ha] [er ha]】

【A sincere thank you to Liang Shanbo and Romeo, from today on, this CP will probably be able to switch to a new name~】

…

With another look at the ranking of hot searches, ‘Su Chi Xia Rong’ occupied the first place on the list, the second (impressively) was ‘Su Chi Xia Rong In Love’, the third was ‘Liang Shanbo and Romeo’, where finally the fourth was a societal incident irrelevant to the above. So it could be seen that the effects from this wave of events orchestrated by the program group were truly astonishing.

He apprehensively tapped to enter ‘Su Chi Xia Rong In Love’ and found that most of them were saying “after seeing Su Chi and Xia Rong, I feel as if I’m in love” or “Aren’t Su Chi and Xia Rong too beautiful, face-cons can’t bear it, I’m going to fall in love again,” but there was even a microblog with several short clips that went “aahhhh, this easter egg of Su Chi and Xia Rong’s, the sweetness from being unintentional is the sweetest. After seeing this, I want to fall in love,” which had already been forwarded tens of thousands of times. In fact, no one really said anything about the two of them really being in love, but as luck would have it, the hot search keyword crawl managed to pick precisely this and pushed it up.

Later, passersby also began to post their microblogs. One microblog, in particular, showed that they and Xia Rong, who had just seen this topic from the hot search, had the same notion: “#Su Chi Xia Rong In Love# f★ck, scared me to death when I saw this hot search. I even thought they had announced their relationship or something!”

In order to console his own heart, having been reminded by an earlier comment just now, Xia Rong decided to search for a round of videos on Bi-site.

Bi-site used to be a 2D-based website that mainly centered around animation culture. Because it had adopted the novel barrage mode relatively early and had a unique site design, it gradually attracted more contributions from 3D cultures. In recent years, Bi-site has continually been expanding its capital, striving to grow bigger. Bi-site users were experts at making interesting edits and playing tricks. Although the flow of people wasn’t the highest, oftentimes it had been able to incite new waves and trends.

Orange TV also hadn’t left this piece of cake alone and had its own official account on Bi-site, where they would upload videos of their variety shows after the live broadcast. Xia Rong searched for 《Liang Shanbo and Romeo》 and found that the official account had only contributed the first episode of the program, which should be because the second episode had just finished its broadcast, so they had not had the time to upload it yet.

Since he can’t watch the second episode, he’ll just have to make do with the first episode.

As soon as the video started, almost immediately bullets of different lengths and colors filled the screen, seemingly wanting to burst out—

“Crazily calling for Su Chi” “Came for Ye Mang” “Gao Junming Gao Junming Gao Junming” “I came here to see Zhang Xin” “Calling from overseas for Kang Yifan-xiaogege” “I’m contracting Xia Rong aahhhh”

The barrage army was dazzling, a feast for the eyes. But Xia Rong rather even boredly counted, within the same screen, just whose bullets took the lead in number.

Although he had watched it once already, it was interestingly fun and full of novelty now that the video was paired with the barrage一 When the six people, five dogs, and one cat all struggled to fit into the same scene, such that even their faces were being squeezed out of shape: “I didn’t expect that none of the six people would act self-important at all, instead, playing it all so seriously, natural but funny.” “Hahahaha, to actually not feel any baggage from being an idol, my impression of a few people has changed.”

When they all split up to complete missions: “Zhang Xin who’s square dancing with facial paralysis is truly pitiful yet cute. Hahaha.” “Gao Junming’s rolling around is like a big bear, so stupid-cute stupid-cute.” “I hadn’t expected that Xia Rong would be able to answer so many questions. I thought these stars were all without learning or skills.” “The one up in front, although our Xia Rong debuted early, he hadn’t dropped out of school. He’s a proper graduate of Shangyin, alright?”…

When he got to this point, Xia Rong no longer had much of a desire to continue watching, because he knew that coming up he would be vilified by the editing. He didn’t want to see all the negative comments and affect his mood for no reason, so he chose to drag the progress bar to skip this section.

But then it turned out that he had to skip more than just this one section. Aside from when it was one of the others’ scenes, he had to drag all the way until the end if he were to avoid all those scolding and curses that were aimed at him. Moreover, the end was where the quarrel was at its fiercest, and even until the preview of the next episode was being broadcasted, the quarrel in the barrage was still awfully heated.

Xia Rong tutted and simply decided to back out of the video. Casually refreshing the page, he found that the official account of Orange TV was actually quite efficient. They had actually already uploaded the second episode; moreover, Bi-site had already audited and passed it.

As the episode had just dropped, the number of bullets in this second episode hadn’t reached the point where it was exploding as it did in the first episode, and they had only run smitten amuck towards the two of them during the beginning with the “tree-don”: “This picture is just too beautiful, I can’t stop my hand from screenshotting” “There’s too much of a CP feel, it’s just as if they were shooting a(n) ** idol drama [hides face]” “And it’s even the kind with sufficient funding, one with big-name actors” “To watch a ** drama of this level, I guess I can only make up the rest with my brain while staring at this segment, right? QAQ” “No, no, no! From someone who had just finished watching the live broadcast, the most explosive ** scene is still up ahead!! Still sharply screaming from inside my duvet aahhh”…

The farther into the video it was, the sparser the barrage became. Xia Rong originally came specifically to take a look at the barrage, so now without it, he simply dragged the progress bar again, planning to jump directly to the end to rewatch the culprit of today’s hot search一 the so-called ‘surprise raid easter egg’.

Unexpectedly, he didn’t manage to drag it all the way to the end, skipping directly to the easter egg part. Instead, he only got to the part where Tang Feifei had just got on stage and everyone was promoting the protection of animals. On the screen, it was right at the part where Su Chi was sharing some information about folded-ear cats when Xia Rong noticed that there were some bullets here. His fingertips paused, and he didn’t continue dragging for the time being.

“Oh, this program has a good conscience. From the beginning, I was worried that using a folded-ear to do the show would lead to a bad influence. But surprisingly, they actually helped popularize the science of it instead. QVQ”

“[The moment you choose to raise it, you must properly prepare yourself mentally to protect it for its entire life.] This sentence is just too su, I’ve fallen in love with Su Chi now.”

“Su Chi like this is really just so su, so su. QAQ Really wants to marry him.”

…

It was only after seeing the barrage that Xia Rong realized what that feeling was that made his heart flutter when he looked at Su Chi一 the most exact description would be, he simply got hit by the ‘su’-ness.

He held his cell phone and dragged the progress bar back and forth around Su Chi’s few sentences.

“The moment you choose to raise it, you must properly prepare yourself mentally to protect it for its entire life…”

Just as he felt that he was about to be brainwashed by this sentence, a WeChat message from Shu Yi popped out at the top of the fullscreen playback—

{Xia Rong, Han Lianghao found me to talk just now.}

Xia Rong froze for a moment, but then immediately remembered that Han Lianghao was Su Chi’s agent and replied, “What did he say?”

“He said-” Shu Yi’s voice when she replied was calm, without a ripple, but Xia Rong seemed to be able to feel her pent-up frustrations through her choice of words—

“All of us should have seen the effect of 1 + 1 > 2, and he asked our team if we might consider cooperation to attain a win-win.”

YinYue has something to say:

Still looking for an editor. And as those reading now can see, this is essentially what the editor would get + raws to look over, afterward, it would get sent to PR. Example of what the editor would get.

• 1
  Supertopic, from my understanding, is similar to a subreddit. Lofter (Raw: 撸否), from what I was told, is a platform for fanfic and fanart.
• 2
  I think this refers to Bilibili. China’s a bit tight on using specific branding if it’s not actually sponsored, etc. Regulations fluctuate pretty drastically though.
• 3
  Also references a meme. Apparently, an author had lost a bet resulting in them writing a fanfic with Voldemort as MC and FL being a Chinese character, and somehow this CP became very popular over the net. Basically describes an impossible couple.