IDEI Ch19

Li Xin’er laughed wildly in her heart, but seeing her roommate’s beet-red face, she kindly changed the subject: “Why don’t you come down and watch with me? The laptop screen is bigger, much easier to watch.”

The roommate nodded with embarrassment.

Climbing down from her bed, she pulled her chair over and sat right beside Li Xin’er. All of this took only a few seconds; by the time she settled in next to Li Xin’er, Mo Jinghai’s part hadn’t even finished yet.

They exchanged a quick smile and glued their eyes back to the screen. The bullet comments on the display were densely packed.

[So Alpha!]

[Possessing the kind of aesthetic that could f*ck the whole world]

[Damn, isn’t this my long-lost husband?]

[This guy’s aura… so bed-ready]

[Fine, good, seductive as hell, aren’t you? Am I really that easily swayed? Yes, I am! Wuwuwu husband, mommy, wifey, you’re so handsome]

[Chest circumference is a man’s greatest dowry!]

……

Both of them felt slightly flustered reading the wild comments, trying hard to ignore them. Right at that moment, the stage transitioned into the chorus.

On stage, the six paired off two by two to begin partner choreography.

Feng Qingyi and Mo Jinghai were partners, their movements displaying extraordinary chemistry.

The blush beneath Feng Qingyi’s eyes lent him a fragile look, yet he was anything but soft—like a razor-sharp blade slick with moisture, radiating intense, aggressive hunger.

Mo Jinghai’s movements were broad and sweeping, his rugged features and commanding aura charging him with boundless tension.

Between their movements, the two drew so close their breaths mingled, then pulled apart, their gazes hopelessly tangled.

Feng Qingyi and Mo Jinghai’s auras collided, producing an overwhelming tension that swept over the live audience and everyone watching behind screens alike. Neither could overpower the other; instead, their presence fused in a bizarre, electrifying harmony.

The music for this dance break leaned psychedelic. The three pairs dancing face-to-face seemed engaged in battle, or perhaps… flirtation.

The roommate’s grip on Li Xin’er’s hand tightened abruptly, stifling a shriek in her throat.

In the live chat, howls had already broken loose.

[Holy crap holy crap holy crap]

[Your Star, doing fanservice like this, huh?! All I can say is: phenomenal fanservice!]

[Keep selling, we love to see it!]

[Damn damn damn, the Center in black is way too Alpha! Feels like he could knock up the white-clad guy with octuplets in one go]

[This sexual tension has me blushing and heart racing]

[I’ve finally tasted the imperial feast]

[Don’t move, I’m bringing the bed up to the stage for you!]

[Your Star, I command you to let these two bang each other senseless!]

……

Li Xin’er and her roommate exchanged looks, speaking in unison once more.

“…You ship them too?”

“Can they just do it for me to watch…?”

Hearing that, Li Xin’er looked at her roommate’s flushed face, having dropped shocking lines one after another, feeling utterly conflicted.

Didn’t you say you don’t follow the entertainment industry? Where did you learn so much filth?

The moment the live broadcast of Mo Jinghai and Feng Qingyi’s Lost in Your Eyes stage wrapped up, they trended on the hot search.

Marketing accounts uniformly chose the ending fairy shot as video thumbnails. The ending shot of their stage was a two-shot: Mo Jinghai and Feng Qingyi stood facing each other, turning their heads toward the camera. Feng Qingyi was tall and slender, while Mo Jinghai was towering and powerfully built; standing face-to-face, the visual impact was astonishingly potent.

From the intense dance, both of their shirts were drenched in sweat. Feng Qingyi was comparatively fine; because his white shirt was slightly loose, only parts of it clung to his skin, faintly teasing the flesh tones beneath.

Mo Jinghai was an entirely different story. His black shirt was already form-fitting, and he had a high metabolism and sweated easily. The fabric now clung tightly to his frame, emphasizing his full pecs and faint outlines of sculpted abs beneath, impeccably tracing his solid, athletic physique.

The subtle touch of bashfulness in his expression cleverly defused the potential greasy heaviness or overbearing aggression of excessive masculinity, projecting instead a crisp, youthful sexual tension.

He scratched his head and flashed a grin.

The frame froze.

On Xingbo, the initial trending topic was relatively understated:

#YourStarLostInYourEyesStage#

Before long, a peculiar hashtag was pushed to the top:

#MoJinghaiAlpha#

Clicking into the tag, the comment feed was packed with screaming netizens.

[F*ck f*ck f*ck, where did this guy pop out from?]

[So Alpha!]

[It’s been so long since I saw an idol this charged with raw tension. TBH, idols lately are all exuding complete anti-sex-appeal for some reason.]

[Please, regardless of gender, being pale, juvenile, and skinny just doesn’t produce sexual tension!]

[As expected, real handsome men need to get buzz cuts!]

Others discussed the partner dancing in this stage.

[Your Star production team’s intentions are blindingly obvious, hhhhh]

[Dammit, even knowing this is Your Star’s shameless ploy for clout, I still threw caution to the wind and fell for it!]

[All three pairs have insane CP chemistry! Your Star’s crew deserves an altar in the Ancestral Temple—wait, no, the Temple of the God of Marriage!]

[The fanservice is blatant, but on account of the ‘Yi-Jing’ CP, I won’t complain. Keep it up next time!]

[Hhhhh ‘Yi-Jing’ CP? Feng Qingyi and Mo Jinghai, they already got a couple name this fast?]

[Way more than that! The more people dig into these two, the more gold they find. From the same hometown, joined the same company, closest bond… what kind of blessed childhood-friends-to-lovers CP is this!]

The fanbases of Your Star‘s trainees expanded at a breakneck pace, and various CP Super Topics sprouted like bamboo shoots after rain.

The entire Your Star fandom displayed a flourishing, radiant momentum.

That night, Xingbo’s entertainment chart was almost completely conquered by Your Star. After all, virtually every stage from Your Star‘s second public performance was legendary enough to be canonized.

Top-tier talent and immaculate styling, combined with solid props and lighting, forged these peerless, magnificent stages together.

Meanwhile, Ou Jin next door was in the exact opposite state. The episode Ou Jin aired that same evening was met with widespread public ridicule.

This broadcast featured Ou Jin‘s third public evaluation stage. Back when Qi Yanning departed, Ou Jin‘s second stage had already finished filming, but something unknown occurred within the production team. For half a month, they stalled the regular competition schedule, filler-padding with variety segments and daily training vlogs to buy time.

Only when fan dissatisfaction reached its absolute limit did they get back on track and officially proceed with the third performance.

This was precisely why, even though Ou Jin started filming so much earlier than Your Star, by the time Your Star held its second performance, Ou Jin was only on its third.

Even so, Ou Jin‘s third stage performances were not so abysmal that they justified nationwide backlash on their own.

Most Ou Jin contestants lacked high-level technical skills or magnetic stage presence. Yet they possessed enough ability to execute a standard, passable performance, which, masked by adequate styling, was usually enough to pull the wool over people’s eyes.

Consequently, Ou Jin had consistently maintained high viewership among survival programs.

The widespread mockery this time was essentially the backlash of Ou Jin‘s toxic fandom cultivation coming home to roost.

Nobody knew what went wrong with Luo Heng’s group, but noticeable blunders plagued his third stage performance. The camerawork and editing for their group stage had been chopped to pieces in an attempt to hide dancing mistakes, while the vocals were autotuned into metallic, digitized robotic tones.

Yet Luo Heng’s group featured three top-tier popular trainees. Their fans seemed oblivious to the stage’s flaws, or perhaps fully aware but driven by factional fandom fervor, plastering clips of the performance across every trending topic related to rival show Your Star.

They didn’t merely promote; they stepped on others. Under the performance videos of Your Star‘s vocal teams, Luo Heng’s fans pushed a comment straight to the top:

@HengIsTheLight: This song is pretty nice, but the vocal level is mediocre. Why not listen to our peerless gentleman, Immortal Luo Heng, sing instead~ [Video Link]

Under Your Star‘s dance performance videos, similar comments cropped up:

@HengGeIsMine: The dance is so limp. Better come watch our dance king Luo Heng’s super intense stage!

Such underhanded comparisons were intolerable to Your Star‘s trainee fans. Lacking organized coordination, however, they were no match for Luo Heng’s fans led by paid professional stans and lost every argument.

It wasn’t until comments praising Luo Heng and other popular Ou Jin contestants were left under the Lost in Your Eyes stage that public fury was truly ignited.

A casual netizen clicked into their video and returned thoroughly disappointed, leaving a simple comment: “Nothing special.” For this, she was swarmed and verbally assaulted by fans of Luo Heng and his peers.

This passerby happened to have a fiery temper. She downloaded the video, dissecting every flaw frame by frame, and dumped a comprehensive thirty-minute video onto the trending topic square.

In terms of singing: heavy backing track reliance, off-pitch vocals, ducking high notes… In terms of dancing: swallowed movements, limp execution, lack of synchronization…

Luo Heng’s group performance was practically a textbook catalog of every stage sin imaginable.

Consequently, once the video dropped, likes, comments, and reposts skyrocketed. Not only did Your Star fans jump in, but casual onlookers fed up with the tyrannical antics of Luo Heng’s fandom joined the feast as well.

Previously, due to Your Star‘s styling, Ou Jin fans had relentlessly mocked Your Star as a convention of ugly people.

Now that Your Star‘s styling had surged in quality, the one mocked across the board was Ou Jin, which had only superficial packaging without real substance.

This carnival of ridicule catapulted the hashtag #OuJinSingingAndDancingIncompetents# to number one on the hot search, driving explosive discourse until Ou Jin‘s PR team finally scrubbed it late at night.

Nevertheless, after this clash, Your Star‘s performances were pushed before an even wider audience, while the label of “terrible skills” was slapped firmly onto Luo Heng, his peers, and the entirety of Ou Jin.

Public discourse churned fiercely throughout the night, dying down completely only when the morning sun crested the horizon.

Naturally, none of this internet drama had anything to do with Qi Yanning; he had returned to his quarters long ago, drifting into deep slumber.

The next day, waking from his sleep, he saw a message from Ling Cangzhou.

[Red-Eared Puppy]: Are you interested in City A Fashion Week?

Picking up his phone, Qi Yanning replied casually.

Qi Yanning hadn’t expected an immediate reply from Ling Cangzhou, since the message had been sent the night before.

Yet…

Just as Qi Yanning was about to pocket his phone, Ling Cangzhou replied.

[Red-Eared Puppy]: At the end of next month. Morning Star Entertainment has front-row seats to every show. Would you like to go… with me?

Qi Yanning arched an eyebrow.

Calculating the timeline, his work with Your Star should be wrapped up by the end of next month, leaving his schedule wide open.

Looking at the puppy sticker memes filling half his screen, Qi Yanning felt they bore an uncanny resemblance to Ling Cangzhou.

Mm, next time we meet, I’ll put a pair of dog ears on him and see how it looks, Qi Yanning thought idly.