Ye Huanqiu returned home and collapsed onto his bed, utterly drained and wanting nothing more than to lie there motionless.
While he enjoyed a comfortable rest, Li Yuanjie played the obedient child before his master, confessing his unauthorized actions. His master remained silent, offering only a nod, leaving Li Yuanjie to interpret the unspoken disapproval in his expression.
Storming out of his master's residence, Li Yuanjie frantically made over a dozen phone calls, mobilizing his entire network to track down this "One Leaf Knows Autumn" character. He vowed to make him pay dearly.
Normally, his connections would have quickly uncovered the target. However, Chen Yihan had recently instructed Uncle Xu to discreetly investigate Ye Huanqiu. Sensing the urgency in his young mistress's request, Uncle Xu took it upon himself to subtly alter Ye Huanqiu's personal information.
As a result, Li Yuanjie found no trace of him, which only intensified his suspicion. He began to suspect that Ye Huanqiu might have powerful connections. How else could an "unknown nobody" evade his extensive network? The investigation had backfired, leaving him shaken.
What a spineless coward—bullying the weak and cowering before the strong!
Meanwhile, the production team of Tomato TV's I Am a Creator worked tirelessly on post-production. The first half of the season had already been edited, and the second half, filmed on Friday, was rushed to the editing suite. By Saturday morning, the team had finished editing and adding subtitles, working overtime through the night.
The production team gathered in the television station's screening room for the final review.
I Am a Creator had already consumed a significant portion of the station's resources. Despite a week of intensive promotion, the second half of the show, recorded on Friday, was set to premiere on Saturday at 7:45 PM during prime time.
The show's two hosts and eight celebrity contestants were urged to share promotional posts on their personal social media accounts.
Beneath the official Weibo post announcing the airtime, fans flooded the comments with carefully curated messages. Meng Yan's fans dominated the top spot, followed by those of Liu Ning, Cheng Xiao, Zhang Yanzhuo, and Wang Lingkai. Yang Chaoyue and Chen Yihan's fans arrived later and found their comments further down the thread.
To find genuine passerby opinions, one had to sort the comments by "most recent."
One particularly thoughtful netizen wrote: "This show is so strange and disjointed. Why are there only two genuinely talented singers? If it's supposed to be a real musical competition, shouldn't the contestants be evenly matched? Yang Chaoyue and the other idols only have popularity. What musical skills do they have to compare with Sun Nan or Tan Weiwei? And with all the chaotic songwriting trends these days, I don't have much hope for this show."
The argument made perfect sense, but if everything were fair, variety shows would lose their buzz. Even the best shows would only earn a lukewarm "pretty good" review.
Passerby opinions hold no value for commercially driven variety shows. These viewers won't watch the ads or spend a dime on the show. Sure, you might say you spent time watching and recommended it to others, but that's all. The production team isn't interested in that kind of audience; they need people who can generate buzz and willingly spend money on the show's merchandise.
These controversial celebrities, the singers with unevenly matched skills—of course there's unfairness. Even the fact that Director Zhang planted fifty staff members to influence the results of the first episode—it's all in service of the show. People like Director Zhang and Shen Tao represent the majority in the entertainment industry: blunt pragmatists. Those who can't play the game have either been marginalized or left long ago.
Value is all that matters to them.
Otherwise, how could an unknown like Ye Huanqiu effortlessly secure a hundred thousand yuan for a single episode?
Through a stroke of luck, "Blooming Life" went viral on short video platforms. Just as the show "I Am a Creator" needed a sensational topic to drive viewership, Ye Huanqiu's newfound fame made him valuable, earning him a 100,000 yuan paycheck.
Director Zhang wasn't impressed by Ye Huanqiu's talent, nor did he particularly like the song "Chinese." In his world, such considerations simply didn't exist.
No matter how catchy your song, what does it matter to the director? What matters is whether the audience loves it and the ratings soar.
Take the recent performances, for example. Yang Chaoyue delivered an exceptional performance, while Zhang Yanzhuo utterly bombed. In Director Zhang's eyes, their value was equal.
The hype surrounding Yang Chaoyue and the inevitable backlash against Zhang Yanzhuo both generated traffic. Traffic translates to ratings, and ratings define value.
As the fandoms often say: "Even bad publicity is still publicity."
Even Li Yuanjie, who should have been eliminated after his disastrous first episode, stayed on solely because his mentor was a Platinum-tier artist. That was his value.
Meanwhile, the pair of unremarkable songwriters and composers were the ones who got the axe.
That's the ugly yet undeniable truth of the industry.
After the evening news broadcast, a fifteen-minute commercial break began, accompanied by a banner crawl at the bottom of the screen. A massive influx of fans of the featured celebrities flooded in.
Director Zhang puffed away in his office, enveloped in a cloud of cigarette smoke, while Shen Tao remained in the ratings monitoring room.
For the seventh time, Shen Tao inquired about the viewership: "How much has the ratings curve risen? What's the current level?"
A staff member reported accurately: "It's up by 0.13%. The current rating is holding steady at 0.34%."
This translated to approximately 4.7 million viewers—a decent figure. However, Shen Tao knew Director Zhang's lofty ambitions. He decided not to report the ratings until they surpassed 0.5%.
To put this in perspective, the peak viewership of the first-generation Idol Audition shows occurred during the final group formation night, exceeding 2% and drawing nearly 30 million viewers.
Subsequent Idol Audition programs followed suit, but none have surpassed that benchmark. Among currently airing variety shows from other networks, even the most popular ones haven't broken the 1% mark.
Tomato TV desperately needed a major victory. To make I Am a Creator a success, they had to push its viewership rating above 1. Anything less would be considered a failure.
The show premiered on time, and Shen Tao glued his eyes to the fluctuating viewership curve.
The live comments section was filled with sarcastic remarks:
"Out of ideas? They should just start biting lighters. They kept hyping the 'fair' format before the show, but the moment I saw those idol contestants, I knew the production team was up to no good. I'm out..."
"Seriously? Do Sun Nan and Tan Weiwei really need the money that badly? Why would they lower themselves to a variety show of this caliber? They're basically just glorified backup dancers."
"I bet 50 cents Yang Chaoyue will come in last this episode, and Tan Weiwei will take first place."
"At least the show feels genuine and offers some entertainment. It's way better than watching those endless idol audition trainees all the time."
The viewership ratings surged during the segment where the theme was revealed and the contestants made blind team selections.