91: Pre-exam public opinion

The filming proceeded smoothly. The 'Pure Love Army' was truly massive; after the first episode aired, Lu Qingyu was on the hot search topics every single day. This situation was truly the envy of his peers.

Where there is envy, there is jealousy. The streaming platform for 'destined lover' was Penguin. This year, Penguin had invested in a film titled 'three lives fate', a Republican-era romance starring the popular idol singer Xu Haokai. 'three lives fate' was also his first acting project.

As Xu Haokai's first foray into the film and television industry, both his company and Penguin attached great importance to this film. Penguin even inserted advertisements for 'three lives fate' at the end of all their shows and had started laying out the promotional plan half a month in advance.

Penguin thought that by promoting the work so heavily, it would surely be the biggest hit of the season when it aired. As it turned out, they had miscalculated.

Xu Haokai never expected that just as his first acting project was about to take off, it would be completely overshadowed by 'destined lover'.

Xu Hao's Agent had intended to use 'three lives fate' as a springboard. As long as the data for this project was presentable, he could secure better resources.

But the problem now was that Xu Haokai was flopping too hard. Every time his Agent spoke to others about this drama, the attitude of the Producers out there was, "Never heard of it. When does it air? I see 'destined lover' is very popular right now; are you planning to air it after them?"

Xu Haokai's Agent's mouth twitched upon hearing this. "It's already airing. Yesterday, its data index broke 8,000."

The Producers knew what was going on as soon as they heard that. A popularity index of only 8,000? For a popular singer, that amount of traffic was truly not much.

However, people in the industry still knew how to speak tactfully:

"The data does sound decent, but my production crew is already full. I don't have any roles for Mr. Xu at the moment. Let's collaborate when there's an opportunity in the future."

Every time Xu Haokai heard his Agent mention this, he hated 'destined lover' all over again, and he especially hated Zhou Fang and Lu Qingyu, who were constantly popping up on the hot search topics.

The time for Lu Qingyu's National College Entrance Exam was approaching. When Su Jixing was checking Lu Qingyu's itinerary, he reserved time for the exam.

The exam lasted a total of two days. Aside from needing to request leave from the film crew in advance this week, no other work schedules needed to be changed.

Because he had to take leave, Lu Qingyu had been frequently pulling all-nighters to film these past two days. By the time he finished work tonight, it was already past three in the morning. Su Jixing had already slept in the car for several hours.

Once Lu Qingyu finished his shift, Su Jixing took him back to the hotel.

"Qingyu, the National College Entrance Exam is in two days. Do you want to look at your books?"

At this hour, Lu Qingyu couldn't help but yawn. He was quite confident about this exam and didn't need any last-minute cramming.

"No need, Brother Su. There's nothing left to prepare."

Su Jixing looked at Lu Qingyu through the rearview mirror. True, what could one learn in two days? Since they more or less knew what the result would be anyway, there was no point in agonizing over it.

It was already past four o'clock by the time he dropped Lu Qingyu off at the hotel, and the sky was about to brighten. Su Jixing set an alarm for himself; work started at ten tomorrow morning, and they had to be up by eight for hair and makeup.

"Go get some rest quickly. I'll wake you up tomorrow morning."

Lu Qingyu nodded and hurried off to sleep, and Su Jixing rested as well.

Su Jixing had caught up on sleep at the film set, so he woke up after seven. Following his usual routine, he first opened his phone to check the news.

His heart skipped a beat at what he saw. Lu Qingyu was on the hot search topics, but not because of 'destined lover'—it was because of the National College Entrance Exam.

Somehow, the fact that Lu Qingyu was taking the National College Entrance Exam had been leaked, and even his exam center had been revealed.

A celebrity taking the National College Entrance Exam always generated a lot of buzz, but the heat around Lu Qingyu was a bit too high; he was currently in fourth place on the hot search topics.

From the moment he knew Lu Qingyu was going to take the exam, Su Jixing had been prepared, but it still felt a bit sudden when the information actually broke.

He opened the news to check the comments section. The current public reaction to Lu Qingyu taking the exam was not very friendly.

[Didn't Lu Qingyu drop out of school? Why is he taking the National College Entrance Exam? Is he trying to fulfill a dream he never experienced?]

[Little brother likes to study, we should all support him. Even if he doesn't pass this time, there's always a next time.]

[Is Lu Qingyu here to be a comedian? No one was thinking about him being a dropout, so why pull a stunt like this now?]

[As far as I know, the highest score for artists in the entertainment industry hasn't exceeded 500, and the average is 250. Can Lu Qingyu even get half of that?]

[So what's the point of taking the exam this time? Does he think he's a genius? He hasn't even spent two days in high school, yet he thinks he can get a high score?]

Lu Qingyu's fans were quite lenient about this. They felt it was a good thing that Lu Qingyu wanted to study, and the artist's fans helped to defend him against the nasty comments. However, there seemed to be far too many negative comments.

When an artist is popular, many people will be jealous. Su Jixing vaguely felt that this wasn't simple; the speed at which this matter was fermenting was too fast.

Su Jixing called the company and asked them to check the IP addresses and identities of the people with the most comments and likes. Then, the Staff Members followed the clues and discovered that a portion of the IPs belonged to Xu Haokai's company. Besides spamming negative comments about Lu Qingyu, they had also done so for other stars, but they only ever gave positive reviews to Xu Haokai.

The stance was self-evident.

Half an hour later, the company sent the results over.

Su Jixing looked at the name mentioned on his phone. Xu Haokai? He had a vague impression of him; he was a singer, right!

Su Jixing continued scrolling down, and Xu Haokai's profile appeared. Sure enough, he was a singer and also an actor.

His first work was heavily promoted by Penguin. No wonder, then—it turned out they were jealous of them.

But this was truly laughable. Their own singing was no good and their acting was no good, yet instead of improving their own abilities, why did they always love to badmouth others?

However, since they dared to fan the flames, they couldn't blame him for what came next.

After Lu Qingyu woke up in the morning, he browsed his phone for a while and naturally saw the news, but it was all within his expectations.

In his past life, every time he did anything, there would be a crowd of reporters reporting and following him, let alone now as an artist.

Su Jixing prepared breakfast for Lu Qingyu. Seeing that Lu Qingyu's expression was normal, he still said to him:

"Qingyu, don't pay attention to those things online. It'll be fine after a while."

While eating, Lu Qingyu said, "Don't worry, Brother Su. I'll focus on filming."

Relieved, Su Jixing dropped Lu Qingyu off at the set, then turned around and drove back to the company to handle the public relations.

Lu Qingyu's current popularity was relatively high, so every small matter had to be treated as a major one. Otherwise, if the public opinion wasn't controlled well and the narrative went sideways, it would hurt the artist.