Ch 166: The Cannon Fodder Won’t Play Along Anymore [QT]

Fans were still cursing Mu Xing under the previous promo post when, out of nowhere, the second promotional clip dropped.

Since when did the Dream Pastoral production team become this hardworking?

Forget the viewers, even the other guests didn’t expect it.

The second promo lasted a full five minutes.

It began with all six guests receiving their invitations, with details of time and place clearly shown.

When it was Mu Xing’s turn, his slender fingers held the invitation, the time written in black and white: Dear guest, please arrive at our manor before 10 p.m. on the 6th.

The scene cut back to the living room where the other five were waiting for Mu Xing.

This time, however, the dialogue was completely different from before.

Fu Chen: “Why isn’t he here yet?”
Jiang Shengyu: “I’m hungry.”
Qin Song: “Let’s just eat first, it’s nothing fancy tonight anyway.”

When Mu Xing walked in dragging his suitcase, the camera gave a slow zoom from far to near, lingering especially on his face.

The director knew perfectly well what fans loved to see, so in the first promo, to achieve the desired effect, he only released a blurred side profile of Mu Xing.

But this time was different.

Working with the cameraman, he picked out the most striking shot:

A tall, handsome boy in a white shirt walking steadily forward. His blurred features slowly sharpened into clarity, and when he lifted his gaze, the glow of the lights behind him seemed to pour into his eyes.

When faced with Fu Chen’s impatient complaints, Mu Xing simply apologized graciously.

Later, upon learning the others had already eaten, he didn’t say a word of protest, just rolled up his sleeves and went into the kitchen.

He cooked a bowl of noodles so enticing that even the cameraman couldn’t resist giving it a close-up.

The clip ended with Mu Xing and Fu Chen’s little exchange, closing on Fu Chen storming off with his carton of milk.

The director had watched that scene several times before finally allowing it to be released.

Even the editor quietly asked, “Director, did you suddenly realize Mu Xing is your long-lost son?”

Everyone knew the director’s reputation—he would do anything for hype and ratings. His industry standing wasn’t great.

But bad reputation or not, it never stopped his programs from pulling in high viewership and making money.

So why the sudden change today?

Leaning back in his chair, the director stared at the video as if watching his KPIs sprout wings and fly away, looking utterly heartbroken.

He wiped his face and muttered, “He’s not my son—he’s my long-lost ancestor!”

What kind of rich young master plays this “hiding his identity to chase dreams in showbiz” storyline? Isn’t this just making trouble?

He opened the comments section under the promo, and sure enough, it was filled with question marks and angry posts:

【???】

【What the hell? So Mu Xing was told to arrive before 10 p.m. He actually came three hours early—he wasn’t late or acting high and mighty. Why didn’t you clarify that in the last promo?】

【This editing is trash. Director and editor, see you in hell tonight!】

【Am I the only one noticing how good-looking Mu Xing is? I rewatched that long shot a dozen times. He’s exactly the cold, beautiful boy of my dreams.】

【Nonsense! Clearly he’s my long-lost boyfriend of 18 years.】

【Now I’m hungry. Watching a handsome guy cook looks—no, tastes—so good.】

【Help! Those long legs! That pale skin! That aloof aura! And he can cook! He’s hitting every one of my weak spots!】

【So Mu Xing is actually a poor kid being wronged. Because of the shady time schedule, he came early only to get scolded by the others, then had to settle for leftovers. Luckily, he could cook for himself.】

【Did the network grow a conscience today? Why drop such a wholesome promo all of a sudden?】

【My Chen is too cute. He couldn’t take his eyes off that bowl of noodles.】

【Mu Xing is too stingy. He knew Fu Chen wanted some, but didn’t share even a bite.】

【That’s Mu Xing? Did he always look like this? Six months away and he looks like he had plastic surgery.】

【A rookie, yet the program gave him so many shots—even the award-winning actors didn’t get this much screen time. Isn’t this promotion a little too obvious?】

…

The director glanced at the comments, thinking it should be enough.

But the next second, his boss called, saying it still wasn’t.

The director: “…”

He practically knelt. “President Wang, the guests only just gathered tonight, we really don’t have much footage yet.”

He promised, “Once filming starts, I’ll make sure to give Mu Xing more screen time, okay?”

His boss replied, “Fine. But don’t make it too obvious. He seems to have a lot of haters. If they grab onto this, it won’t look good.”

The director: “…”

He muttered, “If we’re going to push him, there’s no avoiding criticism.”

The boss: “I know. That’s why I’m telling you to find a way. Make it natural, seamless, no traces of favoritism. If he’s happy, our sponsors are happy.”

The call ended.

The director wanted to curse and bark out, “If you’re so good, you do it!”

But he didn’t dare.

Every corporate grunt meets a boss who makes you want to dunk their head in icy water until they calm down.

Best to treat it as tribulation.

The problem was, Mu Xing already had a bad reputation. Qin Song’s fans hated him, Jiang Shengyu’s fans hated him, and the CP shippers of the two despised him even more.

Even if the production team didn’t do malicious editing, the moment he joined the show it was destined he’d get scolded. A small-time variety director like him, what power did he have to solve something like this?

And now, because of the two clips that were so drastically different, a lot of fans were already very dissatisfied with the production team.

The already shaky reputation was showing clear signs of collapse.

The director sat in his chair for half an hour before suddenly making a crazy decision.

He called his boss and talked for over ten minutes.

After that, every guest had their door knocked on and was told the news.

This episode of Dream Pastoral would use a brand-new live broadcast format, letting the audience interact with the guests in real time and experience the most authentic pastoral life.

But doing a live variety show is a real headache.

It couldn’t be broadcast on TV, but they had their own app, and since apps had long overtaken TV stations in traffic, it wasn’t too bad.

The biggest uncertainty with livestreaming is that if anything unplanned happens, there’s no way to redo, no way to edit.

The guests’ privacy and real personalities would be directly exposed in front of the fans.

Mu Xing’s door was the one the director knocked on personally.

When he heard the show was switching to livestreaming, he was surprised: in the original script, this didn’t seem to exist.

But he was very familiar with live broadcasts, so he had no objections.

Seeing he didn’t resist, the director let out a sigh of relief.

The other guests were surprised too, but none of them objected.

It wasn’t that no shows had tried livestreaming before, but the response had never been good.

Of course, those were also all little-known new shows.

Mainly, the risks of livestreaming were too high. Many popular celebrities worried about accidents breaking their flawless image in fans’ eyes, so they didn’t dare attempt it lightly.

Qin Song didn’t want to participate at first, but Jiang Shengyu seemed very interested.

Since Jiang Shengyu agreed, Qin Song followed.

Fu Chen thought it seemed fun, at least more interesting than that disgusting post-production editing, so he also agreed.

With four people in, Zhou Qiongyu and Gu Jiani no longer objected.

Once all the guests had agreed and the contracts were amended, the Dream Pastoral team released a new announcement around 11 p.m.

Most netizens weren’t asleep at that hour, but when they saw the notice, they were stunned:

【I checked the time on my phone. Announcing this now? Well, typical of you, hell-production team.】

【Holy crap, livestream? For real? You’re going this far?】

【Looking forward to it! Tomorrow’s a holiday, I can watch all day!】

【Really promising full livestream? No post-production? If that’s confirmed, I’ll download Fruit Video App right now.】

【Interesting… I didn’t even want to watch after that hell-editing earlier, but I’ll check it out tomorrow.】

…

The response was surprisingly positive.

The director finally let out a breath of relief.

Now the higher-ups couldn’t complain, right? Full livestream, no meddling from them.

Whatever the outcome, it was up to the little prince himself.

If he couldn’t win fans, it couldn’t be blamed on the director.

He gave himself a mental thumbs-up for his cleverness.

Unfortunately, a worker can’t just sleep, because changing the format last-minute meant the whole team was called into the office for a meeting. They worked overtime until 4 a.m., finally made a brand-new plan, and went off yawning to grab a little rest.

At 6 a.m., Mu Xing’s door was knocked on.

He got dressed and went downstairs to open it.

Ji Youyou, who was knocking, was startled by his bare face still heavy with sleep and a tuft of messy hair sticking up.

Startled, but also pleasantly surprised.

Nobody expected that at this moment, more than two hundred thousand people were already online in Dream Pastoral’s livestream room on Fruit App.

And this was at six in the morning!

That showed how interested fans were in the livestream.

Seeing Mu Xing, the barrage lit up with laughter:

【Good lord, five guests in a row, and only this one looks like he actually just woke up.】

【Isn’t this exactly what I look like when someone drags me out of bed?】

【You in the front, look in a mirror. Do you really look like this?】

【Wow, this bare face looks amazing. He doesn’t even look different from yesterday.】

【Why do I think Mu Xing is kind of cute?】

【All the other guests were already dressed and ready early. Only he’s dawdling, wasting everyone’s time.】

Ji Youyou was also startled by how straightforward he was.

Everyone knew wake-up was at six, and because of the livestream, there was even a special wake-up segment.

But the other guests all knew it was livestreaming, so they had obviously gotten up ahead of time. By the time Ji Youyou knocked, they were neat and polished, dazzling the viewers in the barrage.

Mu Xing was the first one so blunt about it.

But…

Ji Youyou looked again at his messy tuft of hair, and his face whose looks weren’t diminished in the least by the bedhead or sleepy expression. She couldn’t help thinking: if I had this kind of bare face, I wouldn’t care either.

Mu Xing greeted her. Ji Youyou asked if she could come in.

Mu Xing’s expression seemed reluctant, but he still nodded. “Come in.”

He turned and went into the bathroom to wash up.

【Hahaha his mouth says he’s fine with it, but his face doesn’t.】

【He’s not even pretending, huh?】

【I tuned in for Chenchen, but so far the biggest highlight is Mu Xing.】【Maybe because he’s still a nobody, he doesn’t quite act like a star yet.】

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