Love Variety Show: The despised me exploded in popularity

"I Am the King of Songs" clearly favors Jiang Jingsheng; he sings and dances well, has a good image, and no scandals. The male-to-female fan ratio is one to three, which is already a very favorable ratio.

His artist risk factor is 24, which is a coefficient that capital endorsements favor. It proves that his public sentiment is relatively stable and his fan base is mild.

Even if he smokes a Furong Wang indoors or lights up a Hua Zi, as long as it doesn't cause a big public opinion issue, it won't have too much impact on his artist risk assessment.

After Wen Shuanghua finished singing, it was Lin Wanzhou's turn to take the stage.

Jiang Ling had already lost interest in watching variety shows and was leaning on the sofa, scrolling through posts on her phone, and incidentally sent a message to Xu Qingyan.

"Pei Muchan got eliminated?"

Half a minute later, Xu Qingyan replied to her.

"?"

A wave of indifference hit her, and Jiang Ling bit her nails, frustrated to the point of itching.

He really wouldn't budge, no matter what; it seemed as if she would never receive his full attention as long as she was with Cloud Wing Entertainment.

Even if she stripped naked, he wouldn't take a second glance.

"Your songwriting is great, did the production team explain?" Jiang Ling sent another message, feeling so small for having to grovel just to buy songs.

If Xu Qingyan were a lecher or greedy for money, things would have been simpler, but he was stubbornly against reconciling with Cloud Wing, leaving her only with roundabout approaches.

She didn't like pleasing others one bit. She had never been so demeaning in her life. Honestly, she even found this behavior degrading.

Put plainly, she felt a little j like a joker.

Xu Qingyan didn't reply to her; one, two minutes passed without even a period. This infuriated Jiang Ling, thinking that she was, after all, a female celebrity of some standing.

Though the past was the past, was it not a bit impolite to always reply with just a question mark?

She wrote a 300-word message, polite and neither servile nor overbearing. It began with her longstanding admiration, mentioned her first experience listening to Qing Tian's music, and referenced the recent meal they had.

The 300-word message expanded to 500, with a succinct literary style.

"Teacher Xu, although I belong to Cloud Wing Entertainment, I'm already actively working on terminating my contract. There's no need for you to treat me this way, just as one cannot choose their own birth..."

Jiang Ling was enthusiastically typing, holding her phone and tapping away.

Suddenly, the stage on the living room TV screen darkened, and the sound of a heartbeat thumped twice.

Lin Wanzhou stood on stage, lights dimmed, a blue Fluorescent Sea glowing at her feet. As the prelude started, her voice was low, slowly infusing the stage with a sad melody.

"Suddenly realized I've been standing for long, not knowing which way to go."

At the sound, Jiang Ling stopped typing.

She abruptly looked up, eyes fixed on Lin Wanzhou on the big screen TV in the living room, her mind buzzing once again.

A new song! Another new song! Just by the intro, it was clear this wasn't a rushed job. The melody, these lyrics... they were beyond reach.

Listening to Lin Wanzhou smoothly take the pitch up, singing "peeling my heart like an onion" line, Jiang Ling was dumfounded.

This had to be tailor-made; barely anyone could sing this whole song. Anyone acquainted with music could tell the difficulty of this original piece.

It was clearly aimed at the championship, on par with the previous song "Riding a White Horse."

Before the song even ended, Xu Qingyan suddenly sent a message.

"No."

Just a single word again, Jiang Ling couldn't help but laugh mockingly, deleted the content she had drafted, and with a sneer, typed and sent a message.

"Ah, how could they do that? But don't worry, you're the most talented lyricist and composer I've ever met. It's unfair, true, but don't lose heart."

Xu Qingyan: "Yeah."

"In any case, don't offend the production team, or it will make it difficult for you on variety shows." Jiang Ling advised earnestly, as the show on the TV screen was nearing its end.

"It's too late."

Huh??

Jiang Ling was utterly confused. What did 'it's too late' mean?

The noisy cheers from the TV interrupted her thoughts as Lin Wanzhou unexpectedly secured a record-breaking score of seven hundred and forty-one votes, advancing directly to first place.

The other three in the top four were Hou Xueheng, Wang Yu, and Jiang Jingsheng, while Pei Muchan, Zhang Yuqi, and Wen Shuanghua, the three women, were eliminated, missing out on the finals.

What she didn't expect was that Xu Qingyan made his first appearance on the "I am the King of Songs" stage. However, he didn't get many shots, just a simple self-introduction.

After some polite exchanges, the expressions of the guests turned somewhat awkward.
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Strangely enough, their expressions seemed quite natural at first. It was just that suddenly, in the next second, the faces of all the guests changed instantaneously, indicating someone had said something, but it had been cut out.

When the female host asked Lin Wanzhou what song she was preparing for the next show, the camera zoomed in deliberately. They also added a colored subtitle, highlighting Lin Wanzhou's subconscious glance towards Xu Qingyan.

That glance was slightly inquisitive, somewhat concerned, and extraordinarily cautious.

"Too late? What's too late?" mumbled Jiang Ling to herself, looking down at the chat interface. Xu Qingyan hadn't replied to her message, which instantly infuriated her again.

You've really become a clown, about to get hooked by the songwriter.

If Xu Qingyan had slowed down with the two outstanding songs he produced that week, or if he had been a man in his forties or fifties, Jiang Ling wouldn't be this humbled.

A songwriter in his twenties—who wouldn't covet that? He could make anyone famous with his support.

Just as she was pondering, her phone suddenly pushed a trending search notification to her: #Lin Wanzhou Withdraws from Competition#, followed by a red "explosion" icon.

Jiang Ling was stunned and couldn't help but click on it.

In the hot post, the "I am the King of Songs" production team released a statement saying Lin Wanzhou had unilaterally notified them of her withdrawal from the show. They used words like lacking responsibility and excessive to describe her.

They directly reproached Lin Wanzhou for disrupting the production team's filming schedule, forcing them to contact eliminated guests to return as a replacement.

However, since Zhang Yuqi had gone abroad and Pei Muchan had refused the invitation for various reasons, the production team could only contact the last-ranked Wen Shuanghua to fill the spot.

The post was five hundred words long, laying almost all the blame on Lin Wanzhou. It mentioned her lack of professionalism and how perfunctory her excuses for withdrawing were.

Lin Wanzhou's side had not yet responded, which incited a wave of netizens' condemnation.

"That's too much, advancing and then withdrawing from the competition shows such disrespect for the stage. Are all singers like this now? I believe it's only a matter of time before 'I am the King of Songs' is finished."

"Yes, I used to work in variety shows, and it's really hard work. TyingQ, dealing with such neurotic artists really means working overtime until you're sick."

"Nine lives, feeling sorry for the girls for three seconds, just reading the text is suffocating."

"Isn't this simply sabotaging the show? To win first place and then withdraw, what kind of move is that? Can't deal with losing, huh? Doing things that will lose the audience's favor?"

Jiang Ling scrolled further down and couldn't be bothered to continue, as half of the comments were from troll accounts. The production team didn't want to take responsibility for a first-place withdrawal, looking for the last-place contestant to fill in—such a situation was too absurd.

So, they simply shifted the responsibility onto Lin Wanzhou, creating public opinion and projecting themselves as a white lotus removed from the controversy.

Normally, no one would openly clash with the production team; at most, they'd offer a few explanations. However, another notification popped up, this time with an even more explosive headline.

# "I am the King of Songs" Scandal#

She was still dazed. Are trending search headlines allowed to be this bold now? In the entertainment industry, everyone usually holds back their words, only being this blunt when absolutely necessary.

Production team scandals? Are they seriously confessing to this openly?

Jiang Ling quickly clicked on it and found that Xu Qingyan and Fluorescent Sea Studio had both posted a video. It appeared to be a music video, titled "On a White Horse."

Xu Qingyan: [Heard "I am the King of Songs" production team's voting system isn't quite sensitive, so much so that a well-received original song I wrote ended up second to last.]

[If the stage can't provide fairness, then I'll have to take it myself. I will never participate in Purple Platform's variety shows again, be it a ban or defamation, I just want to say.]

[The production team has such a big face, pure sham.]