CH 17

Chapter 17: 300,000 fans (1)

The eye-catching message was not an ordinary comment; it would not swipe across the screen quickly. Instead, it would hang on the top of the interactive area for a certain amount of time, according to the money the user had paid. So even if the live broadcast was currently full of people, Jiang Fengchi noticed this slightly perverted request at a glance.

Because some anchors, who relayed on welfare and gifts, would carry out spectators’ demands, it was inevitable that some viewers would use money to make ambiguous requests. And although this broadcast had originally been a fan-orientated event, after ending up on the homepage of the platform, it had been flooded by more or less respectful people, like men who did not pay attention to the trend in the entertainment industry. The first thoughts of those people had been that they were watching a regular anchor and not a trainee in a women’s team draft.

When the production team noticed this message, cold sweat instantly took place on their forehead. They laughed a little embarrassed and said: “No, it’s nothing, let’s ignore it.”

The broadcast was coming to an end, it was obvious they did not want to create any further complications and wanted to let it go. Of course, because Qiao Dai was only a simple contestant, they did not need to take a particular action. Had it been someone more famous, it would have been another story.

But Jiang Fengchi was not happy and his face sank. Although he still sounded polite and restrained, his clear discomfort could clearly be heard: “Excuse me, she is not this kind of person. Please be respectful.”

The user who had originally made the request seemed to be very annoyed and continued to make inappropriate comments, which caused the ambiance in the live broadcast room to suddenly change. The other viewers became furious and despite the few minutes left, Jiang Fengchi made a gesture to the PD and said: “That will be it for today. If the organizers want to ask for the early end, please come ask me directly, I will bear full responsibility.”

His voice was indifferent, with no anger, but the staff felt instantly cold all over. They nodded again and again and hurriedly interrupted the broadcast to prevent the situation from escalating.

****

“Ah, Qiao Dai was recognized as a female anchor, that’s hilarious.”

The broadcasts of the other dormitories were also coming to an end. Some players were still trying to grab the camera while some others had returned to their room to rest. Jiang Ruowei was one of them.

Jiang Ruowei and Shi Qing were both in class B and had naturally grouped together when the rooms had been divided. The other players were not present; Jiang Ruowei didn’t care whether Shi Qing was there or not and chatted with Lin Lang who had come to visit.

They were watching the broadcast of Class A and its data made Jiang Ruowei very uncomfortable. She could not accept that among all the COCO trainees, only Shi Qing and she had fallen to Class B. It made sense to her that Luan Zhen and Lin Lang were in Class A, but what about Qiao Dai? The sour feeling of jealousy had rapidly grown in her heart. The more she thought about it, the more she felt Qiao Dai did not deserve her rating. After all, it was obviously them who had contributed the most to the dance. But not only Qiao Dai had been lucky to stay in Class A, she had also been able to spend her evening with Jiang Fengchi.

So when she had seen the inappropriate messages, Jiang Ruowei had felt some joy. She had pulled Lin Lang and started to mock Qiao Dai, her tone full of envy.

“Her kind of vase beauty is the one men like, no wonder she will be recognized as this kind of female anchor.”

Because it was getting late, all cameras in the players’ rooms had been turned off. Even so, Lin Lang glanced at the camera and checked it was not working before saying: “Don’t say that, we are all trainees. We need to stay as far as possible from those kinds of rumors, it would be very ugly if it spread out.”

Jiang Ruowei raised her eyebrows and sneered: “I don’t think she can get far anyway. If she is eliminated she might have to go back to the countryside to farm, she might as well…”

“Jiang Ruowei! How can you say that?”

Shi Qing, who had been tidying up her things and burying her head, became angry when she heard Jiang Ruowei. Her face was red but she did not dare to talk too loud, afraid she would attract other players and cause unnecessary problems to Qiao Dai.

Jiang Ruowei was startled by Shi Qing’s shout and dropped her phone. She immediately frowned and yelled back at her roommate: “Why are you even pretending? Do you really think we’re all sisters? Look at Qiao Dai and Luan Zhen go to Class A, do you want to have a good relationship with them? Why are you so fake?”

“Okay, forget it.”

Lin Lang pulled Jiang Ruowei’s hand and motioned her to calm down. At the same time, she couldn’t help but think that if Jiang Ruowei could not keep her mouth shut, she would really get in trouble at some point. She needed to pay attention.

Jiang Ruowei originally wanted to say a few more words but now that Lin Lang had spoken, she gave up and picked up her phone from the ground, ready to continue watching the broadcast and gloat in silence. But as soon as her eyes went back to the screen, she heard Jiang Fengchi say: “Excuse me, she is not this kind of person. Please be respectful.”

Jiang Ruowei’s expression stiffened and she looked at the barrage explode.

[Ah, ah, our Brother Fengchi is so handsome!]

[Ah, I can’t, Brother Fengchi is too strong!]

[How to fall in love with Jiang Fengchi in one second]

[Aaaah, I have no resistance against men who respect women!]

The live broadcast signal was then interrupted and the staff came forward to notify the end of the event.

“It’s not 9 pm, why is it over?”

Jiang Ruowei confirmed the time. Although there were only a few minutes left, she has hoped she could have some more fun. Who knew the broadcast would end so suddenly.

Recalling Jiang Fengchi’s words before it went dark, she frowned and thought with jealousy: Had Jiang Fengchi ended the broadcast just because someone had made some inappropriate comments toward a player? He was such a big star, did he really feel bad about a trainee who had not even debuted?

Chapter 17: 300,000 fans (2)

In the Class A dormitory, Qiao Dai got up from the ground. She was so excited just now; after hugging Luan Zhen, she had squatted back down next to the pool and had carefully checked for any leaks. When she finally stood up, she realized the broadcast was over.

“How come it’s over?”

Qiao Dai asked with confusion and Jiang Fengchi collected his emotion before saying softly: “It’s nothing, just tired.”

Was he tired because she had asked him to help with the pool? Qiao Dai suddenly felt a bit ashamed. She raised her eyes to Jiang Fengchi and said very seriously: “Teacher, you have worked hard. If there is anything I can do in the future, I will definitely help!”

It was just a polite sentence in the eyes of others, but from Qiao Dai’s mouth, it sounded like a promise. Her eyes were bright and exceptionally honest and she gave a very sincere feeling.

The broadcast had ended and it was already late. Qiao Dai’s room had not been cleaned up and the rest of the crowd was embarrassed to stay and delay her to rest; there would be training tomorrow and the players soon said goodbye and went back to their own sides.

“Will I be able to go to your room to play?”

Qiao Dai asked Luan Zhen and Shi Qing as they helped her make her bed. Lian Zhen smiled and said: “Yes, but my place won’t be as fun and you might find it boring.”

As for Shi Qing, she really wanted to be able to visit each other just like that. But thinking about the room she shared with Jiang Ruowei, she quickly dispelled the idea before saying: “My roommate may find it inconvenient but I will come to you every time you want to play.”

Qiao Dai sighed with some pity and threw a pillow on the bed. When it rebounded on the mattress, she threw it a few more times and started to laugh.

“Are you a child?”

Luan Zhen watched Qiao Dai play before grabbing it and put it back in its correct position. With a fake adult expression, she seriously said: “Okay, okay, go to bed now. Tomorrow, the teachers will have new tasks for us.”

“Okay… Then see you tomorrow!”

Qiao Dai reluctantly sent Luan Zhen and Shi Qing to the door and began to miss the days she would sleep hand in hand with her friends in the ocean.

After everyone was gone, she walked back slowly to the inflated swimming pool, her eyes sparkling under the light. She reached out her hand to touch it and blinked a few times. If she secretly swam… no one would find out, right?

Qiao Dai looked around and confirmed the camera in the room had stopped working. She still felt a little uneasy and found a cloth to cover it before slightly closing the glass door leading to the terrace and drawing the curtains to ensure absolute discretion. She then rushed to the bathroom and started filling the pool.

After a while, sparkling waves burst into the children’s pool and a little sea otter was swimming happily in the middle.

Qiao Dai: Pretty good!

She was very excited to play in the water. Although the pool was rather small, she was already very satisfied to be able to soak. She lay down, stretched her small paws to reach out to the place of dried fish she had placed to the pool, and started eating contentedly. 

But alas, life was not easy. As a poor sea otter, she could not eat lobsters yet, only a little bit of dried fish.

***

After the live broadcast, Jiang Fengchi had not left directly but had gone to the director’s room.

“I’m sorry, we will pay attention to this kind of thing in the future.”

The staff apologized to Jiang Fengchi for today’s accident but the young man sitting opposite raised his hand to signal it was no longer necessary.

“You do not need to apologize to me, these kinds of things have no effect whatsoever on me. The ones it affects are the ordinary players.” It was getting late and he looked a little tired.

For the women’s team draft, such rumors could have devastating consequences. Especially now when they had just started, if another player reported Qiao Dai had a sugar daddy, the results would be very bad.

It was very easy to bring bad associations to the whole program of <Pick Eleven> after the inappropriate and provocative messages had appeared earlier, and Jiang Fengchi had specifically come to remind the production to be careful in the future. 

Jiang Fengchi kept talking with the staff until late at night. When he finally left, the on-site staff breathed a sigh of relief before chatting between coworkers: “Teacher Jiang is very nice. Well, it can be said he understands the trainees.”

This live episode was indeed their mistake but they had not expected that, as a mentor, Jiang Fengchi would ask them to be more careful in the future. No wonder Jiang Fengchi was so popular in the circle, if they were players, they would also greatly appreciate him.

“By the way, did you watch Teacher Jiang and Class A’s broadcast? It was really funny, especially when Jiang Fengchi saw the pool, he was stunned.”

“Live is even funnier.”

“What was the girl’s name? I’m going to follow her account.”

The staff kept chatting about the broadcast of each dormitory and talked about Jiang Fengchi inflating Qiao Dai’s pool. When several staff members on the scene said that Qiao Dai was super cute, they all rushed to follow Qiao Dai’s account to observe in secret.

On the other hand, Jiang Ruowei was lying on her bed and playing with her phone after washing up. She was flipping through <Pick Eleven>’s topics to see if any were about her.

Now that the show had not officially started airing, there were not many discussions about it and most topics were created by the bigger companies. People mostly talked about Galaxy’s trainees and dark horse players; Jiang Ruowei was mentioned in their COCO performance and netizens were looking forward to the next one.

The fluorescent light of the screen made her face somewhat gloomy. She seemed a little bit unhappy; she quickly flicked her finger across the screen, among the five of them, the most mentioned was Qiao Dai, especially after tonight’s broadcast. Many people started talking about this unexpected interesting player.

Jiang Ruowei felt a little uncomfortable in her heart. Qiao Dai was only a country bumpkin but was liked so much by the audience. She turned over and over in her bed, the more she read comments about her, the more sour she felt, the more she watched, the more upset she became.

***

New day meant new assessment. Whether it was class A or F, all trainees had the same time to clean up and get ready for the camera.

Qiao Dai reluctantly got up and rubbed her eyes. She was still half asleep and sat in a daze on the bed. Her sleepy face looked very pure in the bright light of the sun. A strand of loose black hair waved mischievously in front of her forehead, brushing her eyes from time to time, which made her feel a little itchy. But it seemed she was too sleepy to gather the strength to stretch her hand; she squinted her eyes and blew air to push the hair aside.

“Daidai, are you up?”

Luan Zhen’s voice came from outside the door, surprising Qiao Dai. She finally stroked her hair behind her ears, lifted the quilt, and ran off the bed while shouting: “I’m up!”

After a while, a clean and dressed Qiao Dai walked out and went down for breakfast with Luan Zhen.

A lot of people were already gathered in the dining room. The program team provided a large variety of breakfast food for the players of Class A, whether it was Chinese, Japanese, or Westen, everything was available. However, most contestants only ate some vegetables and put down their tableware in order to keep in shape.

Qiao Dai and Luan Zhen did not care so much and ate breakfast happily. After all, if they were dizzy with hunger every day, where would they find the energy to train?

“What are we doing today?”

“No idea, I didn’t hear anything about it.”

After breakfast, the contestants were chatting and the staff member in charge of Class A pushed the door open and walked in. She and the people who followed her were holding eleven flat square gift boxes in their hands, which were handed out to each player in turn.

“What is it?”

A girl asked with some confusion. Lin Lang heard her and gently untied the ribbon of her box before opening it; inside were three cards of different colors. There was no text on the cards, but one was white, one was green and one was blue; the only hint was a question on the gift box: What do you think of when you see these colors?