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The Xia Rong inside the TV screen squatted down and picked up the young cat that was clinging to his pant legs.
At this scene, the production team added in the subtitles ‘Why did it run all the way here?’ When the British Shorthair began to lick Xia Rong’s fingers, the team had photoshopped in two noodle-y tears under its eyes while its pupils were also glistening with tears, accompanied by the words ‘Big Brother, do you know where my master is?’
In fact, the direction of where the editing was heading could already be seen from the subtitles. Xia Rong’s heart sank a trifle, but he still turned his head to joke with Su Chi, “Look, I’m your ‘Big Brother’—”
With a smile that was not quite a smile, Su Chi took one of the chicken wings and stuffed it in the other’s mouth. “That’s right, you’re so amazing.”
Xia Rong laughed mischievously and turned back around to continue watching TV. Now that he had such tempting fragrant food in his mouth, he no longer felt as uncomfortable when seeing the program’s subtle editing— At present, the him on the screen was giving an impassioned speech to the staff members, “Don’t inform Su Chi yet! This is a good opportunity for our team to get ahead of them! Who asked for Su Chi to be so stupid that he could even lose his own cat, this cat can stay and play with our Chaichai1… Just let him look for it first!”
Added next to him was a cartoon character with a devil’s horn on his head, laughing wildly with his hands on his hips. Meanwhile, on the other side, the cat version Su Chi was again photoshopped a teary look, the flashing special effects and “tears” covering the majority of his face where the original appearance almost couldn’t be seen at all.
—In fact, there was also a benefit in this. That is, when Su Chi ran over, he had forgotten to disguise his ears and it was only after Xia Rong had reminded him that he drooped his ears. Now that the entire screen was full of special effects, people wouldn’t be able to notice whether the ears were folded or not from just that one glance.
Xia Rong thought as such to comfort himself and continued to watch the program, but the scene had already changed to Zhang Xin and Gao Junming. It turned out that Zhang Xin’s task at that time was to find a 55-year-old auntie with long hair who is wearing green clothes in the square and learn square dancing from her, where only after passing her “audit” would the task be considered completed. Meanwhile, Gao Junming’s task was to jump into a big box full of stickers and roll around inside until the number of stickers attached to his body reaches the minimum of a previously specified amount. Then he was to jump back out and to get all these stickers off by “dancing”, the use of hands wasn’t allowed. The round would be considered passed after all the stickers get thrown off.
Xia Rong watched as Zhang Xin, with dejection on his delicate little face, followed the square dancing auntie, performing all kinds of comedic dance moves; and how towards the later part of “flinging” the stickers, Gao Junming directly laid down on the ground, squirming crazily, twisting around while calling out ‘ahhh’ as if he was cheering himself on.
No wonder their faces were so bad when we saw them later on. In comparison, his own challenge was practically Heaven!
To begin with, the pleasure in watching variety shows was based on seeing the reactions of the hard-pressed guests. So now that during the post-production they also paired it with some super imaginative BGM – at times 《Ode to Joy》, at times 《βίος》, and even a resounding and lively 《Eighteen Bends of the Mountain Road》- combined with a pinch of godly precise editing such that the two’s movements accurately overlapped with the rhythm of the accompaniment, the comedic effect sharply soared, causing audience with a low bar for humor – like Xia Rong  – to suddenly forget everything else and just hammers the bed in laughter. “Hahaha haha, the post-production is genius haha hahaha…”
The scene changed, returning to the questioning booth that was quite memorable for Xia Rong. While the cat version of Su Chi was next to him, Su Chi, again with two wide lines of tears on his face—
Su Chi, “Still genius?”
Xia Rong profoundly replied, “Genius or devil, often depended on only a moment.”
=====
“In the 《The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art2》, the Pythagorean Theorem is used…”
When Xia Rong came across this topic that made him scratch his head at a loss, the cat version Su Chi beside him stretched out a claw of friendship.
…However, while it was a ‘claw of friendship’ from Xia Rong’s perspective, in the actual program, Su Chi had once again been photoshopped with a pitiful face paired with the words ‘I’ll help you answer the questions, can you take me to find my master?’
Then, Xia Rong followed cat version Su Chi’s instructions and pressed down on the option. Shortly after, two large words “Answer Correct” popped up on the screen of the booth, indicating that he had successfully passed the challenge. Post-production seized this opportune moment and paired it with sounds of celebration and cheering. In the middle of the screen, there was even a burst of colorful confetti and in the eyes of the small British Shorthair, there were bright yellow stars, implying its eager expectation.
Immediately after, the camera showed Xia Rong brushing along its back with his hand, saying towards the camera, “Don’t worry about it[cat], let’s hurry to the next part.”
The exaggerated special effect and sound effect of the kitty’s heart breaking were as expected, moreover, this time, a vivid and realistic miniature red demon had been photoshopped next to Xia Rong, a big head but a small body, the art style was very cute. However, in a scene like this, would the audience still find it lovable?
Then, the scene changed to Su Chi running on the road, surrounded by lights. He panted as he looked around in a daze, seeming as if he was anxiously looking for something he couldn’t seem to find. A subtitle slowly appeared: ‘My darling, just where are you?’
…
Xia Rong took a large sip of coke and said, “Sure know how to edit.”
Su Chi said, “This should have been when I was rushing to the TV tower for the third round, the timeline is obviously off.”
“En.” Xia Rong sighed, leaned back, and said, “Which is why I said they sure knew how to edit…”
The same words, the same scenes, but after the subtle cutting and rearranging of the order, the inherent meaning then becomes completely different. Although the editing team hadn’t created out of thin air or fabricated Xia Rong’s “evil deeds” but instead had even clarified the “premeditated robbery” that had been mentioned in the trailer, it was easy to silently snatch away the audience’s subconscious with such deliberately guided ‘timeless penmanship’. In fact, the mainstream audience all tend to be easily influenced by the editing. So if there still wasn’t any editing in favor of Xia Rong after this, then the direction of public opinion after the end of this episode… Would be hard to say.
Feeling disgruntled in his heart, Xia Rong wanted to lean back, hoping to find some support. Unexpectedly, his back touched against something soft with a hint of hardness. Only when he turned his head did he find that it was Su Chi’s arm.
He only now suddenly realized that unconsciously they were already sitting so close.
Having been so eager to comment on the program, he was sitting cross-legged in front while Su Chi was a bit more behind. So, in fact, the horizontal distance between them was already in the negatives.
Before Xia Rong had even had the chance to say anything, Su Chi quietly took back his arm and asked, “How about we interact on Weibo later?”
“…Ah?” Xia Rong was taken aback for a bit, but as expected, he was successfully distracted. “No need to be anxious. Let’s wait and see the audience’s reaction first. Before this, we hadn’t had that many exchanges, so to suddenly interact so frequently, for those who don’t know, they might even start thinking we’re trying to hype up a CP.“
“…En.” Su Chi paused, then said, “The edit is already like this, you can discuss it with your agent first and plan ahead how to deal with any eventualities.”
“Yi-jie certainly wouldn’t need me to look for her on this.” Xia Rong fished over his phone that was on the side then dragged across the screen to unlock it. After reading the new message, his lips curled up into a light smile. “As I said. Don’t you think it’s fast? The message has already been sent over.”
Shu Yi’s efficiency was even higher than he had imagined. The first message was already ten minutes ago, which relayed an explanation that was given to them by one of the directors of the production team, with the general meaning of ‘the editing of the first episode is the last resort of the program’s team for the sake of creating a hot topic, and that it will not damage Xia Rong’s image, that they guarantee it would turn for the better in the next episode. Running counter to the defined person would make it easier to attract favorability and die-hard fans, and so on’.
The following message was Shu Yi’s own commentary: {The trend of this edit is up for debate, but there is, in essence, no true damage. My opinion is that we can observe as we wait for the second episode to be broadcasted before making a decision.}
Xia Rong replied: {En, then I can decide on my own how I should respond on Weibo?}
Shu Yi appeared to be still reasonable and calm, but in fact, she was already angered. {Fine, but in fact, it’s better not to respond. We’ll know when the program comes out next week. If they still continue to vilify you next week, we’ll just breach the contract and leave. Let them leave it blank3!}
Xia Rong knew that Shu Yi had said this out of anger. But if at that time they really end up in that situation, it’s not like they wouldn’t be able to afford those tens of millions for breaching a contract. This was the fundamental reason why their entire team could still be calm, unafraid of the program group.
Shu Yi sent over another message: {Already have the PR team keeping watch over how it’s developing on the internet. They will timely act and guide the direction when necessary. It wouldn’t be large-scale, we’ll still focus on ‘wait and see’. Also.}
Xia Rong: {?}
Shu Yi: {Can you conscientiously stay a bit farther away from Su Chi? Every time you two meet, nothing good comes out of it!}
“…” Xia Rong turned his head to look at the certain someone who was sitting beside him and silently said in his heart, This… Probably wouldn’t work.