Ch29 - No. 1 in Online Popularity

Ever since Ji Xiunian had first seen the F4, they always seemed to be following Lu Xu around, like a shadow.

Not only that, there were many occasions where  Ji Xiunian felt like they were talking to Lu Xu. If it weren’t for Lu Xu having no reaction, he would have thought that Lu Xu could see ghosts like him.

They hadn’t had any interactions previously, so Ji Xiunian could only be curious, unable to ask them why.

However, now that he had found out that the four of them weren’t malicious ghosts, and weren’t even all that different from the normal trainees, Ji Xiunian thought that he should just ask them.

Why did they follow Lu Xu around…

The F4 looked at one another: What other reason is there, it’s because he’s our most respected master grim reaper.

But they only thought these words and didn’t dare to casually say too much.

Master Lu Xu clearly joined the competition bearing the responsibility of the Grim Reaper Bureau and was probably even carrying out some important mission. If they leaked information here and something went wrong, who could bear the cost?

Tao Yingbo was the oldest and the most experienced. He gave his brothers a look and then casually replied, “Because Lu Xu is handsome.”

“Mn?”

“Ooh.” He Xinghua regained his senses and immediately became a fanboy. “Amongst all the other trainees, Lu Xu is the most handsome. His dancing and singing are the best, we all really worship him!”

It was more than worship. If possible, Lu Xu would personally send them on their way.

“Is that so?” When Ji Xiunian heard this, he didn’t know what was appropriate for him to say.

Speaking of it, Lu Xu certainly was the most handsome of all the trainees.

Just that ghosts chasing idols was really surprising, that was all.

But when he thought about it, these ghosts were already thinking of debuting, so it was normal for them to chase idols.

Ji Xiunian nodded in understanding, letting the matter go. Only he couldn’t help but say, “You can be fans of him, but don’t affect his life.”

The F4 nodded their heads one after another. “Of course not.”

Even if someone gave them a hundred pieces of courage, they still wouldn’t dare.

After explaining this, Ji Xiunian turned around and went downstairs. He didn’t look back again.

He Xinghua watched Ji Xiunian’s retreating figure, and couldn’t help but shake his head. “Looks like Ji Xiunian doesn’t know Master Lu Xu’s true identity eh.”

“That’s right, and takes quite good care of him.”

It seemed that the master grim reaper was good at keeping his job confidential, and the Film Emperor was also a really good person.

“Let’s go to the dance studio.”

“There’s only a few hours left till tomorrow morning. We can still work hard!”

The F4 floated their way back as they cheered one another on, their eyes full of energy.

“You guys are so compassionate. Ba Mei is gone and you don’t even know how to look for it…” After Xu Haoming had showered, he hadn’t seen Ba Mei in the room and had asked the other dorm members where the baby had gone.

In the end, even Lu Xu hadn’t noticed the little kitty. Xu Haoming couldn’t help but be worried.

He walked out of the room angrily, and just happened to see Ji Xiunian coming downstairs, hugging Ba Mei.

“Nian ge?” Xu Haoming didn’t understand how Ba Mei could be in Ji Xiunian arms, and he couldn’t say that the Film Emperor was kidnapping cats.

In the face of Xu Haoming’s gaze, Ji Xiunian thought he should explain. “Ba Mei came looking for me in my room. I was going upstairs anyway so I brought it along…”

“This one definitely just wanted to follow Nian ge.” Lu Xu came out when he heard the commotion, and saw Ba Mei sticking closely to Ji Xiunian, looking as if it was really enjoying itself.

It had been a while since Ba Mei had left. Seeing that it had curled up into a ball when Ji Xiunian had come back, Lu Xu shook his head and laughed. “Ba Mei is so heavy, Nian ge, aren’t you tired from holding it?”

While those words were being said, he stretched out his arms and took Ba Mei from Ji Xiunian’s arms and put it on the ground. Ba Mei rubbed against Lu Xu’s calf, then raised its head to look at Ji Xiunian, clearly liking his appearance very much.

“It’s okay, Ba Mei isn’t that heavy.” Ji Xiunian stretched his arms and then said goodbye to Lu Xu and Xu Haoming.

“I didn’t think that Ba Mei would like Nian ge so much,” Xu Haoming lamented, then bent down, wanting to pick up Ba Mei, but saw that Ba Mei had slipped away into the dorm. When he saw his empty arms, Xu Haoming wasn’t angry and didn’t forget to praise Ba Mei. “Who said my Ba Mei is fat. Look at your body, so soft and so agile!”

“Ew!”

The others also liked Ba Mei, but none of them were as cringey as Xu Haoming.

Ba Mei had just entered the dorm and Song Zhe had already opened up a small can of food, smiling as he put it by Ba Mei’s legs. “Eat a little more, child. You look like you’ve grown thinner.”

Seeing the Ba Mei who looked like a ball whenever it sat or stood, Lu Xu didn’t think that it could be associated with the word “thin” at all.

But the others all agreed and gave Ba Mei even more snacks and little cans of food.

Ba Mei had always had a big appetite. Now that other people were feeding it, Lu Xu could relax a lot more. He took out his phone and snapped a few photos, and sent them to Xie An to let him know the kind of godly life that Ba Mei was living right now.

Xie An replied very quickly––

[Xu ge, does your show still lack any cats? The kind that stands on two legs and can shovel its own shit?]

Lu Xu laughed when he saw this––

[You can ask that two-legged cat if they’re willing to be chased and patted by a bunch of grown men? Ohh, the kind that will give food.]

Xie An tried to imagine a group of men surrounding him, and felt that it was quite unsightly––

[Forget it forget it, I don’t deserve it.]

Not another two minutes had passed when Xie An sent another message––

[Oh right, Xu ge. The Southwest Grim Reaper Bureau knows that you’ve gone undercover to get close to the stowaway.]

Lu Xu was not surprised by that.

‘Birth of an Idol’ had already started airing. Never mind the popularity of the show, Lu Xu had still not come down from the trending searches since that day.

With so many people watching, it was normal for the Southwest Grim Reaper Bureau to find out.

[Lu Xu: I’m just gnawing at the bones they can’t gnaw, and taking the orders they can’t take. Is there a problem?”]

Lu Xu’s aggressiveness was exactly what Xie An liked. He almost wanted to give him a big thumbs up from across the screen—

[There’s no problem at all. Xu ge is really a great role model! But Xu ge, they mentioned you in today’s regular meeting, saying there’s another issue.]

[Lu Xu: What issue?]

[Xie An: They said that after you entered the apartment, not only did you take a big order, you also took a bunch of small orders…]

To tell the truth, the Southwest Grim Reaper Bureau had used much uglier phrasing.

“Does Dongcheng not have any grim reapers left so he has to run over to our southwest division and steal our business? This is a cutthroat competition, how morally degenerate…”

“Also, a dignified grim reaper running off to participate in an idol survival show? Is this debuting in center position or the center position of a funeral procession? Showing himself off like a woman, what a disaster…”

If it wasn’t for the requests of others, Xie An would’ve fought today.

Those ugly words should be kept to himself. There was no need to anger Lu Xu with them.

Lu Xu almost laughed out loud after learning that the Southwest Grim Reaper Bureau was complaining that he had taken away their business—

[They’ve been dead for so long but haven’t been sent off yet. The southwest division isn’t very efficient. Right, Xie An, you must remember that someone who has just died needs to be sent off immediately. Otherwise, if you want to send them off in the future, it’ll be difficult.]

Xie An had been smiling, but when he saw Lu Xu’s words, he thought of something and was unable to smile anymore.

He typed out ‘Xu ge there’s something I’ in the chat before thinking it over and deleting it.

Forget it, Xu ge was already so busy and working hard. He shouldn’t trouble him.

Xie An didn’t reply again and Lu Xu didn’t notice that anything was off.

“The rankings refreshed!”

Han Tianyu logged into his account every day to vote for himself 11 times. The moment he logged in, he saw that the previous rankings had changed.

Song Zhe petted Ba Mei’s head without looking up. He asked, unperturbed, “Lu Xu is first, right. I’m not surprised at all…”

“He’s not!” Han Tianyu interrupted Song Zhe and said unbelievingly, “Xu ge is only second!”

This made even Xu Haoming unable to resist asking, “Mn, then is first place Zhe ge?”

“I don’t know what’s going on.” Han Tianyu turned his phone around for them to see, his face full of shock. “First place is Lan Gaojie!”

“Fuck, no way!” Xu Haoming didn’t think this was possible. “No way, where did all these fans come from?”

They all went up to look. Lan Gaojie really was in first place.

“Did he cheat the votes?” Xu Haoming still couldn’t quite believe it. He felt like this ranking was unscientific. “I feel like I can accept Zhe ge or Xu ge as first place. I just don’t think it’s possible for him.”

Song Zhe didn’t say anything too serious and only shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe he did better after leaving his company?”

Even Song Zhe himself didn’t believe the words he spoke out loud.

If Lan Gaojie had actually been popular, they wouldn’t have missed that he was participating in the competition in the first place.

“Aaaaa, if I had known I would’ve voted for Lu Xu instead of myself.” Han Tianyu was extremely upset. He didn’t want to see Lan Gaojie in first place.

Lu Xu didn’t really have any particular sentiments about the situation, and even told Han Tianyu, “No need, you should vote for yourself. I don’t care about rankings.”

A new face had suddenly appeared on the trainee ranking charts. Forget about the trainees feeling like it wasn’t right, the netizens were also befuddled.

[@A Northern Carrot: I have to weakly ask, is this Lan Gaojie a participant in ‘Birth of an Idol’? Why does he look so unfamiliar?]

[@Nation’s Foundations Loves Iron Towers: His looks aren’t very outstanding. How did he get to first place?]

[@Heng River Ah Yellow River: I went over this week’s episode again to look and found Lan Gaojie with much difficulty. His ranking is F. How did he get first place with these looks and this skill…]

…

Almost everyone was questioning how this F-ranked Lan Gaojie had run up to first place.

Some fans of other trainees opened up the discussion, suspecting that he had cheated the votes in order to suppress the others.

They even ran to the program official’s Weibo to beg for an explanation on whether these numbers were real or not.

The program was very strict about investigating vote cheating. They immediately did an investigation backstage, but couldn’t find any issues.

Netizens soon found out the reason—

[@Weirdo: I looked over the name list of his voters. Turns out he’s a RMB player]

The voting system let a person vote 11 times. However, if one opened up a VIP account or bought other services, they could obtain many more chances to vote.

Other trainees’ fans could vote up to a few thousand times per person, but Lan Gaojie’s fans voted over ten thousand times each. Crushing their opponents was simply too easy.

Even though many people thought this wasn’t very fair, the voting system was the voting system. His fans were free to choose how they spent their money. Those with doubts couldn’t take it too much to heart. They could only go and spend money on their own artists.

“This is okay? Then can I call my dad to vote for me a few million times?” This made Xu Haoming angry, but he couldn’t actually do something like this.

The trainees naturally had a problem with this, but they couldn’t say much about it.

But no one expected that when they opened their eyes again after a night’s sleep, Lu Xu would be in first place.