Esports world champion, debuted as the center of a talent show

The dedicated forum for "Shining Project" was completely blown up by a leaked announcement from a gossipmonger.

In just half a day, the number of posts skyrocketed from a few dozen to over a thousand, dominating the entire forum and even surpassing discussions about the pre-show hype and fan meeting, bringing the gossip-loving atmosphere of the entire entertainment industry to its peak.

- [Has the Shining Project Shined Yet?] Forum

#GuaranteedTrueGossip: A certain A-class contestant has a major scandal; someone with him has been in jail for several days, and it's going to explode in the last couple of days!#

[1L: ? ? ? What do you mean? ? ]

[2L: What does "went in" mean? Does it mean "went in" as I'm thinking?]

—OP's reply: [It's the one you're thinking of going in.]

[3L: Which A-class player...? That's all I care about...]

—Reply: [I'm curious about that too. Class A must be quite popular, right...?]

[4L: Seriously? Another legal troublemaker? Hong Liu, maybe you should go pray to a monk. Why is your show so bad?]

—Reply: [Is this the legendary trade-off? The show produced a trainee who became a phenomenal success in the history of talent shows, but in return, several trainees withdrew from the competition, and scandals abounded.]

……

[231L: So, has anyone figured out which Class A player it is? There are only a few of them, it's hard to get around to them.]

[232L: If, I mean if, it was that person who got into trouble, what would happen...?]

—Reply: [Don't even mention the loan. Even if it really were him, the person who posted this wouldn't have used such a flippant term as "A-class player."]

—Reply: [What are you subtly hinting at here? You didn't even hide your fandom affiliation when I checked your profile; you're just another colleague's fan. Okay, I know you're jealous of his popularity.]

……

[687L: However, the gossip poster's announcement was quite suggestive. He only mentioned that the people with him went in, but didn't say that he himself went in. If something really serious happened, it's impossible that he was the only one who escaped, right?]

—Reply: [Indeed, let's calm down a bit. It might not even be anything serious, but we've already jumped on the bandwagon.]

[688L: Based on my experience as a gossip enthusiast, this kind of title usually refers to someone who isn't particularly famous; they're just using a name to exaggerate their popularity.]

—Reply: 【That's true!】

……

[1304L: Holy crap, this gossip is so popular? It's only been a short time and it's already got over 1000 replies?]

[1305L: My Flash is getting more and more popular. I've never seen anything like it before.]

[1306L: Can you feel our human instinct to gossip? I'm so incredibly curious about whose gossip it is and what it is. The guys in Class A seem pretty well-behaved!]

The whole internet is in an uproar, with opinions shifting back and forth, and all sorts of true and false gossip flying around.

However, these ups and downs happening behind the screen do not yet affect the closed recording base.

For the nine trainees who are about to participate in the fan meeting, these past few days have been a real ordeal.

Especially Jiang Zhiyu.

Having just finished a full day of intense rehearsals for the theme song dance for the fan meeting, he followed the entire team to complete the final rehearsals before returning alone to the dedicated training room for "Reverse Wildfire" to catch up on the team's progress in the third public performance rehearsal.

He had just reached the corner of the training room floor and hadn't even pushed the door open when a hurried figure came rushing towards him.

The person arrived breathless, carrying a stack of papers: "Zhiyu, we just finished a meeting, and we need to discuss a new arrangement with you..."

As he spoke, his chest heaved violently, and he gasped for breath several times before managing to steady himself and continue, "A new segment has been added to the fan meeting, so you'll probably have to practice for an extra stage!"

Jiang Zhiyu's eyes widened slowly, filled with disbelief: "What part?"

The staff member also felt that they were being exploited a bit, but he was just a worker delivering messages, so he could only try to appease them:

"The main reason is that the production team took into account the overall popularity on the Internet and the feelings of fans. You are currently the most popular contestant on the show, and you were a contestant who made a name for yourself on the first stage and became popular all over the Internet. Many fans were drawn to you by your performance of 'I Destroy My Life' back then."

"So the production team plans to recreate your debut stage at the fan meeting as a special nostalgia bonus to give back to the fans."

He chuckled twice and scratched the back of his head. "Haha, it's okay. I just need to get used to it in the next few days."

The phrase "giving back to fans" completely shut down Jiang Zhiyu's words. He stood there and watched the staff member, who could be described as having completed his mission and fled, walk away. He silently counted in his mind how to allocate his practice time for the stage in less than five days.

So far, in addition to the three public performances, the group dance for the theme song of the fan meeting, and the solo stage for the fan meeting, he also needs to practice an extra song, "I Destroy, I Live".

From this moment on, Jiang Zhiyu completely activated the mode of extreme time compression.

I only sleep four hours a day, my three meals a day are completely disrupted, and I always miss mealtimes. I either eat a few bites or don't eat at all.

But he doesn't feel hungry much, and he even feels nauseous when faced with light and healthy food.

So he simply allocated the remaining twenty hours in detail to the four stages he needed to practice on over the next five days.

Fortunately, the third public performance stage is still in the early stages of learning the lyrics and music, and has not yet reached the stage of truly refining the stage performance, so he can compress the time a little.

Thus, his tight practice schedule was also interspersed with all sorts of other activities.

"Hello Zhiyu, we're here to go over the meeting schedule and some of your tasks with you."

"Jiang Zhiyu! We need to record a solo promotional video next, and we need you to insert a short voiceover. The content is as follows..."

"Wait! Zhiyu, don't go yet! We need to take photos for the fan meeting at 2 PM!"

"There's a pre-meet-and-greet video shoot coming up later, so why don't you wait in the big classroom for a bit?"

In just two days, Jiang Zhiyu visibly lost weight, his jawline became more defined, and he looked slightly tired.

But he was good at hiding his condition. Apart from his roommate Milanlinsen noticing his unusual routine, no one else noticed his tense nerves these past two days.

In fact, Jiang Zhiyu had already vaguely sensed something was wrong with his body. Ever since he received Gao Shun's message the night before he returned to the recording base, problems had been slowly starting to appear.

At that moment, he was sitting in front of his computer browsing the previews of the champion gun skins and stickers released on the ZPL official website when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He took out his phone and pressed the power button, and several messages from Gao Shun instantly popped up on the screen.

[Gao: That person is indeed from that organization. Be careful, they're back.]

[Gao: Our plan has begun.]

[Gao: Everything will end. Your efforts over the past few years will pay off.]