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

Tan Yi was browsing the ZPL official forum with mixed feelings when she happened to see a new comment appear in the latest rankings, which almost instantly garnered several replies.

[1111L: No, no, absolutely not. I overlaid photos of River and Jiang Zhiyu for comparison, and guess what? Hey, they're exactly the same!]

—Reply: 【What does ? ? ? ? mean?】

—Reply: [No, really??]

—Reply: [You mean these two people are the same person?? That's impossible! Am I dreaming?]

—Reply: [I honestly don't believe it, are you kidding me... River and idol contestants... they're from completely different circles.]

—The original poster replied: [Further explanation is unnecessary. I've already included the process in the video. Take a look; I was shocked too! (Video link)]

Tan Yi clicked on the link, which redirected her to one of the most popular video websites at the time.

The video, which consisted of superimposed images of faces with no beginning or end and only included the hashtags #River# and #JiangZhiyu#, left the "natives" of this video website completely bewildered.

The top-rated comment, which garnered over a thousand likes within five minutes of being posted, reads: "What a brave streamer! How dare you publicly criticize these two? Aren't you afraid of being torn apart by both sides?"

The comments below echoed this sentiment, all expressing shock at how this reckless warrior dared to use both players' individual names.

But soon, people from the ZPL forum began to flood the comments section: "If you connect all the clues in this story, it won't just be two people anymore..."

At this moment, Jiang Zhiyu was unaware that his disguise was already on the verge of collapse. He was still seriously considering that his hoodie style was not particularly special and should not be noticed by netizens.

So while the others gathered together to discuss the order of their individual stage performances as arranged by the production team, Jiang Zhiyu, who had already been decided by the others to be the last to perform, sat to the side with a tense face, brainstorming.

But the people discussing the performance order wouldn't give him a moment's peace. Every few words they exchanged, they'd turn around and ask, "Jiang Jiang, what do you think? Do you think it's okay?"

Jiang Zhiyu was making "uh-huh" sounds as his teammates confirmed his agreement. Little did they know that a massive influx of people had suddenly flooded into the live stream, causing the "Shining Project" program's servers to lag and crash.

Jiang Jiang was completely and utterly taken care of, hahaha.

[Vision: Yuanfang, what do you think?]

[I can't believe tomorrow is the fan meeting; time seems to have flown by at the same time.]

【I'm here, I'm here, I'm here! My long-lost dad, I've come to see you TT】

[I'm shaking with anger! I've seen so many clips of this over time, and I didn't recognize him at all! Otherwise, I'd be a proud "long-time fan" by now!]

[Can you guys tone it down a bit? The veracity of this claim is completely uncertain. Don't spout nonsense on someone else's turf. What if it turns out to be false? It'll be incredibly embarrassing!]

Okay, my problem, I'll secretly try to ease my longing...

What are the comments saying? Why can't I understand them? And why is the online player count suddenly missing due to a bug?

[Holy crap, why is it stuck?]

[Black screen? What's a port error? Is this server even working? I order you to immediately bring over the ZPL server and try it out!]

The staff in the back office stared in disbelief at the suddenly overloaded servers and instinctively turned to look at Hong Liu.

He had intended to ask Hong Liu what the situation was and how to handle it, but instead, he saw Hong Liu standing there with a mysterious smile, and said quietly, "I've been waiting for this day for a long time."

"Huh?" The staff member looked bewildered.

"Start the backup server first, and distribute the live stream across the nodes to prevent the live stream from dropping."

At that moment, a staff member monitoring public opinion rushed in and whispered in Hong Liu's ear, "Director Hong, there's been a heated discussion online about Jiang Zhiyu and ZPL professional player River's identities. The discussion is getting increasingly difficult to control. Should we intervene to manage the situation?"

Hong Liu frowned, his tone exaggerated: "Oh dear! How could this happen? It's not really our problem to control! Oh well! Let's focus on our own program first!"

Then, he let out a long breath, a hint of smugness in his eyes, and swaggered out the door, leaving the staff members looking around in confusion.

The live broadcast of the program resumed streaming, and a large number of viewers flocked back in.

I, Hu Hansan, am back!

What does this mean? Why did the live stream suddenly stop? And what's the purpose of these people who suddenly appeared?

[Are these online viewers serious? Did the production team hire fake followers or buy popularity? Isn't Hong Liu afraid of being exposed by 315 (China's consumer rights day)?]

[Hehe, the production team had better pray that Jiang Zhiyu and that person aren't involved, otherwise we'll slowly settle all the scores from the past few months, one by one.]

The last time I interacted with this show was by criticizing it, but this time I've actually become a serious viewer. How ridiculous!

A staff member knocked on the door of the fan meeting rehearsal room: "Hello, let's go over the specific schedule for tomorrow."

The nine people stopped what they were doing and all turned their attention to the staff member who walked into the practice room.

The staff member calmly opened the notebook in his hand and read the contents word by word: "Tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, you need to gather backstage for makeup and styling. Makeup artists will design your individual everyday makeup looks."

"What about the clothes?" Yao asked.

"As for clothing, everyone can just wear the trainee uniform."

The suit material of the trainees' uniforms would be too stuffy in the summer, so the staff paused and added, "The indoor air conditioning will be turned up quite high, and we will also inform the fans who come not to wear anything too thin. Tonight, you will also need to log in to your accounts and post a teaser post to remind them of this."

The group nodded in agreement.

Seeing that no one had any other questions, the staff member looked down at the contents of the notebook and continued reading: "The distance to the venue for the meet-and-greet is a bit far, so we need to leave here at 12:30 pm. Due to time constraints, we may not have time to eat lunch, but we will provide energy bars and vitamin water in advance."

Deng Sushui hesitated before asking, "Can we not eat?"

He is prone to water retention and worries that he won't be able to face his fans in the best condition, so not eating or drinking to maintain the best facial condition is his first choice.

The staff member said seriously, "You can choose for yourself, but we still hope you can replenish your energy before going on stage. After all, tomorrow's event will be quite intense, and you might get very tired if you don't eat anything."

Upon hearing this, Deng Sushui nodded, indicating that she understood.