Rebirth: Spoiling the Obsessive Film Emperor Chapter 61

Chapter 61: Clown Makeup

The message was sent, but there was no response for a long time. Feng Changheng looked irritably at the communication interface between the two of them, his brows tightly furrowed.

Recently, Ming Qian had been taking longer and longer to reply to his messages. Feng Changheng knew Ming Qian had another phone hidden away inside Hey Brother, Let's Debut!, which allowed him to contact the outside world. It definitely wasn't a case of the program team restricting their phone use and cutting them off from outside events.

What Feng Changheng couldn't imagine was that ever since he himself had been taken in for police questioning, Ming Qian had privately sought out Director Huang, who could provide him with some decent resources. Through Director Huang, Ming Qian had attached himself to the young master of the Chang family, Chang Yue. The two were currently in the midst of a passionate affair, and Ming Qian simply didn't have the time to spare for a youngster like Feng Changheng.

Furthermore, Hey Brother, Let's Debut! had now reached the final stage of the selection process. To achieve a better ranking, all the trainees were desperately practicing their acting skills. Those with ability relied on their talent, those without relied on their capital. In short, every possible underhanded method was being employed behind the scenes.

Feng Changheng's currently available funds were limited, and the money he could spend on Ming Qian was also limited. Relying solely on Feng Changheng was far from enough to get Ming Qian voted into the debut group through fundraising, let alone propel Ming Qian to the position he desired.

Feng Changheng didn't understand all this yet, so he naturally wouldn't think that Ming Qian had long since betrayed the promises they had made to each other when they were together.

So far, Hey Brother, Let's Debut! had eliminated three classes, leaving only classes A, B, and C. The number of people had also drastically decreased.

This upcoming acting assessment was an individual competition. After this, the voting wouldn't eliminate entire classes but would instead select only eighteen advancement slots, with all the remaining contestants being eliminated.

In other words, trainees ranked beyond 18th place would see their journey end here.

Out of the current 36 people across the three classes, 30 had chosen to showcase their acting skills using the small-scale production films selected by the program. Only six had chosen to use stage plays to demonstrate their acting.

And among these six was Rong Yu.

After all the contestants' choices were made public, many people couldn't quite understand the choices of these six trainees. After all, no matter how people looked at it, performing film and television scenes was easier for gaining fans. Stage plays, a performance method that relies on the live atmosphere, struggled to resonate with audiences watching through a screen.

Hey Brother, Let's Debut! didn't keep the audience guessing this time. After announcing the trainees' choices, they immediately broadcast the results of several trainees' role lotteries.

Hey Brother, Let's Debut! had secured casting opportunities for four small-scale production films, with a total of 20 available roles. This meant that several trainees would be competing to audition for the same role.

For the stage plays, trainees could choose roles from three available stage play scripts. Several trainees could collaborate on one stage play, or a single trainee could perform a stage play alone. However, for the sake of fairness, solo performances had one restriction: the number of supporting actors could not exceed three. Furthermore, these supporting actors would not show their faces or speak, serving merely as human-shaped moving background props.

This might sound difficult to pull off for a complete stage play, but in reality, the program team had carefully selected and adapted these three stage plays. Even with only two or three supporting actors, the narrative's completeness would remain intact. However, this setup would place a far greater demand on the lead actor's performance skills.

This was also the reason other trainees were reluctant to choose stage plays.

Supporting actors being equivalent to background props meant the performer was essentially acting alone on stage. If the performance was good, it was genuinely good. But if it was bad, the awkwardness would feel like it was spilling out of the screen.

Online opinions regarding Rong Yu's choice were almost universally pessimistic. Some even felt he was being overly arrogant, failing to see his own limitations, and that he was surely going to fail this time, causing his ranking to plummet.

The program team clearly had foresight. After broadcasting clips of several trainees auditioning for film roles in this episode, they immediately followed up, in the final minute of the program, by showing preview clips of the performances from trainees featuring in the next episode.

On the screen, Rong Yu's face, painted with exaggerated clown makeup, flashed by. A huge red nose dominated the center of the screen, and the eerie smile, grotesquely stretched at the corners, sent a violent shudder through the hearts of every viewer who witnessed it.

For a single, breathless moment, the barrage of viewer comments scrolling across the video fell completely silent. Then, it suddenly exploded into a frenzy!

— Holy crap holy crap holy crap! What did I just see! 

—Clown makeup! Who was that person with the clown makeup just now? Who? Who! 

—Ahhh! It's Little Fish! Little Fish is wearing clown makeup! What stage play is this? 

—Hey Brother, Let's Debut! just updated their Weibo. The three stage plays are "Monologue," "Nightmare," and "The Clown." Xiao Yu probably chose "The Clown"!

These three were all stage plays that could be performed by a single person. However, monologues required very high technical skill, especially "The Clown," which had immense dramatic conflict within the play, depicting the contradictions and struggles of a clown both on and off stage.

Exaggerated, comical makeup; movements meant to amuse and make people laugh; giving happiness to others while leaving the tears for oneself.

This is the clown.

This mere one-minute preview from Hey Brother, Let's Debut! directly raised the audience's anticipation levels, generating infinite excitement for the next episode airing tomorrow.

Yin Chengjue was also very much looking forward to it. However, that one-minute preview for the next episode also included a glimpse of Ming Qian, which caused the cold edge to return to his slightly upturned lips.

Just like in his previous life, Ming Qian had chosen to audition for a role in one of the small-scale production films this time. Moreover, he had chosen a rather cleverly selected third male lead role.

Many trainees were competing to play the male lead. The second male lead and the villain were also popular choices. In comparison, there were fewer people competing for the third male lead role.

Of course, that wasn't the key point. The key point was that the third male lead in this particular small film was the male lead's close friend. He would frequently appear, putting his arm around the male lead's shoulder, bearing the responsibility of selling a romantic and intimate subtext between the male characters.

Having already gained many fans by forming a CP with Fei Zhengqi , Ming Qian's choice of this third male lead role most likely meant he planned to repeat the same trick.

Recently, Fei Zhengqi seemed to have offended someone. His past black history was exposed. A post on a certain forum was filled with pictures of a younger-looking Fei Zhengqi stripping while singing in a bar.

The backdrop of red lights and green liquor, the face that looked somewhat youthful but was undoubtedly Fei Zhengqi's, instantly sparked infinite speculation among netizens. They never shied away from speculating about others with the worst intentions.

Seeing this, some of Fei Zhengqi's purely appearance-based fans instantly stated they couldn't accept it and collectively dropped their fandom.

The FeiQian CP fans split into two factions. One side cried that their CP ship had sunk and turned into Ming Qian-only fans. The other side firmly believed the expose post was fake and focused solely on enjoying their own sugar.

Fei Zhengqi's Weibo followers dropped by tens of thousands due to this scandal, and his vote count gradually fell behind.

In contrast, Ming Qian's vote count gradually caught up. Those converted CP fans turned their disappointment into motivation, frantically pouring the votes they had previously split between two people solely towards Ming Qian now.

They had originally been genuine fans of both, creating various videos for them, drawing many CP fanarts, and investing a lot of effort. They had truly fantasized about them being together. Now that Fei Zhengqi was exposed to such unsightly black history, it naturally created a huge psychological gap for them. They felt Fei Zhengqi had wronged Ming Qian, couldn't help but feel heartache for Ming Qian, and naturally sought ways to compensate Ming Qian for it.

Thus, Fei Zhengqi being targeted by this scandal didn't negatively affect Ming Qian in the slightest. Instead, it caused Ming Qian's fan count and vote numbers to rise significantly.

If Fei Zhengqi's black material was confirmed, nailed down with no chance of reversal, then the FeiQian CP would be effectively dead. Since Ming Qian was determined to use this method to stir up hype, he would naturally try to find another CP partner who could generate heat for him.

Yin Chengjue saw through Ming Qian's scheme and naturally didn't want to give him this opportunity. So, before the next episode aired, he anonymously posted a thread on a certain forum.

The content of the thread was simple. The title labeled it a prediction post. It listed, point by point, the methods someone might use to climb up by deliberately creating and promoting a fabricated romantic partnership between two individuals for publicity, and predicted that this person's next move would be to find someone new to continue forming such a partnership, thereby continuing the previous tactics.

Of course, Yin Chengjue didn't name Ming Qian in the post, letting those reading it draw their own connections and make unlimited associations.

Yin Chengjue paid to have the post pinned to the top. It quickly gained a lot of attention.

Unsurprisingly, many people connected the recent events surrounding the FeiQian CP to the post.

Ming Qian's fans and CP fans swiftly arrived on the scene. They spammed the comments section, leaving messages declaring "we'll take our idol and leave, don't involve us." Simultaneously, they launched a campaign portraying their idol as a victim, stating their "brother" was already being very humble and pleading for everyone to stop making random connections. Finally, before departing, they organized a massive wave of reporting and formal complaints against the post.

Consequently, by the time Yin Chengjue returned from his shower, the post he had just made had been automatically restricted in its reach and removed from its pinned position by the system due to the overwhelming number of complaints.

Yin Chengjue toweled his hair, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

He hadn't even named anyone, and it still got reported. In that case, he might as well go all the way!

The next day, before the Hey Brother, Let's Debut! episode aired, the official A&D Weibo account posted a video and tagged Rong Yu's Weibo account.

Fans who followed the tag were initially confused about their idol's connection to a perfume brand. A closer look at the A&D promotional video revealed the astonishing news: their idol had actually filmed the advertisement for A&D's latest perfume!

This was one of the most well-known domestic perfume brands!

The Yuxiang Rousi fans were stunned by this enormous piece of good news. It took them a moment to process it before they dared to click play and continue watching the video.

Then, they saw their idol wearing a snow-white, wide-sleeved priestly robe, walking step by step into a flower room filled with red roses.

His hair was also snow-white, even his eyebrows and eyelashes. His peach-blossom eyes were slightly lowered, making his pale eyelashes tremble like white butterflies. This stark contrast served to accentuate his beautifully curved, thin lips, which now seemed fresh, glistening, and impossibly vivid.

The camera followed his movements, accompanying him to an exquisitely crafted, luxurious-looking table.

In the center of the table sat an ornately made perfume bottle. Through the transparent glass, one could see the vibrantly colored liquid inside.