Boomerang

Fans squawked excitedly as they searched the five silhouettes for the shadow of whichever idol they personally picked. Bo Jiang, Ding Biehan, and the others had already scattered across a handful of activities back during their trainee days and had racked up no small amount of buzz, so they were quickly recognized.

"What kind of god-tier lineup is this!"

"Is this group trying to break out of the galaxy? Any one of them could go solo and still make it."

"Prprpr, our little Ding is seriously too much! Even just a silhouette and he's this handsome!"

But what surprised everyone was that, after the initial excitement, the person who ended up grabbing everyone's attention was someone else entirely.

"Wait, does anyone know who the shadow on the far right is?"

"The others are handsome too, sure... but the proportions on the one on the far right are just unreal! That waist, those legs!"

"An absolute stunner!"

"Something about him feels so mysterious and melancholy, I couldn't stop staring for the longest time—you know, that feeling where you just can't help wanting to find out what kind of person he actually is."

Standing beside four such outstanding people, the fifth silhouette somehow lost nothing by comparison—compared to the other four, who already had guesses circulating about their identities, the fifth person's mystery gave everyone an even stronger urge to dig deeper.

Who on earth was this mysterious fifth person who didn't match up with anyone on A.T. Entertainment's roster?

"Does anyone know who the fifth person is?"

"Someone this good couldn't have gone completely unnoticed before, right?"

To stand shoulder to shoulder with the other four without being overshadowed even slightly—just what kind of prodigy was this?

The fans who staked out the official website for news were the more seasoned, dedicated ones. They shared the fifth person's silhouette on Weibo, in every group chat, on every forum. In an instant, compared to the other four who already had a certain degree of fame, everyone unanimously turned to hunting down this legendary "fifth person."

Under the topic "A.T. Entertainment Official Site Five-Person Silhouette," fans even spontaneously pushed "Silhouette Fifth Person" onto the trending topics.

And at just the right moment, A.T. Entertainment's own official Weibo account fanned the flames further, posting:

"My world held only black-and-white light and shadow—until I met you, and it became rainbow."

The attached image was the silhouette of all five.

This post dropped a boulder into water that was already boiling, and it set off an uproar. Fans flooded the comments under the official account, asking what the post meant. Some even recalled the vague rumors that had already leaked—that the agency was about to debut a new group this year.

But no matter how the momentum rose with the tide, the agency gave no response at all. Only the official Weibo of a subsidiary department reposted the weekend's outdoor survival show, titled "Green Wilderness Trail," with four words attached.

"Stay tuned."

All the attention exploded in that instant.

......

Jiang Bei stared at the uproar online, his eyes bloodshot.

Others didn't know who the fifth person in that silhouette was. But he knew.

Even if he died, even if he were burned to ash, he would never forget the look of his former teammate.

Yi Wan.

Just holding the name in his mouth was enough to make his fingers clench.

But how could the person everyone was praising possibly be Yi Wan? Someone as utterly unremarkable as Yi Wan—how could he possibly be standing among those four people, his presence not the least bit inferior?

How could Yi Wan possibly get into this group? To think that back then, in order not to waste his time in a flopped group, Jiang Bei had gone through all sorts of trouble before finally jumping to his current company. At the time, he'd still been on the phone mercilessly mocking Yi Wan, sneering that the man deserved to flop for the rest of his life.

And now Yi Wan's grand debut made all the scheming Jiang Bei had done look like a clown performing a show!

Then he thought of what his manager had told him during the day, about the reconciliation script with Yi Wan... Jiang Bei had basically pieced together A.T. Entertainment's intentions behind this arrangement.

Push Yi Wan forward, resolve the "bullying" controversy, polish up the teammate bond between Ding Biehan and Yi Wan, give Yi Wan's popularity a boost...

Jiang Bei ground his teeth, his expression darkening and shifting unpredictably. After a long while, he suddenly broke into a twisted smile.

What did Yi Wan know about survival skills? When the two of them had been teammates, Jiang Bei had never once heard Yi Wan mention any love for outdoor activities. Unlike himself, who was outgoing, Yi Wan used to just stay in his dorm all day, playing on his phone or tending to that potted houseplant of his... Him going on this show—wasn't that just asking to make a fool of himself?

Jiang Bei sneered coldly.

He would absolutely not let A.T. get what it wanted, and he would absolutely not let Yi Wan get what he wanted either.

By the time his manager walked in, Jiang Bei had already reset himself back into his usual soft, sweet state. He said to his manager, "Sister Lu, is something wrong?"

"Single sales went up a bit earlier thanks to the 'bullying victim' angle milking the fans, but in the end it still wasn't great. I had someone pad the numbers a little, so the data finally looks decent." Sister Lu said.

At that, Jiang Bei's expression stiffened despite himself. Even after paying the price of falling out with his old company and defecting—on top of all his dramatics—his real popularity, once the inflated numbers were stripped away, was nearly dead last within his survival-show-formed idol group.

If it weren't for that, he wouldn't have specifically cried on camera during an interview segment, using "being bullied" as his selling point to milk the fans for sympathy and purify his follower base, boosting his popularity.

"Thank you, Sister Lu," he said, looking awkward.

"You'd better perform well on this Green Wilderness Trail." Sister Lu urged earnestly. "Tomorrow I've arranged an emergency training session for you. You'd better study hard."

Jiang Bei nodded. Sister Lu also felt a bit relieved—by rights, given her standing in the company, personally handling someone like Jiang Bei was something of an overqualification.

Still, although Jiang Bei lacked popularity, he made up for it by being obedient, and that was something that put Sister Lu at ease.

"Oh, right, Sister Lu." Jiang Bei suddenly said. "Even though I should perform well on the show, A.T. sending two people this time clearly means they want to boost their own people, and the two of them are banding together..."

He trailed off meaningfully, and Sister Lu caught the implication at once. She frowned. "What do you think we should do?"

"That Yi Wan, I know him. He's really no good at climbing mountains or anything like that. When we were both at A.T., I went hiking with him once, and he tripped and fell several times even on flat ground." Jiang Bei said softly. "We could buy some fake traffic first, stir up some momentum online..."

"I see, we can use him to make you look better by comparison." Sister Lu caught on immediately. "Let the fake accounts warm things up first, and then during the livestream we'll also send the fake accounts in to flood the comments and steer the narrative."

In her mind, since Yi Wan had bullied Jiang Bei, even though A.T. Entertainment had promised Jiang Bei certain benefits, she still felt it was perfectly justified to step on Yi Wan to get ahead.

"But don't name him directly, okay? Yi Wan's so obscure that if we name him outright and expose his dirty laundry, people will immediately know it was us."

That remark actually made Sister Lu glance at him in surprise. In her mind, Jiang Bei had always been a fairly naive person; she hadn't expected this reminder of his today to hit the nail on the head so precisely.

There was even something a little venomous about it.

"I get it, you just focus on preparing your own thing properly." Sister Lu said. "I have a lot of hopes for you."

Jiang Bei smiled bashfully. Seeing that smile, Sister Lu felt that she'd probably been overthinking things just now.

She reminded Jiang Bei once more to prepare well, then left to go contact the fake-account operators. Alone in his room, Jiang Bei lowered his head, a flash of venomous light crossing his eyes.

This time, he was determined to turn Yi Wan's variety-show debut and A.T.'s whole plan into the stepping stone for his own shed his status as the survival-show group's perennial back-row member!

......

Late at night, a post appeared in a certain entertainment forum group.

Dropping some tea: a flop idol from a certain group parachuted into Green Wilderness Trail through connections, and is going to drag the whole thing down. Not naming names for now.

0F: It's true that without real skill you shouldn't take on jobs you can't handle—desperate for clout, shamelessly muscling in through connections, no shame left at all. The annoying thing is their company's powerful, so the production team's head is splitting and there's nothing they can do about it.

1F: ???

2F: Who is it.

3F: Not naming names for now, anyway right now he's a total flop. You'll all get it once you watch the livestream.

4F: What do you mean riding on the hype?

5F: The one getting marketed the hardest these past few days. Can't say too much, afraid of getting silenced by the big company.

6F: Big company... A.T.? Chenguang?

Jiang Bei's company was called Chenguang Entertainment.

A few vague leaks, a few half-true self-justifications, a few maliciously planted smears—together they stirred up a wave of discussion in the group, and the post got reposted elsewhere too. Even though, compared to the new boy group A.T. Entertainment was debuting, this bit of news only kicked up a small splash, it still left an impression in the minds of everyone who saw it.

All that was left was to wait for the show to air and dig it back up.

The most terrifying kind of smear in the world is nine truths, one lie—once someone in the show genuinely does mess up on camera, all the other deliberately attached "dirt" turns into what looks like a prescient prediction, and gets heaped onto that person's head without question.

Then, guided along by the fake accounts, it snowballs into a frenzy of online harassment.

......

At that moment, utterly unaware of the storm brewing, Yi Wan sat in front of his computer, studying.

There weren't many days left before Green Wilderness Trail. He needed to prepare thoroughly for the show.

After that day of filming, he'd gone to find Brother Liu once more. But Brother Liu had absolutely no interest in the truth behind his conflict with Jiang Bei. Taking Yi Wan's recent performance into account, he patiently explained, "What does it matter who's right and who's wrong between you two? Netizens don't want to watch you two drag out some long-winded fight. And besides, what do you have to compete with Jiang Bei with? He's got the popularity—even his black marks can get washed white. What about you?"

"Do you really have to walk the harder road? Instead of wasting time on that, you'd be better off thinking about how to leech a little more clout from Green Wilderness Trail. Right now your first wave of popularity has built up—don't disappoint people during your variety-show debut."

Yi Wan said nothing to this, didn't even argue. Brother Liu, for once, felt that Yi Wan had gotten a little more sensible.

After all, Yi Wan had taken the short end of the stick. He mulled over giving Yi Wan some kind of compensation, and figured he'd also get Ding Biehan to look out for him a bit more.

At that moment, Yi Wan was sitting at his desk studying. As he looked over the extreme survival videos and materials, he somehow felt he'd never been this smart before.

All the material flowed through his mind as smoothly as clouds and water; every single point of knowledge didn't feel like a first encounter at all, but rather like review after having been memorized and practiced over and over. Even when watching certain hands-on demonstration videos, Yi Wan felt a muscle-memory sensation of actually performing the actions pass through his hands.

As if he'd done it a thousand times before.

Yi Wan stared at the computer, sinking into thought. Meanwhile, Chi Jixia, who'd just gotten back from the film set, came in through the door munching on an apple.

He looked at Yi Wan's back. These past few days had nearly worked him to death, and he had no idea what Yi Wan had been so busy with—so, never one to learn from past beatings, he leaned his head over.

The handsome fox narrowed his peach-blossom eyes, his smile mysterious and tempting: "Little Yi..."

"Why is it like this..." He heard Yi Wan muttering to himself.

Chi Jixia: ...wilted.

The "Yi Wan, why" PTSD he'd picked up during the forty-day hellish training camp flared up again. Chi Jixia numbly took a bite of the apple in his mouth, wailed internally, and—under Yi Wan's puzzled gaze—climbed up onto the bed.

Yi Wan: ?

He decided to take a break and glanced at his Weibo. The "bullying" buzz had died down; there were very few new comments under his posts, except for that one account, "139XXXXXXXX," which was still persistently leaving comments.

Yi Wan scrolled past it idly, pretending not to see it.

Late at night, in a high-end office building somewhere in City B, a young man burst out laughing.

The young man had fine, handsome features, except for a very strange head of dyed yellow hair. He clapped the shoulder of the middle-aged man beside him and laughed, "Old Zhao, that guy still won't take your bait, huh?"

The middle-aged man sighed as well.

His features carried an upright, dignified look, with a solid sense of steadiness about him. Yellow Hair leaned his head over and said, "Let me see exactly which flower-growing deity this is... hm? Looks like some kind of minor celebrity..."

"You think," the middle-aged man said, "he's mistaken me for a scammer?"

"What's going on here?"

A gentle, faintly magnetic voice spoke up at that moment.