Chapter Fifty-Four: Irene

cations to finish filming, the short shooting time came to an end quickly. After EXO once again bowed and said goodbye to their fans, they strode into the KBS building. This return's song "Music Bank"...As soon as Ji Jingyuan rounded the corner, he was spotted by Sun Shengwan. Their eyes met in mid-air. Ji Jingyuan placed his index finger to his lips and gave a silent shush. Sun Shengwan immediately understood, she flashed a sly smile and nodded, her expression full of participation as she discreetly glanced at Pei Zhuxuan, then held back a laugh while watching Ji Jingyuan walk silently behind Pei Zhuxuan with light steps.

The girl standing beside him also noticed Chi Jingyuan. She instantly recognized the senior and her eyes widened in surprise. Then, she immediately figured out what he was going to do, so she wisely covered her mouth and remained silent.

Ji Jingyuan walked quietly behind Pei Zhuxuan, gently lowered his head and leaned over her head. At this time, the older sister was still staring intently at the pattern on the door, wondering if she was daydreaming or researching something.

Under the playful scrutiny of the two people beside him, he suddenly spoke, his voice deliberately lowered, his tone taking on a certain seriousness:

"What are you looking at"

"Oh…"

The expected screams of terror arrived as scheduled, like a little girl coming home to find a wolf waiting for her in the house, so terrifying it made one's heart skip a beat.

Pei Zhuxuan's body trembled violently, wanting to look back to see who it was. Because she was very flustered, she accidentally tripped over her own left foot with her right, and the whole person fell backwards diagonally.

Quickly, Ji-Seok reached out and braced himself, pulling her waist in so she wouldn't fall. He also grabbed her arm and pulled her back, steadying her on the ground and turning her half a circle to face him.

It's like playing with a big doll.

"Whew…"

Like she had just been on a rollercoaster, Bae Joo-hyun stood there, her heart pounding as she lightly patted her chest to catch her breath. As she looked up, she saw Park Ji-won with an innocent expression, winking at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she also saw the two sisters beside him, covering their mouths and laughing hysterically. A wave of shame surged through her, and she glared at him before taking a step forward and slapping his back hard.

"Oh! Here you are again"

"Here we go again"

"Here we go again"

Just like an angry, hopping bunny, Pei Zhuxuan frowned and gritted her teeth, her face flushed red. She beat him hard with her fists, muttering angrily with every blow.

Chi Jingyuan found her current look, so unlike her usual calm and composed demeanor, very interesting. There was a lot of contrast, but on the surface, she pretended to be in great pain, constantly raising her hands in surrender.

Seeing Ji Chengyuan like this, after a few hits, Pei Zhuxuan's anger also subsided a lot. In the end, she stood there, her hair slightly messy on her forehead, her right hand casually placed on her waist, lightly panting while fiercely glaring at him: "Next time you scare me like this on purpose, I'll kill you!"

Then, he glared fiercely at Sun Shengwan who was standing beside him, making the two of them quickly stifle their smiles and wave their hands to indicate that they had nothing to do with it.

"Alā sō alā sō…"

Pool Kyung-won raised his hand to indicate that he understood, but at the same time, he looked up and down at Bae Ju-hyuk. Looking at the blush on her plain face, he asked curiously, "Speaking of... does Joo-hyuk often kill people"

"Haha…" Sun Sheng couldn't hold back and burst out laughing with two "poofs".

"You..." Pei Joo-hyuk's temper flared again, she looked up at Ji-seong with her fists clenched threateningly. But as she raised them, she started laughing because of how ridiculous it looked.

"How did you suddenly get here Didn't you say you were busy filming commercials recently Are you free today"

Pei Zhuxuan glared at him angrily, then lightly kicked his calf with her foot, ending the matter with a begrudging acceptance. She quickly lowered her head to tidy up her messy bangs while asking.

Before Ji Jingyuan could answer, she suddenly remembered something. She tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear and stood up straight, pointing to the girl beside her and introducing her proactively: "Oh right, this is Park Soo-yeong Joy, the one I mentioned on the phone a few days ago."

"Greetings, senior Yuan. Anihasaiyo."

The girl named Park Soo-yeong quickly walked over two steps and bowed respectfully. After standing up, she kept staring at Ji-yeong's face, sizing him up. She had long admired this senior from EXO. Although she had seen him a few times by chance in the company before, she hadn't really received any response when greeting him. She guessed that he probably didn't even remember what she looked like.

“Hello…” Chi Jingyuan also smiled and nodded, not very enthusiastic but not very cold either. At the same time, he subtly looked up and down at Park Soo-young.

The looks aren't stunning, but they are distinctive. The smile is quite infectious.

And this height is very good, it's the height that Jennie dreams of.

And Sun Shengwan is also there.

A few days ago, several people including (Pei Joo Hyuk) excitedly called Ji-Seong with some big news.

After two rounds of screening and elimination, the girl group project has basically finalized the four members who will debut first. Besides Jennie, Kang Seulgi, Son Seungwan, there is also Park Soo-young.

If there were no royalty descending from the heavens, then these four would be it.

The remaining trainees aren't completely eliminated either. It is rumored that this project is still heading towards "infinitely increasing members," and new members could potentially join the girl group project every year.

According to Jiang Shiqi, if nothing unexpected happens, they should debut around November this year.

There are still four or five months left, which isn't a short time. However, after all these years of hard work and anticipation, the results are finally about to bear fruit.

Chi Jingyuan still remembers the excited and uncontrollable excitement, as well as the easily audible sobs and hiccups, in the voices of those people when they called him that day.

Thinking back to when Ji-seong and IU bumped into each other a few times in 2012, her low spirits, sadness, confusion, and anxiety were evident on her face. She had so many pimples that it really touched my heart.

Even if she successfully debuted at the end of this year, the 1991-born Bae Ju-hyun would still be considered an older female idol. She is in the same year as Girls' Generation's maknae Seo Hyun who debuted in 2007, and even older by several months.

It's pretty magical, you know

Ji Jingyuan and Park Hyo-ryong nodded, then met Sun Seung-wan who walked over with a smile. The three clapped their hands together and said casually: "After being busy for so many days, we should take a break. We have a dinner gathering at XO nearby, I'm just heading there now and bumped into you guys... Where's Seqi Are we waiting for her"

Such a clear difference in closeness made Park Soo-ryung purse her lips, feeling a tinge of envy in her heart.

"Inside, Shiqi was called over by the head of the department. She'll be here in a while and we are waiting for her to get ready to go grab some food."

After smoothing down her bangs, Bae Joo-hyun let out a sigh of relief and replied to Park Kyung-won, who was still visibly annoyed.

"Isn't it about managing your figure"

"It's okay to indulge once in a while."

"So…have you guys started practicing your debut song yet" he asked with a hint of curiosity.

"Well, it's already started. I've been learning choreography from my teacher recently." Son Se-wan snapped her fingers and exaggeratedly wiggled her waist and hips as if demonstrating to him.

"That's right, it was around that time. I heard from the members that EXO also started practicing their debut song about half a year in advance."

Let me know if you have any other text you'd like me to translate!

Chi Jingyuan nodded slightly. He didn't say much either, tightened his shoulder bag and prepared to say goodbye.

"Alright, the members are still waiting for me, so I'll go now. Let's catch up another time."

"Well."

"Bye bye."

"Goodbye, senior..."

Three girls all said goodbye to him.

Ji Jingyuan took two steps, as if suddenly remembering something. He turned half his body and looked back at Pei Zhuxuan, smiling with squinted eyes in the sunshine: "By the way, I almost forgot to tell you..."

"Congratulations, irenexi."

At his words, Pei Zhuxuan also looked at him. The two made eye contact. She blinked and suddenly smiled, revealing her small teeth. The slightly angry expression she had just had vanished instantly. She smoothed her hair, with a smile that was hard to contain playing on her lips, and gave him a slight bow:

"Thank you, senior yuan,"

He made an "OK" hand gesture, Pool Jingyuan laughed and turned his head to leave with his bag, leaving three girls staring at his back, each with different expressions.

…………

The evening gathering was quite lively, with everyone eating, drinking, and chatting. The mood picked up, and they even started complaining about how unpleasant the company was.

Even after several days of depression, Bian Berhyen was taken out for some drinks. He seemed to be wanting to vent his frustrations with a few glasses.

This time, he was fine emotionally. The company didn't force him to break up, and after things passed, they could still secretly date.

But the setbacks in his career were something he had to bear alone.

As for the relative importance of love and career, everyone weighs them differently.

But for most idols, it should be their career.

...wondering if after this incident where both parties have experienced a significant loss of fans and being attacked, along with the intense cyberbullying from angry "Planet" (referring to a fandom) members, whether Binnie (Bern) and Jin Ji-sook will continue their relationship.

Even after a meal and some drinks, it still had an effect. At least the team's atmosphere improved quite a bit, and Bian Bai Xian looked more energetic too.

But that was just comforting himself. In just under a week, he lost 170,000 fans. The box office of the musical was greatly affected, and several of his personal fan sites were shut down by angry and disappointed station managers.

These are all tangible losses to his personal career and popularity.

As for Kim Jisook, she couldn't even utter a single word because of the attacks from EXO fans. Park Kyung-won took some time out these days to check s and saw that many comments were truly excessive. At a glance, they were all filled with insults.

If you keep reading this kind of text every day, I reckon you'll get depressed after a while.

Regardless of the outside disturbances, their activities remain unstoppable. In the following days, EXO continues to carry out their schedules as usual. Besides team activities, members with individual resources are busy with their own endeavors.

After returning from the 18th, Ji Jingyuan has been continuously filming LG ads and accepting various interviews for promotion. Even though he is good at shooting commercials, it's really exhausting work.

Although the effect is still very noticeable, in recent days several large commercial areas, office buildings and landmark architecture in Seoul can already be seen with giant billboards and banners advertising LG sponsored by Ji Chang Wook. His face and name are constantly being seen and heard by passersby, whether it's his fame or personal style, both are on the rise.

On June 27th, EXO-K participated in the recording of 'Music Bank's' mid-year special.

This was also EXO's first official public stage performance after Kai's love affair scandal. Unfortunately, only the K-team participated, and the main member, Kai, did not come.

The exposure of Baekhyun's relationship did indeed have some impact on the entire EXO team. After all, Girls' Generation set a precedent, making many fans worry that this might just be the beginning, and there would be more members exposed in the future.

In short, trust has decreased, and I'm a bit panicked.

Although it's just speculation and worry, nothing has really happened yet. Aside from Berhyeon's personal popularity being affected, EXO's core fanbase hasn't been shaken and remains one of the hottest male groups on the peninsula. As long as they appear, there are still cheers and screams filling the venue.

KBS's "Music Bank" basically holds a year-end special program every year, sometimes once, sometimes twice. It could be held in the middle of the year or at the end of the year.

This year-end special, besides IU's performance, what left a deep impression on Ji-seong was the special stage where several girl groups collaborated.

iu released a cover album titled "Flower Bookmark" in May of this year. She transformed from her usual pure image into a more playful and mature "older sister" persona. The album's sound quality is excellent, with many singles achieving impressive results.

He thinks the cover of the main song "My Past Stories" sung by Ji-won is pretty good. He feels it's much better than the original singer, Zhao Pei De, and that it's very moving to listen to.

Another was a special stage of Girls' Generation's "R.R" by the collaboration of three girl groups, Girls Day, AOA, and Bestie, with a total of twelve people. Dressed in black suits and hats, they looked very imposing.

After finishing their stage recording, the k-team left the television station without waiting for all the artists to take the stage. They returned to the company, made a brief preparation, and then, together with the company team who had been waiting for a long time, they rushed to the airport. Their next flight was going to Xia Guo Mountain City, where they will have another concert tomorrow night.

I'm so stressed about getting ready for this mid-year special. I don't even know how the company arranged everything.

In the waiting area of Incheon International Airport, dozens of people sat together in a row. The twelve members of EXO were seated in two rows. The plane was expected to arrive in about ten minutes.

Feeling bored, Qi Jingyuan opened his phone and browsed the news.

The two biggest news stories this week besides EXO's Baekhyun dating are BTS's Suga's contract termination.

After filing the lawsuit, Wu went silent for a while. A few days ago, he reappeared online and posted a short essay to express his feelings. He also released several photos as evidence to prove that what he said was true, demonstrating that he had been treated unfairly by the company and bullied and ostracized by other members.

Chi Jingyuan also read the news, which were some ambiguous photos and self-written articles that only presented one side of the story. The evidence wasn't very strong.

However, it did persuade some bystanders, especially ordinary people in the peninsula who are against bullying and its abhorrence.

Although they deeply despise and loathe Wu's breach of contract escape, they also harbor the same disdain for BTS who have been involved in exclusionary events.

Of course, there are also many people who don't believe it, thinking that the words of such an untrustworthy little person are not worth believing at all, especially V BTS fans, who have almost hated Wu to the bone.

Both sides are arguing fiercely, and the public image of BTS, originally a second-tier boy band, has been significantly affected. It's somewhat similar to what happened with Tara before. Although the company completely refuted all of Wu's statements and announced that they will continue to operate as a six-member group, there is no denying that things are not as good as they used to be.

After that, Wu hasn't posted anything online anymore. It's said that she joined a film crew to shoot a movie.

Before the court delivers its verdict, this matter can be considered settled for now.

As for whether there was bullying, Ji Jingyuan is unclear. However, based on his own experience, he speculates that there might be exclusion or clique behavior within their team, after all, he joined relatively late and was the only one with a Canadian nationality.

But this kind of behavior, no matter how it's combined, is very common and not a big deal. It doesn't rise to the level of bullying.

I can only say that meeting Wu was really unlucky.

After chatting for a while, Chi Jingyuan opened YouTube again. The popularity of his "dope" behind-the-scenes video had cooled down quite a bit. The current click count was stuck at around 15 million, and the growth rate had slowed significantly. It would depend on time to accumulate gradually, or wait for new fans to join in.

Speaking of, currently the best app for reading and listening to audiobooks is Wild Fruit. Install the latest version.

Because of the viral success of his vlogs, which brought him a significant increase in fame, popularity, and positive impacts, numerous companies and idols, including s himself, followed suit. After June, the number of vlogs uploaded to YouTube increased exponentially.

Some artists even film performances whenever they get the chance, whether it's a formal stage or not, and upload them directly to YouTube. After all, there's no real cost involved, and what if they become as popular as Park Ji-won

However, so far, the vast majority of artists' direct-shot videos have received average clicks and no signs of going viral.

In this situation, let alone ten million clicks, even one million would be a difficult target to achieve. Even among the members of team K on the same stage, besides himself, only two people's "Dope" direct shots managed to reach one million thanks to the previous momentum.

While Chi Jingyuan's 15 million clicks are completely out of reach, enough for them to chase for several years.

As he was looking, he suddenly saw the title of a video and couldn't help but click on it.

This is a fan-taken picture from the recording of SBS's "Inkigayo" on June 22nd.

Currently, the MCs for "Inkigayo" are Hwang Kwang Hee, Lee Yoo Phi, EXO's Kim Jun Myeon and Beak Hyun.

While the other two people in the video were absent, Kim Jun-myeon and Byun Baek-hyun were on stage facing the audience below, smiling and reading the host script. However, many fans below held up a banner of unknown origin and shouted loudly at Byun Baek-hyun incessantly.

Both the words written on the banner and shouted were the same:

"Traitor!"

Sharp shouts kept ringing out, and the crowd waved their banners with great excitement.

Judging by their appearance, these people were probably all supporters of Baekhyun in the past.

And the two people on stage looked noticeably stiff, especially Baekhyun, whose change in expression was immediately apparent. His face darkened considerably.

The video ends here, the plane is about to arrive. Chi Jingyuan puts away his phone and sighs inwardly, also a little puzzled.

How could he possibly say "I won't fall in love before I'm 35" like it's nothing...

……

Edge Chen's romance doesn't seem to have a big impact on fans in Mainland China.

Or perhaps the focus of blame here has been centered on Kim Jisook, with a self-deceptive selective ignoring of Beomgyu.

The concert on the 28th was held at the Olympic Stadium in Shancheng, and it went smoothly from start to finish, ending perfectly.

After the concert, all the members returned to the hotel. They had a short meeting with their manager and then announced their disbandment. Some members stayed in their rooms doing their own things, while others went for a walk around the neighborhood.

Chi Jingyuan was a person who walked out of the hotel, preparing to eat something.

When he checked into the hotel, he remembered seeing a spicy hotpot restaurant near there on the bus. At that time, many people were queuing up and doing brisk business. He guessed that the taste should be quite authentic.

He has eaten spicy hot pot several times in Seoul, but it is obviously modified and cannot produce the taste of the mountains. It's quite disappointing.

At that moment, he had it in mind. He happened to have time, and he was also coincidentally hungry.

He just called both Woo Shi-hwan and Do Kyung-soo to come together, but one of them was on the phone with his girlfriend, and the other said he wasn't hungry and wanted to read the script.

If you can't enjoy it, don't blame others.

Chi Jingyuan was wearing a disguise, carrying a backpack as he arrived alone at the entrance of "Authentic Mountain City Spicy Hotpot". Even though it was late, there were still a few people queuing up. Business was really booming.

He took a look around outside, picked up his phone and took a picture of the storefront with the sign, and sent it to Zhou Tzuyu.

He remembered that during casual conversations before, Zhou Tzuyu seemed to have mentioned that she quite liked stinky tofu, and mala hot pot was also okay.

After sending it, Chi Jingyuan went in to queue up. Just after a while, his phone buzzed and received a reply.

"Wow, I'm craving it too (drooling), are you in the mountains now"

Ji Jingyuan took a look, smiled and quickly tapped the screen, replying: "Can't eat it, hold back, I won't tell you."

Putting down his phone, he glanced at the dishes on the shelf in the cupboard. The colors were nice and they looked quite fresh. The longer he looked, the hungrier he became.

Just as he was about to be called, his phone buzzed again. He took it out and saw that this time, Zhou Tzuyu hadn't replied with text but had directly sent a selfie.

In the photo, she is currently applying a face mask, probably the one her mother bought for her, claiming it has excellent whitening effects.

Although the face mask covered most of her face, it was still possible to see that she was making a grimace. She had her nose wrinkled and her lips pursed as she looked at the camera. Her long black hair was adorned with a very noticeable light blue diamond-studded headband.

This is the birthday present that Pool Jingyuan gave her last time. It's not expensive but it's not cheap either. It's so late and she's still wearing it in the dorm, it seems Chou Tzu-yu really likes it.

At this time, the team member was at Chi Jingyuan. He looked at the photo, smiled, put his phone in his pocket without replying, and started picking out dishes with a frame in hand.

After a few minutes, Chi Jingyuan walked out of the restaurant carrying a plastic bag filled with several packed lunch boxes towards the hotel.

He was still soft-hearted, so he took two extra portions back for them to try.

Although it was already summer, it was nearing dawn and the temperature was no longer as stifling as during the day. A gentle evening breeze occasionally blew, making one feel refreshed and invigorated. Walking on the sidewalk, looking at the rows of trees planted along the road, and the familiar characters and signs of the shops on either side, Chi Jingyuan suddenly felt like he had returned to his childhood when he was studying in Xia Guo.

As they were about to reach the hotel, a man in his thirties stood in front of them. He seemed to have been waiting for quite a while and was specifically waiting for Chi Jingyuan.

"Hello hello, are you Chi Jingyuan I'm..." The man walked over with a smile and greeted him, reaching into his suit jacket as if to take out a business card, but before he could finish speaking, he was interrupted by Chi Jingyuan.

"What company are you with"

First published on Taiwan's Novel Network-putting, can attract passersby's attention and create a sense of immersion, is a relatively high-level and close interaction which puts high demands on the MC's control ability. Besides the script pr...