The audience received it in different ways.
Lu Cheng was genuinely surprised. Bai Xia had exceeded what he'd quietly anticipated.
Zhou Yu seethed. A resentment like burning pressed against the inside of his chest. Jiang Xingyang, on the outside, wore the expression of a completely devoted fan — and on the inside, felt something uncomplicated and real: happiness for Bai Xia.
For Ningning, this was the most joyful moment of his entire life. He'd seen Little Dad's old performances on video, but being here in person, watching the stage light fall on him — he finally understood what Big Dad had always described. Little Dad glows up there.
He thought this was the most beautiful song in the whole world. He was completely lost in it. And then it would come back to him — this person, this luminous person, was his own Little Dad, the person closest to him in all the world. The happiness was almost more than a small person could hold.
When Bai Xia finished, the whole space stayed suspended in the melody for a long beat before the applause came. Bai Xia's expression, as always, remained calm; he smiled and stepped off the stage. Qin Siyao and Xiao Yueya rushed at him immediately, praise pouring out of them in the uninhibited, extravagant way of small children. Bai Xia listened to every word, and thanked them both with absolute sincerity.
Zhou Yu kept his public smile in place and clapped with everyone else. Inwardly, his contempt was absolute.
He couldn't help thinking back three years, to the talent competition programme where the two of them had first crossed paths.
Back then, Bai Xia had appeared from nowhere and become a star almost overnight — the kind of face, the kind of presence, that could arrest a room even in a crowd of a hundred bright young men. And he'd been just as understated offstage as on — modest, unhurried, well-liked by everyone from senior contestants to mentors. Zhou Yu, at the time, had been essentially invisible: perpetually near the bottom of the rankings, largely overlooked.
He'd watched Bai Xia stand at the top — the most popular contestant, by far — and wear it as though it meant nothing, that composed, unbothered expression. Even then it had grated on him. Who was the performance for? There was something insufferably superior about the whole act.
Three years later, he felt exactly the same. More so, if anything. He'd heard Bai Xia had married into the Shen family — though looking at the situation now, it seemed all gilded surface with nothing inside. He was probably no better off than Zhou Yu himself, in the end. That thought produced a small, private satisfaction.
Zhou Yu's feelings were tangled, but his face showed none of it. He rose, clapping warmly, and clapped Bai Xia on the shoulder. "Teacher Bai, that was extraordinary. I mean it — absolutely stunning."
He didn't need to check the comments to know what they looked like right now. And he wasn't worried. Let him have his moment, Zhou Yu thought with quiet relish. The real centrepiece comes next.
The final act of the evening was Zhou Yu's solo. He walked to the centre of the stage and stood there without beginning — unhurried, deliberate.
The comment stream was still buzzing over Bai Xia's performance when Zhou Yu raised the microphone and spoke.
"Three years ago, my abilities weren't where they needed to be. There was a song I couldn't do justice to — and I've carried that regret with me ever since. In the years that followed, I've kept working, kept learning, hoping to give my supporters the stage they deserve — and to make amends to the person I was back then. So tonight, Shining Stars — this one is for you."
The stream detonated.
Shining Stars was the title track of the idol competition programme from three years ago. Unlike the upbeat companion single, this song was lyrical and affecting, and it had travelled further and stayed longer in public memory.
Talent shows had become crowded since then. Audiences had limited time and attention — a programme from three months ago could easily be buried by the next wave. New faces were always arriving, and no matter how bright your moment, without the right luck and the right management behind you, it faded. Zhou Yu's words sent the room back three years in an instant.
[Wait — Zhou Yu was in Shining Stars? I don't remember him at all.] [Found him — he was eliminated in Round Two. His performance then was genuinely quite weak.] [Yu-bao is so honest, just says what he feels — look how much he's grown. We'll always be here for you.] [Does that mean he and Bai Xia were on the same programme??] [Wasn't Bai Xia the one who bullied his team-mates on that show? Could it have been Zhou Yu?] [I think it was someone else — Zhou Yu was in a different group at the time.] [I've been waiting for someone to say this for years. Bai Xia. Bullying people left and right. And now he just waltzes back three years later like nothing happened? Does he not remember what he put my idol through? My poor idol left the industry because of him.] [Exactly — everyone knows who had the industry behind them. My idol was just the collateral damage of someone else's capital.] [They actually drove someone out of the industry? That's genuinely frightening. Is capital really that powerful?]
None of the guests had been looking at their phones. None of them knew that online, a storm had already broken. The director, visibly relieved that filming was winding down, announced the end of the day's recording without delay and sent everyone off to rest.
Back in his room, Bai Xia had barely picked up his phone before he saw the stream of messages waiting for him — the most numerous, by far, from his agent Lin Pei. He'd just begun scrolling from the top when his phone rang.
"Zhou Yu absolutely did that on purpose," Lin Pei said, the moment the call connected. "I could see three years ago that there was something rotten about him — pretending to be so sincere the whole time. I can't believe he's actually gotten worse. Genuinely disgusting."
Bai Xia still hadn't fully pieced together what had happened. He settled Ningning in the sitting room with his toys and retreated to a corner to ask quietly.
"It's that old business from three years ago — same story, same loop, the same people dragging it back out again. I thought the whole thing had been buried — Senior management put a lid on it back then, and hard. But apparently a few cockroaches survived." Lin Pei's voice tightened. "Listen — Secretary Xu has already been in touch with me. We're putting together a response strategy right now." Secretary Xu was one of Shen Mingjin's senior secretaries, responsible for the entertainment division. When he led something, it moved quickly and it moved cleanly.
And it meant the full weight of the Shen Group's resources were effectively at Bai Xia's disposal. Dealing with something like this was, frankly, beneath what they were capable of.
"Hold off," Bai Xia said, his voice steady. "Don't issue anything yet. Gather the evidence first. We take this carefully."
He was constrained by being mid-recording. And there was no point rushing — the bullying accusations had always been fabricated, and the truth was that Bai Xia had been the one wronged. The online mood right now was all raw feeling and momentum; anything said into that current would be punished first and heard second.
Without a solid chain of evidence, moving too quickly could make things worse.
Lin Pei took a breath. "Fine. You don't need to worry about any of this — let us handle it. Besides, this time we have Shen Da-lao in our corner, which is a completely different situation from before. Trust me."
In the sitting room, Ningning had been playing on his own — and, thinking himself very subtle, kept glancing over toward Bai Xia every few minutes. Bai Xia ended the call, saw him, and arranged his expression before walking over to pick him up.
"Daddy, did something happen?" Ningning asked, worried.
"Nothing to worry about. Just something work-related. Thank you for being concerned, sweetheart."
"Is it because of the show?" Ningning had lived with Little Dad long enough to read him precisely. Bai Xia's face looked as calm as always — nothing obviously wrong — but Ningning felt it anyway. Something wasn't right.
"I'm not upset," Bai Xia said. "Just a small thing. I'll take care of it. Don't worry."
He held Ningning close and felt the warmth of that small, soft body — the familiar scent of milk and warm skin — and something in him that had been pulled tight slowly eased. Ningning, gentle and attentive as always, reached up and kissed him on the cheek. And Bai Xia thought, in that moment, that he had been given the finest thing in the world.
When he felt steadier, he checked the rest of his messages. Secretary Xu had been efficient — a detailed situation analysis and a full professional response plan were already waiting for him. And among the messages, one from Mr. Shen: brief as ever. Don't worry. I've got it.
But the world has its own momentum. The quiet didn't last.
Lin Pei sent through a screenshot. Zhou Yu had just posted:
Zhou Yu: I'm so sorry for all of this, everyone. @MengwaGrowthDiary @BaiXia — I really didn't expect my song choice to generate this much discussion. I picked it for the reasons I said onstage — to close an old chapter, to give my past self something I couldn't back then. Nothing more than that. For those who don't know: three years ago, I had the honour of competing alongside Teacher Bai Xia on Shining Stars. I didn't make it past Round Two — my skills weren't good enough. Teacher Bai was a complete professional throughout. I accepted the result then, and I accept it now.
Bai Xia was still reading when Lin Pei's messages began arriving in rapid succession — most of them colourful variations on the theme of "green tea villain." Predictably enough, Zhou Yu's comments section had filled up immediately with support. And it had drawn in a fresh wave of spectators who were there purely for the spectacle:
[Fair enough, but has Zhou Yu had work done? He looked completely different three years ago.] [Bai Xia's face is unfair. He's actually gotten better-looking. How is that legal. (I'm a face person, fight me.)] [Is it just me or does Zhou Yu still sound kind of average?] [My idol did NOT get work done — he was younger, that's all. Kids look different when they grow into their face.] [Sure, that's definitely what happened.] [The tea is so good right now.]
The comments section was, naturally, in chaos. Zhou Yu had had some minor adjustments done after the programme, which was true — but he'd done it before he was famous, and by the time anyone was paying attention, the results had long since settled. He wasn't worried about it. In this industry, if the market accepted it and the marketing was right, it wasn't really a weakness — it was just more material.
As for Bai Xia — he had been through enough to reach something like equanimity about all of this. The things being said were not going to hurt him. He had always believed that what was black could never be made white by insisting loudly enough on the colour. And three years of marriage to Mr. Shen, however distant and intermittent, had taught him something: when the ground shakes, that is precisely when you must stand still.
He was about to put down his phone and get Ningning ready for bed when Jiang Xingyang sent him a message. They'd only exchanged numbers the day before and hadn't yet sent so much as a word to each other. This message was also a screenshot — Jiang Xingyang had just posted:
Jiang Xingyang: Not going to comment on what I don't fully know. What I will say: Teacher Bai's work speaks for itself. His dance videos have been in my study playlist for years. And from spending time with him on this show — he's genuinely a good person. Waiting to hear from Teacher Bai. @BaiXia.
The comments there were, comparatively, almost civilised:
[Bro, if you're being coerced, blink twice.] [He is so brave it's almost terrifying.] [His manager is probably having a cardiac event right now.] [I'm just a regular viewer, but honestly — Bai Xia hasn't seemed like the type to bully anyone, watching this show.]
Jiang Xingyang's manager had, in fact, been sitting at home in a state of quiet despair. She'd once told a colleague how easy this boy was to manage — talented, motivated, good-looking, so responsible she'd handed him full control of his own accounts without a second thought. She hadn't imagined he'd been saving it all up for this. The situation was too complicated. Pick the wrong side, and someone at Jiang Xingyang's level of fame could be finished. She felt a deep, bone-level tiredness settle in.
Bai Xia replied at once: "Xiao Yang — you didn't have to do this."
Jiang Xingyang's reply came back easily: "Too late — it's already out there. So, Teacher Bai: you'd better come out swinging, and fast. Otherwise I'm going down with you."
Bai Xia understood clearly what this kind of gesture cost. Such loyalty was rare anywhere in life, let alone here. And now it had extended to someone else — someone who had nothing to do with any of this. He felt a weight settle in his chest, and made a quiet decision. Whatever it took, he would resolve this quickly.
