The fighting online continued through the night. It began with the show's fan communities and Zhou Yu's supporters, then gradually drew in factions from across the three-year-old programme — but the two names that kept surfacing, again and again, were Liu Fengyu and Han Zichen.
Both men had gained traction during the competition. Their rankings had started low but climbed steadily, and by the later rounds their live-voting numbers had cracked the top ten more than once. A number of industry commentators had included them in predicted debut lineups. Then, on the eve of the final showcase, a story broke — from nowhere, apparently — about internal conflict within one of the small groups. The group in question had three members: Liu Fengyu, Han Zichen, and Bai Xia.
At first, most people assumed it was the sort of friction that occasionally surfaced in competition programmes, or else a narrative the production team had manufactured for the finale. But then alleged insiders began to come forward, insisting this was no ordinary disagreement — that someone in the group had been bullying the others, threatening them into withdrawal.
Three years ago, talent programmes hadn't yet saturated the market the way they had now. Shining Stars wasn't the originator of the format, but its approach was new enough and its contestants strong enough that it had attracted genuine, widespread attention. The leaks named no one directly — but the group had only three members, and the descriptions in the reports might as well have been labelled. Bai Xia's supporters were on their feet within hours, refusing to believe it, flooding the leaker's comments demanding proof. His detractors — those who'd watched him outperform and eliminate other contestants, or whose favourites had backed companies who resented his momentum — saw their opportunity and moved in.
[I always said there was money behind Bai Xia. A nobody doesn't rise that fast without it.] [The whole show was engineered around him — obvious from the start.] [You take what isn't yours, sooner or later it comes back around.] [I hope my idol wasn't hurt too. This is heartbreaking.] [Bullies have no place in this industry.]
The noise escalated, and nobody connected to the programme said anything at all. The silence read, to audiences, not as discretion but as fear. The rumours of powerful backing hardened into something that felt, to many people, like established fact. Reporters staked out the production offices. Dedicated fans gathered outside with signs.
Then, after several days of this, a video appeared — supposedly leaked accidentally by a crew member. The setting was recognisably the show's own facilities: a rehearsal studio, the dormitory corridors, the production logo visible here and there.
The footage was brief and disjointed, assembled from several clips. In the first, all three — Bai Xia, Liu Fengyu, Han Zichen — were in a rehearsal room. Bai Xia's expression was visibly cold. A few words were audible through the poor audio: something like sick and pathetic, and then, at the end, turning away: "Don't think this is over." A second clip showed a vocal session in which Bai Xia flung sheet music to the floor and left. A third: Bai Xia standing apart during a dance rehearsal, watching his partners stumble through a section with evident indifference; catching the results board, and something dismissive crossing his face. More fragments followed, accompanied by written commentary — interpretations of his expressions, narrated summaries of alleged incidents. The overall picture, assembled, seemed to confirm what everyone had already begun to believe.
Most of Bai Xia's supporters still refused to accept it. They called the clips out-of-context, over-interpreted, possibly fabricated. But the tide had already begun to turn.
Then came something harder to dismiss.
Less than a day later, an idol named Yuan Chenguang — officially verified as a Shining Stars contestant — posted a video. He'd been eliminated in the first round and had no real following to speak of; it took people a moment to confirm he was genuine. In the video, he wept as he spoke. He described how his family had struggled financially, how shy and socially awkward he'd always been, how hard it had been just to get through the auditions. He didn't know what he'd done to make Bai Xia turn against him. But Bai Xia had used his popularity to isolate him. He'd taunted him in private. He'd cornered him in empty corridors, threatened him. There had been physical altercations. Every day on that programme had been a kind of torment. It had affected his performance. He'd been eliminated in the first round and had never truly recovered.
The video was a breaking point. Viewers who'd been on the fence moved. Commentators arrived. The story left entertainment media entirely and entered broader public discourse — workplace violence, school harassment, the vulnerability of young people in high-pressure competitive environments. People who had no interest in idol programmes had now heard about Bai Xia.
His social media accounts became focal points for coordinated outrage. Supporters went quiet or defected. Strangers published what personal information about him they could find. The production company continued to say nothing and release new episodes on schedule.
And in the final showcase, in an auditorium where the audience was already furious, Bai Xia walked onstage and was met with a wall of chanting: Bully. Get off this stage. Get out. The recording descended into near-chaos. Security had to be significantly reinforced to prevent audience members from rushing the stage.
Against all prediction, Bai Xia still placed — in the last debut slot, on accumulated individual points from earlier rounds. The production's explanation did nothing to calm anyone. It was taken as proof of exactly what people had suspected: that the whole thing had been bought and paid for. The conversation shifted from what one contestant might have done to what capital could do to anyone, and the anger that came with that was much, much larger.
