Caught in Affairs with Superstar

Chapter 218: Chapter 184: Ascending Phase: 20_2

Zhou Lan said, ”I had anticipated that the drama would perform well upon release, but I didn’t expect it to be this successful. Even the higher-ups at Yuehai Network didn’t see it coming, Liu Pinran personally called to congratulate me.”

Zhou Yun had a look of disbelief and said, ”I feel so embarrassed I can’t continue watching it.”

”You’re not the target audience for this drama,” Zhou Lan said. ”I’ve told you before, why would the performance of sweet romance dramas be generally bad? The number of young girls yearning for a beautiful love story is simply too large. And in this drama, the male lead is handsome, the female lead is beautiful, the script is decent—at least it’s not brainless. You two acted quite well, plus the benefits of the airing schedule, coupled with the boost from you, a popular celebrity, it’s not surprising to achieve such results.”

Zhou Yun asked, ”So, what’s the feedback like?”

”What else can it be? Those who like it, praise it to the skies; those who don’t, curse it as brainless. Ninety-nine percent of sweet romance dramas receive this kind of feedback,” Zhou Lan said. ”When shooting such films, don’t bother with the reviews, just see if the audience for this genre likes it. From what we can see, they are buying it—Eighth Heartbeat has been trending on social media all afternoon.”

Zhou Yun was even more astonished.

”Get ready for the livestream tonight. Oh right, I asked them to send me the livestream schedule in advance. Why haven’t they sent it yet?” Zhou Lan frowned and took out her phone to make a call.

Zhou Yun suddenly asked, ”Wait, Sister Lan, is there another livestream tonight, and will Xu Siyao also be participating?”

Zhou Lan rolled her eyes and said, ”She wishes. From now on, you and she won’t appear together in the promotion for this drama. She won’t be there tonight, only you and Gu Huaichun.”

Zhou Yun immediately blew Zhou Lan a kiss.

The good news brought by Zhou Lan quietly relieved Zhou Yun. No matter what, she had put her heart into filming this drama, spent a lot of thought and brainpower on it. Although from every aspect it wasn’t perfect, the cooperation with Gu Huaichun was very pleasant.

Zhou Yun finally dared to check Weibo.

She scrolled through her feed, most of the posts were about movies released during the Spring Festival season, almost none were about ”Eighth Heartbeat.”

Zhou Yun felt puzzled, then she opened the trending topics list, and indeed she saw both Gu Huaichun and Eighth Heartbeat trending.

Upon clicking and examining, Zhou Yun finally saw the discussions about the drama.

After a quick scan, she realized that the reputation of the drama was far from the optimism Zhou Lan had described.

Many people were criticizing the drama as another clichéd romantic story, with commonplace plots and affectation.

All the praises were focused on the actors’ looks.

——This drama is obviously made with shoddy workmanship. If it weren’t for the good-looking leads, I couldn’t have watched it.

——To be honest, the main thing that kept me watching was the male lead—such a handsome young man.

——Why did Zhou Yun even take this role? Isn’t she good friends with Song Chi? A trashy drama of the year reserved.

——I don’t think it’s as bad as you guys say, I just scrolled through my phone while watching.

——I hope the handsome guy won’t waste his good looks on such terrible movies anymore.

——Please, Zhou Yun, stop riding on Brother Chi’s coattails. Taking on such trashy dramas is tainting the reputation Brother Chi has carefully cultivated.

...

Zhou Yun took a deep breath.

On the other side, Zhou Lan had finished the call and came over, saying, ”The livestream will start at eight tonight.”

Zhou Yun put down her phone, sighing.

”What’s wrong?” Zhou Lan asked.

Zhou Yun said, ”Everyone online is criticizing the drama.”

Seeing that Zhou Yun was genuinely disheartened, Zhou Lan sat down and fell silent for a moment before saying, ”Xiao Yun, I know you’re someone who is very demanding of yourself, otherwise you definitely wouldn’t have been able to be admitted to University B. But I want to tell you, you’re just an actor. When you chose this drama, you didn’t have options. You could only choose to perform your part well. The current comments have already said everything—you should know the most criticized aspect of such dramas is usually the actors’ exaggerated performances, but look, basically, no one is saying you acted poorly.”

Zhou Yun gave a bitter smile and said, ”Sister Lan, are you saying I should be happy about this situation?”

”Of course, you should be,” Zhou Lan grasped Zhou Yun’s hand. ”As long as the viewership numbers for this drama are good, it’s a success. We haven’t been counting on this drama to earn a good reputation from the start, have we?”

Zhou Yun sighed.

Zhou Lan continued, ”We’ve played the hand we were dealt.”

”Cheer up, as long as the drama is popular, no amount of criticism can negate your solid viewership success,” Zhou Lan said. ”Good viewership numbers prove you can carry a drama; you understand? In the future, we will have more options, enabling us to choose better scripts. What’s done is done; don’t complain about the unchangeable, use the present to alter the future.”

”Sister Lan, you could totally start a motivational speaking class,” Zhou Yun joked.

-

The drama truly became a hit.

Perhaps it was because everyone was on vacation, with more free time.

Or maybe in the cold winter, people were reluctant to go out and preferred to stay in bed binge-watching shows.

Although ”Eighth Heartbeat” continuously received poor reviews, the number of viewers and discussions kept growing.

The number of people trashing the drama for its poor quality didn’t decrease, but increasingly, more girls started to feel anxious about Zhou Yun and Gu Huaichun’s relationship progress.

People began calling Zhou Yun by her character’s name in the comments under her Weibo: Xiao Su.

And to coordinate with the drama’s promotion, Zhou Yun almost had to post on Weibo every day, keeping fans updated on Lin Xiaosu’s developments.

There were more and more fans calling her Xiao Su.

On the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, the drama ”Heart Inquiry” completed its filming.

While Zhou Yun was doing sweepstakes together with Gu Huaichun, she received a message from Song Chi: Congrats.

Zhou Yun curled up the corner of her mouth and replied: Same to you.