ATLAS TRANSLATES

After the first episode aired, “Come On, Friends” quickly rose in discussion rankings across various platforms.

Ordinary people have a natural curiosity for the unusual, especially about places they’ve never heard of like Black Water Street. While media outlets initially explained “Black Water Street” to the public, many videos were later taken down by officials. People only dared to share videos privately. The official intervention only made the public more curious.

The right screen was constantly displaying comments: “White Tank Top!!!” “King of Sanda!!!”

White Tank Top’s previous fight had spread online. He ranked among the top ten UFC fighters, and was the second such person to emerge from China, making him famous in the Sanda world.

“Who are you, production team, that you could even film this?” “If you can interview White Tank Top, I’ll be your fan for life!”

Just after showing the fighting arena scene that had viewers excited, it switched to “White Tiger Auction House.” The comments became less enthusiastic: “White Tiger Auction House, where’s that?” “So luxurious, I felt rich for once.”

Few people knew about the White Tiger Auction House. When they filmed there, it wasn’t even open for business, so viewers just saw it as something novel.

The Black Water Street segment ended here, with “Sanda King” slowly climbing to the top of Weibo’s trending topics.

“Wait,” Xu Nanjing put down his teacup, suppressing his cough and his shock as he turned to look at Xiao Bingwen beside him. “What kind of show did Yan Lu participate in?”

Even the usually composed Young Master Xu’s fingers were trembling slightly. Although White Tiger Auction House wasn’t operating, if Xu Nanjing had tried to stand outside saying he wanted to enter, the security guards would have thrown him out from afar, let alone filming.

“Didn’t you say there was nothing worth watching?” Xiao Bingwen took a deep breath and looked up.

Xu Nanjing: “…”

Xiao Bingwen slowly looked away. Seeing the show switch to Yan Lu and Mei Yi going grocery shopping, he figured the Black Water Street segment was over. He closed his laptop and belatedly explained, “I have no connection to Yan Lu.”

“The production team must have connections with them,” Xu Nanjing drummed his fingers on the table. He set aside his shock and sat up straight, realizing the significance of this matter. “Try to get more information from Liu Shuhe.”

Xiao Bingwen nodded.

Xu Nanjing looked down at his phone and sent a message requesting an investigation of the production team.

“Interview White Tank Top?” Xu Nanjing put away his phone, recalling the streaming comments. He muttered, “They sure dare to dream. Even Xiaoming couldn’t get a single photo of White Tank Top.”

At the Ji family home, Ji Heng and Jiang He hadn’t seen each other for several days. Ji Heng was now holding him in a chair watching the variety show. Jiang He’s small hands clutched a bag with lifelike embroidered Chinese cabbage on it, his eyes wide with curiosity as he watched TV.

The people in the room weren’t particularly impressed by the auction house scene – they’d all been there before. Bai Lian lounged lazily against her chair, watching casually.

On screen, Yan Lu was telling Mei Yi that some friends would be coming for dinner.

The live comments had decreased, with people speculating: “Are these the students from the preview? Not as exciting as before.”

“Yan Lu is brave, most people would invite celebrities at this point, but she really just invited ordinary people.” “Road fans, note: don’t attack Yan Lu’s ordinary friends.” “I heard one’s a lawyer, waiting to see. With such an impressive production team, it must be Zhao Jingzhou!”

Jiang Fuli took off his outer coat, wearing just a loose white T-shirt as he sat beside her. He recognized Bai Lian from one of the blurry figures in the background.

Noticing her teacup was empty, he reached for the teapot and methodically poured her more tea, asking softly, “Why didn’t you appear as a composer?”

“My compositions are just average,” Bai Lian evaluated her own work, but looked at Jiang Fuli with surprise, wondering how he knew she hadn’t been identified when the show wasn’t over yet.

Jiang Fuli also filled Ji Heng’s and his own cups, glancing at her in response.

Jiang He hugged his bag and looked down at his little cup: “…”

Ji Heng turned his head to look at Jiang Fuli’s cold expression, his lips twitching almost imperceptibly.

On screen, the camera had turned to a male and female discussing a problem. They weren’t wearing microphones, so their voices weren’t very clear, but could still be faintly heard.

“Don’t understand, what’s with this act? Who does homework on a show?” “Yeah, I’m too lazy to do problems even at home.” “Though those hands look like pianist hands…”

The camera showed a delicate white hand writing on paper, long and fair with flowing joints, appearing like a work of art on camera.

While comments were flowing, the camera suddenly gave a clear shot of the phone.

Everyone could see the problem displayed: A small ball in a vacuum, irradiated with 280nm ultraviolet light… Calculate the maximum escape velocity of the photoelectrons… The velocity at infinity… The number of photoelectrons.

The production team added a kneeling yellow face emoji beside it with the caption: “High school students have it tough these days.”

“I understand each word separately but not together.” “Are you sure this is high school level?” “Production team, you’re really ridiculous. I can tolerate everything else, but what normal high school student would do this kind of problem?” “The character setup is too obvious. You should at least know what normal high school students study!”

The comments kept flowing, with several mentioning “Jiangjiang” scrolling past.

Jiang Fuli watched these comments, his fine features showing some hesitation. “Is this problem very difficult?”

“It’s okay,” Bai Lian said leisurely, sipping her water. “I can do it, but Ning Xiao didn’t have enough time.”

Jiang Fuli leaned back. “He’s always been rather slow.”

Beside them, Ji Heng, who understood nothing: “…”

He felt like he was just like those commenters online.

Fortunately, this moment passed quickly. Chi Yundai’s arrival shifted viewers’ attention. As soon as he appeared on screen, the production team displayed his name:

Chi Yundai, 39 years old, practicing lawyer.

Yan Lu respectfully called him Attorney Chi.

“Attorney Chi? Never heard of him, is this for publicity?” “+1, I thought they’d invite Zhao Jingzhou.” “The first half was so good, how did the second half become so weak?”

Soon, the scene of Attorney Chi cutting potatoes appeared, and viewers were finally satisfied: “Production team, be honest, he must be a five-star chef~” “Haha, Teacher Mei killed me, he actually went back to secretly cut potatoes.”

Read more new popular novels at 6.9 Book Bar!

“Come On, Friends” trended again because of the Sanda King.

The first episode was a hit. The first half of this episode was even more explosive than before, especially since “White Tank Top” was already king of the fighting arena. His popularity remained high, with people asking if he had any social media accounts.

However, the second half was disappointing. At least Chi Yundai was dubbed a “five-star chef” by netizens.

But the problem-solving segment made viewers think it was very weak.

At Yan Lu’s place.

As someone who had been criticized before, she had good instincts. She called Wang Xin directly, “Sister Xin, didn’t you watch it before the show aired?”

Wang Xin had also seen the online reactions. She pressed her temples, “I watched it, but we didn’t know Miss Bai and her friends’ problems were so difficult. If we had known, I wouldn’t have let the director air it.”

The director just wanted to resonate with high school seniors. Having been away from school for so long, they just thought today’s high school seniors were very capable.

Who knew only Bai Lian and her classmates were that strong.

Yan Lu opened her computer. People online were already jumping on the bandwagon.

A trending topic appeared: “‘Good Student’ Miss Bai and Student Ning’s ‘High School’ Problems”

The show had edited in a few voices calling Bai Lian and Ning Xiao’s names, and now netizens were mocking these terms.

Yan Lu frowned at this, then looked at the topic below: “Yiyi Martial Arts School Master”

Her brows furrowed.

In the information age, when a show becomes popular, there are benefits to that popularity.

But after enjoying those benefits, there will naturally be corresponding impacts.

Yan Lu was used to being criticized and didn’t mind, but she didn’t want to see Bai Lian being criticized.

She hung up on Sister Xin and called the director directly.

“You’re saying to cut that segment?” Hearing Yan Lu’s suggestion, the director didn’t hesitate. “That’s a good solution. Don’t worry. Information moves fast these days, it’ll blow over when the heat dies down. It’s just Miss Bai…”

The director was somewhat afraid of making Bai Lian angry.

After all, people online were mocking her and Ning Xiao for showing off.

“She doesn’t use the internet,” Yan Lu sighed.

And besides…

She felt Bai Lian wouldn’t care about others’ opinions.

“That’s good then,” the director felt relieved. He lit a cigarette and ordered the website to edit the video, feeling both dejected and confused. “But why were Miss Bai and the others doing such problems?”

He was truly bewildered. Bai Lian and Ning Xiao were students from Xiangcheng – how could a place with such educational resources have such extraordinary problems? How did it get viewers so worked up?

Ah, this stumped Yan Lu.

Yan Lu wasn’t good at studying either, she just replied: “She does whatever problems she wants to do.”

That was true.

The director on the other end shrugged. After all, Miss Bai was so cool that industry big shots were calling him – what’s wrong with doing some problems? The director hung up.

Beside him, the assistant director stood up from his chair. “They’re editing now. Hopefully, viewers will quickly forget about Miss Bai and Ning Xiao.”

The director nodded, still holding his cigarette with furrowed brows. “How’s Attorney Chi doing now?”

“You know how popular our show is now,” the assistant director said helplessly.

When recording, they never expected the show to become this popular. They just wanted to give Attorney Chi some exposure, but it backfired.

The show was too popular, audience expectations were too high, and Chi Yundai seemed too ordinary compared to Sun Dan and White Tank Top.

They could edit out Bai Lian and Ning Xiao, but Chi Yundai—

The second half was all about him, there was no way to edit it out.

The director blew out a smoke ring and opened his phone to the “Come On, Friends” official Weibo. “We can cut Miss Bai and the others’ segments, but we can’t edit Attorney Chi’s parts.”

As he spoke, he opened the comments to check the current trends. Seeing a comment about “two students being pretentious,” he frowned and deleted it.

Yan Lu and Mei Yi’s fans were trying their best to control the situation, but there were too many casual viewers to contain.

Scrolling to sort by hot comments, he saw the top comment:

“The production team is so impressive they could even get Sun Dan, I’ll let it slide that they couldn’t get Dean Jian and Baijian later, but I thought the lawyer would be @Zhao Jingzhou, feeling disappointed”

Zhao Jingzhou was a well-known lawyer online, a first-class attorney in people’s minds.

The director laughed bitterly: “Why don’t they ask me to invite God himself?”