Chapter 44

Chapter 44

The fact that Su Xingyao's tutoring session last night trended online and sparked a lot of discussion was only known to the show's directors and staff, but the guests had no idea.

During the recording period, the show confiscated their phones.

The phones provided by the sponsor could only send messages between the six guests, and no other apps were installed or permitted.

However, this didn’t stop Su Xingyao from gaining more fans.

His great performances in the last two episodes let more people see his strengths.

Especially after last night’s buzz, today his solo live stream, even before it started, was already as popular as the other guests’ streams, with viewers flooding in at an insane rate.

When Su Xingyao first joined the show, his solo live stream was pretty much empty. Many people, upon learning that he was the guest, couldn’t be bothered to tune in, and the few who stayed were mostly haters waiting to trash him.

However, by this episode, the audience’s vibe had totally flipped.

"Start the stream already!"

"It’s 8 a.m.—are you guys even awake yet? Didn’t you hear my alarm going off a million times?"

"Hurry up and start the stream—I need my Mr. Su fix QWQ"

"Is Mr. Su gonna be the first one up making breakfast again today?"

"I’m so jealous of the guests who get to eat Mr. Su’s food. If I can’t eat it, at least let me watch. Why hasn’t the show started yet?"

The audience was anxious, unaware that the show was holding off on starting today on purpose.

It wasn’t that the show was trying to tease the audience, but they ran into a problem during recording.

To be precise, the plans for this episode had been leaked.

When Su Xingyao got back from his jog, he heard Shi Hongyu filling everyone in on what happened.

"Our rival station recently launched a travel variety show called 'A Relaxing Weekend,' which is quite similar to ours."

"They aired their first episode yesterday, also live, and our team noticed their content and themes were way too similar to ours."

Shi Hongyu was being diplomatic.

In reality, since "Let's Travel Together" aired, it has been highly praised and widely discussed, making its format a target.

Especially Mint TV, which has always been competing with our broadcasting platform, Peppermint TV. They recently launched "A Relaxing Weekend" by poaching many from the "Travel" team.

Among those poached was a key creator involved in this episode's planning.

They secretly used this episode's plan for the first episode of "A Relaxing Weekend" and deliberately aired it a day earlier.

Thus, what we recorded yesterday is almost identical to what the show had planned for today, even the theme is the same.

"We originally planned to have each guest host a live stream tonight, using their own cameras to take viewers on a tour of Lushui County and promote it..." The planning lady nearly cried as she explained.

"But they preempted this segment yesterday."

"This means if we don't abandon this segment today, we'll directly clash with them."

After hearing this, the guests understood that this was a serious leak for the show.

After all, if the two shows turn out to be very similar in content, it will definitely spark discussions and be compared directly.

And by doing this, the other show's team is clearly prepared to piggyback on the success of "Let's Travel Together" to generate hype and capitalize on the attention.

For every director and staff member who has put effort into the show, naturally, they don't want to see their hard work being hijacked and exploited by the other show midway.

"Everyone, to avoid unnecessary trouble, we need to temporarily adjust the recording plan for this episode, and it might require everyone to put in a little extra effort," Zhang Shanfeng briefly explained to everyone, his gaze instinctively falling on Su Xingyao.

There was something he didn't mention in front of everyone.

In fact, the other show's team had already purchased trending hashtags yesterday, ready to undermine "Let's Travel Together."

But they didn't expect that last night, Su Xingyao incredibly took over several trending topics with his tutoring session, completely overshadowing all the attention.

As a result, the trending topics they bought made no impact, and the audience didn't care at all about what the other show was doing, instead focusing entirely on discussing how amazing Su Xingyao was.

The planning lady took over from Zhang Shanfeng, "But it feels a bit unfair to just give up like this."

She smiled, "So we thought of changing the live broadcast to a day-long casual video recording by the guests, capturing the beautiful moments in Lushui County, and then we all collaborate to edit a video as an advertisement to be included in the main episode. What do you guys think?"

After hearing the plan, all the guests nodded in understanding and support.

However, Shi Hongyu had some doubts when he heard about everyone editing the video together.

"But editing is a bit professional, isn't it a bit challenging for us to do this?"

Filming videos is one thing, but editing them creatively and attractively is quite challenging.

After Shi Hongyu raised this concern, the others nodded in agreement as well.

The planner also thought of this issue.

She was about to smile and mention that the post-production teacher could teach them when Su Xingyao softly spoke up.

"I know a little about this, I can give it a try later."

Hearing that Su Xingyao knew how to do it, the guests, who were initially a bit concerned, immediately became happy and gathered around him.

Having already witnessed many of Su Xingyao's talents, they didn't have any doubts about his statement.

Cen Yi: "Wow, Xiao Su, you can do this as well!"

Feng Han: "Bro, I feel like your 'a little' is actually 'a lot'..."

As Feng Han said this, the live broadcast rooms of several guests opened.

The audience, tuning in and hearing Feng Han's description, were all curious.

"Did I miss some key information?"

"What's this about 'a little' and 'a lot'?? What are you guys up to again??"

"From Feng Han's tone, is Su Xingyao about to do something big again?"

"Ahhh, really?? I'm so excited!!"

After the live broadcast started, today's recording officially got on track.

Zhang Shanfeng picked up the loudspeaker and summoned everyone to the living room.

"The first task today is—find the contact person."

After casually dropping this, he offered no further explanation.

Tong Anan looked at Zhang Shanfeng, bewildered. "Director Zhang, at least give us some hints, don’t you think?"

Where’s this contact person? Are they male or female? What’s their role? Why aren’t you telling us anything?

Zhang Shanfeng chuckled mischievously. "Why not hit the streets and see what you can find? Maybe you’ll stumble upon some clues in the bustling areas."

After dropping this cryptic hint, he took out the sponsor's phone.

"Keep your eyes peeled for details around you—you might find some useful clues."

"Of course, you can also snap photos of these clues."

Shi Hongyu was puzzled at first about what Zhang Shanfeng meant by using the phone to capture clues.

Just as he was about to ask, Cen Yi quickly pressed his hand to stop him.

Then it dawned on him: the production team wanted them to shoot promotional videos in this unexpected way.

The live-streaming audience, clueless about Zhang Shanfeng’s plan, found his hints baffling and flooded the chat with comments like, "Director Zhang, the ultimate riddle master."

With that, the guests headed downtown together.

Since the production team's hints were too vague, everyone wandered around without much of a clue.

However, after getting along during the previous episode, the group had already pegged Su Xingyao as the brain of the team, so they naturally turned to him for guidance.

"Xing Yao, what do you think we should do now?"

Shi Hongyu approached Su Xingyao, waving his phone around like a metal detector.

Feng Han and Xu Xiang flanked Su Xingyao, chiming in repeatedly, "Bro, where to next?"

The audience, cracking up at the bizarre scene, flooded the screen with laughter.

"Su Xingyao and Shi Hongyu bonded like brothers last episode, and now Feng Han and Xu Xiang have become his little followers."

"Hahaha, this group’s a mess without Su Xingyao."

"LOL, others make friends, but Su Xingyao ends up with a whole family."

"Y’all should rename the group 'The Brady Bunch.'"

On the street, Cen Yi and Tong Anan joined in, locking their hopeful gazes on Su Xingyao.

Su Xingyao, weighed down by their expectations, froze in place.

"Hahaha, look at him—totally overwhelmed."

"Su Xingyao: Way too young for this responsibility."

Just as everyone thought Su Xingyao was buckling under the pressure, he pointed to the lively antique street on the right.

"How about we start with some word riddles?"

The staff members playing passersby arranged around the guests: ???

Zhang Shanfeng, sitting in front of the monitor and observing every move of the guests: ???

Since there were no clues to begin with, everyone went along with Su Xingyao's idea and walked to the old lady's riddle stall.

There were many people in front of the stall.

The group looked around before finally squeezing in.

The stall was run by an old lady, who looked to be in her sixties, but she was lively and her calligraphy was beautiful.

Despite the guests and the cameras, she remained calm and smiled calmly, "Are you here for the riddles?"

Xu Xiang nodded politely, "Yes, ma'am, is that alright?"

The old lady smiled, "Of course."

After agreeing, she added, "But I have a rule: guess one, get two."

Shi Hongyu quickly asked, "What do you mean by 'guess one, get two'?"

The old lady smiled and pulled out a piece of paper.

"You write a riddle, and I'll give you two back."

Then she handed the brush to Xu Xiang.

"You write it, dear."

She then handed another piece of paper to Feng Han.

"Since there are six of you, why not have two write riddles? I'll give the other four one each."

"You have one minute to write or solve a riddle."

This rule seemed a bit odd.

Given the old lady's calmness around the cameras, the guests started to catch on.

Thinking they might find clues, they got excited and started brainstorming riddles.

But riddles aren't something they usually deal with, and they could only think of a few off the top of their heads.

Under the time pressure, their minds went blank, and they couldn't think of anything.

Cen Yi racked her brains and came up with one first.

"Exceptionally generous!"

After saying that, she immediately urged Xu Xiang, "Xiangxiang, write it quickly, write it quickly."

Xu Xiang immediately lowered her head and started writing furiously.

Feng Han, who also had paper and a brush, started to get anxious.

"What about the second one? What about the second one?"

Cen Yi waved her hand, "I can't think of anything else, my ICU is about to explode..."

The old lady, seeing Feng Han in a hurry, smiled and counted down for him, "Thirty seconds left, come on, young man."

Feng Han's face instantly fell, "Save me..."

Just as everyone was stumped, Su Xingyao spoke up.

"The answer is 'seventy-two hours.'"

Feng Han, too nervous to catch it, asked, "What?"

Su Xingyao immediately repeated, "Seventy-two hours."

This time, Feng Han caught it and quickly jotted it down.

Fortunately, Su Xingyao's riddle came just in time, and at the last second, Feng Han managed to write down the second riddle.

The chat had already started guessing what characters Cen Yi and Su Xingyao were referring to.

The knowledgeable old lady took their papers, glanced at the riddles, and gave a thumbs-up to all six.

"Nice, both riddles pass."

After saying that, she took down four paper fans from the hanging ones and handed them to Cen Yi, Tong Anan, Su Xingyao, and Shi Hongyu respectively.

The paper fans were bound with red silk threads. Su Xingyao untied the silk thread, and the fan unfolded.

The riddle he got was very simple, with five words written on it.

"No rice, utterly absurd."

Before Su Xingyao could answer, Tong Anan started screaming and jumping.

"I know this one! Is it 'Hua'?"

After saying that, she opened her folding fan, which read: "Meeting beneath the flowers in the field."

The old lady nodded in approval.

After Tong Anan guessed it, Cen Yi opened her folding fan, "What does 'first-class standard' mean?"

She guessed, "Is it 'ice'?"

The old lady smiled and shook her head.

Su Xingyao glanced at her fan and said, "Huai?"

The old lady nodded, "Correct."

She then sprayed water on Cen Yi's fan. Soon, the character 'Huai' appeared on the back of the fan.

Shi Hongyu, amazed, quickly opened his fan, "This, this, 'Wu's head, Chu's tail, falling flowers without tears.'"

"The head of 'Wu' is 'mouth,' but what's the tail of 'Chu'?"

As he spoke, he began writing.

At his question, everyone pitched in to guess.

Su Xingyao glanced at the last four words and scribbled a character on the table.

The sharp-eyed audience caught sight of the character he wrote.

"Is that 'road'?"

"Su Xingyao probably wrote 'road', right?"

"It seems like it's the right answer."

Shi Hongyu also saw the character Su Xingyao wrote and immediately turned to the old lady, "Road, it's 'road'!"

The old lady smiled, sprayed some water on his fan, and sure enough, the character 'road' appeared.

Now that three people had taken their guesses, only Su Xingyao's turn was left.

Out of the three riddles, Su Xingyao had already guessed two, so the guests weren't worried about his turn.

As expected, Su Xingyao, who already knew the answer, said "sugar," and the old lady happily handed them a pass card.

"Congratulations on finding the first clue. You can now move on to the next stop."

Hearing the old lady's words, the guests suddenly understood.

They were definitely in the right place!

"I had a feeling something was off, and sure enough, the old lady is the contact person!"

"Is it just me, or is anyone else curious how Su Xingyao found the contact person so fast? The show didn't give any clues, did they?"

Not just the audience, but the guests were curious too.

When Shi Hongyu asked Su Xingyao directly, Su Xingyao smiled and said, "Actually, I just guessed."

Then he gestured around, "But this spot is the liveliest."

"Before we started, didn't he say to head to the busiest spots?"

After hearing Su Xingyao's explanation, the guests got it.

"Got it. We'll look for the busiest spots next time."

In front of the monitor, Zhang Shanfeng, who had set up a bunch of flashy but pointless stuff: ...

"Why can't I keep my mouth shut?! I need to talk less and act cooler!!"

After getting the info from the old lady, they saw the clue card had the four characters they'd just guessed.

"Road, Hua, Sugar, Huai." Xu Xiang read them out loud, "Do these characters mean anything?"

Shi Hongyu examined the card, "Are we supposed to put them together to make a name?"

Shi Hongyu's idea pointed everyone in the right direction.

Right away, the guests pulled out their phones and started mixing the four characters.

But the four characters didn't quite fit, and after a while, the guests realized none of the combos worked.

Just when everyone was stuck, Su Xingyao typed two lines on his phone.

"Perhaps, the four characters should be separated and recombined."

The guests craned their necks to see what Su Xingyao had typed on his phone.

On his phone screen, it displayed: Huaihua Road and Sugar

Another line read: Huaihua Road and Sugar

With Su Xingyao's rearrangement, the four characters suddenly made sense.

A place name plus a clue about sugar.

Cen Yi asked a passerby if there was a Huaihua Road or Huaihua Road nearby, and upon receiving confirmation of the former, everyone excitedly gave Su Xingyao a thumbs up.

"Xiao Su, you're amazing."

This kind of word puzzle game isn't too difficult. Although the guests didn't figure it out immediately, they could have eventually figured it out by trying all possible combinations.

However, with Su Xingyao's help, they became much more efficient.

Soon, the six of them arrived at Huaihua Road and found a small park with the famous local spot, the Immortal Painter's Pond.

Many people were enjoying the Immortal Painter's Pond. The guests snapped photos of their surroundings while searching for anything related to sugar.

After asking around a few times, they finally zeroed in on an old man selling sugar paintings by the pond.

The old man was surrounded by many children, one of whom was spinning a wheel, watched closely by everyone.

As the wheel spun, the children gradually quieted down, each leaning in, eyes wide, to see where the spinner would land.

"Ah... it's a rabbit!"

A second after the wheel stopped, a disappointed voice rang out from the crowd.

The six waited until the old man had finished painting the rabbit for the child before they approached.

Drawing from their previous experience, the guests were more direct. Tong Anan cut straight to the chase, "Hello, Grandpa, are you our contact?"

The old man didn't answer directly but instead asked Tong Anan, "Young lady, care to take a spin?"

Tong Anan was stunned, her eyes a mix of surprise and delight.

She reached out her hand, then hesitated and pulled it back, confirming with the old man, "Can I?"

The old man nodded.

After getting his approval, Tong Anan nervously prayed before giving the bamboo tray a gentle spin.

The bamboo tray spun around a dozen times before coming to a stop.

Tong Anan was so nervous she barely dared to breathe, her heartbeat slowing as the tray came to a stop.

However, the tray just missed her most desired dragon, landing instead on a butterfly next to it.

Seeing she was just a centimeter away from the dragon she wanted, she felt a pang of disappointment, "I really wanted that dragon..."

She then muttered softly, "Ever since I was a kid, I've always wanted to spin that, but I've never been lucky enough to get it."

Tong Anan's words resonated deeply with the audience in the comments.

"I've never been lucky enough to get it +1"

"Not even once, seriously!"

"Just because I didn't get it doesn't mean I don't want the dragon, but what can I do if it always slips away? In the end, I had no choice but to buy it outright."

"Wait, you can actually buy it directly??"

"If I had known, I would've bought one in a heartbeat!"

Just as many viewers in the chat found out they could buy it directly, the sugar painting grandpa had already whipped up a butterfly.

After handing the butterfly to Tong Anan, he turned to the six of them and asked, "Would you like to give it a try?"

Hearing the grandpa's words, everyone sensed it was a task clue and quickly nodded in agreement.

The grandpa stood up from his seat and enthusiastically demonstrated the techniques of sugar painting to them.

"If you can create something that meets my standards, you'll get what you're after."

Next up was the first confident contestant, Shi Hongyu.

Despite his confidence, he poured too much sugar, resulting in a sticky mess.

Shi Hongyu fumbled around but couldn't get the sugar into shape.

In the end, he had no choice but to use two bamboo sticks to mix the shapeless sugar into a lumpy mess.

Next up was Feng Han.

He took Shi Hongyu's mistake to heart and carefully pulled the sugar strands, but his creation...

"What is this you've drawn?"

Cen Yi, unable to make out the shape, couldn't help but ask.

Feng Han gestured in the air, drawing a horizontal and a vertical line.

"It's a turtle."

Shi Hongyu, busy stirring his sugar, looked up and quipped, "That's clearly a turtle!"

Next up were Cen Yi and Xu Xiang, who began their sugar painting.

However, this does require some skill. While they did better than the previous two, their lack of drawing skills led to some odd creations, and Xu Xiang's piece even broke when she tried to lift it.

"This looks easy, but it's actually really tough..."

Cen Yi reassured her, "That's why it's considered intangible cultural heritage."

After they were done, it was Su Xingyao's turn.

The guests, having seen his drawing skills before, looked at him with anticipation.

Su Xingyao didn't jump right in but took a moment to observe the tiles and the consistency of the sugar strands.

Once he had a good sense of it, he grabbed a small spoon and scooped up some sugar syrup.

In a very short time, the audience saw his hand swiftly moving the spoon across the tiles, drawing lines.

Soon, a winding line appeared in front of everyone.

At first, no one could figure out what he was drawing.

But after a few seconds, as the curved lines piled up, everyone realized he was directly tackling the most challenging dragon design on the turntable!

"Holy cow..."

"Mr. Su is such a pro."

"This is so smooth... you'd think he's had professional training."

"Though his technique isn't quite as polished as the old man's, it's still pretty impressive."

The old man, impressed by Su Xingyao's skill, stroked his beard and smiled approvingly.

As soon as Su Xingyao finished, he quickly used a spatula to lift the sugar painting before it could harden completely.

The old man didn't hesitate to praise him, smiling and saying, "Not bad at all, you've got potential."

He walked over to Su Xingyao and patted his shoulder.

"Alright, that's it for today's lesson—you're good to go."

With that, the old man sat back down, picked up his spoon, and started drawing on the tile again.

Su Xingyao stood next to Tong Anan, "Wanna give it another spin?"

Tong Anan didn't understand, "Spin what now?"

Su Xingyao mimed spinning a turntable in the air.

Tong Anan was confused but went along with it, copying his gesture.

A moment later, Su Xingyao chuckled.

He handed the dragon he'd just made to Tong Anan, saying, "Congrats, you hit the jackpot this time."

As Tong Anan covered her mouth in surprise, the audience watching on screen erupted in screams.

"OMG, Mr. Su, you're amazing!"

"Tong Anan just mentioned she'd never landed a dragon before, and Mr. Su went and gave her one!"

"Aww, Mr. Su is such a sweetheart."

"I want a sugar painting from Mr. Su too!"

"OMG, Mr. Su, stop being so sweet—these little gestures are killing me!"

"Why are you all so formal with 'Mr. Su'? Not me—I'm over here like, 'Hey, wifey!!'"

After Su Xingyao impressed the old man with his drawing, the old man gifted them a sugar painting in return.

It was an intricately designed sugar painting of a fan.

"I'm your contact, and this is your clue."

The old man smiled as he handed the fan to Cen Yi, who was at the front, finally letting them in on his role.

After Cen Yi accepted the fan with both hands, the six of them solemnly bid farewell to the old man and left Huaxian Pool.

By now, the clue was pretty clear.

The old woman presented them with a riddle on a folding fan, and the old man gave them a folding fan sugar painting.

Therefore, their next contact was someone connected to folding fans.

Armed with this clue, the audience noticed that every nook and cranny of Lvshui County had something to do with fans.

From the street lamp designs to the wall windows, and the ever-present folding fan motifs in local shops...

As the guests strolled and asked around, they learned from the locals that Lvshui County was a place with a long history and rich cultural heritage.

Though Lvshui County is small and flies under the radar nationally, it was home to one of China’s four famous fans, the Xiang Fan, which had been passed down since the Ming Dynasty.

Just like the earlier riddle and sugar painting experiences, the Xiang Fan was also part of the intangible cultural heritage.

At this revelation, the audience had an "aha" moment.

"Wow, so this whole episode is showcasing intangible cultural heritage..."

"Everything connects so seamlessly; the production team really thought this through."

"I was curious how they dug up this obscure spot, but it’s steeped in history."

After almost an hour, the six guests finally tracked down their last contact for the day—

Zhi Wenze, the president of the Xiang Fan Guild.

Dressed in a traditional Chinese robe, President Zhi warmly ushered the six guests in to explore various types of Xiang Fans.

"Our Xiang Fan might look easy to craft, but it’s anything but simple."

After checking out the finished fans, the president guided the guests through different guild sections to observe the fan-making process.

As they observed, he explained, "Crafting a Xiang Fan is no walk in the park. There are 15 sections, and the entire process involves 132 steps from start to finish."

After the tour, the president laid out their task for the day.

"So today, I’ll need you all to try your hand at making a Xiang Fan."

The six guests had a pretty good idea of the day’s task by the time they arrived.

But hearing the president detail the 132 steps to make a single fan, they felt a bit out of their depth.

"President, we’re all total beginners..."

Shi Hongyu trailed off, but his meaning was clear.

The president and production team, anticipating their limitations, split them into four roles.

The guests naturally gravitated toward roles that played to their strengths.

Feng Han and Shi Hongyu, the two male guests, took on carving bamboo for the fan ribs.

Meanwhile, Cen Yi and Tong Anan apprenticed under a master to learn seal carving.

Su Xingyao, the sole artist in the group, was unanimously tasked with the ink painting. Xu Xiang, the last of the group, learned how to paste the fan leaves.

After the tasks were assigned, everyone had to focus on their own tasks and could no longer communicate with each other.

The final product, the fan, would be inspected by the craftsmen, and only after passing the inspection would the task be considered complete.

As Xu Xiang left, she waved to Su Xingyao, "Brother Xing Yao, I'm going on a trip alone. When I come back, you can continue teaching me geography!"

When he heard the first half of her sentence, Su Xingyao waved back.

But after the second half, he immediately changed his gesture, urging her to go.

"Hahahaha, daughter, you're directly treating your brother as a study aid!"

"Haha, Su Xingyao's annoyed expression is something I can laugh at all day."

"Daughter, why do you struggle with geography too? Next time, will you need your brother to tutor you in chemistry?"

"Hahaha, Su Xingyao is forced to brush up on high school subjects."

"Teach us! I'm not good at geography, I want to hear Mr. Su teach geography!"

After Xu Xiang left, Su Xingyao followed the staff to the Ink and Brush Painting group.

This group was responsible for painting and writing on the fan canvases. As soon as Su Xingyao entered, he was amazed by the various styles of paintings.

After a brief tour with the master, he was led into a room and shown how to paint on the fan surface.

Su Xingyao was a quick learner, and after the master explained once, he pretty much got the hang of the technique.

Not knowing his skill level, the master asked him to first learn color mixing and then paint something on a practice fan.

Before starting, Su Xingyao asked the master again, "Master, can I paint a map?"

The master smiled and nodded, "This is just a practice fan. As long as it's not inappropriate or offensive, you can paint anything on it."

With the master's permission, Su Xingyao picked up the brush and swiftly sketched a map of a country.

Seeing Su Xingyao sketch a complete national map with just a few strokes, the viewers were stunned.

"Whoa..."

"If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would have thought this was a printed map."

"Incredible, even my geography teacher couldn't draw it this accurately."

"I just compared it with my geography textbook, and it's spot on!"

"Amazing! I wish I had this skill too!"

"Practicing on a fan by painting a national map... Mr. Su... are you planning to use this to help Xu Xiang with geography?"

The audience's guess was right on the money.

After Su Xingyao finished the outline, he started sketching dotted lines.

He remembered Xu Xiang saying she couldn't remember where each province was located. Now that he had the chance to paint, he decided to illustrate this knowledge on the fan.

At first, when Su Xingyao sketched a few dotted lines, the audience didn't catch on.

But after he sketched about a third, everyone realized he was drawing an administrative map of the country.

And the positions of these dotted lines are the boundaries of each province!

"Holy crap, I immediately grabbed my geography book."

"Guys, I can't find my high school book, so I'm using my sister's middle school geography book for now—page 8 of the eighth-grade book. Go check it out!"

"Just checked, it's a perfect match."

"It's mind-blowing that the administrative map was drawn almost perfectly..."

"The crazy part is, he didn’t even use a reference map—he drew it all from memory."

"Mr. Su, are you some kind of human 3D printer?"

"His drawing skills and memory are insane!"

Once Su Xingyao outlined the provincial borders, he picked eight colors to fill in the regions.

Since many viewers were cross-referencing their books, some initially called him out in the comments, saying he got the colors wrong.

It wasn’t until he finished coloring and started labeling the provinces that those who corrected him realized why he’d colored it that way.

Su Xingyao colored it this way to help Xu Xiang break the regions into eight sections for easier memorization.

"The first section is the straightforward trio: Hei, Ji, Liao."

Su Xingyao labeled the pale yellow sections of the three provincial capitals with these names.

Next, he drew a semicircle along the coastal area below.

While coloring, he calmly recited the key names: "Shan, Jiang, Zhe, Fu, Guang, Guang."

"Next up: Yun, Gui, Chuan, Yu..."

Viewers followed along, jotting down notes as Su Xingyao recited.

"This mnemonic... is super handy."

"I followed Mr. Su’s method twice, and thanks to his sectioned approach, I memorized it instantly."

"Mr. Su is genuinely teaching me how to remember the provinces—I’m so touched."

"Who knew I’d finally grasp what I couldn’t in school just by watching Mr. Su make a fan?"

"I used to struggle so much with this—practicing with puzzles before exams just left me confused. Every time I had to recall province info, I’d blank out. But today... it clicked instantly!!!"

"Thanks again, Mr. Su, for the practical tips. I’m definitely sharing this with my high school sister."

"So jealous of Xu Xiang—I want a geography fan too, wuwuwu."

As Su Xingyao drew, the master snapped a photo of the national administrative map next door to compare.

After scrutinizing the photo, he gave Su Xingyao a thumbs-up: "Great job—it looks just like the real map."

The master, with years of painting experience, could tell Su Xingyao had serious talent.

"Did you study painting?"

Su Xingyao nodded, "I took painting classes for a few years in college."

The old master saw that Su Xingyao was still quite young and was surprised to hear that he only started learning painting in college. "Your painting skills are quite impressive for someone who's only been learning for such a short time."

Seeing the old master's eyes filled with astonishment and admiration, Su Xingyao smiled faintly, "Maybe my teacher was just really good."

This exchange between Su Xingyao and the old master instantly blew up the live stream.

"What???? Mr. Su only started learning painting in college!!"

"Is this what a top student is like? I feel like I've wasted over ten years learning to paint, wuwuwu."

"Last time I saw him painting an entire wall, I thought he must have been learning for at least fifteen years, but it turns out... only a few years!!"

"It's all good, some folks are just born with a knack for art. Don't you guys think Mr. Su just oozes artistic vibes?"

"Now that you mention it, I do think Mr. Su's painting style is quite distinctive, somewhat familiar, but I can't quite place it."

"Hey guys, so who's Mr. Su's teacher? Seems pretty impressive too."

"No clue, netizens have been digging forever and still haven't found out his school, and now there's this amazing painting teacher. Now I just feel like Su Xingyao is a total mystery QWQ."

"Ah, my head is itching, I really want to know the truth!"

After finishing the administrative map, Su Xingyao carefully set the fan aside to dry.

The old master, now pretty much clued in on Su Xingyao's skills, didn't say much else and just told him to start painting the fan.

Su Xingyao picked up the brush but didn't rush to start painting immediately.

He mostly did modern watercolors, and even though he'd dabbled in traditional Chinese painting with Edel, he wasn't exactly a pro.

After much thought, to match the antique charm of the fan, Su Xingyao finally chose to paint a peony by Xu Xi, which he had once copied extensively.

[Xu Xi, who steered clear of officialdom his whole life, had a really fresh and free painting style.

His peonies were done with fine strokes, in a wild and free style, mostly ink but mixing lines and colors, really capturing the spirit of plants and flowers.]

Su Xingyao was totally zoned in while painting, starting with light ink outlines, then adding light shades. Soon, a dignified and elegant peony appeared before everyone.

By the time he made the last stroke, the chat was already going nuts.

"Someone hook me up with the link, I need these hands."

"I used to think Su Xingyao couldn't do traditional Chinese paintings... but man, was I wrong..."

"Is he painting in the Xu style?"

"What's the Xu style all about?"

"Xu Xi, a master with a super unique style."

"Su Xingyao's painting shows he must have put in some serious work before."

"Wow, can someone who only started learning painting in college really paint like this? So amazing, so amazing."

The old master next to him hadn't looked away from the fan since Su Xingyao started painting.

Only after he finished did the old master reluctantly look up.

"If I didn't know you had a main job, I would really want to invite you to stay in our ink painting group as an artist."

The master's words were undoubtedly the highest praise for Su Xingyao in the master's eyes.

Su Xingyao politely thanked the elder and then put away his brush.

After the fan painting dried, he picked up the brush again and wrote a poem next to it.

It was Xu Ning's "Peony."

Watching Su Xingyao skillfully hold the brush and write with a strong, elegant, and upright calligraphy style, the netizens felt their brains were about to overload.

"I'm already blown away..."

"Not only is his painting amazing, but his calligraphy is also incredible."

"Su Xingyao, are you showing off your skills? I love it, Su Xingyao, show more!!"

"Upstairs commenter, my 40-meter-long sword almost couldn't be sheathed."

"Can any calligraphy pro tell me what style this is?"

"It's definitely Liu style, it's really well done."

"Ahhhhhhh Su Xingyao is amazing, I can't stop saying it!!"

Su Xingyao, who had just dominated the trending topics last night, was once again pushed to the top of the trending list by netizens because of these two fan paintings.

The fan paintings he created and the calligraphy he wrote were directly screenshotted by netizens and praised in various ways.

"To be honest, I never thought a celebrity could be this amazing..."

"This level of skill is beyond the league of ordinary stars."

"No offense, but I just feel like, man, you're so amazing, why did you endure so much criticism in the entertainment industry before?"

Su Xingyao's frequent appearances on the trending topics naturally attracted a lot of attention in a short period of time.

With such a high level of attention, some resourceful netizens finally uncovered his university information.

"Everyone!!!! We found it!!!! My Su brother is really amazing!!! A top 3 world-ranked university graduate!!!!"

This news shocked the entire internet.

"Oh my gosh!! Graduated from a top 3 university... no wonder he's so amazing on the show."

"Su Clan! Su God!! From ignorance to understanding, I now worship Su God! Su Clan!! Amitabha!! Su Su is simply too amazing!!!"

"Wow, graduating from a top 3 university and he didn't even brag about it before?"

"The funniest part is that yesterday, during the homework tutoring session, there were still a bunch of clueless trolls calling him a graduate of an unknown college..."

"LOL, whose unknown college is this amazing? Do these haters think this unknown college is something your idols wouldn't want to attend?"

With such a significant discovery, coupled with Su Xingyao's various impressive performances on the show, Su Xingyao, who frequently appeared on the trending topics, gained a lot of new fans.

The first thing these new fans did was to immediately follow Su Xingyao on Weibo.

But they found that his Weibo hadn't been updated for two years.

What's even more infuriating is that his pinned Weibo post had been flamed over a million times.

Everyone clicked in to read the comments calling him trash, and found them hilariously absurd.

"How the hell can such an outstanding person be called trash over a million times??"

"How blind can these people be..."

The new fans, seeing that Su Xingyao's Weibo was inactive, went to search for his super topic.

They found that Su Xingyao's personal super topic was almost entirely filled with hateful comments from haters, akin to a black super topic...

They then searched for his public square.

Apart from the recent praise and discussions about him due to the show, there were only two posts from fans complimenting him.

These were from the two girls who had taken a photo with Su Xingyao at the airport a couple of days ago.

Originally, it was frustrating enough to like a star whose Weibo was inactive, super topic unmanaged, and company unreachable, making it hard for fans to find a community to share their admiration.

But upon seeing the fans who had met him at the airport mention that Su Xingyao was alone the entire time, everyone was truly angered.

"I've never seen a star in such a miserable state..."

"How the hell did such an outstanding person like Su Xingyao end up so miserable?"

"Ask Yingxing about that."

"Didn't you notice that Su Xingyao's reputation only turned around after he left Yingxing?"

"Now that you mention it, it's true. When Su Xingyao was with Yingxing, it was all negative news, and the company never did any PR for him."

"And the funniest part is, this stupid company left the education section blank in Su Xingyao's artist resume."

"Was this stupid company afraid people would find out Su Xingyao graduated from a top 3 university??"

"My god, what kind of garbage company is this? They don't manage their artists properly, leaving them with a bunch of negative news?"

"They were too busy promoting Shen Huaixi, that white lotus."

"So this company was busy promoting someone like Shen Huaixi, while someone as outstanding as Su Xingyao was sidelined?"

"Exactly, didn't Shen Huaixi crash and burn before? He used to love stirring up trouble and blackening Su Xingyao's name."

"From what the fans posted, Su Xingyao was alone at the airport. Could it be that he's now fighting alone..."

"My god, doesn't he even have an assistant? That's just too miserable..."

"But Su Xingyao would rather fight alone than stay with this terrible company, which shows just how outrageous the company is."

Just as netizens started digging into how Yingxing had mistreated Su Xingyao before, something even more infuriating happened that night.

Netizens were so enraged that they stormed Yingxing's official website.

Soon, #YingxingTrash# and #YingxingOwesSuXingyao# were trending at the top of the hot search list, fueled by the anger of netizens.