In the lounge, Ye Jiawen looked completely unbothered—Yu Jingming had already spoken to him about this matter in advance.
It was Lin Shan who felt quite embarrassed. After her initial joy, she figured out Director Yu’s intentions. She glanced at Ye Jiawen secretly several times and quickly looked away each time, making everyone feel a bit awkward.
Chi Yan looked at Lin Shan and stated plainly, “It doesn’t matter whether Director Yu chose him or not—he was going to advance anyway. You don’t have to act like this. If you really feel bad about it, just treat him to a meal.”
Ye Jiawen thought for a moment and said, “I can’t lose out. Director Yu already promised to treat me to dinner—now it’s your turn.”
Lin Shan nodded quickly. She looked at everyone and said, “No problem. After the show ends, I’ll treat everyone to a late-night snack.”
“Sounds great!” Xu Yi responded cheerfully.
On the TV screen, Yu Jingming picked up the microphone and began, “Ye Jiawen will definitely advance. All four of us mentors would have chosen him. When it came to picking, I just bent the rules a little.”
The audience had originally been doubtful, thinking Yu Jingming had just made a slip of the tongue earlier. Now, hearing his explanation, they suddenly understood—he chose to “rescue” a contestant in more danger of elimination early on and left someone like Ye Jiawen, who was never at risk, for later.
But for some reason, he still picked Chi Yan first.
Luo Fangyan asked, “Then why didn’t you pick one more? Chi Yan would definitely make it through too.”
“Choosing more would be unfair,” Yu Jingming said with a smile. “One can’t be too greedy, or the director will be mad at me.”
His remark made the host and the other three directors laugh out loud.
After that little interlude, the host moved on to the second-ranked director, Wang Di.
“Then I’ll choose Han Xi,” Wang Di said. “He trained seriously and has real potential. And just to explain, I didn’t choose Duan Jing because I’m following Director Yu’s lead.”
The host followed up, “Then the director must be feeling really sad right now. Director Luo, who would you like to choose?”
Luo Fangyan’s expression turned serious. She said, “Some of my team didn’t perform well this round, but some really surprised me. I’m being absolutely fair with my pick—I choose Xue Yi.”
Chi Yan was happy for Xue Yi. With the competition over, it was time for him to go join a film crew.
If Xue Yi could show his full potential in the top ten round, many major industry players would take notice of him. His first acting role definitely wouldn’t be a minor one—he had a bright future ahead.
Next was Director Li Wei, who chose one of the two female leads, Qi Kerong.
Most people had already guessed this result, so no one was surprised.
With the first round of mentor picks completed, the host announced the beginning of the second round.
Each of the four mentors would write down the names of three contestants they believed deserved to advance. Those with the most votes would move forward.
“Alright, we’ll now announce the final results. Contestant Ye Jiawen received four votes—congratulations to him for advancing! Contestants Han Feifei and Duan Jing each received three votes and have also successfully advanced. Congratulations to them!”
After reading out the results, the host repeated the names of those who had made it through.
“Those advancing are: Chi Yan, Lin Shan, Han Xi, Xue Yi, Qi Kerong, Ye Jiawen, Han Feifei, and Duan Jing! The final two spots will go to the contestants who receive the most votes from the live audience!”
Right after that, the host announced it was time for the “GG segment.”
While the production team was still verifying the vote counts, they were racing against time to finalize the results during this break.
This time, the “GG segment” was five minutes longer than usual. The broadcast resumed after fifteen minutes.
The audience had been waiting. By the ten-minute mark, there were already a ton of comments urging the show to continue—they were eager to find out the final outcome.
“The production staff just handed me the results,” the host said, shaking the card in his hand. “Now I’ll announce the final contestants to advance—congratulations to You Shan and Yang Yueyi! Congratulations to both of them!”
After that, the host followed the program’s procedure and brought out the ten contestants who had advanced.
The ten of them stood on stage and thanked the audience together.
Each of them had three minutes to speak, and within half an hour, they all finished saying what they wanted to after making it through the round.
In the end, the competition wrapped up with the host reading out the sponsors’ names.
Some of the audience expressed joy that their favorite contestants had advanced, while others were disappointed that they wouldn’t be able to see the ones they liked on the live broadcast anymore.
But no matter what, The Path of the Actor was far from over—the contestants were about to face their final test.
Backstage, Chi Yan ran into Yang Yueyi again. This time, she just gave her a fierce glare and didn’t say anything infuriating.
But Chi Yan didn’t care about Yang Yueyi’s attitude. She thought to herself, In the end, Yang Yueyi will still lose the money to me.
“Chi Yan, hurry up,” Lin Shan called out to her. “Director Yu is coming with us for supper.”
“Coming,” Chi Yan replied, giving Yang Yueyi a fleeting glance before catching up with Lin Shan and Ye Jiawen.
All five of them from their group were gathered in Break Room No. 4, waiting for Yu Jingming.
“How about we take a picture to commemorate this?” Xu Yi suggested.
Lin Shan said, “Sure! Let’s take one right here in the break room!”
Chi Yan, Ye Jiawen, and Cheng Yu all agreed.
They struck poses and looked toward Xu Yi’s phone.
“No way! This angle makes my face look huge!” Xu Yi protested after checking the photo.
Ye Jiawen sighed, “Let’s ask one of the staff to help take it. Cheng Yu and I will sit in the front, and you three sit behind us.”
This time, the photo came out great—Chi Yan, Lin Shan, and Xu Yi sat close together on the couch behind the bench, hands clasped tightly; Ye Jiawen and Cheng Yu sat on the bench in front, one on each end. All five faces were lit up with smiles and full of life.
In truth, they had already taken countless pictures together in the training room and studio. Even Chi Yan, who didn’t normally like taking photos, had a gallery full of group shots of the five of them on her phone. But it still never felt like enough. They wanted to capture and preserve this time over and over again.
Right then, Yu Jingming appeared at the door to the break room. He looked at them and laughed, “Taking pictures and not inviting me?”
“Director Yu! Come take a photo with us!” Cheng Yu called out loudly.
“I’ll pass, you guys take yours. But hurry it up—Lin Shan, I’m starving.”
“I got it! Just wait a little longer, Director Yu! We’re almost done!” Lin Shan replied.
They took a few more group shots. After placing their orders at the skewer shop, Lin Shan, Xu Yi, and Ye Jiawen were still debating which pictures looked best.
Chi Yan couldn’t help but say, “Alright, that’s enough! Why are you being so picky? Are we eating or not?”
“You don’t get it,” Ye Jiawen said. “As actors, we can’t let any ugly photos outside of our drama stills get circulated online.”
Yu Jingming and Cheng Yu both laughed.
“I picked Chi Yan and Lin Shan today,” Yu Jingming said seriously after finishing his meal, turning to Xu Yi and Cheng Yu. “But I don’t want the rest of you to doubt yourselves. I’ve seen how hard you’ve worked. You’re all my students—I’m not that biased. It’s just that this is a competition.”
After he finished, Xu Yi started crying and said, “I know I’m not good enough to advance. I accepted the result a long time ago.”
She grabbed a few tissues to wipe her eyes and continued, “I wasn’t planning to cry, but Director Yu, you just had to make me cry.”
Cheng Yu’s eyes were also red as he said, “I knew my abilities probably wouldn’t get me through. Everyone here is so talented. I’ve respected your decisions from the beginning.”
“No need to be so upset,” Yu Jingming rubbed his forehead and said, “I can recommend you two to sign with Bo Le Talent Agency, and also let you join my next production crew—”
“Really?!” Xu Yi suddenly interrupted him. “I can act again?”
“When have I ever lied to you guys?”
Chi Yan, Lin Shan, and Ye Jiawen watched the visibly excited Xu Yi and Cheng Yu, feeling genuinely happy for them.
Yu Jingming glanced at the three of them out of the corner of his eye and added, “Of course, if you three still want to work with me in the future, that’s totally fine too. By the way, when you all become famous, if I come asking you to be in one of my movies or something, you better not turn me down!”
“Deal!”
That night, The Path of the Actor trended with several positive hashtags, and many casual viewers clicked in to enjoy the buzz.
After the livestream temporarily ended, a less prominent topic also slowly started to gain traction.
Even though it was about just one contestant’s bad behavior, for some reason people began blaming the entire production team.
Chi Yan couldn’t fall asleep after posting group photos with her teammates, so she started scrolling on her phone out of boredom and clicked into Weibo. Then she noticed a trending topic in the local hot search section: “Yang Yueyi acting like a diva.”
Her finger hovered over it for a second before she tapped into it.
The most popular post was a video: it showed footage from a few days ago on Director Wang Di’s team’s filming set. Yang Yueyi had performed impeccably in front of the camera, but once Director Wang left, her true colors showed.
She yelled at staff and treated her teammate Han Xi with extreme rudeness.
The comments were filled with discussions about how two-faced Yang Yueyi was, with some speculating she had been “influenced by other contestants,” and the narrative started shifting toward blaming the atmosphere of the entire show.
Chi Yan immediately thought of the day the production team came to film at their location, when Director Yu had to suppress his temper to adjust the shooting schedule…
Could it be that Yang Yueyi had already stirred up trouble back then?
She didn’t have time to think it through. Upon seeing the comments attacking the program team, she immediately contacted a staff member she knew well.
Shortly after, the head director launched a PR response.
The official account posted a statement saying: “Please don’t generalize the behavior of individual contestants to the entire production team. Our show has always aimed to give viewers an immersive experience into the life of an actor…”
Fans of the show and the contestants quickly flooded the comment section.
“No way, seriously? People still believe in guilt by association? One contestant acts out and suddenly the entire production team is the same?”
“[Confused emoji][Confused emoji] What are these rumor-spreaders even thinking? Their brains clearly don’t work like ours~”
“I wish our Duanduan would act like a diva [dog head emoji]”
After dealing with the incident, the head director immediately sent Chi Yan a friend request. She saw it and accepted.
The director messaged her: Chi Yan, thank you so much. Everyone’s been exhausted lately, and the moment the show ends, we all just crash at home. If you hadn’t given us a heads-up, who knows how far this would’ve gone.
Chi Yan replied: It was the least I could do. After all, this affects my reputation too.
Just as she finished dealing with the head director, Chi Hongzheng unexpectedly contacted her as well.
