Translator: Ink Hub

Editor: Yoog

Nie Ou went to watch Secretly in Love with You with the sole intention of spitefully annoying Yu Muzi’s fans. She had already made up her mind; no matter how good or bad the show was, she would give it a high rating first and then recommend it to everyone around her.

In her heart, Nie Ou knew that judging by Qike Video’s lackluster promotional campaign, the quality of this drama was bound to be inferior to Currently in Love.

The director of Currently in Love had always been skilled at romance dramas. The chemistry between Yu Muzi and the male lead was palpable; for the past two days, the trending lists had been flooded with sweet behind-the-scenes clips of the show.

But Nie Ou was dissatisfied.

Yu Muzi’s career had indeed flourished over the past two years, and many viewers bought into her sweet romance dramas. However, Nie Ou was a die-hard fan of Chen Cheng, which made it impossible for her to have a good impression of Yu Muzi.

Unlike Yu Muzi, who took the girl-next-door route, Chen Cheng possessed the classic looks of a bright, striking beauty. Yet for some reason, audiences in recent years hadn’t taken to actresses of Chen Cheng’s type, instead preferring the “small family jasper” appearance of someone like Yu Muzi.

What annoyed Nie Ou the most was that Yu Muzi’s fans were constantly putting down Chen Cheng to elevate their own idol.

When Yu Muzi first debuted, she played the second female lead to Chen Cheng. In that drama, Chen Cheng’s protagonist role was poorly written. Nie Ou remembered clearly that from the moment Yu Muzi’s character appeared, Weibo was saturated with press releases praising Yu Muzi while dragging Chen Cheng.

In a way, Yu Muzi had climbed to the top by stepping on Chen Cheng.

Chen Cheng’s management agency wasn’t as effective as Yu Muzi’s. Although she was sharply beautiful, her personality was actually quite “Buddha-like” (indifferent). At least in Nie Ou’s memory, Chen Cheng always outshone other female stars on every red carpet, yet she never released promotional articles claiming to have suppressed anyone’s beauty.

By contrast, Yu Muzi was far too skilled at marketing.

Nie Ou understood the necessity of marketing for celebrities. As a fan, she was sometimes frustrated by Chen Cheng’s lack of ambition, but she felt Yu Muzi’s marketing was excessive. She took the pure, neighbor-girl route, yet her actions had nothing to do with being a pure neighbor.

The first episode of Currently in Love performed well. Yu Muzi’s fans acted as if she had already surpassed both Chen Cheng and Xie Yiran in status. In fact, if Currently in Love became even a minor hit, Yu Muzi’s status would truly climb higher.

As a fan of Chen Cheng, Nie Ou did not want to see that happen.

However, Nie Ou never expected the screenwriter of Secretly in Love with You to be so blunt.

When she saw that “Unwatchable” comment, Nie Ou let out a silent burst of laughter. She felt that based on that one word alone, she could commit to watching an episode of Secretly in Love with You.

Initially, she only planned to give the drama a bit of viewership data, vowing to stick with it for ten minutes. It was her way of thanking the screenwriter for trashing Currently in Love on her behalf.

But after opening Secretly in Love with You, driven by some unknown force, Nie Ou found herself slowly continuing to watch.

She didn’t know how to describe this drama. Truthfully, the moment the first scene appeared, the visuals gave her a sense of real, youthful impact.

Dramas in recent years were too fond of skin smoothing. The images and backgrounds looked exquisite and the lighting was soft, but they exuded an indescribable sense of fakery and tackiness. Youth dramas were like this, and urban romance dramas were the same.

If Nie Ou had to describe the first impression Secretly in Love with You gave her, it was “natural.”

Nie Ou had seen the synopsis before. She knew it was a story about a youthful crush. She had seen many such sweet dramas. In terms of the lineup, aside from the screenwriter Lin Ji having some fame, the main creators were almost all newcomers.

Yet mysteriously, after only watching the beginning, she was fully immersed in the plot.

The ordinary girl, Ji Ning, had a crush on the school hunk, Fang Ming. This should have been the most cliché plot imaginable. But the story cut in from Ji Ning’s perspective with such a sense of relatability. Ji Ning spotting Fang Ming in a crowd—that feeling of singling someone out from ten thousand people felt like a bullet to Nie Ou’s heart.

Although Ji Ning liked Fang Ming, she wasn’t the kind of lowly, cowardly girl who let herself be trampled into the dust. From the start, her goal was to make herself better.

She studied hard. She helped everyone she could. She helped her friends escape shadows and fear. Only her face was ordinary; she herself was a bright source of light.

These plot points reminded Nie Ou of her own youth. During the viewing process, she completely failed to notice the passage of time. Unknowingly, she had reached the ending credits.

It’s over?

Nie Ou habitually wanted to click the next episode, only to suddenly realize that this was a new drama. Only one episode had been released.

Nie Ou was not a patient person. There were dramas today with pacing so slow that she didn’t want to wait even half an hour. It would be one thing if the pacing was just slow, but the plots were often boring to the extreme. Watching the leads interact was even a form of torture.

But Secretly in Love with You did not give her that feeling. The style was fresh and natural. The female lead was bright, lovely, and firm, yet possessed a trace of childishness. It was like her own real youth, modified by a filter.

She liked Ji Ning’s personality, and she liked her crush that wasn’t born of an inferiority complex.

The rhythm of the drama was also light and clear. It didn’t drag on around a single plot point, nor did it have the utilitarian feel of describing youth from an adult’s perspective.

“Recommending Secretly in Love with You to the whole world! Not lying, it’s really good!!!!”

“How can there be a girl like Ji Ning who is so cute, bright, and unpretentious? I was going to ruthlessly flame Lin Ji for being arrogant, but after watching Secretly in Love with You, it turns out the clown was me.”

“Questioning Lin Ji, understanding Lin Ji, becoming Lin Ji. He was right when he said Currently in Love is bad.”

“+1.”

The audience members who came to watch Secretly in Love with You were partly rival fans who were unhappy with Yu Muzi and partly those who came simply to find some fun. In the end, just like Nie Ou, they were unknowingly captivated by the drama.

Originally, the rival fans thought that even if the drama was bad, they would find a way to boost it. But now, with their eyes trained by years of drama-watching, Secretly in Love with You was indeed much more interesting than the average youth drama.

Fans usually spent more time on their own idols, but they wouldn’t only watch their idol’s dramas. Sometimes, when their idol filmed a massive trash drama, they would charge to the front lines to boost the data, but they wouldn’t recommend that trash to the friends around them.

Secretly in Love with You belonged to the category of dramas suitable for recommending to friends. It had nothing to do with Yu Muzi; a good drama was worth recommending for its own sake.

“I just want to say, Qike Video’s operations are like the trash company I support. Does Secretly in Love with You not deserve their full promotion?”

“Before watching Secretly in Love with You, I thought Currently in Love was good. After watching it… their lighting and aesthetics are too poor. The supporting characters are so airbrushed they look like inflatable dolls. Doesn’t the female lead’s room look like a rental apartment advertisement?”

“The ‘Ten Must-Have Items for Renters’ ad? It really does. I’ve wanted to say that for ages.”

“The interactions between the leads in Currently in Love are also strange. Yu Muzi’s previous dramas were quite normal. Does she have ‘idol baggage’ in this one? It feels unnatural.”

Lin Ji was frantically posting “Bounce Back Charms” in his own comment section while searching Weibo for keywords related to Secretly in Love with You. Unlike the previous situation where no one cared, discussions about the drama were slowly increasing.

Once the heat rose, the view count for Secretly in Love with You broke one million for the first time. It took the longest time to go from 300,000 to a million, but the speed from a million to two million was quite fast. Almost overnight, the backend data for Secretly in Love with You skyrocketed to over five million.

Qike Video was unwilling to invest in promotion for Secretly in Love with You. The heat for the first episode was rising, yet the platform still hadn’t put the drama on the homepage. Even though fans gave feedback to the official account, the account ignored them.

But because of this, the “Tap Water” (organic fans) for Secretly in Love with You grew more and more numerous.

Currently in Love had marketing accounts pushing GIFs of the leads sweetly gazing at each other on the homepage; every image was carefully selected. Secretly in Love with You had the audience “shipping” characters themselves. They shipped while recommending the show to the whole world, incidentally cursing Qike Video a hundred times.

The official attitude truly annoyed the audience. It would be one thing if the quality, reputation, and popularity of Secretly in Love with You were inferior to Currently in Love. But now, the heat of this drama had already surpassed Currently in Love, yet Qike Video still showed no regard for it.

Yu Muzi’s fans couldn’t help but mock, “Only one episode has aired. What heat can it have? Wait until the second and third episodes are online.”

Lin Ji gained many fans because of Secretly in Love with You. Both he and Tian Yao had drama fans coming to their Weibo to ask for the reason behind the lack of promotion.

Tian Yao didn’t answer, but Lin Ji posted a crying emoji: 【It’s all my fault.】

The fans were confused. How is this any different from not answering?

Facts proved that the audience of this era was still simple and naive, lacking a full understanding of Lin Ji’s personality. Meanwhile, Qike Video and Lin Ji’s peers had learned many lessons from his flashy operations. Not long after Lin Ji’s “It’s all my fault” was posted, a peer published a strongly worded article trashing Lin Ji.

This peer was clearly taking the same route as Screenwriter Song. The theme of the article was that Lin Ji “deserved it for having no manners” and that “it really was all his fault.”

Lin Ji was amused. Who are you again?

“Peer: Blame me, then? You admitted it was your fault yourself.”

“Dying of laughter. Taking Lin Ji’s path to leave Lin Ji with no path to walk, huh?”

“Little Lin is rarely being ‘tea’ (manipulative). Why not give the kid a chance?”

Regarding this, Lin Ji expressed that he had always been broad-minded and never left a grudge overnight; he never added psychological burdens to the netizens who enjoyed watching the fun.

After the peer’s article was published, Lin Ji actively accepted an interview from a reporter.

From the audience’s perspective, the Lin Ji on the screen was “weeping bitterly” during the interview.

The audience was speechless. Hey, your persona is slipping.

But clearly, Lin Ji was performing a new cosplay of Xiao Cheng.

However, unlike Xiao Cheng’s repentant angle of “I didn’t guide my junior brother well,” Lin Ji repented like this:

“It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have written that article… I offended all my peers. I think they didn’t mean to blacklist me; they just hated that article too much…”

Qike Video was stunned. The industry peers were speechless.

Are you a sicko?!!

The staff at Qike Video were now sweating profusely.

To a certain extent, Lin Ji’s “Unwatchable” comment was truly his mildest symptom of madness.

That was a divine article praised by a big shot, a textbook for the screenwriting world. Who would dare to hate it? Lin Ji, stop framing us and spitting blood!!!

Hurry up and reflect; we really just hate you personally!!!

NOTES

Tea / green tea (绿茶/茶): Internet slang for someone who acts innocent and pure (like a neighbor) but is actually manipulative and calculating.

Small family jasper (小家碧玉 – xiaojia biyu): A girl from a humble background who is pretty in a quiet, neighborly way.

Buddha-like (佛系 – foxi): Slang for someone who is indifferent, calm, and doesn’t care about competition or material gains.

Press releases (通稿 – Tonggao): Standardized promotional articles sent to multiple media outlets simultaneously.

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