After Being Hopeless at Singing and Dancing, I Exploded in Popularity Due to My Appetite - Chapter 67

Ever since Liu Xiaobai started fangirling, she’s been constantly fluctuating between “being amused by Tao Nian” and “being infuriated by anti-fans.”

This day, she had just scrolled through the AD Girls’ Group’s team-building vlog and, along with other Sweet Peaches, was heartily mocking Tao Nian’s cluelessness, laughing until her face was stiff.

As soon as she exited the group chat and refreshed her Weibo, a flaming rumor popped up.

Tao Nian! The eighteen-year-old Tao Nian! The usually clueless, naive Tao Nian! The Tao Nian who refused to eat sashimi and whose first reaction to raw eggs was wondering if eating them raw would prevent choking! Was actually being rumored as pregnant?!

Are paparazzi blind nowadays? Is that a stranger? That’s Tao Nian’s assistant!

Liu Xiaobai clicked on it, ready to unleash a stream of curses.

Then she saw the video released by the paparazzi.

Tao Nian’s posture was no longer straight; she was slightly hunched, her hand on her stomach as she walked, and she couldn’t help but dry heave as soon as she got out of the car.

If Liu Xiaobai hadn’t been certain that a simpleton like Tao Nian only cared about food and wouldn’t get involved in such messy affairs so early, she might have believed it.

The comments section under that Weibo post was a chaotic mess.

The previous large-scale attack was cleverly avoided by Tao Nian in a peculiar way, but Cao Xi’s fans were relentless. Under the company’s overt and covert hints, they believed Tao Nian was a malicious woman with wicked intentions who stole resources from their idol.

They were already scrutinizing Tao Nian for any dirt, and now seeing this news, they immediately swarmed like flies.

Likes and reposts indicated they wanted the whole world to know.

Tao Nian, an idol who debuted from a survival show! Is actually pregnant! She has no self-respect! She has connections! She’s not worthy! She should be banned!

Liu Xiaobai was furious. She decided to first ask the studio what was going on, whether the person in the photo was really Tao Nian, and why Tao Nian looked that way.

She then went to the group chat to rally everyone not to be passive and to quickly come out to debunk the rumors and counter the attacks.

The Sweet Peaches apparently hadn’t thought anyone could be so malicious.

In the fans’ eyes, Tao Nian was a clueless simpleton who knew nothing. An injection could make a three-year-old girl cry, yet two months later, she was still happy to see Maomao who had bitten her before. She even found dog food fragrant and wanted to taste it. She made a huge fuss over raw eggs and sashimi, emotionally no older than five!

And now, someone was saying that this “Tao Nian, age five,” was pregnant?!

Impossible!

But the Sweet Peaches had no concrete evidence. They couldn’t just rush out and say Tao Nian wasn’t pregnant, and that person clearly wasn’t Tao Nian, could they?

The Sweet Peaches obediently waited for the studio to provide an explanation, and then they would take action. Otherwise, saying too much now might lead to more mistakes and give their rivals something to exploit.

But they were still annoyed, everyone subtly muttering: “Top female star? You call Tao Nian a top female star?”

“Unbelievable. Two days ago, you were telling her to get out of the entertainment industry, unilaterally expelling her artist status, and now you’re calling her a top female star.”

“Top female star and Tao Nian are not just incompatible, they’re completely unrelated. Who knows which top female star is pregnant, but I certainly don’t think it’s Tao Nian.”

The studio already had a department dedicated to monitoring public opinion. When it was just Lin Qianman, this department’s work was very light. Now, with Tao Nian signed, the workload had suddenly increased.

But they still did their job well, immediately spotting this Weibo post.

Fang Wen’s eyes nearly popped out when she saw it.

She never expected that the “famous female star” was Tao Nian.

When she was gossiping earlier, guessing who this female star might be, she thought it would definitely be someone of Lin Qianman’s caliber.

She never imagined someone would misunderstand eighteen-year-old Tao Nian as being pregnant?! Just looking at it, Fang Wen wanted to grab a keyboard and charge in herself.

The manager was distraught, completely unaware of what had happened to Tao Nian or why she had been photographed again.

Last time, she was photographed in close proximity to Wu Xuan. This time, she was photographed going to the hospital.

Now, some people were connecting these two incidents, claiming that Tao Nian debuted solely because of Wu Xuan, and now things had gone wrong.

Many were sarcastically saying: “Come on, this time she chipped a tooth again. That’s not morning sickness, that’s her chipped tooth being thrown up.”

The manager felt that in the four months Tao Nian had been signed to the studio, she had experienced every single worry she hadn’t had in ten years of working with Lin Qianman. She was completely worn out.

But Tao Nian wasn’t here now, and neither was Lin Qianman.

She looked at Fang Wen: “Did she chip another tooth?”

Fang Wen: “…Gastroenteritis.”

The manager was incredulous: “How can she have gastroenteritis? She eats so much every day, how is that possible?!”

Fang Wen rubbed her nose: “Even with good digestion, you can’t eat a dozen ice creams in one go, can you?”

The manager: “…”

What sin have I committed?

Huang Li also saw this Weibo post. She screenshotted it, sent it to Lin Qianman, followed by a string of question marks.

Having spent too long in modern human society, hearing and seeing only science and materialism, Huang Li occasionally forgot that Lin Qianman was a divine beast. So she immediately blurted out: “Has technology advanced to the point where women can give birth to women?”

Just like last time, Lin Qianman didn’t reply to her.

Really, when it comes to serious matters, she’s fine, but as soon as Tao Nian is mentioned, she ignores me.

She’s either petty or can’t handle losing.

However, she might also be busy explaining, after all, for a girl group idol to be misunderstood as pregnant, it’s preposterous.

This time, Huang Li was truly overthinking things. Lin Qianman didn’t know about this yet.

Lin Qianman had almost finished reading the script.

The character she was playing was still an assassin, but unlike the previous assassin, this was an assassin in a post-apocalyptic setting. She was ambitious, determined to obtain the research results of a laboratory. These results were a vaccine that could suppress the zombie virus. Obtaining this vaccine would almost make her the ruler of the apocalypse. So she infiltrated the laboratory, trying every means to get close to the doctor. In the first version of the ending, she was moved by the doctor’s kindness and dedication, deciding to help the doctor navigate between different powers, finally collaborating strongly to eliminate the zombies and lead the survivors in rebuilding the city.

This script had been written before, and she had read it when she took the role. But over two years had passed, and the screenwriter had made some changes.

The doctor’s kindness and dedication were fake, and her help was also fake. The two played a charade as if they were confidantes, but in reality, it was a back-and-forth without genuine sincerity from either side. In the end, she truly became the most powerful person in the base, and the doctor also achieved her desired reputation.

But in the last scene, after the survivor team started to band together and decided to rebuild the city, she sent another assassin to the doctor’s laboratory, intending to destroy the doctor.

She had an idea and wanted to discuss it with the screenwriter.

While she was discussing the character with the director and screenwriter over tea, she received a message from Tao Nian.

Tao Nian officially began learning some basic knowledge of Kunqu opera today.

Some words in Kunqu opera have different pronunciations from modern standard Mandarin, but Tao Nian surprisingly performed well, able to remember those pronunciations and sing the lyrics correctly.

It was just a bit difficult to warm up her voice.

She hadn’t been able to sing before, and her current vocal warm-up method was still what her mentor taught her during Idol 101.

But music and Kunqu opera are different. Now, suddenly changing, she was a bit unaccustomed.

Most importantly, she didn’t understand the emotions within the Peony Pavilion segment.

Tao Nian was a very obedient disciple. Since becoming an apprentice, she listened to her master’s every word and did whatever her master asked. Her master taught her pronunciation, and she learned. Her master asked her to listen to previous performances of the opera, and she went back and watched the entire play repeatedly, reviewing all the lyrics.

Regardless of whether she could eventually sing it or not, at least her attitude was excellent.

Her master was also very satisfied and asked Tao Nian: “Can you understand it?”

The lyrics of The Peony Pavilion are still a bit archaic for young people today. There were also young people Tao Nian’s age who came to learn before, but it took them several days just to memorize the lyrics.

But who was Tao Nian?

Tao Nian was no ordinary person. She used to live on Qingnan Mountain, and when Feng Jun taught her to write, it was even in traditional characters.

When she first came down the mountain, she couldn’t understand the simplified characters on Liu Xiaobai’s computer, and only learned them after seeing them more often. She couldn’t sing either.

Because no one on the mountain ever sang such songs; everyone sang opera.

Although Tao Nian couldn’t sing, she knew. She nodded, looked, and then recited the segment she had drawn in one breath.

But she just recited it, without any emotion.

Her master then told her: “When you sing later, you can’t be like this.”

The elder patiently instructed: “Liniang is a young lady from a good family. On this day, she sees the flowers in the back garden, realizing how beautifully they bloom, a riot of colors, yet they bloom by a dilapidated wall, where no one can see or appreciate them. Youth easily fades, and beauty is hard to retain. Thinking of herself, like the flowers, in her prime but confined here, she feels sorrow. You must grasp this feeling. Imagine spring flowers blooming, but no one sees them, and they wither. Imagine how sad that is, isn’t it? Once you understand that feeling, it will be fine to read it again; without emotion, it doesn’t sound good.”

Tao Nian nodded very seriously: “Okay.”

When she sang before, her vocal teacher often gave her similar advice.

But Tao Nian had never actually managed to do it.

Now, she was still trying hard, attempting to grasp this feeling.

Her master had already broken down the topic, highlighted the key points, and given her the answers; all that was left was for Tao Nian to fill them in.

But for Tao Nian, this answer, it wasn’t that it wasn’t given, it was given, but Tao Nian didn’t have the hands to write it.

Although on the surface she was a young adult Taotie who knew nothing, in essence, she was an adult by Taotie age, but by human standards, she had lived for hundreds of years, always on Qingnan Mountain. She had seen flowers bloom and wither for hundreds of years, vibrant colors blooming in mud, fiery roses growing in rock crevices, and wild flowers with trembling leaves swaying in the wind at the cold, damp entrance of stone caves.

A Taotie would just stamp a claw down, then dash off to chase its prey, never observing a small flower.

Of course, she had no idea what kind of feeling that was.

Under her master’s expectant gaze, she tried reading it again.

There was no change whatsoever.

She didn’t understand, couldn’t comprehend or experience that emotion, so she couldn’t sing it.

Her master then told her that she could pay attention to her expressions. Kunqu opera wasn’t just about listening to the singing; after being made up, the performer’s facial expressions were also a way to convey emotion.

Tao Nian could only watch again.

Then she realized that, to some extent, it was similar to movies.

She thought of Lin Qianman and decided to ask for her help.

But Lin Qianman was currently discussing some small details with the screenwriter. She felt her phone vibrate in her jacket pocket, suspecting it was a message from Tao Nian, but it would be impolite to suddenly pull out her phone while talking to someone else.

She didn’t take it out. Instead, she waited until the screenwriter finished speaking that segment, then excused herself to the restroom and took out her phone.

In the ten minutes or so that Tao Nian waited for her message, she had been idly flipping through various apps. She had originally intended to find some Peony Pavilion opera reviews, just like she used to read movie reviews for Lin Qianman’s films. But she couldn’t find any. Instead, she stumbled upon a strange sentence.

She frowned, reading it out word by word: “Tao, Nian, suspected, pregnant.”

She whispered again: “Tao Nian.”

Who is Tao Nian? Is it talking about me?

Thinking this, she clicked on it.

Sure enough, it was her own photo.

I’m pregnant?!

Tao Nian felt this wronged for the first time.

I’m not! I didn’t even lick anyone else! I’m pure and innocent; you can’t falsely accuse a Taotie like this!

Author’s Note:

Tao Nian, four months later, finally ate her own melon (got her own gossip).