IBABS Chapter 73.1 — Gossip and Public Opinion & Return to Training & Chen Zhi’s Upcoming Comeback

The first ones to screenshot Su Zhe’s childhood photos and post them online were naturally the “Philosophers” in Japan. They had been camping in front of their TVs watching the Fuji TV live broadcast, and when they saw Su Zhe’s childhood photos, their eyes immediately lit up and they jumped up excitedly. One girl who had been recording the screen didn’t hesitate to screenshot Su Zhe’s childhood hanfu loli photo and his almost frozen awkward business smile, then posted them to the super topic.

[HAHAHAHA OMG, can anyone recognize who this is?!]

At first, the Philosophers who saw the photos were stunned, but after someone zoomed in for a closer look, the reposts and comments under this Weibo post quickly exploded.

[AAAAAHHHH, HEAVENS, IT’S MY BABY!! My god I’m dying of laughter, our baby actually has this kind of childhood crossdressing photo! He hid it so well, it never leaked out before!]

[What kind of absolutely gorgeous little beauty is this? Are you trying to trick me into having a daughter? Wuu, I’m dead, such a cute little baby, this is the first time I’ve seen this!]

[Hahahahaha, I’m laughing so hard I’m dizzy. Our baby always has that “I’m so unbothered” iceberg face, but he was actually such a soft-eyed little loli when he was small?]

[I’m bursting with laughter, first I kneel in respect, thank you sister for providing us with first-hand material! Look at how stiff his smile is, poor thing… I bet he’s internally screaming: Why didn’t this leak when I was in the entertainment industry? Now that I’m an athlete, this ancient dark history got dug up completely?]

Just when everyone was laughing their heads off, suddenly a Philosopher posted a comment – [Wait? Our baby’s photo looks really familiar???]

About ten minutes later, another post was shared to Su Zhe’s super topic. It was an old post that a famous big V had made several years ago: The Cutest Non-Celebrity Kids Online – A Series Designed to Make You Want a Baby! (Poll: Which adorable kid is your favorite?)

This post had been a viral topic four or five years ago. The post compiled a series of photos of amateur cute kids that had been posted online by parents or relatives and friends. The top-ranked in the poll was a certain hanfu loli with twin buns.

The influencer had introduced this photo, saying it was posted on some unknown forum even earlier, probably the kind of unknown small forum where people share their own cute kids. Because the photo was too adorable, it had some popularity on the internet.

Under this post, countless people were saying this little girl looked really pretty and would definitely be devastatingly stunning when she grew up. Since the photo already had several years of history, many people were looking forward to finding out what this cute kid looked like after growing up. Unfortunately, their search ultimately came to nothing after everyone searched fruitlessly.

The Philosopher who forwarded this post to the super topic posted a sliding kneel emoji¹, then said: [Everyone come look, who is that top 1 baby?]

[_(:з」∠)_… dbq², I remember this post, but how did I not realize this was our baby?? I’m guilty.]

[Mystery solved…??? LMAO, what kind of plot twist is this? The loli beauty that tens of thousands of people searched for desperately turned out to be…]

The sheer number of shocked Philosophers reposting eventually caught the attention of the original influencer. After quietly lurking in the super topic, this blogger also quickly discovered this shocking fact.

Soon, this big V named “Did I Gossip Today” made a collage of the original loli photo, Su Zhe’s photo, and video screenshots from the Fuji TV evening live broadcast that they found in the super topic, and posted a new Weibo.

[Hello everyone… care to take a guess who this is? (smile.jpg) #Found the cute loli Su Zhe#]

Long-time followers of the blogger immediately recognized the viral topic from years ago. The moment this new post went up, a flood of shocked melon-eating passersby rushed into the comments.

[…]

[………..]

[??? I thought I was seeing things, but nope. I checked again. Still real.]

The comment section was filled with stunned netizens spamming all kinds of “WTF” and “mind blown” memes.

One particularly dazed bystander reposted with: [I really liked this little girl back then and even made a wish to definitely have a daughter like this, but I ended up having a son. Now thinking about it, did my wish from back then actually come true?]

This comment was liked by a large number of melon-eating passersby all the way to the top of the most upvoted comments. The fact that this “loli” turned out to be the wrong gender left all the bystanders who vaguely remembered the original poll torn between laughter and exasperation.

The hashtag #Found the cute loli Su Zhe# quickly climbed back onto Weibo’s trending list due to its massive audience and the sheer shock value it delivered.

As this topic gained traction, even the steel straight men in the sports circle saw related reposts on their Weibo feeds. Some sports influencers, after seeing this topic and discovering that someone in the photo looked particularly familiar, quickly reposted it to their own Weibo with a bunch of “hahaha”.

Under this wave of virality, the original blogger’s photo collage was also reposted to the Track and Field Kingdom forum in a very short time.

[Hahahahaha, brothers, come see who this is!!!]

Just like that, the photo that filled Su Zhe with unbearable shame spread like wildfire across Weibo and major sports forums at lightning speed.

After Su Zhe politely took photos with the Fuji TV staff and said goodbye, Su Zhe had just settled into the car and pulled out his phone when he realized his WeChat was blowing up.

At the very top was that goofball Jiang Hanning, with as many as twenty or thirty messages, still multiplying at an alarming rate.

Seeing the flood of notifications, Su Zhe’s face turned green. He had a sinking feeling that some disaster he’d rather not face had already happened.

Sure enough, when he opened Jiang Hanning’s chat, he was greeted by a barrage of rolling-on-the-floor-laughing stickers followed by a string of merciless teasing.

[Hahahahaha Su Zhe you’re done for!!!]
[Hahaha, how were you so cute when you were little??? Cute loli! Beautiful girl!]

After reading these, Su Zhe knew his dark history probably had no hope of recovery.

After expressionlessly replying “Piss off” to Jiang Hanning, he temporarily ignored this clown’s follow-up messages. Instead, he opened Weibo. Under the overwhelming tags, he sighed and rubbed his forehead, then took a screenshot of the viral post and silently sent them to his mom on WeChat.

In fact, there wasn’t just this one photo in the set. Back then, his mom had taken a whole set of hanfu loli photos of him. But his mom was still very tactful. Although she really liked this set of photos, she never showed them off to outsiders. The real culprit was his dad, who had once used the now-leaked photo as his wallet picture. It was then that this photo was seen and photographed by his dad’s friend, which was how it eventually made its way online.

After Su Zhe grew up and deliberately shed his “soft” image, his mom rarely brought up the loli photos in front of him anymore.

Su Zhe naturally knew this was his mom being considerate of his feelings. So after the embarrassed and ashamed feelings in his heart gradually calmed down, he ruthlessly sent this already exposed dark history screenshot along with the culprit to his mom. It was time to let his mom help him get revenge for this public execution.

Meanwhile, in an underground parking lot back in China, Shao Xingchen strode to his car under the escort of staff. After the car door closed, he leaned back in the back seat, exhaustion settling over him as he shut his eyes briefly.

During this period, as Chasing the Light aired and ratings continued to climb, corresponding promotional announcements became essential.

As Shao Xingchen’s first step in his transformation, the broadcast of this drama also allowed him to truly begin facing the public with the identity of “actor.”

Thankfully, under Liu Zhengyan’s direction, Chasing the Light was a quality production, and Shao Xingchen’s dedication during filming had paid off. Although his acting was occasionally still a bit rough, it wasn’t awkward or jarring. He smoothly captured the emotional shifts of Xie Wei’s growth across different life stages.

Especially in several scenes where he learned of Lu Ming’s illness, accompanied Lu Ming, and broke down during training after Lu Ming’s death, he was specifically praised by big V accounts focused on film criticism.

On the path of transforming into an actor, Shao Xingchen had taken what could be considered a successful first step. To make his future path more stable, his manager Li Cheng carefully selected two extremely strict acting teachers for him, both veteran actors in the industry. Using his performance in Chasing the Light and his sincere attitude as a foothold, he was also gradually intensifying his efforts in learning and advancing his acting skills.

To coordinate his acting classes with the drama promotions and other brand advertising work, Shao Xingchen had recently been working almost non-stop, with his daily sleep time compressed to the limit.

After the car started, he closed his eyes and rested for about 10 minutes before opening them again and turning to Li Cheng beside him.

Seeing his expression, Li Cheng had already prepared the items in his hand and passed them over. It was Su Zhe’s competition from today, along with Fuji TV’s evening live interview broadcast, and as a bonus, Su Zhe’s childhood photos dressed as a little girl that were currently blowing up Weibo.

When he saw Su Zhe’s childhood photo flash across his screen, Shao Xingchen froze for a moment, then couldn’t help but smile slightly. The smile softened his originally cold and stern demeanor that had been tense from exhaustion.

He swiped his finger across the screen and saved Su Zhe’s photo to his phone. After pausing for a moment, he tapped the favorite mark on the photo and put it in the collection folder that belonged exclusively to Su Zhe.

Beside him, Li Cheng couldn’t help but sigh when he saw Shao Xingchen like this. “Honestly, have you ever thought about just confessing to Su Zhe? Pretty sure he still only sees you as a friend, right?”

Hearing Li Cheng’s question, Shao Xingchen stayed silent for a moment, then shook his head. “Whether it’s for him or for me, now isn’t the right time yet.”

Li Cheng also fell silent for a while, then sighed again. “Alright, you’re right. Then… don’t worry, I’ll help you collect all of Su Zhe’s competitions and stuff. As for other things, we’ll talk about them later…”

After thanking Li Cheng, Shao Xingchen picked up his phone and seriously started watching Su Zhe’s video replay from tonight.