After Being Hopeless at Singing and Dancing, I Exploded in Popularity Due to My Appetite (GL) - Chapter 4

An obscure and cold show, if it wants to go viral, usually relies on editing.

“Idol 101” was exceptionally good at this trick. In its first four seasons, the first season wasn’t so obscure, so it could go viral purely on its own merit. The subsequent three seasons relied entirely on editing to manipulate the audience and generate buzz.

Naturally, places with many people are prone to conflicts, which usually resolve themselves after being discussed. However, the production team would subtly guide the interviews and then piece together the footage in editing, resulting in the dramatic conflict they desired.

Generally, a three-point conflict could be edited by the production team into a hundred-point drama.

Originally, for this season, the production team still intended to rely on editing to create the show they wanted. But unexpectedly, the first episode delivered such a huge surprise. The director even thought that if things continued this way, they might not need editors at all!

After all, even if they edited it themselves, they wouldn’t have come up with such a plot!

To outsiders, this plot was utterly perplexing, to the extent that even casual viewers would stop to exclaim.

The two parties involved, however, were surprisingly calm, believing this to be the most normal progression of events.

That morning, when Lin Qianman was doing her makeup, she hesitated for a moment and didn’t draw her eyebrows.

She was afraid that if Tao Nian bit her, half of her eyebrow might be smudged, which could be a bit embarrassing.

As for Tao Nian, she actually didn’t know anything at all.

Half a month ago, she arrived at Orange Company. Liu Xiaobai had already mentioned her and shown Tao Nian’s photos to the company staff, so as soon as Tao Nian arrived, someone took her to fill out a form and sign a contract.

Hearing that Tao Nian didn’t have a place to stay yet, they assigned her a dormitory.

Her roommate, Zhang Jingyue, taught Tao Nian a few things, so Tao Nian also learned about the work content of this “factory”—singing, dancing, and debuting.

Zhang Jingyue was a good person, a seventeen-year-old girl from a wealthy family. Seeing that Tao Nian knew nothing and didn’t even have good clothes, she lent Tao Nian money to buy new clothes and taught her how to use a phone to contact others, read news, search for information, and play games.

Most importantly, although Zhang Jingyue wasn’t obsessed with debuting as a group, she had the most basic self-awareness of a girl group idol—she couldn’t get fat.

Coupled with the anxiety and lack of confidence of a teenage girl, she felt a strong sense of crisis. To maintain her figure, she ate very little, exercised diligently every day, and vigorously jumped rope every evening.

Such a self-disciplined Zhang Jingyue initially prepared her own diet meals in the dorm and usually didn’t eat with Tao Nian.

So, the first time she ate with Tao Nian, she was stunned by Tao Nian’s appetite. Orange Company claimed to provide food and accommodation, but it essentially meant employees used their employee ID to eat at the cafeteria, with the company subsidizing a little and the individual paying very little.

Two yuan could buy a dish. Rice was self-serve; you could scoop as much as you wanted.

Zhang Jingyue watched Tao Nian go to a counter, buy six dishes, and arrange a row of small bowls of rice on the table—although Zhang Jingyue ate very little, she wouldn’t completely avoid carbs for weight loss. But it was true, she hadn’t seen anyone pack rice so densely and eat so much in a long time.

The most terrifying thing was that Tao Nian finished it all. After finishing, she even got a pound of yogurt, a two-person serving, and gulped it down in two mouthfuls—Zhang Jingyue thought this was the legendary “filling up with liquid” after eating, to fill the gaps in one’s stomach that rice couldn’t.

But in reality, after eating all of that, Tao Nian only just started to feel not hungry anymore. So she clutched her meal card—because she didn’t go out, her work ID wasn’t used, only when eating, so Tao Nian naturally assumed it was a meal card—and wanted to buy more. She recently really liked the jujube cake from the corner counter; it was sweet with raisins, and she could eat three pieces in one go.

On the way back, Zhang Jingyue watched Tao Nian eat three pieces of jujube cake, two hamburgers, and two grilled sausages. She tried to dissuade her countless times, but Tao Nian ignored her, blinking innocently and stating: “I’m not stuffed, I really am not.”

Zhang Jingyue went back feeling disoriented and withdrew into herself.

That evening, she finally came to terms with it and told Tao Nian that she couldn’t eat so much, as overeating was bad for her digestive system.

Tao Nian explained repeatedly.

Zhang Jingyue could only offer another reason—eating so much would make her gain weight, which would make her look bad on camera, and if she looked bad, she wouldn’t be able to debut.

—Tao Nian, puzzled, ate a mango and asked: “What happens if I can’t debut?”

Zhang Jingyue glanced at Tao Nian, feeling troubled.

Mangoes had so many calories, and they were cold-natured fruit. How could she eat three pounds of them in one sitting?

She earnestly advised: “If you can’t debut, you can’t earn money! Didn’t you join this ‘factory’ to earn money?”

Tao Nian’s pupils immediately dilated in shock. She stammered to Zhang Jingyue: “But I earn money to eat.”

Zhang Jingyue also knew Tao Nian earned money to eat. So she became even more earnest: “Then you should work even harder to earn money! The money you earn from debuting will be enough for you to eat for a lifetime, but if you can’t debut, you’ll only be able to eat your fill for these two months.”

Tao Nian almost cried then. She hadn’t realized eating down the mountain was so difficult.

To be able to eat for a lifetime, she had to not eat now.

But she listened to Zhang Jingyue’s words after all, and decided she wanted to earn enough money to eat for a lifetime.

Zhang Jingyue then took Tao Nian to exercise and gave her diet meals when they ate. Considering that Tao Nian had eaten a lot in the previous meal, and suddenly eating very little would be bad for her stomach, Zhang Jingyue carefully gave Tao Nian a generous amount.

Zhang Jingyue’s idea of a “generous amount” was a lot of unsalted beef, half an egg, broccoli, carrots, and celery, amounting to roughly one plate, plus a loosely packed bowl of coarse grain rice. After the meal, she’d add a glass of skim milk to wash it down.

Tao Nian told Zhang Jingyue that she wasn’t full. Seventeen-year-old, bony Zhang Jingyue looked at the adult taotie’s soft baby fat, sighed like an old mother, and cooked her an extra unsalted baby bok choy.

Tao Nian ate like this for two days, and she was so hungry her eyes turned green (from hunger/desire).

On the day of the official shoot, she felt so disoriented that she thought she wouldn’t be able to maintain her human form much longer. Now, everything she saw made her want to bite it. Forget a lifetime’s worth of food money, if she didn’t eat soon, she would starve to death.

It was then that she smelled a wonderfully fragrant scent.

This was probably the second time she had smelled such a fragrant scent. In her memory, only two people smelled this fragrant.

One was her master, Feng Jun.

The other…

The other time was when she was still on Qingnan Mountain. She was young then, an underage little taotie, spending every day on the mountain, where everything could be eaten.

That day, she found a wonderfully fragrant, delicious thing—though she never actually got to eat it, she knew it would be delicious just by smelling it.

It was a strange-looking thing, with horns on its forehead. But on its horns, there was actually a small, fleshy ball!

The little taotie, who had just eaten her fill, looked at this cute little fleshy ball and felt hungry again.

So she spread her hooves, opened her mouth wide, and bit into that small fleshy ball.

For some reason, this little fleshy ball was very hard.

The little taotie hadn’t even bitten it off when her master pried her jaws open and forced her to spit out the little ball.

Perhaps she was truly too hungry. When Tao Nian smelled this scent, she immediately thought of that little fleshy ball she hadn’t gotten to eat years ago. She couldn’t control herself and followed the fragrance.

She found the source of that fragrance.

Huh? It was that same little fleshy ball!

The taotie immediately saw the tooth marks she had left back then.

Now, Master wasn’t around, and she was very hungry. It should be fine to take a bite, right?

Tao Nian opened her mouth wide, pounced, and when she bit into the eyebrow, she even grumbled unhappily: “Wuwu, where’s the ball?”