The third episode of "Knowledge Q&A" officially aired, achieving record-high ratings that day.
The audience was a group of stubborn yet curious people. While some thought Ye Qiusuo was just crafting a persona, they couldn't help but tune in, as watching her answer questions was thrilling nonetheless.
"Is the teacher really on the show?"
"Yes, I watched the first two episodes." Lin Lu sat in the middle with a tablet in front of him, flanked by classmates from the same project.
Since the project began, the three of them had been holed up in the lab every day, voluntarily sacrificing their rest time. Today, Lin Lu had specifically dragged them out to watch the program.
As the show began, the camera swept over the celebrity guests on stage before its first close-up landed on Ye Qiusuo.
"It really is Professor Ye!"
The three of them immediately got excited upon seeing Ye Qiusuo.
"Last episode, the teacher corrected their mistakes one by one; it was so satisfying," Lin Lu gossiped excitedly.
After sending that private message last time, Lin Lu had mostly forgotten about it. Having such significant responsibility for the first time, he was happily busy with the newly started project. He had only found time to finish the second episode over several days.
In this episode, both the celebrity guests and the production team seemed to have adjusted their answers, with basically no mistakes.
After Wan Yurou finished her explanation, the host specifically cued Ye Qiusuo: "Does guest number 43 have anything to say?"
Up to now, the host had never once addressed Ye Qiusuo as 'Professor.' For other doctoral candidates or guest experts from various fields, he would at least respectfully call them 'Teacher.'
On screen, Ye Qiusuo remained unchanged, sitting in her seat and speaking methodically: "What she said is correct."
Everyone: "..."
Even though Wan Yurou had technically won, the people present didn't feel the sting of a rebuttal at all.
Whenever there was no mistake and the host cued her, Ye Qiusuo would only say one phrase: 'What XX said is correct.'
And she meticulously changed the pronoun according to who was asked, showing great precision.
Subtly, the expressions of several people on stage turned somewhat sour, as if they had a stifling feeling in their chests they couldn't release.
To say Ye Qiusuo had suddenly lost her edge would be wrong.
For questions that Wan Yurou couldn't remember clearly or forgot the analysis for, Ye Qiusuo still knew them and could answer perfectly.
By now, they had reached the fortieth question. The difficulty of the last ten questions had noticeably spiked, making even reading the question stems somewhat challenging, let alone selecting the correct option and providing an analysis.
At this point, both on and off stage, aside from those outside the professional fields, most people were just guessing randomly.
Wan Yurou was also struggling with her answers.
It was true she had access to a question bank, but it was the master bank. Each episode randomly drew questions from it, and she couldn't possibly remember everything, especially the difficult ones.
Yet, Ye Qiusuo could answer them and even explain the reasoning in detail.
[Why does everything she says sound so infuriating?]
[Putting aside everything else, Ye Qiusuo is truly amazing at answering questions; she hasn't been wrong yet.]
[Wan Yurou's complexion seems to have changed; I feel sorry for her for three seconds.]
[Tsk, Ye Qiusuo must have the question bank, right? Can a normal person know this much, even the analysis down to the last detail?]
The barrage was filled with all sorts of discussions and speculations.
Then, Xia Zhoubing suddenly spoke up: "Guest number 43, you seem to know every professional field. You're that impressive? One might think you have the question bank."
[Whoa, whoa, is our Xia Xia being this bold?!]
[He actually called her out directly? 666. I'm really curious how Ye Qiusuo will explain this. The breadth of her knowledge is indeed suspicious.]
In the laboratory.
"Who is this guy?" the girl on Lin Lu's left said disdainfully. "His own general knowledge is weak, so he doubts Professor Ye?"
Professor Ye was someone who could cite data from the page and line of academic journals decades old. This kind of broad, general knowledge was even more within her grasp.
"Looks like it says Xia Zhoubing. I need to warn my sister to steer clear; this guy seems rather shallow," Lin Lu said, pursing his lips.
While they were discussing, the program's spotlight had already shifted, fully exposing Ye Qiusuo on camera.
She glanced lightly at Xia Zhoubing and said slowly, "I am somewhat impressive."
Xia Zhoubing: "..."
[So mad, so mad! Why is Ye Qiusuo so good at provoking people?!]
[Ahhhhh! Even though she didn't say anything directly confrontational, putting myself in the others' shoes, I feel so angry!]
Xia Zhoubing was also furious; he felt provoked.
As a moderately popular star with eight million Weibo followers, being challenged like this by her, he laughed immediately: "Is memorizing a question bank impressive?"
At this moment, the barrage was instantly flooded with comments praising him for being bold, though a minority of viewers felt Xia Zhoubing's statement was a bit too absolute.
Then, Ye Qiusuo actually let out an "Mhm" of agreement.
Not only everyone on the show, but even the barrage was stunned.
The same thought popped into everyone's mind: She actually does have the question bank?
The next second, Ye Qiusuo started counting backwards from the fortieth question, stating the source of each question, or rather, where she had seen it. Some questions had appeared in previous specialized exams, while others were knowledge from professional textbooks.
For exam questions, she specified the exact year and question number. For textbook knowledge, she pinpointed the exact page and line number.
Here, the program team used post-production editing.
Going through the sources for all forty questions would take the entire episode.
After Ye Qiusuo explained the sources for ten questions, the editing fast-forwarded, then cut to her finishing explaining the source of the first question.
[Damn... a real-life question bank.]
[From now on, regardless of whether she's really the person in charge of that Tianqiu Tech project or not, I'm a fan.]
[First time seeing someone like this. Is this the so-called genius?]
The direction of the barrage instantly did a complete turnaround.
"Professor Ye is just awesome!"
The three in the lab were also thoroughly engrossed, their expressions excited.
After the third episode ended, Ye Qiusuo had two consecutive hashtags trending.
#YeQiusuoIsInfuriating#, #YeQiusuoTheHumanQuestionBank#
Now, very few people were discussing whether she was the fake person in charge. Most were shocked by her performance in the third episode and rapidly turning into fans.
"Should I post the photo now?" Wan Yurou asked, unwilling to accept this.
Originally, according to the plan, all this attention should have been hers. But after the first episode, the next two had completely spiraled out of the team's control.
"Post it. Why not? We need to remind netizens about her being a fake project head," the manager said, instructing Wan Yurou to post the photo from Thursday and then contact a professional team.
Wan Yurou took her phone and posted the group photo of her and Ye Qiusu, along with an edited caption: [So honored to have another opportunity to visit Tianqiu Tech. Professor Ye Qiusu was very patient in explaining my simple questions. I hope to have the chance to learn from Professor Ye again next time~]
Almost an hour later, the sentiment on Weibo began to shift. A wave of comments started occupying the top positions.
[Everyone, go check out Wan Yurou's Weibo to see the real person in charge of the Tianqiu Tech project. No matter how capable a fake is, they're still a fake.]
[Ye Qiusuo pretending to be the Tianqiu Tech project head is pretty much confirmed, right? Even the name is a knock-off. Disgusting!]
[The person next to Wan Yurou is the real Professor Ye from Huajing University.]
[No matter how capable, lying isn't okay, right? My favorable impression of a scheming woman like Ye Qiusuo just vanished.]
...
It was as if an invisible hand instantly reversed the direction of the public opinion on the Weibo hot search comments, and Ye Qiusuo's reputation took another hit.
However, this public sentiment was reversed once again the very next day.
The reason was a post on a certain fan website, which was later picked up and shared by gossip-loving bloggers, quickly capturing everyone's attention.
[Shocking! That so-called human answer machine who was accused of being a fake project lead yesterday morning appeared on the Huajing University official website's faculty list. Is this a sign of the prestigious university's moral decay or...?]
The original post stated that the poster had casually clicked into Huajing University's official website out of curiosity that morning to look up Professor Ye Qiusu, only to find Ye Qiusuo prominently listed. Her ID photo was clean and attractive, her education listed as a Ph.D., and her achievements section was filled to the brim.
[What's going on? Ye Qiusuo wasn't on the official website yesterday. Did she bribe Huajing University too?]
[Current Huajing University undergrad here. The university uniformly updated the faculty profiles for all schools and departments this morning.]
[Are those achievements in her profile real? How old is she? Not even twenty-five.]
[Even if there are two Professor Ye's in the same field at Huajing University? Ye Qiusuo still lied about her project lead identity, right?]
[Well... as someone in the industry, I have to say, Tianqiu Tech actually has many, many projects. Some get approved but don't necessarily succeed and just quietly fade away. It's possible for both Professor Ye's to have projects.]
Once a lead appears, some netizens can promptly transform into detectives.
A significant portion of Tianqiu Tech's internal architecture features special glass, originally designed for future renovations. There are large glass panels on both sides of the company logo. Wan Yurou's photo deliberately captured the logo in the background. While observing the logo, a netizen inadvertently noticed the reflection in the nearby glass, zoomed in, screenshotted it, and asked others to take a closer look.
[Is it what I think it is???]
[Putting aside everything else, that superior side profile... there's no second person with one like Ye Qiusuo's.]
[She was inside Tianqiu Tech too, so... she really is a project lead there?]
The originally 'candid photo' deliberately arranged by Wan Yurou's team to imply Ye Qiusuo was a fake project lead ended up providing strong evidence that she was telling the truth.
"Anyone who didn't know better would think you, Sister Mo, and the team were working for Ye Qiusuo," Wan Yurou said self-deprecatingly.
"Yurou, we messed this up. We only proceeded because we got word that the program director's team had checked with Huajing University and confirmed there was no Ye Qiusuo there. We'll make sure they're more careful next time," the agent said, not having anticipated that the message had been distorted and amplified after passing through several channels.
"Sister Mo, I'm not blaming you. It's just that a well-laid plan suddenly turned out like this. I didn't control my emotions well, I'm sorry," Wan Yurou stood up and said sincerely.
The agent comforted her, "Since Ye Qiusuo is a university professor, she'll probably go back to that after this episode airs. She won't really be competition for you."
"Mhm."
After the agent left, the smile vanished from Wan Yurou's lips: Having tasted the dazzling allure of the entertainment industry's spotlight, who would ever want to leave it?
...
Ye Qiusuo had been in the limelight for the past couple of days. Even when she went to record the fourth episode the next day, the program crew's attitude had noticeably improved. However, by Monday, the discussion heat surrounding her was snatched away by someone else.
Even when the celebrity guests from "Knowledge Q&A" appeared on the hot search, some netizens still didn't know who they were, let alone Ye Qiusuo, who was just a regular person.
But the big star Xie Xi was different. The moment his name appeared, paired with the accompanying tag, it exploded.
#XieXiUneducated
The singing competition show he was a judge on also aired on Saturday, with recording on Sunday. Typically for such talent shows, besides the first episode highlighting the judges for hype, the focus later shifts to promoting the newcomers.
This time, it started because someone suddenly captured screenshots from several shots in the episode showing the words Xie Xi wrote on his whiteboard.
Forget about the handwriting being poor; netizens discovered that nine out of ten characters he wrote were wrong, and the remaining one looked wrong at a glance too.
Where there's one, there's more. Anonymous netizens gradually dug up instances of Xie Xi's writing from other events, and almost none of the characters were correct.
Celebrities and artists having poor handwriting or low education isn't particularly rare; some of them dropped out of school early, which is fairly normal.
But Xie Xi exuded an air of refined nobility from head to toe, like a perfect young aristocrat, making this revelation shatter the fan filter instantly.
[Don't tell me people still don't know Xie Xi didn't even finish junior high?]
Someone below steered the narrative, and Xie Xi was immediately thrust into the storm. Combined with his reputation for being difficult and blunt since his debut, it was all now attributed to his low education and poor character.
"I'll have someone issue a clarification," his agent said, having come specifically to Xie Xi's residence.
Xie Xi, half-reclining on the sofa, raised a hand to turn on the TV and said expressionlessly, "Clarify what? It's true I didn't finish junior high."
"But..." The agent wanted to say something but fell silent under Xie Xi's glance.
After a moment, the agent tried to negotiate, "We still need a solution for this." She knew Xie Xi didn't want to bring up that past incident with his audience and fans.
Xie Xi lowered his head to look at his phone, scrolling through Weibo.
The agent thought he was looking at his own hot search and suggested, "How about I arrange for you to do a pretend study session with a tutor? We can find one with high recognition."
Xie Xi glanced up at the person on the TV, then looked back down at Weibo, his expression strange, temporarily ignoring the agent.
The agent asked again, "Xi Xi, are you willing?"
Xie Xi silently turned to look at his agent, then suddenly raised his hand, pointing at a person on the TV, and said, "I think she seems pretty impressive."
