Abstract Art Award Winner

Before this solo match, only Uzi and TheShy knew that Zhou Le was very strong.

TheShy's win rate in solo matches is not high, so he didn't have much hope. Although Uzi's solo match was very strong, he didn't think much of Zhou Le either. On the contrary, he really hoped to have a match with Zhou Le on such a stage.

But now, every time Zhou Le takes a step forward, he feels like laughing.

He wanted to see people's shocked expressions.

Although Zhou Le wasn't trained by him, he was still considered a secret weapon in his possession.

After that, they competed in match after match here.

Even in the final solo match, Zhou Le still lost to Uzi, but not because he was not good enough. Rather, it was because Zhou Le threw the match. The system's ability was already incredibly overpowered, and with his continuous growth and improvement in the game, Zhou Le could have won this match. It was simply unnecessary.

It's fine if we have those absolute top players, but we shouldn't harm our own people. After all, if we do that, it's like our own level is being cheated.

Of course, he felt that this was quite different from racing, which is all about team victory, while individual success depends entirely on talent.

"Le'er, I really think you went easy on me. I shouldn't have played so easily in the last game."

Uzi felt he knew Zhou Le's true strength better than anyone else.

"How could I possibly hold back? It's just that I've never played a match at this high intensity before. I have to sit in front of the computer as soon as I open my eyes every day. I really don't know how you guys manage to keep going. I'm finding it a bit too much for me."

Zhou Le could not possibly admit to shirking responsibility, but even if he did not admit it, some people knew very well what was going on.

In addition to the individual competition, Zhou Le also participated in the team competition against the South Korean team.

Since professional players are selected without considering their positions, and this was essentially a performance, everyone let loose. Although the opposing team was the Korean team, they all knew each other, and no one took it too seriously.

In such competitions, students usually choose some strong heroes.

Especially in the first game.

Uzi originally planned to have a good time, but then he changed his mind. This was Zhou Le's first time participating in a formal League of Legends tournament, or rather, his last. He didn't want Zhou Le to go back with regrets.

So I played these games very seriously.

The original choice was Ruofeng for the mid lane, but the opposing mid laner was Faker. Although Ruofeng is also an ancient god of war, he still felt too much pressure facing Faker.

Therefore, Zhou Le volunteered to go to the mid lane to fight.

As for Faker, he didn't know Zhou Le. Although he played with him quite often, they didn't play at the same time every day, so he had never encountered him. Moreover, Zhou Le was just a guest invited to participate in the All-Star game, and he wasn't even a player, so he wasn't really worth studying.

It was only when he actually started laning against Zhou Le that he realized that Zhou Le was practically a clone of himself, with the exact same style and play, and even a combination of his past skills and his current awareness.

It is so precise, like a machine, that not a single error is revealed.

If he hadn't actually seen a real person sitting opposite him, he would have thought the other person was cheating.

Zhou Le had the upper hand during the laning phase, but Faker's true strength was revealed during team fights, and his team was carried by Faker alone.

However, the tactic devised by Zhou Le's side was for the other three to protect Uzi at all costs, while Zhou Le would be free to move around.

In the end, they won the game.

In all the projects they participated in, Zhou Le shone brightly, demonstrating a level of skill completely different from what the audience imagined.

It took them three days, until the All-Star Game ended, before they finally got back to China after hanging out with a local DJ.

By this time, Zhou Le had ranked first in the Weibo Night related polls on Weibo.

Even in the entertainment industry, which is vast, votes are still dispersed, as everyone has their own favorite celebrities. The e-sports industry is different; it's essentially about stealing traffic from celebrities.

They all knew that if the votes were split up, no one would end up getting anything.

Moreover, if the vote is given to a real esports professional player, in the end, as some analysts have pointed out, they may only receive a mediocre title.

They even created a separate award for these esports players, which could be a consolation prize.

This is something they don't want to see. Although the other award is also equivalent to the popularity champion, the problem is that if someone is prepared to call on everyone to vote for them, this ranking is not just about being number one in the e-sports circle.

It is the number one on the entire Weibo platform.

It's like if Xiao Zhan got the most votes but instead of being awarded the King of Weibo Night, he was given the Most Popular Award for Adapted BL Novel at Weibo Night.

No one could accept this.

So since that's the case, we might as well just vote for Zhou Le.

The main reason is that Zhou Le's performance at the recently concluded League of Legends All-Star tournament far exceeded their expectations.

As I said before, everyone admires the strong, especially in the e-sports arena. Being bad is the original sin, but if you are good, the traffic will naturally flow in.

"I suddenly understand why Brother Le has never been in a relationship. It's to maintain his physique."

"This is amazing, Le Ge! This is what it means to be evenly matched with Faker."

"Charge! Kill those traffic stars! Number one is ours!"

Some of them weren't even Zhou Le's fans, but because they didn't want popular celebrities to rise to the top, their voting momentum was quite strong, with some big spenders even spending millions to stabilize Zhou Le's ranking.

On the other hand, Xiao Zhan's fans were anxious. They realized that they couldn't escape the other side's votes through normal means. At first, the other side used a large number of people as a tactic. Although they were not very familiar with the process of voting, they couldn't withstand the sheer number of people.

Back then, they had big fans, which helped them manage. But after the big fans from the esports circle entered the scene, they started spending money like water. Nobody knew where that money came from, but they just kept throwing it away.

As a result, they have absolutely no hope of surpassing Zhou Le now.

But it is precisely at times like these that Zhou Le, who is still in first place, stands out even more.

So some posts criticizing Zhou Le started appearing online out of nowhere.

She secretly dated someone, and now she's cheating on him.

Furthermore, Zhou Le's acting skills are poor, and his character is even worse.

And accusations that Zhou Le rigged a large number of votes in this Weibo voting event.

There were even more offensive rumors and attacks coming from different angles.

Zhou Le never reads the private messages he receives; these are always managed by Su Yingxia. Zhou Le only posts on Weibo and comments, never looking at private messages, so no matter what they say, they never enter Zhou Le's field of vision. However, if something is particularly offensive, Su Yingxia will still make a separate list.

It's just that this time they took a bit too big a bite out of some people's cake. This year, they finally managed to take advantage of the popularity of "The Untamed" to put Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo in the first and second positions.

That might not be the case after that.

So in order to bring Zhou Le down, they all went all out and released all sorts of past scandals. Some of the rivals' die-hard fans even fabricated all sorts of rumors to attack him so that Zhou Le could be brought down completely.

Ordinary rumors are one thing, but some have already involved Zhou Le himself.

After communicating with Zhou Le, Su Yingxia immediately contacted a lawyer to gather evidence and initiate a lawsuit against these people.

The studio then immediately released a statement.

"Well done. These people are really good at spreading rumors. They write long essays at the drop of a hat, cursing like mad dogs for ages, and then immediately play the victim and say they've been cyberbullied when someone replies."

"Exactly, if you should sue, then sue. Don't hold back."

Zhou Le acted swiftly, catching Tencent off guard, because "Joy of Life" was about to air, and the actors needed to cooperate in promoting it.

Although Xiao Zhan wasn't the lead actor, he was still from New Classics Media, and the current owner of New Classics Media is Yuewen.

There is a performance-based agreement between the parties.

The more money "Joy of Life" makes, the more New Classics Media will naturally get. However, Xiao Zhan's fans argued about this for a long time, which was originally intended to generate buzz for the broadcast of "Joy of Life".

What was originally a good thing immediately changed when Xiao Zhan's fans spread rumors.

If "Joy of Life" really can't be broadcast because of Zhou Le's issues, it means that all their previous investments have gone down the drain. If it were the second or third male lead who had problems and the show collapsed, it might be okay, as they could just replace his face with technology later. But Zhou Le has too many scenes, and a large-scale face replacement would inevitably look unnatural.

Reshooting would be too costly.

So that day, the executives at New Classics Media called Xiao Zhan over and asked him to go back and restrain the fans, to make them behave.

Xiao Zhan dared not disobey the company's orders.

So he posted on Weibo that day. Although he didn't say anything particularly interesting, his fans immediately started praising him.

These popular celebrities have one thing in common: the comments from their fans look like they're written by bots.

Aside from praising the emperor from various angles, much like eunuchs and palace maids, there were virtually no other normal comments.

In a short time, his positive values, generosity, tolerance, and avoidance of trouble were discovered by his fans.

Ironically, while Xiao Zhan has fans saying this, the malicious smears against Zhou Le have not stopped.

If any casual or die-hard fans of Zhou Le refute this, they will say that their idol has already clarified it. Who knows if the person who is criticizing them is just pretending?

This made them very unhappy.

Once a network of public opinion is formed, further explanation is useless.

The other side won't listen to reason.

They only spread rumors everywhere to influence those who lack willpower and don't understand the true situation.

Suddenly, Zhou Le seemed to be universally condemned.

It wasn't until Zhou Le passed the third rehearsal for the Spring Festival Gala that things progressed.

"Go on, Zhou Le is going to be on the Spring Festival Gala, so keep spreading rumors? The more you talk, the more famous Zhou Le becomes, and the more famous he becomes, the more money he makes, and the more money he makes, the more time he has to sue you."

"If you're so capable, why don't you get your own son on the Spring Festival Gala once? Perform in the opening act, wouldn't that be cool enough? Or do you just not want to?"

But the haters were still not to be outdone, and directly pulled out their most powerful weapon: reporting.

They firmly believe that as long as they report things enough times, nothing is too big to be ignored.

Therefore, they started calling various departments to complain about Zhou Le's lifestyle, such as prostitution, gambling, and tax evasion.

Sure enough, after making many phone calls, the Spring Festival Gala director also contacted Zhou Le.

"What's wrong with the director? Is he planning to take my show off?"

"What are you saying? It's definitely impossible for it to be downgraded. It's just that the higher-ups have been taking too many calls, so they want you to cooperate and provide some proof. Consider it a political vetting process. Besides, aren't you still the spokesperson for the Palace Museum?"

"Yes, but shouldn't the burden of proof be placed on whoever raises the issue?"

Zhou Le wasn't afraid at all. Otherwise, if this happened every time and he had to cooperate with the investigations every time, he might as well not do anything at all.

"Fine, I'm just a messenger anyway, so just relay your message to them?"

"Go ahead and say it. Thank you for your hard work, Director."

Zhou Le knew who was in charge of directing the Spring Festival Gala, but he also knew that his constant concessions would only give others more room for speculation and would arouse suspicion from his superiors. It was better to adopt a proper attitude and be open and honest.

The director had to admit that Zhou Le's words made sense, because there were many things he couldn't verify.

So when the person who called to report Zhou Le finished explaining the specifics of their report, the staff on the other end of the phone would say that they could record all the issues, but there was no substantial evidence to prove that Zhou Le had done these things.

Most people naturally don't have it, but no matter how truthful what they say online is, there are very few people who haven't met Zhou Le in person, let alone exchanged a few words with him.

However, under these circumstances, there were indeed some stubborn people who sent over photoshopped images.

But such people are a minority.

After seeing these so-called proofs, Zhou Le glanced at the dates and then immediately pulled out a photo of himself doing something at that exact time.

Zhou Le was able to provide a powerful response to every piece of evidence that had been manipulated at every point in time.

Meanwhile, the departments that had high hopes for Zhou Le also learned about these things from him.

Because Zhou Le now represents the city's image and cultural promotion to some extent, they also took action.

"Alright, forget about it. Just issue a statement later saying that those are all slanders and rumors targeting Zhou Le."

Also, contact Weibo and arrange a meeting with their senior management to explain what's going on. If they can resolve it, great; if not, we'll help them. (End of Chapter)