My agency went bankrupt before I even got on stage.

"Lin Fan, what do you want to do?"

The director had a love-hate relationship with Lin Fan. He loved Lin Fan because Lin Fan helped the show trend on social media many times. The high ratings and viewership of "Morning Star" are largely due to Lin Fan's contributions. It's no exaggeration to say that Lin Fan is the ratings kingpin of "Morning Star"!

What's frustrating is that such a promising talent is unwilling to sign with Morning Star's agency or debut, which prevents him from maximizing his commercial value, making him quite disappointing.

However, this trainee, whom everyone both loves and hates, is someone the director has to cherish. Even Lin Fan's votes are not openly suppressed, because Lin Fan's popularity is so high that suppressing them too obviously would definitely cause problems.

Fortunately, it's pretty much confirmed that Lin Fan wasn't just creating a persona; he genuinely didn't want to debut. That's why he was able to just barely make it into the debut lineup in the second ranking announcement. This was also a consideration by the production team. If they didn't let Lin Fan into the debut lineup, it would be a waste of all those trending topics. But if his ranking was too high, it would be harder to manipulate another "royal family" (a term used to describe someone with privileged status) into debuting later. So, ninth place was a very clever position.

Therefore, the director did not dare to be careless when Lin Fan suddenly made a request, and rushed over immediately.

"Director, I want to auction off my rights to 'The Ace'!"

Lin Fan revealed eight snow-white teeth, appearing so harmless.

"Auction slots?"

Director and PD Liu Jia stared wide-eyed. They never expected Lin Fan to make such a demand. It was an idea that was unprecedented in the history of talent shows.

"You're insane!"

The director's first thought was to slap this brat to death: "Do you know how much effort and resources the production team spent to secure this opportunity to participate in the recording?"

"Do you know how many celebrities dream of appearing on an episode of 'Ace vs Ace'? They don't even have the connections to get on, you know?"

"Do you know how many celebrities would pay to appear on an episode of 'Ace vs Ace'? Such a great opportunity, and you not only don't want to be on it, you want to auction it off? Are you crazy? Do you know how important this is to your future acting career?"

The director was genuinely disappointed in Lin Fan this time. He almost gritted his teeth as he explained the pros and cons to Lin Fan. Lin Fan could clearly feel that the director was truly looking out for him, and not just trying to use him to increase his popularity.

Lin Fan was very moved, but his focus was clearly on one of the director's questions: "Would you even be willing to pay out of your own pocket?"

"Great! I'm sure many people will be willing to bid if I auction off this spot!"

Lin Fan's eyes lit up. Great! I really am a clever little devil. Even without the system's million, I still have a good head for business!

Lin Fan had completely overlooked the fact that without the system, he would never have had the chance to get ninth place, let alone the opportunity to record "The Big Ace," much less the chance to bid for a spot.

This unreliable system is definitely not because of it; I earned all of this myself.

"How could you do this... Do you know that doing this will ruin your reputation?"

The director was furious; this little rascal was so ungrateful.

"Director, I know you mean well!"

Lin Fan patted the director on the back, signaling him to calm down: "Don't be anxious. You know I don't have an agency, and I don't want to sign with an unfamiliar company. Since I'm destined not to debut, or even if I did, I wouldn't have good resources, it's better to give those resources to more people with dreams than to waste them like this!"

The director was taken aback when he heard this. He then realized that Lin Fan indeed had no resources or backing, and he was unwilling to sign with the agency of Morning Star. Such a person would indeed not have much of a future.

Seeing that the director had calmed down, Lin Fan smiled and said, "You know, I'm a very poor orphan. I'm basically penniless right now. Even if I get a little revenue share from the live stream, some download and copyright income from the two songs, and the production team settles my part-time salary... Hmm, it seems like I'm getting richer and richer!"

Lin Fan quickly changed the subject, then continued to complain about being poor: "Sigh, I'm already so poor, auctioning off resources to earn some living expenses in the future is a way to make way for others and also to make my own life a little better, isn't that reasonable?"

The director realized that Lin Fan truly didn't care about the resource, nor about any other benefits it could bring him; he only cared about whether he could profit from it.

Angry wouldn't be the case. Having worked in this industry for so many years, the director knows all too well that losing control of emotions in the adult world is nothing more than a sign of incompetence. After confirming Lin Fan's idea, the director's first thought was how to utilize this resource and this incident to further generate buzz for the sixth season of *Morning Star*!

That's right. Anyone with eyes can see that once Lin Fan announces the auction of resource slots, it will inevitably cause controversy among fans and the public. The bigger the controversy, the more benefits it will bring to the production team! So why not make good use of it?

The director, realizing the situation, asked, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Lin Fan nodded: "Confirmed!"

Lin Fan didn't know if money could buy happiness, but he knew money could definitely make him happy! If not, then he'd just spend more money!

The director waved his hand and announced, "Gather the trainees in Studio One!"

So the 29 trainees from the 5 practice rooms were summoned to Studio 1 by the broadcast. The trainees had no idea what was going on. Even Li Yingqi, the favorite son of the big company, didn't know why the production team suddenly summoned everyone. This part wasn't written in the script at all!

Li Xiaodong tried to find Lin Fan in the crowd: "That's strange, where's Brother Fan?"

Lu Bingyang noticed his unusual behavior and asked, "What's wrong?"

Li Xiaodong said, "During breakfast, Brother Fan was wandering around instead of eating properly, and now I don't know where he's gone! I wonder if he heard the broadcast."

Lu Bingyang just scoffed, "Where could Brother Fan go? He's either sleeping in the dorm or sneaking into the self-examination room to sleep. Don't worry! Even if Brother Fan falls asleep, the PD will wake him up."

As they were talking, Lin Fan walked in with a microphone: "Hello everyone, sorry to take up a little of your time."

The trainees exchanged bewildered glances, wondering why Lin Fan was chosen as the host. Where were the mentors? Where was the director? Could it be that Lin Fan had ordered this gathering? And the director was just letting him run wild?