Rebirth is fine, but I get eight hundred dollars right from the start?

After the promotional video was released, the public's attention was like a high-pressure water valve that had been turned on, and it couldn't be contained at all.

Within an hour of being uploaded, the video garnered over a million views on Weibo.

The number of comments in the comment section skyrocketed from a few hundred to eight thousand, with hundreds more new replies like "Holy crap!" and "Big production!" appearing every time the page was refreshed.

Within three hours of the video being uploaded, Leading Esports had garnered over 300,000 followers!

Five hours after the video was uploaded, the topic of the premiere of the promotional video for "Next Stop, Career!" had already climbed into the top three of Weibo's trending topics, carving out a bloody path between two entertainment gossip stories.

The number of views surged to over 30 million within an hour, and several long-tail keywords such as "HWG youth training system" and "real elimination in e-sports variety shows" also made it to the top of the real-time trending searches.

And this is just the beginning.

Over the next 24 hours, discussions related to the show remained consistently on the trending topics list, even briefly reaching number one.

In the end, it took a certain celebrity a lot of money to bring it back to second place.

On various online forums, video websites, and other fan-made content platforms, individual interview clips of players were edited into various cuts, shots of empty card slots on the leaderboard were turned into memes, and the phrase "A true master always has the heart of an apprentice" was spontaneously copied by players into various training check-in posts as titles.

Although the individual player videos released by the official account of Leading Esports were only a few dozen seconds long, each one had millions of views. The comments section was bustling with people recognizing fellow townsmen, guessing the starting lineup, and betting on the elimination list, just like a gambling game opening.

Outsiders are once again amazed by the craze surrounding esports, and some astute celebrity agents are even considering whether to seize the opportunity to connect with the industry and capitalize on the attention.

Time passed day by day amidst this overwhelming anticipation.

Before we knew it, the premiere day arrived.

At 6:30 p.m., before it was completely dark, the streets near the University Town in Shanghai were already much quieter than usual—because most of the people who usually lived on this street were now staying at home or in their dormitories, staring at their screens waiting for the broadcast to start.

On the Huya live streaming platform, the number of real-time online viewers is jumping up at a visible speed in the upper right corner of the special page for "Next Stop, Pro!", the first e-sports talent show.

At 6:50, the bullet screen on the special page had already started to flood with comments. The dense text was piled up together, and if you didn't manually turn off the bullet screen, you could hardly see what was being shown on the screen.

Players' speech was so fast-forwarded that you couldn't see any complete message; all you could see were white dots flashing across the screen.

In the back-end monitoring room, staff members were sweating profusely as they surrounded a row of servers.

The person in charge, a bespectacled man in his thirties, had already taken off his coat and hung it on the back of his chair. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Pointing at the screen, he shouted to the technician next to him, "The East China node is at 85% load! Add servers! Add them! Hurry!"

"South China is almost full too—"

"Then switch all the backup nodes over! Don't wait until it crashes before you can try to salvage it!"

The sounds of keyboard typing, walkie-talkies buzzing, and the hum of the server room's cooling fans mingled together, turning the entire backstage area into a kind of unseen front line.

6:55.

The number of people online in real time on the special page exceeded three million.

The density of the bullet comments had reached the point where the system would lag under the default settings, forcing the platform to urgently launch a "simplified mode"—only retaining bullet comments after keyword filtering, otherwise ordinary users' mobile phones and computers simply couldn't handle it.

Meanwhile, viewers across the country were staring at the countdown numbers on the black screen, counting down second by second.

It's exactly eight o'clock.

The countdown has reached zero.

The screen lit up.

……

The live stream screen slowly opened from the exit of the Shanghai high-speed railway station.

At 8 p.m., the sky was pitch black, and the electronic screen at the exit of the station displayed train arrival information.

A sparse crowd poured out of the turnstiles—some dragging suitcases, some carrying laptop bags, some holding children, all hurrying towards different corners of the city.

"Beyond talent comes choice."

"Once you've made your choice, the only thing you can do is stick to it!"

Off-camera, a clear and pleasant voice rang out, and the next second, the image focused on the center of the exit.

The host stood there, wearing a dark gray short-sleeved shirt, holding a microphone, with the program's logo hanging on his earpiece.

Her name is Su Man. She graduated from the Central Academy of Drama and is a professional host. A little over a month ago, Lin Shu recruited her from a local TV station to lead e-sports, and now she has been assigned to be a regular host of this program.

She glanced up at the electronic screen, then turned to the camera, a faint, understated smile playing on her lips.

Good evening, everyone!

"Welcome to China's first large-scale e-sports talent show, 'Next Stop, Career!' — I am your host, Su Man."

She turned slightly to the side, letting the camera pan across the passengers filing out behind her: "Ladies and gentlemen, I am currently at the passenger exit of Shanghai Railway Station."

"In the past 24 hours, more than 20 young contestants who have gone through the brutal selection process have walked out of this gate, gotten into our car, and gone to the base. But there are still three contestants who, for various reasons, are finally embarking on this journey now."

"Let's begin our story with these three young people who were last reported on."

On camera, Su Man glanced down at the timetable in her hand, then looked up at the electronic screen at the exit, and explained, "These people are taking the last high-speed train. They departed from their respective cities this afternoon—some from Hunan, some from Chengdu, and some from Guizhou Province. They have about three minutes left before they exit the station."

The camera zooms out, revealing two crew members standing next to Su Man, one holding a microphone boom and the other carrying a stabilizer. Further away, in the parking lot, is a black minivan.

The right side of the van is engraved with the words "Next Stop, Pro!" and the program's logo, while the left side features a huge League of Legends poster.

The three fully armed individuals occasionally attracted curious glances from passersby.

Host, photographer, camera lens, microphone?

Is this a TV show being filmed?

"Next Stop, Career!"?

I feel like I've heard that name somewhere before.

Meanwhile, in the Huya live stream room.

The chat channel was bustling with activity.

[Wuhu, his live stream is here!]

[Finally, you're here!!]

Wow, the host is super pretty!

[Wow, that's ridiculous! I just got off at the high-speed rail station. I should have gone offline and ambushed the production crew.]

[Wuhu, there are actually three guys who are late! Are you guys trying to get my attention, lads?]

(Let's speed things up; I won't write about the LPL Spring Split and Summer Split in between.)

(Tomato's actions have really hurt Old Fish.)