Chapter 317: The Interest Level in This Topic Has Increased!

It was in the Capital City.

In a meeting room at the main tower of the Central Television, the production team and the committee members were holding a meeting.

Then, a staff member suddenly rushed into the room, walked up to the chairperson’s seat and whispered into the ear of a middle-aged man with chin-length gray hair.

“What?” The middle-aged man exclaimed in shock and smacked his hand against the table.

The production team and committee members who totaled more than 10 members were surprised and confused at his reaction.

“What’s wrong? Why are you so angry?”

“Did something happen?”

“Although the director is a little hot-tempered, he isn’t someone who would get angry without any reason.”

Everyone discussed in hushed whispers.

The middle-aged person who sat in the chairperson’s seat was the producer and the director of the Young Physician of China Competition.

The director scoffed coldly and waited until the staff member left before he announced with an ashen look, “We have been rejected!”

Everyone froze in horror.

What has been rejected?

Who have they been rejected by?

“Fang Qiu!” The director added angrily. “He’s only a first-year student who was invited because I had a good impression of him. I thought he had already accepted the invite but he turned us down after we already announced that he was participating in the competition!”

Everyone turned pale when they heard that.

They couldn’t believe that Fang Qiu had turned back on his word and even humiliated the team in public!

This was a public humiliation!

“Damn it!” The director cursed angrily, “I already guaranteed you a place in the top 50 so how could you embarrass me so publicly!”

“What do you think we should do?” He asked.

Someone immediately rose to his feet and said, “This kid is too arrogant. It was his honor to receive an invite from the production team and since this competition is organized by the Central Television, he has not only rejected us but also the Central Television. I’d suggest that we disqualify him from the competition altogether and blacklist him for life!”

“Isn’t this going a little too far?” An elderly man who seemed to be in his late 50s rose to his feet and said, “He’s only a child who is still in his first year of university, so he might have been influenced by someone else. Why don’t we try to reach out to him before making a decision?”

“Why should we reach out to him? He immediately turned us down after we released a public announcement. This shows that he was out to humiliate us in public.”

“Exactly, this kid is too arrogant.”

“Disqualify him!”

Everyone spoke at once and all jostled to express their opinions. Most of those present expressed their displeasure with Fang Qiu’s actions and there was a small minority who felt that Fang Qiu was in the wrong but they couldn’t bear to disqualify him so they tried to speak up for him. They didn’t want a young talent to be completely disregarded because of this.

Just as the arguments became more intense, suddenly someone said, “Wait a minute.”

The speaker was a young man who had been staring at the computer. He suddenly rose to his feet and shouted, “Everyone, please calm down.”

Everyone turned to look at this young man.

He looked very young but he was the head of the network division of the production team and was a specialist when it came to the Internet.

“What are you trying to do?” The director said angrily.

“I just took a look online and I realized that the situation isn’t as bad as we think,” the young man said. “First, Fang Qiu did not turn down the invite to participate in the competition but he rejected our offer to progress him straight to the top 50. He has also announced that he will participate as an individual contestant.”

“This shows that Fang Qiu didn’t mean to humiliate us but he didn’t want others to say that he had gotten in through connections. Fang Qiu’s actions were not wrong from a personal standpoint but we were looking at it from our perspective.”

“In addition, based on what I know, although Fang Qiu had agreed to participate in the competition, the production team did not let him know in advance that we will be progressing him straight to the top 50. This was our mistake.”

Everyone finally understood the background of the situation.

They were even more hesitant than before.

After they understood the background of the situation, there were more people than before who felt that Fang Qiu shouldn’t be punished. However, what was done cannot be undone. Fang Qiu’s response had indeed cast the production team and the reputation of the Central Television in a bad light. If they didn’t punish him, wouldn’t they be seen as a joke?

They were still deliberating when the young web manager suddenly chuckled to himself in a daze after he looked at the screen.

“Everyone,” he looked at the director and glanced at the rest of the meeting participants, “I just did some research and realized that Fang Qiu’s post did not cause our competition to decrease in the search rankings but it has attracted even more attention than before!”

Everyone was stunned by his words.

They quickly dug out their phones or switched on their computers to take a look; even the director himself went online to check.

They saw that the Young Physician of China Competition was garnering even more interest than before.

If the interest level had been at three stars earlier, it was now at five stars!

“What a pleasant surprise,” the director was appeased when he saw how much interest Fang Qiu’s post had generated and instead, he chuckled loudly.

On the other hand, the sales manager, a man in his 30s rose to his feet and said, “Frankly, the only reason why we invited Fang Qiu to take part in this competition was to generate interest in our competition but after we made the announcement, the interest level did not exceed our expectations and it was even considered average. This was because everyone felt that Fang Qiu was indeed qualified to be invited to take part in the competition.”

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“However, Fang Qiu’s rejection caused those who hadn’t been interested or whose interest level had been lukewarm to have more interest in the competition.”

“Fang Qiu’s actions have not affected us adversely but instead, it has increased our competition’s exposure and generated even more interest!”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

This seemed surprising but after they spent more time thinking about it, it seemed perfectly reasonable.

The director finally nodded when he saw everyone else nodding and said, “I guess this means that our efforts in inviting him weren’t in vain!”

Everyone froze and stared at the director in surprise.

Wasn’t the director vowing to punish Fang Qiu earlier, why was he praising him?

“This matter is not over yet,” the sales manager said. “What we need to do now is not to punish or penalize Fang Qiu but to work closely with him.”

“What do you mean?” The director asked in confusion.

Everyone else was equally curious.

“Now that we know that Fang Qiu’s rejection has generated a lot of interest, our response will be absolutely crucial,” the sales manager said. “Our response should continue to generate even more interest, so our response and our co-operation with Fang Qiu will be vital,” he said.

“You’re right,” the director nodded.

He naturally understood this point as well.

“Now, how should we respond?” The sales manager asked.

“Based on what you’ve shared earlier, we must deliberate over our response,” the director said.

He knew that the Young Physician of China Competition was about Chinese Medicine. Although Fang Qiu had turned down their invite, from another angle, this showed that young people still showed a lot of respect for Chinese Medicine and it also showed that the young Chinese physicians had their own code of honor.

They could not punish Fang Qiu under such circumstances.

If they were to penalize an emerging star in the field of Chinese Medicine before the competition even started, how would the other young talented Chinese physicians feel?

He deliberated for a moment before he suddenly smiled and said, “Let’s do this openly.”

Everyone froze in surprise.

Openly?

What did that mean?

“This is how you should reply,” the director said. “We believe in Chinese Medicine just as we believe in Fang Qiu!”

“This simple statement shall suffice.”

The sales manager smiled because this was exactly what he had in mind. He immediately used his computer to log into the official Weibo account and typed out a response.

After the post was published, the netizens who had been waiting to watch a drama unfold were all dumbfounded.

“This is a proper production team under the Central Television, so why couldn’t they give a more forceful response?”

“Exactly. Fang Qiu had publicly humiliated them, so how could they support him?”

“Wow, aren’t their faces stinging from the humiliation they had suffered? Why didn’t they disqualify him?”

“I would have blacklisted Fang Qiu!”

“This production team seems to be too cowardly, don’t they?”

Soon, there was a deluge of comments.

The deluge of comments truly generated even interest for the Young Physician of China Competition.

At the same time, the marketing accounts and related media immediately reposted and published all sorts of news.

“Shocking! Fang Qiu turned down the invite from the production team but this was how the production team responded.”

“Fang Qiu might have turned down the production team’s invite but the truth is…”

The media came up with their own headlines that quickly went viral.

Naturally, there were also media outlets who reported this news objectively without the use of clickbait headlines.

Headlines such as “Believe in Chinese Medicine, Believe in Fang Qiu” could be seen.

There were even media outlets who used the headline “Fang Qiu is becoming an internet sensation of the Chinese Medicine field” to generate clicks.

Soon, Weibo and WeChat were all abuzz with this news.

The Young Physician of China Competition continued to generate interest as the independently operated social media accounts spread the news.

Ultimately, this topic ranked sixth on the real-time Weibo trending topics.

It might not sound as impressive as being ranked the top three but this was very unusual for a program.

Most variety shows would only generate so much interest during the end of their run.

In comparison, the Young Physician of China Competition was generating so much interest even before it started. This showed how much interest the public had in this competition!