Cui Jin and Li Leyou have been frequently trending on social media. Is this a sudden resurgence of the controversy that the reality show *X-Change* manufactures internet celebrities?
From becoming a family after bonding through a TV show to falling out completely online nowadays, the story of Cui Jin's family and Li Leyou can be roughly summed up as starting with kindness and ending with interests.
For several consecutive days, the conflict between Cui Jin's family and Li Leyou has been a hotly debated topic across the internet. From the mutually supportive relationship that won praise from the whole internet in the past to the family conflict that sparked widespread public discussion, the story of Cui Jin's family and Li Leyou has now become a hot topic of discussion online. However, some netizens revealed that Li Leyou has regained control of her main social media account and reached a "private settlement" with Cui Jin's family. At this point, the story between Cui Jin's family and Li Leyou may enter a new chapter.
For the internet that is flooded with trending topics one after another, all the trending searches related to Cui Jin's family and Li Leyou are just fleeting fads. But for the parties involved in these trending topics, on the one hand, there is an emotional bond that has lasted for more than a decade, and on the other hand, there is a conflict laid bare to the public, intertwined with the entanglement of family affection and interests, none of which will dissipate as the popularity of the topic fades.
Meanwhile, the public has re-examined the TV show X-change. Even though the show ended long ago, the life stories of its participants are still unfolding. No one at that time expected that Li Leyou's originally unfortunate life would be completely changed because of X-change, let alone that years later, she would frequently hit the trending searches due to problems in getting along with her "adoptive family". This is probably a microcosm of the long-tail effect of X-change, and also a brand new review of this type of public welfare transformation reality show from the perspective of short videos.
From Warmth to Controversy, From Variety Show to Real Life
Eleven years ago, in the life role-swapping show X-change produced by Hunan TV, Cui Jin, a rebellious teenager from Dalian, and Li Leyou, an orphan from Honghe, Yunnan, started a one-month life swap. When Li Leyou, who came from the mountains of Yunnan, appeared at Dalian Airport at minus 3 degrees Celsius wearing thin clothes and sandals, Cui Jin's mother took off her coat and wrapped it around her out of pity. The timid "Mom" that Li Leyou called out shortly after is one of the classic iconic scenes in the X-change series, and also a major reason why Li Leyou was remembered and continuously followed by the audience.
After the show was recorded, Cui Jin's mother felt sorry for Li Leyou's background. She once hoped to adopt her but gave up because her single-parent status did not meet the adoption requirements. Instead, she provided long-term financial support, and even took Li Leyou to Dalian for tutoring when she was in the 12th grade. In 2022, Li Leyou was admitted to a university in Dalian as everyone expected. During her college years, she helped out at the noodle shop run by Cui Jin's family and cooperated with the shooting of short videos. This warm story won a large number of fans' likes, and was once called a highly representative post-show touching case of X-change.
But unexpectedly, this originally warm post-show touching case has now taken a completely different turn. The conflict between the two sides started at the end of 2025, when Li Leyou hoped to operate her personal social media account independently, an idea that caused a disagreement with Cui Jin's family. After that, Li Leyou rarely appeared in the noodle shop again. The public outburst of this public opinion storm originated from Cui Jin's mother's complaints last month that Li Leyou had an irregular work and rest schedule and did not go to the noodle shop to work, that she had stopped giving Li Leyou pocket money for several months, and that she did not agree with Li Leyou dating the waiter in the shop. The related content immediately sparked widespread discussion.
Following Cui Jin's mother's complaints, netizens began to dig deeper, and launched discussions around issues such as the account revenue being managed by Cui Jin, the promised house and car that were never transferred under Li Leyou's name, and Li Leyou who wanted to be independent after reaching adulthood but was still under strict control.
What made netizens most angry was the post Cui Jin's mother published on WeChat Moments. It is rumored that Cui Jin's mother wrote on her Moments: "I got bitten back. I can't understand that a child raised by a criminal would take criminal actions so quickly! Just like mice naturally know how to dig holes. In the past, I thought the phrase 'a child with a mother alive but no one to teach' was just an insult, but today I finally realize that it is absolutely the truth."
As the screenshot of this WeChat Moments post spread, public opinion on the internet exploded instantly, and netizens were extremely dissatisfied with Cui Jin's mother's remarks. Later, Cui Jin's mother complained about the netizens who reposted the screenshot on the grounds that the content of WeChat Moments was private and unauthorized screenshot spreading constituted infringement.
During the fermentation of public opinion, Li Leyou did not speak much. She either expressed her mood through the copywriting of recommended videos, such as "Don't go back to childhood, that kind of helplessness, that kind of panic, that kind of humble attempt to read people's faces with no dignity at all" and "Yunnan is my hometown", or posted videos and pictures of herself alone, without mentioning the entanglement with the Cui family. During this period, a netizen who once funded Li Leyou spoke out, saying that Li Leyou's current idea is to completely cut off ties with Cui Jin's family.
Meanwhile, Zhang Shuili, who became a hit with the image of "tough Sister Li" in the 13th season of X-change, also entered the public's discussion, and her recent situation in particular became a control group for this incident. Zhang Di, the urban participant in the same season of the show, has been helping Zhang Shuili all the time. He not only added her to his family's household registration booklet and bought a house for her, but also properly settled her biological elder brother Zhang Shufu. In addition, Zhang Di also planned a study abroad path for Zhang Shuili, hired foreign teachers, arranged a research program at the University of Hong Kong, and planned to send her to study abroad in the future.
In the comparison between the two, many netizens think that Zhang Di's support for Zhang Shuili is a real effective help, while Cui Jin's family's support for Li Leyou is not so pure, mixed with too many interests. Especially in the later stage, it is more like using this family relationship with Li Leyou to continuously make profits on the internet. When interests are mixed in family affection, the story of Li Leyou and Cui Jin's family will inevitably develop into the cliché plot of "after long time of harmony, separation is inevitable", and the warmest post-show story of X-change has thus become the most controversial sequel.
Back to the incident between Cui Jin and Li Leyou itself, from the warm story of bonding through the show to the complete falling out on the internet nowadays, it can be regarded as another form of real-life sequel of X-change. When the vast number of netizens who are outsiders watch this messy farce, they can only sigh that "I never doubt the sincerity of people, but sincerity can change in the blink of an eye". For the people involved, after the public falling out, the best ending for both sides is probably to choose to live their own lives well respectively.
Once Accused of "Creating Internet Celebrities", Has X-change That Stopped Broadcasting for Years Made a Comeback?
In the early years, after the episodes of X-change were broadcast, most of the urban and rural participants returned to their original lives and lived an ideal life through their own efforts. For example, Gao Zhanxi, who became famous for the line "My wheat is ripe", remained sober after seeing the prosperity of the city, returned to his hometown, studied hard and was admitted to Hunan Normal University as a national defense student. Luo Xianwang, who dreamed of becoming a teacher in his hometown when he grew up, was admitted to Guizhou Normal University and returned to his hometown to be a geography teacher after graduation.
But with the arrival of the short video era, many participants of X-change in the later stage turned this swapping experience into a continuously operating traffic asset, and had their own different ways of operation.
Some continued the character labels in the show and presented the "sequel" of the show in the form of short videos. The aforementioned Cui Jin and Li Leyou built a sibling family affection IP to make continuous profits through short videos, live streaming and offline noodle shop business, but almost all the traffic relies on the family affection narrative of this reality show. Another example is Liang Xiaoyou, who became popular for her healing smile, dropped out of high school due to family misfortune, got married and had children, and now mainly earns income through rural short video live streams.
Some rode the trend of short videos and reshaped their labels to achieve successful transformation. Han Anran started her internet celebrity career with the rebellious girl image in the show, but no longer relied on content related to the show to create topics. Instead, she maintained her popularity through a steady stream of new topics related to her private life, and "eight divorces in the family" is one of her famous labels.
Some gain stable benefits from the long-tail traffic of the show. For example, Wang Jingze, who became famous for the meme "That's so good", has gained a lot of income just from the copyright of his emoji pack. In addition, he also earns profits from the old meme traffic through agricultural assistance live streams, commercial performances and other ways.
Some took the show as a springboard to develop across different fields. Yang Tong, who became popular as a melancholic teenager, once participated in talent shows, and his experience of participating in X-change at that time was one of his main labels. Another example is Li Hongyi, who refreshed the ratings of X-change and later transformed into an actor after participating in the show, and starred in many film and television dramas such as Song of the Youth, The Love in the Summer Night, Master Devil Do Not Kiss Me, The Love from the Ocean and so on.
The reason why they can navigate the internet so well, apart from their current efforts and opportunities, also benefits from the content influence of X-change, a show with extremely high public popularity. In the show, the content with strong conflicts and dramatic plots has built impressive character labels and classic scenes for them. In addition, the setting of "swapping lives" is full of novelty, so the audience will naturally have the desire to follow up and be curious about their subsequent lives, thus turning to pay attention to their personal accounts. Precisely because of this, when they operate their short video accounts, they have the endorsement of their personal life stories and the fan groups accumulated in the early stage, which is an important cornerstone for them to move forward smoothly on the path of self-media.
From this perspective, many participants of the show have become internet celebrities through their own efforts, which also benefits a lot from the traffic dividend brought by X-change. For this reason, the X-change series was later criticized for becoming a "internet celebrity-making show". In addition, under the public opinion pressure of amplifying the gap between the rich and the poor and making rural children prone to psychological gap, the show stopped updating after 2019. To a certain extent, the consecutive trending searches of the controversy between Cui Jin's family and Li Leyou are no different from a counterattack to the long-standing "internet celebrity-making" controversy surrounding X-change.
This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Du Yu" (ID: yiqiduyu), written by Xiao Duyuer, and authorized for release by 36Kr.