The assistant was startled by the ghastly pale complexion on Cheng Ran’s face and immediately asked, “Mr. Cheng, what’s wrong? Are you feeling uncomfortable somewhere?”
Cheng Ran was pulled back to reality by the assistant’s voice. He forced himself to turn off his phone and quickly stuffed it into his pocket.
“I’m fine,” Cheng Ran shook his head and weakly pressed his stomach, pretending, “Maybe because I haven’t been eating much these past few days, my stomach feels a little uncomfortable.”
Hearing him say this, the little assistant felt concerned: “You’ve been working so hard recently. This can’t go on. You still need to eat on time, otherwise your body won’t be able to take it.”
Cheng Ran forced a smile: “Thank you. I’ll go out for some fresh air first and take a break. I’ll be fine after that.”
After saying that, Cheng Ran left the set and found a secluded corner far from the crew where people usually wouldn’t pay attention. After making sure no one was around, he took out his phone again.
His hand gripped the phone tightly, his knuckles turning white from too much force. About a few minutes later, as if finally making up his mind, Cheng Ran deftly tapped a series of numbers on the phone.
“Hello?” The call was quickly picked up, and a man’s hoarse voice came through.
Cheng Ran pressed his lips together. The docile and gentle look he usually had around Jiang Yu was gone from his face. His whole face sank, and his voice even carried some anger.
“What are you doing? Didn’t I tell you to handle it cleanly? How did he find out about you?”
The person on the phone was clearly caught off guard by his barrage of accusations, and it took a long time before he said, “What’s going on?”
Cheng Ran’s eyes turned red from anger. Although he tried his best to keep his voice down, when he heard this, he couldn’t help but raise his voice, “Ye Zhou just sent me a text. How did he know about our relationship?!”
“I told you back then, don’t interfere with my business. You just had to take matters into your own hands…” When saying this, Cheng Ran’s voice even trembled. He couldn’t finish his sentence halfway.
Hearing his agitated tone, Zou Rong frowned and tried to calm him down, “You need to calm down first.”
“How do you expect me to calm down!” Cheng Ran yelled, “Are you doing this on purpose to mess with me because you think I’ve been living too well recently?”
Right after he finished talking, heavy panting could be heard from the phone. After a while, Zou Rong said, “Don’t cry. It’s my fault.”
Not only was Cheng Ran not soothed by him, his chest heaved violently, and his fair face flushed red, “You’re useless, a scumbag, a lowlife!”
After cursing, Cheng Ran took a deep breath to calm himself down, then said, “Don’t come back for now. After things blow over, I’ll transfer the money to your card. Don’t contact me again from now on.”
Seeing the call end after being hung up, he called back but found that he had already been blocked by Cheng Ran.
Zou Rong smashed his phone on the ground, his expression ugly as his eyes filled with sinister look.
…
After Ye Zhou sent the text to Cheng Ran, he didn’t get a reply for a long time. His original 60-70% confidence now rose to 90%.
Zou Rong was most likely the one who instigated the original body to commit murder.
As for the relationship between the two and what role the protagonist shou played in it, Ye Zhou was unclear.
Looking at the hot search ranking that was still rising, the person involved, Ye Zhou, was not anxious at all. He simply tidied up and went to the set.
When Ye Zhou arrived, he found the atmosphere of the crew to be a little low. Several leading actors were each holding a phone, heads lowered and looking at something unknown.
Seeing that he had finally arrived, the assistant director immediately breathed a sigh of relief. He ran up to Ye Zhou anxiously and said, “Director Ye, something seems off about this matter. The hype increased too quickly, and the rankings kept rising. I suspect someone is stirring up trouble behind the scenes.”
“If this matter is not handled properly, it will have a huge negative impact on our movie,” the assistant director said as he pulled Ye Zhou to a corner.
Leaning into Ye Zhou’s ear, he whispered, “Why don’t we first spend some money to take down the hot search? After the hype dies down, we can issue a statement to explain.”
Hearing this, Ye Zhou raised his brows, with a puzzled look on his face, “Take down the hot search? What to take down? There’s no rush.” As he spoke, he patted the assistant director’s shoulder reassuringly.
“What a great opportunity. They gave our movie some free publicity. If someone really is helping to stir things up behind the scenes, we ought to thank them for saving us a lot of promotional expenses.”
“Director Ye, don’t joke around!” Upon hearing this, the assistant director was ready to kneel before Ye Zhou. Anxiously sweating, he earnestly pleaded, “This kind of negative news will only bring negative publicity for us!”
“Netizens nowadays have a goldfish memory. If we leave a bad impression on them, we won’t be able to explain it clearly later, even if we want to. Our reputation will stink, and everything will be over!”
Hearing this, Ye Zhou looked thoughtful.
After a moment, he finally nodded, “You’re right.”
Seeing that he had obtained Ye Zhou’s approval, the assistant director’s expression eased slightly. He immediately said, “Leave this matter to me. I know people.”
Ye Zhou waved his hand, “No need, I’ll handle it myself. You go ahead and get everyone ready to start filming. We’ll begin as soon as I get back.”
The assistant director was startled but not too surprised. After all, anyone who mixes in their industry has some connections.
Watching Ye Zhou’s departing figure with a phone in hand, the assistant director finally felt a huge weight lifted off his chest.
But what the naive assistant director didn’t know was that Ye Zhou had no intention of taking down the hot search at all.
After Ye Zhou left, he only made two phone calls – one to the wire factory and the other to the young police officer who came that day.
It took less than five minutes to make these two calls. After obtaining affirmative replies, Ye Zhou returned to the set, tossed his phone aside, and stopped paying attention to online comments. Instead, he focused on the morning’s filming tasks.
At this time, after a period of brewing, the topic of Ye Zhou’s crew finally made it to the number one spot on the hot search rankings.
The original Weibo post that first exposed the photos already had over ten thousand comments. The comment section was simply chaos, with all kinds of guesses blossoming everywhere.
The commenting netizens were as if they had infiltrated Ye Zhou’s crew. Comments speculating insider information and claiming to be on set were upvoted to the top, narrated as if they were real.
Two hours after posting that Weibo, the user ‘Showbiz Prophet’ made another post:
Showbiz Prophet v: According to reliable sources, a certain director is now desperately trying to take down the hot search. The Weibo post may be gone soon, so everyone, take a good look while you can. Here are some screenshots of fans who know the inside story privately messaging me. [Picture] [Picture] [Picture]
This Weibo naturally caused another huge wave. As everyone knows, melon-eating netizens are a very interesting group. These people may not have been interested in this matter at first, but…
As soon as there was talk of someone trying to take down the hot search and suppress the matter, it immediately triggered their rebellious mentality. This then attracted them to join in.
Before the blogger made this post, the hype had already shown signs of slowing down. But after he posted it, the stagnant hot search ranking suddenly reversed course and shot up to number one.
In front of the computer, a young man wearing black-rimmed glasses looked at the screen with a smile. He leisurely took a sip from the cup of water next to him.
The young man was called Feng Xian. A few years ago, after graduating from a third-rate university, he struggled to find a job for a long time. By chance, he came into contact with self-media and accumulated a large fanbase by gossiping about entertainment circle news. After years of operations, he now had millions of followers as a top influencer.
Just posting ads every day was enough for him to live comfortably. But in the past two years, Feng Xian actually didn’t do much advertising, not because he didn’t need to make a living, but because, compared to ads, he had found a new way to make money.
The entertainment industry runs deep. As Feng Xian gained more and more followers and his influence in the circle grew, many celebrities’ teams started contacting and cooperating with him.
These cooperations included but were not limited to promoting celebrities’ works, hyping up hot searches, setting agendas, and helping celebrities defame competitors by spreading black materials.
In addition to pure rumors, Feng Xian could sometimes obtain quite good inside information, after all insiders knew much more gossip than outsiders.
Feng Xian was very clever. The news he exposed was always half true, half false. If you said it was all made up, some of it was, in fact, true. If you said it was all true, most of it was fabricated.
Relying on these semi-true and semi-false exposes, Feng Xian’s followers grew more and more over the past two years, and his income naturally increased as well. He could just post two Weibo posts while lying down and earn money.
Of course, there was trouble, too. Because his exposes were too vicious, some hot-tempered celebrities directly sent him legal letters.
At first, Feng Xian panicked a little, but later, he became familiar with the routine and realized these celebrities were all just making empty threats without concrete evidence. So, he completely lost his fear and became more unscrupulous.
He was willing to take on any job. As long as there was money, he dared to do it.
Just two days ago, someone contacted him and sent him some photos, bluntly telling him to viciously smear a certain director until the negative impact was maximized, and the more vicious he was, the more generous the payment would be.
After so many years in the business, Feng Xian really understood how to quickly attract hype and continue fermenting it to achieve the greatest effect.
Seeing the top hot search ranking, Feng Xian’s smile deepened. He put down the cup on the desk, picked up his phone, and made a call, intending to show his boss the results and collect some advance payment.
However, Feng Xian made several calls but couldn’t get through. His smile froze. He took out another phone from the drawer and tried dialing the number again. The previously busy line actually went through this time!
Feng Xian: “Hey, did you see the hot search…”
Before he could finish speaking, the call was directly hung up. Feng Xian stared at the disconnected call for a few seconds. When he called back, it was unavailable again.
Was he…blocked?
At this time, no matter how stupid Feng Xian was, he realized something was wrong.
Looking at the increasing comments, likes, and reposts under his Weibo post, Feng Xian really couldn’t be happy this time. On the contrary, he felt an inexplicable unease.
He had just drunk water less than two minutes ago, yet he felt his mouth go dry again.
Feng Xian forced himself to calm down. He took out another long unused SIM card, inserted it, and called the number again, hoping to get in touch with the other party.
However, he was soon disappointed. Even after changing phones, the other party did not pick up at all. When he called the second time, he found himself blocked again.
“F*ck!” Feng Xian threw the phone on the bed and swore out loud.
Returning to the computer, Feng Xian wanted to find the original Weibo account that had contacted him but soon discovered that the account had already been deleted.
Feng Xian stubbornly input the person’s ID on Weibo but no matter how he searched, he could no longer find the one who had contacted him before.
“Damn it, don’t tell me he was trying to trick me into doing free labor. What a bastard!” Feng Xian grumbled with some regret. He shouldn’t have only asked for a deposit at the time and should have demanded full payment upfront.
Looking at the still-rising hype, Feng Xian was so angry he almost deleted the Weibo post outright.
But he soon calmed down again. It wasn’t easy to get the #1 hot search spot. Right now, netizens were excited, and his followers were also increasing with the fermentation of hype.
If he didn’t delete it, although he didn’t get paid, at least he could console himself that this hot search attracted some new fans. But if he deleted it, he would get nothing and even be questioned by fans whether he had taken money.
Thinking of this, Feng Xian gritted his teeth and didn’t delete it in the end.
Although he didn’t delete it, looking at this hot search still irritated Feng Xian to no end. He simply turned off the computer, took his keys, and went downstairs to eat lunch.
When he came back after the meal and logged into his Weibo, he found that Weibo had exploded. It got stuck on his homepage and didn’t load for a long time.
Even Feng Xian was startled by this situation, but thinking that he was on the hot search, it was not surprising for it to crash. It was very likely that the crew had released some statement.
Feng Xian waited about five minutes before the interface finally returned to normal. Looking in, he was a little surprised to find that all the private messages and comments were cursing him and “hahahaha”.
He was a bit confused. If he remembered correctly, the person he smeared this time was just a small director, not some huge fanbase traffic star, right?
This reaction…
Feng Xian inexplicably felt a little uneasy. He closed the private messages and clicked on the hot search interface instead.
He found that his hot search was still #1, but the two spots next to it had changed to different terms.
One was #A City Police#, the other was #Longxi Wire Statement#.
Feng Xian clicked on the first one. The first thing he saw was an official statement released half an hour ago by the verified A City Public Security Bureau Weibo account.
A City Public Security v: On May 23, 2029, the Songbai Police Station of our Songbai Public Security Bureau received a report from a film crew that someone had maliciously damaged filming equipment, almost causing injuries. Through investigation, the Songbai Police Station successfully apprehended the criminal suspect, Hu.
The criminal suspect, Hu, truthfully confessed to damaging the wire equipment on set as instigated by others. He has now been criminally detained.
Feng Xian swallowed and exited with a trembling hand. Then he clicked on the hot search next to it.
Longxi Wire Official Weibo v: Solemn Statement: We are grateful for the trust and choice to use our wire equipment by the crew of A Farce. After receiving the director’s call, our company attached great importance and immediately sent staff to assess the situation. Upon investigation, it was discovered that the wire was artificially damaged by blades. This has nothing to do with product quality. We hereby make this statement.
With this, everything was clear.
The rumor that the director cutting costs and compromising actor safety by using inferior wire equipment was disproven.
When Longxi Wire’s official Weibo was first posted, some netizens were still misled to mock them as the inferior wire manufacturer, colluding with Ye Zhou to earn blood money.
However, the slap came so fast it was like a tornado. Before these comments could gain traction, they were already slapped down.
CluelessCutie: xs1Chinese internet slang acronym that stands for xiào sǐ (笑死), which literally means “laugh to death” or LMAO, I don’t get why people make groundless accusations. If Longxi’s products can be called inferior, then I’m afraid there is no company in the whole country that can be considered a high-quality wire manufacturer.
ShakeADouDouDou: Hahaha, I’m laughing to death. Can keyboard warriors do some research first before smearing others? Look up how awesome this company’s wire quality actually is. I dare not say all, but at least three-quarters of crews with decent funding in the entertainment industry use Longxi Wire!
LoveEatingLemons: Speaking of which, did no one notice how expensive Longxi Wire is? I suggest everyone check the prices first. Crews willing to use Longxi must be the rich ones!
After many people in the industry popularized it, comments like ‘inferior company’ quickly disappeared.
But then a new wave of comments appeared, no longer mocking the quality but starting to discuss how rich the A Farce crew was.
Don’tChangeYourNameIfYouLoseLessThan100Pounds: I’m back after doing research. This crew is too rich! OMG, I thought it was supposed to be low-budget? They really invested a lot!
MustGetAshoreThisYear-: I know this one! My bestie is in this crew. I often see her posting all kinds of delicious food on Moments. At first, I didn’t even believe she was on set; I thought she was traveling! qaq Only after asking her did I know, apparently the director didn’t want everyone eating takeout so he specially hired chefs to cook on set! What kind of fairy crew is this, I admire it!
InconspicuousLittleAssistant: Whispering, the meals in our crew are really good. I only knew after chatting with the chef one time that the ingredients for our crew’s meals everyday are airlifted over. Knowing these things are more expensive than my daily wages, I was so Spartan from then on, extremely respectfully and carefully eating quq
From there, the topic went completely off track…
Because of these two hot searches, the momentum Feng Xian worked hard to stir up was completely destroyed in an instant. And he, as the first big V to forcibly distort reality and spread rumors, was now pushed to the eye of the storm.
If it was a normal blogger, at most, they would delete the Weibo and post an apology. The matter would be over.
But Feng Xian scraped rotten money too viciously with this Weibo ID over time. Now karma hit back, and the fans of celebrities he had smeared before all raised their heads, cursing him until he had no skin left.
Feng Xian dizzyingly exited this hot search, desperately trying to think of what to do to resolve this crisis.
Before he could come up with a proper solution, Feng Xian horrifyingly discovered that his Weibo ID had appeared on the hot search!
He woodenly clicked in to find that it was a Weibo posted by the top blue V that seemed to have just registered with less than twenty thousand followers.
A Farce Movie v: Our side has commissioned lawyers to prosecute the user ‘Showbiz Prophet’ Feng for criminal liability in accordance with the law.
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