Seeing An Juexiao so calm, truly not looking like someone about to be driven to jump off a building, Zhang Xiaowan felt reassured.
“Your mentality is rock solid. There was a new girl at the company before who could not handle online abuse and hid at home crying for days.”
“Why cry…” An Juexiao muttered under her breath. “Just curse them back.”
Zhang Xiaowan only caught the first half, otherwise she would not have nodded in agreement. “Exactly. As an artist, you cannot be too fragile, or you will end up exploding from anger every single day.”
As she spoke, Zhang Xiaowan glanced down at her phone. “Sister Xi is calling. I will take this.”
Without looking up, An Juexiao kept both hands flying across the phone keyboard. Hearing Zhang Xiaowan, she merely hummed a few acknowledgments to signal that she should go ahead.
Zhang Xiaowan then took the phone and reported the situation to the manager.
“Her emotions? Do not worry, the person involved is extremely stable.” Zhang Xiaowan glanced at An Juexiao, who was sitting comfortably on the soft sofa, peacefully enjoying the air conditioning, and sighed with feeling, “She is practically a zen fairy who has seen through the meaning of life.”
“Alright, got it. I’ll coordinate with your statement afterward and have the paid commenters steer the discussion,” Zhang Xiaowan said seriously.
Not long after the exposé appeared, Li Xi quickly came up with a damage-control plan.
First, she planned to use connections and money to delete reports and pull the trending topic. Then she would coordinate with the production team and Sang Jie, the actress originally cast as Witch Qing, to release a joint statement. After that, they would use paid commenters to wash the narrative, and that would be that.
In Li Xi’s view, the public forgot things quickly. As long as some time passed, no one would remember these minor incidents.
And to take it a step further, if that still did not work, Li Xi had one more move, divert the trouble elsewhere. As long as an even bigger scandal broke, no one would care about An Juexiao’s issue anymore.
Everything had originally been arranged properly, but Sang Jie’s studio behaved in a thoroughly underhanded way and released a statement first.
The general idea was that Sang Jie was very regretful that she had been unable to participate in Three Realms and, due to various reasons, had instead joined another drama, and she hoped fans would support this new production.
In the statement, Sang Jie lavished praise on Three Realms, saying it had an outstanding production team and cast, that it was an excellent drama, and wishing it huge success. She added that if there were opportunities in the future, she hoped they could collaborate again.
The whole statement looked like an explanation, but in reality it was full of hidden malice.
The phrase “for various reasons” alone was enough for fans to imagine an entire drama behind the scenes. They became even more convinced that their JieJie had been wronged, so they stepped up their attacks on An Juexiao and called for a boycott of trash like her in the entertainment industry.
After being stabbed in the back by Sang Jie, An Juexiao suddenly felt how cold the world was and how rotten people could be. “This Sang Jie is way too shady. I went in to save the production and clean up her mess, and now she is turning around and biting me instead, even using the heat from my scandal to promote her new drama?”
Could An Juexiao endure that?
Of course she could not.
She lowered her head and typed even faster.
Still talking things through with Li Xi, Zhang Xiaowan did not notice anything unusual about An Juexiao. Then, in the middle of the call, she suddenly heard Li Xi cry out, “My ancestor!”
Her heart instantly sank. “What is it, Sister Xi?”
“Check Weibo…”
Zhang Xiaowan hurriedly hung up and looked at the trending topics. She saw five words, “An Juexiao Responds,” sitting near the top. Her eyelid twitched, and she quickly tapped in.
“I went to Three Realms to fill in at the last minute. Your vague and misleading statement is dumping this black pot on me. What am I, your scapegoat? @SangJie @SangJieStudio”
“The elderly gentleman I was seeing off outside the hotel was Chef Zheng Huangdun. If you do not know who Chef Zheng is, please look him up yourself. Slandering a chef who has competed internationally and won top honors, does the person who posted this not feel even a little guilty?”
“It is true that someone helped connect me with Yaohui. Is that not basically the same as friends introducing one another to job opportunities and helping someone get into a company? Why is it that once it is put in the entertainment industry, people insist on making it sound so complicated?”
An Juexiao’s response quickly drew heated pushback from netizens. Some questioned how a chef could possibly afford to ride in a Bugatti Veyron. Some mocked her, saying that meant she really had gotten into Yaohui through connections after all, and there was no washing that clean. Others said An Juexiao had such a nasty temper that it was obvious she had a powerful backer and could throw her weight around in Yaohui.
An Juexiao replied quickly and forcefully, without the slightest fear.
“What is wrong with a chef riding in a Bugatti Veyron? Kid, are you discriminating against working people?”
“If I were really that powerful, why would I join Yaohui as an artist? I would definitely be joining as the boss’s wife!”
“The thing that walks sideways is a crab, not a person.”
Usually, for the sake of surface harmony and saving face, even if artists were wronged, they would not publicly call anyone out. Someone like An Juexiao, openly going head-to-head and tagging the people involved, was extremely rare.
Originally, for a nobody as low-tier as her, the only reason her scandal had trended was because someone with ulterior motives had paid for it. Unexpectedly, her replies themselves genuinely made the trending list.
The real thing, not the kind bought with cold hard cash.
Because of that, An Juexiao posted another Weibo message and sincerely offered her thanks.
“I actually made the trending list. Thank you all for giving me such a fresh and exciting chance to debut in the center position.”
“Since the traffic is exploding, let me promote myself while I can. Three Realms will premiere on Dolphin TV at the end of the year, please look forward to it.”
An Juexiao’s response quickly amused the gossip-hungry crowd.
“This young lady is so interesting, I am following her.”
“What the heck! We came here to eat gossip, not to contribute traffic while you run ads, sob sob sob.”
“I read the young lady’s statement and somehow got persuaded by her crooked logic.”
Watching herself climb from tenth place to sixth on the trending list, An Juexiao instantly felt proud and triumphant. She winked at Zhang Xiaowan and said, “This counts as making the trending list on my own merits, right?”
“…” Zhang Xiaowan was speechless for a long while, then finally called out in admiration, “Sis! You really are my real sis!”
“So your zen attitude is actually the Buddha-Warrior kind of Buddha.” Zhang Xiaowan said cautiously, “But even though you had a great time clapping back, and what you said made sense, have you thought about how Sister Xi might want to kill you?”
“…” An Juexiao sheepishly rubbed her nose. “Give me the phone.”
She took Zhang Xiaowan’s phone on her own initiative, ready to apologize to Li Xi with a thorny branch on her back.
“Sister Xi, about this matter…”
“Well done!”
An Juexiao froze. “Huh?”
“With that scolding spree of yours, not only did the buzz go up, you also won over quite a few ordinary passersby. If we had gone with my original strategy, we probably would not have gained this much.” Li Xi rubbed her hands together. “You just gave me a vivid lesson.”
“…” An Juexiao looked utterly dumbfounded.
“I am adjusting the strategy now based on your response. To hell with keeping the peace. I’m hanging up first, stay in touch at all times.” After saying that, Li Xi briskly ended the call.
Seeing An Juexiao’s expression change like storm clouds rolling across the sky, Zhang Xiaowan asked nervously, “Did Sister Xi scold you?”
“No, she praised me.”
“???”
Based on An Juexiao’s response, Li Xi changed the plan. Forget all that crap about calming things down. She used paid commenters to spread the news that Sang Jie had broken her contract and abandoned the production, forcing Sang Jie to delete her statement herself. Then she stirred up discussion of Chef Zheng’s status, weakening the whole sugar-daddy narrative.
She then coordinated with the Three Realms production team, and they happily responded by issuing a public statement thanking An Juexiao for joining the cast and working conscientiously for eight straight days. The drama had become hot before it even aired, so naturally the production team was delighted.
Later, various true and false leaks from so-called crew members also appeared online. Some said An Juexiao had been extremely serious about filming and had earned the director’s praise. Others said the real sugar daddy’s woman in the crew was someone else entirely, and that on her very first day on set she had even bragged about stealing the role that had originally been An Juexiao’s.
As for whether those posts were really from crew members or from paid commenters arranged by Li Xi, that no longer mattered. As long as An Juexiao’s image and reputation were stabilized, that was enough.
Even Yaohui’s official Weibo account reposted An Juexiao’s comment about becoming the boss’s wife, adding, “Quite an imaginative idea.”
Chef Zheng was also a broad-minded man. Completely unbothered, he posted on Weibo too, saying he had never imagined that one day he himself would trend.
Some netizens looked into Chef Zheng’s background and were instantly awestruck. At twenty-three, he had already won the Golden Pot Award, the highest culinary honor in the country. At twenty-eight, he took gold at the World Chefs Competition. His disciples were spread all over the world, and he was also a well-known food critic and judge.
Not only did this wave of scandal fail to crush An Juexiao or ruin her opportunities, it actually brought her into the public eye ahead of schedule and won her a great deal of applause.
Quite a few film, television, and variety projects had already taken notice of her potential as a future “Director Zhang heroine” and sent her invitations.
Gu Zhanran only found out about all this because Huo Mingze told him.
And that guy Huo Mingze had been maddeningly vague about it too, only saying, “Something happened to An Juexiao.”
The moment Gu Zhanran saw those five words, he sat bolt upright from the back of his chair, his handsome brows knitting tightly together.
Fortunately, Huo Mingze quickly sent another message.
Huo Mingze: It’s all been resolved.
Huo Mingze: That An Juexiao you recommended is seriously impressive. She just opened her mouth and fired back. Even her manager is convinced, and she is planning to keep this as a case study for future reference.
Although Gu Zhanran still did not know the full story, when it came to An Juexiao, he could praise her with his eyes closed.
Gu Zhanran: Of course she is impressive.
By the time Gu Zhanran logged onto Weibo, the whole exposé storm was already winding down. An Juexiao had survived the ordeal in one piece and was still hopping around on Weibo, chatting with her new fans.
“As for Director Zhang’s film, please wait for the official announcement. I really cannot say anything right now, wu wu wu.”
“How is Chef Zheng’s cooking? Of course it is amazing.”
“Who introduced me to Yaohui? A friend.”
“What kind of friend? The kind who is very handsome, very rich, and also a very good person!”
“Introduce him to all of you? No way. A handsome guy like that, of course I am keeping him for myself.”
Watching An Juexiao teasing netizens so energetically, Gu Zhanran’s expression relaxed quite a bit.
He liked this side of her very much. She could be fragile, troubled, and sad, but when storms came, she could also face them bravely on her own.
Gu Zhanran had followed An Juexiao very early on. Now, as he watched her follower count grow at a visible rate, he went from being one in a hundred, to one in a thousand, then one in ten thousand.
Obviously, the share he occupied was getting smaller and smaller, yet for some reason, Gu Zhanran felt incredibly proud.
After all, he was one of An Juexiao’s very first followers.
That counted as an old fan, right? [happy.jpg]
Of course, amid all his happiness and relief, Gu Zhanran did not forget one other matter. He sent a message to his assistant telling him to find out who had done this.
Author’s Note:
The male lead is smug about being an old fan even though he has not even gotten a follow-back yet.
Tragic.