The next day, Yan Xi was awoken by incessant knocks on the door. Before she got out of bed, she glanced at her phone in a daze, it was not even seven o’ clock yet. She walked to the door while rubbing her eyes. She didn’t even need to look through the peephole to know who it was. Ah Zhu Jie’s agitated voice passed through the thick wooden door. Yan Xi only opened a small gap when Ah Zhu Jie squeezed inside with a bag in an agile movement, then abruptly shut the door. The moment when she closed the door, Yan Xi could clearly hear endless shutter sounds from outside.
“Sis! Are you fooling around!” Ah Zhu Jie entered the living room and before she even sat down, she took her sunglasses off to shout at Yan Xi fiercely: “You think you’re not in a big enough mess? Why did you bump up a video from eight hundred years ago! I beg you, if you want to become famously detested like Yang Zi Xi, you should at least discuss it with the company. Her character is made up by a marketing company with a pricey cost. You are not copying her by doing this, you are just digging your own grave!”
Yan Xi just woke up so her brain was still a little blurry. She tilted her head to look at Ah Zhu Jie who was talking non-stop, then after she pondered for a while, she realized that Ah Zhu Jie was referring to the video and weibo that she shared yesterday.
“It’s really not me.” Yan Xi defended herself and wanted to take her phone out.
“If the female lead in this 4P video is not you, then is it Chen Man Xi?!” Ah Zhu Jie was woken up by phone calls so she naturally didn’t sleep well. There were a pair of thick black circles underneath her eyes, so she surely wasn’t talking in a good tone: “Why do you think Mr. Gong ditched you, it’s because you provoked Chen Man Xi! Now great, you didn’t admit your mistake and apologize, but you want to create more troubles instead? Yan Xi, you…”
Ah Zhu Jie hadn’t finished talking yet when a weibo notification popped up on Yan Xi’s phone. The message was from Gong Ding Chen.
“You breached the contract.”
Yan Xi didn’t understand it and was just about to reply and ask when Ah Zhu Jie snatched her phone away. Ah Zhu Jie clicked Yan Xi’s weibo open. The amount of comments and shares were 99+. Before she came, she’d already seen it with her own phone, the weibo that Yan Xi shared was hitting over a million shares. The amount of shares was even higher than the other articles like “Homewrecker stepping in”, “Ripping the rules”, looking for keyboard warriors to taint the boss’ official girlfriend, the big star Chen Man Xi.
“Tell me, how do you want to resolve this? Although you’ve always depended on Mr. Gong’s investment in the shoot to get the chance to act, the company has also put in a lot of effort on you these few years as well! Look at these people’s comments and criticisms, they are all forcing you to go die!” Ah Zhu Jie became more angry the more she talked. In the end, she became anxious as well. She stomped her feet and told Yan Xi: “Yan Xi, Yan Xi! You can’t start over in this lifetime anymore! Everything is ruined! It’s over!”
“Ah Zhu Jie.” Yan Xi’s voice was calm: “I have died once.”
She just didn’t succeed.
Ah Zhu Jie was stunned for a while, then lowered her eyes to look at the bandage around Yan Xi’s wrist silently. She took a deep breath and controlled the tone of her voice as she said: “For these few days, don’t surf the internet. Don’t post on weibo or your friend’s circle. The company will say that your account was hacked, so don’t show your face these few days and let this issue cool down. Who knows if one day a model couple was exposed to be having an affair or divorce, no one would care about you anymore.”
At this time, Yan Xi’s phone vibrated again. Ah Zhu Jie took it up to see it, it was from Gong Ding Chen.
Although Ah Zhu Jie had witnessed many things in the entertainment circle, her expression still changed immediately. She held up the phone in front of Yan Xi and said in a dire expression: “Mr. Gong asked you to go to Ru Meng Ling.”
Yan Xi didn’t remember Gong Ding Chen anymore.
Therefore, she didn’t love or hate him, so she naturally didn’t feel the fear from before.
After listening to Ah Zhu Jie, Yan Xi found out that Gong Ding Chen was her gold lord, although he was now her ex-gold lord. He wanted to see her, so she had to attend. Ah Zhu Jie was right, she needed to earn money to pay off her debts, not for her gambler uncle’s sake but for her grandmother’s sake who had raised her up.
Yan Xi looked like it was no big deal when she asked Ah Zhu Jie: “Ah Zhu Jie, what kind of place is Ru Meng Ling?”
Ah Zhu Jie: “……”
……
“Don’t lift your head, don’t talk. If anyone is following you, then drive the car to the company first, change your clothes in the makeup room and switch to another car before you head to Ru Meng Ling.” Paparazzis were everywhere outside, a lot more than what Yan Xi had seen before. Ah Zhu Jie changed clothes with Yan Xi, then let her wear her own mask and sunglasses, and even gave her her car keys. After she put on a jacket and hat on Yan Xi, Ah Zhu Jie reminded Yan Xi: “After you see Mr. Gong, be gentle and apologize nicely. Beg him to let you off, since you’ve also followed him for so many years, there should still be some sentiments between you at least…”
Yan Xi nodded. She pocketed her phone and clasped the collar of her shirt tightly before she opened the door and dashed out.
Although she was shocked by the short probes and long queries when she dashed out, fortunately her journey out was considered smooth. According to plan, the paparazzis that blocked the door and laid in ambush in the neighborhood identified her as her manager Ah Zhu Jie. They symbolically took a few photos but didn’t choose to follow her and report it.
Yan Xi chose to hail a cab in the end, because when she entered Ah Zhu Jie’s BMW, she realized that she didn’t know what to do. Yes, she’d forgotten how to drive, or to phrase it in another way, she didn’t even remember if she knew how to drive.
During the half an hour road there, Yan Xi was scrolling weibo.
Yan Xi’s hand that was scrolling had started to sweat, she found that all the open comments were chastising her with swears and dirty words, even mentioning s*x organs and her whole family occasionally. The comment that got the most likes was obviously posted by Chen Man Xi’s fan, saying that she was digging up the past again because she was jealous and wanted to taint Chen Man Xi, saying how ugly and dirty she was while Chen Man Xi was a pure soul.
Following closely after that, the next comment said that she was an independent model who relied on a gold lord and used Chen Man Xi’s fame to debut. Ripping the rules, using money to secure a role and declaring an open price to sell her body. It even attached multiple links with “evidence” from zhihu and tieba.
Her private messages inbox was even more disgusting, they went on to scold her one by one, cursing her that she should either die from a s*x disease or gang r*pe, saying that only this kind of death suited her. Someone even asked her to offer a price, asking her if she accepted SM or roulette.
When she saw such terrible and harsh words, Yan Xi still felt sad and wiped her tears at the back seat even though she had lost part of her memories. She didn’t understand why these strangers had such a big animosity towards her. The person in the video was not her, she didn’t do it before, why did she have to be the one who got hurt, why did she have to be chastised and cursed for just defending herself with a single sentence?
While crying, Yan Xi closed the strangers’ private messages, the weibo comment page and deactivated the @ notifications from people that she did not follow. The car stopped and the driver said to her: “Ru Meng Ling, we’re here.”