At the moment Zhou Mumu crossed the street, the evening glow on the horizon burned fiercely, like a spilled rouge box staining half the sky.
She did not even lift her head to look—those glaring words on her phone screen had already occupied her entire field of vision.
#Zhou Mumu Confirmed Sleeping Her Way to the Top! An Eighteenth-Tier Nobody Will Do Anything for Resources!#
#Shocking! A Certain Actress Surnamed Zhou Enters a Producer’s Room Late at Night—Video Exposed!#
#Let’s Dig Into Those “Accidental” Wardrobe Malfunctions of Zhou Mumu Over the Years—A True Green Tea!#
#Zhou Mumu Acts Like a Diva, Pushes Staff Members#
#Zhou Mumu Academic Fraud#
#Zhou Mumu Interferes in a Co-star’s Relationship#
One piece of black scandal after another clung to the top of the trending list like poison-soaked chains, each tagged with a glaring red “爆” (explosive). Clicking into them revealed nothing but edited blurry videos, out-of-context chat screenshots, and identical condemnations posted by marketing accounts.
The comment section had long turned into a swamp of filthy language. “Get out of the entertainment industry,” “So irrelevant you’ve sunk to the Earth’s core and still causing trouble,” “Artists with such bad records should be banned”—the comments refreshed like a tide, each one piercing like a needle into Zhou Mumu’s frail figure curled up in her rented apartment.
She had just finished filming a low-budget web drama as a supporting character. Exhausted, she had wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed and sleep, only to be woken by the constant vibration of her phone.
The moment she opened her social media, the overwhelming malice nearly drowned her.
She wanted to explain, wanted to post a clarification statement, but her fingers trembled so badly on the screen that she could barely type. The company’s PR department could not be reached, her manager had read her messages but did not reply. It was as if the whole world had abandoned her in a raging storm, leaving her isolated and helpless.
Every trending topic carried that deep red “爆,” and the comment sections were filled with tens of thousands of insults and mockery.
Her slender fingers scrolled faster and faster across the screen, her breathing growing more and more rapid. There were seventeen missed calls from her manager, but she did not want to answer a single one.
She did not admit to any of these accusations.
The incident of pushing a staff member had happened because the other party deliberately made things difficult, snatched her prop, and spoke rudely—she had only raised her hand to block them.
Academic fraud was even more absurd. Her graduation certificate from the film academy was carefully stored in her drawer, and every grade had been earned through real effort.
As for interfering in someone else’s relationship, she did not even have that co-star’s WeChat—how could she possibly interfere?
But no one listened to her.
What could she say? That those photos were photoshopped?
That the videos were edited? That all those so-called “exposés” were twisted lies?
No one would believe her.
Seven days ago, Lin Weiwei from the same company had been exposed for secretly meeting a married tycoon. The photos were so clear that one could even see the limited-edition diamond bracelet on Lin Weiwei’s wrist as she kissed him.
That should have been Lin Weiwei’s PR crisis, yet the company had successfully shifted public attention using Zhou Mumu’s “scandals.”
Before leaving, surrounded by a group of bodyguards, Lin Weiwei had looked at her with a smile full of ambiguous meaning.
Lin Weiwei was the company’s favored newcomer, blessed with enviable resources. It had long been rumored in the industry that she had a powerful backer.
And just yesterday, marketing accounts had teased the exposure of a “resource-backed rising actress’s shocking scandal.” A topic that should have exploded public opinion had instead been completely buried today by Zhou Mumu’s “black material.”
Using her—an unremarkable eighteenth-tier actress—to exchange for the future of a promising newcomer backed by a powerful patron.
What a profitable deal.
So it turned out that she was merely a pawn used to take the bullets.
Seven years.
She had been signed by the company since her freshman year. For seven years, she had remained neither popular nor completely forgotten. She had refused the unspoken rules and struggled her way through the entertainment industry with sheer persistence—playing corpses, acting as an extra. Just when she had finally begun to land named supporting roles, the company had sacrificed her so easily.
Her father had been a martyr who died for the country. Before her mother passed away, she had told her, “Live an upright life.” Zhou Mumu had always kept those words in her heart. Yet now, she had been splashed with filth and turned into a “disgraced artist” despised by everyone.
In her dazed state, Zhou Mumu felt as if her chest was so tight she could barely breathe.
She grabbed her coat and staggered out of the rented apartment, wandering aimlessly through the late-night streets.
The streetlights stretched her shadow long, like a fish struggling weakly. Her mind was filled with those vicious comments, the company’s indifference, Lin Weiwei’s smugness, and her mother’s disappointed gaze.
She did not know where she was going. She only wanted to escape everything that suffocated her.
She kept dialing her sister’s number. The phone repeated: “The number you have dialed is powered off…” It had been three months, and her sister’s phone was still unreachable. Zhou Mumu, lost, slipped her phone back into her pocket.
At an intersection, the pedestrian light flickered green, then turned red. Distracted and absent-minded, Zhou Mumu seemed not to notice and walked straight into the dense flow of traffic.
She did not even notice the black Rolls-Royce Phantom approaching at a steady speed—or perhaps she noticed, but had no intention of stopping.
“Bang—!”
The piercing sound of brakes tore through the night. Tires scraped against the ground, sending out sharp sparks. She only felt a tremendous impact as her body was thrown like a kite with its string cut, crashing heavily onto the cold asphalt.
At the moment of impact, time seemed to slow.
She saw her phone trace a parabola through the air, its screen still lit, those vicious comments drifting like curses in the dusk. Then came the intense pain, spreading from her legs throughout her entire body, and she was sent flying.
Four or five meters.
Sliding across the asphalt.
The world spun violently.
In the final moment before her consciousness faded, she seemed to see a black Rolls-Royce stopped not far away, its headlights so blinding that she could not open her eyes.
———- (Author’s Note: A newbie author reporting in—no fragile ego here, open to criticism!)