Mr. Yuan is Always Unhappy - Chap 68

CH68 – STOP PRETENDING ALREADY

Zheng QiuYang went to work. As soon as he entered the office, colleagues greeted him with concern. Although everyone had generally good intentions, he had already been immensely annoyed by this matter. Even the show of concern could not make him feel happy. His colleagues were also pretty keen. After asking a few questions, they dispersed. No one took the initiative to bring this up again.

Meanwhile on the internet, unexpectedly, none of the news and marketing accounts were digging into the exact identity of the ‘man’ who was passionately kissed by Yuan Rui.

However, this actually made it possible to determine that the video of the kiss truly wasn’t done by some professional paparazzi group. Although the video was filmed pretty well, and with the good quality equipment, the follow up of the incident didn’t keep up.

Right now domestically, the popular approach for most professionals was ‘content’. If any media company wanted to expose material on a celebrity, they must do adequate homework. Normally, they’d throw out the video first, then immediately dig this incident apart, inside out. For example, a certain celebrity is filmed having an extramarital affair. After being confirmed with hard evidence via videos and images, an overabundant quantity of news articles would follow behind immediately. They’d figure out clearly when this scumbag got together with the mistress, when and where they met on a date, and also when and where they booked a hotel room together. The timeline would be organized so clearly that only one glance was enough for people to confirm the truth; the adultery was final, there was no escape. No matter how clean the involved party washed themselves and denied it, it’d do absolutely nothing.

The movie for <> had already been scheduled to screen the first day of the Chinese New Year. Originally, the promotion was scheduled for this week. Now, because of the disturbance caused by this video, there was no choice but to push back all of the promotional plans.

The incident was pretty much what Li LingLing had predicted. Some other television station was envious of this program, so they deployed such an underhanded, yet commonly seen tactic within the entertainment circle.

Yuan Rui’s incident in this video wasn’t the same as an extramarital affair however. Although in comparison, the former was only a issue with someone’s personal sexual orientation while the latter was an issue or moral ethics. Under the current circumstances, homosexuality was still not tolerated by the mainstream society. If the other party intended to be more malicious, then beside the video, they would have dug deeper into Zheng QiuYang’s identity, the two people’s family backgrounds, their relationship history, etc. With the appearance of these news articles, Yuan Rui’s career inside the performing arts would have been basically finished.

Good thing the other party knew when to stop and didn’t continue to cause havoc.

Yuan Rui had a generally pretty good relationship with most of the people he worked with inside the circle. Even if he didn’t make friends, he wouldn’t make enemies. No one would cast a stone at him while he was down.

The only exception was the actor who specialized in overbearing presidents, Le NingYu, who had worked with him in an idol drama previously. On the same night that the video appeared, he sent a rather ambiguous weibo that said: “It’s easy to draw the skin of a tiger, but hard to draw the bones. Even if you know a person’s outward appearance, it’s hard to know their heart”. The accompanying image was a still photo of himself and Yuan Rui from the drama. Inside the drama, the characters that he and Yuan Rui performed were originally good bros. Later on, they had a fall out over the female lead. Therefore, if you didn’t examine this too deeply, you can consider this as him being way too in-character. It’s not like he gave a specific name and pointed fingers, yet his fans had watched too many overbearing president dramas and were all a bit Chūnibyō. With an attitude like they had seen through everything, they @ Yuan Rui countless times in the comment section, attracting over Yuan Rui’s fans and causing a huge battle. Le NingYu’s fans loudly criticized how homosexuality violates the natural order and human ethics, which then attracted a huge group of discontent fujoshis unable to sit around idly. Yuan Rui and Le NingYu’s weibo comment sections were completely submerged under the bloodbath.

The battle over here wasn’t even done. Over there, Le NingYu’s girlfriend, He Xiao, sent a long weibo announcing her break up with Le NingYu, stating that she could no longer endure this scumbag cheating on her repeatedly. This one stone stirred up a thousand ripples. He Xiao’s fans, Yuan Rui’s fans, the fujoshi passerby, marketing accounts, and the fans of the marketing accounts, all formed a united front to rip into Le NingYu’s fans. For a moment, Le NingYu became a malignant tumor within the entertainment circle that was the object of everyone’s condemnation. #Le NingYu leave the entertainment circle, and #Le NingYu you scumbag go die, were pushed up as the #1 and #2 hottest trending topics.

Meanwhile Yuan Rui’s video only maintained around a day of popularity on weibo. By the end of the fight between the squabbling crowd, no one even mentioned Yuan Rui again. They were too preoccupied in their common task of cursing out the scumbag.

Yuan Rui, who was ordered by Li LingLing to not post on weibo, secretly observed for a large portion of the day and felt like the direction of this incident has traveled far beyond the scopes of his comprehension. He really wanted to ask everyone, what happened to the original intention of your discourse hey!

In the final outcome of this online warfare, Yuan Rui, as well as his fans, became the biggest winners.

In this era where people drowned themselves in entertainment, trends changed too quickly. There was constantly new and more interesting gossip being generated. The former waves caused by Yuan Rui and Le NingYu also gradually vanished under the crash of later waves.

For example, the top trending idol group, Ice Dream, was exposed for being in danger of disbanding again. A netizen announced that they had personally witnessed the group leader Leo and the lead singer Thomas getting into a huge fight in the underground parking lot of a certain pub in Sanya, Hainan.

Yuan Rui looked left and right and saw this was no longer related to him. Silently mumbling a prayer for the Koi King to bless him, he started reblogging raffles.

After reblogging a few, Li LingLing called over and said in exasperated anger: “Didn’t I tell you not to send weibos? Yet you still dare to reblog raffles!?”

Yuan Rui was dumbfounded: “……. Aiya! I forgot to switch to my side account!”

Within 48 hours, he got into trending three times. Once because of the video. Once because his fans had spammed the kissing competition. Once for questionable hacking that caused his account to reblog raffles wildly.

In TianYa’s popular thread today <>, the following replies were practically drowning in hysterical “This blockhead 2333”, “Hahahaha bystander turned fan now”, “So cute I can’t breath help” comments.

Yuan Rui was an innocent naive idiot. He basically had no concept of conspiracy in his head. After observing an entire day of turbulence online, he only felt that his luck was simply too good.

Zheng QiuYang, who was inside his office drawing designs, browsed weibo when he had free time and made calls to his bros in the marketing world. They unanimously believed that this must have been done by the manager company’s crisis PR group. Yuan Rui’s company didn’t look very high profile, but was actually still pretty reliable huh.

On the other side however, Li LingLing thought it was Rui’s boyfriend who bought clout for him, and even felt a wave of teenage girl-type of fan enthusiasm.

However, the truth of the matter was–

The gossip master Mr.Fang said: “That long weibo from He Xiao was no coincidence. She sent it deliberately to help divert the attention from you!”

Yuan Rui said in shock: “Ah?”

Fang ShiQing said mockingly: “You wouldn’t really think that your luck is that good right? One minute, Le NingYu is stepping on you, the next minute, He Xiao just happens to dump him.”

Actually, this was exactly what Yuan Rui thought. He said: “The two of them were on bad terms even before this. When we were filming the idol drama together, He Xiao went to the set and argued with him several times.”

Fang ShiQing said: “You’re honestly…… He Xiao never broke up with Le NingYu previously, one is because she was reluctant to part with such a long term relationship. Two is because her company didn’t agree. She was in the same management company as Le NingYu. Recently, her contract with her old boss just ended. She turned to contract a new company. In the future, there’s no need for her to be bound together with this scumbag for clout anymore.”

Yuan Rui wasn’t familiar with He Xiao, but he felt happy for her. He said: “Breaking up is right. Le NingYu is really such a scum. He even tricked my fans before. I couldn’t beat him up, otherwise I would have flattened him right then and there.”

“Ah? The two of you fought before?” Fang ShiQing’s attention was running away again, but then he thought, no wait, and hastily dragged it back: “You can tell me more about this in detail later. Do you know who He Xiao’s new boss is?”

Yuan Rui racked his brains thinking about it. He thought of an extremely likely answer and said: “Did she sign with my company?”

Fang ShiQing said with disdain: “She’s currently a popular female idol. Why would she sign with your lousy company? Is she sick?”

Yuan Rui said with great dissatisfaction: “My company is great, not lousy at all.”

Fang ShiQing didn’t plan to argue with him and said: “Did you know that Meng Lai’s mom created a company a while ago?”

Yuan Rui: “……Ah!?”

He Xiao’s new boss was Yang Lu.

Then for her to send a long weibo announcing her break up at a time like that……

For some reason Fang ShiQing got excited over something and said: “Meng Lai’s mom wants to cover you!”

Yuan Rui, however, was scared witless. He said: “Oh no. When she called me, she didn’t even ask about the video. I also didn’t ask her for help. But now… now what do I do about this?”

Fang ShiQing said: “What do you mean what do you do about this? Isn’t having an esteemed person helping you a good thing?”

Yuan Rui said in a panic: “But I didn’t want her to help me! Right now QiuYang practically detests that mother and son pair. Even when I respond to her phone call, I have to do it secretly. If QiuYang finds out about this, he’ll definitely throw a tantrum again.”

Fang ShiQing was only here to watch the amusement. Not concerned with creating more chaos, he said even more excitedly: “I love to listen to this kind of dog blooded drama the most ahahaha.”

Yuan Rui: “……”

Fang ShiQing laughed his fill and then calmed down to say: “Actually you can just not tell him. It’s not like you were the one who requested Meng Lai’s mom to help you. She also didn’t say she was going to help you. With your intelligence, you wouldn’t have guessed it.”

Yuan Rui: “…….”

Fang ShiQing suggested: “If your boyfriend asks about it, can’t you just pretend to be stupid?”

Yuan Rui said gloomily: “But I don’t know how to pretend to be stupid!”

Fang ShiQing: “…….”

Asking a genuine idiot to act stupid… This does seem like quite a difficult task for him.

At night Zheng QiuYang invited his media-related friends out for a meal. When he returned it was already pretty late. As soon as he entered the door, inevitably he ended up talking about this: “Your company is actually pretty impressive. Within not even 48 hours, it already more or less suppressed the incident. Once everything settles, I need to properly thank that agent of yours.”

Yuan Rui: “……En.”

Zheng QiuYang then said: “What kind of jewelry does she like? I can make her something unique, one of a kind, to show our sincerity. What do you think?”

Not daring to look at him, Yuan Rui stared at the tv.

Zheng QiuYan reached out a hand and waved it in front of him, saying: “What’s the matter? Why are you looking so guilty? You little miscreant, did you secretly do something bad at home?”

Surprised, Yuan Rui explained: “I’m definitely not feeling guilty about anything, nope.”

Zheng QiuYang: “……”

Yuan Rui examined Zheng QiuYang’s expression in what he believed to be a secretive, but was actually in fact, an extremely obvious manner.

Zheng QiuYang felt like there was definitely something going on. Crossing his arms, he said profoundly: “Stop pretending already.”

Yuan Rui had an ‘oh god, I was seen through what now’ expression all over his face.

Zheng QiuYang forcibly suppressed his laughter and said with a straight face: “Are you going to talk or should I speak for you?”