Edited by Yummers
Zheng Qiuyang was astonished. The agent seemed pretty shrewd, but she unexpectedly thought in such a naive way.
Yuan Rui, the actual naive dummy, asked, “Are we going to sue that paparazzi for invading my privacy?”
However, Li Lingling said, “Nong ze gang du, which celebrity would actually sue paparazzi? It’s not like they leaked your nudes, that video can’t be counted as an invasion of privacy.”
Having memorized the Shanghainese translation book like it was the back of his palm, Yuan Rui whispered to Zheng Qiuyang, “Nong ze gang du means ‘you idiot’.”
Zheng Qiuyang, “…”
Li Lingling, “…”
With Zheng Qiuyang there, she couldn’t bring herself to be too harsh towards Yuan Rui. She tried her hardest to talk in standard mandarin, “I saw you on trending first thing in the morning today. I was so worried that I didn’t even eat breakfast. Yet here you are, not rushed at all, you took your sweet time to get there…and you even used hair spray?!”
Yuan Rui felt wronged as he said, “I wasn’t taking my sweet time, the new place that I moved into is a bit far from the company. I didn’t get to eat breakfast either…the last time I didn’t use hair spray, you said I wasn’t careful enough about my image. I sprayed it just for you today.”
Li Lingling was holding down her anger so much that her face was going pale.
Not even Zheng Qiuyang could bear to keep listening. He spoke up, “Li…I’ll address you as Lingling-Jie as well. What is your guys’ company planning to do?”
Li Lingling replied, “The company’s legal counsel has been drafting a statement condemning the act of taking photographs of our artist without permission.”
“…Condemn?”
“You’re not actually thinking of suing them like Yuan Rui, are you? Regardless of if we win the lawsuit or not, it won’t be any good for us. We can’t actually sue them but nor can we stay completely silent. You can rest assured, although our company doesn’t have the best film and television resources, we are pretty equipped in other useful departments. Our legal counsel is also a well-known law firm, they’re great with their words.”
“I know we can’t really file a lawsuit. But what’s up with the statement? Are you guys really just going to have Yuan Rui come out like this?”
Li Lingling replied in shock, “Of course not. His career is now on the rise, if he really came out, he wouldn’t be able to appear on the big screen ever again. Are we supposed to make him an influencer? Don’t worry, the statement will mention nothing about his sexuality.” Then she turned to Yuan Rui to say, “Yuan Rui, don’t bring it up yourself either. No matter if it’s on Weibo or during interviews.”
Yuan Rui didn’t say anything. He turned to look at Zheng Qiuyang as if waiting for his say.
Li Lingling was suddenly a little irked. She felt like a mother whose child had been married off and had forgotten his mother.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“Ktja’r tbk atf qbilms lr cbkjvjsr. Cr ibcu jr cb bcf mbwfr bea lc j qeyilm rfaalcu bg tjr rfcrlalnf ifjxfv qtbabr, bcilcf vgjwj mjc’a vb jcsatlcu.” Ol Olcuilcu fzqijlcfv. “Ktja nlvfb kjr eqibjvfv ja 4 lc atf wbgclcu, atf eqibjvfg bcis tjv j ofk tecvgfv obiibkfgr, jcv atfgf kjr cb ylu jmmbeca ktb gfqbrafv la. Tfa atf qbra gfmflnfv atberjcvr bo gfqbrar lc pera j ofk wlceafr, atf jwbeca bo abqlmr bc atlr lr jirb ecerejiis tlut. Zbra bo atf jmmbecar klat atf tjrtaju ab xlmx Tejc Eel bea bo atf lcverags jgf lcjmalnf jmmbecar. Yynlberis, atf cfalhfcr jgf cba vewy, jii atlr tjaf kjr bynlberis lcralujafv bc qegqbrf. Ycis lvlbar kbeivc’a yf jyif ab afii. Ktfgf klii yf j mtjcuf lc atf qeyilm bqlclbc rbbc, jcv la’r wbra ilxfis ublcu ab yf j ubbv mtjcuf obg er.”
Zheng Qiuyang wasn’t too sure. “How are you so certain? Did you guys also pay for people to make posts?”
“No, and we don’t need to.” Li Lingling checked the time then said, “It’s past 9 now, the real Weibo users are starting to log on. No matter how many trolls the other side hired, they won’t be able to beat the real users. Yuan Rui has a rather positive audience. He’s never been in any relationship drama, when asked about his ideal type during interviews, he never used any female celebrities as a shield either. Aside from the other cast members from the shows he worked with, he mostly interacts with male users on Weibo. The internet has always been trying to prove that he was gay, some even say that he wants to hook up with Bai Tu.”
Zheng Qiuyang, “…”
Yuan Rui was astonished. “Wow, they’re incredible.”
Zheng Qiuyang, “…”
Yuan Rui reached out his hand, saying, “Give me my phone, I wanna see what they’re saying.”
Zheng Qiuyang hesitated for a bit, then said, “I’ll look first.”
The topics that he had seen this morning—#YuanRuiHomo, #KickYuanRuiOut, and the unsightly attacks under them—left lingering fear in him. As he checked the trending list this time, those two hashtags were nowhere to be seen. The first one was #AFCFinal, and the second was #GoldenHorseAwards. The top two were just as his online marketing friend had predicted. In third place was #KissingYuanRuiCompetition.
That hashtag…Zheng Qiuyang clicked on it worryingly. But the sight was not the foul atmosphere he’d expected. The top post was from a short video by a user called “Long Legs Little White Rabbit”. In the video, a girl was hugging The Sparkling Friends Yuan Rui chibi plush, kissing the heck out of it. There was a piece of uplifting background music as she made dramatic and funny faces, it was very cute.
The following post was a picture uploaded by a user with the name “Yuan Xiaomeng’s Li Xiaomeng”. She looked like a young mother. In the video, as she leaned down to kiss her slumbering baby, it could be seen that the baby had a sticky note that said “My name is Yuan Rui” on them.
There were many similar posts like that under the hashtag. Most of them had usernames and profile pictures that made it obvious they were Yuan Rui’s fans. Their competition pieces included both videos and pictures. Some were kissing a Yuan Rui poster, some kissed their hand with Yuan Rui’s name written on it and some even played Yuan Rui’s shows on their TV and started kissing the screen. Basically, there were all types of media included under the hashtag.
At last, Zheng Qiuyang realized that the admin of the topic was a very familiar account that reposts Twitter and Facebook viral videos…those three meals weren’t for nothing.
Seeing that his expression didn’t twist too badly, Yuan Rui looked over his shoulder to see the trending list and said, “Ah, the AFC took my trending.”
Zheng Qiuyang, “…”
Zheng Qiuyang scrolled down to the 20s trending rank and still couldn’t find the hateful topics from this morning.
Yuan Rui said, “See, it’s all fine. Give me my phone back.”
Zheng Qiuyang took his phone out of his pocket to hand it back.
Li Lingling went to take a call while the two of them scrolled through Weibo.
On Weibo, Yuan Rui gained about 110,000 more followers, 10,000 reposts and comments, 40,000 likes, and 5,000 direct messages. While he did receive direct messages from fans regularly, it was never to this extent. There was a difference between direct messages and public comments. Since direct messages are a conversation between two people with privacy, aside from those who like to confess to their idols, many people also like to use it as a venting place. They’d share secrets as well as sexual pictures that Yuan Rui had received once or twice from some female fans. Though of course, there were also disgusting messages from haters.
He felt a bit uneasy, he didn’t really want to look at his messages and comments today. So he clicked on the one million post he made the night before to see the top comments. The top comments from before were now replaced by comments saying:
“If Mengmeng isn’t the top in the relationship, then I’ll stream myself eating shit”
“Please call him the cutie top from today on”
“I’ll donate shit to that top commenter”
“Who’s the little slut that kissed my Mengmeng? Is he that thirsty to milk my Mengmeng dry?”
“Male fan here, bottom, 174/85/74/14, fuck me daddy”
“Praying for the paparazzi to leak the rest of the video”
Yuan Rui, “…”
Zheng Qiuyang also saw the comments, he was bewildered from head to toe.
Yuan Rui looked at him, saying, “You’re so ‘thirsty’ hahaha!”
Zheng Qiuyang, “…”
Yuan Rui looked at the way his facial expression twisted weirdly. “See? I told you my fans were very interesting. Aren’t they super cute?” He said as he held in laughter.
Zheng Qiuyang thought, Cute cute cute…cute my ass! They’ve got it all wrong! Calling me thirsty?! Hmph, I’ll fuck you guys’ Mengmeng’s brain out once I get home!
Yuan Rui clicked on his direct messages in caution. The thousands of messages were a bit different from the ones in the comment section. Surprisingly, most of them were messages filled with heartwarming encouragement that told him to not be afraid of the hate comments and that he should bravely make his own life decisions.
Looking through the messages one after another, he was very touched. His fans were so cute. They acted rowdy and cute in public spaces to liven up the mood, but they also comforted him in direct messages with such sweet words.
Zheng Qiuyang was on his own phone so he didn’t see the direct messages Yuan Rui got. He only saw the fans making dirty and cute comments, alongside some doubters saying that this whole scandal was set up for clout, and some actual bystanders who were just waiting for an update. The trolls all recycled through the same few comments, so they were quickly buried by the positive comments.
Li Lingling came back after the call and asked first thing, “Mr. Zheng, did you buy service for Yuan Rui?”
Zheng Qiuyang replied, “No…well, kind of. The admin of the trending topic is my friend.”
Li LIngling looked at him suspiciously. Then, she turned to ask Yuan Rui, “Did you call your godmother yet?”
Yuan Rui shook his head. Ever since he became aware that Yang Lu looked down on Zheng Qiuyang, Yuan Rui’s view of her changed and he hadn’t contacted her since.
Li Lingling expressed her thinking, “She’s probably going to contact you very soon. This might be related to her.”
Yuan Rui was shocked, “Could she be the one who hired people to photograph me and my boyfriend?”
Li LIngling didn’t understand, “…Why would she do that?”
Yuan Rui’s imagination had already gone too far. The more he thought, the more he panicked. He said, “Her son was my first love! And she never liked my boyfriend!”
Zheng Qiuyang cut in, “…What?”
Yuan Rui quickly covered his mouth.
Even Li Lingling was a bit caught off guard. She hurriedly explained, “What I meant was, The Sparkling Friends movie is set to be released during the New Year, and the promotion is going to start soon. The second season is also looking for sponsorships. To spread hate about you now may possibly be done by another show who wants dirt on this show. And because this show is produced by Yang Lu’s team, I said it may be related to her. I was even going to tell you to ask her for help.”
Yuan Rui, “…Ah?”
Li Lingling was in a bit of a rush as she said, “We’ll talk about this later. The head boss told me to meet him so I have to go. You guys can leave now.”
Seeing how she was about to leave suddenly, Zheng Qiuyang couldn’t help but say, “Aren’t you guys’ company too unorganized? This is it?”
Li Lingling said hopelessly, “I know you’re worried, but I’m even more worried. I wish that everyone who’d seen the video could just suddenly get amnesia, but is that possible?”
Zheng Qiuyang was tongue-tied. His worries would only make things worse, and he’d acted too irrationally just now too.
Li Lingling didn’t say anything more. She reminded them, “Yuan Rui, after getting home, don’t go outside or make any Weibo posts. If you need anything, call us.”
Once it was just the two of them, Yuan Rui wanted to pretend that nothing had happened. He acted calm on purpose as he said, “Let’s go home.”
Zheng Qiuyang had been worried sick the entire morning. He didn’t expect there to be such a big mine for him to step on first thing in the morning. He stared at Yuan Rui and asked, “What you just said—your godmother’s son is your who?”
Yuan Rui’s eyes widened. In the dire moment, a light bulb lit up, “My…godbrother.”
Lol a bit too late to lie now, Yuan Rui 😆😆
Thank you for the chapter ❤️
Hahahaha yuan rui you are the best..
Thanks for the chapter ♥️♥️
Yuan Rui, darling, you brought this to yourself
Thank you so much for your great translation!!
Too cute! My godbrother.
Yuan Rui- how are you this adorable?!
Thanks for the chapter <3
Yuan Rui, your butt is going to be in trouble no matter what! 😂
Also, is this a typo? I feel like it should be **aren’t. – “…T tf cfalhfcr jgf lvlbar.”
thanks for the chapter!