Read Novel Full Chapter 739: Hot Search Free Ride for You, I’m Sister Liu Remember That
Chapter 739: Hot Search Free Ride for You, I’m Sister Liu Remember That
It was only when he reached the door that Xiao He realized Liu Rulan and the others had already come specifically to pick him up.
Elder Qian had originally wanted to ask Xiao He a few things about what happened in the restoration room, but seeing this, he didn’t press further and let Xiao He leave with his agent first. “This whole matter has already caused you plenty of trouble. I heard it even forced your production team to shut down. You must have just as much, if not more, on your plate than we do. This old man won’t hold you up any longer.”
“Ah, it’s no trouble at all. Elder Qian, let us at least see you off!”
Xiao He took the initiative to open the car door.
Liu Rulan also leaned out to extend an invitation. “Elder Qian, let us drive you back to the Association first!”
“Forget it, forget it. We’ve got our own car. Besides, I haven’t been resting well lately. I won’t head back to the Association this time. I’m just going straight home to catch some sleep.”
Elder Qian waved his hand dismissively.
After several failed attempts to persuade him, Xiao He could only escort Elder Qian to his own car first, then come back and get into Liu Rulan’s vehicle.
Once the car slowly started moving, Xiao He finally let out a sigh of relief and asked Liu Rulan, “So, everything went smoothly with Director Chou?”
“Mm, this incident has had quite the public opinion impact. Yun Ziqi’s side also wanted to stir up trouble and snatch the role back amidst the chaos. So Director Chou rushed back first to lay low.”Liu Rulan explained.
Xiao He immediately understood and couldn’t help but find it both amusing and exasperating. “No wonder the production team shut down so decisively. That’s completely different from his usual competitive king style.”
If it were before, Director Chou would have insisted everyone keep filming even under the pressure of the May Day holiday not being canceled.
Now? The moment work stopped, he ran faster than anyone else.
And he didn’t even give them a heads-up. They were left in the dark, not knowing what was going on.
“This Director Chou is something else. He couldn’t even give us a heads-up in advance.”
Xiao He couldn’t help but complain.
Liu Rulan let out a light snort, crossed her arms, and said, “Don’t think he’s that simple. With him gone, the ‘Imperial Enterprise’ production team is shut down. You, as the male lead, are bound to be the most anxious of everyone. So now, the party in charge of managing the online public opinion has become us at Linghui Entertainment. We’re the ones leading all the statements and the pace of suppressing trending topics. In the end, the ‘Imperial Enterprise’ production team is the one hiding in the background.”
Jingyou Entertainment now had that bastard Yun Ziqi pouring oil on his own company’s project, desperate to blow things up bigger. Meanwhile, Linghui Entertainment, which had no direct investment relationship with the ‘Imperial Enterprise’ production team, was charging to the front lines of damage control just to protect their boss’s role.
It sounded ridiculous, but that was exactly how things had played out.
But if Director Chou hadn’t pulled that masterstroke, the one running around busy would probably be him, the director himself. After all, this matter required him more to mediate in the middle.
But he was a director, and a specially appointed one at that. He wasn’t one of Xiao He’s people, nor did he have much connection to Jingyou Entertainment. Although he had enough creative voice on set and wasn’t intimidated by the capital side’s demands to replace someone, the sudden shift in the upper investment structure of the ‘Imperial Enterprise’ production team left him with little say at this point. Stuck between both sides of the conflict, helping either party was awkward and would offend the other.
So he simply used a clever series of tricks to wash his hands clean, leaving no room for a middleman to get caught in the crossfire. He let Xiao He and his people directly confront Yun Ziqi’s side, then patted his backside, smoothly extricated himself, and returned to Beijing to watch the fireworks from a safe distance.
Look, wasn’t this exactly what he wanted?
Jingyou Entertainment’s top brass was too busy with internal strife to bother with the public opinion storm around the ‘Imperial Enterprise’ production team. Yun Ziqi couldn’t find Director Chou, so he had to keep pressuring online, doubling down on the damaging information. And Xiao He, to protect his role and the blood, sweat, and tears of the production team, naturally had to step up and face off against Yun Ziqi’s public opinion manipulators, starting a “war” online.
And Director Chou?
He was already at home, drinking tea and waiting for the results.
Xiao He listened to Liu Rulan’s analysis, utterly dumbfounded.
Liu Rulan finally summed it up. “You need to understand. A director who can rise from a regular entertainment industry director to someone with a government position, eating public sector rice—how could he be some simple character?”
Xiao He was silent for a moment, then said hesitantly, “Thinking about it that way, isn’t that a bit…”
“Of course, I believe Director Chou still wants to protect you more.”
Liu Rulan changed her tone, smiling slyly. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have agreed to see me today, nor would he have let me go online and go head-to-head with that lunatic An Laijia. After all, Yun Ziqi’s role has already wrapped up. If I took him out, Director Chou would still have a big headache…”
No matter who replaced what role, it required Qiu Zhenlong’s approval. And with Qiu Zhenlong gone, the matter would just drag on until everything settled down again.
And him tacitly allowing Liu Rulan to attack Yun Ziqi’s agent, An Laijia—wasn’t that also tacitly allowing Liu Rulan to help the ‘Imperial Enterprise’ production team swap out Yun Ziqi’s role?
“So, Director Chou—aside from having a sharp tongue, being a bit of a pain, being stubborn, and loving to talk in official jargon… besides all that, he’s actually not a bad guy.”
Liu Rulan said.
Xiao He: “… Sister Liu, if you could cut down on that prelude a bit, I think Director Chou would be happier if he knew.”
Even though all those flaws she mentioned were spot-on, cough, cough—
“But you just said you went head-to-head with Yun Ziqi’s agent online?”
Xiao He looked at Liu Rulan with some confusion and pulled out his phone. “What happened now?”
“Oh, nothing much.”
Liu Rulan shrugged dismissively. “Just a little simple face-off between agents.”
A face-off between agents?
Xiao He didn’t grasp the deep meaning behind Liu Rulan’s words and assumed it was just the usual round of rivals slinging mud at each other. He casually opened his phone to check the main battlefield—Weibo.
The next second, countless trending topics flooded his view:
[An Laijia’s Teammate Committed Suicide]
[An Laijia Drove Teammate to Suicide]
[An Laijia Blood Money]
…
Staring at the dense list of trending topics and the self-explanatory names, Xiao He, clearly not prepared, fell silent.
“What did this woman do to offend Sister Liu? Violate heavenly law or something?”
Sister Liu had actually hung her up on top with this many entries?!
Xiao He took a deep breath, clicked into one of the keyword topics, and scrolled down. For a moment, every post was different, with various combinations exposing all the black marks from before and after An Laijia became an agent, clean as a whistle.
“Cough, cough—”
Xiao He really choked on his own saliva. “Sister Liu, this kind of high-end treatment?”
It was like being strung up on a flagpole and mercilessly whipped while being mocked!
“Hmph, she made the first move to come after me. Isn’t it only natural for me to fight back?” Liu Rulan’s face was full of scorn. “Do you know what she did? She went to Su Shengxi and my old company, planning to team up and expose some of my black marks from when I was an agent, drive a wedge between us, and bring fans and other rivals down on you.”
Let’s put it this way—when you’re an agent, who hasn’t bought dirt on rivals?
Who hasn’t hired water armies to attack opponents?
If an agent’s methods weren’t dirty enough, how could they keep their artist “pure and spotless”?
Who doesn’t know who’s who?
Want to drag the artists I used to blacken and their fans into a siege against me, Liu Rulan?
Guess why that idiot Su Shengxi has been sitting on that secret for so many years?