Chapter 91
By the time Tao Qianran rushed back to his private studio, the place, which should have been empty and pitch-black, was instead dimly lit.
His computer had been turned on, and the assistant he trusted was currently crouched in front of it, furtively stealing design drafts.
Caught red-handed.
At first, the assistant refused to admit anything. It was only when Tao Qianran took the initiative to mention his younger brother’s name—making the assistant think he had already found evidence—that the man finally confessed and implicated the younger son of the Tao family, hoping for a lighter punishment.
Tao Qianran had never had a good relationship with his younger brother. He knew his brother was less gifted than he was, but he had never imagined that, just to curry favor with Lin Mubai, the other man would resort to such crooked methods.
Tao Qianran was furious.
It was not only anger over his brother doing something wrong, nor only anger that his brother and he had fallen for the same person. More than that, he was furious that the person he loved had been “tainted” by something so filthy.
To use stolen goods as a birthday present for Lin Mubai?
Just the thought of it made Tao Qianran feel disgusted on behalf of the man he loved.
His muse was so pure, so immaculate, and a gift obtained through theft was nothing less than a stain upon him.
As for the fact that his younger brother liked the same person as he did, Tao Qianran actually did not feel too strongly about that.
Lin Mubai’s excellence spoke for itself. In Tao Qianran’s eyes, someone that exceptional naturally having countless admirers was only to be expected. There was no need to make a fuss over it.
Tao Qianran had a huge fight with his younger brother, but in the end it resolved nothing. He returned to the studio with his stomach full of anger.
The computer screen had not been turned off. A flashing notification in the lower right corner informed him that he had received a new message.
It was from an unknown stranger.
The other party said nothing, only sent over a flood of images. Without exception, every single photo contained Lin Mubai.
The other figures in the photos were all different, but the one thing they had in common was the way they looked at Lin Mubai.
Tao Qianran was extremely familiar with that kind of gaze.
Burning, intense, as though it hid an admiration strong enough to swallow everything whole.
Tao Qianran knew very well that when he looked at Lin Mubai, his own eyes must have looked just like those people in the photos.
He recognized quite a few familiar faces among them—people from all kinds of fields: a wildly popular film emperor, a famous director, a company CEO, the young master of a wealthy family…
He even saw himself in one of the photos.
Tao Qianran frowned. His hand, which had originally been about to block the stranger on the assumption that this was junk information, paused. Unconsciously, he started typing.
“What do you mean by this?” he asked.
The other side replied at once: “I just want you to see someone’s true colors clearly.”
Someone? Lin Mubai?
Tao Qianran sneered inwardly. Did they really think a few photos were enough to sow discord between him and Mubai? That was far too naive.
He had every reason to suspect that the stranger on the other end of the chat was simply another one of Lin Mubai’s admirers, trying to reduce the number of rivals with this kind of trick.
What was more, as far as he knew, none of the people who admired Mubai like he did had ever directly confessed their feelings to him.
Yet the other side seemed to know exactly what he was thinking:
“Does he really not know your feelings?”
“Or has he actually been enjoying it all along—enjoying all of you surrounding and worshipping him, while pretending he knows nothing?”
“Don’t you think your feelings for him appeared in a rather subtle way?”
Before Tao Qianran could reply, the other party disappeared on their own. Even the chat window itself vanished without a trace, impossible to track in any way.
Under normal circumstances, Tao Qianran would never have taken such baseless so-called “truths,” so obviously aimed at Lin Mubai, to heart.
But for some reason, this time he found himself caring. No matter what, he felt a little uncomfortable inside.
At the same time, the same thing was happening not only to Tao Qianran. Many others who had some sort of “connection” to Lin Mubai had encountered the exact same situation.
After Song Fengshi finished doing all this, he swiftly destroyed every record and piece of evidence.
Lin Mubai had acted very discreetly, and there was not much Song Fengshi had been able to uncover. These photos alone truly could not serve as conclusive proof of anything.
Song Fengshi had never intended to achieve any dramatic result with a method like this.
But suspicion was a seed. Once planted, it was only a matter of time before it took root, sprouted, and grew into a towering tree.
Lin Zhiqiao, meanwhile, had no idea what Song Fengshi had been doing behind the scenes.
Ever since the Xinghe Entertainment gathering that day, Lin Zhiqiao had accepted a small advertisement gig and thrown himself back into work.
On the other side, after the banquet ended, Lin Mubai had also returned to the set of A Panoramic View of Mountains and Seas.
His new drama had only just started filming, and as the lead actor, he was at his busiest.
He had scenes during the day, so Lin Mubai arrived at the filming site early, as usual, and walked skillfully into his private dressing room.
His makeup artist had just arrived and was preparing her things.
“Teacher Lin, you’re here so early!” the makeup artist greeted him with a smile.
Lin Mubai returned the smile and replied, “Mm, there’s a heavy workload today. Once I’m done with makeup, I still need to go over my lines again.”
The makeup artist had worked with Lin Mubai many times already and was used to his professionalism, but every time she still could not help feeling a little impressed.
The relationship between them could already be considered familiar. While doing his hair, she casually remarked, “Teacher Lin, have you not been resting well lately? Have you been staying up a lot?”
Lin Mubai asked, “Why do you ask?”
“You’re shedding quite a bit more hair today.” The makeup artist sighed sympathetically.
Lin Mubai was famous in the entertainment industry for having amazing hair quality—black, thick, and incredibly smooth. Even without special effects, it could rival the silky hair in shampoo commercials.
Lin Mubai froze for a second, and his brows drew together almost imperceptibly.
His fine hair quality was a buff he had exchanged for with points earned through conquering goodwill, using the system. Under normal circumstances, a problem like “increased hair loss” should not have happened.
And when something like this did happen, there was generally only one reason: the buff was beginning to gradually weaken.
Lin Mubai looked at himself in the mirror.
His features were handsome, his face refined, his aura ethereal—an almost divine beauty no one could question.
But beneath his eyes now hung two rather obvious dark circles. Against his fair skin, they stood out too much, making him look noticeably less well-rested.
Dark circles, too, should never have appeared on him.
Lin Mubai prodded his system. “System, check the buffs on me.”
His universal-charmer system responded, “They are all functioning normally. Only a small number have decreased slightly in strength.”
Lin Mubai’s frown deepened.
If the strength of the buffs had changed, that meant the source of the points used to exchange for them—namely, the favorability of his targets—had changed as well.
The universal-charmer system then ran through the favorability scores of all Lin Mubai’s targets.
“No target’s favorability has been detected to have dropped sharply,” the system said. “At present, the favorability of all targets toward the host remains within a normal range of fluctuation, but the favorability of several major targets is showing a downward trend.”
Lin Mubai glanced over the figures. Although they were all trending downward, the drop for those targets was basically within five points, with the largest decrease only being eight points.
The reason the buffs on him were being affected was simply that the number of people whose favorability had fluctuated was not just one. When added together, the total became substantial.
Lin Mubai therefore relaxed. He assumed only that, recently, he had been too busy with work and had neglected to maintain emotional contact with those targets.
This kind of issue was very easy to solve. All he needed was to spare a little time—even just a phone call, or the time it took to share a cup of tea. As long as he chatted with those targets for a while, their favorability would naturally rise again.
The sudden ring of an incoming call interrupted Lin Mubai’s conversation with the makeup artist.
The caller was his elder brother, Lin Chen.
Just as the makeup artist finished with his makeup, she proactively left the dressing room, leaving the space to Lin Mubai.
Lin Mubai answered the call.
Ever since the failure of the Idol Star Dream plan, another large batch of trainees had chosen to terminate their contracts with Mingguang Entertainment, and Lin Chen had been so busy with company matters lately that he was nearly spinning in place.
Not only that, but the more he thought things over during this period, the stranger he found Lin Zhiqiao to be.
Zhou Zili and Ming Ye had both been talents Lin Mubai himself recommended to him, yet the moment they encountered Lin Zhiqiao, one ended up withdrawing and the other crashing in scandal.
On top of that, Lin Chen had also heard the rumor that “Song Fengshi likes Lin Zhiqiao.”
Although a claim like that looked more like netizens blindly shipping people, Lin Chen had still become wary.
This call to Lin Mubai was primarily to remind his beloved younger brother to stay away from the “Lin family plague star.”
“I heard he’s been getting closer to President Song lately. No matter what,” Lin Chen drew in a breath, sounding deeply worried, “Mubai, you’d better stay away from him as much as possible.”
“Alright, big brother, I understand,” Lin Mubai replied.
He answered quickly, but inwardly he did not think much of it.
President Song? Song Fengshi?
No matter how imposing he might seem now, it would not be long before he met the end of being laid to rest in the ground.
Calculating the time, it would only be another month or two.
Lin Mubai pondered it over carefully in his heart.
Song Chuan had been getting increasingly busy lately. Lin Mubai had not asked what exactly he was occupied with, but thanks to the universal-charmer system’s spoilers about the future timeline, he knew that the man was probably carrying out critical arrangements.
Lin Mubai checked Song Chuan’s favorability toward him. As expected, it was still 100.
Song Chuan’s favorability was the most stable one. No matter how everyone else’s favorability fluctuated, only Song Chuan—after reaching the maximum of 100—had never changed again.
Once Song Fengshi died unexpectedly, that would be the moment Song Chuan rose to power. All Lin Mubai had to do was sit quietly and wait to collect the results.
That moment was not far away.
Lin Mubai was very much looking forward to it.
