Chapter 13: Trending Search
Jiang Yu thought about it. It was probably about Ji Xu lying to him when they left Leisure House—saying that the male and female leads all had to sleep with Zhuang Feng, and that he was the only one who hadn’t.
Did Han Cheng really remove Ji Xu’s role because of that? How was that possible?
Shouldn’t he have been happy that Ji Xu liked him too, and used it to assert his dominance over him, his lover?
“You even dared to eavesdrop on Han Cheng. Aren’t you afraid he’ll find out and fire you?” Jiang Yu seriously suspected that Sister Bai might have misheard something.
“I’m a top-tier manager, you know. Among the people I’ve managed, there’ve been no fewer than eight or ten Best Actor, Best Actress, and top-traffic stars. Out of everyone I’ve handled, you’re the most hopeless. President Han wouldn’t fire me,” Sister Bai said proudly, patting her own flat chest.
“But even so, shouldn’t Ji Xu be the one who hates me? What does that have to do with you being afraid of me?”
“Well, I was too engrossed in eavesdropping and got caught by President Han. And it’s also that Ji Xu’s fault—he suddenly burst out crying, and I didn’t even have time to hide.
“Then President Han called me in and said that although Meng Yi got the second male lead role, it was only because we’d schemed against you. He was giving Meng Yi the chance out of consideration for you.
“President Han said that if you don’t forgive us, he can take back Meng Yi’s second male lead role at any time—just like he took back Ji Xu’s role.”
“So we thought we’d bring some gifts today and formally apologize to you. Jiang Yu, for the sake of all the suffering Meng Yi has been through, please forgive him.”
Sister Bai looked at Jiang Yu with a pitiful expression, while Jiang Yu himself was somewhat dazed.
It was already surreal enough that Han Cheng would remove Ji Xu’s role for his sake. And now there was even a scene where he had warned Sister Bai and Meng Yi? Since when did Han Cheng care about him this much?
Even though he was a transmigrator, Jiang Yu had long since realized that he didn’t have any protagonist halo, and Han Cheng wasn’t his domineering CEO.
“Sister Bai, are you sure Han Cheng meant for you to come and apologize to me?”
“Do I look like an idiot? President Han even called Meng Yi in as well. You can ask Meng Yi—see if President Han didn’t mean exactly that.”
The two of them looked at Meng Yi together. Meng Yi raised his head and gave a bitter smile. “President Han really did mean that. Brother Yu, I know you saw through the act that Sister Bai and I were putting on long ago, but you still told President Han to let me play the second male lead. You actually weren’t blaming me, right?
Zhuang Feng being sentenced to death was also because I stole evidence of him killing someone. Otherwise, at most he would’ve only gone to prison for ten-plus years—he wouldn’t have died. You could say I avenged you too.
You have President Han caring about you, but I endured all that filth. If I were to lose the second male lead role as well, it would all be for nothing. Even I would think my own situation was too miserable.”
Han Cheng cared about him? Jiang Yu felt like laughing when he heard that.
Back then, he had been personally handed over to Zhuang Feng by Han Cheng himself.
“I never planned to blame you in the first place. Stay and have lunch. Let’s try those two big lobsters together.”
Jiang Yu made his stance clear. Meng Yi and Sister Bai both let out sighs of relief. Sister Bai stood up cheerfully and said, “Those were brought for you—we won’t eat them. Meng Yi still has an event, so we won’t bother you any longer. Take good care of your waist. When you want to work again, tell me and I’ll find something for you.”
“Thank you, Brother Yu,” Meng Yi said, standing up and bowing stiffly and formally to Jiang Yu.
Jiang Yu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. That bow looked like he’d just passed away.
After seeing Sister Bai and Meng Yi off, Jiang Yu gave Aunt Chen one of the lobsters. Aunt Chen refused no matter what, and in the end, unable to resist Jiang Yu, she took two big claws.
There wasn’t much meat on the two lobsters anyway. Jiang Yu opened his mouth a little wider and finished them in two bites. Smacking his lips, he thought the taste was just so-so—shrimp flavor.
After being idle at home for half a month, the episode of Leisure Life that Jiang Yu had filmed finally aired. After watching it, he found it rather plain and didn’t see any obvious comedic highlights.
But the bullet comments were lively, full of people shouting the names of their favorite “brothers” and “sisters.” Someone just handing over a bottle of water would get praised for a long time for being polite.
Occasionally, a few comments about him floated by—some asking who he was, some explaining, and some saying he was too lazy.
Jiang Yu’s waist hurt, and he really hadn’t done much work. Judging from the edited result, he did indeed look a bit lazy.
But he hadn’t clashed with anyone, and there were only a handful of comments scolding him for being lazy. After finishing the episode, Jiang Yu closed the video.
He originally thought this episode of Leisure Life wouldn’t have much to do with him, but after sleeping for a night, Jiang Yu discovered that his Weibo comments had suddenly exploded overnight.
Still groggy, he opened his Weibo private messages. What greeted his eyes was a string of profanity that made his blood pressure skyrocket.
[Trash. What kind of irrelevant flop dares order our Little Yi around? You don’t even have any works, yet you dare pretend to be a senior. You’ll never get famous in this life, trash, idiot, useless.]
?????
Jiang Yu instantly woke up and opened another private message.
[What the hell are you? Where do you get the nerve to act like a senior? Our Little Yi is someone you can boss around? Which saline-alkali wasteland did you crawl out of, you crooked-neck scallion—]
He opened the next one.
[Trying to ride on popularity? If you want to get famous, go practice your singing more. With that voice of yours, you could kill ten pigs—no wonder you flopped after releasing just one song. Someone as rotten as you will never blow up in this lifetime.]
The next one.
[Idiot, your damn—]
After scrolling through five or six private messages in a row, almost all of them were insults. Jiang Yu was furious. What kind of monsters were these people?
They all mentioned Little Yi—was that Meng Yi? He and Meng Yi were on good terms, so why were these fans coming to curse him?
Jiang Yu exited his private messages and clicked on the trending searches. Sure enough, right at the top of the trending list, he saw his own name.
[Leisure Life Jiang Yu Meng Yi]
There was even a “hot” tag after it.
Jiang Yu clicked into the trending topic and read for a while, finally understanding what was going on.
In Leisure Life, Meng Yi had been helping him with work the whole time, while he spent most of his time lounging off to the side and watching.
Some people felt he was putting on airs, using his status as a senior to pressure Meng Yi into working for him. Others thought he was deliberately bullying Meng Yi and leeching off Meng Yi’s popularity to raise his own profile.
All the speculation painted him as the villain, while Meng Yi was portrayed as a pitiful little victim being bullied.
The topic had appeared right after Leisure Life aired yesterday, and in just one night it had exploded—massively.
Everyone believed that Jiang Yu was bullying Meng Yi. Not only Meng Yi’s fans, but even some passersby joined in, starting to denounce Jiang Yu.
Judging by the heat of it, Jiang Yu caught a whiff of conspiracy.
The way this topic had blown up was a bit excessive. Even if Meng Yi was currently popular, he wasn’t popular enough for the entire internet to speak up for him.
This was clearly someone hiring paid trolls to stir things up.
This kind of tactic was very common. Jiang Yu had seen it back when he first entered the industry six years ago, but this was the first time he’d experienced something this intense.
Even though he knew someone was deliberately targeting him—and he could even guess who it was—looking at the mix of true and false abuse still made Jiang Yu’s blood pressure soar.
He might have no ambition left for the entertainment industry, but he couldn’t just be smeared like this. Besides, this kind of situation could be easily resolved as long as Meng Yi came out to clarify things.
Jiang Yu picked up his phone and called Sister Bai. The phone rang for a full minute before hanging up because no one answered.
Jiang Yu frowned and dialed again. Once again, it automatically hung up after a minute.
Sister Bai was a workaholic. Her phone was always within reach, and she even carried three power banks to make sure it never ran out of charge.
Sister Bai not answering the phone was something Jiang Yu had never encountered before.
Switching numbers, Jiang Yu called Meng Yi instead. Meng Yi was even more straightforward—his phone was off, and the call couldn’t go through.
What on earth were those two doing? Jiang Yu put his phone down and scrolled through the few contacts he had. Aside from Sister Bai and Meng Yi, the only one left who could help him was Han Cheng.
But if Ji Xu really was behind this, could Ji Xu alone create such a huge commotion? Could Han Cheng have helped with this?
After hesitating for a while, Jiang Yu decided he still had to try and dialed Han Cheng’s number.
This time, the call finally connected—but the voice on the other end wasn’t Han Cheng’s.
“Jiang Yu, you’re looking for A-Cheng?”
Ji Xu’s voice carried a smug smile. Even without seeing him, Jiang Yu could imagine the show-off expression on Ji Xu’s face.
“I’m looking for him. Please let him answer the phone.” Feeling uncomfortable, Jiang Yu’s voice grew noticeably colder.
“Sorry, A-Cheng is taking a shower. Why don’t you wait a bit? I’ll tell him once he’s done,” Ji Xu said. The sound of running water came from the other end, and his voice was thick with innuendo.
“Then I’ll call again later.” Jiang Yu rolled his eyes. What, finished fooling around and now showering? As if that was anything special.
That bastard Han Cheng—he’d seen every inch of him already. What was there to brag about?
After hanging up, Jiang Yu raked his fingers through his messy hair. Han Cheng was with Ji Xu. If this really was Ji Xu’s doing, then Han Cheng must have been involved too. He never should have made that call.
With no one else he could reach, Jiang Yu had no choice but to rely on himself and posted a clarification on his own Weibo.
[I did not use my status as a senior to bully Meng Yi, nor did I ride on his popularity. I was injured in the waist and couldn’t move.
Meng Yi and I are friends. We’ve known each other for four years. He took the initiative to help me with the work, and I’m very grateful to him. He will help clear things up for me.]
After posting it, Jiang Yu was confident that once Meng Yi explained things, the matter would be settled.
But what he didn’t expect was that an entire day passed and he still couldn’t get in touch with Sister Bai or Meng Yi, and Han Cheng never returned his call either.
As time went on, his clarification post stood there all alone, with no one backing it up—almost as if it were proof that he really had been bullying someone.
His private messages surged again. He had become a joke.
