CH 3

The last bit of stock in the fridge had finished. Liang Xincheng changed into an unremarkable sweater, put on a hat and mask and went out, planning to go to the supermarket in the commercial center not far from his residence.

He could have asked his assistant to do the shopping for him, but after being idle at home for a few days, he wanted to get some fresh air and didn’t intend to bother others.

There were many people in the mall on the weekend, so Liang Xincheng lowered the brim of his hat even more and went into Starbucks to buy a cup of coffee.

When ordering, someone came from behind and asked the clerk for tissues. Hearing the familiar voice, Liang Xincheng subconsciously turned his head to meet Xia Yuanhang’s gaze.

Xia Yuanhang frowned slightly when he unexpectedly saw him. Liang Xincheng nodded at him and turned around, intending to pretend not to know each other since they had no personal relationship anyway.

Though, after ordering, Xia Yuanhang unexpectedly called him: “Let’s talk a little, it won’t take you long.”

Xia Yuanhang didn’t come alone, but with a few friends. Instead of taking Liang Xincheng to the group of friends, he found a table in another corner and sat down.

Liang Xincheng took off his mask and absentmindedly took a sip of coffee. When he met Xia Yuanhang’s scrutinizing eyes across the table, he asked him: “What do you want to talk about?”

“You’ve gone out of line enough with Ding Yao’s matter. Stop it, ba. Let’s be easy with him and forgive him..”

Liang Xincheng raised his eyebrows unexpectedly: “Ding Yao is your friend? I thought you were not a nosy person.”

“We are in the same company. He’s just a newcomer, he can’t get in your way. So why do you have to bully and bite him?”

“Oh,” Liang Xincheng trailed off, not hiding the sneer in his tone, “He’s just a newcomer, but he robbed me of resources by relying on the background. And yet I’ve become the one who’s bullying him.”

“And how do you know he didn’t get the role by his own ability?”

Liang Xincheng smiled with unknown meaning: “Do you believe this yourself? Then again, what is his background? Even you yourself are willing to help speak for him? ”

“Buying water armies to fabricate unwarranted black materials and smear your opponent all over the internet, do you really think there is no problem at all with doing that?”

Liang Xincheng didn’t think so: “The first one who broke the rules was him, I just returned the favor.”

Xia Yuanhang’s eyes darkened. He probably couldn’t communicate with Liang Xincheng. After a moment of silence, he said ‘Do what you like but don’t bully people too much’ before getting up to leave.

Liang Xincheng was no longer in the mood to go to the supermarket and went straight home.

As soon as he entered the house, he received a WeChat message from Liu Fan, asking if he was with Xia Yuanhang, saying that a passerby had photographed them and posted them on Weibo. Liang Xincheng briefly explained two sentences before clicking on Weibo to take a look. Indeed, someone photographed him and Xia Yuanhang drinking coffee together. The person who took the picture picked a good angle. The pictures were also specially edited, together with adding filters, making the atmosphere look really good.

There were a lot of people who had fun with the photos, but no one could see the saber rattling hidden behind the seemingly lively conversation.

Some fans even speculated whether he was in a bad mood because of the events of the past few days so Xia Yuanhang specially accompanied him to drink coffee to comfort him. Liang Xincheng almost laughed out loud. If he had a trumpet account, he might give it a like.

Fans’ associative power was very admirable, but probably no one would have thought that aside from the mutual following on Weibo, he and Xia Yuanhang would not have any other contact methods, let alone the so-called personal relationship.

The dispute between him and Ding Yao was not over yet. In the afternoon, Shengxing issued a statement and a lawyer’s letter on the company’s official Weibo, suing several influential marketing accounts for slander and defamation, saying that they would settle the matter through legal channels.

The director of the film also posted on Weibo, debunking the rumor that there was no behind the scene corporation to replace the lead actor. Instead, they just chose the most suitable candidate. They released the video of Ding Yao’s audition at the time.

Liang Xincheng clicked on it. The video was not long, only five or six minutes. Ding Yao, who had changed into his costume and put on makeup, was very different from the photo on Baidu. He originally thought that Ding Yao could not play the role, but as soon as the main character in the video opened his mouth, he knew he had lost. Even though Ding Yao’s look and temperament did not fit the original role as good as his, his sense of integration into the character and his line skills were better than him.

Perhaps he should be grateful that the director gave him face and did not release his audition video together for comparison.

As soon as this video came out, it was another round of bloodbath. Even though Liang Xincheng’s fans were still very aggressive, biting down on him for playing tricks to steal the role, there were more and more onlookers who had seen the video and thought that Ding Yao was actually not bad. Moreover, Ding Yao had been blackened a bit badly in major forums in these two days, but there was no substantial evidence at all. So, more and more people thought that Liang Xincheng’s team probably was the one who brought the rhythm to throw dirty water on Ding Yao. Hence, public opinion was no longer one-sided.

Liang Xincheng didn’t care about these things. He watched the video more than ten times in just a few minutes, and unconsciously pulled a wry smile from the corner of his mouth. What Xia Yuanhang said kept replaying in his mind, ‘And how do you know he didn’t get the role by his own ability?’. He was indeed too self-righteous.

The sudden ringing of his cell phone interrupted Liang Xincheng’s thoughts. Seeing the name displayed on the screen, he immediately became alert. He turned off the video and pressed the answer button, greeting in a respectful voice: “President, hello.”

The man’s slightly cold voice came: “Are you in the company now?”

“I’m at home, what do you want?”

“Come to the company.”

Yu Mingxiu was the big boss of his company, and Liang Xincheng had to listen to what he said, so he changed his clothes and went out immediately. In half an hour, he appeared in the company’s president’s office.

When he came in, Yu Mingxiu was teasing the goldfish in the glass fish tank in the corner, slightly tilting his waist and bending his upright figure in a nice arc. His side profile lines outlined a tough aura.

Liang Xincheng stopped at a distance from him and greeted him calmly.

There were so many rumors about the ambiguity between him and Yu Mingxiu in the outside world that even his manager misunderstood that they really had something going on.

Yu Mingxiu was indeed a very attractive man. He looked young and promising, but he was too unreachable for Liang Xincheng. He was grateful to Yu Mingxiu. He helped him climb from the inconspicuous film actor to today’s position. But the deal between him and Yu Mingxiu was just that he cooperated with Yu Mingxiu to play the role he needed and Yu Mingxiu would help him in his career, that was all.

Yu Mingxiu stood up straight after feeding the fish, looking at Liang Xincheng and asking him: “I heard people say that you had a very unpleasant quarrel with Shengxing’s people these days because of a role in Deng Peng’s movie?”

Deng Peng was the director who posted a Weibo to support Ding Yao. Liang Xincheng never thought that Yu Mingxiu would be so interested in his own affairs that he called him to the company to ask about it. Although he didn’t understand the reason, he still answered honestly: “Originally we were about to sign a contract, but the film crew suddenly backtracked and the role was replaced by the newcomer from Shengxing, Ding Yao. Liu-ge and I wanted to see if we could use the public opinion to get it back, but things went wrong.”

Their company also invested in Deng Peng’s film, so Liang Xincheng had the opportunity to audition at the beginning, but the company didn’t seem to care much about this project. He was on his own when the role was set. Later, his role was robbed of him but the company still didn’t do much. He and Liu Fan were both struggling.

Liu Fan asked him to speak to Yu Mingxiu. But actually, between him and the President, the President had always contacted him unilaterally. Even when he was needed, he didn’t have much say in it.

“You really caused me a lot of trouble,” Yu Mingxiu casually threw the fishing net to the side and walked back to the table to take off the coat from the hanger: “Come with me to dinner.”

Liang Xincheng subconsciously asked: “What dinner?”

Yu Mingxiu glanced at him with a half-smile: “To see the President of Shengxing and Ding Yao, you have offended the wrong person, you have to apologize in person.”