CH 81

Chapter 81 – Mean Comment Counterattack

Just collecting human samples

“Yi?”

Looking at Fang Juexia, who had gone back to continue dancing, Ling Yi kept feeling that there was something off, but he couldn’t quite tell what, so he relayed the events that had just happened to the small eating-fluff group chat.

[Kaleido’s No.1 Big Boss: Anybody there?]

[Your Fire Ge is Still Your Fire Ge: With no 1s or 0s, the whole world is very peaceful and doesn’t need heroes.]

[National First Class Flower Hand Dance Performer: Lyrical rhyme x2]

[The Household’s Essential Good Captain: What’s up—]

[Kaleido’s No.1 Big Boss: I just showed Juexia Xiao Pei’s Weibo post. He kept looking at it, and he was actually so engrossed in it that he started smiling, did you guys know?! He actually smiled while reading it!]

[National First Class Flower Hand Dance Performer: Was it like this smile? [FakeSmileBoy.JPG]

[Kaleido’s No.1 Big Boss: No! It was a sincere smile. I even asked him, I said, “Juexia, shouldn’t you especially not support Xiao Pei being so fierce?” You guys guess what he replied with?]

[Your Fire Ge is Still Your Fire Ge: He said, “If I were a DJ, would you love me?”]

[National First Class Flower Hand Dance Performer: Hahahahahahaha!]

[Kaleido’s No.1 Big Boss: Aiya, no! He said, “Whatever he does, I will support him.” Say, has Juexia been bodily possessed by a ghost? How could he have become so….so…. Aiya, I can’t find the adjective.]

[The Household’s Essential Good Captain: Doting.]

[National First Class Flower Hand Dance Performer: Yi~]

[National First Class Flower Hand Dance Performer: He might not be bodily possessed by a ghost, but someone who is scared of ghosts might be all over his body (/s)]

[Your Fire Ge is Still Your Fire Ge: Already screenshotted.]

[The Household’s Essential Good Captain: Alright, you guys, take it easy, draw back a bit from shipping your bandmates’ CP]

Seeing the captain say something so serious, Ling Yi became a little bit afraid, not expecting his next sentence to be:

[The Household’s Essential Good Captain: Don’t start dancing around before the fans do.]

So it turns out that was what the captain was afraid of??

Pei Tingsong stayed high on the Hot Search List for two whole days. His speech, in one breath, had pretty much torn off the mask of calmness the entertainment industry habitually maintained on the surface. Unexpectedly, he also garnered a lot of support with this dispute. 

With regards to how more and more entertainment stars chose to remain “silent”, there were many netizens who had already been accumulating a lot of dissatisfaction with it from long ago. In this day and age, because saying something could get you sentenced to death, public figures had gotten into the habit of wearing masks of silence, always only uttering exquisitely decorated words that would contain absolutely no errors. For as long as they lived, they would maintain an act and never express their own views.

Pei Tingsong was like a living person who broke this puppet mask. He had no scruples in breaking this tacit rule and expressing himself in a pointed and emotional way.

Pei Tingsong’s fans were very good at dealing with people. While some especially fierce words were still making their way onto the Hot Search List, Pei Tingsong’s fans took advantage of this popularity to post a lot of clips of him from the ensemble show, especially those from when he was in the haunted house. 

[@Under the Pinot Tree Supreme, you and I: We sincerely invite you to watch the great transformation of #The World’s Middle Finger, Pei Tingsong# and #The World’s Silencer# [share video]]

Everyone rushed in with their mics open, ready to argue, but after they clicked on it and came face-to-face with the rapper who was scared of ghosts and whose voice kept getting more and more high-pitched, this gap moe made a lot of netizens turn into his fans. 

[@Pfft pfft pfft, swallowing down saliva: Hahahahaha, you’re telling me that this is the Pei Tingsong who turned on his mic to curse people out???]

[@Leopard zebra little cutie: The World’s Middle Finger persona is fake! [dog head]]

[@ 123 wooden man: Hahahahahaha I can’t even match this to him cursing out people on Weibo (P.S. The two boys are 、、matched)]

[@Diiidi: Getting away from the main point, this Ge sounds so nice talking in English ah, his accent is great]

With Pei Tingsong reaching this degree of popularity, a small company like Star Chart knew that they couldn’t control it at all. All they could do was just try their best to guide public opinion and not be used by others. However, no one dared to really attack Pei Tingsong.

Originally, Cheng Qiang was very worried that the sports brand from before would drop the deal due to Pei Tingsong opening his mic. When the news had broken out on the Hot Search List, he had called the brand merchant specially, in order to disclose all the details of the story in advance. Unexpectedly, not only was the other side not in any negative mood, they were also very satisfied.

“Isn’t the response online very good? It fits perfectly, our series also focuses on this kind of young and flamboyant style. Pei Tingsong is very consistent with our style, and there’s also Fang Juexia. One of them is calm while the other is flamboyant, and there’s contrast there. They can represent two different types of young people, it’s very good.”

Cheng Qiang was relieved. Being the agent of a ticking time bomb really wasn’t easy. 

On the day of the advertisement’s shooting, Cheng Qiang drove them to the filming location. Fang Juexia got in the car and looked out of the window. The parasol tree in the boulevard had, at some point, already grown to cover up half of the sky. Busy people lacked perception of time, and just so imperceptibly, summer was on the brink of arriving.

“At the end of today’s work, you guys can take a break for a while. After that, there will be some more fragmentary events.” Cheng Qiang started the car. “Boss means to strive to release a mini-album for you guys in the summer.”

“Are we going to the Maldives or not?” Pei Tingsong asked. 

Fang Juexia couldn’t help but start to laugh. “Have you become Ling Yi’s spokesman now?”

“Shh, shh, shh.” Cheng Qiang put on his seat belt and said, “The last episode for the ensemble show will be in the Maldives, and we’re only filming for the first two days. You guys can have fun however you like the days after, we won’t follow you to film it.”

“Really? So cool.” Pei Tingsong took advantage of the situation to hug Fang Juexia’s shoulder and said, “Then I want to stay in the same room as Juexia Ge.”

Cheng Qiang glared at him. “You dislike me, don’t you? I haven’t even settled accounts with you for up and vanishing that other day!”

At the mention of this matter, Fang Juexia felt embarrassed and looked out of the window.

Pei Tingsong was cheeky and said with a smile, “What’s the matter? How old am I, and you’re still dispatching people to follow me around every day ah.”

Speaking of this, Fang Juexia thought of something.

“By the way, I keep feeling a little strange lately.”

“What’s strange?” Cheng Qiang drove out of the neighborhood.

Pei Tingsong loosened his hold on his shoulder and sat down by himself, looking at Fang Juexia’s face. He just saw his brow slightly furrow. “I don’t know if I’m being neurotic. I keep feeling that someone has been following me recently, but when I look back, there’s no one there.”

Hearing him say that he was being neurotic, Pei Tingsong immediately said, “Don’t underestimate a human’s ability to predict danger. Sometimes it’s very accurate, and this doesn’t count as some sort of neurosis.” Having said that, he was also a little fidgety and continued, “The recent stalker fans have really been a little disgusting, they must have also followed you.”

“Do you feel it at the dorm?” Cheng Qiang asked.

Fang Juexia shook his head. “Just on the way back to the dormitory, or near the company. And it’s just been there for the past two days, I didn’t have a feeling like that before.”

“After the advertisement is done, rest well in the dormitory for a few days, or go out to have fun.” Cheng Qiang said, “For the time being, don’t come regularly to the company anymore. You should rest anyway, you’ve been working continuously for too long.”

Looking at Fang Juexia nodding calmly, Pei Tingsong wanted to hug him.

He was clearly not afraid of the heavens or the earth, but now it seemed that he really had a weakness. If someone even lightly touched it, he would be miserable.

The theme of the ad being shot was “Publicize the True Self”. What they needed to show off were the new summer products of the brand’s youth series. They would need to shoot four versions of the TV ad, as well as shoot photos for a full series of print ads. Of course, this also included some gags and material videos for the publicity period.

As soon as they arrived at the filming location, Cheng Qiang met the marketing director he had met before. The other party waved to them from a distance. When he greeted them, he was very warm. “You arrived so early, the roads weren’t jammed ba?”

“Wasn’t that just us being afraid of being stuck on the second ring road? I simply hauled them both up early in the morning to avoid that.”

The director said with a smile, “Right, I have something to discuss with you guys. The publicity video we agreed on was a quick survey, which meant some quick Q&A with you guys. Later, our higher-ups said that this seemed to be the same as that magazine shoot from before, and they hoped we could change it. Our marketing team held a meeting all night, and combining things with some hot current events, came up with a new plan. You guys look, if it’s acceptable, we’ll just…”

He handed them the plan, one for each of them. Fang Juexia looked down and flipped through it, and the first line of small words attracted his attention — read mean comments and give a response.

“Of course, this isn’t something acceptable to every star, so it is only one of our plans. There’s a little game ‘never have I ever’ in the back, which can be used as an alternative.”

As soon as he saw “mean comments”, Cheng Qiang looked at Fang Juexia. He knew that Pei Tingsong didn’t care, but Fang Juexia had suffered too much online abuse before.

Fang Juexia turned the page and looked up. He saw Cheng Qiang looking at himself, so he laughed. “What’s the matter, Qiang Ge?”

“Ah, nothing, do you think it’s okay?”

He also didn’t know why, but it felt to him that Fang Juexia had already gotten rid of the source for his sensitive feelings by now. It was probably that his frame of mind was different now, and he was much more mature than before.

“I can do it.” Saying that, he looked at Pei Tingsong. “It’s not just me here ah.”

If Pei Tingsong said he wasn’t worried inside, he’d be lying, but he also knew that if Fang Juexia really didn’t like it, he would refuse outright. He wasn’t a man to swallow his anger. On the contrary, he was very brave.

“Alright ah, let’s do it together.”

Seeing that they had readily agreed, the marketing director was relieved that the scheme he had worked on all night had not been abandoned. He explained, “In fact, we have screened all these mean comments, and there are no extreme ones. If you guys still aren’t at ease, we can show them to you first.”

Fang Juexia said with a smile, “That’s not necessary. If we do it that way, there won’t be any surprise when we read it again.”

The marketing director was a bit surprised to hear him say that. 

He had expected Fang Juexia, who had been harassed by online abuse before, to resolutely reject this proposal. Unexpectedly, he was so easy to convince, and also agreed to cooperate so smoothly.

Throughout the process of filming the advertisement, Fang Juexia and Pei Tingsong changed into six sets of the new products, with their venue changing again and again as  they filmed from morning to dusk. The whole team was very professional, and the stylists matched the series of clothes and shoes they wore based on their two distinct personal characteristics, all in order to maximize and highlight them. 

The photographer constantly praised the two people’s expressiveness, even giving a high evaluation of “no wasted film”. However, Fang Juexia was as always, bowing and thanking everyone for their hard work. 

Even if there were many people holding him up now, he would not forget the contemptuous looks they had suffered on their path here. As long as he remembered it, he would feel like his feet were still firmly planted on the ground, not floating up in the air, still in this world.

“Done! And there’s still the last publicity video, the two of you have worked hard.”

Fang Juexia was wearing a lake blue tracksuit jacket over a raglan short-sleeved T-shirt on top, which had the words ‘Feel Me’ on the front, and lake blue shorts and light blue shoes below.

From the distance, he looked like a tall dawn redwood, beautiful, precious, and full of vitality.

Pei Tingsong looked at him from behind, not being able to even move his eyes away. The loose fabric of the shorts swayed in the wind, enclosing a pair of pale long legs that almost glowed, the tight muscles of which were evenly spread across as they tightened and loosened with his every movement. 

Fang Juexia’s ankles were particularly beautiful, with slightly convex sides, round anklebones, and thin ankles that could be grasped, and when his heel pulled upward, he gave off the feel of being a teenager. 

“The two of you sit in front of this camera here, right.”

In the absence of a host, they had to control the scene by themselves. The staff put the comment cards on the table in front of them, a small stack in front of each of them. The cards were black, with comments from antis written on them, one comment per card. 

Fang Juexia picked up a card and announced the opening lines to the camera with no expression on his face. “Reading the mean comments challenge, start.”

Pei Tingsong bumped his shoulder. “Hey, you manage your expression a bit.”

Fang Juexia turned to look at him and rubbed his cheeks. “Do I have too much expression?”

Pei Tingsong took the card in his hand and swatted his chin with it a bit. “I mean, please have more expression. Otherwise, I’ll feel sorry for the anti-fans who wrote these comments. They, after all, really, seriously hate us.”

“Oh.” Fang Juexia looked down at the card and frowned very hard to show that he was paying attention. Pei Tingsong rubbed his head. “You’re really obedient.”

Fang Juexia glared at him and removed his hand .

Pei Tingsong almost couldn’t help laughing. Really, he has more of a temper towards me than towards the anti fans. 

“I’ll go first.” He picked up the first black card and read, “Am I the only one who thinks Pei Tingsong is really stupid?”

Fang Juexia didn’t know why, but when he heard him read it, he thought it was funny and couldn’t help laughing out loud.

“Look at your reaction. People who don’t know would think you wrote it.”

The smile on Fang Juexia’s face didn’t recede. “Yes ah, real evidence within the group.”

Pei Tingsong threw the card aside and replied, “Right, it’s only you. You are electricity, you are light, you are the only garbage, woo.” Then he complained, “That’s it? That’s it? Let’s have something that is actually fierce ba. “

Fang Juexia took out one. His voice didn’t change much, and he even sounded like a robot reading a manuscript.

“Fang Juexia is so fond of hyping his good-at-math persona. Why is he an idol ah, the entertainment industry doesn’t need high intelligence. If you don’t always pretend to be a math teacher, do you feel bad?”

After reading it, he seriously thought about it before giving a response, “In fact, I really have a teacher’s qualification certificate. If we didn’t get popular, I was preparing to return to my hometown to teach.” After saying that, he didn’t lose heart and gave a thumb’s up towards the camera. “You’re a great prophet.”

Pei Tingsong was amused by his family’s beautiful baby. He looks down at the black card in his hand with a smile. No, he needed to steady himself.

After clearing his throat, Pei Tingsong continued, “I really don’t know how PTS this garbage debuted? Don’t you just have some money? He’s already the second generation of a wealthy family, why come harm the entertainment industry ah? Go and inherit your family property ah.”

Pei Tingsong took the card and knocked it on the table. “Since the netizens are so happy to answer their own questions, there’s nothing for me to say. But I don’t have ‘some’ money.” He tossed the card. “I have boatloads of money.”

He was terrifying. Fang Juexia shook his head, drew out a mean comment card and read it out easily. 

“Fang Juexia is the artist I’ve seen with the least amount of variety. He’s dull and boring and doesn’t even feel like a human being. He’s just like an assembly line commodity without a soul. For a period of time, I suspected that he was mute, and I couldn’t understand why someone would like this kind of icy cold idol?”

A bellyful of anger blazed within Pei Tingsong with these words. The people online didn’t understand Fang Juexia at all; they just evaluated him from their own imaginary point of view, and it was subjective and full of prejudice.

Fang Juexia put down the card with both hands and thought seriously for a while. “Why do people like me?

“From the analysis of the comments online, most of them tend to have one answer: because I look pretty attractive.”

That was the truth.

Hearing this, Pei Tingsong started laughing, his anger from before swept away. Fang Juexia was just Fang Juexia. It would be best if he was the only one in the world to see this person’s so good and so fresh side, so that he could have one less enemy and keep it all for himself. 

With this in mind, Pei Tingsong drew out a new one. “I’m most annoyed by Pei Tingsong, this kind of irascible celebrity. What straightforward is he pretending to be, it’s like he can’t curse people out without using dirty words. However much money you earn is how much you have to suffer, understood? Who made you want to be a celebrity, you make so much money as a celebrity, so will you die if you have a little less privacy ah.”

These words were really quite ugly, and Fang Juexia knew Pei Tingsong too well. Just as he was ready to stick up his middle finger, Fang Juexia grasped his finger, pulled it to his side, and held on to it tightly.

With his middle finger taken prisoner, Pei Tingsong felt that his performance had been limited. He pulled twice, but Fang Juexia didn’t release it. He could only give it up, let him continue holding it, click his tongue twice, and then repeat a sentence from the mean comment’s text. ”…However much money you earn is how much you have to suffer.” He raised an eyebrow. “I was born with so much money that I can’t spend it in several lifetimes. What ‘suffer’?

“And your logic is more confusing than the relationship diagram for Aquaman’s fishing grounds.”

Fang Juexia looked at him and asked seriously, “What is Aquaman?”

“Aquaman is a superhero, and his super power is fishery management.” Pei Tingsong also put on a serious look when telling him that. 

Really? Fang Juexia, a young man who was usually offline, kept feeling as though this explanation was strange. 

After saying that, Pei Tingsong continued, “People like you who have nothing to do but talk a lot of nonsense every day and think that everyone in the world is drunk but you alone are sober, are essentially pessimistic and defective logical thinkers. You use your narrow ideas to create the illusion of self consistency that aids you in meeting your own emotional needs.

“Because of your failures in life, you can’t establish good social relationships, and you can’t get positive emotional feedback in life, so you need to vent your negative emotions. You also try to find a reasonable excuse for your venting, so you point the finger at people online, especially at stars, because stars can’t bite back like dogs biting dogs back. You may not be beneficial to society even if you live on. Read some more books ba. Reading will never create garbage.”

Hearing his tirade, where he managed to curse people out without using any dirty words, Fang Juexia’s first reaction was actually to patch up his logic by saying, “No, he’s useful to society.”

Pei Tingsong looked at him with an ‘excuse me’ expression, but unexpectedly, Fang Juexia continued solemnly, “It’s useful as a sample of the diversity of human thinking. The sample has the value of being observed and providing a conclusion.”

People’s social activities in this life were just for the sake of collecting human samples.

Pfft. Pei Tingsong chuckled.

This guy was so smartly cute even when adding on knives. 

Fang Juexia picked up another one and read it out loud, “The entertainment industry now is filled with so many evil-doers; are the former anti-materials about the hidden rules washed clean so quickly? Every generation is worse than the next.”

When Pei Tingsong heard the words “hidden rules”, he felt as though they pierced his ears. He really didn’t feel good, but unexpectedly, Fang Juexia remained calm. He still held onto Pei Tingsong’s middle finger in one hand as he held the card in his other hand and tapped it on the table.

“I’ve explained it before, and I can explain it again. The hidden rules issue is a rumor. Please bear in mind that no matter what evil mask you’re wearing online, everyone is human and cannot escape legal responsibility.”

The staff in the back were a little surprised. Everyone said that Pei Tingsong was a tough master, but unexpectedly, Fang Juexia, who looked gentle and didn’t speak much, could also be so direct.

Today, Fang Juexia also finally discovered that he had already matured. In the past, he used to treat these malicious lingering rumors by staying far away from them, just like he would in the case of allergens. But now, he could already accept the possibility of being disliked.

In front of the camera, he put down the card and added, “I’ve already remembered your ID. I’ll give it to the legal department of the company in five minutes.”