CH 32.1

Fatal strike.

Fang Wei saying Ruan Song cheated, was like igniting a firecracker. Everyone in the hospital room was struck into a daze by the decisive statement.

Fortunately, Yuan Yinhai’s condition wasn’t serious, and the man was saved by the doctor at his bedside.

This time, Ruan Song didn’t call him out, and merely gave up his position to Fang Wei.

When Yuan Yinhai tremblingly opened his eyes and saw Fang Wei, the man who had just came back to life immediately felt unwell again.

Might as well let him see Ruan Song instead!

Just as Feng Xiao and Ruan Song had experienced, for his own screen writing studio, Yuan Yinhai nitpicked at his students. Not only did he care about the students’ field of study, but he also looked for students who had poor family circumstances, and had no one to rely on. He chose those who were introverted, ones who originally didn’t fit in with others.

Out of an entire class of 23 students, all were twenty year olds who were at the age where they were most arrogant, and they were all pretty amazing if they were able to be admitted to A University.

If they weren’t a giant among men, then they were definitely at least one in a million1.

Yuan Yinhai couldn’t be more familiar with the pretentiousness of such children, who always felt that they were better than others in their hearts.

So, he did what he had to do. He simply sent out a signal within the class, by choosing a single target who received ‘special, preferential treatment’ and created a disparity amongst the remaining students.

Unless the target has the rare talent of getting along with the vast world, it would be very difficult for them to escape the fate of isolation and being stabbed in the back.

The frivolousness of youth that breeds ‘envy’ and ‘skepticism’ was the best protective shell for Yuan Yinhai.

After teaching in university for so many years, each student was dealt with in the same routine, without a single miscalculation.

So much so that over time, this became a part of his good reputation — that he treated all students equally and was willing to help students on the edge of society.

And the only one student whose talent was able to grow enough to convince the masses was Ruan Song.

In the past, he was once glad that Ruan Song had Fang Wei in his year, who had barely managed to catch up to Ruan Song. In class, Yuan Yinhai had a small group to check and balance Fang Wei, who was simple minded, and blindly faithful to authoritative teachers.

Yuan Yinhai had time and time again used Ruan Song to stimulate him and intensify conflicting views.

Who would have thought that he intensified such thoughts to the point of shooting himself in the foot.

Now it seems that Fang Wei was basically an impossibly stupid fool!

The other didn’t know that he was better off, always thinking that being ‘chosen’ by him was some kind of amazing deed, and insisting on always bringing up previous small advantages to the forefront!

After Yuan Yinhai learned that Ruan Song became popular, he knew that the other would definitely come back to haunt him.

He wondered whether Ruan Song would directly expose him in the live broadcast, and had also wondered whether Ruan Song would confront him with a post on Weibo.

He never would have thought that this person would actually carry a cake in front of him while acting stupid, pretending as if their master and disciple relationship was deep!

If after the first time he was angered into having a stroke, Yuan Yinhai would still have failed to understand what kind of medicine Ruan Song was hiding.

Now after the second time, he had completely recovered his senses, but it was too late. Even if he wanted to stop Fang Wei, the other basically couldn’t be stopped at all!

“Hello? Teacher Fang, are you still listening? If you have no other problems, then I’ll hang up first.” The phone call with Gu Yuzhou still continued.

Now, compared with Yuan Yinhai’s condition, it was evident that Fang Wei had a greater desire to prove his own innocence, cared more for his own reputation, and wanted to have everything be returned to its rightful owner.

He hurriedly rambled with a ‘Director Gu’ into the receiver, wanting to stop the person on the other side of the call: “Don’t hang up! Please stay on the line! I feel that there must be some kind of misunderstanding between us. ‘First-Class Doctor’ was my graduation work, and is also the work that made me famous. I was originally worried about the friendships I had between old classmates, and didn’t want to affect Ruan Song’s reputation, which is why I have never said anything. But that year, he took a story similar to ‘First-Class Doctor’ to participate in a competition and nearly didn’t graduate. How can you say that he didn’t plagiarize? And now you actually want to give my project to him?!”

The gaze of everyone in the ward anxiously and doubtfully wandered between Ruan Song and Fang Wei.

That year, Fang Wei relied on ‘First-Class Doctor’ to gain fame in one fell swoop, spreading his reputation everywhere. Everyone knew this, but Ruan Song plagiarizing him and nearly failing to graduate, when did that happen……

The nurses and doctor at the entrance of the hospital room that hadn’t had the time to leave heard such shocking gossip, and couldn’t help but stop their movements.

So much so that passing family members of other patients had already pulled out their phones at some unknown time, and began filming the situation in the hospital room.

But as the first person involved in the matter, Ruan Song looked just as ‘anxious and doubtful’ as everyone else.

Before everyone’s eyes, he appeared innocent, and his silence indicated that he didn’t know anything at all.

Gu Yuzhou’s quiet and calm voice once again could be heard from the speaker: “We really did verify the submission times of the documents that you provided. At that time, the competition that Ruan Song participated in had a very long registration period. When the registration period just began, he once submitted a document that the competition had stored in advance, and my assistant has already verified the time of submission according to standard procedures. If you would like, we can send it to you. Not only was it done before Dean Yuan edited your document, but it was also submitted before you even first created your document.”

That is to say, it was submitted even before Fang Wei began planning for his graduation project!

“If you insist that Ruan Song has plagiarized the contents from you, then according to the most direct observation of time of publication, we can entirely reverse it and suspect whether you were the one to plagiarize from Ruan Song.”

Gu Yuzhou made his final decision, and gave the last straw that broke the camel’s back: “To be honest, we actually ultimately decided to work with Ruan Song’s script completely due to this consideration.”

After all, no one can guarantee that the script written from those who have plagiarized will be clean.

When Fang Wei heard this, his voice nearly broke, and the overturned situation made the veins on his forehead bulge: “How could this be! How could I have copied Ruan Song!!”

Gu Yuzhou: “It is inconvenient for our production team to search for the concrete reason, but from the evidence that has currently been brought out, you really have no justification to criticize Ruan Song for plagiarism.”

Everyone in the hospital room had also listened for quite a while.

Sun Kaizi took the lead in breaking the deadlock, and was the first to urge from the sidelines: “Wei ah, we’re all story writers, having the label of plagiarizer is huge. You can’t just randomly toss dirty water onto someone just because you lost your project. Such a thing as ruining someone else’s profession damages one’s own moral integrity, so we can’t do it, you hear me?”

“That’s right. It’s fine if you lose this project, there will always be a next one.”

All the seniors in the industry, the classmates that have spent all their time together, all seem to want to turn big things into small things, and persuade him to get over it and forget about it: “It’s just one project. It’s not like we need this bowl of rice to eat. If worst comes to worst, we’ll call you when we get a similar project next time.”

In their industry, plagiarism really was something that was quite common.

But even so, there is still quite a large probability of errors.

Everyone understood Fang Wei’s painstaking efforts and deep love for his work, and it was normal that the other misunderstood someone for having a similar story.

But Fang Wei grasped his cellphone and was so anxious his eyes reddened: “Am I fighting for this project? Am I lacking this project? I just can’t swallow that breath of air in my chest! Why do you all believe in Ruan Song? Why is no one willing to listen when I’m speaking?!”

“But the issue is that the situation is pretty black and white right now, and they’ve already investigated it clearly for you. Ruan Song’s time of submission is earlier than yours.” Sun Kaizi hugged his arms with an entirely rational looking face as a melon eater. In reality, every single word he spoke directly poked into Fang Wei’s heart, adding fuel to the fire.

Sure enough, Fang Wei grew even more anxious, and with a taut face, turned around to look at everyone in the room: “You all don’t believe me? But you should at least believe in Dean Yuan’s words! At that time, the dean was the first person to discover it and tell me! Teacher, hurry up and defend me, and tell everyone about what happened at that time!”

In everyone’s eyes, Fang Wei, who was at the end of his rope, looked just like a naughty child making trouble unreasonably, who, after he was unable to reason with others, had to find his guardian with his hands on his hips.

The tip of Ruan Song’s eyebrow seamlessly rose upwards, then smoothly looked into the crowd to find Dean Yuan, the man laying in the hospital who had gained consciousness for the second time, and who was ‘miraculously’ still able to speak.

Now the pressure landed on Yuan Yinhai.

If there weren’t so many people watching, it was very likely that Fang Wei would directly remove the oxygen mask on Yuan Yinhai’s face, then shake the dean’s shoulders so that he can hurry and spill the actual truth of the matter to the masses.

But only god knows that Yuan Yinhai was now thinking in his heart that it was fine as long as Ruan Song didn’t go back to expose Fang Wei’s ‘plagiarism’, and he hoarsely uttered three words: “……He didn’t plagiarize.”

Fang Wei was completely dazed: “……What did you say?”

“Ruan Song didn’t plagiarize. Fang Wei, don’t be like this just because you’re jealous that I treat Ruan Song well……” In order to protect himself, Yuan Yinhai would even attempt to speak for Ruan Song’s reputation while knocking Fang Wei down a peg.

Fang Wei: “?????”

He looked over at Yuan Yinhai with complete shock, his mouth open but silent.

But Yuan Yinhai laid on the hospital bed, wishing he could simply take his last breath, then directly looked away and shut his eyes, unwilling to look at the other again.

Ruan Song stood between the pair as he joyously watched the show.

The person on the left gave a slap, while the person on the right struck back with a rod. After everything was done, he was still able to watch it all over a wall. He was imperceptibly able to transform his and Fang Wei’s problem into Fang Wei’s and Yuan Yinhai’s problem, and take advantage of the good fortune.

That is to say, the situation now was that either Fang Wei was lying, or Yuan Yinhai was lying.

It was clear at a glance as to who everyone would believe.

When Fang Wei finally realized that he had been ‘betrayed’, he planned to open his mouth to ask Yuan Yinhai how the other could treat him like this and remain partial to Ruan Song, while disregarding the facts.

Sun Kaizi suddenly came out to stop the fight.

Everyone else hadn’t even realized as to what had happened, when they saw Sun Kaizi’s small figure expend a great amount of effort to look over at Fang Wei from across the bedside, and urge: “Okay, okay, it was just a small misunderstanding. You don’t have to go that far. Just use your words, we really don’t have to fight.”

Once again, Fang Wei: “?????”

When did he want to fight!

But perhaps because of the atmosphere at that time, the onlookers didn’t doubt his words, and they began to help Sun Kaizi push Fang Wei out, as they cooperated with another round of agreement, the scene became incredibly chaotic.

Fang Wei’s face had already turned red from holding himself back.

Not only did the humiliation of being wronged bubble up into his heart, but also the feeling of unwillingness and desperate grievance of once again losing out to Yuan Yinhai’s partiality.

His turbulent mood made him appear as if he was about to turn into a ferocious beast, and the more he shouted out to defend himself, saying he didn’t want to fight, the more it looked as if he really did want to fight.

More and more people came out to stop him, until finally, a human wall nearly formed.

Several seniors who watched the farce from beginning to end stood beside Jiang Zhi and simply shook their heads, each one furrowing their brows as they sighed: “How disgraceful……”

It wasn’t until everyone cooperated and finally forced the good-for-nothing Fang Wei into a chair that Ruan Song slowly opened his mouth to respond to the situation. With eyes full of disappointment, he looked to Yuan Yinhai who laid on the hospital bed: “I thought that you told Fang Wei the truth.”

Everyone: “?”

With an oxygen mask on, Yuan Yinhai’s anxious fingers tightened around the blanket on the bed, for fear that Ruan Song really was about to reveal everything in front of so many people.

Fortunately, in the face of everyone’s questioning gaze, Ruan Song simply ‘desolately’ lowered his eyes while shaking his head, then sincerely replied: “Let’s leave it at that for today. If we continue to cause a disturbance, teacher’s body won’t be able to stand it. Thank you to all the seniors and classmates who took the time to visit the hospital. I will definitely thank each and every one of you another day, and find a time to treat everyone to a meal.”

Ruan Song even walked up to Fang Wei in the end.

Sun Kaizi’s body was shriveled up like a piece of paper, and he tensely stood beside Ruan Song to protect the other, for fear that Fang Wei really might impulsively attack and harm Ruan Song.

This action made Fang Wei, who from beginning to end had no desire to fight at all, completely speechless.

Ruan Song faced his old classmate and said: “If you are willing to invite me to join class reunions and gatherings in the future, I am still very hopeful that you will call me.”

Once these words were spoken, what else could the listeners be confused about?

Wasn’t this just clearly indicating that everyone was snubbing him and excluding him?

The netizens who had entered the live broadcast that hospital bystanders had begun streaming, had already exploded with pity and distress in the bullet screen.

[Exactly who did teacher Ruan offend to be treated like this by you guys??]

[No wonder he had to change his pen name after graduating from his Masters’ program. I’m really fucking speechless, they even wrongly accused him of plagiarizing. Wipe sweat.jpg]

[Also, it sounds like those classmates didn’t want to invite teacher Ruan to the class gatherings, just because they’re not as good as him, so they just directly excluded him and didn’t call teacher Ruan to play. How old are they? Middle schoolers?]

[I’ve been truly disgusted by Fang Wei. I can’t believe I used to think that the amazing screenwriter who was able to write ‘First-Class Doctor’ definitely wouldn’t be bad, goodbye.jpg]

[The sister above, don’t be sad too early. Now I have reasonable suspicion that Fang Wei copied teacher Ruan, and ‘First-Class Doctor’ might be teacher Ruan’s creation. Or else why would the movie producer change the screenwriter. I suggest we dig deeper, eating melons.jpg]

[Also, ‘First-Class Doctor’ is totally in the same category as the serial murderer case that they were talking about this time, a suspenseful thriller]

[Ahhhhhh, I’m really very unhappy. I might as well ask, if teacher Ruan didn’t become famous, then wouldn’t no one be willing to listen to him. As a ‘big screenwriter’, Fang Wei would’ve been able to splash dirty water on him casually!]

[No need to guess, the dirty water has been splashed long ago. I just asked a few of my friends who are in the industry, several people in the industry all know that Fang Wei doesn’t get along with Ruan Song, because in university, Fang Wei was never able to win the dean’s favor and has always harbored hard feelings. After they graduated, Fang Wei rushed to the top, and was even less willing to see teacher Ruan, and whenever there was work, he would always snatch it up]

[Fuck, isn’t it just like today? Causing a ruckus and acting completely unscrupulous, goodbye.jpg]

[It’s more than that, I estimate that teacher Ruan has been concealing his identity because he was afraid of being suppressed!! Damn, I’m so angry, ahhhhh]

After everyone swept through a wave of sudden tears, they arrived at a final conclusion.

[Exactly what kind of beautiful yet miserable script did wuli teacher Ruan get…… Wipes tears.jpg]

[Let’s just say, I completely get it now. I hope everyone doesn’t continue to dig for teacher Ruan’s past sock puppets. Those who break off another’s livelihood has no mother, prayer hands.jpg]

Yet sandwiched between these comments were also quite a number of people who raised a new perspective.

[Could it be that I’m the only one who cares about the words that teacher Ruan just said to Dean Yuan, ‘I thought that you told Fang Wei the truth’? I really feel that there’s still something fishy about this. Even though Fang Wei is stupid, I only think that he’s simple-minded, and that he’s not that good at acting]

[Me! Too! I always feel that ‘First-Class Doctor’ may have been teacher Ruan’s creation, clenches fist.jpg]

[I just feel that once teacher Ruan discovered that Fang Wei believed ‘First-Class Doctor’ was his own work, he was just a bit unhappy!!!]

[Anyway, in the future, I won’t watch the movies that Fang Wei wrote the script for, goodbye.jpg x3]

The current situation was impossible to unravel, and no one could tell exactly what had happened that year.

The old classmates in the hospital room were unaware of the disputes taking place on the internet. They only heard Ruan Song say he was willing to join their class reunions, and each was happier then the next, decisively crowding around trying to add Ruan Song’s WeChat.

Now, Ruan Song’s social status wasn’t one that small fish and shrimp like them could disrespect, and they couldn’t hug his thigh fast enough!

“Before, we all thought you switched careers, so we’ve never invited you, look at what a mess we’ve made.”

“Actually, I’ve always wanted to contact you, everyone has been quite worried about you. It’s just that we couldn’t contact you at all.”

“Song, you also shouldn’t bother about Fang Wei. He’s just like that, he cares about his reputation. One moment he’s bragging in front of us, and the next moment he’s lost his project. It’s pretty normal if he feels imbalanced at heart.”

Ruan Song added each one of them, and naturally said it was fine. He very magnanimously said ‘I don’t blame him about this matter’, then turned to glance at the sickbed, and finally decided to swallow his words back into his stomach.

He simply said that Dean Yuan was exhausted, and then escorted everyone out of the hospital room.

He didn’t forget to tell the surrounding melon eaters to put away their phones, his tone of voice courteous and polite, making it hard for others to decline.

Even when Fang Wei was finally pulled out of the hospital by his classmates, he still appeared sulking and at a loss, as if he couldn’t understand how something he had absolute certainty about could change just like that.

By the time most of the visitors in the hospital room had left, the giddy Sun Kaizi was left as the last one standing in the room.

Ruan Song raised his hand to make a fist, then thumped the other’s shoulder: “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Sun Kaizi moved his arms energetically, rubbed his hands and said to Yuan Yinhai on the hospital bed: “I acted pretty well, ge, you have developed a new talent for me. Looks like if I can’t find a male lead for my script in the future, I might as well write, direct, and act it all out myself.”

Only then did Yuan Yinhai on the bed realized with a shock that Sun Kaizi was actually colluding with Ruan Song!

He had just raised a finger with great difficulty when Sun Kaizi had already clapped his hands together, and pointed a finger back, saying with even more excitement: “Look! Our dean couldn’t tell at all! I really can do it myself, ge!”

Yuan Yinhai: “…………”

Ruan Song was immediately provoked into laughing, and he pushed the other out: “You really run your mouth too much.”

Jiang Zhi waited outside in the parking lot, and as soon as he saw them, he lowered the car window and spiritedly asked: “Did you plan this all by yourself, Xiao Song? I thought you would have used your popularity to directly tear their faces off.”

Ruan Song immediately laughed while waving his hand: “I don’t have much expertise in public relations, where would I get such an idea? According to my original plan, I was first going to prepare to wait for more evidence, prepare a lawyer’s letter, then post it onto Weibo. Ren Qinming’s manager was the one who gave me a few suggestions, a very outstanding jiejie.”

…

TN: the next part goes back to the hatching of the plan and the fallout, which we have to thank the great mastermind, lan jie for! please stay tuned ʕ•́ᴥ•̀ʔっ♡