Chapter 320: Ridiculous Trending Topic
No one deliberately promoted it, but the grand proposal ceremony still made its way online.
That night, the whole internet exploded, and Weibo nearly crashed.
“Damn it, Lu Jingyao stole my wife, Xu Youyou stole my husband, they stole my rich life, sob sob…”
“Fairy tales are all lies after all. Princes don’t like Cinderella; they all go for princesses.”
“Who said these two were just casually dating? Who said Lu Jingyao would never marry Xu Youyou? Who would pass up a billionaire heiress?”
Snarky comments from netizens poured in endlessly, but the majority were still blessings. Celebrities, whether they knew the couple or not, jumped on the bandwagon, purchasing trending hashtags to send their congratulations.
In contrast, those who didn’t offer blessings became particularly conspicuous.
Wu Yue was feeling sour as she looked at the photos and videos of the proposal ceremony online when she suddenly saw a comment: “Why hasn’t Song Zhibai sent his blessings?”
Wu Yue immediately perked up and called Gu Shuangbai’s manager.
“Song Zhibai didn’t send any congratulations for this century proposal. Buy a trending topic about it — maybe we can use this opportunity to crush him,” Wu Yue said.
Hearing this, the manager secretly thought it was bad news. Wu Yue, although she had resigned early from being Gu Shuangbai’s manager to become a senior executive in the company, never really cared about management work and was still obsessed with acting like an unofficial agent.
She kept a closer eye on every little movement in the entertainment circle than actual managers did, but she had a pure fangirl mentality — and even worse, with her executive power now, she could directly order managers around to carry out fan-like behaviors.
At first, the manager thought snatching Gu Shuangbai, a top-priority artist, from the other managers would be hugely beneficial. But now it seemed it would’ve been better to manage some unknown rookie stars — at least there wouldn’t be so many headaches.
“Chairwoman Wu, Song Zhibai is busy filming on set these days. Even if he forgot to send blessings, the studio can just issue a statement later and this will blow over. Even if the topic trends, he can simply make up for it by sending congratulations later. It’s really not a big deal, there’s no need to—”
Before the manager could finish, Wu Yue cut him off sharply:
“Even if he sends blessings later, it’ll be too late. Our trending post would have already left a deep impression on the public. Everyone will know he’s at odds with the company and see his true colors!”
The manager: …
The manager really wanted to open up Wu Yue’s head to see what nonsense was inside. A completely ordinary thing, and she acted like she was possessed.
“Chairwoman Wu, last time at the Hong Kong awards, we tried to set him up but failed and ended up disgracing ourselves. Maybe we should just let this one go. Sometimes doing nothing is better,” the manager tried to reason calmly.
But Wu Yue got angrier the more she thought about it. At the Hong Kong awards, she had gone through so much trouble trying to sabotage Song Zhibai, only for things to backfire. The Best Newcomer award that should have gone to Song Zhibai was manipulated and handed to Gu Shuangbai instead.
Song Zhibai’s manager had wisely held back from celebrating early, but because the award transfer was so obviously shady, someone stirred up controversy, and the whole internet condemned Gu Shuangbai for “buying” an award.
“Shuangbai has already been wronged enough! How can we let him continue to suffer? I don’t care, I want Song Zhibai to suffer a thousand times more than Shuangbai!” Wu Yue said.
The manager felt she was becoming increasingly extreme. He wanted to console her, but Wu Yue was already growing impatient and wouldn’t tolerate any objections.
“If you don’t want the job, there are plenty of people begging to be Shuangbai’s manager.”
The manager had no choice but to nod obediently. After all, the company would pay for the PR expenses anyway. He figured it was just another job to keep the boss’s temper under control.
However, after hanging up, the manager turned to a young assistant who had come looking for him.
“What’s Brother Gu done this time?” he asked.
This was a new assistant. The previous one, efficient and a fan of Gu Shuangbai, had resigned after a few years due to the low salary.
The new assistant was young and inexperienced — cheap to hire, but needing guidance at every turn, which was incredibly annoying.
The young assistant wore a troubled expression:
“Brother Gu took a liking to a girl. She wasn’t willing, and he asked me to drug her. I don’t dare to do that…”
The manager took a deep breath. His mind screamed, Let it all burn to the ground — who wants to deal with this crap?!
Still, thinking of the commission he was earning, he forced down his disgust. It wasn’t fear of legal consequences — it was fear that if Wu Yue found out, it would cause a massive scandal.
“If he asked you to do it, just do it. Be careful. Don’t let anyone catch you,” the manager said.
The assistant looked pained:
“That’s illegal…”
The manager, who had seen countless such incidents in the industry, brushed it off and coaxed:
“This kind of thing happens all the time. You don’t hear about it because no one gets caught.”
The assistant still shook his head:
“But… but I’ve never done anything like that…”
“First time’s the hardest. Didn’t you say you wanted a designer bag recently? Here’s the deal — I’ll tell Brother Gu to give you a bonus. Thirty thousand yuan. Deal?”
Hearing the offer, the assistant’s face immediately showed hesitation, torn between temptation and fear.
The manager pressed on:
“If your idol took a liking to her, chances are she’s a fan. She might even be thrilled to have a ‘special story’ with him.”
“She said no…” the assistant mumbled.
The manager sneered:
“She’s just pretending to resist. Trust me, you’re doing her a favor.”
The assistant reluctantly nodded.
The manager added another warning:
“Be very careful. Wu Yue must not find out.”
The manager didn’t actually want to indulge Gu Shuangbai’s behavior but figured it was better to keep him on a short leash than let him create even bigger messes.
Meanwhile, Xu Youyou only found out about the ridiculous trending topic “Song Zhibai Didn’t Send Congratulations” the next day.
Although Song Zhibai was busy filming, his manager reacted quickly and immediately posted an official response, explaining that Song Zhibai was fully immersed in filming and had no internet access in order to better prepare for his role and deliver the best movie experience to his fans.
This successfully calmed the fans. However, knowing Song Zhibai’s temper, the manager called him first thing the next morning.
“Zhibai, have you heard about it?” the manager asked cautiously.
