Jiang Shuxuan hooked the last button, and lowered his eyes. The deep obsidian eyes were void of emotion, his figure tall and slender, and his back straight. He raised his eyes, and coldly said, “Get out.”
Jiang Tong stood in the same spot, pursing her lips while looking at him. She refused to move.
She wasn’t tall, and her figure was petite and thin, it was hard to imagine that such a small girl held a strong power in her body. She stubbornly stayed where she was, opening her mouth to ask, “I said, you’re obviously here, why won’t you meet with me?”
It seemed that she had started to rarely see him since the beginning of this year. Last time, it was difficult enough to get the news that he had returned to the Jiang family house. She had called the Jiang family house right after she exited the trial tower, but he never took the call. And now, she had broken away from her reserved and aloof mask, rushing over here from the ancient martial arts world, and he still wanted to avoid seeing her?
Why wouldn’t he want to see her? Jiang Tong didn’t understand. There were so many other people in the ancient martial arts world that yearned for her, and she was now at his side, but he didn’t want her.
Seeing that she was not leaving, Jiang Shuxuan didn’t bother saying anything further. He rolled up his sleeves and walked out the door in big strides, heading for the entrance. His face looked like a perfect expression that was carved from marble, only it was too cold and stiff which made others not dare to look at him directly.
“Jiang Shuxuan!” Jiang Tong had seen Jiang Shuxuan ignore her, and she reached out to grab his wrist. Before she managed to touch him, pain shot up her hands. She snatched her hand back and took a step back, looking at him with an incredulous expression on her face. There was even a hint of tears flickering in her bright, clear eyes.
Jiang Shuxuan ignored Jiang Tong and strode downstairs. A crowd of people had already started gathering outside the Jiang house. When the crowd saw Jiang Shuxuan, they all straightened up higher. Although they were standing in a uniform manner, there was no hiding the fanatical worship that gleamed in their eyes when they looked at the man.
A girl soon walked out after him from the house, she was pretty and young, attracting the attention of the gathered people outside once again.
They all knew who Jiang Tong was without any introduction.
The Jiang branch families were never placed in high regards in terms of talents, and they were normally engaged to deal with the more complicated matters on the outside. No one expected a monster like Jiang Tong to appear from nowhere suddenly, defeating all the other people in the same generation as her in her first family competition. She then went on to be promoted and entered into the Youth Ranking List which took place once every three years.
Her strength was publicly recognized, and she was also the girl that was closest to Jiang Shuxuan’s power.
“Miaoxue, look at that smug look on Jiang Tong’s face!”
Murong Miaoxue was dressed in her usual fiery red dress, her face beautiful and fair, only the arrogance that was usually on her face was absent.
Hearing the words from the people around her, Murong Miaoxue’s lips curled up slightly. She looked towards the two people, although they were walking together, Jiang Shuxuan and Jiang Tong were separated by a distance of at least one meter. Back then, she was only filled with jealousy, seeing Jiang Tong being able to stay by Jiang Shuxuan’s side all the time, and had never noticed this distance between them. Jiang Tong had never appeared any closer than one meter to Jiang Shuxuan!
Murong Miaoxue’s eyes were frosty as she smiled faintly, thinking of Gu Xiqiao. “Don’t worry, the day where she cries will come soon.”
She was really anticipating the day that Jiang Tong would meet Gu Xiqiao.
Jiang Tong’s eyes happened to land on Murong Miaoxue at this time, and she looked at her face, a feeling of jealousy burning inside her. Apart from a prettier face, Murong Miaoxue couldn’t compare to her at all, whether in terms of talents or strength, she completely dominated her in all aspects. But even with just a single aspect that outshone her, Jiang Tong couldn’t help the jealousy in her.
Murong Miaoxue flashed her a cold smirk, before turning her head, ignoring Jiang Tong.
***
Gu Xiqiao was in Nine Heavens the next day, and Yu Ning stood in front of her. He gave her a bag of… something, smiling as he said, “Thankfully, we didn’t let you down.”
The bag held the post-production of the movie that Gu Xiqiao had entrusted to him. All the master hackers in the lab had banded together to make it, using the high-tech products in the company was way ahead of the entire world.
“Thanks, you’ve worked hard.” Gu Xiqiao said, reaching out to take it.
Yu Ning placed both hands on the table, bringing his face in front of her, his eyes sparkling brightly, “It was very hard work, do you feel like giving us another decryption route, as an extra compensation to us?”
Gu Xiqiao looked at him with an indifferent expression. “Then what’s the point in me hiring you guys?”
“… Let’s have a discussion then, I don’t want another decoding route. Tell me, what’s your view on the virtual world?”
“The virtual world?” Gu Xiqiao looked down as she pondered over the question seriously, and replied with a solemn expression, “To be honest, I don’t understand much of it. The source code is too obscure, for it to be able to hold a three-dimensional space and the human consciousness is already unbelievable. I’ve been studying it all this while, Yu Ning, and it’s been very tiring and difficult.”
It was rare to see her so serious, and Yu Ning believed her words. “Then let me know if you find anything from your research.”
“Of course. I’ll be going to meet with Director Cheng then.” Gu Xiqiao said, smiling, before taking the bag and leaving.
The system spirit circled around Yu Ning’s head, sympathy in its eyes. “Mentally retarded children are really pitiful, you really believe what Beauty Qiao just said.”
After a long while of turning her words over his head, Yu Ning suddenly remembered how easily Gu Xiqiao had given him the decryption route every time, and she never once had the look of it being a difficult task to do.
She’s been studying it all this while? And it’s very tiring and difficult?! Only her?!
Yu Ning finally realized that Gu Xiqiao had led him on by his nose and had cheated him! He! Had! Been! Cheated!
Luo Wenlang, who had rushed over when he got word that Gu Xiqiao was around, gave a light glare when he only found Yu Ning in the office. … Useless! So useless!
Yu Ning: …
WTF, how was this even his fault?!
***
“Beauty Qiao, the director of Xiao Yun’s movie is going to die from his anxiety and panic.” The system spirit said, while sitting in the passenger seat.
Gu Xiqiao was driving her little pink car. A beautiful girl and a sleek car, the rate of heads turning around to look at her was 100%. “How is Xiao Yun?”
“She’s super calm, saying that it’s bad now, but eventually it’ll blow up anyway and become popular.” The system spirit tilted its head. “It’s the director, he hates you from the bottom of his heart right now.”
“… How many additional followers does Xiao Yun have on Weibo now?” Gu Xiqiao asked after a pause.
“About three to four million.” With a flick from the system spirit’s finger, a transparent panel with Xiao Yun’s Weibo appeared in front of her.
Three to four million, it was about there now. No matter how much more this matter blew up, they wouldn’t get any more fans. “Let’s head over to Xiao Yun first, then to Director Cheng.” Gu Xiqiao happily decided.
‘Well, the two of them are in for a surprise this afternoon then,’ The system spirit thought.
***
Speaking of Xiao Yun, after their production crew had released the updated version of the day’s episode, they received an unprecedented attack from the netizens.
It was all because of the change in cast, and Peng Zixian’s company had not issued any statement on it, and only her manager had posted an insinuating Weibo post. To sum up her post, there were three main points to it, acting beaten down, sullying Xiao Yun’s name, and garnering attention for her own Weibo.
Peng Zixian had a lot of fans, and although most of them were only fans of her face, due to her usual perfect image, she still received a lot of praise. Adding on the fact that she had recently become more popular, she also gained a lot more fans who watched the web drama.
So when Peng Zixian’s manager posted such a Weibo, the large number of fans turned into keyboard warriors. Part of them were Peng Zixian’s loyal fans, while the other part of them were keyboard warriors who spewed all kinds of so-called righteous things like compassion, duty, propriety and integrity. Poor Xiao Yun who was not as well known was faced with countless slanders on Weibo.
“Hehe, I thought that she was an ambitious newbie, but I never expected her to be so disgusting!”
“Our Zixian is gone, why don’t you just die, Xiao Yun?”
“I’m not a fan of Peng Zixian, but I still like the drama that she plays in.”
“Peng b*tches, don’t come to the Weibo of our Treasure Yun to make trouble!”
“In this situation, it’s time to call @ For a Millenium”
“Do all of Xiao Yun’s fans have shit for brains? How can you guys like a star with such a bad personality?!”
“The kind of fans that a star has says a lot about the star!”
“I’d just like to say, I’m a fan of the original work, but I also think that Xiao Yun’s acting skills are good…”
“…”
Empire Under Siege had yet to be released, and Xiao Yun’s poor one million fans were indeed loyal, but their combat effectiveness against Peng Zixian’s fans and other random netizens were completely incomparable.
It wasn’t only Xiao Yun’s Weibo that was filled with slander, even the official crew’s Weibo was filled with them. Seeing the terrifying number of comments increasing, the director of the web drama started to panic.
He went to find Xiao Yun at this time. “Xiao Yun, your friend said that there wouldn’t be any problems, but look at the comments! If this goes on, our crew will be done for!”
The director felt like his hair was going to go white at this rate. The web drama was initially supposed to be directed by another famous director, but he had to go America temporarily, so he painstakingly used up his life savings to buy the copyright for this drama, and it had been smooth in the beginning. Later, when Peng Zixian came in, he had been a little excited when he found out about her identity. With someone like her in the crew, it would open a lot of doors for them. Everyone in the entertainment circle knew Peng Zixian’s identity, after all.
The director had dreamed of winning the best award, and he didn’t even have time to smile in his dreams before Gu Xiqiao came to inform him that Peng Zixian would no longer be acting in it. At that time, he didn’t feel like Gu Xiqiao was a person to be provoked, and had changed the cast.
Gu Xiqiao had also promised him that nothing would happen, and he didn’t expect that just three days from then, when a new episode was aired that it would cause such a big disturbance.
All the comments on Weibo were scolding the production crew.
The director was starting to regret, the impact of this incident was so big, it must be someone from the Peng family behind the scenes, causing a big uproar. If he knew this would happen, he wouldn’t have agreed to what Gu Xiqiao had said!
He had thought that Gu Xiqiao was some big shot, and had been convinced by her words. And at that point of time. It did seem like it.
“Director, isn’t this better? It’s helping give the crew free advertising.” Xiao Yun was diligently memorizing her lines, completely uncaring about the slanders about herself.
Seeing her laidback expression, the director got angry. “Of course it’s easy for you to say, this crew isn’t yours. If you lose the role in this drama, your friend can easily find another one for you. But this is my only chance, and I’ve invested everything I have in this, do you even understand?!”
This is his only chance for a comeback, he wouldn’t allow any mistakes at all. He had fawned over Peng Zixian along the way, and Tang Enterprise, and even Gu Xiqiao, wasn’t it because he wanted the drama to have more attention and publicity?
However, it seems that he had made a wrong step somewhere, and he was about to lose everything! He was dissatisfied! So dissatisfied!
Why did he believe Gu Xiqiao’s words then? How could he so easily believe in a stranger’s words?!
“Director, what other plans do you have right now?” Xiao Yun said, lowering her manuscript. “At this time, everything said will be wrong either way. It’s better to just make a good film, and get less criticism.”
If we talk about being unlucky, was there anyone else who was more unlucky than Xiao Yun? The slander against the crew wasn’t even one third of what she received, and she was still calm about the entire thing, unlike the director.
What she said wasn’t wrong, they had already changed the cast, what else could they say now? The director sat down in front of the camera, a gloomy and depressed expression on his face. His face darkened.
“Again, again!” When the director was in a bad mood, he would start to take it out on the rest of the crew.
The members in the crew also didn’t dare to protest when he was like this, they just swallowed down the anger in their hearts, thinking from the bottom of their hearts, do they still wanted to stay in this crew? It had already been smeared to this point. If Tang Enterprise withdrew due to this matter, then all of their efforts would be wasted.
These wild thoughts were all in their minds as they started up the shoot again, but they were interrupted suddenly by a clear voice from the person at the door, “The scene is already well done, why would you shoot from the top again?”
The voice was very recognizable, and the director knew who it was immediately. Even though he was extremely dissatisfied with Gu Xiqiao, he didn’t dare to let it show on his face. But he didn’t talk with the initial caution that he had in the beginning either. “Miss Gu.”
He tried to show a smile on his face, but his tone was still forced.
Gu Xiqiao didn’t care much for it, giving him a smile. “Come now, it’s just one buffoon acting out, does that make it worth to have such expressions on your entire crew?”
Only Xiao Yun looked calm, and Gu Xiqiao rubbed her chin in thought. When Peng Zixian’s manager had posted that Weibo, she had already known and didn’t make any move to stop it, in order for Xiao Yun to garner more fans. She knew that she could easily clear up the matter if she handled it personally, but it seems like her method had scared the director?
Gu Xiqiao looked at the director again, chuckling lightly as she took out her phone to type something, before talking to the director, “Sorry, let’s do it this way then. I’ll give you three proposals, how do you intend to regain face?”