Chapter 56 - I’ve got this Celebrity’s back (16)
Chapter 56: I’ve got this Celebrity’s back
“President Mu…?”
The visitor didn’t have long to take in the scene. Gu Xi frowned. He couldn’t think a reason for Mu Jinchu’s to come here, but for some reason there came an ominous premonition in his heart.
“You guys–”
Feeling a bit like he had broken into some grave matter, Mu Jinchu adjusted his collar out of nervous habit. While he hesitated for a moment between rescuing his darling nephew and pretending to have taken a wrong turn somewhere and gotten lost, his baby nephew had already poked his head out from between Gu Xi’s arms.
Seeing him standing at the door, Lu Deng was stunned. His sleek black eyes opened round in surprise, “Uncle…”
His identity in the world was a temporary one. Normally, no relative or backers were allowed. He can only rely on his own skills to find solutions. He never thought that one of his family elders would appear in his mission world.
Hearing how the little paparazzo addressed President Mu, Film Emperor Gu’s back turned taut. He hesitantly lowered his head to confirm, “Uncle?”
Lu Deng lay on his arm, nodded and then jumped off the sofa.
He was born of data and his family members were all employees of the system. Senior employees can freely travel back and forth to many mission worlds. He could buy fixed assets and experience points could be converted the mission world’s currency a thousand fold. Mu Jinchu was the idlest person in the family. No one knows how many experience points he has accumulated. Even among the elders at home, in terms of assets, he was among those in the forefront.
Back at the set, after Zhou Tong suffered that humiliating defeat, there was no more movement from him. Even though wave after wave of blackening had been released all over the Internet, he did not even post the most basic statement on Weibo. Lu Deng guessed that someone must be working behind him but he never expected it would be one of his elders supporting him.
The system came back and it introduced Mu Jinchu’s identity in this world in his mind. Lu Deng listened distractedly. The corners of his lips curled up slightly.
Uncle has come.
Though he didn’t feel much when doing his tasks, suddenly seeing an elder he could rely on… Even though he was doing very well, his nose still started to turn sour and he suddenly felt choked up.
My nephew can still speak. Uncle Mu, who hasn’t seen him for some time felt a little relieved. He smiled at him and opened his arms, “Xiao Zhou, has playing outside been fun? Everyone at home has been worried. Uncle came over to see you…”
He had barely finished speaking but Lu Qingzhou had already jumped off the sofa and plunged into his arms.
So far so good.
He can still also run and move about.
Mu Jinchu was completely relieved. He took the person in his arms and patted him lightly, leaning over to button up his shirt for him. Seeing the tears in his nephew’s eyes, his heart tightened. He took off his suit jacket and held his shirt cuffs to gently wipe them away. “Why are you upset? Uncle isn’t saying anything, it’s okay. Just let me know. Do you want your uncle to go out or would you want me to look for people to beat him up?”
Gu Xi: “&#k2026;&#k2026;”
Gu Xi felt that misunderstanding just kept cropping up.
It felt so good to finally see his family. Lu Deng pursed the corners of his lips. He didn’t know if it was because his mood hadn’t had time to adjust but his throat disappointingly grew more and more choked with sobs. “No, uncle—I like him, I I want to take him home…”
Although the relationship between the two has long been determined, it was still the first time he had said so so bluntly. Once he spoke, the emotions in his chest became more turbulent. Clearly identifiable, his heart was burning hot.
Lu Deng’s breathing was slightly fast but the light in his eyes became clearer and firmer. He raised his head, looked at him and kept his voice low, “I like him, uncle…”
“Well, it’s fine as long as you like him. Uncle will buy him for you.”
It’s fine so long as his nephew likes him. Mu Jinchu breathed a sigh of relief and embraced him, patting him gently. “I’ve transferred the cast and crew of “The Fall” under your name, so you can shoot as you please. Uncle bought you an entertainment company. I’ve brought the contract with me. There are still some scattered assets which can be transferred as soon as you sign. If you see anything you like, just buy it. If you don’t like it, sell it. Okay?”
Gu Xi: “…………”
Film Emperor Gu who just now was full of confidence that he had hidden the other, suddenly felt that things had become very bad.
Mu Jinchu raised his head to look at him, showing an amiable smile very much akin to that of a personal trafficker.
……
“It’s okay, you two have a good relationship. Xiao Zhou is obedient and won’t bully you.”
When he wasn’t involved in human trafficking and wasn’t intend on calling someone to beat him up, Mu Jinchu regained his usual gentleness and peaceful demeanor. He sat on the sofa with a smile and confiscated the condom packets riddled with foreign characters.
“You’re very kind to Xiao Zhou. Very responsible, I know. I just watched the live broadcast and I suddenly wanted to come over and see you two…”
As for some of the more ambiguous things he had seen, President Mu, who was the idlest in the family, was unclear on the specific use of these things and didn’t plan to inquire further into it now that he’s confiscated them. He just wanted to tell the two young people to be more restrained so as not to cause them troubles and to go back for business as soon as possible.
They should…be able to moderate themselves.
Looking at his nephew, who of his own initiative, lovably nestled back to Gu Xi’s side, Mu Jinchu raised his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose but he couldn’t help but feel a little worried.
“Live broadcast?”
Film Emperor Gu, who had just learned that he had involved his producer in unspoken rules in front of all those reporters, held back and adjusted his mentality. He grasped that hand that had reached out to him. He did it with practiced ease, gathering his hand into the hollow of his palm and rubbing the little paparazzo’s soft fingertips.
“President Mu…did you see a live broadcast?”
If it would best if there were a live broadcast. It was the most effective way to prevent anyone from distorting the contents by doing a post-editing. But even if those group of reporters weren’t originally controlled by Shengxing Entertainment, even if someone were willing to help him; it was doubtful that they would be able to transmit a complete live broadcast because of the extremely poor signal at the set.
In his estimation, even a simple text announcement can only be done with continued perseverance and willpower to locate a strong enough signal.
“When I was reading the news, an ad that popped up. It was from a very small platform, but when I saw that it was the two of you, I went and took a look.”
Mu Jinchu pushed up his glasses and couldn’t help asking curiously, “Didn’t you know?”
“The signal here isn’t very good so I’m somewhat worried.”
Gu Xi shook his head, his brows furrowing slightly.
He was happy to have had a live broadcast, but the timing of it was too perfect. Instead, he began to worry whether someone had taken the opportunity to piece together old video clips posing as a live broadcast to grab ratings.
Live broadcasts must have absolute credibility. If part of it was made up at the beginning, the authenticity of the latter portion will undoubtedly be placed into question.
Gu Xi’s brows were furrowed tightly. He was about to ask the other party about the content of the live broadcast when Lu Qingzhou suddenly gently shook his hand.
The little paparazzo had something to say. Gu Xi immediately focused on him, closed his arms around him and met those black eyes, “Qingzhou, what’s the matter?”
“It was my people… I had them built a temporary emergency signal transmission tower and went ahead and did a live broadcast.”
Lu Qingzhou raised his head to look at him and deliberately spoke slowly. At the same time, he was urgently conversing with the system in his mind, confirming the specifics of the situation.
Lu Deng also knew that the signal in the mountains was too weak so he tried to make a request for a signal boost. Unexpectedly, the system not only recorded the entire thing but also built a dedicated signal transmission tower to do a live broadcast.
While it was at it, it even intercepted President Mu’s tablet and placed pop-up advertisement, leading his uncle here.
His uncle even agreed to let him take Gu Yuan home.
The system, having failed at its scheme to tattle on the two, locked itself in a small dark room and wept endlessly. Lu Qingzhou coughed lightly, tried his best to conceal the unstoppable arching of his lips. He prepared a large number of red envelopes for the system and quietly stuffed it into its funds. He raised his head to meet Gu Xi’s attentive gaze.
“Because it was on such short notice, the impact has not expanded yet and we were only able to do the live broadcast for a small area. The ratings aren’t high… Do you want to move it?”
Gu Xi’s eyes brightened. He held the little paparazzo in his arms and kissed him hard on his forehead. “Qingzhou, you’re amazing! — Let’s do this together and bully him to death!”
Greeted with the bright light in his eyes, Lu Qingzhou couldn’t help pursing the corners of his lips, his black eyes were quickly immersed in fine stars and the base of his ears turned red hot.
Mu Jinchu: “……”
Mu Jinchu decided to take charge.
*
“Yikun entertainment, that group of wastes!”
Ning Feiping had already seen through the director’s intentional protection of that wrong-doer, Gu Xi. He stumbled through the filming of his scenes. Taking advantage of when he went to change clothes, he hid in a corner and gnashing his teeth, held his phone tightly, trying to keep his voice down as much as possible.
“You promised me you would control the comments. How is this controlling it? What the hell are you doing…Didn’t I tell you to release the news that he injured me?”
Obviously this morning, Gu Xi was already blackened throughout the entire network. He didn’t even put much effort and he was already seeing countless comments like “fan turned hater” and “completely disappointed”. The appeals of Gu Xi’s fans could hardly put up a fight. It was completely overwhelmed by the wave of negative comments.
It was because he was sure that Gu Xi’s reputation had already been completely trampled that he just asked the makeup artist to apply a few bruises on his body and made a Weibo post casually mentioning his injury at the set. Afterwards, he tapped on a few media outlets to spread it around. Aside from this, he made no other interference.
Who knew that in just one short afternoon, the situation would completely change.
Those comments that were like howling winds and torrential rain that helped him flame Gu Xi seemed to quietly disappear. The few lone haters seemed particularly pitiful and the public opinion that was suppressed by the ‘strong control-and-delete-comments’ operation suddenly bottomed out and rebounded. In just one short afternoon, the situation has become the complete opposite of before.
“It was released, but it couldn’t overtake some of the other faster media outlets. They posted the interview with pictures first. Teacher Gu hurt his face and it was obvious…”
The voice on the phone was treading very lightly, for fear of hitting his nerve. “And we–we may might not have known enough about the situation early on, but it seems that Gu Xi is really lousy at fighting. In a previous TV show, he was easily thrown to the ground by a combat instructor more than ten times. Also all the moves he uses in fight scenes are impressive-looking but useless moves. This is a belief that has already formed in the minds of the audience…”
“What do you mean? Are you saying that I’m a pillow with an embroidered case!”
Ning Feiping knew about this as well but it was also true that he received a very painful beating today. He couldn’t hold back his anger so he made up his mind to take this opportunity to teach Gu Xi a lesson once again.
Thinking of the mockery and ridicule he had received on his Weibo post, Ning Feiping couldn’t help but raise his voice. However, remembering that he was still on the set, he endured and pressed down on his anger. “First control and delete those comments. Looking at them is making me annoyed!”
“But Brother Ning, now–”
The voice on the phone hemmed and hawed, obviously finding his task difficult.
When Gu Xi was being blackened all over the network, with brainless black materials flying absolutely anywhere, anyone could say anything and it wouldn’t appear so conspicuous. But when the water army abruptly stopped for unknown reasons, the black material that Ning Feiping continued to push, appeared highlighted in its lonesome.
Online opinion had bottomed out and rebounded. Almost the entire network was targeting whoever had been maliciously controlling the comments all this while. Zhou Tong’s Weibo has almost fallen from the online criticisms. But since Zhou Tong never said anything from start to finish, Ning Feiping, who took the initiative to jump out at this time, naturally became the target for a new round of public criticism.
If they continued to delete comments now, when the time comes that they can no longer control it, the backlash might be many times more serious.
Ning Feiping repeatedly felt choked with resentment. He already couldn’t bear the anger in his belly. He said sharply, “No buts, clean up the comments for me!”
His studio had been made solely to serve him and so no one dared to reason any more with him. They could only repeatedly respond affirmatively over the phone.
Ning Feiping squeezed his phone tightly and continued to press down on his anger. “Edit and rearrange the words he said and then send it out—he said that he was dissatisfied he suffered setbacks in his acting career and he criticized the current state of the entertainment industry. I’d like to see how he handles that…Have you restrained all those reporters with the video recordings?”
“We’ve restrained them. We’ve definitely restrained them.”
Hearing Ning Feiping’s tone ease, the person at the other end of the line felt as though he were relieved from a burden. He hurriedly added, “Even that reporter named Duan Zhicheng has been temporarily ‘sent on vacation’ by us. Until he learns to understand, his editor will not let him post anything…”
The corners of Ning Feiping’s pulled up. There was a coldness in his eyes. “That’s good. Get a few articles that more provocative. Make the headlines a bit more sensational. Best link it to a few more official accounts. Either make it emotional or make it entertaining. Move fast.”
This was his calculated killer move. He originally planned to wait until “The Journey” was completely scheduled before then defeating his opponent in one fell swoop. Since it has already reached this point, don’t blame him for completely crushing Gu Xi to death.
He still wanted to clarify his instructions a bit more but Liang Yuan’s voice calling everyone back to the set could already be heard. Ning Feiping hung up the phone and ran over, feeling that his mood seemed to be much better.
With him mind occupied about the results this time, Ning Feiping’s condition was much worse than usual. The two scenes combined were NG-ed more than ten times. Liang Yuan was at the end of his patience and cursed out a storm until his face turned pale. Seeing that it was getting to be very late at night, he was left with no choice but to stop work for the time being and have the people pack up.
Ning Feiping had been scolded for a good long while but his mood was not bad. He shuffled back to his residence and the assistant quickly greeted him.
“How is it? Has the direction of public opinion changed?”
The video editors he had in his employ were all very capable. They could very easily turn white, black and turn black, white. After putting together a few words at random, even the person involved wouldn’t be sure whether he really had said it or not.
Ning Fei was complacent, confident of his success. He even dismissed the dejectedness from being cursed at by Liang Yuan right in his face. He took a glass of red wine and took a sip. He let someone help him take off his coat and approached the sofa, feeling all relaxed. “Speak.”
“Brother Ning…”
The assistant tremblingly went over, lowered his head and dared not speak.
Seeing that his tone was wrong, Ning Feiping frowned. He grabbed the tablet from the assistant’s hand, closed the ad pop-up window that appeared out from nowhere and quickly scrolled through a few pages.
“Come, come. It’s a public execution. I have learned a lot. It turns out this is how you blacken others with edited videos…”
“The editing is superb. If I hadn’t watched the live broadcast, I would have believed it.”
“If I had this kind of skill, I could probably get my Gu Xi to read out my name and my confession_(┐「ε:)_」
“To the commenter above, get it to your head that your Gu Xi just made a confession! Get it to your head that he’s got that cute boy right there!”
“To the commenter above, what are you thinking? That is obviously an mutually dependent brotherly relationship, okay? That’s brotherly affection. Please don’t YY!”
” That’s brotherly affection. Please don’t YY!+1 Such a well-behaved boy and you’re all letting your imaginations run wild…”
“That’s right, what are you thinking about? Boss Gu is obviously supporting his little assistant! Why are you making such a simple thing complicated?”
“He said he engaged in hidden rules so he engaged in hidden rules. You really believe in his ability…Is it because he beat Ning Feiping black and blue that it all gave you some blind confidence? :)”
“Speaking of Mr. Ning, the video editing and the official account package this time, this familiar tyrannical style, has Mr. Ning still not cooled off yet?”
……
Reading through the comments make Ning Feiping’s veins pop out. He tightly grasped the tablet in his hand, his voice was so hoarse from anger, he nearly breathed out fire, “Where did the live broadcast come from?”