[Netizen G: Chaos-loving mischief-makers rejoice! Ship them all! Jiang x Su is good, Pei x Su is good, Gu x Su is good too. Sister Su just takes them all!]
[Netizen H: Brother-sister CP is awesome, younger man is awesome. I'm siding with Jiang Yuanheng, the younger one. He's been her assistant lately. The younger brother-older sister dynamic is delicious.]
[Netizen I: The older, fatherly type is the best! I'm gobbling it up. The high and mighty bloom bends for love, willing to break his rules to act in a romantic scene, stir up a CP with his wife, and handle the online rumors. A very tasty, virtuous fatherly boyfriend!]
[Netizen J: The classic CP combo of a beautiful female star and a domineering president is the best! If you're going to ship, ship the classic, okay? Okay. They're not even from the same company. What else could they be doing at a jewelry store? Your sister Su already has a ring on her finger—don't you get it?]
[Netizen K: The way you put it, I find it really shippable too. Forget it, I'll ship them all.]
If the earlier comments were still a storm of blood and rain,
the later comments were pure chaos.
Many people whose profiles showed they weren't even fans, or were fans of other stars, had come from both inside and outside the circle to watch the drama and enjoy the gossip.
Su Zhiyi's head ached. She closed her eyes to take a moment.
She kept them closed for a while until Xie Mengran, hearing no response from her, called out twice.
"Zhiyi, have you seen it?"
Su Zhiyi let out a breath, her brows furrowed into a deep crease.
She reached up to rub her temples and said tiredly, "I've seen it."
Xie Mengran said, "This is blowing up. The company can't control the online discourse. Before I called you, I urgently contacted Pei Yan's PR team. They said they're trying to suppress the heat, but it's not working."
Recently, Su Zhiyi had been heavily tied to Pei Yan, so the online narrative between them was mainly managed by Pei Yan's PR team.
Pei Yan's PR team was very capable. Why couldn't they suppress this issue? Instead, it was getting worse.
Su Zhiyi said, "Why can't it be suppressed? Isn't his PR team very good?"
Xie Mengran answered her question.
"If even Pei Yan's PR team can't handle it, it means someone is deliberately fueling this fire."
After answering Su Zhiyi's doubt, Xie Mengran paused and then asked in confusion,
"But... who benefits from stirring this up?"
"There are a lot of fan wars online. The loudest are the CP fans of you and Pei Yan, and Pei Yan's own fans. No one is cursing you, but quite a few are calling Pei Yan a homewrecker trying to steal someone else's partner."
"Some also brought up Jiang Yuanheng. Luckily, the CP between you and him isn't that hot right now. The ones calling Pei Yan a homewrecker aren't your and Jiang Yuanheng's CP fans, so Jiang Yuanheng isn't deeply involved."
"As for you and Gu Yu... I know you're just collaborators, and going to the jewelry store was work. I didn't expect someone would take a picture and create this mess."
The more Xie Mengran thought about it, the stranger it seemed.
"So weird... Why?"
"Pei Yan, a homewrecker?" Su Zhiyi couldn't connect that word with Pei Yan at all. "I've never been with him! How did he become a homewrecker?"
She had seen all the online comments and generally understood the situation.
The one being attacked the most wasn't her—it was Pei Yan.
Wasn't Pei Yan popular with the general public? Why were so many people cursing him?
System 030, which had been listening to Su Zhiyi and Xie Mengran's conversation, was also stunned by the massive amount of information.
While listening to them, it was searching for information online.
"Host, host! I found the first Weibo post that called Pei Yan a homewrecker!"
"Quick, show it to me!"
Su Zhiyi really wanted to figure out what was going on, so she urged System 030.
System 030 displayed a Weibo post published at midnight last night for Su Zhiyi to see.
It was posted by a small, anonymous account with an IP showing Beijing, a default name, a default avatar, and very few posts.
Clicking into the account, there was only one post.
The post was very short, but it dropped a bombshell.
Every sentence, every word was malicious, all aimed directly at Pei Yan.
[Default Nickname 123456: Insider here, dropping some real tea.
P, G, and S are all from the capital circle, acquaintances, and all insiders.
P and G are friends. G and S are engaged. Later, P fell in love with S. Because P and S are both stars, and G, though an insider, is not a star, P wanted to climb up, so he did everything he could to buy PR articles promoting that he and S are a couple.
P is just a homewrecker who wants to climb up.]
The comments were a mess, and Su Zhiyi didn't dare to look.
After reading that post, she was too shocked to speak.
Not a single word was true. It was even more absurd than the PR articles they had bought when she and Pei Yan were stirring up their CP before.
"Seriously, no one informed me that I was in a relationship, fine."
Su Zhiyi bit her lower lip, instantly deducing that "S" in the post was her.
"But no one told me I was engaged either?"