【Host, Bai Keke is the daughter of the man behind Chengxing Entertainment.】
Bai Keke hadn’t made any moves at all. It was only this time, when she had people pressure certain newspapers, that the System picked up on some clues.
Technically, Bai Keke was only an illegitimate daughter, but the man’s legitimate child had been assassinated over a political disagreement, stirring up quite a storm. To preserve his bloodline, the man sought Bai Keke out and had Chengxing Entertainment take good care of her. That was why the company spoiled her so rotten; all her previous scandals had simply been left alone to play with, just to keep her profile from getting too high.
【Based on analysis, the Male Lead’s growing attention toward the Female Lead during the last variety show is what made the Female Supporting Character truly begin monitoring the Female Lead’s every move.】
【The Female Supporting Character had already set her sights on the Male Lead long before she was brought back into the family. Once she gained her backing, she planted people around him, so his every action was under her watch. That gown was always going to end up in her hands no matter what. No one expected the Male Lead to personally man the control panel, which made it impossible for the operator she had bribed to act. On top of that, the technicians had already slipped up once before because of the Host. That was how the Daphne gown ended up with the Female Lead.】
【The Male Lead’s favoritism made the Female Supporting Character resent the Female Lead, so during the previous variety show she kept dropping hints, trying to smear the Female Lead. After the Host and the Lin Family blocked her, she turned her attention to you instead.】
【Bai Keke found Xiao Lin and promised him that if he cooperated with her, he could not only return to the Xiao Family but also enjoy a smooth road to stardom.】
To Xiao Lin, this was a pie falling straight from the sky. If he could take a bite out of Jiangtian Entertainment, or even out of the Lin Family, it would not only raise his standing within the Xiao Family but also let him vent his resentment. Agreeing cost him nothing much, and if the Lin Family fell, he could keep Lin Yiren by his side anyway. So he went along with it.
Only after leaving the Xiao Family did he realize how flimsy a dream was without money behind it. And after seeing Lin Yiren again, his longing to return to the Xiao Family only grew stronger.
This plan had a wide reach. Bai Keke’s actions had the approval of the man above her. If the Chen Family could take down the Lin Family and Jiangtian Entertainment, it would benefit him greatly as well, which was why he pressured the Xiao Corporation, making Old Man Xiao agree to cooperate with the Chen Family.
Jiang Ning watched the storm swirl across the internet without offering any explanation. Instead, she kept tracking Bai Keke’s movements and told her company staff to focus on their own work and not be distracted by outside noise.
By now, reporters had completely mobbed the entrance downstairs, desperate for a first-hand scoop. The impact was terrible, so Jiang Ning simply called the police, then reposted the same Weibo post Lin Yiren had once shared.
A rat has its hide, yet a man has no dignity! If a man has no dignity, what is he still living for?
The parallel made some people recall the earlier face-slapping incident. Both had been love triangles; even though the roles had been reshuffled this time, and the center of the controversy had shifted from Lin Xiao to Xiao Lin, no one could deny it was the same person.
Then another wave of Marketing Accounts burst onto the scene. This time the System itself had stepped in, and it only produced premium content. The posts came with photos of Xiao Lin with other girls, every word sharp as a blade and every point cutting deep. Then they were quickly deleted, creating the illusion that someone had been silenced by threats. Countless netizens speculated about what secrets lay behind it all, but most people, seeing that Jiang Ning offered no stronger explanation, still regarded her with disgust.
“How’s it looking?” Jiang Ning broke out of the reporters’ encirclement from another side of the building and met up with Lin Zhiyuan somewhere quiet.
“My estimate is we might lose the bid a week from now.” The bid in question was for a plot of land beside North Sea Bay. Word had come through that the whole area might be designated a national scenic development zone. Whoever secured the development rights there would reap immeasurable profits. With that land, the Lin Family could even surpass both the Chen and Xiao Families.
Father Lin’s closest friend had tipped him off, and very few people knew. But just as Lin Zhiyuan was calculating their bid amount, the stock market took a dive, and many companies abruptly pulled out of their partnerships. For a moment, the Lin Corporation couldn’t come up with that much money. Yet missing this opportunity would be an enormous loss in its own right.
Public opinion was powerful, but the sudden about-face from so many companies was far too abnormal. Lin Zhiyuan suspected the bid would fail. Jiang Ning, however, had a nagging premonition that all this pressure was meant to force him to take that land. She just couldn’t figure out what they would gain from it.
The two of them discussed the details together, but in the end neither could find any threads to pull. All they could do was adapt on the fly. After parting with Lin Zhiyuan, Jiang Ning headed to another location to meet Xiao Yisheng.
Checking her watch, she saw she was ten minutes early, but Xiao Yisheng was already waiting. When he saw her, he pulled out a chair for her. There was no denying that, aside from all the wrong ways he pursued Lin Yiren later in the original story, the man himself carried himself with real class.
“President Xiao, your little brother is back in the Xiao Family. You must be thrilled?”
Xiao Yisheng had guessed Jiang Ning wanted to talk about Xiao Lin, but he hadn’t expected her to be so blunt. His face betrayed nothing as he nodded. “Thrilled indeed. Is President Jiang here to chat about my family affairs?”
Xiao Yisheng knew the Xiao Family had been making other moves lately, but he neither involved himself nor had the standing to. He was indeed wary of Xiao Lin’s return, but not to the point of panic.
“Family affairs, sure. But President Xiao’s family affairs drag a lot of people into the mess.” Father Xiao still held considerable influence in the company, plus a substantial chunk of shares. If he insisted on meddling, Xiao Yisheng would have no say. In the original story, he had quietly allowed Father Xiao’s retaliatory strikes against the Lin Family, too afraid of having his own authority stripped away.
One major reason Father Xiao agreed to the Chen Family this time was that he’d always been infatuated with Mother Lin. Back when his pursuit failed, he’d cut all ties with the Lin Family, yet the resentment toward Father Lin festered. In the original story, he treated Lin Yiren with open cruelty, playing the role of a mother-in-law from hell, despite being a man.
“I assume President Xiao has no interest in being a puppet President forever?” The plot had already shifted, and Xiao Yisheng hadn’t turned villain the way he once did, but Jiang Ning believed that controlling the Xiao Family was what the Male Lead wanted most of all. She pulled the documents from her bag and waited for his answer.
The files contained celebrity development plans and scripts, including several new models that had never been put into practice. If the Chen Family fell, Jiangtian Entertainment alone couldn’t swallow the whole pie. Better to carve out a share of the profits. Once Xiao Yisheng got his hands on that juicy piece, his influence within the Xiao Corporation would grow far stronger. And with the Male Lead’s Fortune behind him, everything aimed at the Chen Family would move that much more smoothly.
Jiang Ning barely gained anything from this whole arrangement herself, so naturally Xiao Yisheng responded with suspicion and caution, probing between the lines, and brought up a few other matters as well.
“I’m doing this because I don’t want Yiren to get hurt.” If the Lin Family suffered, Lin Yiren would surely be heartbroken too. She needed this plan to be absolutely airtight.
Xiao Yisheng weighed the pros and cons with perfect clarity. Honestly speaking, he couldn’t do the same. If it came down to a gambit where he might lose one of his chips, between Lin Yiren and the Xiao Corporation, he would choose to keep the latter.
The lights of Jiangcheng had all come on, and from above the city glittered like scattered stars. Xiao Yisheng gazed out the window as if he could see the Xiao Corporation’s tower in the distance, then silently sighed, signed the papers, and put everything away.
Jiang Ning parked her car and spotted Xiao Lin downstairs. Since she already knew this whole mess was Bai Keke and Xiao Lin’s doing, she wasn’t the least bit surprised to run into a familiar face at a familiar place.
More than half a year had passed since their last meeting, and winter had settled over Jiangcheng. Aside from the one piece of trash that had been mixed in along the way, the snow piled on the ground actually looked rather pretty under the lights.
Xiao Lin was clearly going for some kind of snowlit-beauty self-injury ploy. A rich young master mad with love, dressed for style over warmth, refusing the sheltered hallway just to stand out in the cold, looking absolutely pitiful. Jiang Ning asked deliberately:
“Cold?”
“A-Ning, I’m so cold.” Xiao Lin’s heart leapt at her question, and he took two steps forward, trying to pull her into his arms.
Jiang Ning retreated just in time, keeping a safe distance, too lazy to even fake a smile. “If you’re cold, why don’t you go home? Are you sick?”
The crushing gap in expectations seemed to hit Xiao Lin hard. His body swayed like he was about to faint. Jiang Ning watched him wobble left and right with cold, unmoving eyes, steady as the Sea-Calming Divine Needle, watching as he wobbled right back to where he’d started.
The System burst out laughing and tossed Jiang Ning a “savage” meme before settling in to enjoy the show, simultaneously blocking the Paparazzi’s cameras.
In Xiao Lin’s mind, Jiang Ning had dumped him back then because she’d latched onto the Lin Family and kicked him to the curb. Now he was the Second Young Master of the Xiao Family, and the online comments were stacked against her. By all rights, now that he had graced her with his presence, shouldn’t Jiang Ning be falling over herself with gratitude, begging to get back together? How did she dare act like this?
Aside from that last fake-out, all the online drama had unfolded exactly according to plan. Both factions of Marketing Accounts pushing contradictory narratives had been orchestrated by Xiao Lin and Bai Keke, designed to corner Jiang Ning into a dilemma. Even if she claimed there was nothing between her and Lin Zhiyuan, her thin explanation would stir up nothing. And if she couldn’t take the pressure and admitted she still had feelings for him, she would have thoroughly offended the Lin Family, who would never lift a finger to help Jiangtian Entertainment in its hour of need. If she stubbornly dug in, she would simply go down with the Lin Family. And this public opinion war was only step one. The real killing blow hadn’t dropped yet.
But the more he thought about it, the more Jiang Ning’s attitude stoked his desire to conquer her. She had to be playing hard to get. Truthfully, he’d never liked her that much in the first place. He simply couldn’t swallow the humiliation. He wanted to make Jiang Ning his mistress, groveling at his feet, to grind her pride into the dirt, and then, once she was completely dependent on him, kick her aside.
With that thought, Xiao Lin turned a sorrowful gaze on Jiang Ning. “A-Ning, how can you be so heartless?”
Hoping to give the hidden Paparazzi something to photograph, he stepped forward and reached for her again.
“Don’t act like I’ve done anything with you. At most we held hands. Anything beyond that, stop fantasizing and making things up in your head, okay?” Jiang Ning backed away. She had no intention of standing in the freezing wind humoring him, so she nipped that little sprout in his heart right off and made it clear she was done arguing.
But her words sent Xiao Lin’s mind down another track entirely. He concluded that she must have broken up with him because she’d been sexually unsatisfied.
“A-Ning, the reason I never touched you before was that I was too busy. Give me one more chance, and I promise I’ll satisfy you.” In other words: he was great in bed.
Sometimes you simply cannot understand another person’s worldview or thought process. It’s not your fault. They’re just that much of a freak. Jiang Ning felt her temples throbbing and said: System, hack the surveillance cameras for me.
She wanted to hit someone. She genuinely couldn’t hold it back.
Jiang Ning interlaced her fingers and cracked her knuckles, but at that very moment a white figure came charging out of nowhere and slammed a handbag down on Xiao Lin’s head. The blow was so hard it knocked him flat out on the ground.
Jiang Ning stared at Lin Yiren’s decisive strike, stunned for a beat, then felt pure, unadulterated satisfaction. So much satisfaction.
After landing the blow, Lin Yiren dove into Jiang Ning’s arms like a little cannonball, her voice thick with tears and grievance. “I get upset every time I see him.”
She’d never liked this man to begin with. Today, when she saw the trending topics on set, Lin Yiren had been furious enough to explode. She’d rushed over from the Lincheng Mountain Area, only to arrive and find Jiang Ning standing there talking with Xiao Lin. She’d hidden in the stairwell, and the longer she listened, the angrier she got.
Son of a bitch! An absolute scumbag!!! And he dared to cling to her White Moonlight!
Part of the filming location was still out in the countryside, so Lin Yiren had picked up more than a few curse words along the way. She just hadn’t expected to use them the moment she got back to Jiangcheng.
Jiang Ning had no idea what was going through Lin Yiren’s mind. For the first time, she ignored the System notification about Points being deducted and gently patted Lin Yiren’s back.
Once she felt the girl had mostly calmed down, Jiang Ning tilted Lin Yiren’s chin up, her voice a mix of tenderness and helplessness. “Silly girl. Why are you crying?”
She hadn’t even cried herself, yet here was Lin Yiren, taking it harder than the person actually involved.
