Li Chengyu stared at the computer with bloodshot eyes and a deranged expression. Suddenly, he flew into a rage, grabbing his keyboard and smashing it violently against the screen as if venting all his fury.
His agent quickly asked with concern, “What’s wrong?”
“Why? Why does Tang Qi have the surveillance footage from that day? I get it now—she and those people are all in cahoots. They’re teaming up to destroy me!” Veins bulging on his forehead, Li Chengyu pounded the table. Everyone had seen him groveling and begging for mercy in that disgraceful state. Everyone looked down on him and mocked him.
His agent tried to persuade him, “Chengyu, we can’t give up now. Why not go all in and fight back?”
“They just can’t stand my talent. They’re jealous of me.” He was utterly unhinged. Turning his head stiffly to look at his agent, he asked, “Fight back how?”
Startled by his near-Qi Deviation state, the agent stepped back two paces. “We’ll just insist that Luo Xue is a gold digger and that you were the one who got hit. I refuse to believe she still has more evidence.”
“Yes, you’re right. I can’t just sit here and wait for death. It was Luo Xue who was the gold digger from the start; I wasn’t wrong. She’s the one who wronged me.” Li Chengyu nodded repeatedly and immediately grabbed his phone. “Quick, film a video for me. I’m going to reveal the truth.”
His last hope had been Zhou Ling, but her parents disagreed and had her locked up.
Once he made it big, he would settle the score with those two old geezers from the Zhou Family sooner or later.
The agent waited for Li Chengyu to post his video, then gathered his own belongings and slipped away quietly. Once outside Li Chengyu’s apartment, he couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he pulled out his phone and called Tang Qi.
The call connected quickly. Lowering his voice, the agent said, “I’ve done what you asked.”
“Good!” Tang Qi was combing Luo Xue’s hair. She held her phone between her shoulder and ear, her tone light and indifferent, as if discussing something utterly trivial. “I’ll wire the final payment to your account.”
After hanging up, Luo Xue asked curiously, “Who was that?”
“Li Chengyu’s agent.” Tang Qi tied Luo Xue’s hair and admired her handiwork with satisfaction. “I had him egg Li Chengyu on to post that video.”
Luo Xue didn’t understand. “Why would you do that? And aren’t you afraid he might turn on you later?”
“He wouldn’t dare. Besides, who would believe I’d pay someone to smear myself?” Tang Qi helped Luo Xue put on a necklace. “Just dropping all the evidence at once wouldn’t be nearly as effective as this.”
Tang Qi continued, “What I want is for Li Chengyu to be utterly ruined—his name dragged through the mud!” From the moment Li Chengyu first stepped into the Entertainment Circle, this agent had been custom-tailored for him. A man with Li Chengyu’s deformed, pathological pride was bound to favor an agent like this one…
The moment she learned that Luo Xue would die starving on the streets, malicious intent had taken root in her heart.
She wanted Li Chengyu to shoulder every ounce of infamy and live out the rest of his days in abject misery.
The System pursed its lips. It was the first time it had realized its Host could be so stubbornly tsundere. Claiming she wouldn’t lay a hand on the Male Lead? Ha, trashy Host!
Still, it dutifully spoke up: “Host, the person who sold the songs to Li Chengyu was Yang Yirui. The account holder where Li Chengyu transferred payment belongs to Yang Yirui’s maternal grandmother. I checked—the card is in Yang Yirui’s possession.”
Tang Qi’s hand paused as she was picking out a dress for Luo Xue. A moment later, she casually selected a light purple dress. “This one.”
While Luo Xue went to change, Tang Qi asked the System, “Did you find anything else?”
“I overheard Yang Yirui talking with her parents. They want Luoluo to marry Li Chengyu not just because of you, but also because of Zhou Ling’s parents.”
The System explained, “Zhou Ling’s parents don’t approve of her being with Li Chengyu. Yang Yirui’s family wants to cozy up to the Zhou Family, so they came up with this plan.”
After finishing, it noticed the corners of Tang Qi’s mouth curling into a faint smile. Oh no, it thought. The Host is displeased.
Tang Qi’s flash of emotion was fleeting. She quickly composed herself. When Luo Xue emerged from the fitting room, she saw Tang Qi standing by the window, one hand in her pocket, the other holding her phone as she scrolled through the news.
A gentle breeze brushed through Tang Qi’s hair and stirred her collar. As Tang Qi turned her head and smiled, Luo Xue felt her heart pounding heavily in her chest. No matter how many times she saw Tang Qi, she always felt her heart flutter.
Tang Qi put away her phone and circled Luo Xue. Feeling a little self-conscious under her gaze, Luo Xue asked, “Does it look bad?”
“It looks beautiful.” Tang Qi rubbed her chin. “But it feels like something’s missing.”
“Missing what?” Luo Xue was puzzled. Tang Qi raised an eyebrow and pulled a square ring box from her pocket. “This!”
Luo Xue froze. Sunlight bathed Tang Qi, making every strand of her hair seem to glow. Her expression held a tenderness Luo Xue had never seen before. “Do you want me to get down on one knee?”
Inside the box was a pair of simple yet elegant Couple Rings, with a very ordinary design. But to Luo Xue, they were the most beautiful, most stunning rings she had ever seen.
Seeing Tang Qi about to kneel, Luo Xue quickly pulled her back, her eyes red like a rabbit’s, yet she couldn’t help grinning. “No, no, this is perfect. Just… put it on for me…”
In her wildest fantasies, she might have imagined matching necklaces, but never rings.
Tang Qi was a celebrity. Would being with another woman hurt her career? But in this moment, Luo Xue didn’t want to be coy and refuse.
Perhaps all her past suffering was just a way to accumulate the good fortune needed to meet Tang Qi.
The silver ring glinted with a subtle, scattered light. Holding back tears, Luo Xue asked, “What should I do? I want to kiss you.”
“Then kiss me. Kissing your own girlfriend is the most natural thing in the world.” Tang Qi nodded generously. She might not be able to give Luo Xue a boundless love, but since they were together, she would give her everything she could.
Standing on her tiptoes, Luo Xue embraced Tang Qi and kissed her fiercely.
…
Li Chengyu’s video appeared online once again. By now, people were getting tired of seeing him, not understanding why he kept posting one video after another.
Each time, it was just him standing alone in front of the camera, rambling on without a shred of real evidence.
This time, he continued tearfully recounting how well he had treated Luo Xue in the past—how he was always caring and attentive. But Luo Xue, he claimed, broke up with him simply because he had no money. He even asserted that Tang Qi had instigated the breakup and hinted at an improper relationship between the two women.
After posting the video, Li Chengyu once again sought out his Internet water army to help him control public opinion. But the water army said the previous payment had run out and that he’d need to re-up.
Gritting his teeth, Li Chengyu applied for another online loan.
Yet no matter how much money he spent, dissenting voices still bubbled up.
“He says Luo Xue is a gold digger—where’s the proof? Empty words from a loose mouth!”
“I feel like this guy’s gone crazy. Could he be having delusions or something?”
Seeing his efforts backfiring, Li Chengyu became more frantic. He took out even larger loans and bought more water army services. Once Zhou Ling got out and he could access her money, he told himself, no amount would matter anymore.
But on Tang Qi’s side, this was exactly what she was waiting for. This time, she didn’t want to play these petty games with him. She wanted to settle everything once and for all.
The first piece of evidence she released was the record of every transfer Luo Xue had made to Li Chengyu starting from her freshman year of college. Calculated transaction by transaction, the total came to hundreds of thousands of yuan.
Li Chengyu was completely blindsided that Luo Xue had kept these records all this time. Stunned for a moment, he quickly rushed to post on Weibo, claiming these documents were fabrications.
But no sooner had he posted than someone stepped forward—the last person he ever expected.
That person was Chu Fei, who had borrowed money from him back then.
Chu Fei also recorded a video. In it, she began by bowing. Her voice trembling and choked with tears, she spoke: “In my junior year, I fell into an online loan trap. At my wit’s end, I reached out to Li Chengyu, with whom I was on good terms. Back then, he spent money very freely, so I figured I’d try asking him for a fifty-thousand-yuan loan. In the end, he gave me fifty-five thousand and even told me not to rush paying it back, to keep some money for food and living expenses.”
“From that moment on, I did whatever he said. I even heeded his words and reported Tang Qi for cheating on an exam, helped him spread nasty rumors about Luo Xue around the School. For years, I’d been working quietly on the side, thinking I would repay the loan with interest someday. But later, I found out the truth—that money wasn’t his at all! It was Luo Xue’s! Because of this incident, Luo Xue barely had enough to eat and had to go find work. I didn’t know who my real benefactor was, and I almost ended up harming Luo Xue.”
As she spoke, Chu Fei wept openly into the camera. She pulled out her phone and displayed the record of the incoming transfer. “I’ve kept this all along to remind myself never to forget Li Chengyu’s kindness.”
When people compared Chu Fei’s transfer receipt with Luo Xue’s outgoing transaction record, one payment amount matched perfectly.
Li Chengyu had gotten sixty thousand from Luo Xue, then turned around and transferred fifty-five thousand to Chu Fei.
“Wow, he pocketed five grand for himself and left his girlfriend with no money for food.”
“A real gold digger, huh? I’ll take a dozen gold diggers like her!”
“I want to know what this report about Tang Qi cheating is all about.”
A student from University A stepped forward and summarized the “cheating” incident. They also found the Scholarship recipient list on the university’s official website, leading to the reasonable suspicion that Li Chengyu’s initial motive was resentment that Tang Qi had received the Scholarship instead of him.
Comparing the Scholarship lists, everyone noticed that among the graduates, only Li Chengyu had been swapped off a previous list, making him the prime suspect.
Chu Fei’s video not only confirmed the authenticity of Luo Xue’s transaction records but also exposed the ugliest side of Li Chengyu that he had tried to hide.
Netizens were baffled: “I don’t get it. Why is Li Chengyu so fixated on going after Tang Qi and Luo Xue?”
“Exactly. His ex-girlfriend spent so much money on him; even when you break up, you should part with decent words!”
“I guess we can’t understand the mind of a rabid dog.”
Li Chengyu tried to get someone to delete Chu Fei’s video. He tried to hire more people to control the narrative for him, but the Internet water army’s number wouldn’t connect. He tried several times, only to hear the same message each time: “Sorry, the number you have dialed is powered off.”
It suddenly dawned on him that his agent had found this water army. He called his agent, but the line was constantly busy.
Just as he was at his wit’s end, a Paparazzi released the video of his meeting with Eldest Uncle Tang’s family. The Paparazzi claimed he had initially been trailing Eldest Uncle Tang and hadn’t expected to capture Li Chengyu as well.
No one had imagined that Li Chengyu was behind Eldest Uncle Tang showing up, too.
People were absolutely stuffed with all this drama. On Tang Qi’s side, the evidence was meticulously layered and interlinked, while Li Chengyu’s side offered nothing but his own whiny, self-pitying monologues. Naturally, the public was far more inclined to believe Tang Qi.
Of course, the Paparazzi’s video came from Tang Qi, and Chu Fei wasn’t quite as innocent as she claimed. But with all the evidence now in hand, Li Chengyu’s defeat was sealed!
A few dissenting voices piped up: “If Luo Xue was truly blameless, why would Li Chengyu hate her this much? There has to be something we don’t know.”
“Didn’t you see Li Chengyu hinting at something between Luo Xue and Tang Qi… If the dude really got cucked, and by a woman no less, I’d be furious too if I were him.”
Quite a few people shared this sentiment. Tang Qi had anticipated such talk.
The solution was simple: reveal the full story between Luo Xue and Li Chengyu. But that would inevitably rip open Luo Xue’s old wounds all over again.
It wasn’t so bad that she’d spent money on her boyfriend, but the way he suppressed tortured her to the point she lost her own sense of self was something Tang Qi refused to lay bare for the masses to scrutinize.
