Chapter 15: Am I Your White Moonlight (15)

The very next day, Jiang Ning returned to Jiangcheng, and the first thing she did upon getting back was hire a bodyguard for Lin Yiren. How smoothly that door had opened last night had left Jiang Ning worried. If some unsavory character really did show up, she would regret it too late for tears.

Once Jiang Ning’s bodyguard took his place at Lin Yiren’s side, quite a few people were scared off. Even Lin Xiao and Bai Keke no longer dared to approach so freely, which let Lin Yiren breathe much easier.

Ever since Jiang Ning’s visit to the set, Bai Keke had been coming around to remind everyone of her existence at every possible opportunity, like someone hooked on something, and at times she would even deliberately pick fights. Lin Yiren was baffled by it, but her fighting spirit blazed all the same. She was no saintly white lotus who could smile through being bullied. The moment she laid eyes on Bai Keke now, her first instinct was to turn on her recorder, terrified the woman would pass up a chance to stir up trouble. Her phone already held plenty of evidence of Bai Keke’s two-faced, knife-behind-the-smile hypocrisy.

Though Jiang Ning didn’t visit the set again afterward, she kept informed through the System and said nothing more. Knowing that Lin Yiren would never let herself be wronged actually put Jiang Ning more at ease. What she wanted was for Lin Yiren to have both the ability to protect herself and a kindness that knew where to draw the line.

Lu Youen was demanding about the final product, but the pace never slowed. Three months later, Twin Flowers wrapped smoothly, without a single mishap along the way.

After a period of review, it aired on Jiangcheng TV. The drama featured many veteran actors delivering superb performances, and while Lin Yiren’s acting wasn’t exactly show-stopping, it had a genuine sparkle to it. Some people griped about her character’s writing, but no one could find fault with her performance, and even the flaws that existed had long since been ironed out through take after take.

Whenever a drama airs, “shipper” fans inevitably appear, and as usual, the cast had to attend variety shows, where interactions would be arranged according to the plot to drive traffic. By her count, the character Lin Yiren played and the one Lin Xiao played could be paired up as a tragic romance couple. The director first asked both of their agents. Lin Xiao’s side naturally had no objections, but remembering Jiang Ning’s earlier instructions, Li Long still checked with Jiang Ning first.

Jiang Ning thought it over and said the director’s side could proceed, as long as they didn’t go too far. She also messaged Lin Yiren: if anything uncomfortable came up on the variety show that night, there was no need to force herself to endure it.

Variety shows typically open with guests introducing themselves through dance or song, and at the very least a solo walk to show off their presence and stage poise. Lin Yiren had deliberately learned the dance from Jiang Ning’s Weibo video, and paired with her lovely voice, she performed beautifully.

The early recording went quite harmoniously, but with the second male lead and the female supporting character present, trouble was inevitable. Sure enough, during filming, Bai Keke dropped veiled hints that Lin Yiren had been giving her the silent treatment, while Lin Xiao fought tooth and nail to interact with Lin Yiren on camera and keep himself relevant.

The variety show wasn’t broadcast live, but for the sake of watchability, only the more over-the-top footage was cut; everything else made it to air.

Even edited as it was, all that subtle innuendo set the fans’ imaginations racing. They even cooked up a love triangle. Add in the earlier Xiao Corporation variety show, where Lin Xiao and Bai Keke had been on one team and Jiang Ning and Lin Yiren on the other, and people quickly noticed how Lin Xiao seemed to go easy on Lin Yiren. Speculation about a love triangle erupted, and someone hiding behind the guise of an “Across the Water” fan began viciously attacking both Bai Keke and Lin Xiao, dragging every fandom into the fray.

Now a major influencer was claiming Lin Yiren had gone mad with ambition and bought the trending topic herself. In this fight, Lin Yiren was outnumbered in fans and outmatched in fame. She was clearly at a disadvantage.

But it seemed some people had forgotten that Lin Yiren was a member of the Lin Family, hardly a soft persimmon to be squeezed. Lin Zhiyuan fired off a lawyer’s letter to that marketing account almost immediately, his words fiercely protective of Lin Yiren and openly disdainful of everyone else.

Even if Lin Yiren wanted fame, she would never stoop to such methods, and she wasn’t afraid of so-called anti-fans anyway. She reposted Lin Zhiyuan’s Weibo without any lengthy statement, attaching only two lines of verse: “The rat has its skin, yet a man without dignity! A man without dignity, what is he but a corpse that should not draw breath?”

When this Weibo went up, some netizens immediately crowed “666!” That’s old money for you, they said. Even her insults come with culture. Others who didn’t get the reference looked it up on Baidu, then hurried back to spam 666 as well. The line was originally a curse on those with no sense of decorum, but in this context it insinuated that Bai Keke had done the deed and then slunk into hiding, more shameless than a rat.

Lin Yiren had cleared the Weibo with Jiang Ning beforehand. Right after, Jiang Ning sold the photos she’d swiped from Lin Xiao’s phone to an entertainment tabloid, and in no time Lin Xiao’s scandal buried the so-called love triangle. After all, this one came with photographic proof. At the same time, people began speaking up for Lin Yiren, testifying that she had been perfectly courteous on set, without a trace of an Eldest Young Miss’s temper.

Naturally, Bai Keke’s favorability took a hit. Staring at the audio clip some anonymous party had leaked on Weibo, unable to trace its source no matter how she searched, Bai Keke’s eyes went cold. She bought a fresh batch of Internet Water Army to whitewash herself, and her favorability toward the Lin Family plunged straight into negative territory as she planned her next move.

Chengxing Entertainment was caught completely off guard by the sudden bombshell, and after pressing Lin Xiao for answers, they were furious. They handled the PR swiftly, but a celebrity’s love life always becomes gossip fodder, and first impressions stick. Even after the explanations came out, passersby rarely bothered to read them; all they remembered was the scandal that had spread like wildfire, especially one backed by hard evidence.

The trending topic ended with Lin Xiao taking a heavy loss. Not only did he shed a chunk of his fanbase, but Chengxing Entertainment also began, whether deliberately or not, steering resources toward other artists.

Lin Yiren paid no attention to any of what came after. She had a mission to attend to now: making money. The more she earned, the better she could protect Jiang Ning, so that no one could ever bully her.

After Twin Flowers ended, Lin Yiren could have joined another variety show to keep riding the wave of popularity, but she hated the idea of having to keep up an act even in daily life, unwilling to waste energy performing for other people.

When she learned that Bai Keke and Lin Xiao were also planning to join, Lin Yiren flatly refused, then set her sights on a different drama instead. Jiang Ning, naturally, would indulge her, but as she flipped through the script and realized the Female Lead was rather pitiful, her expression stiffened.

“Does it have to be this one?” What scared Jiang Ning most were the numerous crying scenes. If Lin Yiren really took this role, Jiang Ning might just log out of this world for good.

“Hm?” Noticing something off in Jiang Ning’s expression, Lin Yiren explained, “But if I don’t take this, I’ll have to do those empty-calorie variety shows instead. I don’t want that.”

Jiangtian Entertainment had been gaining momentum lately, and Chengxing Entertainment certainly wasn’t about to sit idle, constantly sending their artists to snatch up resources and applying pressure wherever they could. The resources Lin Yiren currently held already counted as fairly good ones.

“You could take a break first, and then I’ll look for other scripts for you.” Honestly, the web drama’s script wasn’t bad, but Jiang Ning didn’t want Lin Yiren going down the traffic-star route. For one, it didn’t suit her; for another, Jiang Ning had a feeling that Lin Yiren didn’t actually enjoy acting all that much.

Judging by what she’d just said, she wasn’t exactly burning with enthusiasm either. Jiang Ning ruffled Lin Yiren’s black hair and smiled. “Why not just rest for a while? It’s been ages since we went back to see Black Knight.”

Although Jiang Ning and Lin Yiren were nominally living together now, whenever Lin Yiren went off to film, Jiang Ning never chose to return to the Lin Family home. It simply wouldn’t be appropriate, and she had no intention of asking Lin Yiren to move out either. Part of it was her own strong sense of Domain, her need for her own territory, and part of it was the System’s earlier warning that the World Consciousness would try to put “Jiang Ning” in danger. If Lin Yiren got dragged into that, things would get messy.

Lin Yiren knew their relationship wasn’t quite at that stage yet, so she never brought up moving into Jiang Ning’s place either. She was waiting for the day Jiang Ning brought her home on her own and acknowledged what the two of them were.

Even though Jiang Ning’s “Honored Sugar Patron” remarks were always made in jest, Lin Yiren couldn’t let them go.

Now, hearing Jiang Ning suggest it, she thought she really ought to go back and visit Father Lin and Mother Lin, and nodded in agreement.

The two of them sorted out their respective affairs first, and by the time they arrived home, they found Xiao Yisheng and Mother Lin deep in cheerful conversation.