Chapter 397 - 328: So Infuriating

[Heard the news and rushed to the port. I was still looking for her in the crowd, and it turns out she was already back at her hotel. And not just back at the hotel, she was playing with a kid! How can she be living such a laid-back life? I’m crying from laughing.]

The rescue of the eleven missing sailors had captured the nation’s attention. When the fishing boat brought them back to the harbor, it attracted countless members of the public and the media, all there to welcome them.

Someone in the crowd spotted Ni Bingyan and posted the news online. Fans who saw the post and lived nearby rushed over, hoping to catch a glimpse of her.

But they ended up staring into the crowd until their eyes glazed over, and still, they couldn’t spot her.

Unable to find her at the scene, the fans could only go home to watch the local news.

The local news programs weren’t as crunched for time, and there wasn’t much other local breaking news, so those who hurried home were still able to see the rescued victims on the news, talking about how Ni Bingyan had made congee for them on the boat.

Seeing her suddenly appear, happily playing with a child, made them feel both annoyed and amused.

[I knew that hand looked so familiar. It really was my Bingyan~]

Hardcore fans can recognize their idols by the back of their heads, so it wasn’t impossible for them to be recognized by just a hand.

But many people couldn’t tell it was her.

[Beautiful hands are all alike, but every ugly hand is ugly in its own way. I didn’t recognize the hand, but I recognized the ring. Teehee~]

The ring had a beautiful design, and the gem wasn’t ostentatious, making it perfect for daily wear.

Ni Bingyan had worn this beloved ring in public on more than one occasion, so it was no surprise that her fans recognized it.

[I work in the jewelry industry, so let me just quietly say this: that ring was custom-ordered by Little Sang. I won’t say which jeweler he went to, though, or you’ll accuse me of advertising. Teehee~]

[I hate people who only tell half the story, but since this is good gossip, I’ll forgive you!]

[Who couldn’t love a pretty young lady wearing Xiao Xiang? The guy has good taste!]

[Yangzai: Damn! Looks like I was born just a *smidge* too late in this life!]

[Jealous Sang: I have all the qualities mentioned above, plus both my IQ and EQ are off the charts, I’m tall, and I don’t mooch off my parents!]

...

After declining the interviews, Wei Shuojie was busy until the end of her workday.

After she got home, she put a pot of soup on for her son as usual. She had just sat down when she received a call from the company’s PR department.

The PR department had employees scheduled 24/7, dedicated to monitoring online buzz about the company’s artists.

If they discovered a scandal, they would contact the agent immediately to either do damage control or have the topic removed from the trending lists. If the agent couldn’t be reached, the company would resort to its standard protocols.

Positive news, on the other hand, was not as high a priority.

They would usually let the buzz build for a while, and only when it was about to hit the trending charts would they notify the agent to see if they should add fuel to the fire or leverage the popularity for something else.

"Sister Wei! Sister Wei! Your Ni Bingyan is about to trend again!"

Hearing the familiar voice say the familiar words, Wei Shuojie took a sharp breath of the cold January air, then struggled to maintain her composure as she asked mildly,

"Xiao Chang, what did she do now?"

"She’s trending because she was playing with a kid at a hotel!"

"A kid?!!"

Wei Shuojie couldn’t stop her voice from rising several octaves.

’To hell with staying graceful!’

’How could anyone possibly stay calm after hearing news like that?’

’It was enough to make my hair stand on end, okay?!’

Ever since Granny Sun’s secret childbirth scandal had completely torched her career, she’d had a bit of PTSD about the subject.

She was afraid that Ni Bingyan had a child before she was signed and had been hiding it all this time just to become famous.

And you couldn’t blame her for not being able to tell whether Ni Bingyan had given birth.

In this industry, female celebrities who had given birth to several children yet still looked as young and fresh as eighteen-year-old girls were a dime a dozen.

"Huh?"

Xiao Chang froze for a moment before realizing that what he’d just said was misleading.

’If this blows up, won’t I get blamed for starting rumors and sowing discord?’

Xiao Chang quickly explained:

"Whoa! Sister Wei, don’t panic! It wasn’t her child, it was someone else’s!"

"Okay, hold on. Let me get the full story first."

Having nearly had a crisis of faith in her artist right in front of her colleague, Wei Shuojie didn’t want to say more and hung up the phone directly.

It wasn’t that she had no faith in Ni Bingyan. The main issue was that it hadn’t even been two years since she’d been badly burned by this exact type of incident. She and Sun Lizhi had a friendship stretching back twenty years, but that hadn’t stopped Sun Lizhi from throwing her under the bus. After that, hearing this kind of news would make her suspicious of her own mother, let alone Ni Bingyan.

She didn’t ask Ni Bingyan why she was playing with someone else’s kid out of the blue. She just opened Weibo directly.

When she saw the video, Wei Shuojie was both amused and exasperated.

’Other stars get grabbed and forcibly kissed by some greasy guy and it doesn’t have this effect, but she gets her hand pulled by someone in diapers and ends up trending? Who was she supposed to complain to about this injustice?’

’Some people really can’t be left idle!’

In the time it took her assistant to check them in—so short a time that someone with a slower bowel might not even finish a fart—

she managed to stir up trouble!

And then she gets pushed onto the trending list by the ’LOL Brigade’!

’Maybe, aside from the Communist Party, the most powerful party in the world was the LOL Brigade...’

’The entire nation is cheering the sailors’ rescue right now. For Ni Bingyan to climb onto the trending list for something like this and steal the spotlight... wasn’t that just being completely oblivious?’

And so, without a second thought, Sister Wei immediately made a call to get the topic removed from the trending list.

There was nothing wrong with this course of action. Countless past experiences had already proven the viability of this approach.

But a problem still arose.

At this hour, the Weibo programmer in charge of such matters had already packed his laptop bag, stood up from his desk, and was preparing to leave for the day. Suddenly, he received a new task: remove a trending topic about Ni Bingyan.

The programmer’s mood soured instantly. Muttering to himself, he sat back down and reopened his laptop.

He was right in the middle of it when he got a call from his wife, asking when he’d be home. The family was celebrating their son’s birthday today, and it wouldn’t be right to have dinner without him.

After explaining he had to work overtime to remove a trending topic for Ni Bingyan, he casually complained, "Everyone else spends all day buying their way onto the trending list, but she’s different. In the last two months, we’ve already taken down eight for her, and now another one. Ugh, you guys go ahead and eat. I’ll be back a little later."

Removing a trending topic wasn’t a complicated task. The programmer was a bit resentful, but it wasn’t a major issue.

After consoling his disappointed son and explaining the situation to his family, the programmer got to work.

On the other end of the line, the family was gathered together, and half the dishes were already on the table. When her daughter-in-law hung up, the old matriarch was bound to ask what her son had said.

The daughter-in-law casually relayed the story.

There were quite a few people present, and since the couple were the youngest of their siblings, their nieces and nephews were already in their teens. Upon hearing this piece of gossip, their eyes began to sparkle.

And so, they posted the tidbit on various social media sites as fresh gossip.

In the information age, people are always chasing novelty. Anything unexpected is bound to attract a ton of attention.

Other actresses were trying desperately to get noticed every day, either by showing some skin here or flashing a bit of leg there. They’d finally get an airport photo, painstakingly edit it to perfection, and post it, only for a netizen to release an unedited, unflattering candid shot a moment later.

They’d make a complete fool of themselves and still fail to achieve their goal.

Only Ni Bingyan, this chosen one, could do any random thing and have a crowd of people laughing their heads off. No one even knew what was so funny. Snagging the top comment on her posts could get you hundreds of thousands of likes. It was enough to make one die of anger!

It was just so infuriating!

She had to be taken down!