Chapter 16 - An Abrupt Turn of Event (“Both her and her fox belong to me.”)

"Mr. Mu, I think there has been some misunderstanding." Jiang YueXian remained in the car, but as the car door was now wide open, he put his mask back on. "I am aware of your relationship with Miss Xu and I have no intention in getting in between. I merely like Miss Xu's pet fox a lot and would like to be around it more. If Miss Xu is okay with it, I can even set up a social platform and post everything related to it."

"I am sorry. I am not okay with it," said Xu WanZhi as she shook her head. "You have a pet as well. Would you give your husky away if someone offers you 50 million yuan? No, right? Then you shouldn't ask that of me. It's a very simple concept."

Her word immediately made Jiang YueXian speechless. 

Mu ZhenYu stood in front of him with his iced-cold look. He lifted his chin at Jiang YueXian, as though sticking his claim on his possessions and said in a low voice. "You get it now? Both her and her fox belong to me."

Having said that, Mu ZhenYu took Xu WanZhi's hand and took her back to the nanny van. 

"He is crazy. Why are you even talking to him?" Mu ZhenYu glanced over at her in the back of the nanny van. What he saw was her cheeks blushed and her head lowered – as though she couldn't look at him because she was shy. 

She was so cute like that. 

The corners of his mouth lifted up. He looked outside the window and said, "If he bothers you again, just let me know."

Xu WanZhi still didn't say anything. She just nodded slightly. 

He was in a much better mood now and asked her, "What do you want for dinner?"

Her eyes lit up finally and she said excitedly, "Fried chicken. Coconut and fried chicken!"

Dang. She was so cute!

Soft English songs were playing inside the car and the mood was peculiar. Mu ZhenYu's heart itched a little, as though it was touched by the tips of her hair. 

Mu ZhenYu suddenly felt that he could understand Jiang YueXian's obsession. 

Sure enough, the very next morning, Xu WanZhi's name rose again and was posted on the front of some revenue-generating website and further made it to the most trended search list. 

#Xu WanZhi scamming Jiang YueXian# Last night, after Xu WanZhi's filming for the day, someone got a picture of her forcing her way into film emperor Jiang YueXian's car. It looked like she was trying to leech off of his popularity once again. This kind of utterly shameless scamming behavior by pretending to be a couple with the film emperor and even cutting into his resting time is unforgivable. 

Under the Weibo entry, there was a collage of 9 pictures, each of them very focused. Xu WanZhi was sitting in the back seat of the car, tilting her head, talking to Jiang YueXian in all of them. 

Xu WanZhi chuckled. She didn't even need to think about it to know that this was Chang XiaoYa's handy work. 

She casually looked through the comments – the Weibo's description had perfectly stirred up Jiang YueXian's fan's hatred toward her. A lot of the comments were very aggressive. The ones that told her to get out of the entertainment circle were the milder ones. The more excessive one just cussed her out along with all of her family members. 

In addition, Chang XiaoYa reposted this article with her real account, adding below that, "Adopting this type of method in order to gain popularity is unacceptable. As actors, we should lead by example and boycott against behaviors like that."

As such, what was the matter of just Jiang YueXian's fans had become a pressing matter for all actors/actresses. Those who looked down on Xu WanZhi and those who wanted to leech off of Jiang YueXian's popularity all started to repost Chang XiaoYa's post. 

[XiaoYa is right. We should boycott behaviors like that.]

[I back XiaoYa as well. We want to improve the work environment of the entertainment circle.]

[I hope everybody can speak through their work and redirect their effort spent on marketing to acting.]

Other than these obvious attacks, there was no shortage of fake white lotuses who wrote in Weibo: [Wasn't JiangJiang looking for the little foxy lately? Perhaps Xu WanZhi knows something about it. We should hold off attacking her just yet.]

The wordings made it sound like she was standing up for Xu WanZhi, but the subtext was that Xu WanZhi was wheeling Jiang YueXian in with matters regarding the fox. As such, the atmosphere in the comment area got even worse:

[Xu WanZhi must have lured Jiang YueXian into the car using his weakness for the fox.]

[JiangJiang couldn't avoid her fast enough. The reason that he hadn't had his bodyguard throw her out of the car must be because she had told him she knew something about the fox!]

[That Xu WanZhi is so despicable. You better watch your steps!]

[OMG. There really is no limit to her shamelessness, is there? She never fails to surprise me with how low she could stoop.]

[Can't she go scam someone else instead? What did she have against JiangJiang? Why was she targeting him all the time?]

The filming hasn't started yet. Xu WanZhi, sitting in the break area, calmly looked away from all sorts of abusive languages toward her.

Inside the studio, all of the other actors and the crew members looked at her differently than before. Some of them even stood around in groups of twos and threes, whispering to each other, only to pretend nothing was going on and looked at their scripts when Xu WanZhi looked over at them. 

All the effort that she had put into "Blossoming Us" seemed to have been undone. 

Xu WanZhi didn't care. She snickered softly and focused on her own work. 

Not too far away, Chang XiaoYa had just finished talking with the props team and walked over with her head held up high. 

"It has been hot and dry as of late and nobody was in their best of temperament. I just wanted to express my thoughts on Weibo and didn't expect the fans to misunderstood my meaning, thus leading to all those horrible comments about you and making you the target of them all. Just don't pay too much attention to them, okay, WanZhi?"

Her voice was neither too loud nor too soft. Just enough for everyone at the studio to hear. All of a sudden, the atmosphere in the studio became peculiar all over again – everybody reflexively looked over at them, hoping for first hand melon-eating. 

Xu WanZhi merely smiled a little and sat up straight in her chair. She retorted, "XiaoYa, just for the sake of making your point, you've been following me around with your phone day and night. You are a good actress, but you chose to do the work of a paparazzi. If that didn't bother you, why should I let it bother me?"

Everybody knew that Chang XiaoYa and Xu WanZhi hadn't gotten along since the very first day. And most of the back-stabbing incidents were done by Chang XiaoYa, so nobody was surprised to hear that. 

Chang XiaoYa paused for a second; clearly she hadn't expected that Xu WanZhi would notice that it was her who took the pictures. But then, she thought to herself, so what if she knew? Xu WanZhi was well hated by most and didn't have a lot of authority. Even if Xu WanZhi was to say something negative about her on Weibo, nobody would believe her. As such, Chang XiaoYa curved her lips again and mocked. "True. WanZhi-jie probably had never been that high up on the most trended searches before. No publicity is bad publicity, right?"

Xu WanZhi nodded and went along with what Chang XiaoYa had said, "You are most certainly right. This is just the beginning. We don't know whether it is going to be good or bad publicity just yet."

Xu WanZhi's nonchalant mannerism baffled Chang XiaoYa. Even though Xu WanZhi had been scolded by the entire internet quite often since her debut, this time there was quite a bit of profanity in the comment section. It just wasn't normal that she was so…. chill about all this.

Chang XiaoYa changed the direction of the conversation abruptly and dragged out Mu ZhenYu. "Well, as long as WanZhi-jie didn't do anything wrong, I guess it didn't matter that some of your pictures were posted… I wonder what Mr. Mu would say when he sees this trended search. You think what you have said about being by his side no matter what would still hold?"

Xu WanZhi cocked her head nonchalantly and smiled at her. "Who knows?"

Suddenly, her phone rang. She waved it in front of Chang XiaoYa and said, "I need to take this. Laters."

It was Fang Lin who called her. Fang Lin's very solemn voice came over the phone as soon as Xu WanZhi picked it up. "WanZhi, what's with the trended search today? It was so sudden that it caught me off guard."

Xu WanZhi was calmed and confident. "Nothing serious. All we need to do is to wait for Jiang YueXian's response."

Fang Lin didn't follow and raised her voice. "Jiang YueXian? You meant to wait till he says something else to take a shot at us too? By then it'd be too late!"

"Don't worry. Fang-jie. I got dirt on him. He won't take a shot at all. Quite the contrary, he will clarify things for me and faceslap everybody else online." Having said that, Xu WanZhi saw from a distance the director waving at everybody to get ready for filming. She stood up and said, "I need to start working. Don't worry, Fang-jie. Just wait and see."

She hung up the phone, straightened out her hair, and walked over to her spot in a charming and graceful manner. 

Looking at her from afar, Chang XiaoYa balled her hands into fists. 

By 10 AM that morning, Jiang YueXian finally spoke up. He even reposted Chang XiaoYa's Weibo and called her out:

[Chang XiaoYa, this was not Miss Xu WanZhi trying to scam me. I hope you will learn the truth before you speak up and not encourage rumors. I reached out to Xu WanZhi last night to discuss some work matters. Miss Xu wasn't trying to leech off of my popularity. Regardless of whether you are a fan of mine or just a bystander, I hope the attacks toward Miss Xu would cease immediately. Otherwise, I would assist Miss Xu in prosecutive the culprits unconditionally.]

The abrupt change of event caused the mouths of everyone who read the message to drop.

This was big.