Chapter 14: Socially Anxious Star 14
While a heated commotion was stirring online because of Director Shen Ping’s comments, Jiang Kong’s manager, Brother Wen, had just finished talking with the company’s upper management. He was currently carefully weighing his words, trying to figure out how to relay the contents of their discussion to Jiang Kong.
As the “top guy” and “pillar of the company,” Jiang Kong was naturally valued by the entire agency.
However, the company’s resources and strength were limited, and its anti-smear mechanisms were utterly immature. Consequently, Jiang Kong was routinely smeared to the point of being torn to shreds online… Well, truth be told, it was actually because the head of the public relations department was a relative of a shareholder, practically there just to idle away until retirement. He didn’t manage anything, and most of the time, you couldn’t even reach him when you wanted to.
Furthermore, Jiang Kong had risen to fame far too quickly. He had debuted in first place with a landslide victory in a talent competition, accumulating a massive fanbase, and later broke out into the mainstream through his role as Yan Wushu, amassing another huge wave of fans. In terms of popularity, calling him a top-tier celebrity was well-deserved. But he had far too few die-hard fans, and his fanbase lacked fighting power, leaving them completely defenseless against smear campaigns most of the time.
This time, when Brother Wen reported the public relations department’s issues to the executives, he received answers that were virtually identical to previous times: “Got it, I’ll look into the situation first,” “I’ll push them,” or “I’ll give them feedback.”
Brother Wen: Heartbroken.jpg
He let out a sigh and was just about to send the text message to Jiang Kong when his assistant’s phone call unexpectedly rang in.
“Brother Wen! Go check the trending topics right now!”
Brother Wen’s heart skipped a beat, but upon belatedly catching the joy in the assistant’s voice, the anxiety that had surged into his chest slowly settled down a bit.
He opened Weibo’s trending topics.
A few minutes later—
Brother Wen rubbed his eyes, unable to stop himself from going through each of the trending topics once more.
Whoa, is Kong’s luck finally starting to turn around?
He couldn’t help but beam with joy.
“Jiang Kong is disrespectful to seniors and lacks emotional intelligence” had always been a major black mark on him.
Although Shen Ping’s statement this time couldn’t completely clear his name, having three seniors speak up for Jiang Kong was already more than enough to soothe a large number of uninformed fans who were teetering on the edge of leaving the fandom.
Brother Wen immediately called back his assistant, instructing, “Pay extra attention to the fan groups.”
The assistant agreed right away.
Having answered that question, Shen Ping no longer felt like looking at the bullet comments to field questions. He closed all bullet comments directly, set his tablet aside, and started playing on his phone.
The moment he opened his phone, a deluge of marketing account messages and private notifications rushed in.
Browsing through the Weibo entries, Shen Ping felt like the marketing accounts had distorted his meaning.
He didn’t admire Jiang Kong all that much. Speaking up for him in the livestream room this time was, firstly, out of respect for the facts; and secondly, consider it returning a favor to Jiang Kong.
A single bowl of soup making him change his opinion of Jiang Kong? Impossible.
Even though that soup was indeed delicious—making someone like him, who disliked sweet soups, harbor a lingering craving—the soup hadn’t been cooked by Jiang Kong anyway.
Shen Ping pondered for a moment, his thoughts straying off course: Jiang Kong’s sister… The young lady is pretty nice, just a bit shy around strangers.
Ten minutes later.
A new Weibo post from Shen Ping went live.
@ShenPing: Focus on facts, not people.
However, the other central figure of this event was still completely oblivious to all this at the moment.
Jiang Kong was currently selecting bedsheets and sending various pattern options into their group chat for everyone’s reference.
It wasn’t until everything had been purchased, paid for, and the delivery address filled out that Jiang Kong finally noticed a long string of messages from his manager.
He gave them a quick glance, and upon realizing what had happened, he didn’t rush to reply. Instead, he looked up at Pei Wusi and Shen Xiangcheng.
“I still need to buy a few more things. You guys can head back first.”
Pei Wusi shook his head, while Shen Xiangcheng smiled and said, “No rush, go ahead and buy them.”
Jiang Kong quickly picked out two tubs of matcha-flavored ice cream, had the store clerk pack them up securely, and bought half a watermelon.
“Bringing them back for Jiang Yi?”
Walking over, Pei Wusi asked with a smile.
Jiang Kong nodded, not saying much.
“Let’s go.”
Returning to the villa was a bit slower than the supermarket’s delivery speed.
Shen Ping and Luo Jiajin were already taking inventory of the delivered items, while Chang Ximing was ordering food for everyone.
Having received Jiang Kong’s phone call, Jiang Yi headed downstairs, arriving just in time to see Jiang Kong and the others return.
Jiang Kong handed the ice cream he was holding to Jiang Yi first and set the watermelon to the side, before joining the others in hauling all the inventoried items back inside the villa.
The morning’s affairs had come to a close, and the livestream room was shut down at the appropriate time.
Everyone ate lunch together in an atmosphere that was much more harmonious than their first meal.
Except for Jiang Yi, almost everyone participated in the conversation.
After their afternoon nap, they began organizing and cleaning up the entire villa.
This task was actually very light and easy.
By 3:00 PM, when the livestream room opened, they had just begun, and by 4:30 PM, before the stream had even closed, the work was entirely finished.
For the final half hour, everyone sat together in the living room with the livestream running, chatting with the director.
Director: “Our planning team originally estimated that you guys would finish around six in the evening.”
“An hour and a half early.”
Jiang Kong feigned surprise, “How could that be?”
The director was choked into speechless silence, before explaining:
“The original plan for that night was for everyone to complete evening tasks to pay the room fees. Then on the second day, with hardly any money left over, you’d need to do more tasks to earn money if you wanted to furnish your rooms.”
“As a result, one of you preferred sleeping on the floor over paying five hundred yuan, while the other suggested going out to stay in a hotel…”
He didn’t finish his sentence, but his meaning was crystal clear: the production crew had been forced to compromise.
Jiang Kong chuckled, thought for a moment, and then asked, “That’s still not right.”
“I had over six thousand yuan. Adding everyone else’s money, even if we obediently paid the room fees, we’d still have a surplus.”
The moment his words fell, a small plush toy came flying over, smacking right into Jiang Kong—
“Your résumé didn’t mention you could act as a wedding emcee!”
Who could have guessed that Jiang Kong could act as an emcee for two weddings, earning six to seven thousand yuan?
【AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA】
【AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH The furious production crew】
【Kongkong has truly exceeded everyone’s expectations】
【AHAHAHAHAHA Watching everyone finish everything up and the director awkwardly appearing, I knew this show had no script】
【AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA They’re all big shots, how would anyone dare write a script for them?】
Jiang Kong held his forehead and laughed, catching the plush toy and stuffing it into the hands of Jiang Yi beside him.
They chatted for a few more minutes afterward, and the livestream room closed ahead of schedule.
The livestream recording for the first phase of The Strikingly Different Us had officially come to an end.
All cameras were turned off, and those in a rush to leave had already headed upstairs to pack their luggage.
Jiang Yi and Jiang Kong stayed until everyone else had departed before taking the elevator up to the third floor.
The third floor shared the same room layout as the first and second floors, but it contained many photos from their childhood, items commonly seen during their younger years, and a family portrait.
The two took a stroll through the entire third floor inside and out before picking a room to settle into.
Jiang Kong had long agreed that he wouldn’t schedule any work for the days immediately following the recording, holding off until after the next filming block concluded before resuming work.
Therefore, his manager, Brother Wen, simply asked for the address and came over in person to find him.
The assistant rode along in the car, following the navigation as the surroundings grew increasingly familiar, until finally, the car stopped in front of a familiar villa.
The show’s staff members had left the next day, and right now, the villa’s black carved iron gate was tightly shut, looking completely uninhabited.
The assistant got out of the car, peered inside, but couldn’t see anything.
He turned his head toward the manager.
“Brother Wen?”
“Could Brother Jiang have given us the wrong address?”
Holding his phone, the manager sent his location to Jiang Kong without jumping to conclusions.
After all, even a lawyer from Jinghe had been brought in, so living around here wasn’t altogether unexpected.
Even if Jiang Kong told him that the show’s filming location was actually his home, he wouldn’t feel very surprised.
Just as he was thinking, he saw Jiang Kong walking over carrying a bag.
“You guys arrived?”
“Come on in quickly, the sun is hot outside.”
Jiang Kong waved his hand, walked up to the carved iron gate, and pressed his fingerprint against it.
Click.
The carved iron gate slowly swung open.
Jiang Kong walked inside and turned back to wave at the manager and assistant again.
“Why aren’t you coming in?”
The assistant’s eyes widened, as if waking from a dream, and he hurriedly followed him inside.
Brother Wen followed behind with dazed, lightheaded steps.
This… this… it seemed he had overestimated his own psychological capacity.
Jiang Kong handed the two of them water and put the bought groceries into the refrigerator. Once everything was sorted, he walked over and sat down in front of them.
“What did you come to see me about?”
Manager Brother Wen let out an “Ah,” answering completely off-topic, “Kong… did you come to the entertainment industry just to experience life?”
Jiang Kong: ???
“Brother Wen?!”
“Here.”
Brother Wen snapped back to reality quickly, rubbed his head, and gave a chuckle. “Hahaha, I was just too shocked. Let me get back on track and discuss business.”
The reason for his visit this time was that he had tracked down the person who had been smearing Jiang Kong recently.
Brother Wen laid out the files on the table and pushed them toward Jiang Kong.
“Through our analysis, we’ve confirmed the person who has been continuously smearing you during this period—Wu Chengxin.”
Jiang Kong flipped through the other party’s information, his brows knitting after a moment.
“A martial arts star? I don’t think I’ve ever had any overlap with him.”
Brother Wen sighed. “That’s precisely why I came to find you.”
“No matter how you look at it, you two haven’t had any interaction.”
“He focuses mainly on the film industry and is a go-to martial arts actor for many famous directors. His style is completely different from yours, so you don’t clash at all. Before this, I’ve never heard of any conflicts between our sides either.”
Brother Wen fell silent for a moment, met Jiang Kong’s eyes, and let out another sigh.
“I know what you want to say.”
“I also doubted if we had gotten the wrong person, but… if it isn’t him, we can’t find anyone else to suspect.”
Jiang Kong pondered for a moment, keeping all the documents.
“Alright, I got it. I’ll keep an eye out.”
Brother Wen nodded, and without lingering any longer, he and the assistant drove away.
Hearing the noise, Jiang Yi looked down from above, catching only the view of the two figures leaving.
“What’s wrong?”
Jiang Kong shook his head, not planning to tell his sister about this matter.
“Nothing, just some work-related stuff they needed to see me about.”
Jiang Yi nodded, asking again, “What soup are we having today?”
“Corn and pork rib soup?”
Jiang Kong gave his answer. “I bought pork ribs and corn today, and… three-delicacy mushroom soup works too.”
“Corn and pork rib soup then.”
Jiang Yi added, “We can also steam a bit of corn.”
“Sure.”
Jiang Kong nodded with a smile. Afterward, he opened WeChat and located the chat window for the catering manager of a nearby hotel to place an order.
Jiang Yi loved simmering soups and stewing porridge—especially wellness porridges and soups, which she made exceptionally well with first-rate flavor.
However, she didn’t like cooking other dishes, which was why Jiang Kong always kept hotel food delivery contacts handy on his phone.
Just as Jiang Kong finished placing the order, a phone call from his manager—who had left only a short while ago—came in.
“Kong, the director of Different said they’re planning a joint livestream with all the guests in the near future. He asked when you’re free, it’ll take about half an hour.”
A joint livestream?
Jiang Kong paused slightly. “Any time works for me.”
He inquired further, “What did the others say?”
“Currently, there are two potential time slots: one is 8:00 PM on the 5th, and the other is 8:00 PM on the 6th.”
Jiang Kong uttered an “Mm.” Before he could say anything else, the manager added:
“The director contacted me again, saying a guest has something scheduled for the 5th, and asked if the 6th works for us?”
“…That works.”
The manager acknowledged, “Then it’s set for 8:00 PM on the 6th.”
“The director requires all guests to open a livestream. I asked for you—since you and your sister are together, you can just open a single stream, but both of you must be on camera.”
“At that time, everyone will just chat and answer a few small questions related to the show.”
After hanging up the phone, Jiang Kong held his phone and looked upstairs, his expression displaying a rare look of distress.
Hiss—a livestream…
How on earth am I supposed to break this to her?
Headache.jpg
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