Chapter 21
Support the original translation team by reading on Chaotic Frog Novels!
Any kind of news about Shi Xi will start trending because of his fans.
Gu Feining was already used to that rule. Shi Xi’s fans were very capable, Shi Xi would be able to get on the trending page for doing even the smallest thing.
One thing Gu Feining was thankful for was that this time, she was not trending alongside him.
Right now, the ones making the trend were Shi Xi’s fans because the mentors had all made thank-you posts on Weibo. The production team posted about it as well.
There was one time a fan-organized event in support of Shi Xi was so extravagant it shocked the netizens how rich Shi Xi’s fans were.
After Gu Feining finished work, she kept searching for news about her and Shi Xi. She could ignore it when fans talked about them, but the bigger issue was that many celebrity news bloggers had followed their lead.
From the hug at the start to them wearing the same clothes, all the minute connections fans had created between the two of them without any evidence were brought up. And, it made it seem like Shi Xi was truly dating Gu Feining in secret. Luckily, because there was too little evidence, there was nothing much to dig up, thus, not many people showed significant interest in it.
The only scary thing was that Shi Xi was also photographed today, driving his car and wearing a shirt of the same style as Gu Feining to the supermarket to shop for groceries.
Taking this as evidence, the CP fans were convinced the two of them were together.
Gu Feining looked through Weibo for a very long time but did not find any photos of Shi Xi appearing at the production set of her show. Only then did she finally feel at ease.
However, not all of Shi Xi’s fans were rational. They kept saying that Shi Xi had never had any scandals ever since he debuted, but as soon as he changed companies and worked together with her, relationship rumors were floating around left and right. They refused to believe she was not trying to gain popularity by associating with him.
Gu Feining only skimmed through the comments. Even if the Weibo posts were bad, she only took a glance at them. Ever since the photo of the two of them hugging got out last time, she had closed off her private messages. If she didn’t look at them, she would feel a lot better.
After looking through Weibo for a while, Yue Mei’s call came in, asking her what happened. Yue Mei had been with Gu Feining for so long that she might even know Gu Feining’s closet better than Gu Feining herself. Even if Gu Feining wanted to keep the truth hidden, she would be unable to. Yue Mei was like her real older sister and Gu Feining relied on her very much.
So when Yue Mei asked her, ‘Is that shirt really Shi Xi’s?’ Gu Feining told her the truth.
Yue Mei was silent for a very long time before she suddenly asked Gu Feining, “The two of you slept together?”
The question was too shocking for Gu Feining. She had yet to deny it when Yue Mei took it as her admitting to it and sighed, “I’m not against you dating, but if the other party is Shi Xi… it’s really…”
‘Unsuitable.’
Yue Mei did not say that word, but both of them naturally knew it in their hearts.
Yue Mei had always wanted Gu Feining to rely on Shi Xi to gain popularity, but unexpectedly, at this moment, she did not approve of them being together.
Gu Feining was a little surprised, but she tried to clarify, “My relationship with Shi Xi isn’t like that.”
“Shi Xi is too young.”
Although relationships, where the woman was older, were quite common in the entertainment industry, there was no precedent of an extremely popular young male idol dating an older B-list female celebrity. If there was too large a difference in their career, it would not look very good either. As a manager, Yue Mei knew very well how hardworking Gu Feining was. As such, she did not want this kind of thing to obstruct her future development.
“You should think it through.”
“I know.” Gu Feining felt a little helpless. She’d lost the right to clearly state that she and Shi Xi weren’t in any kind of relationship. She could only emphasize, “I’m not dating Shi Xi.”
Yue Mei was quite speechless. They were already sleeping together, but Gu Feining was still saying they weren’t dating. Yue Mei felt that it wouldn’t be long before they actually started dating. After all, who could withstand Shi Xi’s charm? Even aside from those young girls everywhere, many of the older ladies working in the company were Shi Xi’s mother-fans1.
Back when news about the company having the intention of signing Shi Xi was spreading around, all the female employees went crazy with talk about how they would crowdfund to help their boss sign Shi Xi.
After that, Shi Xi joined the company, and those people anticipated his visit every day. As soon as Shi Xi visited the company, half the office seats were emptied. If Gu Feining wanted to get together with Shi Xi, she might end up having to fight people from their company at first.
When Yue Mei heard Gu Feining’s denial, she let out a breath of relief. “It’s good that you aren’t.”
It was impossible to stop celebrities when they wanted to date. Yue Mei understood Gu Feining very well, she was a celebrity that was very career-oriented. She loved her career and definitely wouldn’t let these rumors ruin all her hard work.
“If it actually happens, give me a pre-warning so that I’ll be able to make preparations in advance.”
Although they might not be able to hide it, it would be better if their side had prior notice and could make sufficient preparations.
It was true that Gu Feining did not have the confidence to assure Yue Mei that she would definitely never get together with Shi Xi. Shi Xi was full of charisma. When she spent time together with him, beside a bit of nervousness, she mostly felt relaxed around him.
But it was also true that she didn’t want to date right now. Although she didn’t express it outright, the fact that Yuan Jinyan and Mi Ke’s careers were going downhill made her even more driven to work hard, and she did feel a sense of gloating upon seeing their current situation.
Gu Feining had never been the kind of person to forgive and forget. She definitely wouldn’t thank those who hurt her in the past for making her who she was today.
Whatever she had now, she was the one who worked hard to get it. She did not intend to forgive them. At most, she would stop being petty about it. And not for any reason other than being unwilling to let them affect her life.
“But…” Yue Mei was hesitating on the other end of the phone, “No matter what… you have to take precautions2.”
Gu Feining was stunned for a moment before she snapped back to her senses. Her face turned red and she didn’t know how to respond.
It was really awkward to talk about this sort of matter. When they were at the hotel, because the hotel prepared these kinds of things, she used them. However, she was worried that the hotel employees would notice that the condoms were being used so she bought the same brand of condoms and replaced them. She did not dare to lose the remaining condoms The ones that remained in the box she bought after she replaced the hotel’s condoms I think.” style=”color: #f00; cursor: help; text-decoration: none;”>3 either. After all, as a celebrity, she did not know if a scandal would occur if she was spotted.
She also did not dare to ask Xiao Mang to settle this matter, thus, she had kept bringing it around in her bag. Yesterday…when Shi Xi stopped midway and said that he wanted to go out to get some, she had uneasily said that she had some condoms in her bag with a reddened face.
Shi Xi didn’t comment, simply saying that it appeared that he had to prepare some as well.
Gu Feining didn’t know who he was going to use them for when he said he wanted to prepare some, but when she heard those words, she felt a little uncomfortable.
But the fact that Shi Xi did not have any prepared at home meant that he truly didn’t plan to do such things with her last night. When she thought about that, she was suddenly in a good mood again.
Yue Mei did not plan on talking to Gu Feining for long and asked her to go to bed early, taking the chance to remind her that the variety show would start airing this weekend. The production team had already talked to Yue Mei. Gu Feining’s performance was average, not extremely outstanding, but there weren’t any issues either.
Yue Mei was anticipating the reaction from the first episode because there was the full publicity video in it, and along with her individual portion, there was also the clip of her performing with Shi Xi. Those two clips were breathtaking enough.
Looking at the recent popularity of variety shows these few years, Yue Mei was quite worried. Variety shows had allowed many older actors to gain popularity again and had also allowed many small B-listers or C-listers to gain sudden popularity. However, her artiste lacked the ‘variety sense’ and could not do well on variety shows.
But it was hard to predict. Naturally, while some gained sudden popularity, there were some celebrities who were originally very popular but lost the public’s favor as soon as they went on variety shows. It was too hard to predict the audience’s taste. To prevent this sort of thing, Yue Mei had always been careful on this matter. But this time, she was taking a risk, mainly because she saw that Shi Xi was also participating in this variety show.
The good thing was that this show was indeed very suitable for Gu Feining.
With the reminder, Gu Feining herself had started to anticipate the show airing. After all, this was the first variety show where she would be part of the main cast4. She had even mentally prepared herself that even if she got scolded very badly after the show aired, she was fine with it.
Furthermore, she didn’t think her performance was bad. She strongly believed that something she took seriously would not end up too badly.
Yue Mei hung up after giving her a few more instructions.
Gu Feining then looked at her phone. Shi Xi had sent her a message.
When she opened it, she found that Shi Xi had sent her a selfie he took with Tang Tang.
He was using a cat to seduce her.
Gu Feining thought about how she had kept looking through Weibo the whole night, full of fear, whereas the other party was in his house, petting his cat. She then replied to him, in a slightly bad mood: [ Can you delete the Weibo posts? xoxo5 ]
Shi Xi replied very quickly: [ Alright, when will you kiss me? ]
She got flirted out of nowhere and her heart was thumping. So, she decided to just switch off her phone and go to sleep. She realized that she couldn’t interact with Shi Xi too much, otherwise, it would make her behave strangely.
The next day when she got up and switched on her phone, she saw Shi Xi’s message.
Shi Xi said: [ I’ve deleted the Weibo posts. So, when will you kiss me? ]
Gu Feining’s heart was rapidly racing for some unknown reason.
Actually, Gu Feining knew very well that using this sort of way to cover up the matter wasn’t right. The more she deleted, the more it would prove that what was deleted was the truth.
When she looked at Weibo again, she realized that the Weibo posts of the celebrity news bloggers concerning her and Shi Xi were all deleted. However, the CP fans’ posts were still there. Shi Xi had probably thought about the negative effects it would cause if he deleted those posts made by private accounts and did not control what the CP fans were posting.
Gu Feining felt very perplexed. The words she had casually said were taken seriously by Shi Xi. If she were to say that she did not feel anything, she would be an emotionless woman.
In a daze, she found a kissy-face emoji and sent it. After she sent that, she regretted it immediately and frantically unsent the message. Her heart was beating frantically and she did not know what to do with her hands.
Suddenly, the phone vibrated. Shi Xi had replied.
Shi Xi: [ I saw that. ]
After that, he sent a sticker from a sticker pack of himself. It was probably photoshopped by his fans. There was the word ‘happy’ written across his face. It looked very silly.
After that, Gu Feining no longer dared to continue replying and went to work with her frantically beating heart.
‘Best Female Lead’ would air on Saturday. By Friday, it was already being promoted extensively on the Internet. Shi Xi’s connections in the entertainment industry all appeared. Almost half the people in the entertainment industry were helping him to promote the show. Yuan Jinyan and Mi Ke naturally reposted Shi Xi’s post about it.
Gu Feining’s number of reposts was the lowest among the mentors. Although she did have a decent fanbase, there was such a small fraction of truly active fans that it looked pitiful. However, compared to the past, the comments and the number of reposts were quite alright.
Xiao Mang innocently asked Yue Mei if she wanted to help Gu Feining buy some comments and reposts, and was scolded by Yue Mei. At this juncture, everyone was taking note of these kinds of things. If they overdid it, people would definitely notice that.
That night, ‘Best Female Lead’ was trending on Weibo. And the next day, when the show started airing, the reviews were extremely good. These days, if proper efforts were put into a show, people would acknowledge the effort and appreciate it.
After the episode finished airing, all sorts of clips and gifs started appearing.
Gu Feining was shocked to find that she had started trending.
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Translator’s Notes:
Mother-fans like fans that treat the idol as a son/daughter. There are also sister-fans etc. Safety precautions when they are having sex. The remaining condoms -> The ones that remained in the box she bought after she replaced the hotel’s condoms I think. As opposed to a one-episode guest. Not very sure what the word for it is! I guess the kisses component is kind of like x at the end of a message? It’s a little hard to explain, but in general, that particular word is used for addressing people as well, like ‘love’, ‘darling’, with no romantic connotation. In fact, you’ll find that a lot of shop owners on online shopping platforms use 亲 to address customers. It doesn’t necessarily mean kisses, but it could mean kisses when the word is separate from the rest of the sentence.
Chapter 21
Support the original translation team by reading on Chaotic Frog Novels!
Any kind of news about Shi Xi will start trending because of his fans.
Gu Feining was already used to that rule. Shi Xi’s fans were very capable, Shi Xi would be able to get on the trending page for doing even the smallest thing.
One thing Gu Feining was thankful for was that this time, she was not trending alongside him.
Right now, the ones making the trend were Shi Xi’s fans because the mentors had all made thank-you posts on Weibo. The production team posted about it as well.
There was one time a fan-organized event in support of Shi Xi was so extravagant it shocked the netizens how rich Shi Xi’s fans were.
After Gu Feining finished work, she kept searching for news about her and Shi Xi. She could ignore it when fans talked about them, but the bigger issue was that many celebrity news bloggers had followed their lead.
From the hug at the start to them wearing the same clothes, all the minute connections fans had created between the two of them without any evidence were brought up. And, it made it seem like Shi Xi was truly dating Gu Feining in secret. Luckily, because there was too little evidence, there was nothing much to dig up, thus, not many people showed significant interest in it.
The only scary thing was that Shi Xi was also photographed today, driving his car and wearing a shirt of the same style as Gu Feining to the supermarket to shop for groceries.
Taking this as evidence, the CP fans were convinced the two of them were together.
Gu Feining looked through Weibo for a very long time but did not find any photos of Shi Xi appearing at the production set of her show. Only then did she finally feel at ease.
However, not all of Shi Xi’s fans were rational. They kept saying that Shi Xi had never had any scandals ever since he debuted, but as soon as he changed companies and worked together with her, relationship rumors were floating around left and right. They refused to believe she was not trying to gain popularity by associating with him.
Gu Feining only skimmed through the comments. Even if the Weibo posts were bad, she only took a glance at them. Ever since the photo of the two of them hugging got out last time, she had closed off her private messages. If she didn’t look at them, she would feel a lot better.
After looking through Weibo for a while, Yue Mei’s call came in, asking her what happened. Yue Mei had been with Gu Feining for so long that she might even know Gu Feining’s closet better than Gu Feining herself. Even if Gu Feining wanted to keep the truth hidden, she would be unable to. Yue Mei was like her real older sister and Gu Feining relied on her very much.
So when Yue Mei asked her, ‘Is that shirt really Shi Xi’s?’ Gu Feining told her the truth.
Yue Mei was silent for a very long time before she suddenly asked Gu Feining, “The two of you slept together?”
The question was too shocking for Gu Feining. She had yet to deny it when Yue Mei took it as her admitting to it and sighed, “I’m not against you dating, but if the other party is Shi Xi… it’s really…”
‘Unsuitable.’
Yue Mei did not say that word, but both of them naturally knew it in their hearts.
Yue Mei had always wanted Gu Feining to rely on Shi Xi to gain popularity, but unexpectedly, at this moment, she did not approve of them being together.
Gu Feining was a little surprised, but she tried to clarify, “My relationship with Shi Xi isn’t like that.”
“Shi Xi is too young.”
Although relationships, where the woman was older, were quite common in the entertainment industry, there was no precedent of an extremely popular young male idol dating an older B-list female celebrity. If there was too large a difference in their career, it would not look very good either. As a manager, Yue Mei knew very well how hardworking Gu Feining was. As such, she did not want this kind of thing to obstruct her future development.
“You should think it through.”
“I know.” Gu Feining felt a little helpless. She’d lost the right to clearly state that she and Shi Xi weren’t in any kind of relationship. She could only emphasize, “I’m not dating Shi Xi.”
Yue Mei was quite speechless. They were already sleeping together, but Gu Feining was still saying they weren’t dating. Yue Mei felt that it wouldn’t be long before they actually started dating. After all, who could withstand Shi Xi’s charm? Even aside from those young girls everywhere, many of the older ladies working in the company were Shi Xi’s mother-fans1.
Back when news about the company having the intention of signing Shi Xi was spreading around, all the female employees went crazy with talk about how they would crowdfund to help their boss sign Shi Xi.
After that, Shi Xi joined the company, and those people anticipated his visit every day. As soon as Shi Xi visited the company, half the office seats were emptied. If Gu Feining wanted to get together with Shi Xi, she might end up having to fight people from their company at first.
When Yue Mei heard Gu Feining’s denial, she let out a breath of relief. “It’s good that you aren’t.”
It was impossible to stop celebrities when they wanted to date. Yue Mei understood Gu Feining very well, she was a celebrity that was very career-oriented. She loved her career and definitely wouldn’t let these rumors ruin all her hard work.
“If it actually happens, give me a pre-warning so that I’ll be able to make preparations in advance.”
Although they might not be able to hide it, it would be better if their side had prior notice and could make sufficient preparations.
It was true that Gu Feining did not have the confidence to assure Yue Mei that she would definitely never get together with Shi Xi. Shi Xi was full of charisma. When she spent time together with him, beside a bit of nervousness, she mostly felt relaxed around him.
But it was also true that she didn’t want to date right now. Although she didn’t express it outright, the fact that Yuan Jinyan and Mi Ke’s careers were going downhill made her even more driven to work hard, and she did feel a sense of gloating upon seeing their current situation.
Gu Feining had never been the kind of person to forgive and forget. She definitely wouldn’t thank those who hurt her in the past for making her who she was today.
Whatever she had now, she was the one who worked hard to get it. She did not intend to forgive them. At most, she would stop being petty about it. And not for any reason other than being unwilling to let them affect her life.
“But…” Yue Mei was hesitating on the other end of the phone, “No matter what… you have to take precautions2.”
Gu Feining was stunned for a moment before she snapped back to her senses. Her face turned red and she didn’t know how to respond.
It was really awkward to talk about this sort of matter. When they were at the hotel, because the hotel prepared these kinds of things, she used them. However, she was worried that the hotel employees would notice that the condoms were being used so she bought the same brand of condoms and replaced them. She did not dare to lose the remaining condoms The ones that remained in the box she bought after she replaced the hotel’s condoms I think.” style=”color: #f00; cursor: help; text-decoration: none;”>3 either. After all, as a celebrity, she did not know if a scandal would occur if she was spotted.
She also did not dare to ask Xiao Mang to settle this matter, thus, she had kept bringing it around in her bag. Yesterday…when Shi Xi stopped midway and said that he wanted to go out to get some, she had uneasily said that she had some condoms in her bag with a reddened face.
Shi Xi didn’t comment, simply saying that it appeared that he had to prepare some as well.
Gu Feining didn’t know who he was going to use them for when he said he wanted to prepare some, but when she heard those words, she felt a little uncomfortable.
But the fact that Shi Xi did not have any prepared at home meant that he truly didn’t plan to do such things with her last night. When she thought about that, she was suddenly in a good mood again.
Yue Mei did not plan on talking to Gu Feining for long and asked her to go to bed early, taking the chance to remind her that the variety show would start airing this weekend. The production team had already talked to Yue Mei. Gu Feining’s performance was average, not extremely outstanding, but there weren’t any issues either.
Yue Mei was anticipating the reaction from the first episode because there was the full publicity video in it, and along with her individual portion, there was also the clip of her performing with Shi Xi. Those two clips were breathtaking enough.
Looking at the recent popularity of variety shows these few years, Yue Mei was quite worried. Variety shows had allowed many older actors to gain popularity again and had also allowed many small B-listers or C-listers to gain sudden popularity. However, her artiste lacked the ‘variety sense’ and could not do well on variety shows.
But it was hard to predict. Naturally, while some gained sudden popularity, there were some celebrities who were originally very popular but lost the public’s favor as soon as they went on variety shows. It was too hard to predict the audience’s taste. To prevent this sort of thing, Yue Mei had always been careful on this matter. But this time, she was taking a risk, mainly because she saw that Shi Xi was also participating in this variety show.
The good thing was that this show was indeed very suitable for Gu Feining.
With the reminder, Gu Feining herself had started to anticipate the show airing. After all, this was the first variety show where she would be part of the main cast4. She had even mentally prepared herself that even if she got scolded very badly after the show aired, she was fine with it.
Furthermore, she didn’t think her performance was bad. She strongly believed that something she took seriously would not end up too badly.
Yue Mei hung up after giving her a few more instructions.
Gu Feining then looked at her phone. Shi Xi had sent her a message.
When she opened it, she found that Shi Xi had sent her a selfie he took with Tang Tang.
He was using a cat to seduce her.
Gu Feining thought about how she had kept looking through Weibo the whole night, full of fear, whereas the other party was in his house, petting his cat. She then replied to him, in a slightly bad mood: [ Can you delete the Weibo posts? xoxo5 ]
Shi Xi replied very quickly: [ Alright, when will you kiss me? ]
She got flirted out of nowhere and her heart was thumping. So, she decided to just switch off her phone and go to sleep. She realized that she couldn’t interact with Shi Xi too much, otherwise, it would make her behave strangely.
The next day when she got up and switched on her phone, she saw Shi Xi’s message.
Shi Xi said: [ I’ve deleted the Weibo posts. So, when will you kiss me? ]
Gu Feining’s heart was rapidly racing for some unknown reason.
Actually, Gu Feining knew very well that using this sort of way to cover up the matter wasn’t right. The more she deleted, the more it would prove that what was deleted was the truth.
When she looked at Weibo again, she realized that the Weibo posts of the celebrity news bloggers concerning her and Shi Xi were all deleted. However, the CP fans’ posts were still there. Shi Xi had probably thought about the negative effects it would cause if he deleted those posts made by private accounts and did not control what the CP fans were posting.
Gu Feining felt very perplexed. The words she had casually said were taken seriously by Shi Xi. If she were to say that she did not feel anything, she would be an emotionless woman.
In a daze, she found a kissy-face emoji and sent it. After she sent that, she regretted it immediately and frantically unsent the message. Her heart was beating frantically and she did not know what to do with her hands.
Suddenly, the phone vibrated. Shi Xi had replied.
Shi Xi: [ I saw that. ]
After that, he sent a sticker from a sticker pack of himself. It was probably photoshopped by his fans. There was the word ‘happy’ written across his face. It looked very silly.
After that, Gu Feining no longer dared to continue replying and went to work with her frantically beating heart.
‘Best Female Lead’ would air on Saturday. By Friday, it was already being promoted extensively on the Internet. Shi Xi’s connections in the entertainment industry all appeared. Almost half the people in the entertainment industry were helping him to promote the show. Yuan Jinyan and Mi Ke naturally reposted Shi Xi’s post about it.
Gu Feining’s number of reposts was the lowest among the mentors. Although she did have a decent fanbase, there was such a small fraction of truly active fans that it looked pitiful. However, compared to the past, the comments and the number of reposts were quite alright.
Xiao Mang innocently asked Yue Mei if she wanted to help Gu Feining buy some comments and reposts, and was scolded by Yue Mei. At this juncture, everyone was taking note of these kinds of things. If they overdid it, people would definitely notice that.
That night, ‘Best Female Lead’ was trending on Weibo. And the next day, when the show started airing, the reviews were extremely good. These days, if proper efforts were put into a show, people would acknowledge the effort and appreciate it.
After the episode finished airing, all sorts of clips and gifs started appearing.
Gu Feining was shocked to find that she had started trending.
Support the original translation team by reading on Chaotic Frog Scan Novels~
Translator’s Notes:
Mother-fans like fans that treat the idol as a son/daughter. There are also sister-fans etc. Safety precautions when they are having sex. The remaining condoms -> The ones that remained in the box she bought after she replaced the hotel’s condoms I think. As opposed to a one-episode guest. Not very sure what the word for it is! I guess the kisses component is kind of like x at the end of a message? It’s a little hard to explain, but in general, that particular word is used for addressing people as well, like ‘love’, ‘darling’, with no romantic connotation. In fact, you’ll find that a lot of shop owners on online shopping platforms use 亲 to address customers. It doesn’t necessarily mean kisses, but it could mean kisses when the word is separate from the rest of the sentence.