Chapter 27

Even with Shao Yasi looking at her like she was an idiot, Lin Yuewei still insisted on seeing it through to the end. She picked a rabbit plush from the pile; it looked almost exactly like the one she had given away earlier, except this rabbit’s ears weren’t as big as the original’s.

Lin Yuewei fell into deep thought.

That big-eared rabbit always made her think of the morning after she and Gu Yanqiu had started living under the same roof; Gu Yanqiu had drawn a rabbit with the same huge ears on a sticky note for her.

Seeing her clutching the rabbit and refusing to let go, Shao Yasi couldn’t help teasing her. “You’re not even willing to give me this rabbit?”

Lin Yuewei hadn’t heard clearly. She asked again, “Hm? What did you say?”

Shao Yasi blinked and shook her head. “Nothing. Do you like this one? Then I’ll give it to you.”

She actually didn’t care that much about rabbits. The reason she had liked the previous one so much was because Lin Yuewei had given it to her. She valued her friends, so if Lin Yuewei liked something, she was willing to give it up.

Lin Yuewei already felt guilty, and hearing that only made her feel even more like Shao Yasi was mocking her. She hurriedly wrapped the rabbit up and hung it back on for Shao Yasi, then patted it and said, “No need, no need. One is enough for me anyway. I can’t hang it outside either.”

Shao Yasi asked, “Why can’t you hang it outside?” She glanced at the camera, then leaned close to Lin Yuewei’s ear. “Aren’t you two pushing CP rumors online? Then this is perfect—couple rabbits.”

Lin Yuewei turned to look at her, her eyes widening slightly.

Shao Yasi lowered her voice to something only the two of them could hear. “I know what the internet’s been saying. I even checked the CP supertopic; the fans all said they’d really caught one.”

She gave Lin Yuewei a mischievous smile.

Lin Yuewei: “……”

She had thought Shao Yasi didn’t understand it; at the very least, she hadn’t expected her to understand this much. She hadn’t expected...

Shao Yasi said, “So, should we hang them together?”

Lin Yuewei thought about it, then still shook her head. “I’m afraid someone will keep giving me these. If my room ends up with two piles of rabbits, don’t you think that’d be terrifying?” She had obsessive tendencies; when she was outside, she had to force herself to put up with it, but if she could make her own space a little cleaner, she would.

Shao Yasi said, “It’s fine, though. I’ll hang mine first. When they see it, they’ll think I gave it to you. And it’s not like you can keep rabbits from showing up in your life forever just because of this, right? That’d be exhausting.”

Lin Yuewei: “Mm.”

Shao Yasi said, “Besides, if you don’t like it piled there, just treat it like you gave it to me. It’s not like a few more will matter.” She nodded toward the pile in the corner.

She took Lin Yuewei’s hand and shook it back and forth. “Hang it up, hang it up. I’ll tell the fans on my way to work that I gave it to you, that you didn’t want it and I forced you.”

At last, Lin Yuewei relented. “Fine, but you don’t need to add the part after that.”

If she accidentally let it slip later that she liked this one, or took it out with her, wouldn’t that be like slapping herself in the face?

Shao Yasi pecked her on the cheek and went back to studying her notes.

Lin Yuewei turned back to her bed and rubbed her thumb over the spot on her cheek where she’d just been kissed. Avoiding the camera, she frowned almost imperceptibly.

Lin Yuewei hung the rabbit she had finally gotten back on the hook inside the bed curtain; that made her feel much more at ease. She had thought she’d sleep well, but instead she dreamed of a giant rabbit spirit. It had a pair of long ears that looked completely wrong on its face; it hopped after her in jerky little leaps, and its originally cute red eyes turned bloodshot as it bared a ferocious face and tried to eat her.

Just as Lin Yuewei was about to be swallowed whole by the giant rabbit spirit, her alarm went off.

She opened her eyes, still shaken, and in the dim morning light looked up at the plush on the wall. Lin Yuewei was so startled she nearly rolled straight out of bed.

Shao Yasi sat up from the bed opposite hers, rubbing her eyes. “You’re awake?”

Lin Yuewei swallowed and tore her gaze away from the plush. “...Yeah.”

Shao Yasi asked, “You want to wash up first, or should I?”

She meant getting ready.

Lin Yuewei said, “I’ll go first.” She needed a cold splash of water to calm herself down.

“Then I’ll sleep a little longer.” Shao Yasi flopped back down and snored herself right back to sleep.

It was already time to get up. Lin Yuewei turned on the room light and went into the bathroom. She splashed a handful of cold water over her face, and at last shook off the shadow of that nightmare. After she finished washing up, Shao Yasi and their other roommate took turns using the bathroom.

When they left the room, Lin Yuewei looked at the rabbit and hesitated. Shao Yasi took the initiative to tie it onto her backpack.

Lin Yuewei: “……”

Forget it. Let it be.

***

The strategy Gu Yanqiu and the leader of the online smear campaign had worked out had begun to be put into practice. They started with the major forums as a trial run. The leader had told her in advance that under the overwhelming negative tide of public opinion, there was only so much they could do. Gu Yanqiu felt he was being sincere, so she said it was fine; as long as it had an effect, that was enough.

The leader had said, “We’re doing this entirely by manpower. Quality is absolutely guaranteed, so you just relax and wait.”

Gu Yanqiu smiled but said nothing.

For every extreme, the opposite may be expected; the deeper someone was blackened online, the more likely they were to rebound from the bottom and trigger a certain kind of contrarian sympathy. Handled properly, that wave of black traffic could be turned into passersby and fans. A lot of celebrities in the industry who had risen through black-and-red notoriety used this routine. Although the effect wasn’t as strong as it had been at the beginning, it was still an effective method.

Gu Yanqiu handed everything over to the marketing company and didn’t keep looking at searches related to Lin Yuewei. Instead, she found a few front-line fan accounts in the supertopic and, under the guidance of Lin Zhi’s girlfriend, followed the major fans who often posted front-line updates and videos of their idols leaving work, going to and from shoots, and making appearances during lunch breaks.

That morning, Gu Yanqiu arrived at the company early. Before work, she was drinking coffee and opening Weibo when she saw a video.

The person who filmed it had decent skills; the clarity was very good. Gu Yanqiu inevitably saw Shao Yasi again. The two of them came and went together like conjoined twins; it would have been hard not to see them.

Because Lin Yuewei and Shao Yasi were being paired up in CP rumors, Lin Yuewei’s fanbase had risen sharply and was accusing the other side of feeding off her popularity. Right now, they were fighting bitterly with Shao Yasi’s fans; the two sides were like fire and water. When they posted front-line return photos, they either cropped the other person out or blurred her, in any case never allowing the two of them to appear in the same frame.

A video made that impossible to avoid. It wasn’t as if they could precisely mosaic every inch of Shao Yasi into oblivion, so Gu Yanqiu just pretended she hadn’t seen her.

There was a rabbit hanging from Lin Yuewei’s backpack, swaying back and forth; it was the one Gu Yanqiu had given her. Gu Yanqiu was still displeased that it had once been in someone else’s hands, but now that it was back where it belonged, so be it. She wasn’t that petty.

Just as a faint smile had begun to gather in Gu Yanqiu’s eyes, she heard a fan in the video ask in barely contained delight, “You two are carrying the same rabbit today?”

Gu Yanqiu: “!!”

She hurriedly looked over at Shao Yasi’s backpack, and as if the person filming knew exactly what she was thinking, the camera shifted to the two backpacks.

Gu Yanqiu: “……”

Were these people blind? The two rabbits were so different! One had big ears and one had small ears. Or was it that under the CP filter, they couldn’t even tell rabbits apart anymore? As long as it was white, did that make it a pair? Polar bears were white too!

In the video, Lin Yuewei smiled. “Yeah.”

Shao Yasi’s eyes curved into crescent moons. “She didn’t want to bring it at first; I forced her.”

The fan said enviously, “You two really have such a good relationship..."

Lin Yuewei and Shao Yasi made a heart gesture together, perfectly in sync; the screaming from the crowd was clearly audible.

Gu Yanqiu exited the video with a dark expression.

Lin Zhi knocked on the door. He knocked twice and got no response, and his suspicion rose. It was already time to work; could she still not have come in? She had been at the company for so long, and he had never seen Gu Yanqiu be late.

Lin Zhi returned to his seat and sent Gu Yanqiu a message asking why she still wasn’t at work.

Then the landline on his desk rang.

“Something up?” Gu Yanqiu’s cool voice came through the receiver.

“Yes. I’m bringing a document over,” Lin Zhi said.

“Open the door yourself and come in.”

“Okay.”

Gu Yanqiu was sitting behind her desk, posture straight, just as she always did as she looked through documents. When she heard him come in, her brows didn’t even twitch. “Put it there.”

Lin Zhi set down the file; he placed it on top of the pile she hadn’t looked at yet. This department was cluttered with people and full of trivial odds and ends, so the stack of documents by Gu Yanqiu’s hand was always thick; today it seemed especially thick.

Lin Zhi said, “Second Young Miss Gu, did you hear me knocking just now? I thought you hadn’t come in yet.”

“I didn’t hear it.” Gu Yanqiu looked up at him and tilted her head. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Lin Zhi took two steps back. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll head back first. I still have a few calls I haven’t returned.”

Lin Zhi closed the door, patted his chest, and thought to himself: I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but something is definitely wrong with her.

He had a premonition...

Sure enough, the second time he went in, Gu Yanqiu had changed to a different fountain pen.

The fountain pen was so pitiful.

***

After the eighth episode of the program aired, Lin Yuewei finally got her phone back from the production team. She scrolled through her messages and picked out the ones to reply to. Her parents had said they would leave her alone, and they really had; not a single word of concern. Lin Yuewei didn’t care. She checked her texts, and aside from advertisements, there was nothing else.

Jiang Congbi still chatted with her as usual, teasing her. “Now that your CP hype is burning so hot, do you still remember that legitimate wife of yours sitting alone at home?”

“What wife? Stop talking nonsense. If you like her so much, I’ll give her to you,” Lin Yuewei said, crouched on the rooftop as she picked up small stones from the ground and flung them into the distance. The sky above was vast and high.

“Heh heh.” Jiang Congbi gave a sleazy laugh, still not planning to tear through that layer of window paper. For now, she would just pretend Lin Yuewei still had feelings for Gu Yanqiu; that would make things easier to work with later. Right now, Lin Yuewei was locked in a cage, and it wasn’t easy for her to stir up anything.

Jiang Congbi said, “Did you see that hot search a few days ago? That video from the event where you were at the support stand; the one where your wife interacted with you and played the game.”

“What hot search?” Lin Yuewei automatically ignored how she addressed Gu Yanqiu.

“Just some malicious interpretation that was dragging you.”

“Oh, then no. I’m not that free. Why would I go looking at people cursing me? It’s not like I’m some kind of masochist.” Lin Yuewei asked, “Did you handle the thing I asked you to do last time?”

“It’s done. Didn’t you just want me to help stabilize your fanbase and buy marketing accounts to turn the public opinion around? I’m doing it, but I found something strange.” Jiang Congbi hissed. “There seems to be a mysterious backer doing the same thing as me.”

“A mysterious backer?” Lin Yuewei’s head was full of what the hell. “Do you know who it is?”

Jiang Congbi let out a sly little laugh and said mysteriously, “Guess.”

Author’s Note:

Gu Yanqiu is truly moving heaven and earth, buying marketing accounts for love