Qin Zhengji’s words seemed to have turned on a strange switch.

After Qi Cong finished studying etiquette and returned to Shen Jia side, the cast members appeared to have suddenly discovered the presence of Qi Cong and took every opportunity to greet and talk to him.

All the people Qi Cong failed to get to know in the past week or so, in a short two hours time were all introduced to him. Some of them even offered to exchange contact information.

It wasn’t until the end of that day’s shooting that Qi Cong’s side became empty. Also, Qi Cong got a lot of strange information from the actors who actively approached him.

For example, Xiao Xiu was a fan of Gu Xun.

For example, Wang Yue and Fu Jing, who was rumored to be dating Gu Xun, were very good friends.

For example, an actor who had a supporting role in the crew once put on airs in front of Gu Xun without knowing Gu Xun’s background,  then he was made to lose face by Gu Xun in public.

 

……

 

It was as if the entire cast were one way or another involved with Gu Xun, so everyone had some sort of motivation to  distort and smear the relationship between Gu Xun and Qi Cong.

In the car back to the hotel, Qi Cong sorted out the news as he repeated it to Zhao Zhenxun.

Zhao Zhenxun only expressed surprise at one piece of news and asked, “Qin Zhengji personally came to you and told you to be careful of Lian Pengxing?”

“Well, he said he had seen Lian Pengxing’s assistant in contact with paparazzi.”

Zhao Zhenxun thought for a moment and then showed a rare smile. “There are a lot of small movements. It seems that many people want to take advantage of this opportunity to stir up the water.”

Shen Jia, who was probably already educated by Zhao Zhenxun, wilted and asked, “What do they want?”

“They want to show goodwill and throw dirty water on the competition at the same time. But it’s time to wrap it up, the crew won’t let the actors be so restless.” Zhao Zhenxun looked at Qi Cong. “Although it’s still uncertain who exactly is harming you, judging from the current situation, your enemies will definitely have bad luck.”

 

……

 

The end of the crew’s investigation came faster than Zhao Zhenxun expected.

By the time filming wrapped up and with just a little more than a day of development, public opinion on Weibo gradually spread out in three major directions after the initial chaotic explosion – How good was Qi Cong in the past? What was the relationship between Qi Cong and Gu Xun: How did they meet and what did Gu Xun really think of Qi Cong? Lastly, who was actually releasing the fake news?

Out of three directions, the first one was actually the smoothest one.

With the pile of news reports and photos that Gu Xun sent out as an indicator, the public quickly dug out more of Qi Cong’s past. The more they dug, the more everyone’s jaws dropped and restless they became.

In a recorded video of a piano competition, the eight-year-old Qi Cong crushed contestants who were on average two or three years his senior and easily won the championship, receiving the award on the stage with a pretty and serious little face.

In a video report of a calligraphy competition, the eleven year old Qi Cong, who was dressed in a modified Tang suit, solemnly wielded the ink brush in a serious manner and won the championship in the youth category with his elegant and agile handwriting and received recognition from a famous teacher.

In a collage of an interesting co-organized activities video, a 12 or 13 year old Qi Cong taught younger children how to do pottery, paper-cutting origami and fold animals. It was more than 10 rounds but he was still patient and gentle, making everyone’s hearts tremble.

 

……

 

The public naturally carried a kind of goodwill filter for people who learned well and videos were the more intuitive thing to understand a person.  As more and more videos of Qi Cong participating in competitions and activities in the past were dug up, some peoples hate for Qi Cong unwittingly faded, and their good feelings increased stupidly +1, +1 and +1

They were also roaring in their hearts.

Look at this beautiful boy who was playing the piano seriously, look at this cute little boy with a bright smile holding a calligraphy brush in his hands. Now look at this beautiful little boy who was obviously still a child himself but still took such good care of other children, how could they bear to hate him? How could they have the heart to do it?!

They couldn’t bear it!

When the video of Qi Cong’s freshman year participating in a college debate contest was dug up, their cries turned into cries of awe.

In the debate video, a slightly more refined Qi Cong was standing at the debate platform wearing a light green suit, with straight posture, and smiling eyes, he was oozing confidence. He was rebutting his opponent’s words without any haste, quoting a lot of information but his words were so dazzling that people couldn’t take their eyes off him.

This debate match was only an improvised invitational tournament so there were not many people who watched it. The video recording quality was also very shaky, but even with such bad quality and perspective that could make people feel sick, they still couldn’t turn away from the video because QI Cong was just too handsome!

Really too good-looking. Too good!

Many people who came just to dig into Qi Cong’s past on a whim, or with some doubts about Qi Cong’s past were all rendered speechless by this video.

There were so many videos, in the earliest one Qi Cong was just five years old and in the latest one QI Cong was close to twenty. From these materials they all could tell that Qi Cong was really excellent from childhood to adulthood and they could use his resume to vividly explain what it meant to their children.

Temporary excellence may be an accident, but ten years of excellence could only show that the person was really just very good. However, he wasn’t  simply excellent, but also hard working and very self-disciplined.

This was indeed a person worth looking up to, at least to his peers.

Yet this person, just because of disease, Jiang Zhaoyan and a few false news articles, fell to dust losing all his dignity as the whole internet was boycotting him.

Sigh.

Compared with the smoothness and harmony of the first topic, the second topic “What was the relationship between Qi Cong and Gu Xun: How did they meet and what did Gu Xun really think of Qi Cong?” development was much more stumbling and cranky.

The rational fans of Gu Xun, radical fans of Gu Xu, black fans of Gu Xuna and even ex fans of Gu Xun stepped in together with passers-by with unknown attributes as well as common melon eaters. THey all tried to control the rhythm under this topic, making a mess of the public comments section .

The small-scale ex-fans and black fans of Gu Xun tried to take control of this topic and use it for refunds and boycott of “Heaven Asked?”, foolishly trying to form a wave.

However, of all three topics, the third one, “Who was actually releasing the fake news?”, had a high degree of discussion that the other two topics didn’t have. Some of the people who participated in the first two topics also actively participated in the discussion of this topic.

After various details were collected, the public’s speculation about the person behind the scenes gradually divided into four directions.

In the first direction, the opponents and competitors of Gu Xun and the “Heaven Asked?” were responsible. They wanted to create gossip about Gu Xun and affect the box office of “Heaven Asked?”.

In the second direction, one of the actors on the crew of  “Legend of Youth” did it. He or she disliked Qi Cong and wanted to teach him a lesson. Among them, the most suspected person on the crew was Lian Pengxing, who played You Changfeng and who would have the most scenes with You Changqing. Since they added more scenes to You Changqing’s character, that would affect You Changfeng. Not to mention, Lian Pengxing also competed with Shen Jia.

In the third direction, Jiang Zhaoyan did it. Qi Cong “hurt” Jiang Zhaoyan’s reputation, and Jiang Zhaoyan certainly didn’t want Qi Cong to be successful.

In the fourth direction, Manju Company did it themselves, in order to help Qi Cong make his debut.

Out of these four guesses, the second and third gained a lot of support, but the first and fourth direction didn’t have much support. This was because anyone with a normal IQ could see that with Manju Entertainment Company and Zhao Zhenxun’s ability, if they wanted to promote someone they wouldn’t need to use such a brain-dead suicide type of hype method.

Since there was so much speculation, the public would never be able to come to a definite conclusion and were even more unable to draw a conclusion due to how angry they were. They desperately wanted more clues to uncover the real culprits who fooled them and then use their own methods to get “revenge”.

It was in such an atmosphere of public opinion that the crew of the “Legend of Youth” began to finish their internal investigation.

At nine o’clock that night, the official Weibo account of the crew issued an announcement, stating that after some urgent and strict screening and tracing, the crew determined that the internal situation of the crew was leaked, and that the person who sold the internal situation of the crew to the paparazzi was an off-site staff member responsible for costume customization. That staff member obtained some inaccurate information during Gu Xun’s visiting Qi Cong on the set from other staff members. He secretly filmed and eavesdropped on the crew and the visit, before selling it to the paparazzi.

The crew also published in the announcement a part of the photos taken by this staff member, and chat records with their paparazzi contact.

The chat records showed that this staff member had taken the initiative to ask the paparazzi if they wanted to buy Gu Xun’s romance news.

Finally, the crew said they would seriously chastise the staff member for maliciously selling the news, and would properly reorganize the crew to prevent similar things from happening again.

Not long after the announcement was issued, the cast members collectively forwarded the announcement, voicing their support for the staff’s actions. They condemned the malicious news leaks and the behavior of people who used false information to smear the cast of the drama. They would implicitly or directly help Qi Cong say a few good words, explaining that Qi Cong and Gu Xun were just normal friends getting along and none of the stuff written in the fake news took place.

Fans of the actors immediately followed the call of their idols and followed their voices.

The influence created by multiple actors with their fans speaking out together was so great that the topics on Weibo that had been split into three directions reunited, making the public opinion move in a very strange direction.

At first, the public’s attention was focused on the fact that the drama crew was ready to punish the off-site staff member to make things easier. People were not satisfied with the announcement, because what they cared about wasn’t how the internal news of the crew leaked but who was using them to set the rhythm of the relationship between Qi Cong and Gu Xun and provoke everyone to boycott Qi Cong.

They wanted to know who the person was that made “five water army companies come down, four platforms send news simultaneously, and hundreds of gossip accounts add fuel to the flames”!

But after a long post of a doctor blogger that became popular, the public’s attention immediately became diverted.

This doctor blogger posted a long blog post with the title – A deep dive into Qi Cong’s examination report and psychological evaluation report. I think Jiang Zhaoyan should be sent to prison.

 

Edited by: Antiope1

 

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