Chapter 100 – Counterattack

Yan Shengping listened quietly and then said, “So, Ganzhi, you want me to help your manager open a new agency?”

“No, Brother Zhang said he has the money to start a studio. He just can’t avoid being targeted by his current company, so could you back him up?” Lin Ganzhi said, his eyes sparkling as he looked at Yan Shengping.

Subjectively, Yan Shengping couldn’t stand Lin Ganzhi looking at him like that. He was worried that he would lose his reason in a moment of weakness and agree to anything.

Yan Shengping coughed, peeled a tangerine, and put half of it in Lin Ganzhi’s mouth. Lin Ganzhi obediently opened his mouth. As Yan Shengping’s fingers left, they gently brushed against the tip of Lin Ganzhi’s tongue, a hint of teasing in his eyes.

…Old beast, still trying to take advantage of such things.

Lin Ganzhi quickly bit down on the tangerine and retracted his tongue.

Yan Shengping ate the remaining half of the tangerine and said, “Ganzhi, when you face an obstacle, don’t always think about going around it. If you go around it too many times, you’ll trap yourself in what you once thought was a clever route.” Yan Shengping put the tangerine peel he had just peeled back together, seemingly restoring its original appearance, but the next second, he threw it into the trash can.

Lin Ganzhi was stunned after hearing this. This was the first time Yan Shengping had said something like this to him. He had read about Yan Shengping’s many methods in the book before, but after coming here, Lin Ganzhi always saw Yan Shengping as a somewhat arrogant patient. After they started dating, he only saw him as an inhumanely rich old beast. But he didn’t find this experience unpleasant, just unfamiliar. This was the first time someone other than a teacher had taught him certain things.

“Then what should we do?” Lin Ganzhi asked.

“An obstacle, to put it bluntly, is a difficulty encountered when doing something. And difficulties are meant to be destroyed—” Yan Shengping said, then realized his choice of words was inappropriate and corrected himself, “overcome, not neutralized.”

Just now, you were going to use the word “destroy,” weren’t you?

The blackened Yan Shengping was completely bidding farewell to his former little white flower period.

Lin Ganzhi propped his head up with his arm, looking like a curious baby. “So how exactly are we going to do this?”

Seeing that Lin Ganzhi didn’t mind and was instead looking at him with great interest, the last bit of worry in Yan Shengping’s heart disappeared, and his love for Lin Ganzhi grew even stronger. As expected of the person he liked, their minds were in sync.

The love-struck Yan Shengping looked at Lin Ganzhi and found him to be remarkable in every way.

Just as Yan Shengping was about to speak, Lin Ganzhi’s phone rang. It was a call from Que Jin.

“I’ll take this call first,” Lin Ganzhi said, tapping his phone. Yan Shengping nodded, and Lin Ganzhi directly answered and put it on speaker.

“Sister Que Jin, what’s wrong?”

“Ganzhi, check the Weibo hot search. What we said in the office yesterday was leaked. The recording was edited to be completely against you,” Que Jin said anxiously.

It had been so long since Lin Ganzhi had been on the hot search. He had been lucky enough to think that there would be nothing more before the New Year. Sure enough, you can’t jinx yourself. It might just be a bad omen.

Lin Ganzhi had a resigned expression on his face. Yan Shengping picked up a tablet and started searching, then immediately handed it to Lin Ganzhi.

“Sister Que Jin, I’ll check the hot search first. You’re not involved, are you?” Lin Ganzhi asked with concern.

“You silly boy, what are you talking about, involved or not? Your business is our business. I’m your senior sister now, don’t say things like that,” Que Jin said with rare sternness. Lin Ganzhi’s heart warmed, and his feet under the table couldn’t help but kick up. He replied, “I know, Sister Que Jin. I won’t say that next time.”

“That’s more like it. Ai, Wenren and I just arrived in the United States, so we can’t talk to you face to face. I just talked to Brother Zhang, and he’ll probably contact you later about how to solve this. But now that Brother Zhang doesn’t have the same power in the company, and this was definitely done by someone in the company, I’ll talk to Wenren later. At worst, we’ll just spend money to solve the problem. We can’t let this matter escalate.”

Lin Ganzhi let out a long sigh. He had a pretty good idea who was behind it. It wasn’t a big deal for him; he had been on all sorts of hot searches before. So he said, “Sister Que Jin, don’t worry. I’ll check online first, then discuss it with Brother Zhang before making a decision.”

Lin Ganzhi temporarily placated Que Jin and hung up the phone before starting to browse the news online. First, he clicked on the recording.

In fact, the recording was only two sentences, and they were both harsh words he had said:

I’m sentimental. Resources aren’t important; it’s the person that matters.

Old man, don’t be too stubborn either. The new generation surpasses the old. If the old wave doesn’t work hard, it’ll be washed away on the beach.

Wow! Taken out of context, it sounded pretty arrogant.

Yan Shengping, sitting opposite him, let out a soft laugh, looking very satisfied, even with an expression that seemed to say, “My wife is amazing.” “Well said.”

Praised, Lin Ganzhi chuckled, but to save his own image, he explained, “I didn’t start the problem. He was the one who tried to drive a wedge between me and Brother Zhang first!”

“I know,” Yan Shengping said with a firm tone. In this world, if he didn’t understand Lin Ganzhi, no one did.

Lin Ganzhi’s heart warmed, and he continued to look at the mainstream comments under the recording.

[I knew Lin Ganzhi’s image wouldn’t last long. He shamelessly seduced Luan Yuanzhou back then, so what kind of good person could he be? His true nature is just exposed!]

[He talks like a hooligan. Who talks to their boss like that? If I were the boss, I’d be the first to put the recording online. Ungrateful person, ungrateful, turning on people as soon as he gets famous.]

[Speaking of which, I don’t even know how Lin Ganzhi got famous. Climbing trees? The monkeys in the zoo can climb trees. Or the dance he did on the show? Any dancer can do that!]

[The recording is only a few seconds long. How can you convict someone based on just these few seconds?]

This fan’s comment was pushed to the fourth place, but the replies below it were all curses.

[He’s the one who said it. Professionals have already authenticated it. Fans, please stop trying to whitewash it here, okay? Unless you can prove that your brother has a twin, lol!]

[Kids, go back to school, okay? If I were your parents, I’d hate myself for giving birth to a child with such bizarre values.]

[I think this matter can be directly reported to your school. You really need to be educated. What kind of school taught you this?]

Lin Ganzhi clicked on the profile of the fan who defended him. Her homepage shared some of his daily life on the show, and there was also a post with a selfie of her in her high school uniform. She was a very pretty girl. Perhaps many people had also seen this photo. When he clicked out again, he saw that someone had started to cyberbully her appearance.

[As the saying goes, the face is the index of the mind. She looks so harsh. No wonder she likes a disgusting artist like Lin Ganzhi.]

[Pfft! She’s really ugly. How dare she post her photo online when she’s so ugly?]

Damn it!

He didn’t care how others cursed him. After all, this was the industry he was in. He could just ignore it. But he couldn’t stand seeing others target a girl who was only in high school and use such language to hurt her!

Lin Ganzhi took out his phone and logged into Weibo. His private messages had exploded. Lin Ganzhi clicked on his hot search and found the fan’s comment, replying: [Thank you for your trust in me. I will explain this matter clearly. Since it’s winter break, you should go have fun and not look at the disgusting comments under your post. In my opinion, everyone is born unique. You are very beautiful. Don’t be subjected to such personal attacks because of my affairs. Finally, thank you for liking me.]

In the eyes of most people, artists would almost never personally step in to defend their fans, especially individual fans. Lin Ganzhi’s action was undoubtedly reckless in the eyes of others. He hadn’t even cleared his own name before going to help others. But Lin Ganzhi did it anyway.

The girl looked at the 99+ red dot on her reply in the background and sighed in frustration. She wasn’t one to not distinguish right from wrong, but it was obvious that a section had been cut out from the middle of these two recordings. She just wanted the public to think rationally, but she didn’t expect it to lead to personal attacks. Was she really that ugly?

The girl wiped her eyes. Just as she was about to exit Weibo, her friend’s call came in directly: “Go look, Ganzhi replied to you! Oh my god, sister, you’re so lucky!”

The girl was stunned and quickly clicked into her replies. Lin Ganzhi’s comment had been quickly pushed to the top. Seeing the sentence “unique” above, the girl, who hadn’t cried when she was cursed at, now shed large tears. She had to believe in Lin Ganzhi. After all, he was such a gentle person!

Yan Shengping also saw Lin Ganzhi’s reply. He directly used his main account to like Lin Ganzhi’s post. Although he wanted to monopolize Lin Ganzhi’s gentleness, this kind of Lin Ganzhi was undoubtedly extremely attractive to him.

Immediately after, Lin Ganzhi posted an update on his own Weibo: [A petty person is scheming against me. This is being resolved. Thank you to everyone who still believes in me. But evidence is the sharpest weapon for explanation. Please be patient. The innocent will prove themselves innocent, and justice resides in the hearts of the people.]

Lin Ganzhi’s two moves were as bold as they could be. Although the curses still didn’t stop, and in just a few minutes, his latest Weibo post already had tens of thousands of comments cursing him, Lin Ganzhi didn’t care. As long as it didn’t hurt those who liked him, let them curse a few times. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been cursed at before.

After posting on Weibo, Lin Ganzhi saw that Yan Shengping was looking at him seriously.

“What… what’s wrong?” Under Yan Shengping’s gaze, Lin Ganzhi went from his initial bristling state back to being a good boy, his watery eyes blinking at Yan Shengping. His injured lower lip had been slightly swollen since this morning, a little redder than usual.

Yan Shengping’s eyes darkened, and his index finger tapped heavily on the table to help him barely regain his reason. Solve the problem first.

“Ganzhi, why do you think the people at your company dare to harm you so blatantly, even daring to directly release an edited recording?” Yan Shengping asked.

Lin Ganzhi thought for a moment and replied, “Because I’m easy to bully?” After all, their public image was that of a minor celebrity and a good-for-nothing duo.

Yan Shengping nodded. “More precisely.”

“Mmm… they’re sure that no one will believe me even if I defend myself?” Lin Ganzhi remembered when he was falsely accused before. It clearly wasn’t his fault, but that investor could freely manipulate public opinion.

“Correct. But that’s what they think. In other words, they underestimated their enemy. This becomes our advantage,” Yan Shengping’s gaze darkened slightly. At this moment, Lin Ganzhi also had an epiphany. This was the method Yan Shengping had always been good at: using softness to overcome hardness, hitting the mark every time.

His partner was really awesome!

Finding marketing accounts, buying hot searches, finding a technical team to process the edited recording—all of this was happening at a rapid pace. Lin Ganzhi had thought that Yan Shengping’s methods would be extraordinary, but he hadn’t expected that in just a short hour, he had traced the source of the public opinion and even found President Shao’s transaction payment records. If all of this were released together, President Shao’s reputation would be completely ruined.

However, Lin Ganzhi didn’t care. After all, he was the one who had targeted him first. He had no qualms about fighting back.

Just as Lin Ganzhi was about to exit Weibo, his hand suddenly slipped and he refreshed the hot search. Qi Yushuo’s name had shot up to the top three. Lin Ganzhi subconsciously looked at the title: “Qi Yushuo forwards Lin Ganzhi’s Weibo.”

???

Lin Ganzhi quickly went to Qi Yushuo’s homepage and saw that the pinned post was the one he had just published. Qi Yushuo had only added four words: “I believe you.”

This move made the internet explode!

Lin Ganzhi was also truly stunned.