Chapter 32: 22

On the same day the hot search blew up, Brilliant Moon promptly issued a statement addressing the matter as slander and even attaching Jiang Meng’s real reason for resigning.

Lin Qinglu’s always supportive fans ran around spreading the news. With the evidence in their grasp, they promptly organized a counterattack. Some people were accustomed to such conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, their attention was quickly drawn to the news “leaked” within the circle by Big V Entertainment.

It turns out that, in addition to embezzling the activity funds of Lin Qinglu’s team, Jiang Meng was also involved in secretly filming artists and peddling the said videos; claiming to be the artist’s fan, demanding a signature, and then selling it immediately after; et cetera.

Moreover, when Jiang Meng resigned, her claim of “doing it in order to pay off my family’s debt” was later proven by a coworker to be an excuse. She only did so to buy purses and big brand items and live a decadent lifestyle.

“Aaaah how infuriating! This sort of person was leeching off of Big Sister!”

“Was the video from before of our Ji Liu and Movie Queen Lin eating together taken by her?! fuck”

“Wait a minute, don’t tell me that this time was also a case of her selling out Lin?”

Once the truth about Jiang Meng’s situation was dug up, however much the masses sympathized with her previously had now become however much they resented her.

The conjectures surrounding “the accusation of Jiang Meng’s planning and executing a scheme all by herself” circulated more and more wildly, and public opinion gradually turned in favor of Lin Qinglu.

Everyone slowly forgot about the matter of how Lin Qinglu was allegedly gay. The people’s usual line of thought was easy to understand: since Jiang Meng’s incident was just slander to start rumors, that means the thing about being gay is definitely nonsense; Had Lin Qinglu ever had a scandal with someone else before? Absolutely not.

It was simply Jiang Meng’s groundless gossip for the sake of stirring things up!

Lin Qinglu finished editing the Weibo post.

“Do you re-really have to post it?” Liu Lele swallowed her saliva, watching Lin Qinglu’s finger, which was suspended above the post button.

A finger clear to the point of transparency and a nail trimmed down to a beautiful oval shape were especially pleasing to the eye because of how slender and lithe they were.

It was Liu Lele’s first time thinking that this finger was heavy, so heavy that after it crushed that button, she didn’t know what they would have to face.

Lin Qinglu did not respond and directly pressed the button, answering through her actions. Turning around, she dropped the phone and stopped paying it any heed.

Liu Lele’s heart got caught in her throat as she cupped her own phone in her hands, staring at it single-mindedly.

Just in case the situation was too unfavorable, she needed to tell Big Sister Luo—Liu Lele’s imagination ran wild—and she wouldn’t tell Big Sister Qinglu; otherwise, she’d[1] be so unhappy—

The phone was taken from her by a fair-skinned hand.

“Eh, eh?”

“The Public Relations Department is keeping a close watch, you know.” Lin Qinglu tossed the phone aside far, far away. “What are you worrying about? Go, Big Sister will take you to eat some sweets.”

Liu Lele was dumbfounded for a moment, and then suddenly, her mouth shriveled up.

“Big Sister, waaaah, you’re such a good person, looking after me even now.” To not allow me to feel anxious with her, feel distressed with her waaah.

Lin Qinglu tsked, and her voice was leisurely: “What I’m afraid of is you being unable to control your emotions and start cursing, which would be rather bothersome.”

“……”

Liu Lele held back her tears and asserted, “You can’t hide the truth from me. I know it’s because you care about me.”

Lin Qinglu completely ignored her.

Liu Lele roused her spirit: “Heeey, Big Sister, don’t you want to eat butterfly pastries now? Hehe, I’ll go buy them for you!”

She didn’t dare let Big Sister Qinglu go out anywhere right now. Nonetheless, since Big Sister Qinglu was still in the mood to criticize her, it seemed that her state of mind wasn’t too bad. Liu Lele felt slightly more relieved and, with a tap, tap, tap, left to buy the butterfly pastries.

Only Lin Qinglu herself remained in the room, and it was a little too quiet.

But soon, maybe a bit less than five minutes, the silence was broken by a continuous stream of notifications.

WeChat, text messages, phone calls, voice and video call requests. The phone’s speaker energetically rang out in the imposing manner of an orchestra’s grand performance.

Lin Qinglu was originally propping up her head and staring blankly out the window, but unable to stand such a disturbance, she fetched the phone.

Xu Weiwei: “Big Sister, you’re so brave. You’ve got this. I support you. PS, in the future we’ll be from the same company. Are you surprised #smileyface”

Yu Bo: “Damn, could the cast and crew rub off some of your popularity for themselves? It’d save some advertising funds, and I’d add two special effects scenes for you. I make an amazing profit and you don’t lose anything”

A director she worked together with before: “Fuck, I thought about it for three or four years, but the thought of letting my grandson marry you, girl, to correct your genes was a waste of time after all. You must come to my next movie’s audition to compensate me!”

……

The notifications continued to come in: friends, previously-collaborated-with producers; directors; actors. Bit by bit, they converged here toward Lin Qinglu.

In the center of her palm, Lin Qinglu felt a burst of warmth that seemed to be coming from her phone, and it no longer seemed to have the slight coolness of the autumn air.

She softly spit out a sigh.

Yet another notification arrived.

The entertainment circle’s seductress Ji Liu sent over a series of questions: “Sis, you’re bent?? I guessed wrong? This whole time it wasn’t Song Zhe who was protecting you until now? You’re not marrying into a rich and powerful family anymore?”

Lin Qinglu raised her eyebrow.

“I have no relationship with Song Zhe.” Moreover, the thought of marrying into a rich and powerful family had never even crossed her mind.

Previously, she had sought out Ji Liu to ask about Song Zhe’s identity. She didn’t expect that Ji Liu had, in fact, remembered this joke about marrying into a rich and powerful family.

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However, seeing it from Ji Liu’s angle, she couldn’t blame her for misunderstanding. After the recent disputes arose, there would always be someone solving her problems for her. If it weren’t for her being clear-headed, she was afraid that, right now, she would have also believed Song Zhe had fallen in love with her.

—Who on earth is it?

Lin Qinglu’s train of thought was interrupted when another chain of sentences popped up in the chat with Ji Liu: “These few years you went to great pains to hide the truth from me, you devil. *sob sob sob*”

Lin Qinglu: “?”

“I can be top or bottom. My imitations are matchless, and my props and costumes are plentiful: whatever you can and cannot think of, I have it all. Want to give it a go [sticker of a wild chicken running around]”

“……”

“Don’t make me block you.”

Lin Qinglu callously closed the chat, but in her mind she thought of Song Pianxian, unable to restrain herself—

Outside the window, a small bird chirped.

And she woke up from her daze, the tips of her ears tinging with red.

Ji Liu’s thoughts are too dirty!

Lin Qinglu replied to her friends and associates’ concern and didn’t look at Weibo. In fact, even if she wanted to open Weibo, she would be unable to do so.

Weibo had collapsed once again.

After all, Weibo also hadn’t expected that Movie Queen Lin would actually dare to come out of the closet!

Wasn’t the incident already resolved? Hadn’t the climax already passed?

The opponent only had one pair of 3’s left. Was it worth throwing out a King Bomb?[2] She directly detonated both the server and everyone else into confusion, and the explosion also made the programmers go bald as they placed orders to increase the service while doing maintenance for the server.

This matter about Lin Qinglu’s coming out of the closet was akin to a field of snowflakes. Vast amounts fluttered and filled every platform. The notification page of each person’s phone was completely flooded with these kinds of words, and it was difficult not to know about it. 

Luo Chun was leading the team and standing ready for battle with the Public Relations Department. 

Unexpectedly, however, the public’s reaction was decent.

“How come my goddess ended up being bent? ?? I’ve become stupid, brothers”

“Seeing the news, at first it had energetically raised my spirits, but after thinking about it carefully, I became lifeless. Lin Qinglu, straight or bent, wouldn’t be interested in me. What did it have to do with me? #crying”

“But she isn’t interested in anyone, you know. I feel a lot more steady now”

“You have my blessing”

“Not hiding or concealing it from your fans and the masses. I’ve become a huge fan #thumbs_up”

……

The Public Relations Department had originally made preparations to guide the public opinion, and the idea was that they would praise Lin Qinglu’s straightforwardness, sincerity, and bravery. These sorts of positive labels.

In the end, except for the opposing voices, the ones regarding her positively and the “it’s of no concern to me, I’m not interested” group accounted for the great majority of people. Seeing these statements, Luo Chun was stupefied. The light on her glasses flickered, and she spoke:

“So something like this could also happen. You all, listen to me and take a look…”

Listening to her, Bao Peng repeatedly nodded his head and made people control the marketing accounts in their hands to do PR work.

These past few years, Lin Qinglu had relied on her strength to prevail over her opponents and stand at the peak of the entertainment circle’s show business. As if from a legend, the proletariat masses treated Lin Qinglu with feelings of distance.

She had never had the experience of being bound by love, which made her orientation feel even less real to the spectators. It was just as that stranger had said, straight or bent, was it important? Did it affect anything at all?

The average idol coming out of the closet or having a sex scandal, the image he or she sold collapsing, fans weeping at the sky and scratching at the floor, the idol being forced to apologize. These sorts of situations could be found everywhere.

But what Lin Qinglu sold was her acting skills. It was never her image.

As a result, once she cleanly washed away the stain from Jiang Meng, the people were subconsciously much more lenient.

Under Luo Chun’s suggestion, the Public Relations Department carried out their PR work with this flow of events, which was extremely effective.

There were even some fans who went so far as to cheerfully scrape up the interactions between Lin Qinglu and other female stars, knocking together some very strange pairings.

And the atmosphere had been lightening up right until this day’s evening.

The author wants to say something:

Movie Queen Lin: I’m not clean anymore.

TL Notes:

Uaah started applying to colleges and it feels kinda weird honestly. Also stumbled across an app for schools giving out scholarship money if you go to their school and I found a few schools i was applying to giving them out yatta~ The app’s called RaiseMe btw. If you do use it, hopefully you can find the schools you’re looking for

Goodluck to anyone else that’s applying! (`･ω･´)ゞ

[1] the “she’d” here refers to Lin Qinglu

[2] referencing a card game called Fight the Landlord/斗地主 (how to play), which has some similarities to another game you might be more familiar with, “Big Two”

3’s are the weakest card and while playing, the category/combination (solo, pair, trio, four, etc) cannot be changed unless the round ends or a bomb or rocket is used. The “King Bomb” here seems to be the biggest possible hand you can deal out and consists of a colored joker with black-and-white joker cards

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