Everyone Is Spending Money to Push Me Into A Center-Position Debut - Chapter 6

As the progress bar gradually moved forward and the video neared its end, Chi Rui on screen softened her voice to bring the song to a close. The people in front of their screens only saw the red-haired beauty slowly walk closer to the camera and reach out her hand. She was so close it could practically be called a face-to-face close-up, instantly delivering another heavy blow of beauty straight to the heart.

After this point in the video, the camera began to tremble. Even through the screen, one could feel You Xiaotao’s excitement and nervousness at the time. Even so, she still tried hard to stay rational, steadied the camera, and conveniently filmed both their hands together.

Watching this part on a phone, it felt as though Chi Rui were inviting the person in front of the screen to hold her hand. It could be called a one-hundred-percent girlfriend POV. Then came the sincere words Chi Rui spoke softly into the microphone.

“The me from before wasn’t perfect enough and disappointed my fans many times. But if I can, I want to be like the lyrics of this song say and hold your hands as we keep walking forward together.”

[Ahhhhhhh Chi Rui! Stop coming out to seduce people!]

[Holy crap, holy crap, this is Chi Rui? This can be Chi Rui? This is really Chi Rui? Hurry up and make a comeback. I’ll immediately go from passerby to fan! Who said she was a beautiful good-for-nothing? Come out and confront me!]

[Although I really want to sourly say she’s lip-syncing, I heard the metallic sound of her earrings clinking… And even if she was lip-syncing, that dance isn’t something you can train to this level in a short time. She worked this hard even for a commercial performance. To be honest, she’s pretty professional.]

The video’s popularity climbed higher and higher. Later, marketing accounts caught the scent like flies smelling meat and swarmed over. Once they reposted it, anti-fans, sour commenters, and fans began tearing into each other, while passersby came to watch the fun. It quickly touched the tail end of the trending list.

There was no helping it. The two words “Chi Rui” were synonymous with popularity. With her previous personality, she dared to confront anyone and offend anyone. Ever since her debut, she had never lacked topics. Being black-red was still a kind of red.

By the time Bai Chang saw the @ messages from CP fans who had suddenly collectively risen from the dead, it was already the early morning of that day. She had just left the wrap banquet and was in the car on the way back when her assistant, Bai Yuanyuan, could not hold back and spilled the matter to her. Weibo was simply too lively today. She could not resist!

“Boss, have you checked Weibo?” Bai Yuanyuan first tested the waters.

Bai Chang glanced at her and picked up her phone to browse. She had a habit of regularly scrolling through Weibo. It was similar to how middle-aged people loved reading newspapers, with the same purpose: to understand current events.

With that look, she quickly found You Xiaotao’s Weibo post. By this time, there were already around a hundred comments below @-ing her to come watch Chi Rui dance.

The relationship between Bai Chang and Chi Rui was viewed completely differently by CP fans and by passersby.

In the eyes of passersby, after Chi Rui’s Slapgate incident, Chi Rui and Bai Chang’s CP binding had already been dissolved. Unless Bai Chang’s work team had gone brain-dead, there was no way they would continue binding her to Chi Rui.

But CP fans were different. Those words Chi Rui had said when she left the industry—wasn’t that an outright confession to Bai Chang? So now, they were practically dragging Bai Chang into the bridal chamber as they @-ed her to watch the video.

And once Bai Chang started watching, she really could not quite get out.

She was rather different from the colleagues in the industry who shot to fame within a short period of time. She had started learning dance in kindergarten, then later tested into a dance academy. Because her appearance was outstanding, she signed a trainee contract with MK at the age of fourteen. At the beginning, she had also debuted in a group. She carried both singing and dancing roles while desperately supporting her teammates, which was how the group became popular. Later, she went abroad to study composition for two years. After returning to China, she released her first solo album. Because of one shot in the music video, a famous director took notice of her and cast her as a second female lead in a movie. Only then did she successfully transition into acting. It could be said that she knew how to do everything, and she had mastered everything she learned.

She had talent, spirituality, and was willing to work hard. After acting for several years, humbly asking veteran seniors for guidance, she accumulated quite a bit of acting experience. Only after taking home three Best Actress trophies in a row did she finally succeed in shaking off the label of a vase and ascend to the altar.

But acting was acting. It was impossible for her to forget her original line of work. Bai Chang could tell that the series of smooth and powerful movements Chi Rui displayed in the video absolutely could not have happened without a large amount of practice. At minimum, two years. To put it more broadly, there were people who could train bitterly for ten years and still not necessarily achieve this result—everyone’s hard work was never equal to begin with, and she did not deny that geniuses truly existed in this world.

But based on her understanding of Chi Rui, someone who would howl for half a day just from pressing down her legs—practice? And a large amount of it? Three words: absolutely impossible.

Even if there were one chance in ten thousand, even if dance could be trained through diligence, singing technique and vocal range were not so easy to improve. For the song Chi Rui had used to warm up, she had always pushed through the chorus using falsetto. In this video, Chi Rui sang it with incomparable ease, not even wrinkling her brows.

“Boss, you saw it, right? Give a few comments?” Bai Yuanyuan’s face was full of an expression that wanted to watch the excitement. “When did sister-in-law become this impressive? I’m almost becoming her fan.”

Tang Yu, the manager in the passenger seat, turned her head and shot Bai Yuanyuan a sidelong look. “Yuanyuan, why are you talking so much today?”

Only then did Bai Yuanyuan realize she had blurted out “sister-in-law” for Chi Rui. But she was excited and could not brake in time. Now that Tang Yu had warned her, she immediately put on an expression of admitting defeat and said quietly, “Sorry, Boss. Just pretend you didn’t hear that.”

Fortunately, Bai Chang did not seem inclined to argue with her. Judging from her expression, she really had not taken it to heart either. Thinking about it, that made sense. Bai Chang and Chi Rui’s marriage contract still had half a year before it could be dissolved. For now, the title “sister-in-law” was entirely justified.

“What event is this?” Bai Chang lifted her eyelids. Her fingers tapped carelessly on the screen.

Tang Yu did not speak. Bai Yuanyuan cheerfully took over and said, “Boss, look at the poster behind this display stage. It’s Alfredo’s commercial performance.”

“I know it’s a commercial performance.” Bai Chang turned off her phone, her gaze falling on the passenger seat. “What did Zhou Ping tell you? Don’t tell me that for the preheating before National Girls, she only went to an offline event like this.”

Tang Yu sighed inwardly. In the end, the fire had still burned its way to her.

At first, Zhou Ping had also been a newcomer following Tang Yu around as an assistant to accumulate experience. She and Bai Yuanyuan were of the same generation. It was just that she had a layer of cousin relationship with Wei Xike, so Tang Yu was somewhat more polite to her. No matter how dissatisfied she was with Zhou Ping’s habit of treating people differently depending on status, she never showed it. After all, when one worked in the industry, one should always leave oneself a way out—though even Tang Yu looked down on Zhou Ping’s fox-exploiting-the-tiger’s-might behavior.

What happened later was that Zhou Ping voluntarily became Chi Rui’s manager, and Tang Yu also breathed a sigh of relief. Strictly speaking, managers were all of the same rank, and there was no such thing as reporting work to one another. When Bai Chang asked Tang Yu this, it was not because she wanted her to answer immediately. Rather, she was telling her in a roundabout way to investigate this matter clearly as soon as possible and report it to her.

Just thinking of the two words “Zhou Ping” made Tang Yu’s head hurt. “I’ll contact her now.”

On the surface, Bai Yuanyuan looked like a silly, sweet, cheerful girl. But after following Tang Yu for so many years, she had at least learned a bit of the essence of reading the room. Discovering that the atmosphere in the car had become somewhat awkward, she quickly piled on a smile again and leaned toward Bai Chang.

“Eh, Boss, look. You just gave it a like, and so many fans immediately exploded out. The repost count on the original post is almost reaching two hundred thousand!”

Bai Chang slowly lifted her head. “Like?”

Bai Yuanyuan’s smile stiffened a little. “No way, right? You just liked that Weibo post of Chi Rui’s fancam. Did you forget, or was it a slip of the hand…?”

Unless Bai Chang had Alzheimer’s, the first possibility was unlikely. Unfortunately, Bai Chang’s physical examination report did not show such a diagnosis.

Tang Yu reacted quickly. “I’ll immediately contact the team and work out a plan. For now, don’t unlike it, and don’t respond saying it was a slip of the hand either. Who knows what messy rumors about discord might spread again.”

Chi Rui and Bai Chang’s marriage had never been public from beginning to end. Even if it had been public, during a period when one party was hated by the entire internet, the other party going over to like a post was an extremely dangerous action. If showing affection was not handled well, both sides could be ruined.

Not to mention, between the two of them, there was already no emotional foundation left to speak of.

“No need.” Bai Chang turned her head. Her gaze landed on the car window, leaving only a silent side profile to Bai Yuanyuan and Tang Yu, both of whom looked dumbfounded. “Leave it as it is.”

It was only a like. Today’s Chi Rui deserved it.

……

That night, not only did the originally tail-end trending topic #Chi Rui Commercial Performance Fancam# leap straight into the top five of the trending list, but another topic, #Bai Chang Likes Chi Rui#, parachuted into the number one spot. It blew awake a large batch of Bai Chang’s zombie-like Buddhist fans, who came out to flood the comments. Their comments were all uniformly: “Bai God, so you still remembered you had a Weibo account!”

After the teasing was over, everyone’s attention naturally shifted to the protagonist of the video. After dyeing her hair, Chi Rui’s entire complexion looked much better, and even her eyes carried a vitality they had not had before. That smooth, confident performance state made it seem as though Chi Rui had been reborn.

[Is Chi Rui a snake demon? Did she spend these past few months lying low in her nest and shedding her skin?]

[Sister upstairs, divine metaphor hahahahahaha!]

[At first I thought Bai God must have been kidnapped to like that post. After clicking in, I got slapped in the face…]

[Speaking of which, didn’t she leave the industry? And now she’s still here occupying public resources.]

[Here it comes again. So-called “public resources.” These days, every family’s apology statement includes that line, but when it’s time to buy trending topics, don’t they all still buy them as usual?]

[So… is Chi Rui making a comeback?]

[Comeback? It’s time to release the long screenshot I saved. Come see how gracefully this sister left back then. [Image]]

Later on, the comments were all arguing over the topic of whether Chi Rui was making a comeback or not. By coincidence, National Girls officially announced its contestant list today. Of course, before that, they did not forget to reveal the show initiator they had kept in suspense for so long—Bai Chang.

In fact, the original plan had been to officially announce it only after all the contestants entered the camp. But with such perfect popularity placed right in front of them, the production team held the mentality of “if there’s buzz, why not ride it?” and held an emergency meeting, moving the official announcement time forward.

The list was arranged alphabetically by name. Chi Rui’s name was quite near the front. At this time, they had not yet taken official announcement photos, but the show’s official Weibo tagged each trainee’s Weibo account. Chi Rui’s main account was impressively listed among them.

[What am I seeing? Chi Rui? Is it Chi Rui?????]

[No, if Chi Rui wants to make a comeback, she can just hold another press conference. She’s running off to join a trainee survival show as a returning contestant to leech heat? Does she have no shame?]

[On what basis does Chi Rui get to participate? Isn’t this way too unfair to the other contestants?]

[Can we boycott her participation? In any case, I’ll never vote for her even if I die! Let her flop!]

That night, Weibo showed two extreme divisions. Half of the people were under Chi Rui’s Weibo, viciously insulting her and boycotting her participation in the competition. The other half were leaving celebratory comments under Bai Chang’s account, looking forward to the goddess’s appearance.

As one of the parties involved, Chi Rui was stretching little Princess Chi’s long-neglected ligaments, which were as difficult to pull as rusty scrap iron, while scrolling through her phone and following the gossip the entire time. Because she had long anticipated the consequences of participating in the show, Chi Rui had no reaction to the sudden surge of abusive comments on Weibo.

It was just that young people these days used such new words when cursing that she could not recognize all of them.

However, she was not simply sitting there waiting for death without doing anything. After seeing that Bai Chang had liked You Xiaotao’s fancam post, she pondered for a moment, pulled up Bai Chang’s WeChat, and edited a message to send over.

[Ms. Bai, may I apply to change managers?]

Author’s Note:

Ms. Bai is currently on the road to spending money.