What to Do When Pretending to Be an Alpha Gets Exhausting [Entertainment Industry] - Chapter 17

[Fuck! Younger brother? Ye Mingzhe’s younger brother is Ye Xingyuan? I’m cracking apart.]

[What the fuck. I’m a finance student. The two people I admire most are, first, Pei Yanchen, and second, Ye Mingzhe. But the artist I hate most is Ye Xingyuan. Now Ye Xingyuan has become my idol’s younger brother? I… I’m confused!]

[There’s too much melon today. I’m stuffed.]

[To eat this melon, my boss caught me slacking and deducted my bonus. Ying—]

[My teacher confiscated my phone. Don’t ask why I can still post now. It’s because the teacher has started eating melon too.]

[I bought a house on Weibo. I’m moving in today.]

Weibo was as lively as a marketplace today. Winter melons, watermelons, pumpkins—all kinds of melons were arranged neatly, giving off an enticing smell.

The melon-eating masses’ enthusiasm for eating melon had reached unprecedented heights.

For the sake of eating melon, quite a few real-life matters were delayed.

[Can someone dig deeply into this older brother?]

[Me! I just came back from Baidu Baike. This brother is a fierce general in the finance world. He started part-time entrepreneurship in high school and harvested success in both career and academics. His current net worth is conservatively estimated to be over five billion.]

[The fiercest part is that they’re Ye Haolong’s sons! The real estate tycoon!!! One of the top hundred enterprises.]

[So Ye Xingyuan really is a young master born with a golden spoon in his mouth? He’s this rich and still entered the industry? What for? For fun?]

[Is this one of the typical representatives of “if he doesn’t work hard, he has to go home and inherit the family business”? The last representative was Best Actor Pei.]

[Insider news: Ye Xingyuan entered the industry back then to pursue Su Luoqing. But this person… is very strange. Although he really is rich, his character really isn’t great, and his fashion sense is also confusing. No matter how you look at him, he doesn’t seem like a young master raised in a wealthy family.]

…

Ji Chuxi, who had finished his livestream, was browsing Weibo with a side account.

When he saw netizens saying that Ye Xingyuan had entered the entertainment industry to pursue Su Luoqing, he sneered and typed out a reply with clacking fingers.

[Who hasn’t been young, reckless, and blind before? Ye Xingyuan definitely doesn’t like Su Luoqing anymore.]

As a result, he was quickly scolded.

[Laughing to death. This friend called Bubble Ball, where did you come from, you fool? If Ye Xingyuan doesn’t like Su Luoqing, then who does he like? You? Hahahaha…]

…Fuck.

Ji Chuxi was furious.

With a hard smash, the spare phone fell to the floor. Several cracks split across the screen, spreading like claws and branches.

…

No one recognized the side account. Its voice was small and insignificant, so it quickly disappeared without making any waves.

But the enthusiasm of the melon-eating masses grew even higher. Their focus kept shifting back and forth, and no one paid attention to Ye Xingyuan’s black material anymore.

The popularity of #YeXingyuanOmegaBoyfriend# was continuously squeezed down, and it quickly fell to the bottom.

The moment Pei Yanchen’s response was posted, CP fans immediately rushed over after hearing the news.

[The CP Super Topic has only just been created, and there’s already sugar to eat? Ye Xingyuan and Pei Yanchen are kind of well-matched, what do we do? They’re both rich-family children who have to go home and inherit the family business if they don’t work hard! 23333]

[Secretly looking for sugar to eat.]

[CP fans, keep rolling away.]

[Don’t change the subject. Is anyone still digging? I want to know what’s going on between Ji Chuxi and Ye Xingyuan. Weren’t these two at odds? How did they suddenly become good friends?]

[I’m an employee of Cool Guy Live. Insider info: when our platform boss received Ji Chuxi’s request to livestream, he thought he had run into a scammer. They went back and forth for a full half hour before urgently opening livestream permission and quickly verifying his account.]

[Based on my many years of melon-eating experience, Ji Chuxi wanted to clarify that the person in the photo was himself, but his manager stopped him. So for Ye Xingyuan, he racked his brains to find a new livestreaming app and even did a livestream for them for free, basically giving them free advertising? Ha! Why do I feel like this pair can also be eaten?]

[Why does it feel a little doting?]

[As someone with difficulty making choices, I’m crying. Should I ship Ye Xingyuan VS Ji Chuxi or Ye Xingyuan VS Pei Yanchen? Can someone help me choose?]

[Why not ship Ye Xingyuan and Su Luoqing? Ye Xingyuan entered the industry for Su Luoqing. With this deep-as-the-sea love setting, according to idol drama routines, after Su Luoqing abused Ye Xingyuan, their feelings should start heating up.]

[What the hell do you mean their feelings should heat up? I must be crazy. I want to eat this pair too.]

[Stop arguing. AO is the kingly path. Ship AO. AA party, step down!!]

…

After Pei Yanchen posted on Weibo, his emotions were still surging, so he flipped through the hot searches again.

He saw the airborne number one hot search, pressing down on his name.

Displeasure rose in his heart.

He said to Liu Xiaojun, “Arrange my hot search in first place.”

Liu Xiaojun suspected there was something wrong with his hearing. Brother Chen, who had always been desireless, did not pay much attention to Weibo activity, and never gave Sina money, had actually one day used money to buy a hot search ranking.

Shock was shock.

Liu Xiaojun still handled the matter very quickly.

In fact, because Ye Mingzhe had spent quite a lot of money, they had to spend double before rising to first place.

…

When Ye Mingzhe saw that his first-place spot on Weibo had been replaced, and by that guy Pei Yanchen at that, he was so angry he stopped reading documents and directly called over to question Sina about why they were suppressing his hot search.

“Did I not spend enough money? Am I not worthy of standing in first place?” Ye Mingzhe questioned.

Scummy Sina: “…Yes.”

Ye Mingzhe was so angry the veins on his forehead bulged. “Add more. Add money!”

…

“Brother Chen, that hot search… we dropped again,” Assistant Liu Xiaojun asked cautiously.

Pei Yanchen’s temper was especially difficult to suppress today. With a dark expression, he said in a muffled voice, “Add money. Press it back up.”

“Brother Chen, we’re already second. There’s no need to fight for first, right?” the assistant could not help voicing his true thoughts.

He felt there was no difference between first and second.

It was merely one above and one below.

There was no need to waste so much unjust money.

“There is. Keep pressing.”

…

The “hot search battle” continued for a very long time.

A battle between two major financial groups.

Scummy Sina made so much money in the middle that its hands went soft.

Ye Xingyuan paid no attention to outside matters and focused wholeheartedly on watching his younger brother do homework.

Speaking of which, he had once played a top student in a campus novel. While watching his younger brother seriously do homework, he also wanted to show off the top-student persona a little, help his younger brother solve problems, and shock his younger brother with his change.

But he had forgotten that this younger brother of his was the real deal when it came to being a top student.

He was in his first year of high school, but he was doing third-year high school homework.

So smart it made one’s head hurt.

Ye Xingyuan watched from the side for an hour and really could not help with anything. Walking around and harassing him did not affect his younger brother either, so he sensibly left the study.

He returned to his own room.

Just as he lay down,

There was a knock on the door.

When he opened it, the helper auntie and Xu Xiaopan were standing outside.

“Xingyuan, Mr. Xu is here to see you.”

“I know. Auntie Zhang, you can go down first.”

Xu Xiaopan walked in and closed the door behind him, asking nervously, “Brother Xing, are you all right?”

Ye Xingyuan collapsed onto the bed and poked at the fruit platter on the table, eating.

“What’s wrong with me?”

A small face, big confusion.

“Brother Xing, you… you’re really all right? Then why didn’t you answer the phone? I called you and it kept saying your phone was off. I thought you were heartbroken at home, hiding alone and licking your wounds.”

Ye Xingyuan: “…Do I look that fragile?”

Xu Xiaopan: “Then why didn’t you answer…”

Ye Xingyuan took the phone from under the head of the bed and showed it to Xu Xiaopan clearly. “I turned it off. Did you come to find me because of the hot search?”

The moment he saw Xu Xiaopan, he had roughly guessed.

But he only knew part of it, not the whole picture.

So at this moment, Ye Xingyuan still seemed very calm.

“Brother Xing, why did you deliberately blacken Pei Yanchen on Weibo? Was it really to make him unhappy and leech off his popularity?” Xu Xiaopan sat down. After Ye Xingyuan handed him a toothpick, he also began eating.

“You can put it that way.” Although leeching popularity had not been his original intention, that was indeed the result.

“And the matter between you and Ji Chuxi—did you really save the beauty like a hero?” Xu Xiaopan had been scrolling through Weibo the whole way here, so the questions in his head were a mess. When he asked, there was no order. Whatever he thought of, he blurted out.

“Mm…” Ye Xingyuan had just bitten into a juicy pear and almost choked. “Cough, cough… How do you know about Ji Chuxi?”

Hadn’t he told Ji Chuxi not to clarify online?

Did Ji Chuxi ignore him and run off to clarify?

But hadn’t Ji Chuxi’s manager taken away all his social media accounts?

What exactly happened?

…Ji Chuxi’s manager was way too useless.

Xu Xiaopan also nearly choked. He stretched his neck and patted his chest several times before swallowing the fruit. “Brother Xing, you don’t know? Ji Chuxi went on a livestream on an app called Cool Guy Live and clarified the whole thing. He talked about how he ran into a scumbag, got drugged by that scumbag, and almost got taken away. Luckily, you appeared and saved him. He even explained the details and said you looked especially handsome while fighting, beating that scumbag until he cried for his father and mother.”

Ye Xingyuan threw away the toothpick, frowned tightly, and turned his phone on.

“Then how is he now? He didn’t get cursed, did he?”

Xu Xiaopan had a big heart and kept eating. “At first, some people tried to lead the rhythm and curse him, but later Best Actor Pei came out and responded to your Weibo, so netizens’ attention shifted.”

Ye Xingyuan performed a live demonstration of pupil earthquake. “Pei Yanchen responded to my Weibo? How did he respond? Why is he so free? In the past, when people leeched off his popularity and said bad things about him, I never saw him respond. Why is this person treating me differently?”

When Ye Xingyuan unlocked his phone, his fingers trembled several times, and he entered the wrong password a few times.

Finally, he unlocked it and logged onto Weibo.

Ye Xingyuan was so frightened his phone fell.

It smashed face-down onto the wooden floor, and the screen cracked on the spot.

When he picked it up, it could still be used.

“My brother. Why did my brother post on Weibo too?”

At this point, Xu Xiaopan also understood that Ye Xingyuan had no idea that one troublemaking Weibo post had triggered so many “exciting follow-ups.”

He swallowed several pieces of fruit in one go and said, “Brother—Brother Xing, not only that, your eldest brother and Pei Yanchen also started fighting. The two of them have been competing since half an hour ago, fighting for first place on the hot search ranking.”

“How are they fighting? Throwing money at it?”

“Mm! This is a battle between two financial groups.”

“Bullshit. No, I have to stop my brother.” His eldest brother did not know Pei Yanchen’s true financial power at all. Also, that guy held grudges terribly.

He could not let his eldest brother offend Pei Yanchen, and he definitely could not let Pei Yanchen resent his eldest brother.

He could become enemies with Pei Yanchen, but he could not implicate his family.

When Ye Xingyuan called Ye Mingzhe, Ye Mingzhe was still communicating with the person in charge at Scummy Sina about suppressing the hot search.

The other side seemed to be facing tremendous pressure and was stammering while speaking.

When Ye Mingzhe saw his younger brother’s call, he directly hung up on the person in charge at Scummy Sina, even though he had been the one to make the call.

“Hello, Xingyuan. What do you need Brother for? Are you short on spending money?”

…There was a reason Ye Xingyuan was so useless.

He had been completely spoiled rotten.

“Brother, stop throwing money at it.” Ye Xingyuan’s tone was a little urgent. After saying it, he felt his own attitude was too bad, so he suppressed his breath, eased his tone, and continued, “Before I entered the industry, didn’t we agree on three rules? No matter how I did, you all wouldn’t spend money. If I didn’t do well, I’d leave the industry and come back.”

“That was indeed how it was before, but hasn’t it changed now?” Ye Mingzhe said.

“Changed? When?”

“From the last time you opened your mouth and asked me to sponsor the production team of Let’s Go Adventure. Those three rules made in a fit of anger no longer count.”

Ye Xingyuan: “…” I really lifted a stone only to smash my own foot.

“Also, the sponsorship matter has already been negotiated. We’re just waiting to meet the production team tomorrow and sign the contract, and then everything will be settled. If the contract hadn’t still been unsigned, I would have posted another Weibo just now explaining this matter,” Ye Mingzhe said.

Ye Xingyuan: !!!!

Luckily, it had not been signed yet.

“Brother, about joining the show, don’t rush to announce it yet. Wait until the production team officially announces the other members first.”

Ye Xingyuan’s head hurt.

This show was originally an important turning point for Pei Yanchen and Su Luoqing’s relationship to heat up. Also, the show became popular because of the two of them.

The reason he wanted to participate in this show was also because he had his eye on the show’s popularity.

If his eldest brother announced in advance that he was joining the show, perhaps Pei Yanchen and Su Luoqing would not go.

If those two did not go,

then even if he went alone, the show would not become popular, and there would be no point.

Ye Mingzhe did not understand why he should not say it earlier. Saying it earlier would anger those antis to death earlier. But he chose to believe his younger brother, feeling that Ye Xingyuan must have his own considerations to say this.

Although he really was very angry.

He wished he could blow up Scummy Sina to vent his anger.

“All right. Brother will listen to you.”

“Thank you, Brother.”

…

After resolving his older brother’s side, there was still Pei Yanchen’s side and Ji Chuxi’s side.

Since Ji Chuxi had still chosen to clarify, then he could only say thank you.

He was also fortunate that a string of chain reactions appeared afterward, preventing netizens from concentrating their firepower on Ji Chuxi and making his clarification powerful.

xx: Thank you.

Ye Xingyuan sent Ji Chuxi a message to thank him.

There was still Pei Yanchen left.

He really did not know how to resolve that one.

Ye Xingyuan opened Weibo and entered Pei Yanchen’s Weibo.

His original intention was to go in and look at Pei Yanchen’s response.

In the end, his gaze was completely captured by the nine-photo welfare set inside, as well as various magazine cover promo shots, drama promotional stills…

Pei Yanchen’s Weibo was very commercialized.

There was almost no personal information.

Everything was either work-related or fan-benefit selfies for Weibo follower milestones.

In the photos, he looked quite unwilling. From his eyes alone, one could tell he had been forced by his manager to work.

As a veteran face-con, once Ye Xingyuan entered, he could not get out.

Ye Xingyuan saw many photos he did not have and could not help going on a saving spree.

He created an encrypted album on his phone, filled entirely with handsome photos of Pei Yanchen, especially photos where his figure was exposed.

When he scrolled to the swimsuit photo that had attracted him the most, Ye Xingyuan stopped and became infatuated for a while. Then his finger swiped…

And liked it.

Seeing that like notification,

Ye Xingyuan’s scalp went numb, and he urgently canceled the like.

But netizens’ eyes were too sharp.

Even though it had lasted less than one second, someone still took a screenshot.

Facing this scene, Ye Xingyuan wanted to cry but had no tears.

…Would anyone still believe him if he said his hand slipped?

Author’s Note:

Pei Yanchen: Heh, men.