After Binding the Face-Slapping System, I Rose to Fame [Entertainment Industry] - Chapter 3

The day after the limited screenings, promotional trailers for Gunfire began appearing online, signaling a steady ramp-up in marketing. Soon, the hashtag #MyFilmReview shot up the trending charts.

Initially, the heat was bought and paid for, but as the reviews proved genuinely entertaining and the campaign felt fresh, netizens flocked to the topic, pushing it from “Trending” to “Boiling.”

The production team struck while the iron was hot, releasing batches of real reviews penned by audience members every day for a month. This barrage comprised of handwritten notes from average viewers, endorsements from renowned critics, verified “Gold V” influencers, and entertainment journalists created an overwhelming momentum. By the final stage, the vibe was clear: “If you haven’t seen this yet, are you even living on the same planet?”

Humans are social creatures, and most are prone to the “bandwagon effect.” As more viewers stepped forward to claim their featured reviews, the campaign’s authenticity was cemented. Consequently, even before its official release, pre-sale box office figures hit 50 million yuan.

With 50 million in the bag, the producers had all the leverage they needed to negotiate better screening rates and profit-sharing deals with theater chains.

It was at this moment that Chu Jinzhi who had been living the “salted fish” life in her little nest picked out an evening gown so grand it looked like she was heading for the red carpet. She applied a stunning face of makeup and, as the morning sun hit her balcony, ordered the System to act as her photographer for a series of breathtaking shots.

The System complained: [May I officially state that I am a System, not a DSLR camera?]

Chu Jinzhi leaned her arms against the railing, arching her back slightly to let her long, curly hair cascade over one shoulder. She cast a downward, “disdainful goddess” gaze at the world below and urged the System to snap the shutter.

[Right now, not even a mosquito visits this place. Do you really expect me to post a pathetic, arm-extended selfie?]

A Great Beauty would never allow such a thing. She needed to look naturally exquisite as if she were simply captured in a moment of effortless grace.

The System didn’t understand why a “Face-Slapping Task” required professional-grade photography, but it had no choice but to comply. Its new host was a master of “laying flat,” frequently threatening to move back to her hometown to herd cattle at the slightest inconvenience.

Once she had enough shots, Chu Jinzhi had the System transfer them to her phone. Lounging on the sofa, she began her selection. “You don’t get it. My career is so dead that if I started an affair with my window wide open, the paparazzi wouldn’t even bother to click the shutter. I have to manufacture something to grab the netizens’ attention.”

What did she have left? Unless she went full-blown lunatic and started picking fights with everyone, her only weapon was this “damn, uncontainable beauty.”

System: [?] It sounds logical, but something feels fundamentally wrong.

Chu Jinzhi’s fingers flew across the screen. With a quick tap, the post was live. She tossed her phone aside and grinned. “Done. Now we just wait for the fireworks.”

By tagging the hottest topics #MyFilmReview and #GunfirePreSalesHit50M, she siphoned off some natural traffic. The first to find her weren’t her long-gone fans or her foul-mouthed haters, but ordinary netizens curious about the movie.

A user named Little Round was lured in by the stunning photos. At first, she didn’t realize the poster was a verified “Gold V” actress. She stared at the photos for a long time, her heart racing, and couldn’t help but leave a comment:
@LittleRoundNotRound: AAAAHHH! I’m literally dying! She’s so gorgeous!!!

But after she hit send and went back to read the caption accompanying the nine-photo grid, her “simping” heart suddenly went cold.

“What is this? This feels weird,” Little Round muttered. She frowned, reading the short line of text over and over, trying to find proof that she was overthinking it.

Chu Jinzhi’s post was deceptively simple. She had retweeted the most popular promotional video from the Gunfire official account, tagged both the movie and the lead actress, Lin Shuyu, and added:
I’ve done the math: they picked the wrong lead. This movie is going to flop. [Playful tongue-out emoji.jpg]

Below that, she had “tea-murely” posted her own glamorous photos. The implication was as subtle as a sledgehammer: They should have picked me.

Little Round’s excitement instantly withered. She felt cheated. She thought she’d found a “strong-featured” goddess, only to realize she’d found a “Green Tea” clout-chaser who was “reaching for the moon” by trying to pick a fight with Lin Shuyu.

Even without seeing the movie, the trailers showed that Lin Shuyu was a “pure water lily”—a clean, ethereal beauty whose presence felt precious against the backdrop of war. To put it bluntly: if you replaced her with a “strong-featured” type like Chu Jinzhi, people would think the movie was about a glamorous socialite, not a war-torn survivor.

Aggrieved, Little Round went to delete her comment, only to find a massive thread already growing beneath it. It was filled with “face-simps” who had fallen head-over-heels for the photos.

Little Round: “…” Fine. At least I’m not the only victim.

She posted a separate comment:
@LittleRoundNotRound: Sister, promise me: don’t speak. Just share the photos and be quiet. [Weary cigarette-smoke emoji.jpg]

Chu Jinzhi knew she had no current “traffic” of her own. Her only currency was her face.

After posting, she leisurely changed out of her gown, threw on her pajamas, and made herself a fruit salad. When she refreshed her feed, she saw exactly what she expected. Netizens who originally didn’t care about her were initially blinded by her beauty, only to be slapped awake by her “Green Tea” commentary.

Upon further digging, they realized she was the same washed-up actress whose “black materials” and scandals had dominated the charts last year. Disgust set in. Her old anti-fans, meanwhile, felt like they’d regained their lost youth; they swarmed in from all corners to deliver their familiar, passionate insults.

A bit later, the bot army that Young Master Wang kept on a yearly retainer to monitor her also checked in, flooding the comment section with her greatest hits of past scandals.

Facing such a massive wave of malice once again, the Chu Jinzhi of a year later remained entirely unbothered. She was even happily daydreaming with the System about the massive shopping spree she’d go on in the Face-Slapping System Shop once she completed her first “face-slapping” task.

Inside the Sea Princess Audio-Visual Entertainment Office Building

Lin Shuyu had just finished a strength training session. Her manager, Yao Tong, handed her a bottle of warm water and wiped her sweat while recounting the story of a certain washed-up starlet’s “delusions of grandeur” as if it were a joke.

“There’s this has-been actress online hinting that you aren’t fit to play ‘Ruyi.’ The netizens are absolutely tearing her apart, haha.”

Lin Shuyu didn’t take it to heart. She didn’t even bother asking who the person was, simply remarking, “The filming is already done anyway.”

And she was right. It was finished and about to hit theaters; there was little point in dwelling on such comments.

However, in over a decade of managing talent, Yao Tong had never met anyone with such a grounded mindset except for Lin Shuyu, whom she had signed six months ago. The more she observed her, the more Yao Tong felt that the future was boundless.

Yao Tong had cultivated Movie Kings and Queens before, but the industry was a strange place. Some actors were professionally acclaimed for their skills yet suffered from terrible luck, either the show was a hit but they remained obscure, or they simply lacked the “clout” favored by investors. Others mysteriously lacked “audience affinity”; a host could introduce them as an award-winning actor at a commercial event, only for the crowd to look on in total confusion. Some even found themselves with no scripts to film shortly after winning a Best Actor award.

The trophy elevated their status, but their lack of “traffic” made investors unwilling to pay their premium appearance fees. Thus, they were awkwardly stuck in a professional limbo.

Lin Shuyu was the first artist Yao Tong had ever met who possessed both elite talent and top-tier visuals—a true “Hexagon Warrior” with no weaknesses. This made her even more cautious in planning Lin Shuyu’s trajectory.

Thinking about the variety show Lin Shuyu wanted to join, Yao Tong frowned, hesitating. “Are you sure about Celebrity Wilderness Survival? The organizers said they’ll clear out highly aggressive beasts beforehand, but it’s still real wilderness. If something happens.”

Lin Shuyu took the towel from Yao Tong and gave her chest a casual wipe. Tossing the towel aside, she said, “It’s an interesting show. If I’m going to do a variety show, I want it to be this one.”

It wasn’t just because the show was the flagship project of her cousin’s company; Lin Shuyu was genuinely interested in this first-of-its-kind, high-adrenaline survival program.

“Alright, I’m off to yoga. We’ll talk later.” To prepare for the survival show, Lin Shuyu had been focusing on strength and agility, but as an artist, maintaining a camera-ready physique was still part of the job.

Lin Shuyu was always serious. Regardless of the task, she either didn’t do it at all or she did it to perfection.

Meanwhile, as her wishlist grew longer and longer, Chu Jinzhi was racking her brain every day to stir up trouble. Her Weibo had become a one-woman stage for her antics.

Her manager, Sister Lin, had ordered her to stay off Weibo the very day her first “clout-chasing” post went live, even confiscating her main account. Chu Jinzhi had agreed readily at the time, only to turn around and have the System crack the password so she could continue her “Green Tea” performance on her main account with manic energy.

The behavior was so unhinged that even her die-hard anti-fans began to ask soul-searching questions:

[Honestly, did Chu ‘Red Rose’ get hacked? Or is she actually this ‘special’ now????]

This comment was quickly pushed to the top, proving that a significant number of her haters shared the same suspicion.

A tech-savvy netizen did a quick check and discovered that the password for Chu Jinzhi’s account was being changed with startling frequency. Two login IPs seemed to be locked in a long-distance wrestling match, one taking over as soon as the other finished.

So, did a hater get so obsessed that they hacked her account just to hold a self-deprecating carnival?

Soon, the hashtag #FormerNationalRedRoseAccountHacked was pushed onto the trending list by the terrifyingly persistent anti-fans. At this point, Chu Jinzhi herself wasn’t sure if they loved her or hated her more.

Chu Jinzhi, who was wholeheartedly focused on attracting as much online attention as possible so that once the film premiered, more netizens could witness her getting publicly humiliated and thus earn her more points fell silent.

Chu Jinzhi thought: “…”

“No ducking need, thanks.”