After Reuniting with My Aloof Movie Queen Childhood Friend - Chapter 26.1

When Ji Youyi lived in the Lingxing dormitory in D City, she returned home together with Meng Xingshu almost every single night.

She had grown used to getting into Meng Xingshu’s car after clocking out every day, the two of them discussing the project all the way, and then having a late-night snack together after reaching home.

She had never thought about who Meng Xingshu might be with before meeting her.

Not many people came and went from the dormitory; besides Fang Ruohan and Lin Shan, Ji Youyi had never seen a fourth person. As time passed, she had almost forgotten about that scumbag man.

How could she have forgotten that Meng Xingshu had a partner?

The young couple’s relationship was very good, so good that the female party was willing to step forward to clean up her mess for the scumbag, and had even gifted a luxury mansion worth eight hundred million yuan.

Eight hundred million!

Her heated face and brain cooled down in an instant. Ji Youyi now only wanted to curse the character filter for doing harm.

Ha, fine then, the grand movie queen was truly loving her job and dedicated to her career, running over to work immediately after her date ended.

Her wonderful mood instantly took a sharp turn downward. A breath caught in Ji Youyi’s chest, making her rather uncomfortable.

She had originally wanted to use the afternoon’s live stream incident to tease Meng Xingshu with a couple of sentences, but now she couldn’t even be bothered to smile, anyway, Meng Xingshu didn’t like seeing her smile either.

With an expressionless face, she sat down on the sofa opposite Meng Xingshu holding her laptop and went straight to the main point to start working.

While the atmosphere here was heavy, the room next door was extraordinarily lively.

Fang Ruohan had originally come to find Li Zhulan to sign the contract on Meng Xingshu’s behalf.

As a result, the moment the room door was knocked open, she saw the eyes behind the other party’s black-rimmed glasses shining brightly. Shaking her short perm curls, Li Zhulan covered her mouth, unsure whether she was crying or laughing:

“You’re Teacher Meng’s assistant? I have an impression of you. When you guys came to visit the set before, I saw you from afar.”

Fang Ruohan: “Uh, yes, what about it?”

She very thoughtfully did not tell Li Zhulan that, in fact, she had also come on the night of the wrap party and had incidentally spectated the grand screenwriter’s kindergarten level dancing.

Li Zhulan closed the door, as if unsealing some kind of restriction, and launched into a three-hit interrogation:

“So you followed Teacher Meng here, right? She’s in Xiao Ji’s room right now, right? Ah ah, you came to find me to tell me not to go and disturb them, right!”

Fang Ruohan adjusted her semi-rimless glasses. “Answering based on my professional competence, the first two sentences are correct.”

And answering based on her understanding of Teacher Meng, cough, the last sentence was very likely correct too.

The two pairs of eyes locked onto each other for a few seconds, confirming that they were both people who frequented the CP Super Topic.

Just a few minutes later, they were side by side, lying prone on the bed, looking at the trending searches together.

After Zhou Wenchen lost his standing, the Meng family turned around to cling to Meng Xingshu, crazily marketing their sisterly affection.

Meng Xingshu’s birthday was an excellent marketing point, and there was no way they would let it go.

Meng Xingshu never celebrated her birthday and wouldn’t even send out a single message every year, but this year she was dragged out by Changfeng to be used.

Starting from daytime today, marketing accounts had mobilized one after another, a vast army of paid internet trolls took the field, and they had crazily bought many trending search entries as if money were no object.

But right now…

There were only a few minutes left until midnight. Clicking open the trending searches, the number one spot was hung high with #JiYouYiMidnightBuysRosesForMengXingShu, adorned with a purple [EXPLOSIVE] tag.

Behind it, a string of entries followed.

#MengYouJi

#AMatchBlessings

#LiBaoGood

And a bunch of other large and small trending searches.

Even that bouquet wrapped by Xiao Ji’s own hands had a related trending keyword.

#BirthdayLimitedDreamJournal.

Because many netizens expressed that they liked the flowers sent by Xiao Ji very much, merchants who spotted a business opportunity followed the trend closely one after another, starting the pre-sale of identical bouquets in the middle of the night. The naming also unceremoniously used the CP name, clearly intending to reap a sum of money from the fans.

As for those trending searches bought by Changfeng, they had already been smashed to pieces. Even with crazy financial backing, they could only maintain one keyword in the second position, while the rest dropped straight out of the top ten.

Fang Ruohan felt absolutely refreshed watching this.

Ever since the Meng family started making trouble, Lingxing’s public relations department had gained an untold amount of extra workload out of thin air.

Even though Meng Xingshu had repeatedly made it clear that they didn’t need to care, how could they entirely ignore it?

In the internet era, whoever mastered public opinion possessed the ability to alter facts.

Under information overload, people couldn’t track every news event over the long term. Often, before an old topic finished being discussed, it would be washed away by a new one, resulting in impressions that were hard to update once formed.

Even if that impression was wrong, many people would continue to believe it firmly because they simply didn’t know a reversal had happened!

In order not to give Meng Yuting a chance to seize the opening move and invert black and white, the Lingxing employees had worked a lot of overtime, and the company was filled with voices of grievance.

Of course, after Meng Xingshu handed out a bonus with an extremely beautiful figure, the curses quickly focused entirely on Changfeng.

Now seeing Changfeng suffer a setback, everyone naturally felt incomparable delight in their hearts.

Although Fang Ruohan knew that Meng Yuting had smashed tens of millions into this marketing campaign and would surely back it up heavily after midnight to reshuffle the trending searches, who cared? Let’s be happy first.

Fang Ruohan happily read the gossip under the top trending entry, clicking like whenever she saw an interesting comment.

As she scrolled, a latest Weibo post surfaced.

Entertainment Circle Master Detective.

[Hammered, hammered! After asking around for the flower shop’s address, Detective immediately rushed to the nearby hotel and confirmed through industry connections that the ‘Thousand Gold Bone’ crew is indeed staying here. Thought I’d have to stake out all night for everyone, but didn’t expect Meng Xingshu to appear after just a few minutes! Dressed in a black dress and wearing a sun hat, she’s very beautiful. It can be seen that Teacher Meng was quite intent on meeting her beauty~ Wish them a pleasant night [happy]]

The woman in the video wore a sun hat with a wide brim and also wore a mask, making her face completely invisible.

But Meng Xingshu’s poise was famously excellent, and her die-hard fans were numerous, so not long after the Weibo post was put out, netizens in the comment section were already certain:

Absolutely Teacher Meng!

My big sister [kneeling] You wouldn’t walk the red carpet for the Golden Xie Awards but now you’re walking this one, right? No, you didn’t even place this much importance on walking the red carpet. This state, are you really dating?

Ah ah ah ah ah ah I can’t care about that much anymore, I’ll ship it first to show my respect!!!!

At this moment, there were only two minutes left until midnight.

Two minutes later, the video carefully crafted using photos of the “Meng Sisters” by Changfeng was about to be released, and a large wave of paid trolls who had been bought early were also waiting to take the field, all to create a false impression of “the top tier of the entertainment circle, anticipated by tens of thousands.”

But looking at this Weibo post’s natural popularity soaring in an exponential explosion format, Fang Ruohan suddenly had a premonition.

Those tens of millions of the Meng family were very likely going to go down the drain.

At the same time, inside Ji Youyi’s room, the cave dwellers were still meeting.

“…Then twenty million capped.” Ji Youyi’s fingers clattered away as she modified the spreadsheet, her mouth not stopping. “Costume dramas are indeed easier to become hits, but the cost is also higher; the costumes, makeup, hair, lighting, and set design are too expensive. Modern dramas have hard to write scripts though, not to mention anything else, just to pass censorship, a bunch of shackles are waiting right there. So let’s see what Li Zhulan thinks, her desire to express is the most important, everything else can be coordinated. We’ll look for people according to this standard first…”

As she spoke, Meng Xingshu’s phone screen on the coffee table lit up.

Ji Youyi swore that she absolutely had no intention to peek. But she just, well, very accidentally caught a glimpse.

She saw a small green box.

It was a WeChat message.

She quickly glanced at the time. 23:59, arriving right on the dot. Could it be that who is he…

Heh, heh, heh.

With a wooden face, Ji Youyi’s keyboard typing became even louder. After pounding frantically for a while, she found she had typed several wrong characters, so she furiously mashed the backspace key to delete them.

Meng Xingshu also noticed the screen lighting up, and her gaze shifted over.

Meng Xingshu disliked being disturbed, and work messages would be filtered through Fang Ruohan first, furthermore, inside her phone, the vast majority of contacts were in a muted state. The only one who would send her a message at this hour was Fang Ruohan.

But Fang Ruohan knew where she was, so under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t send a message unless she encountered something urgent that required immediate handling.

Meng Xingshu picked up her phone. “Apologies, checking a message.”

Ji Youyi: “Oh.”

Ji Youyi had originally sat on the sofa opposite Meng Xingshu, and only later, for convenience in looking at the computer, was she forced to move to Meng Xingshu’s side.

But keeping her status firmly in mind, she had always been very mindful of boundaries, maintaining a distance of over fifty centimeters from Meng Xingshu throughout the process.

This also meant that no matter how hard she tried to glance sideways, she had no way to “accidentally” peek at the phone screen picked up by Meng Xingshu.

One second, two seconds, three seconds… it had been ten seconds!

Still not done reading? What was sent, could they be chatting up?

Of course, Ji Youyi didn’t have any objections, okay.

She just felt, could someone have a bit of professional spirit.

They were working, and running off to sweet-talk a partner halfway through work, was this appropriate?

Inappropriate! Too unprofessional! Strongly condemned!

At the thirteenth second, Meng Xingshu put down her phone. “Ruohan said I was snapped by paparazzi when entering the hotel. The company is already handling it, but the news is spreading too fast, it might be very hard to suppress. Apologies for bringing trouble to you. Filmily’s side has already been notified, tomorrow after the heat dies down, they will immediately change a hotel for you guys, and the security configuration will be upgraded too. Rest assured, you won’t be disturbed.”

Ji Youyi wore a look as if she had been focusing intently on making the table just now, lifting her head to ask curiously. “You being snapped by paparazzi, why is that bringing trouble to me?”

Meng Xingshu paused for half a second.

Out of her own selfishness, she didn’t want to actively show Ji Youyi the original Weibo post, only relaying. “The paparazzi know you are staying in this hotel. They think I came to see you. Moreover, tomorrow is my birthday, perhaps they think this date carries some kind of special significance.”

Ji Youyi let out another “oh”… “But you did come to see me, their guess isn’t wrong.”

The breath that had been stagnant for over ten seconds miraculously became smooth the moment she heard Meng Xingshu’s answer.

Ji Youyi took her fingers off the keyboard and added, “However, Teacher Meng, you got one point wrong.”

“What?” Meng Xingshu asked.

Ji Youyi blinked, and her face, which had been slumped for a long time, finally became lively again.

Leisurely looking at the time in the bottom right corner of the computer screen, she bobbed her head and waited for a few seconds.

Waiting until the moment all four digits jumped to 0, her tone instantly turned exuberant, her speaking speed lightning fast. “It is, today is your birthday. So Teacher Meng, Happy Birthday!”

As she spoke, she quickly turned around, pulled out the bouquet she had hidden in advance from behind the sofa, stuffed it into Meng Xingshu’s embrace, and a brilliant smile blossomed on her face.

“Teacher Meng, no looking at your phone,” Ji Youyi asked loudly. “Just tell me, am I the very first one to wish you a happy birthday?”

Heh! What was the use of sending messages? How could that compare to her being the closest to the target!

Not only did she make Meng Xingshu hear it first, but even the gift was given first!

Too awesome, Comrade Xiao Ji!

Meng Xingshu fixed her gaze intently on Ji Youyi.

The girl stood right by her side, proudly holding her hips, her eyes flashing with a cunning light, smiling with complete self-satisfaction. As if grabbing this first place held an extraordinary meaning for her.

Ever since knowing Ji Youyi, the words Meng Xingshu said to herself the most were, “Be calm.”

She often forced herself to remember Ji Youyi’s performance when they met at the hospital, and then told herself.

“Look, what an outstanding actress she is.”

Therefore, “Acting out a appearance that makes your heart race is a piece of cake for her.”

Therefore, “Don’t be deceived.”

After getting into the car that day, through search engines and the background information sent by her secretary, she saw more of “her” appearances, appearances completely different from the person before her eyes.

She had told herself as if mocking herself. “Sure enough, just a disguise.”

Therefore, calm down.

But for the following two consecutive nights, she failed to fall asleep again.

The sleeping pills, which already had very little effect, failed completely. Finally, upon receiving news of Lin Shan’s return to the country, she set off for D City.

Not for anything else, just to find something for herself to do. She told herself this.

Everything was very smooth at first, until Fang Ruohan suddenly brought up that name in the car.

Caring about it was normal. She analyzed herself this way.

She had just been in a high position for too long and temporarily couldn’t accept being ignored or left behind; this was her own problem and had nothing to do with who the other party was.

Therefore, calm down.

But not long after, she sent her a message, issuing an invitation to her.

She had to refuse. Of course she would refuse.

She didn’t have much interest in acting and had long since retired from the screen, it was even more impossible for her to play a supporting role in a project that couldn’t even be called a small crew, but could only be considered a micro-sized, unknown project.